Question-Neurality Status & New Nations?

[sabretwo]

After several weeks of working on the improved med campaign, I am getting the hang of scripting task force, aircraft, and random ship activity pretty good. But there are a few items that have me lost and I can't find much documentation on them:

1. How does the campaign recognize the dates that countries change their friendly, neutral, and enemy status?

2. Is it possible to create new countries with defined 'neutral' status to represent special circumstances? For example, I haven't run any tests on this yet, but I am assuming that during 1942 while Greece is under Axis occupation that vessels traveling under Greek flag are considered enemy (I am assuming this based on the enemy status of Greek warships in Alexandria and the lack of scripted Greek ships in Greek ports in 1942 GWX.) Is there a way to create a 'neutral' Greek faction with Greek flag to represent the coastal vessels and fishing boats that would have been in Greek ports and traveling along the coast of Greece under Axis occupation? (I can't find specific references or proof, but I am pretty sure that Greek commercial vessels would have kept their Greek flag during occupation. Same for the Croatians.)

Likewise, I'd like to create a 'neutral' Italy with Italian flag to use with vessels interned by neutral and allied countries (like the Olterra in Spain). If I make the Olterra an Italian ship, despite its interned status in a neutral harbour, its going to get bombed every time a British plane flies overhead.

3. Any tips from you Veteran campaign scripters on ways to get close to the action to view your scripted actions without wasting tons of time starting new campaigns and navigating a U-boat to the right location, date and time? I am loosing a lot of productivity just testing scripted battles and harbour changes.

I hope none of these questions sound too stupid. I am still new to campaign scripting and although I'm making good progress, I still feel like a newbie in understanding how all of the elements work.

Thanks in advance!

[sabretwo]

Thanks for the tips!

[bigboywooly]

As Mikhayl said 1 is the defside cfg

For 2
Gave this a lot of thought before in GWX 2 planning
The only way really would be to make another entry in defside cfg - say Greece1 - which you make as nuetral when the main Greece entry is allied
Trouble is you will end up with duplicate entries in the rec manual and possibly also need to add flags to the flags dat
Greek commercial vessels would have kept their flag but sailed for the allies - any vessels caught in port when the country over run would more than likely been pressed into German use
Fishing vessels being about the only ships left alone if they werent grabbed and used as coastal patrols - Vorpostenboot and Kriegsfischkutter

3
I used a slighty different method to Mikhayl
I wrote a single mission to check out new stuff just having the sub
Easy to change dates without opening up mission editor if staying in same place

And making a seperate mis for your new work is soooo important
Depending on what set of GWX campaign files you use as a base you may want to add it to another set - AOTD ships one fe and is easy once on a seperate mis

[sabretwo]

BBW,

Thanks for the advice. I'll meditate on the neutrality issue and leave it as for the time being.

From what you're saying, I assume you can script new campaign actions as inidividual missions and then merge them to the campaign file once tested?

If so, that seems to be the way to go.

BTW...I am working from your merged GWX 2.1 campaign file. I removed all the random and scripted activity outside the med and black sea and left in most of your remaining work. Most of what I'm doing is adding events that didn't exist before (Battle of Cape Bon, Second Battle of Cape Spartivento, Operation Husky, etc.), adding in new ships, and beefing up some of the activity such as the air war over Malta in winter and spring 42, etc..

I'm only working on events after October '41 when the first U-boats started operating in the med. Those who will get the most out of it are those who want to play a campaign with the 23rd/29th flotilla.

(I'll tell you, the more I work on this, the more I appreciate the countless hours of work you put into the GWX campaign! You did an incredible job! )

[sabretwo]

Gameplay in this mod is going to be very different than the Atlantic campaign. Far less tonnage opportunties, much more emphasis on supporting naval operations. A successful patrol is bagging that rare merchant heading to Malta or a warship on patrol, while most of all staying alive with skies buzzing with swordfish and spitfires.

The U-Boat war in the med seems to be very different than it was for the Atlantic boats.

Players who love quick high tonnage patrols will probably be bored or frustrated by this campaign. However, those who have been playing for a while that complain of never seeing a battleship will probably be happy...between BBW's existing work and the new additions, there's a lot of scripted task force activity and battles in this mod.

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by sabretwo

From what you're saying, I assume you can script new campaign actions as inidividual missions and then merge them to the campaign file once tested?

Yes create a seperate mis for all new scripting then merge
Much easier for testing and to make changes

Originally Posted by sabretwo

(I'll tell you, the more I work on this, the more I appreciate the countless hours of work you put into the GWX campaign! You did an incredible job! )

Thanx
But the Med was the work of first Rubini and then Scire for GWX1.0
I only added a few scripted convoys\troop movements after that