ASL Veteran

Maybe we could get Ric Flair

The shopping bags hanging on the gun are a necessary addition to any tank that looks like that.

No doubt the Bob Semple will make its way into this thread at some point

If you just started the scenario then the map size is probably the driver for the file size. Number of units will be a factor as well especially if all the units are doing something - which I suspect is the case. I was going to add something else, but I'll just leave it that - don't want to ruin your game lol.

Sorry you are disappointed. Some points It was not my intention to have the setup zone in LOS of the TOWs. That was an accident of how the map was originally blocked out. You can read about that in the designer's notes. When you block out a map in Google Earth (this is a real location btw) it isn't always possible to determine where units can see and I thought that entire edge was safe since it's behind a slight rise in the terrain. Turns out that it wasn't. The area behind the edge of the map towards the Czech border is all open farmland so extending the map wouldn't make a difference - the TOWs just shoot too far and the map was already pushing max size. It's also very difficult and awkward to extend a map after you have made it and I wasn't going to extend the map another 1000 meters east. We also didn't have a lot of time to finish these things. The setup zone originally extended all the way across the map edge but since the TOWs hit the entire map edge except the northernmost portion it would have been even worse if the setup zone was extended. It is what it is. The TOWs don't start to spot stuff in the setup zone for several minutes and if you stick close to the trees you should be okay. Not ideal, but there wasn't much I could do about it so it is what it is. Once the map is completed the die is mostly cast. There is no artillery with the starting force because it's supposed to be a recon force. The artillery comes with the main force because that's the attacking force. I don't see an issue with that. The air support is addressed in the briefing. The footbridge is a footbridge because it seems like that's what it is in the actual location as far as I could tell. There was another bridge farther north but that part of the map was removed during the creation process - you can read about that in the designer's notes The reinforcements come in one batch (actually three batches) because of the 1 hour 30 minute time limit. If they come in smaller bunches then you have less time to use them. We also have a limit of seven reinforcement groups IIRC and I had already used three of them. The time limit could have been extended, but then people see the longer time and skip it so you can't just put a crazy long time limit on everything. You have to balance what you are doing. The river is not an obstacle for the infantry. It is only an obstacle for the tanks and the tanks are almost irrelevant to your chances for victory. There are plenty of hints and tips in this thread if you are having trouble with this scenario. After reading some of those you shouldn't have much trouble. You can also try it as the American side if you think it's too difficult as the Soviets. I think it's pretty obvious that the main issue most have with this thing is the setup zone and, it is what it is. We didn't have a lot of time to finish these things (I barely finished it in time - many other scenarios done by others were never completed). Extending a map after it's created is very difficult and awkward and extending the map east wouldn't have made a difference since it's all open and modern weapons have range close to infinity as compared to map sizes. Maybe planting a few more trees in the area in front of the setup zone would have helped, but then it would have been more difficult to pass through those trees. A lot of scenario design involves making decisions in the planning stages. Blocking out your map. How big do you want the map to be? Where do you want the edges to be? What can see what? Often times you are doing it by looking at the terrain in 2D in Google Earth and you can't always get a decent picture of what it looks like in 3D until you finish it, and by then it's too late. Once you finally get to the point where you have toys on the map shooting at each other it's basically too late to alter the map without a lot of work (reblocking the map in Google Earth and creating a new overlay and then putting the overlay against the completed parts of the map with all the correct distances - and it's difficult to go back to Google Earth and get the elevation exactly the same as when you first blocked out your map and made your overlay.) When the map was made I thought the entire approach from the set up zone to the mid point in the highway was safe, but when it turned out it wasn't there was nothing I could do about it. I restricted the set up zone to the area behind the trees and put most of the reinforcements there because they would be coming up the highway. If during testing more complained about the setup zone I probably could have had everything come in north behind the mountain, but then no doubt someone would be complaining and wondering why everything is coming in behind the mountain and not on the road. I'll just put this one in my lemon pile and move on. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. There is no way to know how it will play out once it's in the wild.

I agree with this 100%. I really hate the TRPs and wish that we could pre plot sections of the map for possible fire missions, although I would probably suggest that the size of the target area be a little more standardized rather than the free form way it works now. Hopefully artillery can get a rework in the future although I doubt that it will be something that is done for CM2. We will probably need to wait for a future version of the game before something like that comes to pass if it's something possible to add.

Depending upon the casualties for both sides, it's possible for the Soviet to win just by crossing the bridge. It's also possible to lose after crossing the bridge but there it is.

Keep in mind the CM has multiple eras and if you are only thinking in terms of modern, then you should probably adjust your thinking because we are also talking about WW2 Soviet field artillery. A Fire Plan in the context of CM would be something that was pre planned and pre registered prior to the start of an action / scenario / battle / whatever. A Fire Plan is not 'created on the fly' by the player as he calls for FFEs during the course of a scenario. Now, if you are calling a previous FFE as a 'Fire Plan' then yeah, maybe you should be able to call another fire mission on the same target if the battery is still available because they would still have the coordinates and the spotting rounds would have been already used, but that's not a Fire Plan in the context of something like the British created prior to attacking at El Alamein. It would be helpful to use 'Fire Plan' in the context of the traditional meaning of 'Fire Plan'. In the context of CM 'Repeat' is certainly something that could be argued, but at the same time since CM has no Fire Plans then the At My Command would still not necessarily be appropriate because the battery, not being assigned to a Fire Plan, can be assumed to have other missions to perform other than waiting for a player to repeat an FFE sometime within the next hour or something. Hopefully artillery can get a rework in the future some day, but at the moment an At My Command artillery order is unlikely to be implemented sorry to say.

There may very well be instances within the context of an overall pre registered fire plan where the 'At My Command' order / mission might be appropriate (assuming a battle goes to plan). However, CM doesn't have any pre registered fire plans in the game and the game has no context for any sort of 'At My Command' set of orders so if you just added that order without the context of a pre registered fire plan you would be adding something to every fire mission that isn't going to be representative of reality under all circumstances.

They should eventually toss the demo charge themselves if you just leave them to do their own thing. Targeting might actually confuse the pixeltruppen in some cases.

Variable extra time is not dependent upon scenario size. It's strictly a function of whether or not the scenario designer added it or not. There is a small scenario in CMFB where the scenario is 15 minutes long with 15 minutes of variable time added, for example.

That would be great if a battery is solely dedicated to support your particular unit, but in the case of divisional artillery that is unlikely to be the case since multiple units may need access to that asset. If the player can just have the divisional artillery sitting around waiting for twenty minutes for the player's unit to begin the FFE then some battalion at another (off map) location might get overrun because the artillery is just sitting around waiting for Fred to finally call his fire mission in.

Knocked out vehicles can't be pushed, although vehicles don't necessarily fill the entire 'space' that they occupy visually so if something is KO'd on the bridge it may be possible to still pass, but it might also not be possible to pass so it's a risk.

Just in case anyone is getting confused, every post after White2Golf in not discussing Czechmate but rather the Soviet Campaign.