Armageddon and the Abyss for DH Full

[Taylor]

I ported the Armageddon and Abyss scenarios to the DH Full map, for Darkest Hour 1.04. It's still a bit rough around the edges, but it should reproduce the original scenarios decently accurately. Please report any issues you find so I can fix them (playtesting on my own will not be very efficient!).

Download links (current version: 0.3.1):

Download link (box.com link. If this one doesn't work then I'm probably on my download limit, so in that case try the below one)
Download link 2 (dropbox link. It will prompt you to sign up, but you can click "no thanks" and download anyway)

Installation
Simply extract the zip archive into your Darkest Hour's mod directory. To play, start the Darkest Hour launcher, select "Armageddon & the Abyss" and hit Launch.

What are the Armageddon and Abyss scenarios?

Spoiler

They are scenarios included with the "Armageddon" expansion to Hearts of Iron 2. Basically, they are a whacky alternate history setup (PoD in late 18th century) cooked up by Paradox, in which 18 countries duke it out in a global war. In the Abyss scenario, the countries aren't at war yet but will be soon, and in the Armageddon scenario they are at war and allied with their ideological friends. The countries (all with 200 base IC) are:

Communists
European Soviets - Control Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, the Low Lands, Northwest Germany and Denmark
Roma - Control Italy, Libya, Tunisia, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and most of Yugoslavia
Persia - Control Iran and Central Asia
Japan - Control Japan, Manchuria, the Philippines, and a bunch of Pacific islands
Libertadores - Control South America except the part controlled by the Confederates (see below)
APR - Controls Africa south of the Sahara

Democracies
Bourbon - Control France and Spain
The Cossacks - Control Romania and Ukraine and some extra provinces nearby
Sweden - Control Scandinavia and the Baltic countries plus Saint Petersburg
China - Control China and Mongolia
Australasia - Control Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and some more islands
USNA - Control roughly USA and Canada but minus CSA states

Nazis
Prussia - Control Germany except the Northwest, Czechoslovakia, Poland and most of Belarus
The Ottomans - Control Ottoman Empire including Egypt, plus Sudan and Arabia
Russia - Control Russia minus the Caucasus and Outer Manchuria
India - Control OTL British India and Afghanistan but not Burma
Indo China - Control Indo China plus Burma, Sumatra and Java
The Confederates - Control CSA, Mexico and Middle America, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador and the Caribbean

Neutral Countries
Tannu Tuva - Control Kyzyl and watch the world around them burn...

Screenshots

Spoiler

World map

Spoiler

The conversion
In converting the various game elements, I first converted everything using Bizon's map-to-map converter, and then did tweaks, making sure to try to stick to what I believe was the intention of the creators of the original scenarios. There are some simple rules they seem to have stuck to, for example:

• Claims: Countries have claims on all directly bordering provinces except on friendly (same ideology) neighbors. Exception are Japan and Australasia who would not get enough claims otherwise.
  
• OOB placement: in Armageddon, each border province and coast with beach gets 1 infantry. In addition, the capital (or suitable nearby base) gets some armored, air, and naval units. In the Abyss, the entire OOB is placed on the capital or suitable nearby base.
  
• Technology: All countries seem to have 1918-level tech. I may in the future need to change this to a later date though, because in DH Full the road from 1918 tech to 1936 tech is much longer than it was in Hoi2. Let me know your thoughts on this.
  
• IC placement: I don't think there are clear rules here, but I tried to keep to what the developers did (placing gigantic IC in sometimes very strange places!).

In addition to the above, I also added some of the decisions from DH Full, most notably the mobilization decisions. Not sure if they're all working properly though; I haven't tested everything thoroughly yet!

Done so far:

• Country borders, cores
• Ministers, leaders, tech teams
• IC & infra balance
• Resources balance
  
• OOB placement
• Technology
• Decisions from DH Full, including Mobilization

To do:
(entries marked with "(v)" are done and will be in the next update)

• Manpower balance
• Edit revolt.txt to something that makes sense in the alternate time line of this mod
  
• Make the AI be able to release puppets
• More stuff??

 

[Taylor]

reserved

 

[Jordapopolous]

Wow i was actually looking around the modifications today to see if someone had ported it. I loved playing this scenario in hearts of iron! I ran a couple of test scenarios as Tannu Tuva for the Armageddon scenario to see how the AI coalitions worked with each other.
These might be obvious things i'm pointing out but i'll mention them anyway:
1. None of the nations enact general mobilization when the war starts which leads to most units dying out in the first few years. (I just fired the mobilization event for all the countries manually to get around it)
2. None of the nations unlock the rocket testing tech in the SW tree so all air forces are capped with 1945 era aircraft.
3. From what i saw, nations that are annexed and retaken by allies never get liberated. When India and Russia countered to defeat The Cossacks and Bourbons they never liberated Prussia or the Ottomans so certain countries become very large with big partisan troubles.
Suggestions:
1. As of now all countries use the same unit pictures Would it be possible to add some of the unit models for specific countries from DH? i.e.: Prussia gets German models, USNA gets American models, European Soviets get Britian etc...

I think this has a lot of potential to be fleshed out into a mod that stands on its own. Having custom events and names for units could really improve the experience of fighting an all out war for the world with massive coalitions. Whatever you do this is already more than i could have asked for. Thanks and keep up the good work!

 

[Gukpa]

FINALLY!

 

[Xyldran]

Interesting, I loved those scenarios back with Armageddon.

 

[Taylor]

Wow i was actually looking around the modifications today to see if someone had ported it. I loved playing this scenario in hearts of iron! I ran a couple of test scenarios as Tannu Tuva for the Armageddon scenario to see how the AI coalitions worked with each other.
These might be obvious things i'm pointing out but i'll mention them anyway:
1. None of the nations enact general mobilization when the war starts which leads to most units dying out in the first few years. (I just fired the mobilization event for all the countries manually to get around it)
2. None of the nations unlock the rocket testing tech in the SW tree so all air forces are capped with 1945 era aircraft.
3. From what i saw, nations that are annexed and retaken by allies never get liberated. When India and Russia countered to defeat The Cossacks and Bourbons they never liberated Prussia or the Ottomans so certain countries become very large with big partisan troubles.
Suggestions:
1. As of now all countries use the same unit pictures Would it be possible to add some of the unit models for specific countries from DH? i.e.: Prussia gets German models, USNA gets American models, European Soviets get Britian etc...

I think this has a lot of potential to be fleshed out into a mod that stands on its own. Having custom events and names for units could really improve the experience of fighting an all out war for the world with massive coalitions. Whatever you do this is already more than i could have asked for. Thanks and keep up the good work!

Thanks for your playtest! The things you mentioned actually weren't obvious at all. It seems they are all AI issues.
1. Anyone know how I get the AI to fire the mobilization events? EDIT: I *think* I found it (ai_mobi.txt).
2. Same but with rocket tech EDIT: nvm, it was a question of missing secret_weapon_events.txt
3. Did they liberate countries in the original scenarios? I can't remember now . I'll have a look.

As to your suggestion: yes that is definitely possible, I'll do that for the next version.

 

[Jordapopolous]

Thanks for your playtest! The things you mentioned actually weren't obvious at all. It seems they are all AI issues.
1. Anyone know how I get the AI to fire the mobilization events? EDIT: I *think* I found it (ai_mobi.txt).
2. Same but with rocket tech EDIT: nvm, it was a question of missing secret_weapon_events.txt
3. Did they liberate countries in the original scenarios? I can't remember now . I'll have a look.

As to your suggestion: yes that is definitely possible, I'll do that for the next version.

Actually you might be right. I don't remember nations liberating anything after it was conquered. I did notice though that those nations that were annexed don't show up in the list for "liberate nation" even if the occupying nation doesn't have a claim on that area.

 

[Taylor]

Actually you might be right. I don't remember nations liberating anything after it was conquered. I did notice though that those nations that were annexed don't show up in the list for "liberate nation" even if the occupying nation doesn't have a claim on that area.

I've also noticed that, and I also know the reason: they aren't in revolt.txt. Which, incidentally, needs a lot of editing to be in line with the alternate history time line, so that's on my to do list. (e.g. you can release countries that probably wouldn't exist in the alternate time line).

 

[Taylor]

Ok, I updated the mod (current version: 0.2).

Changes are as follows:

• Added secret weapon events: secret weapons can now be researched.
• Added AI mobilization events: they should mobilize properly now.
• Added ministers, leaders, and tech team for Tannu Tuva.
• Corrected Republic of Persia's description text.
• Changed all infrastructure levels to 80, except for a few provinces (in line with the original scenarios). [Also consolidated all infrastructure numbers in Province.csv, and removed empty modifiers from the country .inc files - this should help make modding easier for me in the future]
• Ported model pictures for UES, UBO, UPR, URO, UTO, UPS, and USN over from DH Full. I did not port over the Russian units because I am not sure they look right for an Imperial Russia.
• Changed Siam's airforce's starting location to Nakhon Sawan, where there is an airbase.

I haven't yet modded revolt.txt which I will probably do next. But as that is probably quite a bit of work and might take a while, I wanted to make the current version available before that.

 

[Gukpa]

Maybe in future you can add some death events and more ministers

 

[Taylor]

So, for the purposes of re-balancing the resources, I studied the resources each country produces in the original scenarios, and found out that most of them produce exactly 420 energy, 210 metal, 105 rare materials and 125 oil.

There are a few exceptions though. For example, Bourbon produces 409 energy instead of 420. European Soviets produces 199.38 metal and 95 rares. USNA produces 103 rare materials. But the country that really got the short end of the stick in the original scenarios was The Ottomans, who only got 265 energy, 161 metal, 80 rare materials and 110 oil.

So I'm wondering, are these just mistakes by the original creators, or intentional design elements?

Maybe in future you can add some death events and more ministers

I may actually do that later on

 

[Colwin1]

I have only played a tiny bit of .01 so far, and I have not gotten around to .02, but here is the feedback from what I have so far.

It is fun so far, just make sure that resources and stuff are balanced, all that.

The big thing that I would like to see you work on is releasable nations. I did some cheating to figure out how I was gonna divide the world as the USNA, and along with not having a ton of nations to release, all of them were blank. No teams, no ministers, nothing. I think for the moment you can copy and paste those into the mod for the moment, until you feel like perhaps modding them to better reflect the timeline.

 

[Taylor]

I'm going on a 10-day trip tomorrow, so won't be able to work on the mod for a while. I did however do some "quick fixes" to balance the resources roughly, copy back in the "other" country data (i.e. standard countries of DH Full), as well as add the 18 belligerents to revolt.txt, so you can at least release functional countries again. In the future, I want to edit revolt.txt to make more sense in our alternate timeline, balance the resources in some more detail, and also go over manpower for a bit (though it is however already quite decent). But in any case, in the current form, the mod should reproduce the original scenarios fairly accurately.

v0.3:
- First round of strategic resource (oil, metal, energy, and rare materials) balancing. Also consolidated all resource production into Province.csv. Resources are now roughly in-line with the ones in the original scenarios
- Copied DH Full country data (ministers, leaders, tech teams, flags, shields) back into the mod (excluding for UCH, UER, UGS, UPE, UTC)
- Edited revolt.txt to contain the 18 warring nations (releasable if you have the proper ideology)

I have only played a tiny bit of .01 so far, and I have not gotten around to .02, but here is the feedback from what I have so far.

It is fun so far, just make sure that resources and stuff are balanced, all that.

The big thing that I would like to see you work on is releasable nations. I did some cheating to figure out how I was gonna divide the world as the USNA, and along with not having a ton of nations to release, all of them were blank. No teams, no ministers, nothing. I think for the moment you can copy and paste those into the mod for the moment, until you feel like perhaps modding them to better reflect the timeline.

Thanks for your feedback! I've kept it in mind for the above update.

 

[Display_Name]

Oh, this really brings me back. Bloody good old HoI2 Arma and bloody OP as fuck Bourbon going on a WC spree ever game... *grumble*grumble*

Not sure how you handled the resources by the way, but I'd prefer you equalise them than follow the discrepencies from the original setup. I'd have no qualms with it if it had actually made sense, but the inexplicably low values for the Ottomans seem to imply that they were just an oversight, rather than an intended mechanic.

How have you handld the AI in regards to tech by the way; are they all equal in what they research? I'm particularly curious about what land doctrine choices they would make.

 

[Adonnus]

THANK YOU!!! Oh god how long I have waited for this conversion to happen.

EDIT: Can't play any scenario. The game loads about 1/10th and then freezes...

 

[General Awesome1234]

This is AWESOME! I can't wait to download it!

 

[Taylor]

Oh, this really brings me back. Bloody good old HoI2 Arma and bloody OP as fuck Bourbon going on a WC spree ever game... *grumble*grumble*

Not sure how you handled the resources by the way, but I'd prefer you equalise them than follow the discrepencies from the original setup. I'd have no qualms with it if it had actually made sense, but the inexplicably low values for the Ottomans seem to imply that they were just an oversight, rather than an intended mechanic.

How have you handld the AI in regards to tech by the way; are they all equal in what they research? I'm particularly curious about what land doctrine choices they would make.

They don't have any preferred research paths defined in their AI files, and it turns out they seem to all follow mobility doctrines.

THANK YOU!!! Oh god how long I have waited for this conversion to happen.

EDIT: Can't play any scenario. The game loads about 1/10th and then freezes...

That is strange. Are you sure there is no "hidden" error dialog? By that I mean: when it freezes, you can press the windows key and then on the task bar click on Darkest Hour again, this should display error dialogs that have somehow been hidden. (it's an annoying thing that happens in Europa engine games.)

You can also browse to the Darkest Hour folder and post the contents of savedebug.txt here, maybe that will help with diagnosing the error.

 

[Adonnus]

Ah it's fixed. You should specify it's for 1.04 only in the first post.

 

[Taylor]

Ah it's fixed. You should specify it's for 1.04 only in the first post.

Done! Sorry about that

Oh, this really brings me back. Bloody good old HoI2 Arma and bloody OP as fuck Bourbon going on a WC spree ever game... *grumble*grumble*

Not sure how you handled the resources by the way, but I'd prefer you equalise them than follow the discrepencies from the original setup. I'd have no qualms with it if it had actually made sense, but the inexplicably low values for the Ottomans seem to imply that they were just an oversight, rather than an intended mechanic.

yeah, Bourbon does seem a bit OP... however, I've found that if India manages to survive long enough then it and Indochina can beat the democrats. The reason is that 3 of the democratic powers have manpower issues. Australia runs out decently fast, then Sweden, then Cossacks. The French themselves don't have inexhaustible manpower reserves either. Of course China has vast amounts, but they are so encircled they usually get defeated anyway, meaning India is the only one left on the planet with titanic amounts of manpower and it can just start grinding everyone else down.

About the resources: I made a script that takes the Darkest Hour Light province table, then applies changes according to the original scenario files, then converts whatever it found to the new provinces using the table provided with the Map-to-map converter. With some extra manual tweaks this gives a pretty good representation of the original production. I will probably equalize them in a future patch, but for now I just wanted to recreate the original scenario - then after that I can start to improve upon them.

 

[iono]

Never played Armageddon or Abyss so this sounds very exciting. But is the download link ok? Can't download .zip from box.com.