Has FMB ever made a campaign for CMFB?

[Apocal]

I loved the scale, narrative and layout of his campaigns, From Dawn to the Setting Sun (CMSF) and Devil's Descent (CMBN). They were like gold to me because of the way I was forced to care about losses but not in an overly punitive way; the scenarios within weren't puzzle games and simply a presented a plain, understandable tactical problem that could be overcome without mashing my forces to the nubs or having foreknowledge from previous playthroughs. I looked through the repository, nothing. However, with the search function here presently broken (something about rebuilding indexes for the last few days) I can't find anything on the forum either.

So now I'm asking in this thread. Has FMB made a campaign for Final Blitzkrieg?

If he has not, I would love a steer in the direction of any campaigns made at a in his style (company core force, narrative and decision branches, persistent losses, few replacements, limited resupply) covering any force or period in CMFB.

Edited June 25, 2017 by Apocal

[Erwin]

My campaign folder contains only 7 CMFB campaigns.  If someone has something other than the following I would also like to know:

Bastogne Plus

BulgePlusOne

Courage Conquers

KG Peiper

Knock Em All Down

Road to Bastogne

Training Campaign

 

 

[Combatintman]

I doubt it - his last visit to the forum predates CMFB's release.

[domfluff]

Yeah, I don't think so.

It is a shame. Broadly, there seem to be two kinds of CM scenario - narrativist ones and simulationist ones. The former tries to tell a story, typically with an unusual situation, or use of reinforcements, and the latter is more of the "You have a rifle company, secure that hill". Clearly there's a spectrum, and both extremes can be excellent. Some even manage to do both fairly equally, as with the excellent "Green 9" for CMSF.

The really nice thing about FMB's campaigns is that they are campaigns revolving around a small group, which means you can easily see the damage and ammunition limitations carried over from one to the other - even without the narrative fluff in between, you're telling more personal stories, because you can get to know the individual guys.

One challenge is writing stories at a small enough scale - it's tough to write a continuing story about an individual platoon in WW2, for example.

 

[Glubokii Boy]

One thing that is a tricky detail to get right with campaigns like these is to get  the difficulty level for  each individual  scenario to be 'right'...

Many different players...Many different playstyles......

What will the average casualty level be ? what will the average ammo situation look like ?

In a campaign with limited reinforcements and limited resupply that spans over a decent number of scenarios...this is tricky indeed and only a few talented designers are able to pull it of...

If you get this wrong the campaign will not 'work'...

More or less a requirement to be succesful with designing such a campaign will be to have a significant playtester group to provide feedback...

That is a luxery few community designers have a fear...

 

 

[Erwin]

The most enjoyable campaigns are branching ones, where 1) you can choose between different courses of action for the next mission - this goes some way to providing an operational feel, 2) a win or a loss will send you to different follow-on missions - so if a mission is too hard and you lose you can get an easier one next so one doesn't have to replay just to win (I hate having to do that) and 3) requires conservation of men, materiel and ammo - so you have to win "economically" as there is a "tomorrow".

But yes, the above requires a huge amount or work to design.  That's why many of us are happy to pay BF for campaigns professionally developed by designers who understand all the tricks of the very complex CM editor.

[Apocal]

8 hours ago, domfluff said:

Yeah, I don't think so.

It is a shame. Broadly, there seem to be two kinds of CM scenario - narrativist ones and simulationist ones. The former tries to tell a story, typically with an unusual situation, or use of reinforcements, and the latter is more of the "You have a rifle company, secure that hill". Clearly there's a spectrum, and both extremes can be excellent. Some even manage to do both fairly equally, as with the excellent "Green 9" for CMSF.

The really nice thing about FMB's campaigns is that they are campaigns revolving around a small group, which means you can easily see the damage and ammunition limitations carried over from one to the other - even without the narrative fluff in between, you're telling more personal stories, because you can get to know the individual guys.

One challenge is writing stories at a small enough scale - it's tough to write a continuing story about an individual platoon in WW2, for example.

I dunno, FMB managed to mix both narrative and "simulationist" elements pretty well. He didn't do anything to hold your hand beyond a briefing, but definitely missions were carried through with a narrative aspect. The most frustrating thing for me is that the first mission of the Allied campaign (Courage Conquers, I think?) seemed like something FMB would have whipped up. There was nothing really hard about the mission as long as you pushed your recon forward and saw what you needed to see, but the emphasis on no reinforcements, no resupply (other than off-board artillery). But the second crept up in scale and I was getting nervous. Finally, the third mission (I can't remember if I won the second or not) was basically stacking up everything in the task force onto the map, including two companies of tanks, I think three platoons of infantry between two companies themselves, mortars, etc. and it became a chore to manage it all. That was disappointing, because it was shaping up pretty nicely.

Anyway, I'm still futzing around the map editor. I made a few missions before, but either went with very simple maps or recycling QB maps and that definitely won't fly as far as players now are concerned.