Paper Tiger

I suspect quite a few of you WEGO players think we RTs play the game like this... http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=94176 Watching those videos drives me absolutely crazy. He spends a lot of his time pausing. This is NOT how I play RT, not now, not ever except briefly way back in 2007 (?) when I was learning how to play CMSF in RT. I only pause the game when I'm playing for the following reasons: a - I am calling in an artillery/air strike b - I receive reinforcements and have to get them on board c - Everything goes spectacularly pear-shaped and I want to get some idea of what's going on. Otherwise the game never pauses until the mission is over. A 30 minute scenario plays in about 40 minutes. I can't go back to playing a 30 minute mission over the course of 2-3 days.

No I play RT all the time.

No limit that I'm aware of. 'The Road to Dinas' had several battalions of Red stuff in the 'Blue' side and there were at least a battalion of 'Red' core units as well. 'The Road to Nijmegen' also has quite a large number of core units for both sides too. Hope that helps.

Not the beta testers' fault. That's my fault and mine alone. When importing the final core units, I deleted the battalion mortars by mistake. Well, that's right honourable of you But these are the 2/505 missions Fortunately, the other 2/505 missions are WAD and you have more than enough firepower in mission 1 to take down the Germans in good time so it shouldn't be a problem.

There's also this... http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=103226 This has been sitting on the back-burner for quite a while as I've been busy with other projects. And my real life has been quite 'exciting' over the last year as well. It'll be different from the other project found in the other reply for sure. I'm only using the NSR as my core units and won't be covering the fighting for the airfield itself.

Yup. RAR files are zipped/compressed files. You'll need to unlock them first before the game will recognise them. Do a search online for RAR files and you'll find the app.

This is in the works. Just not enough time in the day to do all this. Maybe after Market Garden is done? And thanks. It's nice to know that the hours and hours of work I put into making each map is appreciated. These were all done in the old-fashioned way: Google Earth with a measuring tool, Google Street view to spot modern buildings an eliminate them, etc. It also required a lot of creativity to avoid unnatural-looking wiggly roads while keeping the road network reasonably accurate. I just can't play on maps with wiggly roads. Of course, if the roads really do wiggle in real life, they have to on the map as well but none of these battles had them. The Neuville map is a fine example of having to fudge the road network. I chose to have narrower fields instead of wiggly roads. While the fields may be narrower, they look natural and the defender has long LOS down the length of the roads that he should have as well.

Hi Bil Just noticed this. Scenarios specifically designed to allow the player to practice the the tactics in question. What a fantastic idea! I'll follow your blog with interest as my tactics could do with a bit of a polish. I wish you all the best with your project.

Hi James This sounds like a coding issue and there's nothing I can do about that. Sorry. Since most of the feedback I've had from the community about this campaign is about Crescendo of Doom, mission 13 I believe, I think most folks have been able to get through without any problems. Anyway, I see that BFC have announced that MG is available for pre-orders now. :cool: This means that work on my current campaign will finish in a few weeks and I'll be able to finish revising this campaign. Perhaps a fresh build will solve the problem for you.

The music of your formative years never leaves you. When I was a kid, I listened to the new releases from the Beatles and the Stones on the radio. The 70's also brought along a lot of incredible music. (Yes, I liked Abba too!) ABC is from the 80's and I was already beginning to think that 'they don't write proper pop music anymore' way back then. As it happened, my mom brought me up to appreciate Bach and Mozart as well and they've never left me. I've never forgotten the impact the first movement of Mozart's 40th Symphony had on me when I first heard it as a child. It's nice now, as an adult, to be able to play some of my favourite Bach pieces on the piano now as well. (The preludes rather than the fugues, of course, but also the main theme of the Goldberg variations. That one was particularly satisfying to learn to play and sometimes I still can't believe that it's me playing it.

Well, curiouser and curiouser. In my first test, I used Allied units for the AI side. I set up another test, this time using German AI units and it all seems to be working just fine. The problem seems to occur when you're making fire plans to support the Allied side. Since I have been working with Allied forces against AI-controlled Axis forces, this would explain why I haven't seen this before. More testing will be required but the more of us doing it, the better. Edit to add: I've run the same test about ten times: three Axis AI plans, all set to Use Sometimes, three lanes and an off-map support asset. It picks each plan regularly. Also, for the Allied side, it doesn't matter if the artillery assets firing are on-map or off-map. The Allied AI will always seem to pick the same plan when the weight is the same.

Well, I guess I should 'fess up and say that there does appear to be something wonky with AI plan selections when there is an AI fire plan and the frequency settings for each plan are equal. Skew them by setting one to Use Frequently and the others to Rarely and it will pick the Frequently one. Set them all to Sometimes and it will pick the same plan almost every time. I guess it's easy to miss when I'm testing my AI plans as I disable all the others while testing one and so the fire plan will work with whichever plan I use.

Oops. I'm not really sure what some of this is supposed to mean: The manual gives quite a clear explanation of these two orders and your interpretation of how Exit Before works is slightly different. From the manual P139 I'd have to say that that is how it appears to work when I test it and it's been that way since CMSF. I'd hesitate to say that your interpretation is wrong as you are a very experienced scenario designer and you've been on the design team a LOT longer than I have but I can't understand how the scenario designer can set a designated time for the AI to reach the waypoint if Exit Before works the way you claim in this part of your post. It's quite possible to create plans entirely without using the Exit After parameter and not see the AI group 'fall off'. For example, as you explain here, you can leave them both at the default and the AI will move from waypoint to waypoint unless they are somehow prevented as explained in the manual. How is this possible if what you said about Exit Before is true? If you are correct, then isn't the Exit Before telling them to start moving to the next order sometime before the first minute of the mission? There's nothing telling them when they should arrive by.

I don't think he meant to say that the AI will only use the first AI plan when there are multiple AI plans when an artillery fire plan is used. Here's a very simple test. There are three AI plans and one artillery fire plan. In plan 1, the AI will set up its units in the Plan 1 lane and move up. In Plan 2 they'll set up in Lane 2 and advance up. Same with AI plan 3. There is an artillery fire plan where the AI will drop mortars near the top edge of the Plan 2 lane. In the first run through, AI Plan 1 is set to Use Frequently while 2 and 3 are set to Rarely. Here's what happens: As you can see, AI plan 1 is selected, the artillery is falling and the AI is moving the units up lane 1. Now we change the frequency so that Plan 2 is Use Frequently while 1 and 3 are used Rarely. Here's what happens: The AI sets up in lane 2 and moves up as the artillery fire plan falls. And again with AI Plan 3 set to Frequently and the other two to rarely: So it is possible to create an artillery plan and have the AI utilise all the available plans.

In real life, smoke would prevent a player from seeing what the other person is doing but it certainly wouldn't stop a bullet. If I set up a MG with LoS down a long narrow road and the enemy drop some smke and advance up it, I'll still cut them down. However, this is not what happens in the game. Smoke, once placed, does prevent a player from firing through it because the game only allows us to fire at locations within the firer's LOS. In the example above, the MG will not be able to fire down that road beyond the point where it can see into the smoke. Even if I place a TRP at the end of the road, I can't get my MG to fire down it. So, yes, it would appear that smoke blocks fire in the game and in a sense, provides cover.

Well, designer error sounds the most likely explanation But seriously, I have no idea why you can't call in the second FB with rockets with your FO. They're both British so perhaps there's some issue with it being a reinforcement. I don't remember this being a problem when it was being tested and nobody else has picked it up to this date. Maybe your radio guy got hit? I'll check it out and see if there is something I've missed.

Do you remember back in the days of the original Squad Leader? The manual came with a nice detailed overview of platoon tactics and the tactical use of SMOKE was covered in the discussion about how to assault a strong defensive position. Ever since reading that I have used smoke in any mission in any game when I'm given it and on the offence. It's so useful when the weather conditions are favourable for its use that I can't imagine why people wouldn't use it.

Jock Tamson eh? You wouldn't be Scottish by any chance?

These are the terms Steve, or whoever wrote the CMSF manual, used to define the three levels of AI: From the CMSF manual p 36-37 From this, we can see that the player has total control over the first and limited control over the other two. I'll discuss each element in more detail when I start making these posts along with screenshots and a possible demo to show how they all work together. I don't particularly wish to dilute the effort at this stage. IMHO, it's scripting AI plans that is really holding the community back from creating missions. Scripting the AI is actually quite easy and is a lot of fun to do too. What I think is needed is a clear, step-by-step guide through the basics of scripting and then a couple of posts dealing with 'advanced techniques'.

Well, there are three actually although The Strategic and Operational are both controlled by the designer in the editor. The Tactical AI (which is fantastic) which determines how units react to their environment. The second level is the Operational level which decides how groups will move from one AI order to the next. And finally, there is the Strategic level which is the plan devised by the scenario author. And the game that offers the best AI challenge for me is Command Ops. I'm in the process of putting together a very detailed tutorial on how to create AI plans and what all the parameters do which I'll start posting after JonS finishes his Sheriff of Oosterbeek DAR.

It's worth bearing in mind that that particular upgrade required the artists to redo all the model artwork so your experience with that upgrade probably isn't a good indicator as to how long future upgrades will take

I'm not sure what to make of this post. :confused: First, you seem to agree in the first paragraph that they would indeed make the AI opponent more challenging when a mission is designed for single-play only. I agree 100% with you I don't care about the ability to make them more challenging when played both ways :confused:. Maybe I should but it's already a done deal when I start to design ANYTHING for this game that it will be for single-play only. I also have absolutely no idea where you get the idea that I think creating AI plans with triggers will be easy. Please explain your reason for making that remark as it is intensely patronising. I am a very serious AI planner. It's absolutely my favourite aspect of scenario design, by far! So what if it will be harder work? I will enjoy the extra options and I relish them. Bring it on! Surely you, as a designer of scenarios not intended for H2H play only must relish that challenge too? The last two paragraphs seem to imply that if something is hard to do, then it's not worth doing. That AI triggers will make bad designers worse and better designers better. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make in those two paragraphs. It sounds like you think AI triggers would not be welcome after all .

What ASL Vets seems to be primarily concerned about is why you should design for only a small portion of the community when you can design for a larger portion? Missions playable against the AI from both sides has completely different meanings for us. This is really what we're 'arguing' about. He's not denying that playing against an AI opponent can be very challenging when that mission is crafted by a good designer with a good grasp of the AI scripting tools. He's concerned about pleasing the largest possible audience with his work and that's good business sense. But scenario design is not 'business' for me. Its my hobby. I design for pleasure and not with business in mind. These would be H2H only missions. Neither of us design them and neither of us are arguing in favour of them. This is where we disagree. I have already demonstrated in an earlier post (#57) that in my experience, making them playable both ways results in making them less challenging in both directions. Yes, you can play them both ways against the AI but that comes at the expense of a providing a REAL challenge when it can only be played as one side v the AI. For me, designing them to be playable from either side means that neither side presents a real challenge for a decent player. My design strategy is to make them as challenging and as fun to play as one side against the AI as possible. Throughout the playtesting period I will either pare down one side or the other, or build one up depending on the situation until I find the sweet spot, the point where the human controlled side has to work really hard to get a win against the AI. He obviously doesn't design that way and he doesn't understand why people do so we'll never agree. And I definitely do not consider myself a failure as a scenario designer because I design this way. And I don't consider him a failure for not doing so either.

I don't think you have much to worry about in spite of the stated desire to have them all playable both ways. Most designers will still make them play best as one side v the AI. I think perhaps ASL Vet believes that I design stand-alone missions for the disk with NO AI Plans for the human side when of course that is completely contrary to BFC's stated wishes. Of course, the stand-alones that I have under development for the module right now don't have any AI plans for the 'human side' yet and so may lend weight to his concern. Of course they will have AI plans added later but I'm not going to alter the balance of the mission to make the mission a tad more challenging when playing against the 'human side'.

All the content that ships with the disk must be playable both ways, at least theoretically. This has been the standard BFC set since I first asked shortly after I joined the team. I crafted seven stand-alones for the CMSF Brit module and was surprised that I had to include AI plans for the intended 'AI-side'. Which I did after receiving this instruction. This did not mean that playing the 'AI side' would offer an experienced player an enjoyable challenge but it guaranteed that the customer who did so wouldn't sit out a frustrating wait for an AI attacker to do nothing because it had no AI plans telling it to move from its set up zones. I even tried to even it up as much as possible when I did so. The very best example of that was the mission 'Sabres at dawn' in which I devised two AI plans to the Brit attacker. Once I got started, I found myself strengthening the Brit player so that it could make an effective attack. But when I went back to playing the new, balanced version as the Brits v the Syrian AI, I could slaughter the Syrians with my new Brit force. For me, I found that strengthening the AI side a bit to allow it to offer a challenge just reduced the challenge when it was played the way it was intended to play, Brit vs Syrian AI. As Womble said, the AI just isn't up to providing the same level of challenge to a human player as another human player is without some help being given to the AI side. Help that ruins the H2H balance. Just one example relevent to the upcoming MG module. The AI just isn't going to be able to drive a column of tanks up Hell's Highway uncovering enemy positions on a 2.5km long map, reacting to them effectively using all the assets available to it to neutralise them and exiting the board before the clock runs out. It will blindly follow its chosen plan and won't make any adjustments to its plan as the situation develops even if it is getting absolutely slaughtered in the process. It is utterly ignorant of any scenario defined parameters or objectives or even the length of time of the mission so it will play without regard for casualties taken, ammo expended, condition of enemy forces, lack of control of said objectives, preserving or destroying terrain etc, etc. All it will attempt to do is reach its next objective within the alloted time. There are so many things that it just can't do at all either regardless of how devious and skilled the designer is. For example, we know that the AI infantry can't lay smoke nor will the AI opponent use smoke in an artillery barrage except as part of a designer-planned pre-strike. I can't even add a five-minute delay to its opening barrage so there's not even an option to keep the player guessing. So the AI needs a bit of help in a mission if it is going to offer a real challenge for a good player. My original concern is that the design emphasis is moving towards a balance point so that most, if not all the missions are best played H2H with the single player getting a compromise. This concern was prompted when I read a post saying that the scenaios play great H2H. To me, this suggests that the stand-alone missions for GL are reasonably balanced for H2H play instead of weighted for play as one side against an AI opponent. Since I wasn't in on Fortress Italy or Gustav Line, basically the last year of BFC's actual playable output, I wasn't aware that there was supposed to be more emphasis on keeping them playable from both sides. I missed that memo and so I made the mistake of expressing some concern.