Written by RhinoBones

Updates

• 05/05/98 Editorial comments and corrections.
• 02/28/98 Editorial comments added.

Introduction

• Listed below are a few suggestions, techniques and some personal philosophy concerning the editing of Macintosh Panzer General scenarios. Some of the items are obvious, some have been learned only through trial and error and some are simply preference. This short paper is only intended to document the lessons learned and provide some insight to those who care to apply their imagination. All of the editing techniques listed have been validated using MGadm Scenario Editor 1.07. If other scenario editors are available I am unaware of them, therefore this document should not be considered applicable to the characteristics of any other editors.

Getting Started

• Get a copy of Macintosh Panzer/Allied General scenario editor MGadm 1.07. Read and thoroughly understand the contents of the Read Me file. Play with the editor by editing a scrap saved game file. Make changes to every block that MGadm can touch. Save the file, quit and re-open the file to verify that your changes have been incorporated. See the section below on editing techniques for some suggestions.
• Download a copy of the Panzer General FAQ, from the MacGeneral or elsewhere, doesn't matter where. Sections 5.2 Movement Tables, 5.3 Naval, Fortification And Inorganic Transport Unit Information and 5.4 Land And Air Unit Information should be printed for later reference.
• Select a scenario to edit . . . this is possibly the hardest part of editing. Start by firing up a new scenario, preferably a scenario which you feel you already have an idea for editing. Actually, just as a starter, any scenario will do. As you open the scenario select the option which allows you to view the units of both sides. This is important.
• Sketch a rough map of the scenario and/or make a screen shot. From the placement of units, and from previously playing the scenario, you probably have an understanding of the original designer's intentions. Outline your own battle concept in broad terms. Remember, you are restricted from switching unit sides (switching from Axis to Allied or Allied to Axis) and the total number of the units for your scenario. You are not normally limited in the mode of their arrival; many units are air transportable, all units are transportable by ship and all units are ground mobile. Aircraft can go anywhere there's a friendly airfield with in range. You are not restricted to the placement of units . . . if you wished to, you could have the Rumanians attack Trondheim from the North. Make a sketch of your initial troop positions and the avenues of movement/attack you envision.
• Time to consider historical accuracy, something which I feel is strictly up to the scenario developer. My personal preference is to design for playability and a setting which is interesting. For me, historical accuracy is of minor importance. Others are quite interested in recreating realism. This is another feature which editing facilitates and I enjoy their efforts. You will need to decide what your level of historical accuracy is and design scenarios to your own satisfaction. So much for philosophy.

Map/Unit Placement Editing Techniques

• Save often. Restart, and see what you have. Units do not always end up where you want them. I do NOT recommend attempting to place all units during one long sitting. Have a beer. Break up the action.
• I suggest that the placement of troops be accomplished as a two step process. First step; open up your scenario with the preferences set for the units of both sides to be shown. Clear the battlefield by moving all of the Axis and Allied units to opposite sides of the map. Second step; Edit the individual units for the characteristics you want and position them on the map. I advise that you keep a record of the unit positions.
• The importance of keeping good notes can not be over stressed. Leave nothing to memory. Document every change you make . . . I found that it's the little changes made on the fly which tend to screw things up when you get into play testing. When placing units (during step two) I like to place all units of a similar type at one time. Position all of the tanks, then all the infantry, etc. On paper make notes such as: 1st Pz > to > 34,12 4th Pz > to > 35,12. If the final resting place changes, make sure to change your notes. The notes become even more valuable when you get to the fine tuning of your scenario, especially when attempting to relocate units which are out of visual range.
• In some scenarios, particularly those with many units, I first like to clear the playing field before proceeding with step one. Take all of the Axis units and place them in an area of the map out of the way. It is not necessary at this point to record the temporary unit positions. Put all the infantry together, all the tanks together, aircraft the same, and so on. Do the same for the Allies. This does two things for you. One, it relieves clutter and you won't have a problem with overlaying Axis and Allied units. Two, you can physically see how many of each type of unit you have available. This is a good time to adjust the mix of units a side has and/or adjust the balance between the sides.
• As part of the editing you may need to change the ownership of objective cities, airfields and towns. Easy. Place a unit capable of capturing objectives (infantry, tank) on the hex. Make a note of which units these are because you may need to move them again to their final starting positions. With the game menu, select the "End Turn" option and allow the scenario to advance one turn. During this turn the units that were placed on enemy hexes will capture those positions. After running a dummy turn such as this, you will need to reset the game clock for the full amount of turns and probably adjust the prestige since capturing enemy hexes/objectives will have gained prestige for the side making the capture.
• At times you may need to change ownership of objectives from within a side, i.e. change ownership from British to American. This would be accomplished as shown above, however, it requires placing units twice and running two dummy moves.
• After placing all of the units in step two you will typically have numerous places where the hexes highlighted (visible) do not correspond to the visual range of the relocated units. To restore the correct visual ranges to all units the dummy move technique is used again. Involves the same steps and requirement to restore the move counter and prestige.
• Of course during a dummy move the computer will attempt to move the enemy units and possibly buy additional units. You can avoid this problem; you can prevent the computer from wanting to move or buy units. This is actually part of unit editing, but what you need to do is edit the computer units that you do not want to move by editing their fuel and/or ammo to zero and the computer's prestige level to 0. The computer spends the dummy move resupplying units. Aircraft obviously need to be placed on or next to airfields. Ships are a different problem. Suggest that you either place ships further away from where you really want them to be or just let them move as they want and later go back into the unit placement editor and reassign them to their original position. Also, for the units that were positioned to capture objectives, airfields and towns, their final positions can now be entered. Set the game clock back to the original setting and restore the level of prestige for the computer. Remember that in the desert settings resupply is not a rapid or complete as in the temperate settings. Adjust for this feature.
• There are special considerations for scenarios in which you want the Allied side to be played by the sentient player. Editing for the Allied side requires you to let the computer (the Axis side) make the first move in both the step one and step two parts of the process described above. This can create some problems because units end up without a full fuel load, ammo load and sometimes units are eliminated on the first turn. Unit editing can repair most of these problems except that the eliminated units will not appear on the game map even though they are listed in the unit editor. You should first revive a unit by returning the strength level to something greater than zero then, after restarting, the unit will again be active even though an enemy unit may have moved in to the same hex. Moving all units to the side gets around this small problem. Continue with unit placement as described above.
• Be experimental. I've needed to run the game through two dummy moves just to get the right initial conditions. Also, letting the computer make a dummy move "without" limiting it's capability to move units tends to add surprise and/or an unknown quantity to the equation. Such as, placing a significant reserve force behind the front lines and then letting the computer move them during the dummy move places them . . . hell, who knows where! Certainly something unexpected is going to happen and it may be for the better.

Unit/Game Parameters Editing

• Play with MGadm until you are familiar with what can and can not be edited.
• Several nationalities are not supported by the editor. By this I mean that you may choose Bulgarian troops from the Equipment Data Base but you will not be able to mate them with a nationality. The only choice offered is "Unknown". As far as I know units labeled as Unknown will not capture an objective, town or airfield for their side. It's very possible that I'm wrong on this one, but I would advise caution when using them. Actually I find the minor countries to be the most interesting of the combatants. Really wish they had special unit icons or coloring to make them distinctive.
• When changing a unit to a new type double check yourself to make sure that all of the parameters were changed. Unit name, transport type, loaded/unloaded, fuel, strength, entrenchment, kills, experience and extra experience all need to be verified. Use the Panzer General FAQ tables that you printed out earlier.
• After playing a dummy move or letting the AI take the first shot by playing the Axis side, be sure to go into the unit editor to repair any damage otherwise units may begin the game out of place and/or deficient in fuel, ammo or strength. This includes restoring units to action that were eliminated in the first barrage.
• This is also the place where you can change game length, starting prestige per side and total number of units available. Adjust these parameters to keep sides from flooding the country with cheap anti-tank guns or conversely, give each side a maximum of 110 core units and recreate the Battle of the Somme. If you allow more total units than the program can handle you will usually see the game lock up during the combat action phase. I believe the maximum total number of units allowed (Axis + Allied) is 220, but you may have to experiment a bit to see whether this is actually true.

Data Base Editing

• Before editing, make a copy of the PANZEQUP.EQP file and place the copy in a safe place. I also recommend altering the PANZEQUP.EQP icon of the file you intend to alter so that it physically looks different than the standard file. This is done to avoid confusion. MGadm is a rather dumb program when it comes to distinguishing one PANZEQUP.EQP file from another. That's your job.
• I have found (correct me if I'm wrong) that the data base file will only accept changes under certain conditions. When you first open MGadm and the data base file appears (this assumes that you have opened the data base file at least once before), the file is ready to accept your changes. Seems that after the unit editor/scenario files have been opened the data base editing option is disabled. Might be a safety feature, might just be me, but that seems to be the way life is.
• Suggestion for making the data file a bit more friendly. For any scenario you decide to edit there are going to be units which will not appear in the scenario. Probably quite a few of them. This is because they are the wrong nationality, not available in the year of your scenario or maybe you just think they're ugly and you refuse to use them. Here's what I do . . . go down the data file list and change the name of every unit you don't intend to use to a lower case "x " then, whenever you look through the data file, you will only see the unit types that are important to your scenario since all the unimportant units are identified by the name x. No clutter. Try it, just don't go overboard. If you ever decide that you really did need a unit you x'd out you can look it up in the Panzer General FAQ Tables you printed out earlier, right, and recreate the name and/or data as necessary.
• After you've x'd out the unit names you don't want make the data file even more friendly. Somewhere on the first page of the data file, the page that it automatically opens up to, enter the name of your scenario over one of the x'd out unit names. Make it obvious, use all capital letters. On other lines add date, name, etc . . . whatever you want. Now, every time you or someone else opens that data file they'll know exactly which scenario it belongs with. Takes out the guess work and could save you from editing the wrong file.
• Some general recommendations and suggestions for editing the data tables. Often I find that the aircraft cause just too much damage to ground and other air units so, I lower their attack capability and raise their defense factors in the data base. Makes them last a bit longer and I think a bit more realistic. I like to place strong points and forts along the coastline and give them a range of three or four. There are units, particularly 39 Inf and Pz 1As which I really find annoying in a 1942 scenario . . . edit them to become obsolete in December 1941 so that they are no longer available as reinforcements. Could go on . . . and on.
• The units you x'd out earlier can be reused as other units that you really do want to have in your scenario. Example, suppose you want to design an El Alamein scenario. You need several infantry units to depict the New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans and British. . . . take a few of the x'd out units, enter the unit name you would like to have, correct the data to represent infantry units, be sure to that the correct picture ID number is in the right hand column for Allied infantry and there you have it. Do the same for the Italian Ariete, Trieste, and Littorio divisions and be on you're way to historical accuracy. Powerful tool if you know how to use it. Practice.

Things You Can Not Do

• You can not edit map features.
• You can not change which hexes are, or are not, objective hexes.
• You can not change the victory conditions.
• You can not change the date.
• You can not change the weather.
• You can not change the side a unit represents, i.e. Allied units can not be turned into Axis units.

About MGadm

• I applaud the fellow who took the time to build the editor. Though it does not do everything one would like it to it's more than I had yesterday.
• MGadm seems to be sensitive about the sequence in which data and scenario files are saved. I've lost some editing, you might too, so I suggest using the following sequences when saving:
  1. Save MGadm. Do NOT quit MGadm at this time.
  2. Quit Panzer General. Say "Yes" when asked if you want to save/replace the existing file.
  3. Quit MGadm.
  4. Reopen the scenario to verify that your latest changes were saved.
• On occasion I'll receive the message that a fatal error has occurred while quitting/saving Panzer General. I've never lost any data due to this anomaly but it certainly stops the heart for a moment. Seems that the save/replacement is made before the error message is displayed.
• Like any program, Mgadm can become corrupted and cause system crashes. If you experience crashes, go to the System Folder and locate the Mgadm preferences. Trash the preferences and allow Mgadm to build a new preference file. Otherwise install a fresh copy of the program.

Play Testing

• Strongly recommend soliciting help from a play tester or two to help iron out the bugs before you attempt to upload your creations on the web.
• A good source for play testers is the Mac General Panzer/Allied General opponents listings.

Miscellaneous

• I've tried to create scenarios using El Alamein and North Africa as the baselines and have experienced trouble with making amphibious landings. I don't why, but in these scenarios units can only land on shore hexes which have roads in them and once landed the units are restricted to movement only on roads.
• The writer of the Mgadm editor is currently (May 98) working part time to develop the editor into a true scenario builder, i.e. adding the functionality to actually build a totally new scenario from scratch. The proposed editor would be equivalent to the scenario designing editors currently available to the PC world. It is questionable whether this project will ever be completed, so, the options currently available are to write your own editor, use the one available or learn to hack existing scenario.scn and saved game files.
• An individual I know has showen a considerable amount of perseverance and skill at hacking saved game files. He is able to add the identities (flags) of the previously "Unknown" nationalities, adjust the date of a scenario and adjust the weather by changing the time of year. Although this is excellent for the accomplished hacker, the casual public (you and I) will find this method of editing mentally brutal. So, improvements to the editor characteristics are possible.

© 1998 TM Interactive Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
Protected under copyright and international treaties. No portion of
this web site or the files contained therein may be obtained for other
than personal non-commercial use nor may they be reproduced or otherwise
redistributed. Violations will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible
under the law and may result in severe civil and criminal penalties.