Paper Tiger

Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pack the original Hasrabit and Perdition campaigns into one folder and upload them to the Repository later tonight. It's just too much work to redo these old campaigns and I'd much rather get my teeth into something completely new using the maps I haven't used yet as well as a couple of choice ones from my contributions to the NATO campaigns. New maps are a LOT of work to craft and I'd rather dodge that bullet this time. I am definitely going to do one last work though but it might take a very different direction from my earlier Red v Red stuff. I'm contemplating a core force consisting entirely of Reserve Motorised Infantry with some truly ancient tanks in support. I quite fancy doing a more infantry-centric Red v Red campaign rather than having Mech forces and tanks for both sides. It might make for a nice city fight as well.

That mission was crafted when the game version was 1.10/1.11. There was no NATO module around. I played that particular mission dozens of times, both the Special Forces and Regulars versions each, and there were no noticable problems. However, I can't rule it out as it's possible that something got busted by later versions of the game. I'll have a look later today and see what happens when I play it as a stand-alone. (It's a nice map and I'd like to convert it foir a CMBN battle.)

Heh! A more realistic project for the time being would be to redo 'Perdition' first. It's a nice short but interesting campaign and I've had some ideas for making it even more interesting than the original. Two of the maps have been revamped for other purposes: The 'Road to Perdition' map was reworked to create 'UK Cain and Abel' The 'Perdition's Flames' map was revamped to creat 'USMC Second Storm' So, I will use the updated maps for these two missions. The new campaign will be sufficiently different from the original to keep me interested. Further, it will feature a Shilka and some Trucks. That will mean buying both the Marines and NATO modules of you want to play it. I've redone the core unit file and am importing them into the three missions so I'll be able to get started testing straight away.

Be careful asking for this please. I would really like to see the German 20mm AA gun included at some point in the future (Market Garden module) and you can make a good argument for not including it if you say that people will expect it to provide some AAA cover in the game. Aircraft are very rarely used in CMSF missions and so there's not much need for the interaction between ground units and air units to be modelled in more detail yet. Having said that, of course it would be brilliant if each onboard AAA asset added to some global factor that would determine how effective aircraft were when attacking.

Don't worry Warmachine... nobody's game looks like that.

Grenvill Perhaps you can get some of the guys here to pass you a copy of the original campaign. I don't want to post it at the Repository as it's horribly out-of-date and somebody would (rightly) give it 1 or 2 stars. It was the 'bee's-knees' when it was first released but now, it's just poor quality. Funnily enough, I started looking at the core units file yesterday and saw that every unit had Crack experience and there were quite a number of +2 leaders. Okay, that was for the Republican Guards and the Special Forces. But the same was true for the AI opponent - lots of Crack/Veteran troops as well. That's so amateur. Since RedvRed is a minority interest thing and I doubt more than a dozen or so guys will ever play this, I need to be personally inspired to return to work on something for CMSF and using Syrian Airborne with T-90s and BMP-3s as well as the cool new stuff is what's going to get me in the mood. I've never used Red airpower either and I'd like to see how it compares to the Blue airpower. I also took a look at the 'Perdition' mini campaign. I guess I could redesign that one quite quickly without including any extra stuff for the CMSF player who doesn't have any modules. Once again, it was crafted using Crack core units as well as 16 orders per AI plan but at three missions where the AI is on the defensive, it's not a such a serious issue.

I've had quite a few PMs from folks over the last year asking me where they could find my Hasrabit campaign. The short story is that, way back before there was a Repository, there was the CMMODS site but it was closed down a couple of years back and when it closed, Hasrabit, and Perdition, were no longer available. Now, I still have all the files necessary to compile the original Hasrabit campaign. I could have it up on the Repository in an hour, no problemo. However, I have to confess that it would suck balls big time. It was my first ever campaign and when I crafted it, I was under the impression that we could only give the AI opponent 16 orders and not each AI group:eek:. This means that I could make the AI a whole lot more effective if I reworked the AI plans as they all have 16 orders and not the 108 that they could theoretically have. Further, some of the maps are a bit ...<ahem>... crap by my standards. So, if I'm going to keep Hasrabit in my signature, perhaps it's best if I did a full rework. Now, no promises that I'll have time to get this all done before we start work on the Market garden module but I'll give it a shot. I think I need a wee break from WW2 and I've always wanted to do another Red v Red campaign, this time using all the goodies that became available in the later modules. So, I'm going to try and put together a new Hasrabit campaign using revamped version of the existing maps plus a couple that were intended for the NATO module but never made it in, as well as a couple of my NATO campaign missions. I'm going to keep Hasrabit's two groups, one Republican Guards and the second, Special Forces. However, I'm going to sub Syrian Airborne for the Special Forces and a couple of platoons of T-90s to replace the Guards Tanks. I'll also bung in a couple of Shilkas for the Guards and the truck there as well. And, use real Red air power as well. The plan will be to have bucket-loads of artillery available to the human player as well. I was too timid with it first time out as it seemed too powerful when used against an AI with only 16 orders:D. Besides, I like to craft them as voiolently as possible. And, I never used UNCONs until I went to work on the NATO campaigns. It might be an idea to get them in there as well where appropriate. If this makes it through to the end, this will be my farewell to CMSF and I'll try to get as much in as I possibly can.

There certainly used to be real Friendly fire in the earlier versions of CMSF, but never CMBN. It was especially noticable with Green/Conscript troops at night. They'd open fire one each other and rip themselves to pieces unless you could keep good C2 links over them. However, this effect must have been coded out of the game at some point because I've never seen anything like it in CMBN.

A variant on Roy Castle's 'Record Breakers' , eh?

Dunno, because neither of those are mine. I have to confess, the Wespe picture does look like it's been blurred though.

The second one is mine and I can assure you that I do not touch up my screenshots at all. I would say that the main difference between the two is that the first uses Heavy haze and is zoomed while the second is not

I'd like to update either Dinas or Hasrabit to put in the RED goodies that shipped with the NATO module, particularly the Red airpower and the Shilka. We'll see how I feel after the CMBN Commonwealth module is released. I do miss the Modern Era from time to time.

There are 15 missions in the campaign. What was the name of mission #10? There are different paths through the campaign and so mission #10 will vary from player to player. BTW, I haven't looked at this for a L-O-N-G time and I'd forgotten how big some of the maps were. And I thought the maps I did for the NATO campaign were huge.

Agreed. A single 60mm mortar is usually enough to do the trick. <Ahem>. Yes on the 'broken record' thing . I very much hope that we can encourage new designers getting started making maps and missions without having too much pressure put on them. IMO, the scenario designing community is what make this game sing and some people want battles that are fun to play, if not realistic. (Count me in this category. If it's not fun to play, I won't play it.) You do your work very well and you are to be commended for it, but not everybody is going to want to devote as much time to making maps as you appear willing to do.

Given that everyone, and I mean everyone, wants this in the game, it's obviously not as easy for them to 'fix' as you'd expect.

Hmm.. that AT Gun at Ecoqueneuville is getting to be famous. Don't worry too much about spoilers as it moves around from plan to plan and there are four of them. I don't really have much advice to give you on identifying subtle elevation changes. (The elevations, as well as everything else, are as true to life as Google Earth permits.) I play the game right down at level 2 or 3 tops and so the elevations are easier to spot when viewed from there. However, I think I am in the minority playing the game like this and so it's not much of a solution for you.

Sure. The only parameter for the US player is Enemy casualties You scored 256 (?) points which is roughly 50% casualties although the tanks/vehicles are worth more points. You exited enough force to deny casualty points to the German side and you did so before he had time to touch either of the objectives. A very good performance indeed. You got a Red Cross for the enemy casualties though because you didn't destroy the enemy force (close to 100% casualties) which is hard to do. I spent a lot of time working on this particular mission and it's gratifying to read that someone had the experience that I was looking for when I designed it. I started shooting some FRAPS movies while playtesting this mission and they do look very realistic indeed. I have one short sequence of a lone Para firing through the bocage as some 81mm mortar shells start to zero in on his position. But we can see him keep on fighting as the dust from the explosions drifts between him and the camera. He ducks down from time to time when a shell gets too close but a few seconds later, he's back up and firing again. Great stuff... And, BTW, there are three AI plans in this mission and the main thrust is different in each to keep the player guessing right up until he identifies where it's going. Thanks for sharing and good luck with the rest of the campaign.

Agreed that they're not the most garrulous game company in the business but they're a lot better than some . I play some Paradox games from time to time and they love to talk about new features. For example, when they've got a new module or title in the pipeline there's an update where they focus on one new feature very week starting about 2 months prior to the release. On the other hand, I play Civ V more frequently and 2KGames are definitely a LOT worse than BFC on this front :eek:.

No photoshop (or other) tricks with the photos. Thick haze with a touch of Zoom will get you that effect in the game.

Guilty as charged (obviously) . I guess I've just been too busy working on the Commonwealth module for that piece of information to register.

Ten to one the Bulge title will ship with an all-new user interface as well as winter terrain. The trees and bushes etc will mostly all have to be redone for example. As far as the models are concerned, they'll probably need to redo all the soldier models so that they sport winter kit with greatcoats, etc. The winter camo for the vehicles is probably the least of their worries (except for the artists of course) I really, REALLy don't see any way BFC can put out a Bulge title without nighttiime illumination either as it will span the NW European winter when the days are only 6-7 hours long. And I know that I, for one, am going to expect to see Fire in that title. That will be an enormous coding effort and I'd expect them to want to be reimbursed for their work rather than put it out for a measly $25. Now the East Front. I wish they'd do it as one title with an enormous number of modules as I'd love to make the granddaddy of all campaigns: a four year epic covering a single company's fortunes from the opening of Barbarossa to the Fall of Berlin . Never going to happen but I can dream...

That's not a hedge That looks like an earthen bank with some foliage topping it and it's still above waist-height.

I had to think about this issue when designing the 'Montebourg' campaign. I didn't want managing C2 to be too much of a nightmare and so the solution I came up with, and continue to employ, is to delete the weapons platoon from the OB and purchase the same units as teams and attach them to the company's individual platoons. This means that the Platoon commander can exercise control over the attached HMG/MMG/Mortar. I did this for both the human player and the German side too. It made my playing experience more enjoyable for one For your second question, I prefer to keep my Company commanders back from the action but in locations from where they can oversee their platoons if not the enemy. They usually stay in C2 by radio.

I have no idea what the hedge is meant to represent in the game. I have never seen a knee-high hedge anywhere in my life. (Bonsai hedges in Japan, perhaps?) I would have prefered something along the lines of low bocage with the ability to for everyone to pass through it. Obviously, that's not as easy to code as it is for me to suggest it though.

Yes. But what a nine days they were!