[What Are .RAR Files And Why Do They Not Work?]

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.

[RtoM Great maps.]

[Put this in the wish-list thread: the packaged campaigns also have each map as a separate battle. I like campaigns--one battle affecting another so that that units are precious, the story (!). But not everyone's taste is for so many days/weeks of work/play--let them see the maps/battles more easily! Let the hard work be seen!]

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.

[BATTLE DRILL - A CM Tactics Blog]

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.

[Scottish Corridor: major problem.]

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.

[Operation Market Garden announced!]

Given the fact that you like ABC, you can't be much younger than me, Seedorf. Great album btw, although I must confess I'm listening more to Barok music and Gregorian chants nowadays. Must be my age...

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.

[The Sheriff of Oosterbeek – A Scenario Design DAR/AAR]

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.

[The Sheriff of Oosterbeek – A Scenario Design DAR/AAR]

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.

[The Sheriff of Oosterbeek – A Scenario Design DAR/AAR]

Oops. I'm not really sure what some of this is supposed to mean:

Next up is timings, and these can take a while to wrap the old noggin around.

Each order is created with a time-window during which it should commence.

Exit After: refers to the earliest time that the AI force element will start trying to execute the order.

Exit Before: refers to the latest time the order will be commenced.

Generally, all being well, the units will commence their orders at the first possible opportunity. The main exception is if they’re currently actively in contact with the enemy, in which case the commencement of the order might be delayed until a safer moment.

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

The Exit Before option causes the group to try very hard to get to the next Order in the plan before the specified scenario time is reached. This does not mean that the Group will do it, just that it will try. If it has taken excessive casualties, is immobilized or heavily engaged, it may blow the Exit Before time. It will still attempt to execute the next order in the plan, just not within the time that the scenario designer allotted for it.

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.

You need to make sure that there is enough time to reach the waypoint within the designated time. If units of the AI force element don't reach waypoint 1 until the 12 minute mark, then they can ‘fall off’ the main line sequence of orders and subsequent moves and timings tend to fail – the AI force element will go to ground and just sit on its hands, not moving any more for the rest of the scenario. That's ok if they come under contact - you /want/ them to react to the enemy rather than blundering forward in a futile effort to follow The Plan. But if it's just a move out of contact with the enemy, and your timing is off, well, then the actual fighting you had planned for later in the scenario might never happen.

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?

A technique, or hack, that exploits this behaviour is to deliberately leave the Exit Before/Exit After times at 00:00/01:00, but it works best for admin moves out of contact. When a unit encounters a series of orders that are all set to 00:00/01:00 it’ll move through the waypoints as quickly as practical, without halting at each waypoint and waiting for the next Exit After timing. This can, for example, be a good way of efficiently moving reinforcements up from a map edge, but ‘real’ timings will be need to be in place when contact with the enemy is expected.

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.

[The Sheriff of Oosterbeek – A Scenario Design DAR/AAR]

That is an important bit of information.

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.

[Smoke, used in an attack]

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.

[The Scottish corridor - A amazing Job]

Needless to say, when the plane came, neither that F.O. or any other unit could contact it.

So I was wondering about that, what am Ii missing here or is this a error that was done by the designer or something.

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.

[Smoke, used in an attack]

Is there a scenario where smoke is vital, and do you use it often on the attack?

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.

[How does the AI work?]

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

[How does the AI work?]

A third thing I don't get. And I still don't. @Paper Tiger could you elaborate? Which name are you using for the scenario's AI plan? What is the third thing you are referring to? Does @sburke have the definition correct? Is it about the scenario designer's choice of unit separation between AI groups?

These are the terms Steve, or whoever wrote the CMSF manual, used to define the three levels of AI:

The Computer opponent consists of three main sub-elements:

-the customizable "Scenario AI" which can be "programmed" by the Scenario Designer who determines the overall strategic goals as well as possible avenues of approach and is able to "script" certain behavior;

-the hard-coded Operational AI (OpsAI) that co-ordinates and assigns the orders to sub-units;

-and the hard-coded Tactical AI that controls the individual behaior of units and soldiers based on the assigned order and the situation that develops after the shooting starts.

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.

That's great! I look forward to reading it and thank you very much!

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'.

[How does the AI work?]

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.

[The start of actual news]

Depending on what the new features are it could mean 4-6 weeks for a single Upgrade or perhaps several months (as was the case with the massive Normandy v2.0 Upgrade).

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

[Which is better?]

The introduction of AI triggers would be welcome, but the entire process of designing for play one way vs the AI vs both ways vs the AI is different. So if you are designing to the one side vs the AI standard now, the only thing that will change if you have a trigger is that your one side vs the AI will have a more effective opponent. It won't suddenly grant you the capability of designing a scenario to be played from either side since the decision to design that way has to be made before you place a single action spot worth of weeds.

Also, don't be fooled into thinking that creating an AI plan with triggers would make an AI plan easier to make. It could make the AI a more effective opponent for certain, but with that effectiveness would come more time in the creation of the plan. You can't make something more effective if you don't spend the time making it so. So if someone can't design for play by either side without triggers now, then the introduction of triggers isn't going to change that. Besides, if making an AI attack plan is where designers stumble, well an attack plan is primarily timing, positioning, and firepower so the current AI is actually more suited towards making an attack plan now since the attacker generally sets the tempo and the defender is reactive. The current AI is not reactive in the slightest beyond what the Tac AI does and this really hurts the defending AI.

By making a defending AI plan, most designers probably just mean where they place the defenders in a static defense. That only takes a few minutes and isn't an AI plan per se because the AI isn't actually doing anything. The player is mostly just fighting the TacAI. Actually making an AI attack plan where all the AI forces are in motion and you have to get the timing between elements to work well takes a lot of time and effort - time and effort that many would rather not expend. It's a lot easier to just deploy some defenders on the map and say 'playable as the attacker vs the Tac AI defender', maybe toss in a small counterattack or have a truck move around and be done with it.

Triggers would primarily benefit the defending AI, although there are certainly areas where it could help an attacker for sure. The benefit to an attacking AI wouldn't be as dramatic though. Once again though, if someone can't design a reasonably competent AI plan now, then the addition of triggers isn't going to change anything. The designer will just have a bad AI plan that now has triggers in it.

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 .

[Which is better?]

Yeah ASL was advocating for just what you want. He was the one telling us that we should consider ourselves a failure for not creating a scenario that was playable both H2H and against the AI from both sides. Yes, I am exaggerating - just a little.

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.

I would never, ever, advocate the creation of a scenario that had no AI plans at all for either side. That would be ridiculous.

These would be H2H only missions. Neither of us design them and neither of us are arguing in favour of them.

If you want to play against the AI, wouldn't having a scenario as playable vs the AI as either side be much better than having something playable as only one side? It doubles your options .... what am I missing here?

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.

[Which is better?]

Ouch that sounds pretty disappointing..for one I hope BF add some new features for the AI like triggers and next I really hope they aren't slowly going to leave the SP player behind and cater more for the HtH players..if so that will be a huge blow. I really hope it doesn't end up that I have to wait for a Kickstarter to come along to fulfill my wargaming dreams.

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'.

[Which is better?]

If I design a scenario to be challenging as played against the AI as an AI defender I have just made a scenario that's playable by one side only. Playing as the defender or head to head isn't an option, and in fact if some have their way you wouldn't even be able to select those other options because those options would be locked out.

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.

[The start of actual news]

I doubt that BS will be the final title . Glad to hear that CMSF will get an upgrade. I installed it on my 'new' hard drive a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely LOVE the vehicle models. But the editor is so dated with only 8 AI groups, a limited number of ways to fit walls together and the game sports old MG behaviour. I don't mind the desert setting at all. I grew to love it in CMSF and I'll be happy to return to it and craft some more missions if it gets an update.

One other reason to love the Modern Era game is that you can design without being constrained by history. As JonS is admirably demonstrating in his 'Sherrif' thread, crafting a historically accurate WW2 scenario is an ENORMOUS of work. It will be nice to be free of these constraints once again.

Arnhem, Bagration, and Black Sea (yeah, that's a Modern bone) are all very far along their respective development cycles.

Good to hear as these titles have already been in active development for well over a year now so looking forward to seeing some screenshots

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1370433&postcount=3

[Which is better?]

if you feel that you are at the top of the heap with no room for improvement then more power to you.

Never have, and never will feel that way. I'm always pushing the envelope.

Why you would be "worried" about scenario design moving in a direction that you don't like is what prompted my response.

Two reasons. First, because I would very much like to see AI triggers make it into the game sooner rather than later. AI triggers have the potential to revolutionise the single player game. They have no use whatsoever for the H2H crowd for whom TacAI improvements would be the priority. It would be pretty easy for BFC to decide to hold off on doing the enormous amount of coding that this would entail because the community is more or less happy to play H2H.

Second. I'm not convinced that the H2H community make up the majority of BFC's customers although I'm happy to be corrected. H2H players are far more likely to frequent forums than dedicated single players. The only reason I frequent these boards as a single player is because I'm interested in designing and not for finding opponents. How many folks post here? Double or even quadruple that and you still have a customer base that's far too small to support BFC.

There's nothing strange or weird about people wanting to play a computer game against an AI opponent either. I've played computer games as long as there have been computer games to play and for almost all that time there was no option to play online or H2H. Had there been, I'd probably have evolved into a H2H player like the young folks that have been born after the Internet are. BFC have gone with a rather interesting AI option in the CMx2 engine and it is possible to craft missions that are very challenging for even an experienced player to play against the AI. Designing missions like that is my design goal and that is how I intend to develop as a designer. Even if H2H players are in the majority nowadays, I'll go the way of the dinosaur when there's no call for my work and return to designing exclusively for my own pleasure like I did with CMBB.

The first rule of scenario design is to have a thick skin.

That is just frankly absurd. Thick skin when getting feedback? No problem. Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt. Mark Gibson really helped me to become a better designer when I joined the team and, boy, was he abrasive. I listen and follow good advice when I'm given it and am grateful for it too. (Read the credit I gave to Mark Gibson in the briefing for 'British Mettle'). The guys who have playtested my campaigns have given me some very strong criticism too. Critical feedback is good when it's intended to help the designer to improve his work. Have a thick skin when folks just want to insult you? Different story. There are a LOT of folks around here who have just as thin a skin as I do.

[The Sheriff of Oosterbeek – A Scenario Design DAR/AAR]

My question is now: are those the total time values meassured from the start of the game or are those the times the unit is going to stay within the painted order zone?

From the start of the mission.

[Which is better?]

If the designer aims for less I think the designer is just limiting themselves to something less than they could acheive if they put a little more thought and effort into their design. What bothers me is when designers don't even make the effort.

On second thoughts, I think it's a very bad idea to open up a discussion on this as it's a minefield. We're already throwing the criticisms of other designer's work around so let's not go there. I've got nothing but respect for anybody who takes the time to create convincing work with the scenario editor, including yourself.

I'll confine my remarks to say that there are two sides in a CMx2 mission, an attacker and a defender. In MEs, both players are attackers. The AI can be scripted to do a good job of defending, no argument there but it's not a great attacker. It needs a wee bit of help to make it effective on the attack. Help that any half-decent human player can make far better use of than a scripted AI plan ever can, including using the clock. I've designed a fair few AI attacks in my time. My very first CMx2 mission, 'In Harm's Way', was a RED attack v Human US player. When I switch sides and play against the PT defensive set-up, I can blow the AI away every time. But that's just me. So, to end this post, I will continue to design missions in the way I see fit and, hopefully, BFC will think they're good enough for inclusion. When they're no longer good enough, I'll call it quits

[The start of actual news]

I thought you were in Indonesia somewhere, not in Europe?

Indeed I am, and have been here now for 10 happy years. But I'm Scottish and when I worked in the UK, 40+ hours a week wasn't usual either. But it's not important