PanzerMike
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Posts posted by PanzerMike
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Wot? All those Big Cats uncaged and you could not sweep those puny Bolsheviks aside
I do hope some of those precious Tigers lived to tell the tale or did you lose all of them?
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Testing mega scenarios is time consuming. I have made and published three scenarios so far for CMRT, but I keep the size of the scenario down to manageable proportions. This way testing (and designing for that matter) is less daunting.
I have also helped other designers in beta testing their creations, but I picked small/medium battles. I am just not a big fan of mammoth battles, but others may find them to their liking. And no AI means a big chunk of users will not be interested I am afraid.
I hope you find some people for whom mega battles are right up their alley and are willing to put in the effort. Size really matters
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Thanks verulam. Good to hear you liked it.
What was the end result?
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Please let me know how this ends! Glad you like the map and the battle so far.
As far as the time in the briefing and onscreen thingie, I will check that later when I have finished working for the man today (real life always seems to get in the way of fun...). The scenario starts at 0600 in the morning, so this 2100 thing puzzles me.
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Good post Alte Fritz.
I watched the Manner gegen Panzer clip on youtube. Had not seen that one before. Thanks for the link. But is does look quite a lot like Bunkers Burning, don't you think?
I have always felt that the trenches do not provide enough protection. Now I know this film is staged and produced for educational purposes, but one would think that tanks would have a hard time inflicting casualties on infantry that keep their heads down and only occasionally pop up to fire their weapon. Only a direct hit by a HE shell or being hit by bullets when you briefly pop up would do you harm.
This is not really well represented in the abstracted trenches in CM, IMHO.
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I encourage everyone to provide feedback. Always looking to improve my scenario making skills. Thanks!
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My one gripe is the spacing of the individual infantrymen within a section - all the pictures I have seen, my own military training all tell me that men spread out with 20m between individuals and so a grenade will kill one, maybe two men at a time. But in CMRT the section is so bunched up that they all fit within a 20m square and grenades almost always wipe out 3-4 men at a time.
That is why BFC have mitigated the HE blast effects somewhat to compensate for the bunching up.
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The Red Hordes coming in as a human wave and overwhelming the Germans. That is an image many of us have of the fighting on the Eastern Front. But is that image still correct for 1944?
A human player can play the Soviets more or less the same way as the British or Americans. You can't force a player to just blunder into the German defences without much consideration for the well being of the Red pixeltruppen. So providing a player in a scenario with a boatload of potential cannonfodder does not guarantuee a Red Horde kinda battle. I too, still find my playing style with the Reds resembling the way I would play the Americans. I have trouble sending in my troops rucksichtlos into a withering fire. I am a real bleading heart...
Perhaps giving a large number of Conscripts only will result in a player resorting to a human wave kind of attack. Not sure if that kind of battles are really interesting though.
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Lighten up people. CMRT is a great game and the scenario designers made a good effort to make that clear in this first incarnation. I have been on the inside now for the first time and the dedication to make this game shine is commendable. Without the small army of volunteers this game would not even be possible.
I am glad we have this game at all. So much better than pushing counters around and consulting rulebooks like I did in the 80ties. Is it perfect? No. Are the scenarios perfect? No. But I am enjoying this game immensely none the less.
Everybody has a right to voice their opinion on the game and the scenarios. But calling things ridiculous or accusing designers to suffer from German Armor Fetish is not really a constructive of way of voicing an opinion.
If you feel briefings could be better, no problem, you may be right. Perhaps even provide an alternative version of a briefing text showing what you think would be better? We all learn every day.
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I have made 2 scenarios, both without much German armor to speak of (certainly no Tigers or Panthers, only Stug III). Hardly a German Armor Fanboi, despite my name being PanzerMike
. Only in my next scenario which will come out soon (CMRT Firebrigade von Saucken) will Big Cats make their appearance (505 Schwere Panzer). Could not resist. Doh, perhaps I do have a German uber armor fetish after all
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I spent the first 20 minutes or so scouting around and building up virtually my entire force behind the crest of that ridge going across the map, just out of view of the enemy. I found that the orchard on the Soviet right was a great spot for some of the machine guns.
When everyone was at their jump off points, I put down a big smoke barrage and had everyone just go "over the top" all at once. With so much open ground, I didn't see much alternative except to hit them with overwhelming numbers and force, all at once, all at one point of their line. I had everyone stop at the crest of the ridge and just start shooting as much as possible, while my platoons went across the AT ditch one by one.
The smoke helped quite a bit, allowing me to concentrate fire on different points of their line. Some of my platoons took heavy losses from all the mines and enemy fire, while others made it across the AT ditch without a scratch, amazingly enough.
By the time the video starts, most of the German bunkers and heavy weapons had already been destroyed or suppressed, and my infantry had mostly made it across the AT ditch and were launching their final assault. I managed to get a total victory with a German surrender, although the two bunkers on the German flanks never fell. I threw everything I had at the German center and broke through. Maybe you could call it a WWII Pickett's Charge, except a bit more successful. I sent probing attacks at both flanks but it didn't go so well. I pulled everyone off the flanks and hurled them straight at the center.
Ha. Now that is funny. During the playtesting of this scenario, the Hill on the right flank was mostly used as the way to crack the the German line. Intense firefights on the Hill ensued. Later on I introduced a gap in the AT obstacles on the left flank besides the railway, to open up a possible axis of attack there too. This was suggested by a playtester and I decided he had a point.
Going through the center however, was more or less discarded very early on as near suicidal. And here comes Pickett charging in
. Actually, this way of attacking conforms more to the stereotype Soviet style attack: charge! But it worked for you apparently. Resulting in a brutal, high casualty fight, but effective nonetheless for a breakthrough was achieved.Perhaps many of us are still a bit stuck in the West front mindset. Reluctant to throw our troops in a meatgrinder knowing most will not make it to the end of the battle despite perhaps achieving a victory that way. I too play mostly like that, carefully guiding my troops to avoid casualties as much as possible. Silly me
.In fact, when I made Bunkers Burning I really did envision a Saving Private Ryan opening scene kinda scenario, but now on the Eastern front. But like I said, it did not play out like that during testing. Not anymore! Casualties be damned. Charge!
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Making the trenches deeper looks MUCH better, but your LOS starts to suffer. I just feel that the CM engine at this stage is too limited to truly represent elaborate fixed positions. It is just not where this game really shines IMHO.
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That is "Bunkers Burning" and I opened it in the editor. He did use ditch lock and did tuck them down slightly but not to the degree I am trying.
Yeah, I lowered the trenches just one level with ditch lock. This was a compromise between form and function. Trenches just don't look very good when not sunken in the ground
. They are abstracted of course but still. Sinking them in means no FOW of course, but this is not too bad when dealing with extensive fortified lines I suppose.My attempt was to recreate as faithfully as possible a real MLR, within the constraints (and there are many) of what the has to game offer. If I succeeded or not is up to the players to determine.
Ow, and I have always felt that the protection offered by trenches is too little. But that is just me, others may think differently.
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Wow, you must have been extremely lucky. Not losing any tanks in this battle... Not even one that blundered into a minefield or sumfink. This will not do :mad:.
Next time I will double the amount of mines and add some Schreck supermen
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@stikkypixie: you managed this one on the first go :eek: What was the end result? How many casualties? How many tanks did you loose? Honestly, I did not deem it possible to win this one with only brute force (allthough that is perhaps the most common Soviet way of doing things...). You learn every day.
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Yeah, I think some tinkering was done in the editor with this battle before the movie started. There is Hollywood for ya
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He he he, I recognize that battle. It's Bunkers Burning. And the video he made is really good!
But I have never seen it play out like this before! Nobody of the Beta testers (or me for that matter) was able to do an all out assault on the MLR like this and live to tell the tale.
Maybe we are all just bad players
. Or I should have made the battle a lot harder (can't imagine, the Beta's comments pointed out in the exact opposite direction: make it easier). So I wonder how this was done.But anyhoo, great to see this little piece of cinema. Saving Private Heinrich on the Ostfront
. That was the aim of the battle when I designed it and with a video like this it comes close. -
Ow, and about the map: I stand on the shoulder of giants. Guys like Benpark and Pete Wenman and others have been making great maps for a long time. You can learn a lot from looking carefully at how they go about it. Lots of credit to the map gurus!
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Yeah, you can edit the time in the editor if you like. However, this can affect the play balance of course.It can play out quite differently. But feel free to do so.
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Thanks for the praise Felix_45, glad you liked it! This particular scenario was not ready in time for the official release, had only time for one at that time (Bunkers Burning). No problem, I finished Trainspotting shortly after release and put it up in the repository. It was even playtested by some of the beta testers that did the tests for the stock scenarios too. Bless them
Work on my next scenario (CMRT Firebrigade von Saucken) is slow going right now. But it will be ready soon nonetheless. It does take quite an effort to make something like this you know. Scenario making is fun, but it ain't easy.
But if the community likes it, it is worth it.
Thanks again for the feedback, it is highly appreciated!
And of course some screenies or even better, a video, would be very cool!
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Hmmm, not sure. The timeframe of a CM battle is only an hour, maybe 2 at the most. On the other hand, a morning fog that starts to lift might be interesting.
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Terrain Fog of War is important and non-existant.
A solution would be to create 3 maps. One, the "true" map. The other two would be FoW maps visisble to each respective player.
Given this setup, perhaps the designer could then introduce MORE Fog of War by limiting the player's knowledge of the terrain. A defender could, say, have a 100% knowledge: he would see all the map at setup (subject to FoW due to the other player's actions.)
The attacker would only have 25% knowledge: He would only see the first 1/4 of the map. The rest would be greyed out until he gains LOS to it.
This setting would reflect the lack of maps or terrain information.
Recon would become very important. And perhaps tedious?
Just some thoughts...
Ken
This 3 map system might just do the trick. Only a portion of the map is visible depending on the situation at the start of the scenario. An attacker can only see a limited part of the map.
But, the attacker probably has a "real" map of the area (a simulated paper map), just like his historical counterpart. Perhaps even project this image of the "paper" map on the part of the map that has not been explored yet. This way you get a mix of views. Or sumfink.
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Yeah, you can't punish cowardice hard enough. Especially on the Ostfront...
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Ow? I just downloaded the new Kursk module the other day and am playtesting the Prohkorovka scenario. What a blast, hundreds of tanks blundering into each other! I especially like the new option to ram the opponent! A sure way to take out a Tiger with them T34/76's! And if you think decals were fun, I checked out the damage after a collision. Epic!
Edit: @Steve, sorry for disclosing all this. Next time I will actually read the NDA as you said....
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. They are abstracted of course but still. Sinking them in means no FOW of course, but this is not too bad when dealing with extensive fortified lines I suppose.
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. That was the aim of the battle when I designed it and with a video like this it comes close.
New file at the Repository: CMRT Firebrigade von Saucken (2014-05-11)
in CM Red Thunder Maps and Mods
Posted
Open in the editor, choose map and 3d preview. Wolla!