Pete Wenman

Excuse me?

Glenn - just to point out what you are discovering but creating editor map overlays can be a major task in itself. I find a blend of period maps (1:25k ideally) period photos if they can be found and GE provide the most help. The period map will give an indication of the built up areas at time, road nets etc and contours, while GE allows a level of detail re individual houses etc if the location has not change too much since WW2 or what ever period. A great many places, particularly rural areas in Europe have not changed a great deal since the war, but other areas are almost unrecognisable. 
Just for fun, but below are the overlays I used when I created the Arnhem Road Bridge map. It's worth noting that the bridge is not even showing on the period maps having only just been completed at that time, and so 1st AB were working with maps that did not include the bridge !!




 
P

I'm well. New employment means I have a little more time for computer goobery... Been out for a while. Some catching up to do, evidently.
 

Experience levels are a long-standing problem of wargame design, since that kind of thing started to be modelled.

The classic example is the 101st on D-Day - should they be "Veteran" to account for their better training, or "Green", since this was the first time they saw combat? Both answers are viable, depending on what system you're using to model this. Typically in CM they'd be Veteran, but that's not necessarily true for everything ever.

Soft factors are not an objective measure (unlike armour penetration or rate of fire), so any modelling of something subjective is going to have an inherently subjective outcome.

"Artificially inflating the difficulty" is the least charitable way of saying that. Scenario design is game design, and game design is harder than people think it is. The map, forces and soft factors are all altered to produce the desired outcome. This is especially true for historical scenarios, because you have a real outcome that you'd like to see on-screen.

For example, if you're doing the opening Desert Storm, you'd need to set Iraqi motivation to awful, because taking thousands of surrenders is a major part of that narrative. There's no table you can look up to show what level of experience and motivation the Iraqi soldiers should have historically, but you can start with the intended outcome and work backwards, tweaking things to suit. This is the essence of "Design for Effect", and you'll see it up and down wargame design.

So, yes, I haven't played through enough of the campaigns (or scenarios) yet to get cross at anything specific, but you will see a range of soft factors, in every CM title, even when representing the same forces. Call this "artificially inflating the difficulty" if you like, but it's really just modelling the scenario.

It's viable to take exception to the choices made in modelling the scenario, naturally, but "these troops should be +1 leadership" is not really firm ground to stand on - the definitions of each soft factor and how that pertains to the real world is subjective and fluffy.

If you mean this
That was just me being too clever by half. When I was in the British Army it was (and likely still is ) convention when giving orders that the mission paragraph was always repeated for emphasis. Apologies it caused confusion
P

If you mean this
That was just me being too clever by half. When I was in the British Army it was (and likely still is ) convention when giving orders that the mission paragraph was always repeated for emphasis. Apologies it caused confusion
P

If you mean this
That was just me being too clever by half. When I was in the British Army it was (and likely still is ) convention when giving orders that the mission paragraph was always repeated for emphasis. Apologies it caused confusion
P

it might be worth noting that we got CMCW not by just asking over and over for it but because a couple people actually put in the sweat to do the project.  They had a lot of work even convincing BF that they could manage it.  If you really want it you may have to do a bit more than just keep asking.

P

P

Let see if this works

aircon 3, 4 & 5 are your friends
 
P
mods.zip

Let see if this works

aircon 3, 4 & 5 are your friends
 
P
mods.zip

Well, I have a "problem"! The Italians are giving me a run for the money so far 😬. I let the game set up the Italians based on the new AI Setup zones and that worked out very well. Seems as though the programming did alright. The Tac AI is laying a beating on me at times though . It sure is a fun scenario so far though. I'll let you know how it comes out... .

P

P

Well, it's done. I am not happy with a lot of the portraits as they were the first ones I designed after I changed the style over. BUT I absolutely could not bring myself to redesign everyone of them at this time. I did however redo all the Russians. They are OK for the moment. At some point I may return to the mod and fix everything I dislike. So, here ya go, 2649 portraits!
I'll provide a Mediafire link until Bootie gets them uploaded onto the site. After that I'll get Elvis to edit the link into this post.
Have fun!
What the frig is up with the forum? It won't post my pics anymore. EDITED: figured it out. Gotta do it differently now (PIA).

 
Link:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/n6y5yku8b8y224h/Mord%27s_Red_Thunder_Portrait_Mod_v_3.0.zip/file
 
Mord.

Indeed! - there's always something to be mined from the "problems". That particular one (AI plan divided between two AI painted areas) could be used for splitting of a random amount of tanks to help an infantry AI Group, or something of the sort. That would need testing, but this is the sort of thing where the creative decisions can be made.

A couple of random piccies 

P
 
  
 
P

You have no idea 😉
P

You can use all three coloured set up zones for the AI, but each AI group can only be in one zone. So A1,A4,A5 can be light blue for example, A2, A6, A7 in dark blue, and A3, A8 in green/blue, but you can't have A1 split across light blue and dark blue.
Does that make sense and answer the question - I'm not sure.
P

Also just to add - keep in mind the size of the AI group vs the size of the AI setup zone. Not sure what happens if you try to put an AI group comprising an entire tank company into a 1 Action Square AI setup zone, but whatever the result I suspect its not good.
P
edit
And the answer to my question is one tank jumps to the AI setup zone, the rest remain where they were put on map, but then move to the AI setup zone.
That could actually come in handy on occasion.

Yep that should work. Coloured set up zones don't have to be contiguous. But as you only have 16 AI groups and 27 zones (3x 9) there will be an element of random placement for those groups that have more than one AI zone allocated to them.
This can be good, but it can be bad if you want a certain weapons system in a specific location. For key weapons a degree of control is often better so as to get the keyhole or LOS that is wanted.
P

You have no idea 😉
P

You have no idea 😉
P

My God, you understood what I was asking 😳! You need help worse than I do   !!! THAT is exactly what I was trying to solve. And, I'm pretty sure I do have 1 group spread across a couple of map zones. Ok, now I need to go in and do some editing. I'll do that and come back with the results or ask a couple more questions (is that the sound of a couple of people buying airline tickets to a deserted island I hear???). Thanks!!!!!
 
Yep, I have a group spread over at least 2 and sometimes 3 map zones in several instances. Ok, off to fix that and then we'll see what happens. Man, you guys are life savers. Can't wait until I get this down so I can start firing these things out to the (poor, unsuspecting) members  .