phil stanbridge

I had about a platoon's worth of engineers throughout, (If I recall) but I lost most on the School mission at that bridge. They weren't replaced. I ended up with a small unit of engineers who had to do a hell of a lot of running around to blow a hole here, clear a mine here, and it just isn't realistic. I ended up regarding the 4 engineers I had left the most important units left in the game! I just got sick of it in the end.



Well this is why I started the thread - I want a good healthy discussion about it. I realise my opinion will differ to others.

I was awarded a minor victory in the last mission even though I quit only half hour in. I suffered 248 KIA with 169 wounded in total, and the enemy suffered 269 KIA with similar numbers wounded.



I am with you Womble. The briefings need to be less 'brief' and need to give you a bit more of a clue about reinforcements, replacements and replenished ammunition, instead it's a guessing game half the time.

I'm half tempted to replay the whole campaign again, although the frustrations would likely reappear, so maybe it's something for a rainy day. You wouldn't catch me saying that before!

Yes, I'd agree with that - I'm not dissing the amount of work involved in creating these scenarios, but I honestly think they've over-cooked them. They are trying too hard and the end result is an overly difficult if somewhat predictable slugfest. Some of them are just too linear - a good example of this is Razorback Ridge. It's an absolute nightmare and IMHO is pretty much un-winnable unless you are extremely lucky. I played it through twice after many, many restarts, and ended up with a draw. You don't get enough time to really warrant the exploration it needs (and deserves) either. I just don't understand why these maps are made to be so un-penetrable, it doesn't make sense to me. I realise there can be a never-ending supply of new missions and maps in the future, but that's not the point.



The 1st was a puzzle yes, but once you solve it once the mission is actually quite straight forward. This is part of my problem though - the missions shouldn't be about 'puzzles' they should reflect allied numerical superiority, huge maps and plenty of time to play, more in line with the old series. These almost feel like scenarios out of the TOW series... The mission I found easy was a tiny map, with recon units. I can't remember what it was called but it was pretty easy. I had about 5 casualties and suffered a damaged M8 at the end of it.

I've just finished my first C&F campaign with an allied major victory, but only because I cheated in the last mission. I hated it so much that I quit out of frustration - I ceasefired very early and was awarded a 'minor victory'. I couldn't stand any more. I honestly found most of the missions dreadful Way way worse than anything Shock Force put our way.

Dreadful in the fact that the maps, although reasonably large at times, were so designed to stop any sort of multi-pronged flanking attacks. By and large there was only one way to the victory locations and you were going to get slaughtered along the way. Look at the last two missions. Nightmares both of them. A ridiculous amount of mines everywhere, blockades all over the place. If the US army had ran into a location like that in real life, they would have said, 'sod that' and chosen a different route, or bombed it into oblivion first. Then there's the bocage that you can't get through. I had lost all but four men from my engineers along the way and had just 4 demo charges - can't do an awful lot with that. Now I realise some people are going to say, 'hey, welcome to real life', but I stronly disagree. Sure, a real life dimension is important in this game, (and game is the word) but I think the map designers have taken things too far now. They are taking the fun and some of the flow out of the game by almost forcing you to a predictable and sticky end. It has to stop, it's just not that much fun anymore.

All but one of the missions were very difficult in my opinion (perhaps TOO difficult), and I had no replacements or replenished ammunition along the way. My mortar teams were useless as I had no mortar rounds. My engineers were mostly KIA/Incap and I was down to 4 men in the last mission so I instantly lost the ability to blow gaps big enough for my tanks - and tanks are by and large sitting ducks - you can't use them that well in the support role because there is hardly any LOS. Even when I thought I had LOS to a target, half the time the blue line just stops abruptly, and I've no idea why! Most areas suitable for tanks are predictably mined, and with no engineers, you can't blow the mines unless you 'volunteer' someone to go mine-clearing. This is worse than the IED's in SF! The whole campaign was full of frustrations like that for me. Not much fun at all if I'm honest

I am really hoping the future commonwealth campaign offers more diversity and scale. Larger maps, less predictability, better all round please!

Thanks for the good wishes. I think I am 75% there. Another year maybe...

Cheers. I'm not dissing any individual efforts by the way, I know how much work can be put into a successful scenario. I will have to restart it and see how I get on. It's just those two first stinky missions. I don't think it's much fun which is a shame. All the toys you get to use the potential for something mind-blowing is huge.

Aww that's harsh AKD. I know it isn't entirely relevant, but I'm quite enjoying the pics and his obvious knowledge of the subject.