CIV2 UNLIMITED - VERY IMPORTANT!!!
THIS GAME MUST BE LAUNCHED WITH THE CIV2 UNLIMITED LAUNCHER!
COPY AND PASTE THESE TWO FILES IN THE MAIN ToT FOLDER:
THIS WILL NOT OVERWRITE ANYTHING, IT IS AN ALTERNATIVE LAUNCHER
You need to put the Civ2Unlimited.exe and .dll files into the main ToT folder and double click the .exe to launch Civ2 (or create a shortcut to the desktop). Civ2Unlimited was created by Elys and it allows more units than the original 2048 limit.
YOU MUST RUN THE FORTRESS BATCH FILE BEFORE BEGINING THE SCENARIO (PICK OPTION 1 TO LOAD WINTER 1941 FILES) AND AT SEVERAL POINTS DURING THE SCENARIO WHEN PROMPTED VIA EVENT TEXT POP UP!
YOU GET TO MOVE BEFORE THE AI TO FARMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE SITUATION. THE AI TURN IS QUITE LONG BUT BEAR WITH IT, IT WILL SPEED UP AS THE GAME PROGRESSES!
INTRODUCTION
Fortress Europe is only designed to be played as the Allies. You are welcome to try it as any of the other nations but I have absoloutely no idea how it will play and I would not recommend it!
To make the game more challenging I have put a lot of effort into the events and also into the placement of Axis strongpoints. These units are virtually indestructible apart from when their home city is captured and they are disbanded. I have placed them in a way that will force the player to follow along a roughly historical path. There is little scope for trying out drastically different strategies, you have your orders from on high and its your job to try and carry them out, no matter how dumb you think they are.
I am hoping this will lead to a challenging game with a high degree of historical accuracy. I apologise to players who feel, perhaps quite rightly, that this stifles their creativity, but that's what I chose to do. That said there is a fair amount of scope for doing it your way. You can of course win the war more quickly than our forefathers were able to. You can explore Churchill's plans for an invasion of the Balkans alongside Turkey if the situation permits. Alternatively, should you do badly then Spain or Turkey may throw in their lot with the Axis! One thing I have ensured it that you have to persue the campaign in North Africa and Italy to be able to launch the cross chanel invasion of Fortress Europe. Lag behind in the south and things will be delayed in the north!
HOUSE RULES:
*No building new cities, only re-building destroyed ones.
*No selling of city walls
*If, upon capture, the city walls are destroyed they must be rebuilt immediately using the CivCity utility provided!
*No intentional destruction of cities. If it happens in the middle of a battle and cannot be avoided then so be it!
*Do not negotiate with the Axis!
*Only Fleet Air Arm aircraft are allowed to operate from Carriers. Other aircraft may be transported on them though.
*The Airlift unit may only carry two units and only carries Infantry or Royal Artillery, no tanks!
*Ireland is neutral, no airbases on their territory. Northern Ireland is ok.
*No air protected stacks at sea. I decided not to give U-Boats the attack air flag as they were shooting down Bombers on missions against Germany!
*Do not attack Spain, Turkey or the Neutrals unless they attack you!
*No exploits (IE exploiting the Factory events in an unrealistic manner)
*Ship chaining, black clicking etc...
IMPORTANT
ORDERS FROM THE HIGH COMMAND:
During the game you will recieve several sets of orders from the High Command. These must be carried out if you want to complete the game. Ignoring them is not an option! You can still follow alternative strategies, but only after you have completed your missions. I know this may not suit everyone, but I think it makes the game more challenging and it is realistic that in wartime you often have to carry out orders you don't necessarily agree with for political reasons (IE keeping Churchill, Roosavelt and Stalin happy!)
THE ALLIED ECONOMY:
In the early stages of the scenario money will be tight and you will need to allocate resources sparingly to avoid the economic defecit bankrupting the Allies. There are two main ways of keeping the balance books in the black: 1) Lend Lease deliveries 2) Strategic Bombing
LEND LEASE AND THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC:
Save your money! Events will create Lend Lease ships in New York. These should be shipped to Britain to keep the Allied economy going. If you lose too many Lend Lease shipments you will have some severe fanancial problems. If I have calculated correctly you chould be OK if you beat the U-Boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. Later in the game your economic situation will improve as you take control of more Axis cities and build economic improvements. To deliver the Lend Lease shipments simply attack the Dockyard unit near Liverpool. The destruction of the Lend Lease will trigger an plus money event for the allies and will also create an Armoured unit in the Middle East and later on in Britain.
STRATEGIC BOMBING:
I have strugged with this concept and ended up deciding to reward the Allied player financially every time an Axis factory is destroyed. Every time a factory is destroyed a new one will be spawned at a random location next to a major German city. Re-spawning of factories will cease once the Allied player enters Germany and begins capturing cities.
ENGINEERS/DEFENCES AND TANKS:
Defences are impassable for vehicles. To clear a path for them Enginners need to move into the Defences square, which will use up their movement allowance, and on its following turn use the "Change to Plains" command to clear the mines and wire. Infantry will be useful for protecting the engineers while they are vulnerable as they can cross the wire and set up a defence around the Engineers while they are vulnerable. Once the hole is cleared in the defences the armour can pour through.
Some cities, mostly on the Atlantic Wall, are built on Defences terrain. Armour cannot attack these cities, bt upon capture an Engineer can change the terrain under the city to Plains.
INFANTRY AND COMBINED ARMS:
I have tried to give every unit type a role to play. No single unit will win the game for you, Combined Arms tactics must be employed for success. In many scenarios Infantry units are relegated to a relatively static garrison role. Although Infantry in Fortress Europe are useful defenders they are also great for attacking enemy cities (after all Tanks are not ideally suited to urban warfare) and they can cross the Defences terrain where armour cannot. Infantry also has the 'Alpine' ability from the original game where Armour is better on roads.
TURKEY AND SPAIN:
My intention is to start these two countries as Neutrals. Depending on how the game progresses they may join the war. Spain should only ever join if the Axis seem to be getting the upper hand. Turkey may join either side or stay neutral depending on how the war progresses.
VICHY FRANCE:
Vichy France occupies the Barbarian slot. Unfortunately the Axis attack them from time to time in an un-historical manner. Please ignore this, they are still meant to be on the same side, at least until Operation Torch!.
OPERATION TORCH:
Torch will be represented via events if the Allies meet certain criteria. When playing WWII Europa I replicated Torch with two invasion fleets (from the USA and UK) which was a huge and complex undertaking for limited objectives. I figured that most players would prefer to use the forces for an invasion of mainland Europe from the UK so I added Torch via (ToT's wonderful) events.
TIP: Attack Casablanca first as Oran and Algiers have strongpoints homed to it!
MARITIME BOMBERS AND FLEET AIR ARM AIRCRAFT:
These units can only attack Naval units. Maritime Bombers have long range endurance and are excellent sub hunters but they may struggle against bigger ships. Fleet Air Arm Aircraft can operate off of Carriers and have a good chance of sinking most enemy ships, especially when veteran and used in squadrons of two or three.
STRONGPOINTS:
The Strongpoint unit is meant to be indestructable. If you scout or attack a city with a Strongpoint don't waste your units attacking it. They can only be destroyed by capturing the city where they are homed to. This is for two reasons:
1) To stop the Soviets getting to Berlin in 1942. Their progress depends on Allied progress disbanding Strongpoints
2) To prevent the Allies launching a ridiculously early invasion of Europe or proforming unrealistic naval outflanking manouvers. You must achieve your missions in the Mediterranean before you can invade Northern Europe!
MINES:
Sea mines are not meant to be attacked. They are placed at strategic points to prevent unrealistic naval movements. The only way to destroy them is to capture the city their home city.
CHANGING PRODUCTION:
Some cities are building units that the allies don't have the techs for yet. If you change production you will not be able to go back to producing those units until you have the tech. If you click on change production by mistake just click on Auto and then cancel out!
WINTER:
During the winter the road movement rate is halved. A text event will prompt you to run the FORTRESS batch file when a change is required.
SCORCHED EARTH:
In realality scorched earth tactics are a brutally effective method for slowing down an enemy advance. In CivII against an AI often lacking in direction and co-ordination they can give the player an unrealistic advantage over the Axis who would have quickly unblocked roads, built bridges over rivers and re-laid railway tracks in real life. I have therefore prevented all road and stackable terrain pillaging!
BARRACKS AND VETERANS:
As in John Ellis' scenarios I have not included barracks. Most of your troops will be as Green when they first go into combat. Units that survive this test will often gain Veteran status, significantly boosting their combat power. It would be advisable to husband these Veteran troops carefully, rest them where you can, and put them back into combat once they have full health.
OBJECTIVES
Lose Suez and you lose the war!
If you end up with less cities than you started with it is a decisive defeat.
Hanging on to what you start with will result in a marginal defeat.
Taking what the Western Allies did historically (142 objectives) will result in a marginal victory.
If you can also take Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Warsaw as well as Norway and Denmark you will have a decisive victory (156 objectives)
Of course you can play on after the scenario officially ends. Who knows how far east you could end up!
MY OWN STRATEGY GUIDE (YOU MAY WELL HAVE BETTER IDEAS!) CONSERVE UNITS
Plan carefully. Throwing away units early on in uncoordinated attacks will leave you very short of manpower. Early on it may be best to conserve units if in doubt as to where to employ them. Thats the way I work. I may just be too cautious though.
HOLD
You should try and hold onto Tobruk and Malta. The loss of these cities could lead to a domino effect of Axis offensive events or may permanently block off the possibility of some future Allied offensive events. I would recomend holding Malta at all costs. The loss of Tobruk would be a blow to the Allies, but making sure you stop the Africa Corps reaching the Suez canal is vital so a strategic withdrawal may be necessary.
NOTES
I have included a text file called DATES to help the player keep track of time in the game. There are also monthly text pop ups to remind the player of the date. You may wish to make a printout of the date file to make notes on.
In the final version I will include a printable tech tree. At the moment I am still re-thinking some of the advances names and may change the placing of units and improvements on the tree depending on how the testing goes and whether I can fix the science rate problem.
THANKS
Fairline for the unit graphics. Curtsibling for the city graphics. Catfish for much of the terrain. Agricola and John Petroski for their invaluable playtesting. The Scenario League crew for being so helpful and being generally good sports!
TIP: Attack Casablanca first as Oran and Algiers have strongpoints homed to it!
