Paper Tiger

I'll revisit this to check that it's winnable without resorting to reloading saved games. This was intended to be an easy opening but that doesn't appear to be the case anymore. I guess I could make the bunker crews Conscripts rather than Green to make them less resilient under fire.

Heh heh. When I designed this mission, I found that the Tigers didn't stand a chance if both the Brit 6-pdrs were allowed to deploy up front. They didn't get knocked out every time, that's true, but the volume of shots coming from both guns would button them up and degrade their optics, destroy their main gun in very short order almost every time. So I decided to move one of the guns to a different set-up area to give the Tigers a chance. Same with the attacking troops. The 12SS engineers were used in this counter attack so I thought Veteran with Extreme/High morale would allow them to put in an effective attack. (Better than the Green/Extreme defenders that you'd been fighting earlier.) The supporting troops are very weak by comparison (Luftwaffe troops IIRC). But the v2.01 changes to MG behaviour have probably made this one a tad too challenging now. I'll be reviewing this as soon as Market Garden is done. BTW, the Green version of this mission has PzIVs instead of Tigers. The delays to your reinforcements are due to a loss in the 'Road to Cheux' mission. Failure to clear the village in that mission delays the tanks from Cheux from arriving in the nick of time.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I am planning on revising this after my contribution to Market Garden is finished. I particularly want to rework the Veteran version of 'Crescendo of Doom' to exchange the Panthers with PzIVs. And to take advantage of the extra AI groups. There are a few missions that will definitely benefit from utilising all of them. 'Crescendo of Doom' was intended to be the campaign finale and so I didn't see much of a problem if the player's core units got hammered while defending the position in the Veteran version. But after it was done, I still had time on my hands and, historically, there was a further night attack on Grainville and so it became the penultimate mission. Regular and Green players have a good chance to go on and fight and win in 'Fair and Square' but Veteran players not so much. That will change in the revised version.

I will have to be a bit more selective in the future as I don't have quite as much time on my hands to work on stuff as I used to. The OMG campaign will likely be the last of my 'monster' length campaigns. After that, I guess I'll be doing more focussed, much shorter campaigns. Given that BFC are looking to step up the pace of releases, I think that's going to fit in with their plans as well. I've already got a great idea for a German campaign for the East Front title and I've also got some ideas about how to do a campaign for the CMSF2 title from either side as well. But mainly, I'd like to focus on miniatures, very short missions with tiny OBs and ridiculously short time limits Thinking more along the lines of 'Where all the Glory Lies' here

Market Garden East Front CMSF2 Market Garden first because I won't have time to do much with anything else until it's finished. East front next because it's where the best of the WW2 action is for me at any rate. CMSF2 as well because I increasingly miss the modern era and the lethal equipment, especially helicopters. I'll probably take a look at Bulge when it comes as I suspect that's when we'll see nighttime illumination. (honestly can't see how it can be done without it) Plus, I reckon there's a really good German campaign to be made there as well

LOL. And people wonder why there are so few folks designing for this community. Way to crap all over somebody else's enthusiasm <slow hand clap>

This is the Friendly Casualty parameter and you get a bonus number of VPs for completing the mission with low casualties. The AI side often gets VPs for every casualty inflicted on your force which can make it difficult for the player to get high level victories. The 'less than 10%' reward offsets the casualty points the AI side earned and so makes big wins more likely for the experienced player. Losing missions can lead to a drop in unit morale in both 'Montebourg' and 'The Scottish Corridor' campaigns . And in the latter, wins in certain missions will up the difficulty for you. I also crafted a short (for me anyway) campaign for CMSF, 'USMC Gung Ho!' where the player was rewarded with extra kit if he won certain missions.

Hi arpella. As it happens, there was a battleship fire mission in the early iterations of the second mission, 'Road to Cheux'. However, I pulled it during testing because the battleship fire mission is way too precise. So much so as to make it utterly, immersion-breakingly unrealistic. IMHO, naval support is not well done in CMBN. I don't think there was much air support available during the early days of Epsom as the weather was appalling. Heavy overcast, heavy rain, sodden ground, the perfect fighting weather for us Scots. Air support is not properly done in CMBN either.

Very nice work there, sir. I think you've got a very good look there. However, in response to your earlier survey, I'd have to go completely against the tide of public opinion (surprise surprise) and say that I think almost everything is unimportant. It's like a book and it's cover. It's the actual story, i.e. gameplay, that matters to me and I want to get to it as fast as possible. The briefing is the most important feature there. Since I design campaigns and not stand-alones, I feel it is necessary to stitch the campaign missions together with some sort of coherent narrative. I've received lots of criticism for making my briefings too wordy in the past but I think it's easy enough to find all the important information, such as very detailed reinforcement schedules in my briefings. (Message received about artillery assets shared between missions though ) For the future, I see me using unit badges in place of strat maps, a black-and-white, in-game action screenshot with the objectives in the margins for the operational map, and no tac map. (If you don't include one, there's no tab so you don't miss it.) I do all of my planning during the set-up phase of the mission. I can explore the map and terrain in much more detail than any tac map could possibly allow and, assuming that the scenario designer allows the player to see them, I can see the objectives clearly marked on the map. (I switch them off, as well as landmarks while I'm playing.) By including the point value in the Objective text, you can provide the player with even more in-game info that he can toggle with Alt-J

I was actually expecting flares to make it into the NATO module of CMSF. How painfully naive was that? I honestly doubt that flares, or fire for that matter, will make it into a pre-v3 build. My guess would be that we'll first see them in the 'Bulge' title as that takes place in the NWE winter when the nights are very long indeed. 'Bagration' will take place during the summer months so I think BFC will be able to release the East Front title without having the hassle (i.e. time sink) of coding this feature at least until v3, or even v4 (Bulge maybe?) Flares will probably arrive in a later East Front module. I'll bet that CMSF2 takes place in the summer months too [All the above is 100% pure speculation on my part ]

It was on the Montebourg storyboard for consideration but I passed on it because there were no light German AA guns and because the best part of the fighting was done by the 501st. Looks like it's going to be a nice map. Good luck with this

You might be surprised. Some of the missions are quite small and can be played through in one sitting Heh heh. Yup, the Grainville series is a real toughie. TBH, I think I made them a bit too difficult, especially the Veteran level of 'Crescendo of Doom'. These were very hard fights in real life so I felt justified in making the Regular missions as tough as they were. What I was looking for there was to create a series of missions where winning gave you the opportunity to fight another 'historical' battle in a series until either the campaign ended or you lost one. I'm glad somebody appreciates the maps I made for these battles. The ASH maps in particular are some of the best I've ever crafted and I loved playing on them. And yet, not a peep about the ASH missions from the community. Plenty on CoD though The 'Tourville', 'Mondrainville', 'Ten out of Ten' and 'Gavrus' maps are very, very realistic looking. Perhaps the battles are just too easy? It would be good to know before I revise them. Anyway, after the Market Garden campaign is out of my hair, I'll be returning to the 'Scottish Corridor' to update it for v2 and the Grainville series will get an overhaul. And I would love to give Montebourg another update too. It's just so much fun (for me) to play that it's not work to do.

'Never say never again'. BFC released a patch, for a fee, to allow the CMx1 series of games to be played on Vista not all that long ago so it's not utterly beyond the realms of all possibility that they might do something more with it. Personally, I very much doubt that they will but if enough of you guys can persuade them that there's money in it for them, you never know. (as in, more money than they're likely to earn developing titles/modules/packs for the CMx2 series) And as for 'why don't they sell it on to someone else to develop', well, it's the result of years of extremely hard work on their part. And they're still earning from it. I don't understand why anyone should expect them to sell on the code to another developer so that they could make and sell games that would compete with BFC in such a niche market. Really!? Given the love and the continued loyalty that some have for the CMx1 series of games, BFC'd likely lose a significant number of their existing customer base to the new developer. That would be extremely foolish and a very, VERY bad business decision on BFC's part so why ask them to do it?

Hmm. Where can I find Aris' smoke mod? Sounds good. edit to add: heh. Just found it!

Hi Silverstars This was the main source for the 8t Regiment part of the campaign... http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-A-Utah/index.html And you're very welcome. I probably enjoyed making/playing that particular campaign more than any other I've worked on. Glad somebody else 'gets' it

Regarding the replay, I played CMBB to death. I spent years of my life playing that game. :eek: (Not so much with CMBO which I bought first and not at all with CMAK). When I started playing CMBO, I would watch the turn's action from different viewpoints over and over again. But eventually, I found that I was more interested in finishing the mission I was playing and would pretty much just watch the turn once and move onto the next turn immediately. That's how I played CMBB for years and that's pretty much how it goes in RT and why I don't miss it nearly as much as some of you guys would. For me, the really important thing is seeing how my plan fares and completing the mission rather than watching the action from different viewpoints. That's me.:cool:

Hi Wodin It's been a very long time ago since I read the posts Steve made about the RT engine while the new game was being designed. ISTR him saying that the RT engine allowed the game to do lots of things that the old CMx1 engine couldn't. Things like artillery having to finish firing within one turn, and perhaps other fires, like AT rounds for example in the old engine. That's why we can sometimes see screenshots of tanks about to be hit by an AT round at the end of a turn. Of course, I could be remembering this all wrong So, overall, the shift to a RT engine was a gain for WEGO players even if they don't want to play RT. I think most folks would agree that the CMx2 WEGO play is better than CMx1 play, wouldn't you? ('Missing' commands apart ) For my part, I play RT only. This is because I have no interest in playing games by email with human opponents (probably because you'd all kick my butt regularly ). Also, I'm more interested in playing the mission through to its conclusion in one sitting than sitting watching replays of the action. After playing this way for several years now, I don't miss the replays very much at all. And yes, when you start playing RT, you hit the Pause button every few seconds. That's natural. However, after I got a bit of experience with it, I only pause the game when I receive reinforcements, I am calling in an artillery/air strike, or if everything really does go pear-shaped and I want to examine the situation . Otherwise, a 1-hour mission plays in about an hour and a half for me, from set-up to the conclusion.

<Ahem.> The pool table test reveals the flaw in the aiming logic, a flaw that most of us all recognise and think should be changed. Further, JonS has defended this behaviour earlier in this thread. Post #41 in this thread and a bit further in. He's said it both here in this thread and on the Beta boards Further, he said this... Link to the actual post can't be posted here but is available if you want to take some sort of action on it.

Probably because units trained and developed tactics for handling them. You can use these tactics in the game too. Split the squad up into two or three teams and use two of them to cover a third which rushes from position to position taking full advantage of any cover available (and in NW Europe, there was usually a LOT of this), outflanking the enemy's position, etc, etc. It gets even better when you have a 50mm or 60mm mortar in support as well. However, tactics like that are completely unnecessary in the game as the MG has already been nerfed so badly so that it is ineffective even in the best possible circumstance imaginable for it: a rush across a long stretch of completely open ground towards its position. This is what people have been complaining about and what JonS has been defending in this thread. The average western squad leader wasn't trained to order his squad to perform a Banzai charge across open ground against a MG position. Why? Because it was suicide, that's why. Not so in the present version of the game as demonstrated by the video at the start of this thread where it is shown to be completely and utterly ineffective. You and JonS might have twenty more years of experience and reseach under your belts here than me, and I'm happy to admit to it, but you're not going to convince me that MGs were that bad in real life.

Like the planners of the Dieppe landings for example I've also been led to believe that the Omaha landings were a bit difficult too. If you remove the combined arms from the equation, a well-sited, dug-in MG team should dominate a force of infantry advancing across a pool table. With no cover, real-life infantry would feel very vulnerable and be very frightened having a MG firing in their general direction. The whole point of combined arms was to avoid this silliness.

You'll have to create a folder called Z in your Data folder yourself

Discovered a German strongpoint in a complex of farm buildings so I called in a heavy air strike to target the position and waited... and forgot all about it, advanced on the position and engaged the defenders. The Germans were on the run, so I gave my guys the order to advance into the complex and... BANG!

(my emphasis) I'm not really aware of any other Beta testers who are happy with this behaviour other than JonS but I'm not going to plow through 40+ pages of posts to find out. I'm not at all certain that we are all in agreement about how it can be fixed though

Perhaps if you'd followed the link I'd posted... you'd understand his comment better. Or not... Nope, it was a joke

I think that's possibly the least persuasive reason for maintaining the status quo though In most cases, these old missions could be fixed by adding 10+ minutes or so (whatever) to the game clock. And players would find that realistic tactics would work better in the game. Not to mention that every new scenario created forever after would be better balanced as well