Panzer Campaign - Scenario Design 101 "Let's Build a Simple Scenario"

By Dave "Blackie" Blackburn
(Article posted from Glenns site http://members.shaw.ca/gcsaunders/welcome.html with his kind permission.) 

Introduction
There seem to be very few people out there who are using the excellent editors provided with the Panzer Campaign Series games. Also, in the Panzer Campaigns Manual, there is an outstanding guide on how to build scenarios by no less than the boss himself, John Tiller! Add to that the huge maps and extremely accurate OOBs contained in each release, makes me ask myself," So why aren't those wargame nuts building their own scns?" I honestly did not know the answer, but I figured that if maybe I ran through the process, and built a simple scn it might help. Bear in mind this scn is very basic, a scn like this takes about 2 hours work, and is just to kick start your engines. For more detailed scns, read the Manual……please.

The Plan
There are many descriptions on the net on how to build good scns for many different games. All of these have one thing in common. Every one of these articles stress the need for some sort of research into the battle, incident, situation, or whatever you like to call your subject. This is probably the most important part of the process. This can be as meticulous as you want to make it, and is particularly important when you wish to use a historical battle. Generally speaking, in this case, the more you know your subject, the more realistic your simulation. I do not want to expound on this subject any further; all I will say is, that I agree 100%.

Now on the other side of the coin completely, you can design "fun" scns right out of your own head, but you should still have a plan of what you are attempting to create. All I wanted to do in this "simple scn" article is to give you step-by-step help on making a fun scn. I opted to do this using the Normandy '44 game. I chose this release as the Breakout part of this battle has not been done, but the map, and OOB, is included in the game.

So my plan is for us to build together a typical day, for a typical recon unit, on a typical mission, in a typical area, at an appropriate time in history. The way I saw the scn we are about to build, was that a recon outfit had been tasked to clear 2 parallel roads running north to south in, or near, to bocage country. They would have to check out the roads and bridges for any enemy opposition, although this was expected to be light. In my unit I wanted to have some armored cars, tank destroyers, motorized infantry and a little artillery. The enemy was to have a couple of Panthers and some Panzer grenadiers. The idea being the recon would push down the roads and "bump" the enemy positions, then have to clear them. I did not want this to be a large, complex scn, I envisaged about one day's worth of daylight, so 8 turns starting from 6 am would work.
OK we have a plan…..this is enough for the scn we are doing, if you were to make a more complex, or true historical scn, you would need to delve quite a bit deeper.

The Map
Before we can leap into the Scn Editor we require 3 things: a map, an OOB, and a PDT file. I looked at the full Normandy map and found an area that roughly fitted my plan, as you can see here:

The red crosses show roughly the area we require, the white triangles the start line, the hands the 2 routes, and the blue check marks indicate the objectives.
The first thing to do is to cut this map from the master, this is simplicity itself to do. We know the top left hand hex is at 78, 124, write that down, then we want 10 hexes to the right of the start hex, and 20 hexes below. To "cut" this map, these are the only numbers we need:
78 124 10 20.

Creating the Map
To create the map, enter the Normandy dir, select any Sub map file, for example, let's choose the Buron1_Sub.map file. Double click on this file, it should open in WordPad or Notepad as shown here.

Now Select "Save As" from the file menu and save it as Dash.map, you must add the extension .map, and be sure it saves as a text file. On the small image below to see the full dialog which shows the FULL "Save As" dialog including the file type as text. The file type as TXT, text or text document is very important here.

Now change the numbers to our numbers, remember: 78 124 10 20.

The file should look like this….. then Select and "Save". OK, we now have our map, easy….. right?

The OOB and PDT
The next thing we need before we get going in the editor is an OOB, now we could create our own using John's instructions in the Manual, but let's use the Normandy OOB to keep it simple, we will also use the Normandy PDT file.

Building the "Simple Scn"
Now we have the map, the OOB, and PDT files so we can open the Scenario Editor by double clicking on "PCEdit". The scn editor opens at the "Open" window, select "Cancel". Then using the top Menu, select "New" from the "File" drop down menu. The map file selection box will open:

Select the "Dash" map file, and "Open"….. next the OOB file box opens:

Select "Normandy", and "Open" ….. next the PDT file box opens.

Note this well, "PDT" means Parameter Data File, this file contains all the data to make the game work correctly, for ALL the scenarios, the data in it has been researched for months, DO NOT mess with it for this scenario. However, such is the flexibility built in to the game editors. it can be adjusted, the instructions on how to do this, again, are in the Manual. This file is of the utmost importance to the game. Now down the road, if you continue to design your own scns, and are confident that you wish to change the data, you do have the ability do so. Be aware that before you do, make a Back-up of the original. OK, I am sure that you get the picture, all we need to do is to select "Normandy", then "Open".

Header Dialog
The next box to open is the "Header Dialog", this holds the basic information for our scn. When this opens, there are some blanks and some partly filled in fields. We will fill in these fields together and then I will show you a picture of how it should look.
The Title box is first. I usually try to come up with a catchy title, my partner Glenn helps out from time to time. If possible, what we are looking for is something which is appealing and describes the scn. The title I came up with for this scn is Dash through the Hedgerows, so we type that in the box. Next is the Turns box, type in 8.

Typically turns are 2 hours for day and 4 hours for night, we want this in daytime only, so this will effect the time we start a little later. The Year, Month, Day and Time boxes are used to enter the start time of our scn. This can be very important in some scns, especially historical ones. However it is not too important for us, so we can set an approximate date, which is close to the time of our little battle. So we will select: 1944 August 20 0600 in those boxes. Next line is First Side, select Allied. The Visibility boxes are next, which we will set as 2 1 5. The Conditions for our scn are going to be all selected as Normal, in each box. The Victory levels are a bit of a mystery at this point in time, but we will select some nominal figures, which we may have to adjust later. We will have a wild guess and enter 20 for the Major Defeat, 40 for Minor Defeat, 60 for Minor Victory and 80 for the Major Victory. The last 2 boxes are the Supply Levels, now supply levels are very important in Panzer Campaigns as they are also used for Command and Control. We will enter 90 for the Allied, and 75 for the Axis. You should end up with a Header Dialog that looks like the one shown here. Then select OK.

Description Dialog
This is the last box we have to complete before we get to place the units and other good stuff on the map. Hang in there, it hasn't taken that long. The Author Box comes first, type your own name, or nickname in the box, this is going to be your scn!
Next …… and last, is the Scenario Description box. Generally, in Panzer Campaigns, most of the game designers use a little protocol here. We usually type in the area, and then the date followed by a colon. At the end of the scn, we add the size, and number of turns, in parentheses. There is an example of this protocol shown in the accompanying image of the dialog. You do not have to follow this protocol, but most players expect to see this information in those parts of the description. A rough guide for size is anything 10 turns or lower is small, 20 or lower medium, in excess of 20 large.

Now the description itself should be all your own work and, after you have a few scns under your belt, people will get to recognize your individual style. It can be as long or short as you wish, but I recommend a brief, to the point description. As my old Sergeant-Major used to say, "Short, sharp and s--t hot!" It should give a crisp outline of the situation and, if possible, convey some information that the player will require to play the scn. When you have completed it, it should look something like this one above.
Now select OK and we jump straight to the placement of units in your scn.

Placement
This is the fun part of scn design, placing the units on the map to make the scn work as you desire. First look at the map for positions where you want to place the units. Look for realistic spots, but not too obvious, if ambushes, or surprises, are part of the plan. The easy part in "Dash" is the position of the Allies. We can place these units, in 2 columns, at the start position north of the highway. I am going to use units from the US 3rd Army, XII Corps, XX Cav. First we have to find these units using the Unit Dialog box. The Unit box will be open in the Scn Editor, if it is not, then go to Units on the top menu, in the drop down menu select Unit Dialog, it will then open. Now click on the + signs next to 12th Army Group, then 3rd Army, then XII Corps, then 6th Arm Cav Gp, then 6th Cav Recon Sq. You should end up as shown in the Unit Dialog.

The units in Panzer Campaigns are placed individually by selecting battalions, companies, or lower organizations, you can NOT place more than one unit at a time. We are going to use several units from the 6th Cav Recon Sq. We'll do the first together: we click on the unit, in this case, the first "A/6 Recon Trp" symbol, then right click on the map hex where we want to place it. The unit appears on the map in the hex we selected as shown here in the image.

The unit is automatically subtracted from the Unit Dialog box when placed on the map. You can remove any unit from the map by selecting the unit (double left click), and using the Remove Units button, a big red cross. (It is also possible to move it using the Mode key, from the toolbar, it is simple to use, if you wish to learn more on how to use this key read the Manual).

Additionally, the Unit Box above shows the details of the unit and the hex details are shown here. In the box you can see a picture and the details of the unit, we see an armored car, the identifier, strength etc. If you right click on the unit, other details will be shown. Should you wish to change any of these, the toolbar buttons allow you to adjust a myriad of details, including strength, fatigue, and movement. Using them is easy, most are select a minus or plus to adjust strength, fatigue etc.

It is as simple as that, now I am going to select more Allied units from the 6th Cav, and place them on the map. I am also going to add a couple of units from the 705th Tank Destroyer Bn, (just below the 6th Cav in the Unit dialog). They will require an HQ, in the OOB they are shown under the XII Corps HQ, so I am going to use it, placed as far back as possible. I suggest to you here, that you place your units where you want, after all, this is your scn. Bear in mind, try to use units under the same HQ for supply, command and control. OK, I am finished with the Allies for now, I did make a few adjustments to the strengths, and it looks like this.

Now we will move on the Axis, we will follow the same procedure for finding the units we wish to use in the Normandy OOB. Click on the plus signs to the left of each of the following: Army Gp B, then XLVII Pz K, then 2nd Panzer Div, then Pz Regt 3, then I/Pz 3 (1st Bn of Pz Regt 3), and finally on 1/1/Pz 3. You have selected the 1st Kompagnie, of the 1st Battalion of Panzer regiment 3. It consists of 13 Panther tanks. When I place it, I do not want that many, so I will adjust that using the Strength minus - button on the toolbar, I want to have just 3. It should look like the picture here.

The unit box will look like this:

Note that the strength is showing 3 tanks, which is 33% of their nominal strength, also that it is shown in yellow, this informs you that they are not at full strength. Full strength units' numbers are shown in white, you cannot increase the unit above the white full strength number. Now I am going to add a few units to the areas I have chosen for their positions, any infantry I use, I am going to take from 2nd Panzer Div's 2nd Panzer Grenadier Regiment. Remember to use the same HQ where possible, in this case, 2 Pz Div HQ.

Using the same procedure to get to individual units, click on the + sign to the left of PzG Regt 2, then the + signs left of the smaller units to get the unit you require. You should try to use only units from 2nd Pz Div for simplicity in this scn. OK I am going to set up a couple of positions for the Axis, and also place a small counter attack force, which will come on as a reinforcement part way through the scn. I will be changing the strengths of some of the units as we discussed. My idea is, to have a weak position near the start, and a couple of stronger ones behind. The counter attack force will come from the west edge of the map.

This is how I ended up. The counter attack force is the one with the eyeballs. We will set that up to come on as a reinforcement on turn 5. All the other units are fixed in place, we will have to add releases for them, but we will add the release so that they can be triggered. What that means is, if they are "bumped" before their release, they will automatically release.

I adjusted the strengths of all the units, they are quite low, but they look much stronger than they really are. I hope a player, with the Fog of War option ON, will be easily mislead. I do recommend playing with FOW ON, if not PBEM, it makes the game a much greater challenge, and more fun as well. That is the placement of the units complete. We can always make adjustments later if we wish.

Reinforcements
The counter attack force must be selected by double clicking on the 2 units in the hex, then go to the top Menu and select Units, a drop down menu appears, select Add reinforcements. A box then appears with the Year, month, day and hour, all we need do is change the Hour to the time we wish the force to arrive.

This needs a little thought, not a lot, we started the scn at 0600, each turn is 2 hours long, we want them to arrive 5 turns into the scn, that is 5x2=10 hours. If we add 10 hours to the start time we get 1600 hours, so we set 1600 as the time for them to show up. We want these guys to absolutely be there, so the probability we set is left at 100%, we can leave the other fields as they are. When you have set your time and probability, if you plan to use reinforcements in "your" scn, it should look somewhat like as is pictured here.

Then select OK, the units for reinforcement then disappear and go to the Land of Reinforcement until turn 5. If you wish to change any of the details for reinforcement, go to the top menu, select Units, select Scheduled. A list appears with all scheduled reinforcements listed, select the unit, then Modify, then you can make changes. I keep stating this, but all this is covered fully in the Manual.

Releases
Now we come to the releases, we have Fixed some units by using the button on the toolbar marked F. An oversight on my part here, I did not tell you how to do this. All you do is select the unit you want to fix, by double clicking on it, and select the F button, the unit is now fixed in position. The Unit box will show that the unit is fixed with a sign which states Fixed on it as shown at the right. You do this to ensure the AI does not "fool around" if you want the unit to remain in the hex you selected. The unit then stays where you want until you release it, or if you set the trigger, until it is "bumped".

To set the release, go to the top Menu and select Units, then Add Release. The release Dialog box opens up. Now this is slightly more complicated than the reinforcement box, but not much. In the box there is the OOB for the scenario, what you have to is find the unit, and select it, as we did when working with the OOB. You do this by clicking on the + signs to the left of the units until you arrive at the unit you require. Now I made sure we used only units from 2nd Panzer, so all we have to do is get to 2nd Panzer, then select it and set our release, because all our units are from this Division. I would like them to release at 1800 hours, 2 hours after the counter attack, but not be triggered. So I set this using the boxes that are checked, as seen in the accompanying image.

You cannot change these like the reinforcements, but they can be deleted. You know what is coming next …… read the Manual for more info.

Objectives and Supply
The objectives should be set next. I want the player to attack the village in the north, I want him to use both routes, and I want him to try to take the villages in the south. I do not like a lot of objectives, unless I need them. We have to bear in mind our Victory points here too. We set 20, 40, 60, 80 in the header, so a good value for our objectives is probably about 10. We can always come back, after playtesting the scn, to adjust these values. To set an objective, select the hex for the objective first, then use the top Menu, select Hexex, in the drop down menu select add/remove objective. A box appears select German, for Axis controlled hex, and then the number of VPs you want it to be worth. Same procedure for Allies, except you would select US.

In this scenario there is just one supply source for each side, the blue barrels for the US, red for German. Select the hex where the supply source is to be placed first, then use the top Menu, select Hexs, in the drop down box select add/remove supply source. In the Supply dialog box, select the nation and the supply value, usually set as per the Header figure, for us 90 and 75. For this size of scenaro, we really don't need a supply source as a unit can be supplied from the nearest map edge. Usually they are used on larger scns, where supply may be cut off, but I put them on so you could see what they looked like. The map should be similar to the one below.

If you look at the map, you can see I have made 4 objectives 10 VPs, the other 20 VPs, a total of 60. This, added to the VPs for unit "kills", should be close to our numbers for the Victory conditions we estimated. There are reasons why they are so placed. I want the player to go for each objective, but I also want our little counter attack to go for the 20 VP hex.

Nearly Finished
OK, we are nearly there, this article is getting huge! There are numerous refinements that you can make to this little scn, you could add mines, improved positions, trenches, blow bridges, give them air support, the list goes on and on. No doubt, you will be pleased to hear, that this is the last time I am going to say this: please read the manual! All the information to do these little chores to make your scn the greatest around is included in the Panzer Campaigns Manual.

What you should do now, is look at what you have done already, see if there are any glaring errors. If you have not done so already, save the scenario! When you go to Save, you will be prompted to name the scn, it's all your own work so call it what you like. You should try the scn, take it for a trial run, let a friend play it, anything to get some feedback to how it plays. Then if necessary, and it usually is, make some adjustments.

Conclusion
We have barely scratched the surface of what the editors in this game are capable of doing. Needless to say, all the actions we made in building this "Simple Scn" can be applied to the other Panzer Campaigns games, I will be attaching my version of our little fun exercise, to show you how I finished off, and added a few details, it will be named Dash.

Congratulations! I hope you had fun building the scn and, now you see how it all works, don't stop at one.