Hello everyone, welcome to the first FTM dev diary! Recently we had a poll to decide what should be the fifth and final battle scenario in FTM and the winner was Operation Unthinkable. For those of you not in the know, Operation Unthinkable was the British-American plan to attack the Soviet Union after the surrender of Germany and drive them back to their pre-war borders. The plan was also to re-arm surrendered German troops and use them to spearhead the attack. It was a risky plan, the Red army was at this point well equipped, well trained, and very battle-hardened, but at the same time the USSR was finally running out of manpower and their country had been devastated by the German invasion. While the Allies had much smaller armies in Europe they would enjoy air supremacy and the USA had only just gotten their war economy fully in gear. Of course, no one knows how the war would have panned out, as the operation was never launched, but in FTM you'll have the chance to find out.
Now you know what the fifth scenario is I suppose I should tell you what the first four are:
The Battle of the Bulge. Germany's last-ditch attempt to defeat the Allied armies in western Europe in order to free up troops to try and hold off the Russian advance in the east. Historically this failed and meant that Germany couldn't even hold the Allies at the border, but perhaps you can do better?
Southern Conquests. Japan's attempt to conquer the "Southern resource area" to gain the resources needed to keep their economy running at full bore. This meant war with Britain and the Netherlands, and since they expected the USA would intervene on the Allied side, an attack on Pearl Harbour where the US Pacific fleet was based (although PH is off map for this scenario).
Desert Rats. Italy wants to wrest Egypt and the Middle East from the hands of the British empire. They have a large but poorly equipped army in Libya facing a much smaller but better equipped British force, which the UK is rushing to reinforce. Italy also has the German "Afrika Korps" under the command of the brilliant German general, Rommel, but their supply lines from Italy are constantly in danger of interception by the Royal Navy.
Fall Blau. "Case Blue" was the German 1942 summer offensive in southern Russia. When Barbarossa failed to capture Moscow before the winter of 1941, Hitler switched his focus to economic wargoals. The goal of case Blue was to capture the oil fields of Maykop, Grozny, and Baku. However, Hitler insisted on the capture of Stalingrad, which eventually led to the encirclement and destruction of the German 6th army and almost to the collapse of the entire German southern wing.
But how do they actually work? Unlike a normal game of HoI3, when you load a battle scenario you won't see the entire map, instead most of it will be blacked out and only a specific area will be shown. You won't be able to build things, research, or conduct diplomacy etc, instead you'll just have your starting army and any reinforcements you might receive via event to achieve the victory conditions of the scenario. Those of you who played the battle scenarios in HoI2 will find this pretty familiar, but we think scenarios will work much better in FTM due to HoI3's greater number of provinces offering more tactical flexibility.
By this point there are no doubt already some modders planning to make new scenarios, but how will they do this? Well, FTM will allow you to set a list of visible provinces and regions, the rest of the map will be blacked out. You will be able to set nations has playable or not in the scenario and set custom event files and victory goals in each scenario folder. An example:
Next week: The Undeclared War.
Now you know what the fifth scenario is I suppose I should tell you what the first four are:
The Battle of the Bulge. Germany's last-ditch attempt to defeat the Allied armies in western Europe in order to free up troops to try and hold off the Russian advance in the east. Historically this failed and meant that Germany couldn't even hold the Allies at the border, but perhaps you can do better?
Southern Conquests. Japan's attempt to conquer the "Southern resource area" to gain the resources needed to keep their economy running at full bore. This meant war with Britain and the Netherlands, and since they expected the USA would intervene on the Allied side, an attack on Pearl Harbour where the US Pacific fleet was based (although PH is off map for this scenario).
Desert Rats. Italy wants to wrest Egypt and the Middle East from the hands of the British empire. They have a large but poorly equipped army in Libya facing a much smaller but better equipped British force, which the UK is rushing to reinforce. Italy also has the German "Afrika Korps" under the command of the brilliant German general, Rommel, but their supply lines from Italy are constantly in danger of interception by the Royal Navy.
Fall Blau. "Case Blue" was the German 1942 summer offensive in southern Russia. When Barbarossa failed to capture Moscow before the winter of 1941, Hitler switched his focus to economic wargoals. The goal of case Blue was to capture the oil fields of Maykop, Grozny, and Baku. However, Hitler insisted on the capture of Stalingrad, which eventually led to the encirclement and destruction of the German 6th army and almost to the collapse of the entire German southern wing.
But how do they actually work? Unlike a normal game of HoI3, when you load a battle scenario you won't see the entire map, instead most of it will be blacked out and only a specific area will be shown. You won't be able to build things, research, or conduct diplomacy etc, instead you'll just have your starting army and any reinforcements you might receive via event to achieve the victory conditions of the scenario. Those of you who played the battle scenarios in HoI2 will find this pretty familiar, but we think scenarios will work much better in FTM due to HoI3's greater number of provinces offering more tactical flexibility.
By this point there are no doubt already some modders planning to make new scenarios, but how will they do this? Well, FTM will allow you to set a list of visible provinces and regions, the rest of the map will be blacked out. You will be able to set nations has playable or not in the scenario and set custom event files and victory goals in each scenario folder. An example:
Code:
name = "SCENARIO_DESERTFOX"
desc = "SCENARIO_DESERTFOX_DESC"
icon = "GFX_bg_startdate_1936"
startdate = 1941.3.30
enddate = 1943.1.1
camera_height = 500
camera_min_x = 2471
camera_max_x = 3495
camera_min_y = 1501
camera_max_y = 1024
camera_center = { x = 2983 y = 1263 }
victory_conditions = "scenarios/desert_fox/faction_aims.txt"
events = "scenarios/desert_fox/events.txt"
# will load any history files with scenarios/scenario_name/<tag>.txt
selectable_country = ENG
selectable_country = ITA
country = ENG
country = CAN
country = AST
country = SAF
country = GER
country = POL
Next week: The Undeclared War.
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