Petrus58

I think history has shown you are destined for disappointment.

Well, it's been a really busy week this last week and because it's the last week of Ramadan, it's quite noisy at night, fireworks, drums etc, (silent through the day though) and so sleep suffers a bit. And that means I can't really focus to do a good job of AI planning. So instead, I've been reworking the existing maps to improve each of them and make the compounds and villages much more realistic. They're all real world places in Syria although from wildly different parts but the difference it makes in night and day. While they look like NATO maps now, they still strongly resemble the original maps which is a considerable improvement. And it hasn't required an enormous amount of work either. The best change made so far is The Guards Counterattack which looks pretty realistic in the moonlight. Screenshots will follow later but boy, is that a brutal mission!
That map has been expanded quite a bit too as has the Barrier mission which has been reworked as a Prevent enemy forces from exiting the map edge mission. I'm happy with how the changes look too. They make the map look more interesting.
Another mission that has been substantially reworked is the Buying the Farm mission. I was looking for a large warehouse feature in Google Earth and had the idea to make it a railway yard instead and so the entire thing has been redrawn, trees removed and elevation changes substantially reduced and rail lines added with bridges over them. It looks really good and I'm looking forward to trying it out.
I've added a couple of new missions to the campaign to create a story line with consequences that matter including a new opener, which is tiny, but a lot of fun (for me anyway) and should allow the player to indulge himself letting rip with the heavy weapons in a civilian area, a welcome change from the usual Blue v red restriction. Called 'Overkill', winning this mission deters the civilian population from rising up and joining in the revolution at least for a few hours anyway. This allows me to create a variant of the opener which is much easier if you win Overkill. This required a new map but it's very small and I finished it this morning. Funnily enough, it started out as an experiment to see how the Special forces AA, Grenade and HMG vehicles work and I was so happy with the result that i decided to make this the new opener instead. So you have a single platoon and some new vehicles to play around with.
Immediately after that, I decided to do a whole new map for Heavy Metal because I just felt I couldn't use the old one. It was too small and too artificial for what I need but I found a location to the SE of Damascus which fits the bill perfectly for a large mech/tank clash and have got it 50% done. It's an arid map so it's pretty open and flat but there are lots of berms which break LoS up.
I have created the core unit file and done the admin for the campaign so that I know who goes where and when and have imported the new units into all the existing missions except heavy Metal so I've done a LOT this week, just no new AI plans which is the real work. With regards to the core units, I've decided to try out a couple of platoons of T-90s to accompany the Republican Guard. Now you have just two mech companies with attachments instead of three but I figure the T-90s will more than compensate for them. if they're too OP, I'll swap them with the T-72 TURMS again. There are three SF companies but one is designated for a special series of two missions on the same map (the second new mission) which it's unlikely to survive so there will be one company with attachments in each mission, usually Reserve Infantry and some tanks from the very bottom of the barrel, just like original Hasrabit.
So, Ramadan ends mid-week next week and I have a week's holiday so the sleep deficit should get paid back quite quickly. Then I'll be able to focus on doing AI plans and testing done on some of these missions. I guess I'll have a better idea of how long this is going to take after we get back to work after the May Day holiday. I'm hoping it won't be too long as I'd like to have this wrapped up by mid-June. That's probably a tad optimistic but we'll see.

That all sounds very familiar as I've been working on the opening two missions over the last couple of days. That reassures me that the decision to keep it as much like the original Hasrabit as possible is the best way to do things.
Anyway, I had originally planned to redo Ambush entirely and made up a whole new map which you can see at the top of this thread. I'm glad I decided to stick with the old map as I've been able to redesign it using the new ideas I had that inspired the  map above. Bear in mind that this is a NIGHT mission and so I've switched to daylight for screenshots.
Here's the old map:

Not a bad map at all but I wanted to make the opener a bit more realistic so here's the new Ambush map

And here it is from a different viewpoint

The two sides of the river are both real world locations but not close with each other. Gone are most of the trees and the elevations have been reduced substantially. It's mostly finished now. I expect I'll rework one or two areas as playtesting goes on. The large empty areas are necessary though so the one you see in the first picture won't change. They also look quite good at night anyway. As you can see, the large workshop area has been replaced with more realistic looking compounds and there is now a small hamlet on the other side of the river. The map has been extended somewhat but it's still quite small. Since it's a hazy night mission, it feels big enough though. And I've erased about half a million flavour objects from the original map. I'm definitely of the opinion that less is more in that respect.
And that brings me to the OBs. Both have been stripped down slightly with the Special Forces only having two platoons and some support and the REDFor has been similarly stripped down. Otherwise they'd just be far too OP for the player to fight against. The v4.0 engine allows me to do things with the AI on attack that I was never able to do before and it's a game changer. So OBs have been reduced by about 33% for both sides and the mission has been extended as well to allow for more time for the situation to develop.
I usually return to the opening mission of a campaign several times as I get deeper into it so there will be more than one AI attack plan by the time this is finished. Now it's time to get playtesting mission 2, Strong Stand.

As some of you will already be aware, I've decided to fast track revising my ancient 'Hasrabit' campaign and I've been busy with it since last weekend. I tried out the very first mission, Ambush, and didn't like it and my initial reaction was to abandon the original opening map and create an all-new Ambush map. I started work on it on Wednesday and I finished it earlier this afternoon. It's really big and very detailed but, well, I suspect you can already see why this map isn't going to work in this campaign...

It just doesn't look like any of the other maps in the campaign. It actually looks like the maps I made for the NATO campaigns. So I'm going to use this in Retribution which will come a bit later. I'm not teasing you by showing that in a thread purporting to be about Hasrabit, it's just that it's the end result of 3 days of work and I'm very happy with the end result. I'd LIKE to use it but the other maps would all look utterly incongruous beside it and I certainly don't want to redo them all.
Hasrabit is an old campaign and so I'm not going to change very much with it because otherwise, what you'd get wouldn't be 'Hasrabit' - it would be a whole new campaign using similar forces. So it's going to be an update instead. I'm going to improve the old maps for sure and make them look more Syrian, adding water and bridges for example and redesign the compounds and villages so that they look much more realistic. And bye bye to the vast glowing fields of wheat, the lush, green grass and the dense forests that made the maps look more like NW Europe. I'll expand a few of them, particularly the ones with armour clashes but otherwise, they will all stay pretty much the same. I'm also going to stick with the totally made-up background story as again, this is Hasrabit and there's no such place or governorate and so I'm just going to let it be. 
I've also decided to keep the original Ambush mission but take out the artillery strike on your starting positions and also remove all the trees and the mud which was everywhere and replace them with orchards. That huge yard will also get removed and redone with something that looks more Syrian. I suspect that the river will also have to go but we'll see how I feel once real play-testing starts because the bridges are a pretty bad bottleneck which the AI can't handle very well..
Which brings me to what will definitely change - the AI. I was rather surprised to find that the AI attacks in almost every mission and that's going to be fun to do. The old AI plans are atrocious though as are the set-up and positioning of the AI's units. The player set-ups look really terrible too with very narrow set-up are areas with units all crammed together so all that will change. I now have 16 groups to work with and can give them far more orders with some special ones which were not in the game the last time I played. And, of course, some triggers.
So, that's the plan as it stands. I've made up the new core units file and I've already started improving the existing maps. So, I'm going to import the new units and get down to some serious play in against the old AI plans and OBs before I rip them out so that I know the original intention behind the mission and try to stay faithful to it. I'll probably add shots of the 'finished' maps here as I go. I suspect that by the time I've finished this revision, I'll have relearned all the skills I formerly had and will be able to do a better job of the new campaign I plan to follow it with.

BTW, Hasrabit is still the #1 priority. I've been working on the map for the new opener all morning and it's shaping up as it wanted it. I read through the campaign and mission briefings last weekend to reacquaint myself with the backstory and it's a bit <cough> out there, as in just me making **** up. 'Hasrabit' is an actual place that I found on Google maps as the map for Strong Stand was (yes, that location looked like that back then with walls and orchards just stopping for no good reason.) The real 'Hasrabit' is a small town just to the south of Damascus International Airport but the name appears in Arabic and I'm too lazy to translate it. [lightbulb moment] Perhaps one of my Muslim students could translate it for me. But otherwise, all the maps are just my creation. You have to remember that there was no scenario overlay back when I made both this and Dinas so the maps are imaginary. Ambush!, the opener is probably the least useable so it's gone but I want to keep the rest as far as that proves possible to do. Otherwise this project will take me MONTHS!
So the campaign backstory will need to be reworked a bit. There's no Shuruk valley or river and since I'm more than capable of doing real-world locations in the editor, there's no good excuse for making it all up entirely. It's still going to be 100% fictional because the campaign is called Hasrabit although I'm picking a few choice real-world locations for the new maps. But Hasrabit will stay as the titular Governorate and it will feature a mix of locations from near Hama and Aleppo as well as the old imaginary maps. I'll try to keep it consistent, Special Forces in the greener orchards and the Republican Guards in the more open, arid areas.
And I'm going to add a new mission to it for an important campaign branch.

Okay, that's it uploaded. The picture failed to load but I don't care about that too much at this point.
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-shock-force-2-2/cm-shock-force-2-campaigns/cmsf2-usmc-gung-ho/
This is a six mission campaign featuring Bravo Company of 1st Battalion 8th Marines. I should mention that it's a rework of my much earlier CMSF1 campaign of the same name but it's so reworked that it's really an all-new campaign that takes advantage of all the CMSF2 features. You'll need the NATO module to play this as the Syrian Airborne features in one of the missions. Sorry about that but I guess most folks reading here already have the full Monty.
It's designed primarily to have fun with one of the most unique factions in the game, the USMC, a light infantry formation that punches far above its weight even without the air support that you'll have in these missions. It should also be quite challenging but not too challenging. Mission 3 - CAAT among the Pigeons is intended to be very easy, to allow you to let rip with a rather unique formation within the MEU. 
I look forward to hearing how you get on. Perhaps you can tell me how many kills HITMAN got in your campaign? You're not beta testing this - I've already played this myself but that's a potential issue, it's been tested by one player with a particular play style and skill set. I try to break these missions but I'm not as creative about that as some of you will be  If you find any typos, let me know. I've been scanning the texts these last couple of days and can't see any but that's likely fatigue. Unless something egregious is found, you should be safe to complete a campaign before a revision comes up. I'm hoping that won't necessary but I've done this before and it can always be improved.
With the exception of CAAT among the Pigeons, each mission has several AI plans to give the campaign replayablity. So, if there's enough interest in it, I will return to this to make a new version featuring the German Gebirgsjagers which look like they'd be a blast to play with as well and not need much work to be done beyond making a core unit file and importing the units into each mission. And finally, I want to make a Brit forces Light Infantry version but that will need more work to do.

Would it be possible to limit the name calling, "rural dimwits" "right wing looney's" and focus on the war in Ukraine? 
Thank you.

AI testing is now over and I'm in the process of making up the alternate versions for the campaign as well as the amended briefings and artwork needed for them. Once that's done, I'll get the campaign briefings and artwork done, compile it and test it over the weekend. Of course, I'll go through each mission carefully to make sure that everything is set up properly but when you're doing this all by yourself, there's always something that gets through the net though so I'm curious to see what it will be this time.  (For those who remember, there was a real stinker of a placement error in the original version of The Road to Dinas)
Even though it's likely all that will be done later today, there's definitely not going to be an April 1st upload because what could possibly go wrong with that? Hopefully, this should be wrapped up and uploaded early next week. I'm pretty burned out with this particular project now and want to get started on a new one instead. But it will be a fresh experience for you guys even if you've played the original version. 

I’d argue America is still in an ‘imperial phase’.  I’m not sure when you’d consider it to have ended.  
It’s nakedly acknowledged that the US still acts as a hegemon with NATO providing the imprimatur of ‘international assent’ for domestic consumption.  
It’s why a ‘defensive alliance’ is leveraged to compel an ethnic partition (Kosovo) or regime change (Libya).  
I’m using oligarch in the dictionary definition sense:
a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence
Historically, I’m not sure there has been something like our modern billionaire class that didn’t operate directly from the halls of power already.  It takes vast wealth to create a disparity of this scale.  
Did the Patricians of Rome enjoy the proportionate share of wealth that the elite today control?  My gut leans toward ‘no’, but I don’t pretend to know.  
 
Agree we’re more like Chimps than Bonobos when it comes to conflict.  Shame really, Bonobos seem to have it figured out…

A quick word about the missions themselves. I play the game in Real time and I don't PAUSE the action very often so I tend to focus in one one area of the map and leave the other areas to manage themselves without my supervision. This means that the missions will be reasonably small, certainly a lot smaller than the battles you're probably more familiar with. I don't manage battalions in Real Time  with any efficiency but I can manage a reinforced company without any trouble. So all the missions will feature a maximum of one USMC company with some attachments. This is my sweet spot. as it happens, a USMC platoon manages the same as most companies. the manpower and firepower they have is awesome but it's easier to manage a platoon than a company, even when the squads are broken into three teams.
I also like to have a slow-ish start with a small force on the map at the start with the rest of the force arriving in stages. I often find it much easier to manage quite a large OB in this manner as I get it set up and into the action before the next packet arrives. However, both Watching the Detectives and Al Qusayr have the entire OB on the map at the start so they both have a faster pace. On the other hand, CAAT among the Pigeons is very small with only about twenty units to manage. And most of them arrive 10 minutes after the mission starts. You start with just three units but there's plenty to do.
I also like to play with all the bells and whistles so you'll have access to a lot of artillery and air support in these missions. The USMC is a light infantry unit but with the artillery and air support is more than capable of going up against the best the Syrians have.

Well, it's been a lot more work than I'd anticipated. This is a rework of my old USMC campaign, a six mission campaign I put together shortly after the British Forces module for CMSF 1 was released. I spent SO much time making 'The Road to Dinas' that I missed playing with the USMC, which has turned out to be my favourite US formation to work with. 
 
I thought I was just going to have to make up a new core unit file, sub in the new units and tweak a few bits and pieces to take advantage of the new systems but I ended up pretty much redoing it all from scratch. Anyway, let me show you the old maps and the new versions. Each picture is taken a 6 am in the morning from the same position so that you can see main differences.
 
The first mission is Meet the Flintstones. This is a NIGHT Missions and this is the old map...

And this is the new map...

As you can see, it's pretty much doubled in size. If you've played the original, it will probably feel reasonably familiar with the old version.
The next mission is The High Chaparall and the map for this one has changed very little. it's a DAWN mission.

And here's the new...

It hasn't changed much although there was a LOT of deforestation which took place to the new. Apart from the map, it's been reworked very substantially and the AI improved.
 
The third mission was a real problem for me. It was originally called CAAT Fight and it took place on this map...

The problem wasn't with the map but the battle itself. It was rubbish! It was an interesting idea and was inspired by the first episode of Generation Kill but it wasn't anywhere near as much fun as that episode. So this one got a new map and new forces with the same concept:

I really enjoy playing this one. It's a NIGHT mission and, like the original, you only have the CAAT units to work with. But it feels completely different and I find it a lot of fun to play.
Now we come to the HUGE reworks. These took over a week each to fit up and the missions needed to be redone entirely, new AI forces, new objectives etc...
the first of these is Watching the Detectives. here's the old map...

And here's the new...

It's more than doubled in size and there has been very substantial enhancement of buildings complexes etc. This is a DAWN mission and has gone through several iterations before the right battle was found for it. it's a tough mission with the player attacking down a slope in full view of the defender with little cover to work with. it took many attempts to make this feasible and I'm happy with the end result. You need to take this one slowly.
 
Then Mission 5, Bridges. Once again, the old map has been massively expanded.

And the new one is almost entirely different...

There are some similarities but as you can see, it's almost entirely new with new, more realistic villages added. Again, finding the right battle for this map has taken a lot of time and this is the mission I'm currently playtesting.  it'll probably change a little before I finish with it but I've finally whittled down the forces on both sides so that i can carry out the mission without having too much at my disposal.
Al Qusayr
The map for the last mission is almost the same. there are some significant improvements for it but you won't see these from such a wide angle. the mission has also been redone with new forces added and all-new AI.

And there it is. I'll go into each mission in a little more detail later. This is very close to finishing now. I expect to have finalised it by the end of this month.
 

This is basically me just musing although there is some news in this post.
I'm in the final stages of putting together the first of three short campaigns, USMC Gung Ho. I thought there would be a very quick turn-around on this project because it was already largely finished and fully tested. I thought it would just require a new core unit file and a few tweaks here and there to take advantage of all the changes that have come over the last 10+ years. Well, was I wrong. One of the missions (CAAT Fight) was just absolute rubbish. I have no idea how I thought it was fun on any level. That required a whole new mission which I'm very happy with and much more in line with what I wanted. I ended up massively expanding two of the maps as well, (Watching the Detectives and Bridges if you're interested). The opener also got overhauled and expanded as well but not to the same degree that those two did. The AI forces in each mission have been reworked as well and the AI plans totally redone. So, it's been a lot more work to fix than I'd first thought.
Anyway, it's close to the end and if you're familiar with the campaign design process, this is when I, at least, start to look forward to my next project. I've been focused solely on Gung Ho for the last few weeks and the AI is done for all six missions and final testing is under way. But, at this stage, I feel like I've seen it all with this campaign so I've started looking at Hasrabit and boy, did I get a shock.
Hasrabit is basically my first real project and the AI design sucks! I opened up a few missions and had a look at placement for both and was very disappointed. Then the AI plans and was even more disappointed. I'd rate the current standard as unplayable but it's definitely fixable. The maps are actually quite good although a few of them would benefit from improving and expanding, particularly the armour clashes. I used to think anything over 1km in one direction was H-U-G-E.  And back then, it was. Computers are just so much more powerful nowadays that I can manage the massive firefight that results in the first five minutes of the Gung Ho finale without so much asd a hiccup. That would have dropped to about 2-3FPS on my old rig.
So, once Gung Ho is finished, I plan to get to work on Retribution and Hasrabit together. Red v Red is where the real fun is at for me so I'm excited to revisit the latter and to start work on the former. I expect the Brit version of Gung Ho won't take too long to finish though but no promises. I don't want to fight 'Meet the Flintstones' again for a L-O-N-G time.

If anyone is interested the Royal Air Force Museum is hosting a virtual lecture entitled:
Why did the West overestimate Russian military capabilities and why does this matter?
 
later today, 1730 GMT.
 
https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/virtual-events/virtual-lectures/virtual-lecture-why-did-the-west-overestimate-russian-military-capabilities-and-why-does-this-matter/
 
 

As it happens, the latest version of the campaign extractor did the job on Hasrabit so I now have two large campaigns to rework over time.
 
The Hasrabit maps are actually pretty good but far too small for what I need now so I'll have to extend them quite a bit before I can rework them.
 
So, the plan is, get the 6 mission USMC campaign finished first and then do the British Forces and NATO versions of this campaign. I'll post more about that once I've finished the maps and have most of the battles working properly. I have no idea how long this is going to take but I'm hoping later next month (April) for the first version and the Brits and Germans to follow not long after that.
After that, I'm going to focus on Hasrabit as it's OLD, most folks won't have played it and you also get to play with Republican Guards and Special Forces with all the goodies that come with them. Of course, map reworks come first and as I'm learning from my current project, that's 2-3 days per map, with 10 maps so that's about a month of work on maps alone. I generally do map work in the evening though so I'll start work on these next week. Since this is Red v Red and easier to do than NATO v Red, I expect reasonably quick progress on this because you're not hampered by any of those 'silly' considerations like civilian casualties or cultural sensitivity. It's just 'get the job done'.
Then finally, Road to Dinas. It won't need quite so much work to redo as the maps are generally big enough. It's the AI that will need a lot of love as there are a few AI attacks and there's also some new kit that could be utilised. I had to use US air forces for Hasrabit as there wasn't Syrian air power in the early versions of the game. Nor were there Shilkas which are a bit of a game changer. But I've learned a few tricks since I released this campaign so it should benefit from my experience.

It may just be me, but I think that NATO would want someone competent.

That's brilliant. Thanks. I've downloaded the dynamic version and have unpacked it. It really is a monster. Redoing that will be a lot of work, but FUN work.
I'm going to have to be careful and not get too carried away and take on too much at the start. I want to get 'Montebourg' redone and also work on my smallest campaign, Gung Ho! before I start work on this project. But now that I have the whole thing, minus the core units file, it's a definite project for this year. It will be a CMSF2 rework so I'll be able to add water and bridges as well as wire fences to replace the rural walls I used on my early maps.

1 year of the war is passed. From the start of the invasion and to the huge count of air and missile strikes. One of my friends has been killed by wagner artillery in Bohorodichne village near Bakhumt. My father-in-law has been killed by storming the defensive enemy positions in the Kherson region 1st of October. I gave 3 of my salaries (all what I have)on the first day of the war on the military budget. Thanks to all of you, thanks for your help. Taking carry of our refugees, helping our soldiers to destroy enemy forces with AT weapons, artillery, APS, AFV, and Tanks, peoples who served in foreign legions. Thank you for giving billions of money to support our economy. Special thanks to battlefront for small support for me, when I asked about a discount, they gave me 2 games with all DLCs for free - I didn't expect this. Some of my relatives were in Kherson in occupation, and all high-value electronic and expensive things were looted from them by Russian forces. And now we don't fear rocket strikes (10 times they exploded 700-1000m from my house) we don't fear nuclear threat, we don't fear the second army in the world and you shouldnt. Sorry for we English would that what I want to say for all of you, I can tell you many things about the war but first i will try to improve my language knowlages.

BMP Thunder Run - RPGS to the left of us, ATGMS to the right!
The two BMPs made it - just - and their guys debussed. It went to poop a few seconds later...

This is a re-do of my original TV98-3 “Attack in Brandenburg” but as REDFOR (Syrian regulars) versus OPFOR (Syrian fighters and combatants). It uses CMSF2 game version 2.05 9BFC) gane engine 4. Unfortunately, if you are on Steam the linked version of the scenario will not work as at the moment your version has not been patched.
 
This scenario concept is based on the one of the excellent Tactical Vignette series titled 
http://ciar.org/ttk/mbt/armor/armor-magazine/armor-mag.1998.mj/3TV98-3.pdf
TACTICAL VIGNETTE 98-3 “Attack in Brandenburg”
You can download the actual brief at the link above.
This revised revised scenario has had the built-up area and surroundings heavily reworked to make the terrain more complex and confined.
I've posted it here for some testing as not sure with the change of force from US heavy mech to Syrian tin cans re difficulty etc. Its probably one more suited to play H2H than aginst the AI.
Play as Blue (Syrian regular army) versus Red (Syrian fighters and combatants).

 
 
 
 
TV 98-3 Attack in Brandenburg REDFOR_v5.btt

Luke Harding at The Guardian had an interesting piece touching how cultural legacy is perceived in times of existential war
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/dec/31/mikhail-bulgakov-museum-kyiv-calls-to-close
 
 

Homicide is the act of killing a man
Regicide is the act of killing a king
Fratricide is the act of killing a brother (or, more generally, any blue-on-blue)
Matricide is the act of killing your mother
Countryside is the act of killing Piers Morgan

Oh bloody hell, do we have to scroll pages and pages of blather about these kinds of empty headed attention seekers now?
What the hell does this have to do with the war?
This entire thread can drown very quickly in American and EU political yabbida yabbida yabbida.  There's no freeking end to it.
Go watch Tucker and Rachel or whoever.

I don't think it's sad at all. I think we have been trying to push square pegs into round holes for a long time.
The EU works much better if we recognise we are different people and use this for cross-pollination to advance universally as the EU while still keeping mind that we all have different roots, social constructs, habits, etc. as nationalities. Brussels outstretched paws to influence national politics have been reduced in a last years and I feel the strain has been reduced and the sentiment towards the EU has improved, at least here in Holland.
A cooperation rather than a unification works better. At least I think so.

How can you tell wen politicians are lying? Their lips are moving.
The term “politics” is from two words, Poly, which is derived from a Greek word that means “many,” and ticks, which are “blood-sucking insects.”