George MC

Hi Thanks to you all for the comments and feedback. I've jusy uploaded a revised version with over two hours time and a slight chnage to the Blue brief to reflect some victory conditions. Glad to see it appears to be going down well. Cheers fur noo George

Hi Slaphappy I'm still getting my head around how much longer action scan take in CMSF. If a built a scenario in CMX1 with 120 turns I think few people would go near it. My timescale on it was based on how long it took me to get into the town plus some more. But then knowing the scenario means you go a bit faster. It's easy enough for me to up the time frame for this In game you are stuck with the time the designer sets for the scenario - although if players want it is easy enough to chnage in the editor. Other good thing about this new editor is you can do that and not see what the other side has so you still keep that FOW. Re your defeat. I did set some of the US parameters so that excessive ammo consumption would penalise the player. One design issue is how you give the player enough to know what constartints they are playing within, without your brief sounding like your guys are in a game. I'm sure RL briefs don't say "We can win this if we stay withing 20% KIA, 30% unit untact and we keep our ammo expenditure to 40%"... So any suggestions how the designer can get around this and still give the player an idea of what constartints they are in but maintain that immersion factor? Cheers fur noo George

Hi All! Hey wow! Thanks for the feedback - great stuff By the comments it seems you are all playing as Blue Vs Red AI? I've done a plan for the Blue side but I think the AI not being able to react like a human when attacking means playing the Blue AI has limited appeal. Nailing a M1 Abrams from the rear with a RPG is rather fun though - at least in it's pixel form... Still if you play against the Blue AI be keen to hear how it went. Thanks again and glad you are all enjoying it. Nice to hear. Cheers fur noo George Mc

Mech heavy combat team under the command of "Hammer 6" drives hard and fast north along "Route 66". Laying in wait is a Syrian mech unit tasked with stopping the advance. Hammertime! Best played H2H, or Blue Vs Red AI. Will also play Red Vs Blue AI. Just updated to version 4 which makes a small Syrian OOB change. You can get it over at CMMODS Cheers fur noo George Mc [ October 19, 2007, 01:07 AM: Message edited by: George Mc ]

Hi Metalbrew Good points mate. The map was larger but we cut the map down as there was some concern as to whether players could run this map on their machines. Re the set-up zone I am sure that originally the set-up zone was just the road. Can't mind if I chnaged it or not, but the scenario building was all done to very tight deadlines so I may be getting confused with some other stuff Anyways thanks for the comments - all good stuff Cheers fur noo George

Hi Ardem Thanks for the comments. If you would care to pay for me going back to design school that would be much appreciated – I know how rich you Aussies are Just caught this thread so it appears that everyone is having different experiences with it. When playtesting this the arrival of the Syrian units did not pose a problem as it would appear the Beta testers moved more cautiously. The reason for the sudden appearance is that in RL the ground just past OBJ Diane is very well farmed with lot’s of woodland, orchards, villages etc. You do from desert to agricultural land very quickly. So that mob are not motoring over the open desert to get there. I take the point about stuff beaming in. believe me I hate that as much as anyone else. In my forlorn defence the timing of the T72s worked out OK in testing, as moving to contact saw meeting the first Syrian units and going firm to take them on. In all the playtests this meant that the Stryker unit was still around the village area when the tanks appeared and so this sudden tank arrival was less of an issue. It now appears that for some more aggressive players pushing forward hard and fast that this timing leads to some very unsatisfactory happenings. I’m afraid that for now I can’t amend this one. All I can suggest is players take it slower! Cheers fur noo George

He! He! Appropriate moniker Cheers fur noo George Mc

Hi GDog The civillian density just makes IDing 'uncons', VBIEDs etc that bit more difficult. You imagine the FPS if we had throngs of civillians running about! Cheers fur noo George

Hi GDog Yup on the same page Sergei managed to get some US troops to man a Syrian taxi, can't mind how he did it but it worked well. Could be the bug that made that happen is gone, or could be it is still there Good luck withe the scenario and look forward to having a wee play with it Cheers fur noo George

Hi Slowmotion Yeah supply platoon vehcile crews all come dismounted but not combat formation vehcile crews (which is what the OP is after I think) - unless someone has found a workaround for allowing crews to dismount their vehciles in the editor set-up? Cheers fur noo George

Hi GDog Do you mean you can have the vehicle crew (i,e, driver and co-driver) of the Humvee dismount during in the set-up in the editor? Just tried it and the dismount button for the humvee is greyed out as I expected. Maybe we are talking about differant things? Cheers fur noo george

The troops doing the matrix thing in the air is a rarish but known bug - all going well it should be fixed in the next patch I think. Cheers fur noo George Mc

Short answer - no. At the moment you can't dismount vehicle crews in the set-up in the editor. It's another of these things on the wish list/BFC to do. Cheers fur noo George

Just split the team and leave the javellin/AT team sitting back - that way you don't slow down thw whole squad.

Hi Handihoc Looks like we have both had similra beginnings in our wargaming. My wee Airfix soldiers used to garrison my Gran's rockery! I'm in the process of designing another scenario so I'll keep your comments in mind Cheers fur noo george Mc

All valid points and no offence taken. You are right they are easily won - if you use good tactics. They were meant as more training type exercises than full on challenges. So depending on your background and experience you may find em more or less of a challenge. As the other posts illustrate some people have found em just right, which is great, whilst others have found em less so, which is equally great. One of the challenges when designing scenarios for the game was we scenario designers had no real idea how new players would find playing CMx2. Most of the Beta testers in the early builds were getting bounced around a bit by the increased lethality of modern combat. So it was finding a balance between playability, challenge and realism. A difficult juggling act with modern kit. There are some issues with the StratAI and TacAI, ATGM accuracy, LOS/LOF, cover etc, that BFC are aware off and are working to fix in the following patches, that do have a bearing on game play. Perhaps in subsequent builds when these changes are fully implemented they will make the scenarios a tad tougher, or maybe not. In saying that no matter how good these changes to the game are, playing against the AI will always be easier than playing against another human (well providing the human player is reasonably experienced!). Re civilian density – this has no bearing in-game on casualty or victory points. All it does it make it harder to spot ‘uncon’ elements, VBIEDs etc. Setting buildings to ‘preserve’ might have a bearing, but I guess scenario designers (myself included) will find that the editor is a very powerful tool, and it’ll take a long time for people to fully suss out and make good use of the various tools and victory conditions you use. It has taken me several years to fully get to grips with the CMX1 editor and make scenarios that are complex and challenging (and even then I still get it wrong) that I fully expect it will take a long time till I fully get to grips with how the various bits and pieces in the editor all fit together. I’m equally sure that others will pretty much produce great stuff off the bat (as witnessed by some of the scenarios currently being released for public consumption). Cheers fur noo George Mc

You save it as a .txt file? You import it into the correct side brief? You import it into the actual briefing section? That's the main things I can think of hand Cheers fur noo George

Thank You Cheers fur noo George Mc

Hi Sgt Goody Nice one! Good to hear the BMPs are doing damage. I had hoped that where they were positioned would hurt Re the Syrian armour - yeah the AI plan (mind there are two in this so it will play differantly occasionaly) does focus on keeping the armour moving. My hope was it would catch out any hasty human moves. I've lost stuff to em, but guess it comes down to luck in the game (like the BMP snap shooting a missile at a bRad moving at speed - never seen that happen before in all the playtest I've done!). Thanks again for the comments Cheers fur noo George

Buenos Dias KNac! Cheers for the post, your feedback is most appreciated I'll check out the set-up in Wilcox for the engineers just to make sure there is no odd stuff going on. Re map sizes - yeah it is a dilemma with the CMSF maps. Larger maps require more processing power. What I've tried to do with the maps I make (and the brief) is have the player at the moment where they have just moved into contact, so the action starts from the off. Glad you liked Brandenburg - must admit it is one of my favourites Cheers fur noo George Mc

That exists - just look at what weapons the squad has the UI - gives you the number of guys left firing... Cheers fur noo George

Hi All Glad you have all enjoyed the tactical vignette scenarios. I should add that the concepts and briefings are taken from two ‘tactical problems’ set for readers of ‘Armour’ magazine. I just used em as the basis for the scenarios in CMSF. I must admit that the editor in CMSF does allow for some very detailed and realistic looking maps – but to get the most out of it you do need to spend some time getting your map just so. Although I would love to see water added, it is equally not a game breaker for me as marsh does the next best thing. You want a ford just add a mud tile for the crossing point (note: vehicles bog very easily in mud so this recreates the danger of a vehicle bogging rather nicely). Re ‘Wilcox’ and stuff starting out in LOS. I am pretty certain I had moved the engineer stuff to a safe location in the initial game set-up. My only concern would be players setting up units themselves – the brief is very clear that enemy tanks are in the village so players setting up stuff from the outset in LOS of any part of the village is asking for it So from my POV ‘Wilcox’ ain’t ‘broken’ – just players need to be careful where they set-up Thanks again for the feedback. I’m working on another scenario right now – just needs a bit more work and playtesting before it goes live! Cheers fur noo George Mc

Re size of map - just watch - larger maps work fine IF your PC can handle it. I think the larger maps if they have lots of terrain detail (trees, flavour objects and steep elevations) chew up processing power on lower spec machines. A 'good' size is maps with a dimensions around 500 to 700m (i.e. 500m x 500m or 700m x 700m). You can make larger maps but some PCs will struggle to run em when the bullets start to fly. As mentioned by Paper Tiger - AI plans (for whatver side you want the AI to fight) and set-up areas are vital. The test it all, then test again Cheers fur noo George [ August 11, 2007, 01:08 AM: Message edited by: George Mc ]

Hi Big Dork Glad you enjoyed it Cheers fur noo George Mc

Hi Big Dork In a way you are playing me - I designed the scenario and drew up the AI plans Like playing by proxy reading your AAR! Looks like it is being a bit of a grind, which is what I hoped it would be. Looks like you are doing well so far. My own attempts saw a similar rate of attrition, so looks like you are doing not so bad Keep them AARs coming - good reads, and good luck Cheers fur noo George Mc