DCG German Core group HQ's

[simovitch]

Does anyone recall a bug from the original Talonsoft's West Front where the Battalion HQ would not arrive with the German Player Core group in a West Front Dynamic Campaign Game? It's been too long for me to remember...

Anyway, it is a problem in JTCS WF DCG's (even the ones that work, like France 1940). But I found the cause this morning and fixed it - it is caused by listing the inherent Bn Commander before the Bn HQ in the Battalion01.oob file, so I swapped the order and it works. It doesn't appear to be a problem in EF because the potential DCG Core Battalions in EF don't seem to have inherent Commanders.

cheers

[Warhorse]

Awesome work Simovitch, I've been tinkering around with a Allied Bulgarian DCG, so far it works. In trying to make a Soviet (slot24) vs allies one though I get no units found on file messages?! Can't wait till you release the notes to dig into this better, I've been wanting to play around with alternate DCG's since I got the original EF!! I've also got one running with my fantasy country, the K'talians that I released a mod for, it works also, except the SPAA only show up with one SP, I have to then manually edit the data file to get full strength, no big deal, but inconvenient!! Also, in between each scenario, when you finish one, the screen goes black like a crash, but you then get the Matrix logo window, where you just reopen the campaign, and it continues?! I thought it was skipping the upgrades/replacements screen, but then last night that showed up?! Anyway, thanks for your work in this, it's a great deal of fun to have a campaign with almost any country you would like to, just make the campaign.oob, leaders.bmp, adjust the chardesc.txt, and go! I imported some files from the Fall of France DCG, into Divided Ground, put in a chardesc.txt, and made up campaign.oob's for the Modern Mod Stefan has had me help test out, and it actually works, kinda, until you get to the country unit selection, it keeps saying there aren't any lower choices or something, and eventually it says there are no units on file, when you get to finally pick something, no armor choice either, where you pick infantry or armor, just infantry is option? Very promising though, maybe after I look through you docs whenever you release them, we can get something to work for DG also?!! My Korean War Mod would be cool with this feature! Anyhow, thanks again for this research!

Best regards,

Mike

[simovitch]

Warhorse,
I can tell you that most of the problems associated with DCG upgrades are in the Campaign/Division/Regiment/Battalion, etc. OOB's where the upgrade 'syntax' was broken.

For example, I have found several upgrades that are shown thus:

44 05 44 06 + C0100283 4. Company
44 07 44 08 + C0100011 4. Company
44 11 45 01 C0100219 4. Company

So what happens when the game tries to compile a force during September and October 1944? it crashes is my guess.

The "no lower organization" bug is because many, many forces are mislabled at practically every level. The DCG and random game force compiler routines need to recognize a "0" for armor and a "2" for infantry at the 5th slot to compile your armor or infantry core force. For example C0100283:

C=Company
01=Germany
0=company (1=battalion, 2=brigade, etc.)
0=armor type(this is the 5th slot. 1=arty, 2=inf, 3=AT,etc.)
283=ID number

I cant tell you how many German infantry Companies/Battalions/Regiments had something other than "2" in the fifth slot, thus the DCG's passed these up as choices for building the Infantry core as well as the entire force. Same problem existed for Armor (needs a "0" in the 5th slot). This was especially predominant for the 1942-43 forces (i.e. North Africa/Tunisia)

It's all fixed now and it's great to be able to pick any battalion from 15 Pz or 164th Infantry (if historically available at the time) and play the NA DCG's. You will also be able to select a historical Regiment for 1st Infantry instead of the generic one.

Jason is going to review it all and hopefully it will pass muster for patch 1.03.