Scenario proposals

[narwan]

This thread is for conrete scenario proposals. Not for general mission concepts, these you can post in the mission type threads.

As a concrete scenario proposal some specific parameters for the scenario should be included but it need not be complete. These can be historical battles, made up battles, or adapted historical battles (for example a battle from another unit than the 1st Cav).

Besides the basic content of the mission this proposal should at least contain suggestions for scaling the difficulty and increase the replayability of the scenario as these as crucial factors in determining the suitability of a specific scenario.

[Pyros]

Remco,

You are advancing fast for the phase B of the project

cheers,
Pyros

btw, I know what will be your proposal (Mekong Delta in 1968-69)... in fact everyone know! LOL

[narwan]

Somewhere someone came with the idea of using a crashed transport helicopter with a 105mm gun as the basis for a mission. Since I had some ideas on how to expand on this I went to look for the original post. But couldn't find it.
So I thought to create this thread to bring some structure to this.

Scenario proposal (not my original idea though! Which one of you was it?):

Description: Transport helicopter with 105mm gun and ammo has crashed. Player must protect crash site until gun, ammo and crew have been evacuated.

Set-up: Troops start deployed around crash site (so no transport bringing them there first). Crash site can be abstracted as high value VH's, so no actual crashed helicopter, 105mm and crew need be put in. The player must hold on to his perimeter for a certain number of turns. After that it is assumed that the evacuation is complete and the mission ends. So the evacuation too is abstracted. No heli's will be needed, although a couple for scouting etc might be provided.

Scaling difficulty:
Enemy forces are approaching the perimeter and want to capture the gun. Besides the quantity of troops provided we can scale by:
- quality of troops (VC, NVA, sappers, 0-size or 1-size units, etc)
- distance of troops from perimeter at start (the longer it takes for (some of) the troops to reach and attack the perimeter the easier it will be for the player to meet his 'deadline'
- direction of attacks (for bad players attack will come mainly from 1 direction, for average players from 2 directions, for good players from 3 directions)
- reinforcements (quality, quantity, location, percentage chance of arriving)

Replayability;
We can make different versions of the same scenario and have the main attack come from different angles in each of them. Players will not know for sure which direction to defend when replaying the battle.
Reinforcements for the enemy can be greatly varied within each version. All versions together should provide even more variation.

Edit: Oops, forgot this:
Phase: size of the US forces should be a couple of platoons worth (on map) with off map fire support. So this mission would fit either T1 (platoon sized core force) or T2 (company sized core force).
For T1 this could be a secondary mission as the 105mm gun can be made available to the player in the following primairy mission if he succeeds here and to the enemy if he fails the mission. With a platoon sized core force the presence of a 105mm on one side or the other canmake a big difference. Not so for a company sized force though.
So I suggest we make this a secondary mission for the first theatre (if we decide to run with this).



As this is a proposal, your opinions are wanted!

[Double_Deuce]

narwan said:
Description: Transport helicopter with 105mm gun and ammo has crashed. Player must protect crash site until gun, ammo and crew have been evacuated.

There should be fairly easy ways to simulate a crashed heicopter using a real helicoptor as well as an abandoned 105mm. Can Ammo Cannisters be loaded/moved? If so you could have helicopters come in and actually remove the ammo. For the gun, why not buy it through the NVA buy screen, going through Allies and selecting a US 105mm howitzer. Part of the mission could be to spike the crippled gun, which could be targeted by US forces if purchased as captured equipment via NVA buy screen?

So you spike the crippled gun and protect the Ammo until the extracting helo's arrive? Maybe the extraction helo carries and Engineer unit with Sachel Charges. They land and Z target the gun. Would that work?

[narwan]

The main reason why I left out transports in my proposal is that they serve other uses besides transporting units and can be easily abused.
By not using these you can greatly simplify the scenario. You could use ammo cannisters and have these picked up, but how would you translate that in victory conditions within the game? Same would be with the engineers, it does add flavor but will be hard to put into victory conditions terms. In other words, how will you penalize a player who doesn't do as he should? How does it translate into a 'loss'?
Also, if bought through the NVA screen, all US forces will be able to target it, not just the engineers.
I'm the type of player myself who looks for 'loopholes' and unconventional uses of units and I'm trying to do the same here, look trought the eyes of the 'abusive' player and limit his options as much as possible.

[Double_Deuce]

You could change the cost of the ammo cannisters to a high number. This way if they are lost the US player is penalized big time. Its in his best interest to get them out of harms way. If and NVA team slips through he is screwed. Maybe NVA reinforcements placed in the same hex set to appear 3-4 turns after the helo arrives on station in the ammo cannister hexes. If the US player doesn't get on the ball he will find the cannisters destroyed by sappers or infiltration teams. Then add some SAM teams in the surrounding jungle in case the US player decides to drop the cannisters in a safe place and use the helo as a scout or to move other units around. Assign the helo a large # of points. If he loses it, and or the cannisters, he loses!

Drop the Engineer idea, let the US player use his force to spike the gun. Assign it a large # of points to encourage him in taking it out.

Set up a permimeter in the surrounding area and change the VP hex control to NVA. This will force the US player to go out and capture them settings up a circular permieter around the site.

Give him a detailed breifing and time constraints to do X by x time. If he deviated from the timeline (disobeys superiors recommendations) he could be in a world of hurt.

[narwan]

Some good ideas there. Looks like we need to get together on this scenario!

I can see merit in both approaches so we'll have to work out which one works best in practice.
Maybe you can work out your version some more and send it to me? We can go back and forth a few times with ideas and hopefully come up with the best set-up for this concept.

[Weasel]

You can always have the transport helo come in very late in the game, say 1-3 turns before the game would end. The helo has to come in, load the persons, and get out to succeed.

[dita]

Here is another scenrios proposal, hope this is the sort of thing that is required

Ambush convoy.

Description: �Classic� ambush scenario. Intelligence has revealed an increase in activity along a particular route. Seek out and destroy any enemy convoys that are located.

Set up: See below for set up options that effect difficulty. General setup would find the player in semi-ready position, deployed away from the LZ ready for the ambush, The player would maybe required to reposition some units. Enemy convoy would be approx two turns away from the player. Objection would be for the player to preserve his force whilst focusing his fire on the �high value� targets. Eg ammo trucks, staff car, AA units etc.

Extraction of the forces would be on a pre-determined round, this the helos in a �landed� status at the LZ site.


Scaling difficulty.

To achieve the different difficulty, the starting location of the forces could be varied. As mentioned by narwan, increasing the quality and quantity of troops would also be an option. Other ideas include--

High difficulty: Mission starts with your forces scattered around LZ, with damaged and/or destroyed helos. The intelligence was incorrect and it was a trap. The mission now becomes a defend scenario. Until reinforcement helos arrive to extract the player

Medium: Late at LZ so forces are incorrectly positioned for the ambush. Time would be of high importance in achieving a Decisive victory. Additional reinforcements for convoy, once attacked? There could also be more than one convoy. Perhaps the other convoy is�returning� empty with a lower point value?

Easy: correctly landed at LZ, little or no reinforcement for enemy. Possible artillery and/or helo gunship support.

I imagine that this would be a T1 or T2 scenario. (platoons/company level) the possibilities of this mission effecting another are varied. For example, �empty� convoy destroyed, little or now effect in the following scenario, convoy destroyed gives major benefits (next mission enemy has lower ammo? For example). Little or no effect on convoy would result in a less effect of the above. AA targets destroyed, no AA cover for the following mission.