[WIP] SH5 True Dynamic Campaign

[R-T-B]

UPDATE: Most of the below info is obsolete. I've started a complete rewrite since then, and am at a sort of crossroads in development. The game will now either run using a propietary engine of my own design that is proving very diffilcult to get to act realistics, or it will interface with the game Making History Gold (and later, Making History 2). The pros/cons of each choice are listed below:

My own engine (Option 1) PROS:
-The submariner would be able to effect the outcome of the war.
-Faster campaign generation.

My own engine (Option 1) CONS:
-My engine is not behaving realisticly at the moment, and is proving diffilcult to tame.
-Could a submariner really effect the war THAT much? I really don't see it as that likely (not really a con but had to be said).

Making History (Option 2) PROS:
-Ability to play the game as germany in grand stratedgy mode, and then switch to a uboat and let the AI take over as desired. You could even have the AI play the whole war if you want. This would allow you to both command germany, and play as a captain of a uboat, perhaps averting the course of the war.
-much more realistic, believable war outcomes
Making History (Option 2) CONS:
-Much longer campaign generation (perhaps up to one hour)
-Silent Hunter 5 gameplay would no longer have an effect on the actual outcome of the war, at least not in the initial release.

If the mods here could make this thread a poll with the following options, I'd be most appreciative:

Option 1.) Original Engine

Option 2.) Interface with Making History Gold

Please read before voting, and let me know why you voted what you did in this thread.

Old post can be found below in quotes:


I'm just unveiling this today as I'm trying to decide whether to finish it or not. That and I need some help.

What I have here is very primitive, but should be very immersive all the same. I'm coding a simple VB.NET application to load a truly dynamic campaign, that is, based on your actions it should generate a different outcome in the war. You could theoretically get scenarios such as the UK siding with Germany, or something interesting like that. Granted it does this through a degree of randomization, but it takes historical relations into account so generally things will stick to history unless something signifigant happens.

TECHNICAL DETAILS:

This works by using a "loader" application that is run prior to playing the game, similar to SH3 commander. The application generates a campaign based on the recent events by the player (read straight from the save game files), as well as some random events that have a percentage chance of going either way. Once the campaign is written, you can play as long as you want in it, and then "regenerate" the campaign every once in a while (basically whenever you feel like it, probably best inbetween patrols) to regenerate relations and see if any war decs/or signifigant events have happened. It will then write a new campaign and you can patrol under the new circumstances.

This theoretically will allow you to play games even past 1945, provided germany survives. It simulates rudimentary control of ground cities and such to facilitate this.

TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS:

This engine only can work based on fixed "events." It's similar to the SH5 branching campaign in that each time it is run, "major" nations can make decisions, but only so many scenarios can happen. Example, if the UK sides with germany, the US will side with Japan. This is a temporary limitation and it is moddable in the sense that it simply copy and pastes fixed campaign files so you can customize each "event" to your liking.

It uses several formulas and an excel table to manage relations and predict wars. I'm attatching a notepad document below that I have used for notes to describe how it works. It's a bit crazy (I never intended anyone but me to read it) but it should explain things:

STATIC BOOST/LOSS,TREND PER MONTH
Unjustified Declaration of War (more than 2 in a year, or relation value above -25): -50,-1
Sinking of ship: -5,0
Militarization of non-allied state: 0,-1 (per military unit under half of value or over equal value)
Ideology Difference: 0, 1 per distance from Nation Ideology minus 50, -1 per distance from nation ideology + 50 when greater than 50.
At war with top allied nation = 0,-10
EVENTS (AI can execute three of these three per month)
EVENT: Relation repairing (can't be at war, can be declined) 25,1
EVENT: Badgering (can be at war, can't be declined)
-25,-1
EVENT: Build military 5% of Industrial Value,0
EVENT: Build industry 5% of Industrial Value,0
EVENT: Influence other countries ideology 1% of military strength,0 (for other country)

RANDOM EVENTS:

Revolution: Ideology change of random number +/- range of 75
Economic boost: Inudstrial point change of random +/- 50% range

COUNTRY ATTRIBUTES:
Ideology: Attribute indicating authoritarian nature of country. 75 extreme authoritarian nationalistic, 0 standard -75 extremely liberal democratic.
Extreme Authoritarian nationalistic (70 and above) get a penalty to any non-allied nations of -5 per turn.
Industrial points: LONG Value "skies the limit" effecting military production.
Relations = -100 to 100, less than -100 equals war.

Military strength, virtually unlimited unsigned LONG value. Can go as "high as the sky" so to speak.

War Formula = IF 0 > Relations + military percentage value (double and over = 50, %0 = -50) + War Justification Check (If not true add 100, +/- 25 for extreme liberal or authoritarian) THEN WAR

Please feel free to ask for clarification if neccesary, it is a bit hard to understand.

WHERE I NEED HELP:

I need help with the following arbitrary figures I am using: Industrial Capacity, Military Strength, Diplomatic relations. I need to generate an excel document of the initial relations as of August 1939 (when the game will start), and an excel document for industrial capacity and military strength. These figures are arbitrary and only represent percentages against other nations. If anyone could provide me a good resource to figure out the approximate strength in each catagory of each nation relative to each other, I'd be most appreciative, as it's proving too much for me.

FINAL NOTES:

This is far from finished. I'll probably have a non-gameplay functional demo up somewhere between a week to a month, depending on how hard I work. The actual final will take even longer, and likely be missing a few features. However, it IS going to happen, as I am highly enthusiastic about this project, it's just a matter of how much I can actually obtain of the above feature list. If I fail I will open source the project. Any help anyone can offer is more than welcome, because my knowledge of the actual historical values is a bit lacking. :)

You can go nuts now people. :)

[R-T-B]

I thought I'd add I'll be updating this thread with "Simulated war logs" (text files my engine outputs of major events) in the coming weeks. You can then debate the realism of my engine and where it needs improvements. :)

[piri_reis]

Hey man go slow, my head is about to explode :O:

So your program can parse savegame files?

[R-T-B]

Yeah man, I know. I did go a bit nuts as I pretty much have been working on this for the past week "top secret" I was working before I even had the game. ;) Keep in mind I never really intended anyone but me to read the notes in the quote.

A goal is to decode the savegame format via a hex editor. That's another thing I have a rudimentary understanding of looking over them in the past few days. It's yet to be implemented in my program (I want to get a realistic war enigine simulator going first), but I'm pretty sure it can be done via VB Binary file access commands.

EDIT: Actually, my understanding comes from SH3 save games, which I was testing with. I just looked at SH5 save games and they seem to be encrypted! Oh Ubi... :shakeshead:

No matter, there may still be a way around this, and even if not I can easily work without player impact, just would suck quite a bit.

EDITEDIT: Workaround found! I can look in the "Campaign Progress" text file and get all the information I need! It has my most recent kills nationality, for example!

[CCIP]

That sounds pretty intriguing. Keep us updated - hey, a bit of strategy in this never hurts, and it's always fun to explore even the distant "what-ifs" :yeah:

[R-T-B]

Yes, but my main goal for making this thread was to conduct research, we must keep that in mind. It's far from finished, heck, Lurker may finish his campaign before I even have a prototype out!

The engine is ready to parse excel files, but at the moment my fairly fake values are producing totally off the wall results that are far from believable (Germany declaring war on Italy, for example. WTF?) I need some acurate data, but have no idea where to find any... Especially not how to interpet it into a simple "Military/Relations/Industrial value" which is quite abstract. It's proving diffilcult, which is what prompted me to make this thread.

EDIT: Ok, let's start with something a little more simple:

What nations should qualify as "Major" nations? These are the nations that can actually go to war, decide policy, etc. The rest of the nations will be "Minor Nations" and unfortunately due to limitations at the moment, will only go to war if a major nation they are "associated" with does (they may/may not based on a decreasing percentage chance per turn), and they will never change their relations/industrial/military values. They also will generally lose wars if a bigger nation attacks them.

Right now, I'm thinking:

United States,
Germany,
Japan,
England (pretty much the whole empire will be treated as one unit, objections?),
Russia,
France,
Italy.

Thoughts? What "sub-nations" should be associated with each nation. For example, if the United States goes to war, should Mexico have a strong chance of following suite (just an example?). If so, Mexico should be considered a minor nation under the influence of the US. Please note, due to engine limitations at the moment only one "major" nation can be assigned to each subnation.

Thoughts? Also, if anyone could provide me with a complete list of nations in SH5, it'd help a lot for coding minor nations.

[R-T-B]

For those interested, this is the following excel workbook that will be used for relations. Comments welcome, and I could really use a list of minor nations to work with. I'll post my preliminary ideas soon:

http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/bcomputerconsulting/MOD/Table.jpg

Just FYI, there will be several editable tables like this that ship with my program.

BTW, Anyone ever played making history? It sort of like Hoi, which I never got into.

Anyhow, since I am using a similar system to it, I'm actually going to use it for reference military and industrial values until you guys give me some sources... It may be ugly, but who knows, might work. :P

EDIT: This is what Making History indicates industrial values should be. Thoughts?
http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/bcomputerconsulting/MOD/Table-1.png

[R-T-B]

I decided to make all nations represented in game by any sort of thing "major" nations AI wise. This will require a bit of a rewrite but I think it's neccesary to produce authentic results.

Here's my new table. Please comment. 100 relations = OMG I LOVE YOU, -100 = very bad words are used to describe the other nation

http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/bcomputerconsulting/MOD/Table-3.png

Thoughts? I sort of made a few up randomly, others came from Making History the video game. It's probably not the best, but we'll see how it runs soon. I'll also follow up with approximate industrial values (again, until I can find another source, taken from Making History. :/)

[iambecomelife]

Very fascinating. I myself would love to play into 1946 or even beyond.

Anyway, here are a few suggestions for minor nations:

GERMANY:

Finland (opposition to Soviets)
Spain (Franco's Nationalist/anti-Communist Policies)
Argentina (German expatriate population, pro-German military officers)

UNITED STATES:

Most of Central/South America, other than Argentina
Philippines (Quezon's pro-American Gov't)

France's and England's minor nations should probably be whatever colonies and ex-colonies they owned.

I have a copy of Conway's Fighting Ships for the WWII era, and I can give you an idea of how strong every country's navy would have been around 1939. Let me know if you're interested.

[R-T-B]

That'd be great. The main problem I'm running into is that many nations navies aren't actually represented in SH5. I don't know why, but I have to deal with that. As such, I either need someone to model a massive amount of ships for me (that'd be pretty hard to do honestly), or I just have to live with the nations I got at least for initial relase. Right now I'm going with the latter. The table above shows the nations present in SH5.

A bit dissapointing nations like Finland aren't present (It would've been cool to simulate the Winter War), but eh, not much I can do really.

BTW, based on your advice Germany and Argentina's relations will now be 20, as opposed to 10.

[iambecomelife]

I decided to make all nations represented in game by any sort of thing "major" nations AI wise. This will require a bit of a rewrite but I think it's neccesary to product authentic results.

Here's my new table. Please comment. 100 relations = OMG I LOVE YOU, -100 = very bad words are used to describe the other nation

http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/bcomputerconsulting/MOD/Table-2.png

Thoughts? I sort of made a few up randomly, others came from Making History the video game. It's probably not the best, but we'll see how it runs soon. I'll also follow up with approximate industrial values (again, until I can find another source, taken from Making History. :/)

A few suggs: I think Spain should be moderately hostile to the UK and France. IIRC several British ships were sunk by Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and by 1939 there would still be some anger between the countries, I suppose.

Ireland should be hostile to the English, although unlikely to go to war (historical resentment, the Easter Rebellion during WWI, etc.)

Japan and Russia should be somewhat more hostile to each other - right before WWII they were in an undeclared "hot war" with thousands of casualties.

[R-T-B]

A few suggs: I think Spain should be moderately hostile to the UK and France. IIRC several British ships were sunk by Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and by 1939 there would still be some anger between the countries, I suppose.

Ireland should be hostile to the English, although unlikely to go to war (historical resentment, the Easter Rebellion during WWI, etc.)

Japan and Russia should be somewhat more hostile to each other - right before WWII they were in an undeclared "hot war" with thousands of casualties.

Noted. As I said my history isn't what it could be, so this help is massively appreciated. I'm a coder and a gamer first, a historian second. :)

I'll update the image to show the changes. Japan and Russia are now -25, ireland and england -10, Spain and england/france now -5.

EDIT: Table now up to date. I'm eager to plug this baby into my engine and simulate a war for you guys! Wouldn't that just top off the evening? Just need to work on the industry table now...

[R-T-B]

Here's the alliance table. Tables within their own alliance will take a lot more relation drops to go to war, and will also react quite differently to millitarization of other allied countries (they won't see a larger military as a bad thing).

Unalligned nations (Group UNALIGN) can go to war with each other (and anyone) freely.

http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/bcomputerconsulting/MOD/Table-4.png

Now for the ideology table and industry table. With that (and some source code changes) I should be able to generate a sample war.

[R-T-B]

Got them done. Now I spend the rest of the evening updating the source code, which gives you time to comment on the values above and say whether you like/dislike them. Tomorrow (or the day after), we should have a sample war!

See the quote above to understand the country attributes. The names are simply the first three leters of the countries real name (ie NET=Netherlands)

http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/bcomputerconsulting/MOD/Table-6.png

[Highbury]

You list ENG but not UK.. are the Commonwealth countries (Australia, NZ, Canada etc) included in that? They would be at war as soon as England was in any case so it may be easier to consider them one and the same.

[R-T-B]

All commonwealth countries are consolidated for simplicity. This includes the capacity their colonies and such provide in industry and military, all take from the video game Making History, which seems to be working reasonably well.

[etheberge]

Very interesting concept!

My suggestion would be not to worry about stuff like ship models for now, you can always use generic units at the beginning. This sounds like a long term project so people would come along and offer to model ships, do re-skins and stuff for you.

As far as Lurkers campaign is concerned, I'm sure he'll be sticking 100% to historical events and shipping so the two of you would have completely different target audiences.

[R-T-B]

That's probably true. However, my goal is to have history followed to a fairly realistic extent. I don't want totally off the wall scenarios, just to have the player feel like it's a living dynamic world in which he can play a part. ;)

And yes, ship models are a low priority. I'm working on getting my first war log spit out first!

[JScones]

They would be at war as soon as England was in any case so it may be easier to consider them one and the same.
Not correct.

Canada's PM Mackenzie King didn't formally declare war on Germany until 10 September 1939, after a special Parliamentary sitting approved his request to do so. Although listening to his 3 September 1939 speech here (http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/09/10/) you'll hear, unsurprisingly, that Canada provided full support after Britain's declaration.

South Africa's new PM Jan Smuts declared war on Germany on 6 September 1939. This occured after his predecessor, JBM Hertzog, was disposed through party disagreement over his preference to remain neutral.

Unlike Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland, these two countries had adopted the Statute of Westminster 1931, which gave them political independence. Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland thus were considered at war as soon as Britain declared (although both PMs gave rousing speeches, and in the case of NZ, at the same time as Chamberlain).

[R-T-B]

I'm aware of those events, but due to my desire to simplify what is already turning out to be a massive project, I'm going to consolidate the commonwealth. Why? It would be very complicated to do anything else, and basically they all follow each other anyways, just a matter of how long it takes for them to do it. ;)

A few days inaccuracy should not cripple the game neccesarily.

[bigboywooly]

Hmmm long been a subject of debate just what would have happened if Britain had surrendered
Most likely the rest of the commonwealth would have fought on
Nice project but to see Aus\NZ etc following Britains path verbatim is not quite right methinks

[R-T-B]

Hmmm long been a subject of debate just what would have happened if Britain had surrendered
Most likely the rest of the commonwealth would have fought on
Nice project but to see Aus\NZ etc following Britains path verbatim is not quite right methinks

*sighs* You guys really have a way of twisting ones arm, you know that? I'm already up at one in the morning.

Just kidding, it's fine. :)

Fine, I'll make them seperate countries with super high relations. They should theoretically still most of the time follow each other if the "best buddy is at war" routine I wrote is standing up.
Chances are this will mess up the first war log, but hey, let's give it a try anyhow. Why not? :D

[urfisch]

interesting project!!!

[TarJak]

Hmmm long been a subject of debate just what would have happened if Britain had surrendered
Most likely the rest of the commonwealth would have fought on
Nice project but to see Aus\NZ etc following Britains path verbatim is not quite right methinks
Too bloody right mate! The most likley outcome if Britain had capitulated would be for Curtin to bring home our troops earlier for home defence against the Japanese. Depending on how British possessions were divvied up after capitulation the Pacific war could have been quite different.

It may have freed up RAAF and RNZAF pilots from the European Theatre for duty back home also.

Interesting scenario and good luck with the mod.

[R-T-B]

This is the current AI thought process. I'm going to use this to determine the first campaign that will be generated. This is just psuedocode, I'm going to finish the real code tomorrow as well as (hopefully) publish the first war journal:

Each country AI process:

First execute random events on nation, execute drifts based on ideology with each country, and load a universal top ten industrial and military list.

Load alliances

Load Top Ten allies and relations/strength/ideology

Load Top Ten enemies and relations/strength/ideology

Check ideology.

If Ideology is greater than 50, go to Fascist process.

If Ideology is inbetween -50 and 50 go to neutral process

If Ideology is -50 or less go to Democratic Process

Facist Process:

Check each country in top ten enemy list in succesion, check war formula

War Formula = IF 0 > Relations + military percentage value (double and over = 50, %0 = -50) + War Justification Check (If not true add 100, +/- 25 for extreme liberal or authoritarian) THEN WAR

Execute war dec if war formula passes, repeast as neccesary

If actions remain (3 are available per month) do the following:

Build Industry/Military (25/75 chance)

Badger top enemy country if in war list, or relation buildup with lowest member of top ten allies. (50/50 chance)

Influence top ten highest industrial list nation, decide which one by highest relations

Neutral process:

Attempt to smoothe over relations in at least 2 countries if countries exist in "top enemy list" with less than -25 relations, if none exist with -25 or less relations pass

Check if nation in alliance has declared war, if so execute wardec formula on nation they declared war on with an additonal + 50 - 10 * per turn away from the wardec.

Evaluate Strongest enemy, evaluate Strongest Friend, compare military strength. Improve relations with that one.

Build Industry

Build Military

Democratic Process::

Find lowest relation member of alliance, if less than 75 increase relations

Check each country in top enemy list in succesion, check war formula. Execute if passes, repeat as much as neccesary.

Build Industry

Find Lowest member of top ten friends list, increase relations if less than 50

Influence top ten highest industrial list nation, decide which one by highest relations

Check military values of top enemies, if any enemy is 75% of current value of home military, build military

[Highbury]

Not correct.

Canada's PM Mackenzie King didn't formally declare war on Germany until 10 September 1939, after a special Parliamentary sitting approved his request to do so. Although listening to his 3 September 1939 speech here (http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/09/10/) you'll hear, unsurprisingly, that Canada provided full support after Britain's declaration.

South Africa's new PM Jan Smuts declared war on Germany on 6 September 1939. This occured after his predecessor, JBM Hertzog, was disposed through party disagreement over his preference to remain neutral.

Unlike Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland, these two countries had adopted the Statute of Westminster 1931, which gave them political independence. Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland thus were considered at war as soon as Britain declared (although both PMs gave rousing speeches, and in the case of NZ, at the same time as Chamberlain).

Yeah, I am a Canadian and not a young one so I know the history pretty well. I should have been more precise but my intent was to say that, even if it was a few days delayed, Canada, Australia, NZ etc would not have let England stand alone in a war at that time in history. :03:

[R-T-B]

Just an update, the AI is coming along well and I'll have a war log posted before this evening comes. :)

[Charlie901]

Looking great!

Man.....

My dream would be to have a Falcon 4.0 Dynamic Campain System in SH5... :rock:

[R-T-B]

Just in between lines of code, got to rest my brain...

What is Falcon 4.0? Never played it. Would be good to have some inspiration. :)

[Hell_Diver]

wow this is absolutely amazing guys.. this would be like my dream come true.. have you considered setting up a paypal donation account.. im sure alot of us would like to donate to such a project

Just in between lines of code, got to rest my brain...

What is Falcon 4.0? Never played it. Would be good to have some inspiration. :)falcon 4.0 was one of my favorites.. i believe the game modeled everything from the f-16 fighters to companies of troops and armored battalions artillery.. the war would unfold around you, maybe your flying to your target and see some hinds strafing Abrams guarding a key bridge and you could swoop in to help,.. and your actions could effect the outcomes of certain battles.. it was almost impossible to significantly affect the outcome unless you were an ace shooting down dozens of aircraft and bombing key bridges / industry's / power-plants... (at least on hard difficulty) ( however even if you couldn't change the course of the battle, you might prolong the war or delay the enemy advance, the battle was a fictional ~1990s battle over the Korean Peninsula, your airfield could be put out of action by bombing the runway, or hangers ect, it would repair, or you would be transferred somewhere else) the enemy could attack an aircraft carrier off shore and knock them out, you could attack just about anything related to the war effort and industry or airfileds, supply convoys and it would effect replacements, munitions ammunition, the supply of each individual weapon and ordinance. you might say run out of 2000 lb bombs and be limited to other weapons, , it was pretty impressive for such an old game, it would still be an amazing game if they updated the graphics and ai

[R-T-B]

Actually, I was getting to that, but I didn't want to bring it up right now. ;)

This project is going to be commercial. Sorry guys, but there's no way I could motivate myself to finish and keep up to date otherwise. :/ I really want to support this for the long term and a small fee is the only way I can do that. Afterall, I also have a job and am a fulltime student. :/

It's going to be a nominal fee though, I'm thinking about $5, and there will be a free version that doesn't interact with Silent Hunter for release as a demo... So you'll know what your getting. You'll also get a lifetime of support. Payments will be made through paypal, and exceptions can be made for those who desperately want a copy but can't send me money via paypal for whatever reason (just don't abuse this).

I know, you're probably all skeptical right now, but when I release the first demo program and see my work I think you'll all agree it's worth it. Plus, it's DRM free, and the fee will give you a source code license for personal use! Try getting ubisoft to do that. :har:

Right now, I have about 1000 lines of code from just last night. And that's just the incomplete demo! So I hope you can understand wanting to be reimbursed for my work somewhat. ;)

[Hell_Diver]

heh ill donate alot more than $5 if this is going to be as awesome as i think it is... can't wait

any possibility, that different countries might deploy / build different amounts of ships depending on how country allegiances play out? how are you going to determine whether countries surrender in battle ect? any possibility the out come of a conflict could be somewhat dynamic such as using you military and economic scores say the player may be able to affect the values to a very small extent such as removing military points for troop transports or warships suck and removing economic points for sinking merchants supply, and say how fast or slow a country surrenders to another may be predicated in the imbalance of the point scores against each other, so say UK is fighting German and i mange to sink 100 merchant points in my career affecting 100 points of economic score there by limiting military production a certain number of points which might prolong the war a month .. something like that would be cool, of course actually changing the course of the war would be likely a 1 in a 100 chance, and only possible if the two countries fighting were really evenly matched

[R-T-B]

heh ill donate alot more than $5 if this is going to be as awesome as i think it is... can't wait

any possibility, that differnt countreis might deploy / build differnt amounts of ships depending on how country allegiances play out? how are you going to determine whether countries surrender in battle ect? this sounds like a monumental task

It is quite the task, that's for sure. The first release won't have everything you list, but it will do a rudimentary simulation of countries surendering/losing, turf changes, etc. It won't however change shipping lanes until the "2.0" release I imagine, which I plan to feature dynamic shipping lanes, more nations and more boats (contributions welcome, Finland is a major one I need to add, not in game and Russia goes to war with them), and many many more things.

There's no limit to how much you can add, because I'm writing it to be very modular. Nearly everything is wrapped in a callable subroutine or function so it's very modular, almost scriptable (heck, it could be with some work, but that's a low priority).

The first war log will simply simulate wars using a very rudimentary formula of "my military slowly grinds yours down based on numbers," sort of like battling spreadsheets. It works, but it's not ideal. The final 1.0 release will feature something much better, though I'm not saying much yet. ;)

As far as changing the war goes, random events such as "economic booms" and "economic depressions" exist, allowing some things to change simply due to randomization. It should provide a different, but historical feeling experience each time if I can tune it right.

Of course, if you don't like how it's acting, it reads it's data from excel spreadsheets, and you have the source code, so there's nothing to stop you from changing it! :)

[The Fishlord]

Wow...just skimmed the first pages of this thread but it looks like you're on to something. Obviously the chances of it happening in real life were near null, but...just what if I blew up Stalin on the way to Yalta? I wonder if you'll be able to code specific, one time ships like that having such a high value. Looks interesting, keep up the good work! Can't wait for a release :salute:

[R-T-B]

It WOULD be interesting if my engine could attribute the "Revolution" event I have coded to trigger when certain ships, ones with particularly heavy escort preferably... Ones a leader might be on, sink...

Who knows? Probably won't make it into first release but I'll tell you know it is possible.

[iambecomelife]

It is quite the task, that's for sure. The first release won't have everything you list, but it will do a rudimentary simulation of countries surendering/losing, turf changes, etc. It won't however change shipping lanes until the "2.0" release I imagine, which I plan to feature dynamic shipping lanes, more nations and more boats (contributions welcome, Finland is a major one I need to add, not in game and Russia goes to war with them), and many many more things.

There's no limit to how much you can add, because I'm writing it to be very modular. Nearly everything is wrapped in a callable subroutine or function so it's very modular, almost scriptable (heck, it could be with some work, but that's a low priority).

The first war log will simply simulate wars using a very rudimentary formula of "my military slowly grinds yours down based on numbers," sort of like battling spreadsheets. It works, but it's not ideal. The final 1.0 release will feature something much better, though I'm not saying much yet. ;)

As far as changing the war goes, random events such as "economic booms" and "economic depressions" exist, allowing some things to change simply due to randomization. It should provide a different, but historical feeling experience each time if I can tune it right.

Of course, if you don't like how it's acting, it reads it's data from excel spreadsheets, and you have the source code, so there's nothing to stop you from changing it! :)

There probably won't be a need to build very many ships. There are dozens of unique warship models for minor nations that were built for SH3 and SH4 - as soon as we figure out how to convert the models for SH5 there won't be very many ship classes needed. Nearly all of the important Japanese ships, for example, can be ported over from SH4.

It would be interesting if you could produce a "ripple effect" from the players' individual sinkings, as some people have already alluded to. If commodity stocks are modeled, it could create some interesting situations. Perhaps there could be several primary categories of goods:

POL (Petroleum/Oil/Lubricants)
Carried in: TANKERS
Affects: MILITARY OPS
CIVILIAN HAPPINESS (Gasoline, Heating Oil, &c.)

AMMUNITION
Carried in: FREIGHTERS
Affects: MILITARY OPS

FOOD
Carried in: FREIGHTERS, REEFER SHIPS
Affects: CIVILIAN HAPPINESS

MINERAL ORES
Carried in: BULK CARRIERS
Affects: INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT

TROOPS
Carried in: TROOP CARRIERS
Affects: MILITARY OPS

MILITARY STORES
Carried in: FREIGHTERS
Affects: MILITARY OPS

CONSUMER GOODS
Carried in: FREIGHTERS
Affects: CIVILIAN HAPPINESS

For instance, Player X goes out on patrol and sinks four British freighters and a British tanker in October 1939. Assuming all the ships were loaded. Britain loses, maybe, 2 points worth of consumer goods, one point of military stores, and one point of food, plus one point of petroleum products. The 20-30 U-Boats on patrol in 1939 will therefore sink an average of 5 ships per patrol, give or take a few. Over all, British resolve is shaken but not destroyed - after all, it's early in the war, and there are still a lot of merchants left.

A small number of U-Boats will be lost, based on historical averages for that time period. If the player's U-Boat is lost, then assume a higher U-Boat loss rate.

Democracies should be more sensitive to factors like civilian unhappiness, because they lack dictatorship's brutal efficiency. Also, countries like Britain and the USA should be accustomed to having more consumer goods than, say, Russia or Japan. If civilian unhappiness declines enough, then countries should suffer from civil wars, unrest, or even sue for peace. If petroleum/ammo stocks decline, it would be great if the campaign layers spawned fewer aircraft and naval sorties (shortages of ammo, aviation fuel, & bunker fuel).

Countries with smaller merchant fleets should suffer greater point penalties per merchant ship sunk. This can be mitigated somewhat if they have an ally with a large merchant fleet.

Sinking certain "prestige units" like Battleships should cause a large morale penalty/increase in unhappiness. The military would try to censor these losses, but of course word got around.

I don't know how much of this is possible - I'm just throwing out ideas. :cool:

[R-T-B]

There probably won't be a need to build very many ships. There are dozens of unique warship models for minor nations that were built for SH3 and SH4 - as soon as we figure out how to convert the models for SH5 there won't be very many ship classes needed. Nearly all of the important Japanese ships, for example, can be ported over from SH4.

It would be interesting if you could produce a "ripple effect" from the players' individual sinkings, as some people have already alluded to. If commodity stocks are modeled, it could create some interesting situations. Perhaps there could be several primary categories of goods:

POL (Petroleum/Oil/Lubricants)
Carried in: TANKERS
Affects: MILITARY OPS
CIVILIAN HAPPINESS (Gasoline, Heating Oil, &c.)

AMMUNITION
Carried in: FREIGHTERS
Affects: MILITARY OPS

FOOD
Carried in: FREIGHTERS, REEFER SHIPS
Affects: CIVILIAN HAPPINESS

MINERAL ORES
Carried in: BULK CARRIERS
Affects: INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT

TROOPS
Carried in: TROOP CARRIERS
Affects: MILITARY OPS

MILITARY STORES
Carried in: FREIGHTERS
Affects: MILITARY OPS

CONSUMER GOODS
Carried in: FREIGHTERS
Affects: CIVILIAN HAPPINESS

For instance, Player X goes out on patrol and sinks four British freighters and a British tanker in October 1939. Assuming all the ships were loaded. Britain loses, maybe, 2 points worth of consumer goods, one point of military stores, and one point of food, plus one point of petroleum products. The 20-30 U-Boats on patrol in 1939 will therefore sink an average of 5 ships per patrol, give or take a few. Over all, British resolve is shaken but not destroyed - after all, it's early in the war, and there are still a lot of merchants left.

A small number of U-Boats will be lost, based on historical averages for that time period. If the player's U-Boat is lost, then assume a higher U-Boat loss rate.

Democracies should be more sensitive to factors like civilian unhappiness, because they lack dictatorship's brutal efficiency. Also, countries like Britain and the USA should be accustomed to having more consumer goods than, say, Russia or Japan. If civilian unhappiness declines enough, then countries should suffer from civil wars, unrest, or even sue for peace. If petroleum/ammo stocks decline, it would be great if the campaign layers spawned fewer aircraft and naval sorties (shortages of ammo, aviation fuel, & bunker fuel).

Countries with smaller merchant fleets should suffer greater point penalties per merchant ship sunk. This can be mitigated somewhat if they have an ally with a large merchant fleet.

Sinking certain "prestige units" like Battleships should cause a large morale penalty/increase in unhappiness. The military would try to censor these losses, but of course word got around.

I don't know how much of this is possible - I'm just throwing out ideas. :cool:

All of it is possible, but to implement every bit of that would take many many months, if not years. Right now, things are represented as a simple "industrial value" that can be impacted from sinkings, but because of my modular code nothing is stopping me from changing that. It just probably won't happen for the first release. ;)

Once I have my first release out, I'll start a poll on "most wanted features" and we'll go from there.

BTW guys, I'll be needing some beta testers. When the time comes I'll let you know. Everyone however will get a copy of the non-gameplay-functional demo log exporter, which should provide some ahistorical fun. :)

The beta testers will get the full thing, but they have to deal with the bugs, so it probably won't be so much fun at first. ;)

[Ziggy]

I don't know if I should point this out, if it is just to make things easier to do I understand. Having Eastern Europe allied doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Especially Poland and Russia, considering their long history of war and the Russo-Polish War in 1919-21, and again in 1939 a few weeks after the German Invasion. Poland was allied to France and England at this point before the war. Sorry ahead of time if I missed something and just made an ass of myself I am very tired :-p.

Ok I finished my history nit picking. I will be quiet now.

[R-T-B]

Alliances are a simple drag and drop to change, so should I move Russia into it's own UNALLIGNED bubble and make those other nations members of their own EASALLIES?

That's what I'm thinking of doing now.

[R-T-B]

Russia is now unaligned. My engine is starting to spit out it's first output figures now. According to it, in the first month America and Germany will lose 6 relation points (on a scale of 100 to -100). Reasons? Military Buildup and Ideological differences. Sounds logical thus far.

I can't get much more right now out of it, but by morning we should have a text log. :)

[Nightcloak]

im impressed, this idea has a lot of potential!
it sort of reminds me a bit of Hearts of Iron III
unity, industrial capacity and all that
if you need betatesters i would be most happy to help (ahistorical is fun anyways :P)

btw i would recommend HoI3 for some inspiration if you feel like it, bit buggy but still fun just like SH5

keep up the brainstorming!

[R-T-B]

im impressed, this idea has a lot of potential!
it sort of reminds me a bit of Hearts of Iron III
unity, industrial capacity and all that
if you need betatesters i would be most happy to help (ahistorical is fun anyways :P)

btw i would recommend HoI3 for some inspiration if you feel like it, bit buggy but still fun just like SH5

keep up the brainstorming!

I never got into HoI because I felt like it was too scripted, never tried 3 though maybe I should give it a shot.

My original idea was to link to HoI or Making History and have it do the dirty work for conflict, but this proved impossible to manage. I have no idea how to get those games to export any kind of meaningful, usable log files.

[Nightcloak]

yeah 1 and 2 was pretty traintracked, most people actually complain that 3 runs ahistorical a lot so might be better for you :)

[R-T-B]

I like a balance between ahistorical and believable. That's actually why I'm not releasing my first log right now, it's very very ahistorical.

I'm working on making it a little more real before posting anything it spits out.

[Hell_Diver]

hey ive got another idea.. i dont know if it would be possible or not.. but i always hate that i have to leave my uboat docked for a month or tow when RTB, and i miss portions of the war.. would it be possible to give the player command of two separate uboats.. so that while one is refitting in port, you can take the second one out.. that way you wont miss much of the war, and when you RTB your other boat will be refitted and ready to sail out again.. i think this idea is awesome, maybe needs its own mod though

[R-T-B]

hey ive got another idea.. i dont know if it would be possible or not.. but i always hate that i have to leave my uboat docked for a month or tow when RTB, and i miss portions of the war.. would it be possible to give the player command of two separate uboats.. so that while one is refitting in port, you can take the second one out.. that way you wont miss much of the war, and when you RTB your other boat will be refitted and ready to sail out again.. i think this idea is awesome, maybe needs its own mod though

Yeah, I don't know how I'd accomplish that unfortunately.

First screenshot from the engine:

http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/bcomputerconsulting/MOD/MyWork.jpg
:har:


Based on these results, I think I need to implement "attack regions." The Axis declaring war on New Zealand isn't cool. :lol: Germany should historically only attack european targets, and if anyone is attcking New Zealand, it should be Japan.

Also, the war dec formula needs to take allied strength into account.

Don't worrk, I am working on it. ;)

[Hell_Diver]

so the axis declared war on new Zeland and the UK did nothing? should that trigger the UK declaring war on Germany?

[R-T-B]

Yes, It should. I simply posted that for humour purposes. I've now fixed that bug. :)

Plus the Axis nations are much less likely to declare war outside of it's turf now. :)

[pditty8811]

Can't wait, this was the only drawback to SH3.

Possibly too, if you sink the Ark Royal or any other ship it will be gone for the rest of the campaign. Will that be possible? Can we do this, once ships are sunk they will not appear again in the campaign?:hmmm:

[R-T-B]

Can't wait, this was the only drawback to SH3.

Possibly too, if you sink the Ark Royal or any other ship it will be gone for the rest of the campaign. Will that be possible? Can we do this, once ships are sunk they will not appear again in the campaign?:hmmm:

That's certainly possible. Actually, it's in the roadmap. Won't be in first release though.

As you guys may have picked up, the first real release will be barebones, but will allow adding of many many features in the future. :)

[R-T-B]

The Region system is just about done. Just for kicks, here's what the Axis is thinking in my current engine. Keep in mind the allies have no AI yet, so only the axis can declare war. Also, since the war system is not implemented yet, neighther side can do any damage, so it's quite pointless but it does show that the AI is thinking right. :)

Here it is, our first very very incomplete log, but a log nontheless!


9/1/1939: GER has declared war on POL
11/1/1939: ITA has declared war on BEL
12/1/1939: GER has declared war on BEL
2/1/1940: ITA has declared war on POL
3/1/1940: GER has declared war on GRE
4/1/1940: ARG has been the victim of right wing coup!
5/1/1940: ITA has declared war on DEN
7/1/1940: ARG has declared war on DEN
10/1/1940: ARG has declared war on NOR
3/1/1941: GER has declared war on FRA
3/1/1941: JAP has declared war on USA
9/1/1941: GER has declared war on NET
9/1/1941: JAP has declared war on AUS
12/1/1941: GER has declared war on DEN
6/1/1942: JAP has declared war on CAN
6/1/1942: ITA has declared war on FRA
8/1/1942: JAP has declared war on NZL
9/1/1942: ITA has declared war on USA
10/1/1942: JAP has declared war on SOA
12/1/1942: ITA has declared war on ENG
5/1/1945: IRE has been the victim of a left wing coup!


As you can see, there are still a few glitches. Notably, the commonwealth isn't responding to war decs properly, but that's mostly because their AI is turned off. ;) Don't be confused by all the war declerations though, it won't be like that in the real game... The Axis just thinks it's winning since the Allied AI is disabled. As such, they take advantage of the situation by picking new targets. Italy even got so bold towards the end as to take on the USA.

Nice, eh?

[Nightcloak]

nice indeed

[R-T-B]

Just another before bed time:


8/1/1939: GER has declared war on POL
8/1/1939: GER has gone to war without justification! International outcry ensues.
12/1/1939: JAP has declared war on RUS
6/1/1940: GER has declared war on FRA
8/1/1940: GRE has been the victim of a left wing coup!
6/1/1941: GER has declared war on BEL
6/1/1942: GER has declared war on NET
10/1/1942: PAN has been the victim of right wing coup!
6/1/1943: JAP has declared war on AUS
8/1/1943: RUS has been the victim of right wing coup!
8/1/1943: RUS has declared war on AUS
3/1/1944: RUS has declared war on CAN
6/1/1944: JAP has declared war on CAN


As you can see, the scenarios are getting more and more believable all the time, only thing wrong with that one is Japan and Russia siding with eachother...

Regardless, I'm going to finish the allied AI tomorrow morning. My bet is when the Axis finally gets something to play against, these logs will get real interesting, real fast.

And the best part is, before long those dates on the side will translate into events in a Silent Hunter 5 campaign. :)

[R-T-B]

Here's a war log with the "Verbose" action checked, from 1939 to 1945. This literally says EVERYTHING the countries are doing. The Axis AI is still the only functional one, but as you can see, it is working quite well and realisticly. :) I bolded the interesting parts.

Not bad for less than a weeks work. I also fixed the date bug (events would only happen on the 1st of a month):


8/22/1939: GER has declared war on POL
8/22/1939: GER has gone to war without justification! International outcry ensues.
8/22/1939: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 8185
9/27/1939: GER has attempted to improve relations with ICE. Relations are now at: -31
9/27/1939: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3148
10/30/1939: JAP has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -30
10/30/1939: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 1830
12/4/1939: ITA has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -35
1/4/1940: GER is experiencing an economic depression!
1/4/1940: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 8324
1/24/1940: GER has threatened PAN. Relations are now at: -88
1/24/1940: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3580
3/2/1940: JAP has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -55
3/2/1940: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2051
3/4/1940: ITA has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -65
4/4/1940: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 8463
5/5/1940: GER has threatened PAN. Relations are now at: -103
5/5/1940: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3228
6/12/1940: JAP has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -70
6/12/1940: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 1881
7/16/1940: ITA has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -80
8/16/1940: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 8602
9/22/1940: GER has threatened IRE. Relations are now at: -88
9/22/1940: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3662
11/9/1940: JAP has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -85
11/9/1940: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2104
12/26/1940: ITA has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -95
1/26/1941: GER is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 5681
3/5/1941: GER has threatened IRE. Relations are now at: -103
3/5/1941: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3310
3/29/1941: JAP has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -100
3/29/1941: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 1934
5/2/1941: ITA has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -110
6/2/1941: USA is experiencing an economic boom!
6/2/1941: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 8745
6/21/1941: GER has threatened LIT. Relations are now at: -88
6/21/1941: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3746
6/30/1941: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 1988
8/4/1941: GER has declared war on LIT
8/4/1941: GER has gone to war without justification! International outcry ensues.
8/4/1941: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 8888
8/22/1941: GER has attempted to improve relations with NOR. Relations are now at: -77
8/22/1941: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3830
9/12/1941: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2159
10/11/1941: AUS is experiencing an economic boom!
11/11/1941: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 9031
11/13/1941: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3394
11/23/1941: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2214
1/10/1942: GER is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 5824
2/7/1942: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3916
2/28/1942: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2269
4/20/1942: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 9177
4/20/1942: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4002
5/17/1942: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2324
7/4/1942: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 9323
7/25/1942: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4088
8/4/1942: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2379
9/22/1942: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 9469
9/28/1942: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4174
10/16/1942: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 2043
12/11/1942: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 9615
12/16/1942: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4260
12/29/1942: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2436
2/12/1943: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 9761
3/14/1943: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4346
3/31/1943: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 2100
5/24/1943: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 9907
5/26/1943: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4432
6/15/1943: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2494
8/3/1943: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 10053
8/8/1943: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4518
9/2/1943: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2552
10/30/1943: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 10199
11/24/1943: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4604
12/6/1943: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2610
1/31/1944: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 10345
2/9/1944: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4690
2/29/1944: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 2158
3/29/1944: CUB has been the victim of right wing coup!
3/29/1944: CUB is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 51
4/22/1944: CUB has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -55
5/22/1944: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 10491
5/28/1944: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3480
6/1/1944: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2669
6/25/1944: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 81
8/12/1944: CUB has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -70
9/12/1944: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 10637
9/29/1944: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4779
10/26/1944: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2728
11/21/1944: CUB is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 62
1/16/1945: CUB has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -85
2/16/1945: GER is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 5970
2/27/1945: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4868
3/21/1945: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2787
4/3/1945: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 92
5/18/1945: CUB has threatened RUS. Relations are now at: -100
6/18/1945: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 10787
6/28/1945: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 4957
7/25/1945: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2846
8/14/1945: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 103
10/13/1945: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 10937
10/26/1945: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5046
11/12/1945: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2905
12/10/1945: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 114
1/15/1946: GER is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 6120
2/13/1946: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3569
2/19/1946: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 2217
2/19/1946: CUB is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 73
4/12/1946: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 11091
4/12/1946: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5137
5/6/1946: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 2966
5/17/1946: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 125
6/19/1946: GER is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 6274
7/5/1946: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5228
7/8/1946: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3027
8/4/1946: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 136
9/6/1946: GER is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 6431
9/20/1946: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5319
9/27/1946: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3088
10/3/1946: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 147
11/3/1946: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 11252
11/8/1946: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5410
11/24/1946: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 2278
11/28/1946: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 158
1/7/1947: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 11413
1/21/1947: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5501
2/11/1947: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3150
2/24/1947: CUB is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 84
3/27/1947: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 11574
4/19/1947: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5592
5/10/1947: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3212
5/14/1947: CUB is experiencing an economic boom!
5/14/1947: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 170
6/30/1947: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 11735
7/25/1947: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3660
7/30/1947: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3274
8/4/1947: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 182
9/23/1947: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 11896
10/12/1947: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3753
10/15/1947: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3336
10/20/1947: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 194
11/25/1947: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 12057
12/23/1947: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5687
1/11/1948: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3398
1/11/1948: CUB is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 117
2/6/1948: NOR is experiencing an economic boom!
3/6/1948: GER is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 6592
3/17/1948: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5782
3/17/1948: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3460
3/23/1948: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 206
5/4/1948: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 12222
5/8/1948: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3848
5/11/1948: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3522
6/1/1948: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 218
8/1/1948: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 12387
8/14/1948: JAP is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 3946
8/20/1948: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3584
9/9/1948: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 230
11/8/1948: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 12552
12/8/1948: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5882
12/22/1948: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3646
12/28/1948: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 242
2/4/1949: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 12717
2/10/1949: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 5982
3/9/1949: ITA is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 2340
3/11/1949: CUB is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 254
4/16/1949: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 12882
5/5/1949: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 6082
5/22/1949: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3710
5/30/1949: CUB has been the victim of a left wing coup!
6/30/1949: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 13047
7/24/1949: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 6182
8/22/1949: RUS is experiencing an economic depression!
8/22/1949: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3774
10/4/1949: GER is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 13212
10/9/1949: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 6282
10/22/1949: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3838
11/28/1949: GER is building up its economy. Industry is now at: 6757
12/23/1949: JAP is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 6382
1/8/1950: ITA is building up its armed forces. Military is now at: 3902


When the allied AI is finished, I will release the first public demo (non game-interactional version). You will also all recieve a copy of the source code should you wish to contribute, but I will retain all rights to my work and any changes you submit. This will likely be the only source release before the final release, which will cost money. Don't build your own product off of this and try and sell it. ;)

If you want to be ready for the demo, I suggest you install the free excel reader if you don't have excel. The demo (and final product) depend on excel libraries to work.

You can get the reader for free here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1cd6acf9-ce06-4e1c-8dcf-f33f669dbc3a&displaylang=en

[xiombargdei]

WHERE I NEED HELP:

I need help with the following arbitrary figures I am using: Industrial Capacity, Military Strength, Diplomatic relations. I need to generate an excel document of the initial relations as of August 1939 (when the game will start), and an excel document for industrial capacity and military strength. These figures are arbitrary and only represent percentages against other nations. If anyone could provide me a good resource to figure out the approximate strength in each catagory of each nation relative to each other, I'd be most appreciative, as it's proving too much for me.

browsing through the mod threads i stumbled on this. I'm not a modder in any extent. But if you are looking for good and reliable info, video-game wise, about industrial capacity and such, you might find interest in the game Hearts of Iron 3 (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=415). Its an historical wargame simulation of WWII, its not perfect, but it tends to. Could this give you a good work basis to start your mighty project ?

[R-T-B]

browsing through the mod threads i stumbled on this. I'm not a modder in any extent. But if you are looking for good and reliable info, video-game wise, about industrial capacity and such, you might find interest in the game Hearts of Iron 3 (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=415). Its an historical wargame simulation of WWII, its not perfect, but it tends to. Could this give you a good work basis to start your mighty project ?

I was using Making History as a foundation, but yes, HoI is good too. In the end I got that part worked out pretty well, there'll be a test demo out soon. :)

[R-T-B]

Just a small update and bump for anyone who wants to give input on that matter.

I've nearly finished the allied and neutral AIs. Actually, the neutral and axis is completely finished, but I still am having some interacting glitches between them and the allies. I should have a demo up soon.

[Frizzo]

sweet :)

[ShadowWolf Kell]

This definitely sounds interesting.

Don't get me wrong, I like the typical "WW2 Experience" style sim that only presents history... But on the otherhand you get tired of that after awhile and would like to see something far more dynamic.

That's one of the reasons I liked playing Falcon 4.0 so much. You could play the same campaign 5 times, and each time it played out quite a bit differently. I was really surprised just how effective CAI missions could be, and taking out key strategic bridges to slow and funnel the enemy advance. Of course you might have to take the bridges out again because they could be repaired.

Imagine a pacific theatre game where the Japanese manage to intercept and destroy the Hornet while it's steaming towards Japan, and later sink the Big E at Midway. Oh yes, the outcome of the war would have drastically changed at that point.

It's intruiging that this is possible with SH5. The only real issue I see really is some of the gross blunders both Hitler and Goring forced upon the Luftwaffe, Kreigsmarine and Wermacht. The aftermath of some of those blunders were extremely pivotal points in the war that cost the Germans dearly.

[Sledgehammer427]

R-T-B, have you found a way to drag the game campaign past 1943?
I am probably too interested in this mod for my own good, but the devs at UBI Bucharest gave us a dynamic campaign, by jove, let's make it REALLY dynamic :D
I will be watching this thread, count on it :up:

[R-T-B]

Yes, extending the campaign is rather simple. Making anything of signifigance happen after 1943 is a bit harder, which is where all this coding comes in.

I'm nearly ready to release the demo. The allied AI is all but finished with it's testing. Thing is, then I have to code the actual part which takes the memory variables and edits a prebuilt "empty" campaign file I will provide with the proper events. I'm betting that will take the majority of the time, but at least you'll have a demo to play with between now and then, complete with source code (I retain rights, of course. ;) )

Watch this space!

[reaper7]

Excellent R-T-B, this looks very interesting. Looking forward to a release. :up:

[R-T-B]

Hey guys, just my evening update.

This is what it's doing now with all AI's enabled (still no actual surrender code though)

In this scenario, england declared war first, and Germany decided to skip invading Poland entirely:

9/1/1940: ENG has declared war on ITA
9/2/1940: FRA has declared war on ITA
9/3/1940: AUS has declared war on ITA
9/4/1940: CAN has declared war on ITA
9/5/1940: NZL has declared war on ITA
9/5/1940: SOA has declared war on ITA
10/6/1940: GER has declared war on ENG
10/6/1940: GER has declared war on FRA
10/7/1940: GER has declared war on AUS
10/7/1940: DEN has declared war on GER
10/7/1940: DEN has declared war on ITA
10/8/1940: ICE has declared war on ITA
10/9/1940: NET has declared war on GER
10/9/1940: NET has declared war on ITA
10/10/1940: CAN has declared war on GER
10/11/1940: NZL has declared war on GER
10/12/1940: SOA has declared war on GER
11/13/1940: GER has declared war on ICE
11/14/1940: RUS has declared war on ENG
11/14/1940: RUS has declared war on FRA
11/14/1940: RUS has declared war on DEN
11/14/1940: BEL has declared war on RUS
11/14/1940: BEL has declared war on ITA
11/15/1940: ICE has declared war on RUS
11/15/1940: NOR has declared war on RUS
11/15/1940: NOR has declared war on ITA
11/16/1940: AUS has declared war on RUS
11/17/1940: CAN has declared war on RUS
11/18/1940: NZL has declared war on RUS
11/18/1940: SOA has declared war on RUS
12/18/1940: GER has declared war on BEL
12/19/1940: GER has declared war on NOR
12/20/1940: RUS has declared war on NET
9/21/1941: USA has declared war on GER
9/21/1941: USA has declared war on ITA
12/21/1941: USA has declared war on RUS
5/21/1942: MEX has declared war on ITA
10/22/1942: JAP has declared war on RUS
5/23/1943: POL has declared war on ITA
8/24/1943: POL has declared war on RUS
8/24/1943: SPA has declared war on ITA
9/24/1943: POL has declared war on GER
11/25/1943: SPA has declared war on RUS
12/26/1943: JAP has declared war on ITA
3/26/1944: ARG has declared war on GER
3/26/1944: ARG has declared war on ITA
5/26/1944: BRA has been the victim of a left wing coup!
5/26/1944: ROM has declared war on ITA
6/27/1944: ROM has declared war on RUS
8/28/1944: BRA has declared war on ITA
3/1/1945: ROM has declared war on GER
6/1/1945: GRE has declared war on ITA
8/2/1946: LIT has declared war on RUS
12/2/1946: LIT has declared war on ITA
1/3/1947: IRE has declared war on ITA
2/3/1947: IRE has declared war on GER
2/4/1947: PAN has declared war on GER
2/5/1947: PAN has declared war on ITA
3/5/1947: GRE has declared war on GER
3/6/1947: LIT has declared war on GER
4/6/1947: BRA has declared war on GRE
4/7/1947: BRA has declared war on IRE
4/8/1947: BRA has declared war on LIT
4/8/1947: CUB has declared war on GRE
4/9/1947: CUB has declared war on IRE
4/10/1947: IRE has declared war on RUS
4/11/1947: AUS has declared war on CUB
4/12/1947: CAN has declared war on CUB
4/12/1947: NZL has declared war on CUB
4/12/1947: SOA has declared war on CUB
5/13/1947: BRA has declared war on PAN
5/14/1947: BRA has declared war on ROM
5/15/1947: BRA has declared war on AUS
5/16/1947: CUB has declared war on LIT
5/16/1947: POL has declared war on GRE
5/17/1947: SPA has declared war on AUS
5/17/1947: SPA has declared war on CAN
5/18/1947: SPA has declared war on NZL
5/18/1947: SOA has declared war on SPA
6/18/1947: ENG has declared war on SPA
6/18/1947: FRA has declared war on BRA
6/19/1947: BRA has declared war on SPA
6/19/1947: GRE has declared war on SPA
6/20/1947: IRE has declared war on SPA
6/20/1947: LIT has declared war on SPA
6/21/1947: ROM has declared war on SPA
7/21/1947: RUS has declared war on ITA
8/22/1947: SPA has declared war on GER
10/22/1947: RUS has declared war on GRE
2/22/1948: ENG has declared war on GRE
2/23/1948: PAN has declared war on GRE
3/23/1948: MEX has declared war on GER
4/24/1948: CUB has declared war on MEX
4/25/1948: ROM has declared war on GRE
4/26/1948: SPA has declared war on MEX
5/27/1948: USA has declared war on SPA
7/28/1948: ARG has declared war on IRE
7/29/1948: ARG has declared war on AUS
7/29/1948: ARG has declared war on CAN
7/29/1948: GRE has declared war on ARG
7/29/1948: LIT has declared war on ARG
7/30/1948: POL has declared war on ARG
7/31/1948: POL has declared war on SPA
8/1/1948: ROM has declared war on ARG
8/1/1948: NZL has declared war on ARG
8/2/1948: SOA has declared war on ARG
9/2/1948: ENG has declared war on ARG
11/2/1948: JAP has declared war on AUS
11/3/1948: JAP has declared war on CAN
11/4/1948: JAP has declared war on NZL
11/5/1948: ENG has declared war on JAP
11/6/1948: GRE has declared war on JAP
11/7/1948: IRE has declared war on JAP
11/7/1948: LIT has declared war on JAP
11/7/1948: POL has declared war on JAP
11/8/1948: SOA has declared war on JAP
2/8/1949: ROM has declared war on IRE
2/8/1949: ROM has declared war on CAN
3/8/1949: USA has been the victim of a left wing coup!
3/8/1949: ENG has declared war on ROM
3/9/1949: LIT has declared war on ROM
5/9/1949: FRA has declared war on SPA
6/10/1949: USA has declared war on GRE
6/11/1949: USA has declared war on CAN
6/12/1949: IRE has declared war on USA
6/13/1949: AUS has declared war on USA
7/13/1949: ENG has declared war on USA
10/13/1949: FRA has declared war on JAP
11/14/1949: ARG has declared war on RUS
1/14/1950: ARG has declared war on MEX
2/15/1950: JAP has declared war on MEX
3/15/1950: JAP has declared war on GER
4/16/1950: PAN has declared war on IRE
5/17/1950: FRA has declared war on USA
5/17/1950: PAN has declared war on MEX
5/18/1950: ROM has declared war on MEX
6/19/1950: FRA has declared war on ARG
6/19/1950: MEX has declared war on GRE
6/20/1950: MEX has declared war on IRE
6/20/1950: MEX has declared war on AUS
6/21/1950: POL has declared war on MEX
6/21/1950: ROM has declared war on JAP
6/21/1950: CAN has declared war on MEX
7/22/1950: USA has declared war on MEX
7/22/1950: ENG has declared war on MEX
7/22/1950: FRA has declared war on MEX
7/23/1950: BEL has declared war on ENG
7/24/1950: IRE has declared war on ENG
7/24/1950: LIT has declared war on MEX
7/24/1950: NET has declared war on ENG
8/25/1950: RUS has declared war on MEX
8/26/1950: PAN has declared war on ENG
8/26/1950: POL has declared war on IRE
8/26/1950: AUS has declared war on PAN
8/27/1950: CAN has declared war on PAN
9/28/1950: FRA has declared war on PAN
9/29/1950: FRA has declared war on ROM
9/29/1950: ICE has declared war on FRA
9/29/1950: IRE has declared war on FRA
9/29/1950: NET has declared war on FRA
9/29/1950: NOR has declared war on FRA
9/30/1950: PAN has declared war on RUS
10/1/1950: POL has declared war on PAN
10/2/1950: ROM has declared war on PAN
11/3/1950: DEN has declared war on POL
11/3/1950: ICE has declared war on POL
11/4/1950: NET has declared war on POL
11/5/1950: NOR has declared war on POL
12/5/1950: USA has declared war on POL


This obviously is not very realistic, with all AIs enabled at the moment a system of alliances tends to make everyone go to war with everybody, regardless of relations. I'm working on it, just thought you'd like to get an idea of the state of things. Note at the end, you can't really tell who's on who's side anymore! It's pretty much for lack of a better term, downright insane.

[Nightcloak]

might be a good idea to group contries into alliances but not right from the start
italy and japan wasnt axis from the beginning of WW2
just a thought tough

[krupp_88mm]

i would like to see as well as a surrender option.. also possibly a capitualtion... maybe if the industrial score falls to far, then the country has a higher chance of capitulation, so a country might not be militarily defeated, but just exits the war, kind of like italy giving up when it knew its beans were cooked, or the possibility GB would give up the war, (it could be some sort of random roll every so often that would be based on how much the indistrial score is a fraction of the original starting number.. also say german takes over france.. i think a good idea to add frances industrial score to that of Germany at a reduced rate,.. of say 30-50%(random) the value when they surrender, with a random event trigger of pupet nation, that would add thier forces to your side and add them as an ally, instead of conquered).. complex i like it

another idea.. i think it would be pretty easy to add an attrition rate modifier between different countries.. for example the modifier would limit the rate of military attrition, maybe a very slow rate (20%?) for say USA vs Russia, but a faster rate for Germany vs France (120%?)... therefore we receive realistic military degradation, and not USA grinding the full might of its military halfway around the world.. much easier to invade a neighbor.. makes sense?

of course i think your main problem right now is controlling the runaway situation where every country enters war.. HOI has the same problem.. thier must be a reasonable solution to this/ need to add some chance for war to escalate / de-escalate randomly.. maybe a counter every month the war lasts 'war weariness' increases you could have several modifiers that effect 'war weariness' including the industrial score, the length of time at war, and the rate of military losses per month as a fraction of total military power.. with of course more random events added in... say war weariness gets to high.. two things could happen.. there could be a attrition rate modifier change.. where no USA vs russia is no longer 20% but drops to 10% because Americans are tired of the war.. or it could result in an armistace / capitulation / surrender roll.. to see if the war will end...

since transports affect industrial score, and warships might effect military score.. maybe troop transports could affect both attrition rate / military score... and tankers could affect industrial score and attrition rate as well... maybe attrition rate increases if one side starts to become weaker? could have an event trigger military landing, that increases attrition rate many many options.. (which would spawn maybe more enemy ships troop transports) many many options.. so many ideas lol

[R-T-B]

Yeah, I need to do some edits to the code. The Axis needs to have it's dynamic changed so that Italy and Japan don't just follow suit right at the start of the war. Also, I need to break up some of the alliances so that the current "system of alliances" doesn't result in basically the whole world declaring war on itself. :)

As soon as I turned on the Allied AI, that's basically what happened. But it's easy enough to fix, I just don't have time right this evening. I'll likely have a fix up tomorrow.

i would like to see as well as a surrender option.. also possibly a capitualtion... maybe if the industrial score falls to far, then the country has a higher chance of capitulation, so a country might not be militarily defeated, but just exits the war, kind of like italy giving up when it knew its beans were cooked, or the possibility GB would give up the war, (it could be some sort of random roll every so often that would be based on how much the indistrial score is a fraction of the original starting number.. also say german takes over france.. i think a good idea to add frances industrial score to that of Germany at a reduced rate,.. of say 30-50% the calue when they surrender, with a random event trigger of pupet nation, that would add thier forces to your side and add them as an ally, instead of conquered).. complex i like it

another idea.. i think it would be pretty easy to add an attrition rate modifier between different countries.. for example the modifier would limit the rate of military attrition, maybe a very big rate for say USA vs Russia, but a much lower rate for Germany vs France... therefore we receive realistic military degradation, and not USA grinding the full might of its military halfway around the world.. much easier to invade a neighbor.. makes sense?

All that but the military attrition bit is planned for a 1.0 release. In other words, it may take a bit, but it will have those features. :)

[leipsfur]

Nice work! It's funny that poland is declaring war to germany :DL.

Will it be possible to influence the devlopment of the own country beyond the submarine? Like a HoI-SH5 mix?

[R-T-B]

Nice work! It's funny that poland is declaring war to germany :DL.

Will it be possible to influence the devlopment of the own country beyond the submarine? Like a HoI-SH5 mix?

My original plan was to link the game Making History (A sort of hoi type game, just more open-ended and less known) to Silent Hunter and let it run as the simulation. Theoretically, this would let the player play as Germany and direct the army as well as play as a submarine. However, it has proved very diffilcult to get Making history or HoI2 to export appropriate log files that can be read by my program. IF anyone has any insight into how to get them to do that, the idea is still on the table, as my personal simulation is proving very diffilcult. :(

[leipsfur]

What about converting save games from HoI into game data for SH5? I don't know what it's like in HoI2 but in HoI3 the save games are simply files with values for variables:
For example:
date="1944.8.2.12"
player="GER"
rebel=383
convoy=20239
theatre=377793
unit=71285
flags=
{
}
gameplaysettings=
{
setgameplayoptions=
{
2 }
}
id=
{
id=78667
type=4713
}
id=
{
id=71341
type=4714
}
rebel_faction=
{
id=
{
id=365
type=39
}
type="disgruntled_rabble"
name="Disgruntled Rabble"
country="GER"
target="GER"
independence="---"
government="national_socialism"
province=999
provinces=
{
3192 }
}
rebel_faction=
{
id=
{
id=378
type=39
}
type="nationalist_rebels"
name="Lithunian Nationalists"
country="GER"
target="GER"
independence="LIT"
government="national_socialism"
province=1442
army=
{
id=379
type=39
}
provinces=
{
1442 }
}
1=
{
owner="NOR"
controller="GER"
core="NOR"
revolt_risk=1.000

But I would prefer to use HoI2 because HoI3 has still some performance issus (needs sometimes up to 2,5 GB of ram).

The only Problem is then refreshing the save games in equal time periods since i don't think HoI2 and SH5 don't use the same time compression multiplier. So SH5 or HoI has to wait for the other game to synchronise.

[krupp_88mm]

http://www.mnstarfire.com/download/hoi/HoISaveGameReporter.html

check out this link i dont know but this might be useful for you

[R-T-B]

Great news! I found a way to read the "Making History" game save files! This game is my personal preference, both because of it's low system requirements and the fact that history is represented acurately, but with no restrictions on the gameplay in the form of fixed events.

As far as syncronization is concerned, the player would simply run the game prior to playing, and play with the resulting war. You could either let a random war be generated, or jump in on occasion and play when you feel germany is being particularly stupid. :) I don't know about HoI2, but with Making History you can do this by starting a game and playing it out for a bit in grand stratedgy mode in between patrols, and then when going out on patrol playing as a submarine captain the AI will take over. This has the drawback of totally eliminating player input in the form of Silent Hunter sinkings however on the other hand, I really can't see a single submarine captain (no matter how good) really changing the outcome of the war.

I agree with you, I'd like to avoid HoI3 if at all possible due to the inherent issues. I'm going to start a poll however as to which players would prefer: Being able to effect the war as a submariner (no matter how insignifigant that effect may be), or having a truly dynamic campaign where you can play as Germany in a grand stratedgy mode.

[Vikinger]

I decided to make all nations represented in game by any sort of thing "major" nations AI wise. This will require a bit of a rewrite but I think it's neccesary to produce authentic results.

Here's my new table. Please comment. 100 relations = OMG I LOVE YOU, -100 = very bad words are used to describe the other nation

http://i1020.photobucket.com/albums/af322/bcomputerconsulting/MOD/Table-3.png

Thoughts? I sort of made a few up randomly, others came from Making History the video game. It's probably not the best, but we'll see how it runs soon. I'll also follow up with approximate industrial values (again, until I can find another source, taken from Making History. :/)

You do miss the neutral nations like the Swedish.

Lots of swedish ships was sunk during the war.

Sweden also shiped most of germanys steel they needed during the war. 80% came from sweden.
And we was neutral country.

later the british put up an ultimate to sweden to stop the shipping and sweden responded to dubble cross hitler.

We give you steel but it was bad quality and sweden informed the british navy when thos shipments was gona take place. Many cargo ships was sunk becuse of this dubble crossing, but it was the tool the swedish gouverment had to pay if we still wanted to stay neutral. swedeb was not that neutral during the war. Damn chickens in my eyes,,,

[R-T-B]

You do miss the neutral nations like the Swedish.

Lots of swedish ships was sunk during the war.

Sweden also shiped most of germanys steel they needed during the war. 80% came from sweden.
And we was neutral country.

later the british put up an ultimate to sweden to stop the shipping and sweden responded to dubble cross hitler.

We give you steel but it was bad quality and sweden informed the british navy when thos shipments was gona take place. Many cargo ships was sunk becuse of this dubble crossing, but it was the tool the swedish gouverment had to pay if we still wanted to stay neutral. swedeb was not that neutral during the war. Damn chickens in my eyes,,,

Yeah, that table has seen some major revisions since then. Unfortunately, as of the moment Sweeden, finland, and other nations are not present in the game.

Sad, I know, but I didn't pick that country list, ubisoft did. I'm looking to fix it pretty soon though.

[Vikinger]

Sounds good, :) No matter what country that will be in , i have fait in your project. And if you need any help just give shout. Hopefully i can contribute whit something.

Vikinger.

[R-T-B]

Sounds good, :) No matter what country that will be in , i have fait in your project. And if you need any help just give shout. Hopefully i can contribute whit something.

Vikinger.

Just out of curiosity, what's everyone's oppinion on the question I edited into the opening post? I'm really curious as to whether I should start a complete rewrite to interface with Making History (my personal preference), or whether I should continue to fight with my current engine.

It'd be good to get some input before the moderators make this thread a poll.

[Vikinger]

From my point of view to make a mod. As you digg into it depper , you want to make more out of it.

But you must make a goal what you want to accomplish whit your mod.

If you try to make it realistic and take every aspect in count you will never finish the mod.

Go somewhere between, When you feel satisifed what you have accomplished then release it.

You will allways have players that are not so much into ww2 historiy and some are real into it that want realism to the top of the needle.

WW2 sea warfare cover so much and dont put that on your head. go somewhere between where you feel you are satisfied whit it.
Iam sure this mod will be awesome no matter what direction you take.

But set up a goal for what you want to accomplish for your self, instead of asking what others want, or you will never finish it.

[Nightcloak]

id actually prefer your coding over making history or HoI
just simply because its unpredictable :)
it gives an every changing gameplay thus challenging players ever anew and keeping them playing

honestly i wouldnt mind sink a few italians as germany :P

historical correctness is nice but not really entertaining in a long run

[R-T-B]

From my point of view to make a mod. As you digg into it depper , you want to make more out of it.

But you must make a goal what you want to accomplish whit your mod.

If you try to make it realistic and take every aspect in count you will never finish the mod.

Go somewhere between, When you feel satisifed what you have accomplished then release it.

You will allways have players that are not so much into ww2 historiy and some are real into it that want realism to the top of the needle.

WW2 sea warfare cover so much and dont put that on your head. go somewhere between where you feel you are satisfied whit it.
Iam sure this mod will be awesome no matter what direction you take.

But set up a goal for what you want to accomplish for your self, instead of asking what others want, or you will never finish it.

Thanks for the advice. Honestly, with my engines current state, I must admit I see a complete rewrite to interface with Making History to be the easiest path, esspecially to get a feature list like I want. I also like what the end result there would be more, I'd be able to support much more features and customization via the Making History engine. It MAY even be possible to make player input possible from the Silent Hunter 5 game, however, I don't see that as making it into first release. As you say, I must set my sights somewhere realistic.

I'm still running the poll because as I said earlier, I'm going to be asking $5 for this mod. I simply can't release it for cheaper than that due to the amount of effort going into it. I hope everyone will see that as reasonable.

id actually prefer your coding over making history or HoI
just simply because its unpredictable
it gives an every changing gameplay thus challenging players ever anew and keeping them playing

honestly i wouldnt mind sink a few italians as germany :P

historical correctness is nice but not really entertaining in a long run

Yes, I can see that. However, I want to say that the direction I want to take this mod is indeed historical with a bit of ahistorical, not a ton as we've been seeing with my current engine. I want a degree of uncertainity, not an entire ocean of it. ;)

So if I do keep my current code, I will be attempting to make it more realistic inevitably. I believe it will work better for everyone. Also, for Making History, there's a built in editor so you can easily build your own Silent Hunter scenarios from it (at least politically). And, you can decide who you want to fight personally, as you play the game.

I must admit I'm a bit biased towards that option, and have already started work. I'll back off it however if enough votes indicate that is not the popular option, my code isn't going anywhere. ;)

[leipsfur]

id actually prefer your coding over making history or HoI
just simply because its unpredictable :)
it gives an every changing gameplay thus challenging players ever anew and keeping them playing

honestly i wouldnt mind sink a few italians as germany :P

historical correctness is nice but not really entertaining in a long run

Even if I think that HoI is very unpredictable in some other ways I agree with him!

[R-T-B]

Just an update. I've been busy as a bee writing a simple scenario for Making History designed to directly interface with Silent Hunter 5. This is the result of the first run of it in a basic, human interpeted after action report.

Germany started as usual, going to war with Poland. France and England decalared war, and Germany proceeded to steamroll France into submission. After a lengthy battle between the UK and Germany, Russia decided to get involved and declare war on Germany. This caused the US to declare war on Russia, and the war turned into a two front war with the US-led alliance fighting Russia and the UK-led alliance fighting the Axis. Territorial disputes eventually led the US-led alliance to declare war on the Axis as well, as the control of conquered Russia was disputed. We then got our typical old WWII, only Russia had been wiped off the map minus the very eastern provinces. With no Russian forces to contend with, Berlin was able to endure, and even expand their turf. They actually conquered Spain by the games end, and had an empire spanning most of europe. Interestingly enough, at that point nearly all of europe minus the UK capitulated and joined the Axis.

See? This is the kind of stuff I am talking about. Believable alternate-history. Wouldn't it have been a blast to play as a uboat captain through that war? It's nice, feeling like you might win for a change!

[Nightcloak]

sounds like what im looking for :)

[fideco]

I'm very interested in your project
When are you going to release the demo
Next week?

[Kpt-Wolf]

Yep, im also very interested in this mod! :up:

[R-T-B]

I'm very interested in your project
When are you going to release the demo
Next week?

I would've released the demo next week, unfortunately, I am considering a rewrite to interface with a commercial game known as Making History (sort of like HoI). This would be much more realistic than my current engine. Please see the opening thread for details, and let me know what you'd prefer.

Regardless, the demo version is going to be released in 1-3 weeks (maybe less but unlikely). It will take either the form of a making history scenario you can run for fun, or my current engine with no ability to interface with Silent Hunter (just output logs). It all depends on what people vote.

I'll keep you informed, please check the initial post for more details.

[R-T-B]

How would everyone feel about me using Arsenal of democracy as an engine?

It's based on HoI2, but I like it much more.

I must confess I've already begun work and this will rule out a demo but the result will be much better I think. Anyone have any objections to having to own this game in addition to my software licensing fee of $5?

Please do give feedback, I'm still at a point where I could go either way.

[Baleur]

How would everyone feel about me using Arsenal of democracy as an engine?

It's based on HoI2, but I like it much more.

I must confess I've already begun work and this will rule out a demo but the result will be much better I think. Anyone have any objections to having to own this game in addition to my software licensing fee of $5?

Please do give feedback, I'm still at a point where I could go either way.

No offence but, buying another game i'll never play (i cant stand these overly statistical games), AND paying for what is a mod (regardless of how much work goes into it, sorry), just to fix / add something that should have been in SH5 from the start (and was even advertised as such) isnt my idea of a good deal..

In fact, Ubisoft should pay you for this, we shouldnt.

[fideco]

I do not agree with Baleur.
There is much professional work behind the project and the cost seems to me absolutely correct.
Cheers

[VonLowe]

Sounds interesting I'm game...pun intended

[R-T-B]

No offence but, buying another game i'll never play (i cant stand these overly statistical games), AND paying for what is a mod (regardless of how much work goes into it, sorry), just to fix / add something that should have been in SH5 from the start (and was even advertised as such) isnt my idea of a good deal..

In fact, Ubisoft should pay you for this, we shouldnt.

No offense taken. I may just make a release later with my old engine for those not willing to pay for an additional game. That'd make it much more affordable at the expense of a bit of realism. I may even release a freeware eddition of sorts, but I don't know what this will/won't include.

We'll see. I've got to set realistic goals so that probably won't be in first release, but I'm not ruling you guys out either.

And yes, ubisoft should be paying me, but what are the odds of that? :har:

[Baleur]

I know lol, not very high odds :nope:
Its funny with certain games, like the Silent Hunter games, the Total War games, etc. Those games on their own, are okay. But with the mod community they reach new unseen heights in every imaginable and unimaginable way.

I couldnt possibly play silent hunter or any total war game without the spectacular mods there are for them, yet these guys arent paid, arent hired, arent even given any attention or asked for advice by the developers.

I am absolutely convinced that the Silent Hunter series and the Total War series would have far far less sales if there wasnt any mod community for either.
And new sequels keep being made with less and less of the old features present.

[krupp_88mm]

i hope you can work in that we have some impact on the war even if its so small not to make a difference.. i think the immersion will be better if we feel like were part of the fight,

also good work so far looks promising!,

one question will the ports switch sides when nations cahnge sides, it seems to be very bugged in sh5 things like vichy france axis ports in 1939

[R-T-B]

Yes, when it is finished territory like ports will be monitored and change sides.

I'm going to be away from the project over the weekend, job calls. But I should have some news next week! :)

[Vandecker]

OT: I would just like to say something to the modding community of Silent Hunter: You people are insane!!

The game has been released less than a month and already you have released dozens of mods and patches that fix and improve the game in ways that were obviously never considered by the developers.

Not only that your here within a month of release developing a mod that will allow you to direct the overall strategy of Germany during the Second World War at the same time as Captaining a U-Boat (at least between stays in port anyway).

Why the hell Ubisoft doesn't just give you the source code to play with I will never know.

I salute you gentlemen and ladies :salute:and very much look forwards to playing the game in its improved form sometime in the next 6 to 12 months when I can get the funds to build a computer that can actually play it.

[Safe-Keeper]

OT: I would just like to say something to the modding community of Silent Hunter: You people are insane!!I just wish I could go a year, not to mention two, into the future and see what the mods and patches have turned SH5 into then.

[VonHesse]

Hello. any news on this mod? Sounds very interesting. A truly dynamic campaign that responds to your subs actions (even minimally) would be very cool. Hope all is well, and keep up the good work. Thanks R-T-B!!!:salute: