Game realism, feasibility.

[Tinyb]

Having played the game now for some time,  be it BN RT or FI one thing which has bugged me is the fact that lots of scenarios have unobtainable tasks.  Of course its a game and sometimes making the game difficult creates the fun and an extra challenge.  In some cases however its plain frustrating.  I have a military background and without a doubt, if I were given the task required by some of the scenarios, I would have to refuse those tasks.  The case in question is "Gateway to Palermo" FI.  The Missions objective is to Occupy a Town, with a secondary mission to Occupy the hill, which is on route to the Town.  You have 2 platoons of infantry with 5 Sherman s, some recce support.  No Artillery.  Reinforcements include 1 additional platoon and some mobile howitzers and a priest.  I have tried this scenario now 5 times adopting different tactics each time.  I estimate the enemy strength is a least 1 Company with armour in or around the Town, lost count off AT Guns.  I have tried to capture the Hill first on route to the Main objective and got slaughtered.  Off course sometimes you get defeated but this one is a real bugger.  If I had 2 battalions with a full Company of Armour and 2 batteries of field Artillery,   I reckon I could achieve the Missions.  Attack ratios are 3:1 minimum.

[RockinHarry]

I do not own CMFI so can´t tell about that one. Usually when I figure a mission goal to be unobtainable then most likely due to the designer too much having a focus on how certain things are to be done from designer POV. Then it could happen that there´s little room for any (alternative) player decisions and tackle things his own way. But since I play very rarely user made missions (unless I volunteer for testing) I can´t tell if it´s a "puzzle" type mission or rather the designer having too much of the mentioned focus. Difficult mission design task anyway. I´d tend to work more on chained type mission small campaigns, if a player is really allowed to "reject" a particular battle and then offering alternatives (waiting for reinforcements, choosing a night battle instead etc.). This is similar to branched SPWAW (Steel Panthers: WaW) campaigns, where things like this are easily doabale. It´s also doable for CMX2 type operations, although the branching to alternatives is bits more tricky.

[Tinyb]

Thanks for the comments.  I do normally prefer the Campaigns which as you say do offer better choices.  There is something about CMFI that really appeals to me, possibly the scenery etc.

[RockinHarry]

2 hours ago, Tinyb said:

Thanks for the comments.  I do normally prefer the Campaigns which as you say do offer better choices.  There is something about CMFI that really appeals to me, possibly the scenery etc.

yes, everybody has his own preferences on certain theaters and settings for sure. I personally like the WW2 western and eastern fronts more, but can completely avoid desert terrain settings, may it be WW2 north africa or 20XX Syria. Fortunately BFC has it all in the offers. 

[MikeyD]

I looked at the 'Gateway to Palermo' map and was surprised by how relatively compact it was. I was expecting some sprawling over-large  map. That's one of the few maps I would have recommended enlarging to give the American a choice of avenues of approach. American force selection appears to be a fairly bog standard infantry company+ accompanied by a platoon of Shermans (heck, I made one of those scenarios just last week!). Looking over the parameters, I think the scenario would have been winnable if only more points had been awarded for killing the enemy. Its heavily weighted to terrain objectives currently. Scenarios like this I'm usually content to rain mortars down on the enemy position and hope to win a minor victory on casualties.

[boekie]

I have played this scenario a month or 2 ago and it really isnt that hard too win this scenario,i got a total victory before even entering the town because the enemy surrendered with 34 minutes left left on the clock.