Paper Tiger

Hi guys. I have been kept very busy this last year or so with real life work commitments and I see that some folks have reported that The Scottish Corridor campaign has been broken by an earlier update. I have had a look at the campaign with the latest build and it all seems to be working fine. I got a bit of a scare when I went into the Tiger mission and found that I couldn't see any British AT guns. But the AT teams start limbered up and you have to unlimber them and deploy them yourself. I also read that there are missing Churchils from a mission. The mission I read he report about wa

I know I've been away for a long, long time but I thought that USMC Gung Ho was the best thing I ever made. Nice to see that folks are stil playing these old works.

There are four set-ups in this mission and two in the other Guards missions. Most of my campaign missions, from Montebourg to Nijmegen, have at least two AI plans, some a lot more. I design with replayability in mind.

None taken. IMO, scenarios are like short stories whereas campaigns are like novels. I tend to 'write' trilogies. I wouldn't be surprised to read that every third mission or so is extremely difficult. That's because these missions are tests. If the player 'passes', he gets to step up a difficulty level, to Veteran for example, or back to Regular if he's currently playing Green. The big flaw in this system is that people like to win every mission and will replay until they get a win instead of accepting the loss and getting to play easier missions. I try to craft my missions so tha

Heh heh. This one continues to upset people. It got a lot of hate on release. If you hate it now, wait 'til you play 'Crescendo of Doom'. The Cameronians are generally regular experience with Normal motivation. The ASH are generally Green experience with Normal to High motivation. Both have good NCOs and leadership. There are actually a few, very good units scattered about in both infantry formations. Churchills are definitely a bit crap when compared to Shermans and are certainly NO MATCH for Panthers. However, the OBs and match-ups in most of these campaign missions are about as hi

I'll have a wee look at that one and see if there's a problem. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

The AI can use Fast (Dash), Quick (Quick), Advance (mainly Assault movement orders for infantry squads and Quick for support teams), Assault and Max Assault (which might mean Slow) movement commands. It never uses Hunt and will only use Move when the units are approaching exhaustion. Under which circumstances depends on which order the scenario/QB map designer issues to that particular order. Important to remember that the AI cannot reverse its vehicles except when the Tac AI determines that they are threatened and tells them to back up. If you want them to back up as part of an order, the

A quick reply, you might want to have a few guys performing a Target Light fire mission on the building you're attempting to enter. As long as you don't throw any HE at the building, your boys won't get hurt by the small arms fire. Also, place a movement waypoint outside the door so that your assaulting squad can use Target on the building as well. Go in hard and heavy and don't mind the ammo expenditure. There's plenty more in your vehicles. Or you can use SMOKE. It's amazing how frequently folks forget to use this valuable asset. I use it all the time.

I should have said the Commonwealth instead of Britain, my bad! The New Zealanders threw their hat in the ring too.

I don't think that WW1 would offer much for the CMx2 engine, that's for sure. I might be wrong but I suspect that the BFC guys are really armour fans and that might apply to their customer base as well. Me, I'm more of an Infantry guy I like tanks but I don't want them to be the centrepiece of my missions. I think WW1 Grand Strategy, done properly, would make for a very good wargame. I am looking forward to AGEOD's 'To End All Wars' too. But it might be a few months after the release before it becomes really first-class. If they can make sure that fronts remain reasonably static and hard

For me, WW1 is the ultimate war for a wargame as it featured static lines, massive, lengthy offensives that resulted in gains of a few kilometers at most. I have no idea why but that's a big, big draw for me. It probably doesn't help that it's not a war that the US got involved in until near the end either . Until 1917, it's just Germany, Austria-Hungary, The Ottomans, France, Britain, Italy and Russia plus a few Balkan minors thrown in for good measure.

That was a one off and I don't expect that ever to happen again. We can speculate that BFC were forced to released the game before they thought it was ready due to contractual relations with another game company. Steve posted once that v1.05 was the version he'd have liked to release the game in. That was about 3-4 months after the release. Since then, BFC have been releasing games when they are ready and every other CMx2 title has been pretty solid at launch.

Two things I really liked about Shock Force: One was that it was a fictional setting which meant that it allowed designers to craft plausible missions without being constrained by history. Designing for WW2 NWE has required a considerable amount of research before getting to work with the editor. Not to mention that Google Earth shows us the state of the world in the last few years and so making maps with GE is much easier. This is the same for Black Sea. The second was that it was not just about killing the other side and capturing/holding VP locations without regard for your own cas

It's a Monday so I'd have to say CMSF is my favourite CM game. However, on another day, I might reply that CMBN is my favourite. They're both so good that it's hard to say which one is my favourite overall. It would be easier to say that I have little attachment to either CMFI or to CMA as I have never felt inspired enought to make a mission for either of them. Don't ask why. I really couldn't say. Italy just isn't interesting for me. I've only just started to look at CMRT and I am beginning to think that ahistorical. fictional missions are the way for me to go with this title. At this sta

I would leave it in when the human player is the defender. Nothing wrong with getting plastered by an AI attacker's opening bombardment. That's as good a bombardment as the AI is going to make and it should hurt. I don't use the stock QB maps. All mine are customised to my own playstyle and so are not suitable for BF QB maps. I never have the AI waste its artillery with bombardments on the attacker's set-up zones. If the AI is doing an assault or an attack, yes, if doing a Probe, Meeting or defending, no opening bombardment.