I have made some progress on the Global Campaign. Since I dont known xml but known a little html, I have decided to create a user interface.
The idea came from a tutorial by Lee Campbell, Blitzkrieg Command Line Switches. Thank you Lee!
You begin at the start page. The time is winter 1937. You will be deciding actions for spring 1938.
Clicking on your country name will take you to the Country Page
Here you will find your resources, production statistics and missions. In the near future, you will be able to conduct diplomatic missions here to gain allies or to declare war.
But for now, scrolling down to a mission that is available for Army Group South you can see there is a mission in Zaolzie. You can click on the word Czechoslovakia to go to the mission page, or you can click on the global map link.
If you click on the map, an excel document appears.
Moving to the area of interest, there is a map square for zaolzie. Clicking on the map square for zaolzie will take you to the mission page.
(sorry. forgot to resize this image.)
On the mission page, you will find tactical maps, photos, narrative, etc. And, best of all, you can run blitzkrieg with the zaolzie map loaded from here. This is the key. Thanks to Lee Campbell, there are instructions for modifying a normal shortcut with command line switches that can be launched with the use of a hyperlink from the mission page. You can create custom shortcuts for any map you want. There will be at least an Attack map and a Defend map for each map square.
So, clicking on the link, "Battle of Zaolzie" will launch the game
There is even a switch to run blitzkrieg in a window!
Once the mission is done, your losses and the enemy losses must be deducted from the total units available table. Captured units will be added to the total units available.
At the bottom of the page will a "Continue" button. This will take you to the next battle in the chapter or will advance the time one quarter. For example, after completing the zaolzie mission(s), you click continue. Then the time is summer 1938, then fall 1938, winter 1938, etc.
I havent figured out how the game keeps track of statistics. I have found the xml files in the UI folder, but it doesnt make much sense to me, presently.
So for the time being, losses and gains must be entered manually. Blitzkrieg seems to track total units lost, total enemy units destroyed, and units captured, among other things. It would be nice to know specifically, how many tanks, spgs, artillery etc, but I dont know if the game keeps track.
So, any assistance with how to keep track of stats is appreciated.
The spreadsheet "map" is now only used to link to mission pages and to track progress. When missions are successful, you can change the color map square to your nation's color. This will change ownership of the map square to you.
I will attempt to create an AI similar to a chess game. Map squares would be similar to chess squares. For example, if the Zaolzie map square is captured, the poland AI will act according to conditional scripts.
Updates will be posted here. I will make a clean web and post the files necessary for you to try yourself.
!!
