Combatintman

Just got around to watching this - kicking goals again @Free Whisky and @domfluff

There's often a reason why they aren't more widespread and it usually comes down to scenario balance particularly in human vs AI games. A human player can often thrash the AI in a heartbeat if they get given a bunch of TRPs which then makes the scenario a pretty unchallenging and unrewarding experience.

You must have a different edition to mine then, in my version the backstory for most of the characters simply states what position they occupy and vaguely how long they'd been in it. Character development is complementary to the action narrative and in the main that revolves around the straight out of armour school lieutenant evolving from someone whose every peace time action involves an interview sans coffee to combat actions which earn him the trust of his superiors and subordinates.

I'd wait for an official announcement before bandying around time frames such as 'some little little weeks' - we know it is being worked on but that is about it.

No it is not possible.

@TheFriendlyFelon - I have PM'd you mate to see if I can help you with the VP thing.

Have you tried @Ithikial_AU's Victory Point calculator - it makes the whole VP thing a lot easier to work out.

This - not sure why people think that the Leopard approach is a winner on this basis. Comes back to rule one of combat - don't be seen.

To reinforce the point - have a look at 8 Guards Army here: 8th Guards Combined Arms Army (ww2.dk) Then drill down to the divisions to see the equipment types fielded which conveniently have figures for 1979 and 1985. Even as late as 1985 the ratio of T-62 to newer types was still higher than most casual observers would expect. Leaving tanks aside - look at the other equipment - still lots of BMP-1 and BTR-60s sat in GSFG's East German barracks - where many would probably expect more BMP-2 and BTR-70/80.

Friendly bonus simply awards the allocated number of VPs no matter what the player does or does not do. If it is set at 100 VPs, those 100 VPs always get awarded. Designers generally use them in asymmetric situations - they were used a lot in CMSF scenarios to give a boost to the unconventionals/Syrian sides.

I usually find casualty parameters and/or friendly bonus parameters work here. I assume the issue is that on turn one, the defending side is sat on all of the terrain objectives thus giving it a turn one win. Give the attacking force a friendly casualty parameter worth the equal or nearly equal amount of points and set it at a percentage that takes about half of the scenario length to get whittled down to. Presumably by that time, the attacking force will then have grabbed or denied some of the terrain objectives from/to the defender.

Yep - absolutely dubious; however, occasionally useful when cross-referenced - I used to read their stuff when I covered Yemen about a year ago.

Do such people exist - are they the same types that love going to the dentist?

Glad you enjoyed To Verdenne and Victory - that was one of my two scenarios for CMFB. I wouldn't be so down on computer controlled AI - I think there are some titles where it suits quite well and I'm mainly thinking Cold War here. If you want a more realistic experience of what it would be like to be on the end of a Soviet Battalion attack then a well-designed AI plan put together by someone who has a thorough understanding of how a Cold War Soviet battalion would attack delivers that better than a human player who will likely employ tactics that they know to have the most optimal effect. @George MC pulled this off very effectively under @Bil Hardenberger's tutelage in the NTC campaign for Cold War. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that humans are more challenging opponents and at the end of the day, so long as you're enjoying the game, that's all that matters.

Well a couple of examples then - and this is playing out now under the Turbaned beardy lot ... Land tenure - there are folks claiming land based allegedly on titles/deeds from about 40 years ago and probably longer crawling out of the woodwork again. So going back to the ISAF days and even now - if you built a project to help the folks on a contested piece of land then you are going to irritate the contesting party. Nobody has a clue who owns what which is something people in less conflict-prone countries sorted out a couple of centuries ago and had means to resolve them through a due process. Tribal disputes - again these go back years and the tribes were perfectly happy to align with whoever would best further their interests. Any tribe aligning itself with ISAF for instance would trigger the opposing tribe to align with the Taliban. There are heaps of confederations, sub-tribes and the like within Afghanistan. Again this is still playing out now, I think I've read two reports in the past fortnight about tribal disputes undergoing arbitration with the local Taliban leadership. There was also a case this week that I read where a group of Kuchis (nomads) are demanding something in the order of $60,000 compensation from villagers in Behsud District, Maidan Wardak Province for one of their number allegedly being murdered 40 years ago. Then you had the government ... which had to be ethnically balanced in order to stop itself ripping itself to pieces. The majority of the ethnic figureheads protected their own. Take 'Commander Alipoor' a fairly unpleasant ex-bus driver who commanded his own Hazara militia in Behsud District which 'protected' the resident population from the Kuchis. That same militia also shook down travellers en-route to Bamyan and numerous other acts of unpleasantness. He was quite rightly arrested and banged up for this and other crimes. But he got let out because Second Vice President Danesh a Hazara lobbied for his release. Militia belonging to this creature notoriously shot down an ANDSF helicopter in March 2021 and you've guessed it, the Second Vice President would not condemn Alipoor and Mohammad Mohaqqeq who was a senior politician at the time and also a Hazara urged people not to act too hastily. The timing of this event was about a fortnight before districts started falling like ninepins to start the chain of events leading to the fall of Kabul five months later. So the moral of that one was ... well who do you support because it seems they're all as bad as each other. The whole sorry saga of Alipoor here ... Who is Alipoor, aka Commander Shamshir? | TOLOnews MoD: Army Helicopter in Behsud Downed by Alipoor | TOLOnews Behsud Incident: Alipoor Continues to Evade Arrest | TOLOnews Govt's Reaction to Alipoor Met With Cries for Caution | TOLOnews Behsud Situation: MPs Call for Alipoor’s Arrest | TOLOnews Behsud: Danesh Says Govt Must Ensure Justice to Stop Fighting | TOLOnews

Nobody fell for it - it is just so ingrained that it kept getting put in the 'too difficult basket.' I remember a briefing in 2019 at the US Embassy given by the US Ambassador who said flat out, the biggest threat in this country other than the insurgency is corruption. Personally, and to link it back to the thread, it was probably the number one threat because it completely undermined the ANDSF's capability among other things - we can see the same effects on the Russian military. To give you an example of the sheer grasping greed, when COVID hit in 2020 there was reporting of about 20 officials at various levels in the Ministry of Public Health being lifted for having misappropriated ventilators donated by the international community and flogging them off in Pakistan at great personal enrichment.

And why would Artkin subsequently purchase said allegedly recycled content thereafter? But, you're right, let's hear the "how would you know?" answer first.

No I don't. Der Ring der 5 Panzer was not previous Battlefront content so it is new and adding 700m to an existing map = new content. I am prepared to concede that if one map is a cut out as you assert then 13 of 14 only are new content. So let's crowd fund a reduced target of $1 shall we?

You're full of Christmas cheer aren't you. Der Ring der 5 Panzer you got for free in the first place as @George MCreleased that as a community scenario . So let's say 30% is 'old content.' Looks like you're owed $3. Let me know where to send the money to or maybe we'll set up a crowdfund.

I remember testing this and the next mission in this campaign - I suspect I may learn how I should have approached it from this thread

Nope.

This is he ... Rooks And Kings - Battlefront.com Community

The key thing before doing anything in the scenario editor is to have an idea of what it is you're trying to portray. Is this a historical action? In which case you use what happened as your starting point and then compromise along the way if you have to because of the constraints of the scenario editor. Is it going to be playable both sides? In which case the map has to give both players sufficient room to manoeuvre to allow them to come up with alternate plans. Even if it is only single player vs the AI, there needs to be room for the AI plans to play out. What are the force sizes and will there be enough room for them to be employed realistically and effectively? I'd start with a slightly larger map and sketch out the schemes of manoeuvre first so that you get an idea of how it is going to play out. From there you can work out where exactly your map boundaries need to be and what the key features are on that map. You can then either increase or decrease the size of the area you think your'e going to need, or maybe move the map up or down by 500m (or whatever) or left or right by 1km (or whatever). Once you're happy ... then create the Special Editor Overlay and start making your map. You also have to think about setup zones and making the thing big enough if terrain isn't blocking LOS between the setup zones for both sides to setup safe in the knowledge that they're not going to massacre each other on turn one. If you leap in using the overlay you've got you may find that the moment you start putting troops on it that: There isn't enough room for the attacker setup zone. Both sides kill each other on turn one. You have to change the battle/your concept to fit the map. Your scenario is unappealing because there's really only one course of action. Mortar setup zones and the area in which you want the rounds to fall are either within minimum range or beyond maximum range. The attacking player (or AI) can be easily hemmed into their setup zone because of either short ranges or terrain factors that give the defender an unassailable advantage. The defender has limited options in siting the defence. There's a reason the military does a ground appreciation first which neatly translates to the art/science of scenario making.

What looks to be a pretty good article on Russian Cyber Operations from the Carnegie Institute came out a couple of days ago. I confess I haven't read all of it due to personal bandwidth issues but their stuff is pretty good. From the bits I did read, the deduction that stuck out for me in my line of work is that Russia struggles with intelligence-led planning/decision-making - certainly not an earth-shattering revelation to either myself or followers of this thread but always good to have confirmation. I'm sure the more analytical types on this thread will draw out a hell of a lot more than that: https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/12/16/russia-s-wartime-cyber-operations-in-ukraine-military-impacts-influences-and-implications-pub-88657

The Eyes on Russia Map produced by the Centre for Information Resilience has been updated. For those not aware of it, it claims to show verified open source data. For fans of geolocation, it looks a pretty good resource: Eyes on Russia Map