Paper Tiger

Bit late to the show but I can see your pics now, Bil. The earlier ones are still hidden but I believe it's to do with where I'm living rather than anything to do with you.

Yup, Froggies in icecubes too. Cute, but not going to sell many copies of the game.

Seriously, creating QB maps is not a black art or anything you should feel daunted by. Writing AI plans for QB maps is very simple at first and as you gain experience, you can refine the plans you have already created to make the AI behaviour more sophisticated. It's a LOT of fun learning how to do this and it's also much easier now that we have the Scenario Author play mode that allows us to watch the AI perform its orders. I still get a bit of high watching the AI controlled side swinging into action in QBs. You'll also have a whole team of folks here willing to help newbies to CMx2 get started on writing basic AI scripts. For example, we'll be able to tell you how to write orders that will allow you to disembark infantry from their rides at a certain waypoint. Also bear in mind that Mark Ezra is creating a large number of QB maps for the title and that these maps need to be playable in almost every imaginable configuration - Armor only, Combined Arms, Infantry only, Meeting Engaement, Probe, Tiny, Small, Huge, etc etc, etc. That's a LOT of work.... for the official QB maps. However, when I fire up a QB, I know that I'll never play anything larger than a SMALL battle (one company with support) and that it will be mostly infantry. Therefore I design my own maps to suit my own personal taste. I suspect you'll see lots of folks submitting their custom made QB maps to the Repository or some other CM download site.

How come I only get to see frogs in icecubes instead of screenshots?

Flamethrower... I never understood how they managed to convince someone to strap a tank of highly combustible liquid to his body and go out into a combat environment. Double pay wouldn't cut it for me. I'd rather refuse the order and spend some time in a military prison than wear one of those. <shudder> Of course, that's easy to say sitting in front of my computer I can live without fire for a while longer. However, I think burning buildings would add immensely to the appearance of a map and increase the immersion for the player. It's sort of doable right now if you place a burning wreck in a building but it's still not a burning building.

There's still so much that can be done with this game, isn't there? It's a bit of a shame that the WW2 title has proven to be so addictive for me as I was planning on passing on it and doing three short-ish campaigns instead using forces that I haven't used yet, namely a US Heavy Mech unit, a US Stryker unit and a Brit Light Infantry unit. It might be quite a while before I get round to doing any of this though. I can see me doing them at some point though.

I had no idea that they had included that short sequence in the new gallery. I took those three and the following 'Germans at the Gate' photo. The 3 shots depicting the death sequence of the German soldier was immpressive if a little macabre. There were 2 GI's in the background looking like they were casually leaning against a wall and viewing the whole scene with a dispassionate interest at best. You might want to focus on the two dead GIs just behind the dying German. That sequence was taken during a bitterly contested firefight in a forest. The GI's near the building looking on so impassively had just driven the Germans out of those buildings and into the waiting arms of a second force that had infiltrated the woods behind them. That was revenge, pure and simple and very gratifying it was too. I wish I could post more of these pictures as I had a great fight. The 'Germans at the Gate' comes from the same Quick Battle. Overall, that was the very best Quick Battle experience I have ever had with any incarnation of the CM series.

Syrian AI controlled artillery definitely =/= German AI controlled artillery I suspect Real Time players will find the going much tougher against a WW2 AI opponent with mortars on call. You just can't leave anyone sitting around in LoS of enemy units for any length of time. And without body armour to protect your troops, artillery is lethal... biggest killer in any scenario I've played so far

I must say I didn't see many overly negative comments over at the Proving Grounds when CMx1 scenario's were being uploaded daily. Sure, you always find someone who is not very diplomatic when posting feedback but good 'negative' feedback helps improves the scenario (if the designer decides to act on the comments)... Genuinely negative reviewers are hard to find, thank goodness. I think it is very important to provide a good dose of positive feedback to offset the negative and most folks here are very good at sweetening the pill. One excellent tip given to me many years ago by (I think) Mad Russian was, make a small scenario first and once you got that right and gained confidence, move onto something bigger. Never start off big! (except if your George Mc ) Very good advice it is too. I would strongly advise newbies from attempting to start with anything like LongLeftFlank's utterly astonishing work. A nice 400mx400m map with a couple of platoons on each side is a great way to start. With WW2, Germans v US, the new scenario designer is confronted by fewer balancing issues than he was with CMSF. And good luck with your 16 mission campaign. How long did it take you to put together? Still working on it. Eleven missions done, five to go so I reckon another 3-4 weeks before I get the last mission finalised. So far, I'd say it's taken me around 4 months of work to get where I am now. The maps were all done in a couple of months. But I haven't exactly been working flat out on it like I was for the NATO campaigns. BTW, GeorgeMc is my favourite scenario designer too. I rarely play other folks' missions, but I do play his, and MikeyD's. IMO, MikeyD doesn't get enough praise for his scenario work. He's crafted some challenging but FUN missions and I've always enjoyed playing his missions too.

The only REAL problem I forsee for folks new to the CMx2 scenario editor will be scripting the AI plans. Apart from that, it's quite easy to get a good looking map up and running in a single afternoon. And it's WW2, not Modern Era Syria where the two sides are perceived by many as being so mismatched. Lots of folks WANT to create WW2 missions so I think we'll very quickly see lots of new stuff appearing soon after the title is released. True, some of it might not be 'very good' but then, as long as the community is forgiving, (and this community appears to be very forgiving indeed of its scenario designers) folks will be encouraged to get better as time goes by. The potential killer to community creativity might be overly-negative feedback from players with unrealistic expectations discouraging new talent as it attempts to find its feet. Hopefully, there won't be many of these negative ninnies crushing the spirit of creativity here. We need to nurture the new talent. I know that many of the existing, experienced scenario designers, both on the Beta team and here, will be very eager to help the new guys out wherever possible, especially with regard to scripting the AI. So there's every reason to be confident that a lot of new content will appear. BTW, I should have a 16-mission campaign more or less ready to go shortly after the title is released.

I played CMBB QBs almost exclusively for X number of years. The last time I played CMBB, I fired up a couple of QBs. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give a QB map a spin and I couldn't believe how good it all was. I'll be frank and say that CM:BN QBs are proving to be superior in every way to CMBB QBs. (I never played CMAK) Cherry picking your force to your heart's content and then your map... fantastic. We just need some Russians to play with and I'll be back in QB heaven. Expect to see a considerable drop in my CMx2 output in the future as I know I'm going to spend far more time playing QBs than I did in the past.

You should have come to Liverpool and had a great time in that remarkable city. I went to Liverpool for a short holiday back in the late 90s and was blown away by how beautiful it was. It's one of England's undiscovered treasures. The city made a fortune with the Slave trade and Caribbean sugar and it shows. Fantastic public buildings, beautiful parks and estates, Beatles music playing on the radio... heaven. Shame I could only spend two days there though...

An intense WW2 firefight can last upwards of 10 minutes in the bocage. I had a nice long running fight last night during the course of which I was able to work a platoon round the flank of the defenders and finally end the fight in my favour. All the time while I was sneaking my guys round the flank, I could hear the other guys hammering away at each other relentlessly. Fantastic stuff! I don't remember seeing many BLUE v RED firefights last much more than one minute in CMSF. Yes, it could be real intense for a few seconds but then, one side would break. And tanks can take ages to eliminate each other, especially at ranges over 500m.

You have to keep sales of modules in mind as well. The title sells for $50 and will keep a lot of folks happy while work is ongoing on the Commonwealth module, another $25. Then we get the Arnhem module, another $25, and finally the Funnies module which might also be $25. So, considering that most of us forum frequenters are going to buy into this all the way, that means you will pay $125 for the full monty. I think that's a fair price for the work that goes into this. Trust me, these guys really do work their asses off to produce games. I'm no butt-kisser but I truly respect hard work when I see it and these guys are deserving of every penny... er, cent coming their way.

Heh, heh, I got that impression too. Sounds like a good time was had by one an all.

What an interesting video. I enjoyed that. Thanks for posting the link.

I'll jump in here and say that it doesn't require nearly so much time to knock out a decent looking map with the Normandy editor as it can do with the Shock Force editor. I would spend 10+ hours manufacturing a medium sized map for CMSF but I can get a very decent looking map of similar size constructed in a couple of hours. Of course, if you are trying to recreate historical battlefields as closely as possible, you're going to spend quite a bit more time doing so. Fictional maps can be done very quickly though especially if you keep the building density low. Of course, some of this is down to familiarity with using the editor. I work with it almost every single day.

There's a Scenario Editor included in the game if that's what you meant. There are also Quick Battles that can be played on pre-made maps that will ship with the game so you can have your random battles as you did before, but no randomly generated map. But no Campaign generator unfortunately. Quick Campaigns would be a desirable feature for me.

At least until the previews are over, I suppose this forum should be renamed the 'Combat Mission: Beyond Frustration Now'

And yes, it is a wonderful feature of CMBN that there are hardly any units lol. I know you were joking mate. However, I must say that there are way more than enough formations to keep me creatively challenged for a long, long time to come. And before I feel that I've done everything that I want to with the vanilla title units, we'll have the Commonwealth units for the Allies, SS and Fallschirmers (okay, so I can't spell it) to add to the mix. And how much to you want to bet that there'll be some new US formation in the Commonwealth module. (Not that I'll care because I want to play with the Commonwealth units and the SS.)

I'm sorry I missed this. They were originally all up on CMMODs but when that site closed down, they got lost. I am in the process of reworking both Hasrabit and Perdition to include all the goodies that came with the NATO module and will post them at the Repository as soon as I get them finished and playtested. Even were I not almost fully engaged in getting my first ever WW2 campaign into good shape in time for the release of the game, Hasrabit in particular, would take a while to redo. The AI plans are pretty lame compared to what I have been doing lately and I want to rework some of the Republican Guards missions to make them more exciting, as well as adda Shilka to the core forces. They're a LOT of fun to play with. Perdition is a short 3-mission Red v Red campaign and shouldn't take long to get put together though. It was designed to be fun to play rather than hair-pullingly challenging and I'd like to keep it that way. But the WW2 campaign has claimed the lion's share of my time just now. 'In Harm's Way' is practically irredeemable as it was the first mission I designed for CMSF and it's painful revisiting it now...

The PRESERVE Victory objective is there to reward the player who strives to keep civilian casualties to a minimum in the course of a mission. Obliterating them all will only reduce the overall number of VPs you can earn in playing a mission which is balanced with the VPs you lose for each friendly casualty you take. So you can win quite handily without them. I rarely bother trying to keep them when I play but sometimes, I decided to play a more 'humane' game and I get rewarded for it. In my experience, it usually requires more time than body bags to keep them though. There are a few DESTROY objectives sprinkled around in a few missions (not all!) which award points to the RED side if you damage/destroy them. They are always highlighted in RED in the mission's Tac map as well as mentioned in the briefing. They're usually mosques, hospitals and schools.

Redjac: Another 'Freedom in the Galaxy' fan?

Yes, but that standard tactic also prevents the triggerman from getting LoS to the IED. While playtesting, I still smoked the other side of the bridge even when there were no IEDs in the missions because it was, and still is a kill zone. THAT's how I discovered that the smoke also prevented the triggerman from detonating the IED. Take a look at this very early screenshot of one of my playtests using the US IBCT formation. I used smoke all the time to cover my assault across the bridge. BTW, the bridge is a kill zone and is well covered.

panzerwurfmine? Is that the dog-mounted one?