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Tarawa campaign unwinnable?


ricnunes

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Greetings,

 

I've been playing the DCG US Navy pilot campaign and I'm now playing the Tarawa campaign. However I'm finding this campaign to be unwinnable.

Despite seemingly wining every mission that I play and on top of this destroying every enemy target of opportunity on the island (including stationary aircraft and enemy vehicle convoys) the campaign doesn't end because my ground forces for some reason never occupy the campaign's objective which is the Betio Airfield.

Basically what happens is that the frontline advances (in my favour/US Navy) and after a few missions the friendly troops indeed land on Betio (and a ground battle issues) but my tanks even if they survive and nearby enemy units are destroyed they never take the airfield which is just right next to where the friendly forces lands (if there are enemy planes taking off, these friendly ground forces sometimes destroy them).

And worse even, not only the friendly forces don't take the Betio Airfield but after some missions the frontline recedes and the friendly tanks on the island seem to disappear with no apparent reason.

 

Then after a few more missions the frontline advances once again and once again the same situation happen (friendly troops land on Betio, they occupy the are west of the airfield but never advance and take the airfield and finally the frontline receded once again). Resuming my campaign seems to have entered into an endless loop.

 

So is this a bug or an I missing something?

 

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

 

Edit:

I'm playing with IL2 1946 patched to 4.12.2m with SAS ModAct activator 5.30 (but no mods installed) and DCG 3.48 (Beta 17).

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It is winnable.  But if you've been stuck on it for a long time, it may mean Japanese ground forces are just too dug in and too numerous...resupply is too easy in DCG for the Japanese stuck on an island with no chances of reinforcements.  You can try to move things along by setting the Maximum Troop Number (on the DCG Ground War Editor Panel) down to 100 or even 50 or 10.  That should probably move things along.

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  • 1 month later...

Hello again,

 

Previously it seemed that reducing the Maximum Troop Number seemed to help, however recently I started a new campaign in Tarawa where I set the Maximum Troop Number to 50 but the campaign reached again the same sort of a stalemate.

 

I'm playing the campaign as an American dive bomber pilot and basically what happens is the following:

After a few missions/days, American ground forces successfully land on Betio island (and the actual landing location is called Betio) and American ground forces end up occupying the Betio location while every enemy gun on the island becomes destroyed.

Since I'm playing as a dive bomber pilot all and every mission that I get the objective is to always destroy a supply convoy (which I always manage to destroy successfully and by the way the location of the target/convoy is always the same - south of the airfield).

What again puzzles me is that my (American) ground forces never advance to the airfield (the main Japanese location which is a "supply line") despite Betio being just adjacent to it and this location "full" of tanks (I've seen as much as 8 Sherman tanks plus a convoy of trucks).

 

I imagine that this could be due to the Maximum Troop Number issue but again this is puzzling:

After ending each mission I always take a look at the "territory.dcg" file and either my forces in Betio and the enemy (Japanese) forces in the airfield always grow up (mission to mission) until both sides reach the Maximum Troop Number that I set in the DCG to 50.

What is really odd is that the number of enemy troops NEVER decrease even if keep destroying all and every enemy ground convoys! What I mean is that destroying an enemy convoy don't seem to have any impact on reducing the number of enemy troops!

Could be the reason of my campaign's stalemate?

 

 

Thanks in advance for any replies.

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Yes, they are all on the ground. They seem come (spawn) from the western tip of the island (Betio) then they move east and finally stop short of the western end of the runway/airfield on the island. This same situation repeat over and over again in every mission.

 

When these vehicles first landed on the island they were opposed by some Japanese AT guns but on subsequent missions there weren't any Japanese guns anymore (I assume that the Japanese have lost all their forces on the location where the vehicles are spawning and heading to) and the situation described above in the first paragraph repeats itself mission after mission. 

So what's weird is that all it would be needed is that one of those convoys (namely one of the two 4xSherman tank groups) moves just a "little bit" to the right (or east) and move into the airfield itself, which never happens despite there's nothing that could or should prevent them from doing it.

I noticed if any convoy did this than the campaign would successfully end since the American victory condition for the Tarawa campaign is to occupy the airfield.

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It's very strange, because just last night I was generating missions from the Tarawa campaign (but not actually playing them out) and the campaign ended after a dozen or so missions.

 

If you open up the territory.dcg file in the campaign folder, have a look at the values given for each side.  For example:

 

Midway_Airfield 1 allied=20 axis=0

 

See just how much strength the axis have on the island.  (And possibly change them all to "0").  ;)

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So far I few 22 sorties in the Tarawa campaign and things after sortie 6 or 7 (or something around that) were always the same.

 

Here's my current "territory.dcg" file for my Tarawa campaign:

 

 


Townsville_Airfield 1 allied=20 axis=0
Betio_Village 2 allied=0 axis=0
Betio_Airfield 2 allied=0 axis=50
Betio 1 allied=50 axis=0
the_English_Channel 1 allied=20 axis=0
Tarawa_Atoll 2 allied=0 axis=0
Central_Pacific_Ocean_1 0 allied=0 axis=0
Central_Pacific_Ocean_2 0 allied=0 axis=0
Central_Pacific_Ocean_3 0 allied=0 axis=0
Central_Pacific_Ocean_4 0 allied=0 axis=0
Betio_Harbor 2 allied=0 axis=0
Central_Pacific_Ocean_5 0 allied=0 axis=0
Central_Pacific_Ocean_6 0 allied=0 axis=0
Central_Pacific_Ocean_7 1 allied=0 axis=0

 

 

I'll try your suggestion of reducing the axis strength in the only place where the axis have strength which as you can see above is "Betio_Airfield 2".

By the way, should I change the strength values, save the "territory.dcg" file and play a mission?

Or should I start a mission and before accepting the outcome change and save the "territory.dcg" file?

 

In the meanwhile I'll try the first option.

 

 

By the way, I forgot to previously mention that I 'm currently using DCG 3.47 (instead of Beta 3.48). Everything else is just the same as in the first post.

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Just tried setting the axis strength values to 0 and it didn't work.  :(

 

The campaign really seems to be stuck in a sort of an infinite loop!

I don't know if this help but what also happens is the following:

1- After a few missions (something around 4) the frontline advances and reach Betio island. This is when the American forces land on the island. 

2- After something like a couple of missions the frontline will recede/fall back back to the sea and if and when the American forces manage to previously take the "Betio location" (located just west of the airfield) than a sort of an "isolated enclave" of friendly (American) forces appear on the map with the actual frontline now located back south on the sea.

3- After a few more missions (something around 4) the frontline advances and again reaches the Betio island (and merges with the "isolated enclave" of American forces on the island).

4- An endless loop between steps 2- and 3- will occur!  

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Okay, try this:

 

Open the columns.dcg file and delete the following entry (it won't be exactly as posted, but it start with 1_Chief...).

 

1_Chief Vehicles.JapanCarsColumnB 2 @Betio_Airfield $JapanCarsColumnB_1 ~L

 

I'm guessing this column keeps respawning and blocking the Americans from ever winning.

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It seems that your guess was right on the spot!  :)

Just before ending a mission I "jumped" to the desktop, opened the columns.dcg file, deleted the line that you indicated (by the way, the line was exactly the same as you described) and of course saved the file.

 

After starting the next mission, I noticed that finally my ground forces started to move towards the airfield and occupy it (and fighting their way in). There was a further next mission where my ground forces seem to consolidate their occupation of the airfield and after ending that mission the Tarawa campaign finally ended (and moved to the next campaign - Saipan/Marianas). 

 

So it seems that the culprit was found!

But removing an entry of a file doesn't seem a "normal" to be able to make progress in a campaign. Is there anything that can be done in order to avoid this situation in the future? 

 

By the way, thanks for the reply and help!

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I've actually modified this campaign in the most recent beta to remove the column after a week or so.  There was no way the Japanese could have reinforced the island so it shouldn't keep respawning. 

 

It's a bit of a cheat, but it's not accurate the thing keeps respawning in the first place. 

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Humm, I see.

 

So the fix for this campaign is in DCG 3.49 Beta 1, right?

 

Since I'm currently using DCG 3.47 and I have a couple of DCG campaign running in, I would like to know if I update my current DCG from version 3.47 to 3.49 (Beta 1) can I still run and continue those campaigns in progress?

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