Sgt.Squarehead

The cautionary tale of another such venture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brydon

 

Before rebels blew up the transmitter, Latka Gravas decided to remind everyone that transportation for tonight's coup has been generously provided by the Asfarr Taxi Company: Abbudin's premier destination for all your truck, technical, and taxi needs!
 

After a sharp increase in pedestrian fatalities, Abbudinian police have taken a much harsher stance against jaywalking.

I've added a 'Core Unit Files' folder to all my CM games.
I recently discovered that you can import one (or presumably more) core unit file(s) into another and then import the product into a scenario/campaign.....Possibly useful for double-sided cores and competitive multiplayer tournaments etc.
 

Marine?  WTF? 
Ah.....That explains it! 
Meanwhile in the more conventional variant.....A squad of heroic patriots mercilessly cut down regime mercenaries:

Six victims shot in the back (plus one in the front) for no loss.....That's the way to do it! 

Oh don't worry about that.....I've got plenty more where that one came from! 
This dude drove into so many target arcs.....It was highly colourful, but was ended by a 40mm grenade:

You can probably guess how this ended:

And this:

Apparently some people consider the number thirteen to be unlucky. 

FWIW while am traveling in UK have just mailed Bootie a HD with several hundred GB of mods that date back to when CMSF1 was released in 2007.  So, at some point (Inshallah) all the old mods will be available again. 

And the the clincher:  Jeremy Clarkson is an undercover Segway-driving Nazi
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4163362/Segway-driving-Nazi-dresses-druid-arrested.html

Allahu Ackbar! 
 

Allahu Ackbar! 
 

The Peiper Campaign maps are particularly awesome - I have walked that ground many times on battlefield tours and when you go into ground level view in game and just look around on some of those maps, it is just like being there for real.

It would be great if we could collate all these little gems scattered across the various sub-forums into a CM-wide 'Scenario Writing Hints & Tips' thread in this (General) forum area.

Some very creative stuff is being done with triggers & that's a fact. 
 

I love the Ramones (seen them more times than any other band)! 

One of those heads is mine! 
No. 
1 - You've already done it, I'm still talking about it.
2 - 1km x 1km of that lunacy would be the absolute maximum I would attempt.....And I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it, I've still got a golf course (& Bishr) to finish! 

Re Mosul map:  You're a better man than I, Gunga Din.
Here, give this a spin while you go mad:  
 
As for the rest, the notion of polymath elite operators directing local forces is not the least bit new, as you know (see Rogers Rangers and their French equivalents, plus the enterprising agents of the various proto-colonial merchant Companies). It is of course the correct answer from a purely military COIN "find em and grind em"  perspective, not to mention economical.
But America's Best also wind up neck deep in day to day police brutality, extortion, arbitrary murder, sectarian and tribal vendettas, torture and other kinds of third world business as usual, including but not limited to: narcotics, chattel slavery, salary skimming, no-bid contracts, tax evasion and good old fashioned political corruption at all levels and touching most forms of commerce (ref. tribal vendettas).
Changing political winds, unhappy accidents and a wired world will thus periodically expose them to, among other things: the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (a law written so broadly as to make pretty much any American deriving foreign source income convictable at will), possibly RICO as well, and of course the IRS, business being global. Plus the various mainly European human rights courts; and who knows what the Asians may come up with.
Pandora, please pick up the white courtesy box....

I just now did a VERY quick mini-test. For getting the mortar to fire outside of LOS at a designated time you want to (I didn't test the trigger):
Place your mortar where you want it. Give the setup order an 'Exit before...' time so the AI order will move on to the second order at the time you want it. (Exit Before 10 min for example)  Give the mortar AI a 2nd AI move order but instead of painting a movement destination you just control-paint an 'area fire' location. When the mortar AI orders hits the 'exit before' time it'll area fire on whatever location you painted, even if its outside of LOS. Give the 2nd AI order its own 'Exit before..." (Exit Before 13 min for example) so it'll move on to the next order and stop firing. My mini test didn't need painted-on movement orders. The mortar crew could stay in place and not shift position. Mortar targeting was exact, no spotting round. But it started a little bit later than expected. I guess you need to factor in the time for the mortar crew to orient themselves, aim, and and start firing.

Off the top of my head there is a bit of jiggery pokery. Looking in the editor here is how I did it:
Had an on-map mortar as a single AI Group, placed on the map with no setup order.
Order 2 had a movement order about 1-2 action spots away (or might have been painted where the thing was sitting on the map originally) from where the mortar had been placed on the map with a 'wait for' trigger which I called 'Mortar 1'
Order 3 had a painted area about 1 action spot away from the last order location and a painted target area where I wanted the rounds to land.
That was pretty much it … I seem to recall that the mortar had to move on a trigger to make it work but I may be hazy in that recollection.
If you want the mortar to fire at a different target you have to rinse and repeat the move, trigger, target area process above.
End of the day mate, just crack UK Britain's Joy SF2 open in the editor and have a look. The group you're looking for is Red AI Group 9 in Red AI Plan 1.

A Beta tester recently figured out how the get AI on-map mortars to 'area target' a painted spot beyond LOS after a trigger has been activated. Its really quite amazing. My hat's off to 'em for figuring it out. Its not in any scenarios because its 'new information' that hasn't been put to use yet (and on-map AI mortars were wonky on CMSF2 release). It would probably work using on-map mortars and timed 'movement orders' too. Movement order Minute 10, 'area fire' location X, Movement order minute 13, stop area fire. It doesn't work for off-map mortars, though. It was tested.
I made heavy use of AI-directed 'area fire' timed movement orders for direct fire weapons while refurbishing the CMSF2 scenarios. That was fun to play with.

I'd love to see the simple option to add a timing to a painted AI Target (the game's current preliminary bombardment method).....This could make a world of difference IMHO.

Use it how you like, you tailor your formations in accordance with the threat. ECM creates what is termed in UK/Australian parlance as a protective bubble around the person/vehicle equipped with it. I'm not prepared to discuss it in detail because the details of ECM are classified. In essence though you are taught to remain within the bubble in high threat areas. As we've already explained that AI use of IEDs is hit and miss I wouldn't bother getting into a detailed discussion of it as you stand more chance of not detonating an IED than suffering losses as a result of them.
Otherwise, before someone asks:
ECM in game does not detect IEDs. There is no command to switch it on or off, it is running all of the time. ECM equipped vehicles are no easier to detect because of ECM running than vehicles without ECM. ECM has no discernible effect on radio links and therefore the operation of C2 in-game. Been discussed before here:
and here:
 

Bulldog has ECM as well.

A column of T-55s on the move in the early morning darkness.

I've stopped placing blast waypoints on the far side of the wall. Instead I place the blast waypoint on the same side as the troops one space over. Doing that I've never had the blast command convert to 'quick'. And as an extra bonus, the troops won't blindly run through the gap into the open after the blast.

good thing we finally called the Russians on their blatant violations of the same treaty and withdrew.

@MOS:96B2P I will definitely go in and try to set something up! thanks!

I have decided to mod the Afghanka. It's almost finished but I'm not 100% happy with it. I will probably release several versions and let people choose what they like. The main problem are the epaulets, I have to remove them. I have tried painting them the same color as the Afghanka but it covers the webbing. I have tried removing the alpha channel thus making them transparent, but that glitches and you can see something it's wrong and it bothers me. I'm not 100% sure if I want to keep or remove webbing. I'm not 100% happy with the shadows either.