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The Sheriff of Oosterbeek – A Scenario Design DAR/AAR


JonS

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Cutting down map size seems to be a recurring phenomenon. :D

Curious, do these 'uncut' large maps at least find their way at least in part into the QB map folder for release?

Mapping, especially large 1km x 1km or bigger maps is quite an undertaking. Would be sad for all that work to not see the light of day in some form.

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Curious, do these 'uncut' large maps at least find their way at least in part into the QB map folder for release?

Mapping, especially large 1km x 1km or bigger maps is quite an undertaking. Would be sad for all that work to not see the light of day in some form.

Don't know if there is a uniform answer to that In the case of my map there is an expanded version I have in the works.

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19 - Scenario design is easy. It just takes time.

My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor pixeltruppen. Believe me, nothing except a scenario unfinished can be half so melancholy as a scenario released.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (if he’d ever designed a scenario for Combat Mission)

I see regular requests on the BFC forums for more larger/smaller/infantry-only/tank-heavy/town/country/whatever scenario type, which is completely understandable – we all want more scenarios to play. That demand will only be met when you go out and make a scenario or three.

This series of posts has methodically gone through all the main steps required to produce a scenario, and taken as a whole it might seem overwhelming. However, what I’ve written here is not intended as a prescriptive set of rules that must be adhered to, but as a descriptive set of guidelines to follow.

The best way to get that whelm under control is to start with something modest, and keep the scope strictly under control. But also start with something you would want to play, rather than something you think someone else might want to play.

I would suggest that a first scenario should have no more than a company on either side, which means that one side could be considerably less than that. The map should be well less than 1km x 1km. Much of what has made this thread so expansive is the sheer size of the original concept for The Sheriff of Oosterbeek, and ultimately most of that work got cast aside. Even with that, a lot of what’s been described here is quicker and easier to do than to describe. On the other hand, if your passion is to create a battalion sized scenario ... do it! Lean on that passion to get the job done.

Detailed descriptions of real battles at the scale of a company or smaller are hard to come by, so consider constructing a semi-historical vignette of an interesting battle. In otherwords: use real forces pitted against each other in a plausible but fictional situation. The first step in creating a scenario is often the hardest, so grab an idea, and get into it! The details will sort themselves out, and if needs be the scenario can altered later.

At least as important as the size of forces involved is to have a very clear idea of what tactical problem each player is being presented with. This should be simple and easy to understand, and will often revolve around coping with adversity or insufficiency - trying to pit weakness against strength, or coping with less than ideal odds. As with the size of forces, cut anything that isn’t related to that core tactical problem or which doesn’t contribute to the telling of your story.

After that it’s merely a case of working through, in no particular sequence, the various elements that are needed for a complete scenario: map, objectives, briefings, AI, etc. Then test, revise, polish, and release it.

That last step is key. A dozen partially finished scenarios sitting on the C: drive, or a fistful of good ideas in your head, is no good to anybody. Finish one of them, and release the thing. Don’t wait until it’s perfect, because that will never happen. Aim for ‘adequate and interesting.’ As General Patton probably meant to say; "A good scenario today is better than a perfect scenario tomorrow."

19-1areyou_zpsad7e27b8.jpg

19.1: Well, are you?


Go make that scenario you’re dying to play, and share it through the Repository. Then we all win.

Back to start of thread Edited by JonS
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I will answer the call, I am playtesting my first scenario right now. It is called: In the heat of the morning. It is company sized and plays on a 800x600m map. An American assault on a village, to be played as the defending Germans only. I put a LOT of effort in the map. I think it looks great, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder :-) When I am finished I will upload. I hope someone will get some fun out of it.

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And I like all the little scenarios starting with "MG". :) Looks promising, indeed.

Thanks a lot for this wonderful lesson in scenario design. I haven´t had time to read all of it yet - but the posts I have read have been very enlightening, thorough and entertaining. Great job.

(BTW, Jon: Don´t you have CW installed???)

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I'm glad you all enjoyed it. There's one more chapter yet, sort of an appendix, which should be up next week sometime.

(BTW, Jon: Don´t you have CW installed???)

Not in this install. It's to make sure no CW content (units, vehicles, terrain) inadvertently migrates into an MG scenario.

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I've mentioned this before and it really helped me get into learning the editor...

I started trying to go 100% realistic but as we see there's a good deal of work in the research, obtaining and creating an overlay for the map and all that before you even load CM. Copying a CM1 scenario as a base however helps cut out most of that leg work and lets you get straight into the editor and make something relatively quickly. You've got all the details already so you just need to set everything up and build the map. Screen-shotting the CM1 map in the editor and using it as the overlay, copy the forces etc etc it's quite easy. Only thing you have to come up with yourself is AI plans.

So if you have the urge but are a little daunted maybe give rebuilding a CM1 battle a go as a place to start. You can also use parts from CM1. My next project (if I ever get around to it) will be to use a CM1 battle for all the details except the map which I plan to make from scratch using google etc.

-F

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20 - Forms and Checklists

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
Lao-tzu (ancient Chinese scenario designer)

The following forms and lists might be useful when creating scenarios. Feel free to use, modify, and abuse them.

The Combat Estimate

The scenario briefing - including the briefing imagery - should give players enough information to develop a plan. Use these six fundamental questions, that the player needs to address when planning how to fight a scenario, as a guide to what should be included, and what can be left out, when writing briefings:

1) What am I required to do? (How do I score points to win?)
2) What are the enemy doing? (How does the enemy score points to win?)
3) What effects do I want to have on the enemy?
4) Where can I best accomplish each action/effect?
5) What resources do I have, and what do I need to accomplish each action/effect?
6) When and where do the actions take place in relation to each other?



Questions for Testing
Questions to ask yourself, and any testers, when test-playing a scenario prior to release.

. 1- Is the briefing clear and helpful? Eg. Do you know by reading it exactly what you need to do? Do you get enough info about forces and reinforcements?
. 2- If you ask for a cease fire right at the beginning, what result do you get?
. 3- Are the forces balanced? Is it reasonable to expect that players will find the mission easy/medium/hard?
. 4- Are any reinforcements arriving on time?
. 5- Is the time given enough to achieve the objectives?
. 6- Is the AAR at the end of the mission ok?
. 7- Are the points assigned to objectives "fair", reflecting the goals of the mission as stated in the briefing?
. 8- is the overall scen consistent with the intent of the mission as described in the first post of this thread? Are the forces on both sides as suggested, is the setting, date, and time correct?
. 9- is the spelling of reinforcements, landmarks, objectives, unit names, etc consistent and correct?



20-1AI_zps440f96e0.jpg



20-2objectives_zps1cf8f87e.jpg



Have fun!
Jon

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Edited by JonS
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  • 3 weeks later...

JonS

I am creating a scenario at present and I want to represent an area that has already been fought over. There would be several already destroyed tanks / vehicles and I want to ad these as flavour objects. I have seen destroyed vehicles in other scenarios but I have not been able to find out how to add them.

Do you know how to do this?

Many thanks

Kensal

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Yup, Mord has it right. Be aware that these 'dead' vehicles are subject to FOW, so each side will only be aware of their own dead vehicles until they stumble on the other guys. Depending on what you are trying to do you can finesse that (by changing the opposing sides) to include dead German tanks in the US force structure, and dead US tanks in the German structure, or both, or whatever suits your scenario.

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  • 3 weeks later...

From post No.191 in this thread:

So this means you spent up 42 hours in total on making the map.

As a point of comparison, this weekend I created a map that's 1392m x 656m (a bit less than half the size of the original Sheriff map). From a standing start yesterday, I've finished it* today. All up - including selecting a location and preparing overlays - it only took maybe 6 or 7 hours to complete. The major difference is that this map only has 5 buildings on it, whereas the Sheriff map has several hundred. Urban maps are really time consuming, especially the big ones.

Jon

* by 'it' I only mean the map.

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How many pots of tea(?) do you go through? Or is there a particular non-alcoholic map making beverage you have? <No scotch or the roads get crooked!!>

Or similarly, do you crank some particular music in the background, classical? jazz? show tunes? or peace and quiet? "HONEY!! QUIET THE BLOODY KIDS DOWN, DON'T YOU KNOW I AM TRYING TO MAKE A MAP???!!!"

HEY! Don't forget about that "Scenario Doctor" <TM> money-making deal I thought of.... ;)

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Or similarly, do you crank some particular music in the background, classical? jazz? show tunes? or peace and quiet? "

LOL kohlenklau - when i made my the maps for my syrian civil war scenarios i always put on arabic jihadi music to get me in the right mindset, although i am not even religious. No kidding.

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  • 3 months later...

This is exceptional Scenario Design DAR/AAR.

For those like me who learn better by seeing how things work , here is a 30 minute Combat Mission Map Tutorial on YouTube at URL =

It helped me better understand what this thread is teaching. Posting as an FYI.

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  • 1 month later...

I didn't make a master map. Pete W made the master maps of the Arnhem area. It just so happened that my plans for this scenario overlapped with the master map he was planning. I'd already pretty much completed this map by the time Pete was done, otherwise I'd probably jsut have used his map (although that wouldn't have made much sense for what this thread is about)

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No, I think it's just the his map starts a little further to the west. For what I wanted, the railway was important so I included it. For what he wanted it wasn't so he didn't.

I haven't done a tile-by-tile comparison, but I do remember being struck by how similar they were. I shouldn't have been, though, since we used basically the same resources. I'm certain that if I looked at Pete's map in detail I'd find a bunch of stuff that'd make me go "darn, I wish I'd thought of that." Hopefully he feels the same way :D

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