Field Marshal Blücher
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Posts posted by Field Marshal Blücher
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I too notice the lack of heavy weapons especially the Vickers guns. I remember in CMBO using these extensively. I was shocked to see them missing entirely in the Scottish Corridor campaign. Does anyone know why these units are missing in the campaign?
I can't speak for why they're not in the campaign as I was not involved in the design process for it, but be aware that in the British TO&E the Vickers guns were broken out into separate machine gun battalions. So the only way that the PBI got HMG support was to be lucky enough to get HMGs attached to them from a completely different battalion. Very different approach from how the US and Germans handled their MGs!
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If you had to beef up the enemy just so they don't surrender, you can keep the extra units as reinforcements that never arrive and it'll still work.
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I have attempted to make campaigns with multiple designers outside of the CM Beta team (which is obviously a different experience than what you're talking about for several reasons), and I in fact released one for CMSF that I co-designed with Bulgaroktonos (Rolling Lords of War). Overall, I found making CM scens cooperatively a very difficult experience outside the Beta testing community. There are two big reasons for this:
-The main problem with making scenarios cooperatively is that the mapmaking takes a tremendous proportion of time. I would argue that for most scenarios I've made, mapmaking is 90+% of the effort. Once the map is made, the rest of the stuff is comparatively easy, the one exception to this being the AI plans if they are particularly complicated. So it doesn't really make much sense to divide the effort within the scenario because one person is still doing 90+% of the work.
-Another serious problem is coordination. The more people involved in the process, the more moving parts. The more moving parts, the more that can go wrong. Unless you are part of an official BFC team that's working under deadlines, actually getting things done in a timely manner is often very difficult. People have commitments in real life and they have free time at different times. It's extremely easy to lose momentum on a project when only one team member stops working on it.
The one part of scenario and campaign design that really makes sense for cooperative work is obviously playtesting, which I'd say the community is already pretty good about doing.
My two cents, anyway. I think the best use of cooperative scenario design is the note that you end on, which is when there's a gap in someone's knowledge or skills that another designer could fill. In this case, though, it'd probably be best to just have the other designer teach the newer one how to do the bit that he doesn't understand. The CMx2 editor is actually not very difficult to use, it's just sometimes unintuitive and time-consuming. The difficulty of making scenarios is most often a matter of effort rather than skill. To make truly great scenarios requires good ideas and creativity, but you can create competent scenarios with little skill.
-FMB
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Some modifications that will help:
Use non-core units that look like core units. This way, if the core units get destroyed, it doesn't mess up the decision battle.
Don't use large point values. You just want enough to have one way be a defeat or a draw, and the other way a victory. If you use too large a point value, it could mess up the scoring at the end of the campaign. The way I usually set it up is 100 points for one objective zone and 10 enemy "bonus" points.
Don't use Exit objectives. Use Occupy objectives. This will fix the Cease-Fire problem, I think. (At least, I've never had any problems with this method.)
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Assuming CMSF is installed on both computers already, you should just need your most recent save file. I suppose it probably wouldn't hurt to have the campaign file on both computers, but that should be it.
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FMB, I'm sending a missive to Santa Claus to have him put you on the "Naughty List".
Cripes, here I thought I as doing okay (other than low on infantry forces after an early, um, debacle, with a couple of squads), but in the third battle the US mortars made a holiday mince-meat pie of my armor on the right, scoring three, yes THREE!!! top hits on my armor, knocking them out. It's not like they were sitting still either. Blasted AI plotted the new drops in front of their current positions, and my poor MkIII's ran right under it -- maybe I'll have to add Charles to that "Naughty List" as well as I'm sure he had a hand in it. @#%^(*$ rat bastidge!!!
Uhhh . . . I swear I had nothing to do with that! :eek:
Seriously, that is some of the most rotten luck I have ever heard of in a CM campaign. I tend to also not restart missions in campaigns, but this definitely sounds like an exception is warranted!
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You're welcome! I'm glad that people are still finding and enjoying the campaign.
-FMB
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Erwin and Euri are correct here, I think (without testing it myself). It's not about number of slots, it's about encumbrance. Gill missiles and the launcher are pretty large and heavy, as is the Panzerfaust launcher. So I would second Euri's advice to only take one launcher type or the other.
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So, this is actually a bug & not caused because of a lack of tanks?
Specifically, it is caused by the lack of two particular tanks--the company CO and XO tanks. It doesn't matter how many tanks you have left aside from those, if those two were destroyed, you wouldn't be able to make a decision in the unpatched version.
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I just applied the patch but I still have no vehicles to make a decision with. Is there something I need to know? I dropped the file into my campaign folder, overwriting the old one. When I loaded the saved game which gave me the decision turn . . . no change. What am I doing wrong?
Did you follow the proper procedure to load the old save into the new campaign file? It's via some arcane process which I believe is described in the manual. IIRC, the correct procedure is something like this:
1) Click "Campaigns," not Saved Game
2) Select "Conrath's Counterattack" and then SHIFT+click on "OK"
3) Pick a between-missions save
I think this should work, if not, check the manual.
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Why does it need the NATO module? I was under the impression that the Red did not get anything after the Marines module.
NATO contains Red air support as well as the ZU-23 and ZSU-23-4 and Red trucks, at least. Might even be a few more goodies I'm forgetting.
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Huh, yeah, that actually looks decent. Cool.
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Regarding the buildings, though, Mord, since the code is still CMSF, won't guys be able to get up on those slanted roofs? How will that work?
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Could you give us a bit more information? If your FO and HQs are not "Denied" when you click on the air support button, then you should be able to call in airstrikes. Walk us through what's going wrong.
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Me, I've been lobbying for CMSF 1963. M47s and M48s versus T55s and JS-3s. That ain't never gonna happen either.
Quite frankly, I doubt either will happen. But I hope that 1963 is less unlikely to happen than 1982.
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I think it has more to do with the lack of real machine guns at the company level. The Bren is a fine gun for what it is, but it's not capable of sustained fire the same way that MG34s/42s/M1917s/M1919s/Vickers are. The fact that the British centralized their heavier machine guns meant that often the British did not have them where they were needed, while the Americans had M1917s and/or M1919s available in most cases. Therefore, you'll need to rely on tanks, artillery, and mortars for suppression.
-FMB
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Hello, is there a campaign walkthrough or a campaign tree or something for the campaigns? I guess this might be a bit against the "spirit" of the game but I would like to know things like: what happens when I fail this mission, which units are core etc.
(Especially since the marine campaign is seriously hard! I am scared that I lose so many units I won't have a chance in the latter scenarios)
Scroll to the bottom. http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=209&Itemid=307
Doesn't have any mission names there but I think it's the closest you'll get.
-FMB
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So once again... Do'oh!
Oh well, I can only hope my very time consuming experience provided at least a little useful feedback.
PS: I only CF'd the penultimate scenario as I didn't want to replay it. The beach set-up was the same as the first time (when I had never CF'd). I played till 20-30 minutes the first time (and no reinforcements).
It definitely did provide some useful feedback--much appreciated. And I might be wrong about the reinforcement timing--I wrote the campaign script a while ago by now so I don't quite remember what the differences were.
-FMB
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So I did better surviving until the reinforcements arrived? WooHoo!
I think it would make a better "gaming scenario" if the reinforcements arrived about 15-20 minutes into the scenario, so one has time to do recon and then start up with the arty. There is little point in attacking without the arty imo.
Well, in the variant in which you won the previous battle (which you didn't since you CF'd to get there), I believe the reinforcements get there much more quickly.
-FMB
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The campaigns in CMSF were extremely good. Maybe cos they were fictionalized. So, the designers focused on making fun challenges rather than trying to imitate some RL battles which attempt to be as ghastly to play as they were in RL. I know this may sound rather extreme, but playing these scenarios and campaigns also takes a great deal of time and mental energy (at least for me). So, my frustration level gets a bit tested. (And I get testy.)
Great point. I think the most fun scenarios I have made or played have been fictional ones.
BTW, interesting points about the last mission. There are four possible variants, and due to your path (CFing to get there) you wound up with what is IMO the most difficult one. Because of the huge size of the map, the number of variants, and the differing numbers of units that you can have by the end of the campaign, I've seen a very wide variety in results, making this one extremely tough to balance properly.
If it makes you feel any better (and, going back to your point that I quoted in this post, it may well be irrelevant), Conrath didn't do any better. Heck, he pulled back before his reinforcements even got there.
-FMB
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Hi Erwin,
It should have said this in the briefing (let me know if it didn't)--the troops you start out with in the final battle are only part of your KG if you chose to split the KG. The rest will arrive later on. Your initial force is mostly meant to be used as a recon/probing attack force whose efforts you can exploit when the main body of the KG arrives with the big guns.
Regarding the Victory calculations, a Minor Defeat is the best result you can obtain if you do not crush the Allied beachhead. This is not a CMx2 engine issue, this is a deliberate designer choice. Historically, Conrath did make it all the way to the beaches and did substantial damage to the Allied forces at the beaches, but because the Allies were able to hold the beachhead, the campaign overall was considered a German defeat.
-FMB
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Hi Erwin,
What decision did you make in the decision mission? You should have more troops in the final mission than what you had.
-FMB
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Cool! This thread gave me the idea of sticking a burning tank into my Makin scenario setup so that it will simulate the hazard of continuing explosions at a fuel dump previously set afire by US air strikes.
Do burning tanks that are designated as such by the scen designer, rather than through battle damage in game, actually experience ammo cookoff? I don't think I've ever seen this happen.
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Hi thejetset,
I absolutely agree with a lot of your points. I was just pointing out what it is that having exit zones in there screws up, and (I hope this came through) ways of getting around those problems.
Basically, my point was: don't use "Destroy Unit" objectives and you're good to put as many exit zones in there as you might need!
This leaves you with quite a bit of flexibility still; you can use casualty and condition parameters if you still want to award some points for inflicting casualties, or you can base victory conditions on terrain objectives only.
-FMB
Edit: good lord I use the word "point" a lot.
USA civil war
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
Foote is pretty good for dealing with the Civil War as a whole. He does have some weaknesses, but those have already been explained fairly clearly. If you want truly Oman-esque levels of detail, it might be worth looking into histories of individual battles and campaigns. I can recommend a few of those if you'd like.