Webwing

Hey Pete, I don't think you are waffling at all. Your observations are spot on. That's why they imagined a close combat, urban sort of scenarios. The problem is they include a map editor. This opens up Pandora's box, 'cause now you can design anything and you come to realize the maps are small for such powerful weapons. But you have shown that with a bit of creativity you can make good of it. Besides, all the great inventions and works of art are this, to transcend the limitations of your tools and do something special. The guys that made the best scenarios so far are the ones that understood this. Where to place the objects to block LOS, etc. But in the end I think we can't help ourselves but think: Imagine this in a WWII scenario!

They keep walking until the next waypoint. The order there was again FAST. So they started to run but since their state was still exhausted they went back to MOVE mode. This must be fixed. I've seen many times enemy soldiers walking in the middle of the battle and now I know why. How come a soldier walking strait up in the middle of the battlefield? But since crawling is even more stressful they go to MOVE mode which is the less stressful. They should lay down and wait and even go to HIDE mode until they are rested. Not sure if you can call this a bug but it sure must be fixed. -

I can understand that and there are many reasons to like QB. But take a look at a user made mission like Babado. You open the mission and while it's pause look at the map. Not much to it. How long did it take to put a few walls, a road a few one storie houses? But man, what a battle!!! Why? There is nothing random there. What took ThePhantom A LOT of time, and thinking was WHERE to put the walls, etc. Where and what forces to have. At what time should they be in place. The tools are simple to use. The hard thing is how to use it to have a great effect. He is still tweaking the mission! No way you can get that with a random generator. Like the quote: "Writing is easy. You start with a capital letter and finish with a period. In the middle you put ideas." -- Have you checked Napoleon's Campaigns??? IMO best Napoleonic era wargame ever!!!! Quite a few Phillips involved in that game. -- [ November 29, 2007, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

Yep. Thanks. TOW's editor is far more complex due to the scripting involved. Things can get very abstract for people with no previous coding experience. That was the reason for the first TOW tutorial. It took me 6 tutorials just to scratch the surface. And that is just the mission itself. No terrain/map. Here everything is in one slick elegant package. Less than 10 min you can have, terrain, forces, AI, everything set up. Of course, in 10 minutes everything has to be kept to a minimum. But still quite impressive piece of software. -- [ November 29, 2007, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

markl and aka_tom_w, Hope you guys find it useful. -- zwobot, I was thinking about one for each area: Units, Maps and AI. Let's wait for 1.05 first. Also I need more experience. No point just showing people what the fields and buttons are for. You have all that in the manual, and there is a lot of info in the manual showing what everything is for. I would want to show it in use, practical tips and stuff. And the workflow, some common mistakes, etc. If there is genuine interest in this I'll be glad to do it in the future. But there's a lot of people here with more experience than me that will be able to help you out as well.

Chelco, I'm doing a lot of testing to find out exactly this. I need to know what the TacAI can do to be able do take advantage of it while designing the missions. It might be a waste of time since 1.05 is around the corner and might change a lot of things. What I've seen so far is a mixed bag. Some very clever things and some pretty silly ones. Some silly ones are bugs that must be fixed. Once they are fixed the TacAI is pretty decent. One thing I found out is that if you treat the Orders as waypoints you are putting the AI in a straitjacket. For instance you assign a squad to a single square in the grid. Next order to another one. Ok, you have control, but you leave no option of manouver to the AI. It would be best to paint a general area and let the AI decide the best spot to be, where and when to move. That's the whole idea behind painting areas as opposed to points. This is new for me. I'm trying to learn to take advantage of this system. Right now I'm finding hard to create an effective attack. A lot easier to prepare a good defence. This is in part due to my inexperience with the system but also to some bugs like for instance the soldiers won't go to the roof although there is an especific order for that. Once we pass the stage of fixing the major bugs then I'll be able to tell you for sure how good the TacAI is. --

I think sometimes there is a misunderstanding about this whole issue. "This is too scripted" or the other side "There is no scripting/triggers etc. in the editor" A heavily scripted scenario can be a good thing. If done properly. You can ensure a lot of replayability value by including random events and triggers. BUT, and it's a big BUT, It takes ages just to do one mission but it sure can seem like you are against a very clever opponent. If its not done properly it will feel robotic and... 'scripted'. Also you rely on the designer alone. A game engine that does not have a TacAI can't live without scripts, triggers and conditionals. With a TacAI in place one can only give general directions to the computer opponent and leave it to take the rest of the decisions. If one starts adding specific waypoints and triggers and conditionals, the TacAI becomes redundant. Just an example: Without TacAI Got to point A. If you see no enemy go to B. If you see the enemy start fighting. With Tac AI Got to area B. Here the TacAI should know that if on the way to B they find an enemy they should start to shoot. Or retreat, or panic... depending on the moral, training, tiredness of the troops. I'm not saying one is necessarily better than the other. It would be possible to more features and options to be used if the designer decided it was needed in specific situations. That would be the best of both worlds. -- [ November 29, 2007, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

Chelco, I don't know about the ProPE version but I also really like the SB(1) editor. Long time I don't use it but I used to like it a lot. I wouldn't say that it is far superior to the CMSF editor though. The idea behind the CMSF editor is to be user friendly and to leave more decisions to the TacAI and less burden on the designer. SB for instance doesn't hava a TacAI, therefore the need for triggers, etc. I think they achieve a pretty decent compromise between a user friendly interface and some powerful features. But again players only, think it is too complex. Designers that it lacks features. I agree. But then again you fall in the issue I mentioned early. Not many people want to spend their time designing missions. Although they actually have the time trigger. They don't have conditionals. Airborne Assault is one of my favorite war games ever! Can't compare though. Apples and oranges. - [ November 29, 2007, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

I decided to do some tests regarding this since I’m doing a mission with infantry only and I wanted to know how big a map I would be able to do without having all the troops exhausted. Also the AI trigger to move from A to B is based on time so knowing how long it takes for the troops to move is crucial. Only US troops tested for now. The squads were all set to normal (not typical!), 0 and Fitness to “Fit”. I don’t think Experience, Motivation, Leadership and Supply affect the performance. Levels of Fitness in game: Rested, Ready, Tiring, Tired, Fatigued, Exhausted. I made a 1km course and set 10 waypoints for all orders. A riffle squad with “Quick” will take around 40 sec to run 100m and around 9min for 1km. A scout squad is only 40 sec faster in 1km. Both behave the same as far as levels of fitness goes. Soon after starting they change from rested to ready. After 500 they go to tiring. After 750m they are tired. And this is how they finish the 1km run. It takes only from 2 to 3 min for them to be rested again. With a “Fast” command things change a lot but you don’t gain much in terms of speed. They get tired after only 50 m, fatigued after 500m and exhausted after 800m. They start walking(Move) then. The real killer is Slow. Put your men to crawl and they will be exhausted after 50m. Once exhausted, if they stop, it takes about 1 min for them to go back to fatigued and 1 min more for each stage until they are rested again. All in all around 5min. Terrain type does not seem to affect the Tiredness level at all. This seems a bit off. Inclination of the terrain does. I guess the level of stress during battle affects the performance as well but for my needs that was enough and I sent the troops home. This might be of some use for others designing their missions or even to play the missions!! [ November 29, 2007, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

I have spent most of the time with the editor... But I guess playing this scenario against a human, or any scenario for that matter, one would have to do it in a completely different way. I only play single player against the AI so not sure it would help you anyway.

I was looking more carefully your maps and was really impressed with the amount of detail you have put into them. Like I said in the other thread they don't run slow with the settings I'm using. The maps have WWII feel to them. Not much like the Syria I imagine. But to be honest what do I know about Syria anyway. There might be some areas resembling that. Not sure that is relevant anyway. I spend some time "traveling" around the maps to find some good spots for battles. They remind me of the TOW maps to a certain extend . Using sacks to look like sand bags, like PeterLorre86 pointed out, was genius. Congrats again. Have you got a battle already for this? --

Cpl Steiner, After it's finished you could make some modifications adapting the map more to the CMSF style. You could have this one, detailed and precisely following the original and another one more loosely inspired by the original source. Loads of possiblities and ramifications here. A great work indeed! -- Pete, Your maps are awesome. I love them. Found out about them in this thread and ran to download them. I have the same problem as Paper Tiger though.[update: actually I was running a few other programs in and so was experiencing some memory shortage... The map runs pretty smooth now] But the beauty of the editor is that you can cut from any corner. This way I can use a quarter of the total map and still design some interesting infantry combat. If you are to have infantry only scenario there is no purpose to have a larger map anyway since the troops on foot get so tired after a few hundred meters. Anyway, with your big maps one can have several smaller ones, unique in therms of terrain. Congratulations!!! [ November 29, 2007, 04:19 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

ops. double post

-- Some games are released in some key moments with the right appeal. They surprise you and involve you in a way that you never have experienced before. An unexpected joy. The first CM games had that magic. I remember also when I played Close Combat I. I'll never forget the first week I played it. Airborne Assault by Panther. Another great experience... Shogun TW, wow! and SteelBeasts to a less extent. Nowadays I guess our expectations are too high. Very difficult to be really taken aback by a game release. -- [ November 28, 2007, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

Thanks. Exactly. No excuses anymore! Thanks MarkEzra! I'd say exactly the same about you. Had a good reaction for the videos in TOW but I didn't think there was the need for this kind of tutorial here. But I guess reading the instructions is one thing but seeing it in action is another. Thank you. I just checked it and it seems to be working fine. By the way it's not a mission file but a video file, 34 Megs so can't really just email it to you. But let me know if you still have trouble downloading it. Let me know what you think. You do?? Not sure there is something there for you... Anyway, thanks. Although I have to say that the mission itself turned out pretty good. I think it will put Hummertime to shame. It will be a new classic. George Mc's days of glory are over!!!! -

Dirtweasle, Give it a try and see if it helps you. Tutorial

Video file, with audio. DivX 6.0 codec. Basic Mission - Rapidshare Basic Mission - Bestsharing Create a basic mission. File size: 32M Duration: around 15 min. A video tutorial that shows everything you need to design your first mission. It’s meant for people that find the editor intimidating but would like to design a mission nonetheless. The mission shown in the tutorial takes less than 10 min to design. Although basic all the elements you need to design bigger and more complex scenarios are there. You’ll have a better understanding of the workflow: </font> Create the terrain and elevations</font>Add units and set them up on the map</font>Customize the quality of the troops.</font>Create objectives</font>Set up deployment areas.</font>Program the AI to advance to the objective.</font>and... can't remember what else, I need some sleep. </font> If you already use the editor this is not for you. It’s very basic stuff. I only cover the bare minimum to have a basic mission into the game. I did this late at night and had a few problems with video memory during recording. There is the danger that you will fall asleep as you watch it. Use it at your own risk. - [ November 28, 2007, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

Thanks. I think most wargames are biased towards armor. The first mod I did for Close Combat II was exactly an all infantry mod! I think though that armor is easier to look convincing in a game than infantry. --

I like the use of photos and all in the briefing. Though I think it is a road that goes in front of the safe house and not a trench... --

Have you tried this: Village Attack (at CMODS)? 95% infantry. --

Thanks Madmatt, Keeps getting better and better! --

Cheers.

JohnO, Cool! Reading your AAR (not just a general plan) it seems very sound your course of action. I have to give this scenario another try. Will tell you how it went. Too much stuff to do, not enough time...

- Brilliant, don't stop, don't stop!!!! -

10, 15 minutes at the most. Once you know what you are doing. What takes most of the time(not included in the 15 min!) is balancing the forces and testing. I'm not sure if this game and my capturing software work together well so I cant promise you anything. But if everything goes well it will be up soon. Just dont complain about the download size of the file.