Paper Tiger

If I am right then we can play any group against any group in a map as long as we have the module installed that has that group? Yes

I don't use the Condition paramater in my missions because it seems to be a very dynamic condition. It doesn't start at 100% and then decrease steadily as the missions continues like casualties or ammo does. It can go back up as your troops recover so you can get the points back just by parking your troops somewhere safe for a while. So I found that the player often lost the points for this condition when the scenario ended because his troops had been exerting themselves to achieve their victory. Seemed a bit unfair.

I never use MOVE once I have gotten into contact with enemy units. However, when approaching suspected enemy positions, it is slightly better than QUICK or FAST with respect to units spotting and returning fire. The HUNT command is better when playing in RT as your units go to ground very quickly (a good thing) and lose LoS to the units that fired on them causing them to go to ground (a good thing too as they won't come under any further fire). However, in WEGo, you have to wait until the turn ends before you can get your troops to do anything useful. BTW, dan/california, SLOW for vehicles with QUICK for Infantry keeps them more or less together quite nicely. I know a dedicated command would be much better but you're talking about a significant change to the UI and, apparantly, that requires a LOT of coding.

That would be the 'Holy Grail' for you then?

That's not really a serious alternative to an AI that's even quasi competent in QBs. Poor MikeyD. Unfortunately, it IS the only alternative that is available to you and it's not likely to change in the Normandy title either. You will be getting a whole batch of new QB maps with the new title and you can be sure that Mark Ezra will do a fantastic job making sure that each map has at least one (most likely 5 knowing Mark) AI plans. And they will further benefit from the 3 years of experience he has had making them too as his last post hints at. As long as the map has been designed and tested properly you should find that the CMx2 AI can be far less predictable than the old CMx1 AI. It just moved units towards the flags. It was SO predictable that when you turned a flag in your favour, the AI would move out of its positions to counterattack. It was occassionally, accidentally brilliant when doing so too. But so is CMx2's AI. In addition, it won't JUST move to the VP objectives in a straight line. It might break into two groups and hit you on your flanks. Sure, it's following a script and that script might be wholly inappropriate to the tactical situation but when it gets it right... Of course, triggers will improve the situation but they're still a wee bit off in the future. But until then, MikeyD's suggestion is the best one.

Yup, you'll be able to experience real tank duels that take place over several turns. And hitting your target won't necessarily get you a kill either. However, with respect to the infantry game, I don't think you'll find it's a much less lethal environment. It's always been hard on the poor bloody infantry and having no body armour dosn't help.

Funny thing here is that people seems to think that it's only Blue who would win with too high costs if they get some 50% or even 30% casualties... It would be interesting to play a 8 missions long campaign as Syrian Battalion which looses 50% of it's force with-in few first missions. I admit i try to preserve my troops as much as i try to do it with Blue, even more so as Syrians loose their ability to fight effectively with less casualties (two rifle squads in platoon, less men, less firepower, less technical quality). Done that.... twice. Once NATO is out of the door, I plan to return to complete my proposed Syrian civil war trilogy with a short-ish campaign that uses a Syrian Airborne Battalion as its core unit. I already have the locations marked on Google Earth. But that's as far as I've gotten yet I'm not against playing without casualty restrictions at all. I really enjoyed playing my RED v RED missions and although taking heavy casualties in a mission wouldn't necessarily deprive me of a victory, I knew that I'd pay for it later when those missing forces were desperately needed. FMB: Thanks for the reminder. Of course, I should have remembered your 'Dawn to the Setting Sun'. I've just been playing BLUE this way for so long that I'd forgotten. I think I set a 25% casualty restriction on BLUE in all my Brit missions and that seemed a bit excessive. Thus, I dropped it to 15%.

I was quite surprised to find that digging tanks in to 'hull down' positions makes them very hard for the BLUEFor to spot in low light conditions. The very first version of the Chaparral featured the original 'Orchard Road' tank placement and the LAV-TOWS could spot them almost instantly. Hitting them was a bit iffy but sometimes it was 100% shot-hit and other times it was less than 50%. I guess that's just the God of Random Numbers playing with my head. Agreed that the LAV TOW is better employed on the defensive. It spots exposed stationary tanks quite quickly and moving ones are dead meat. One of the reasons why you won't see any RED tanks moving in the open in this campaign. Night or day, BLUE has the tools to kill them on sight. They were there originally but they were just a waste of time as they couldn't achieve anything. The mission's helicopters, and the Harrier, are much better suited to the task of taking out the emplaced tanks. And, of course, once the Infantry arrives with their javelins it matters not a whit how well RED is dug in.

Agreed. I appreciate that the rules would change were the US/UK/NATO countries actually fighting for their survival - like they would have had the old Soviet Union invaded West Germany back in the 80s. I look forward to CMSF2 which should have a storyline that permits scenario designers to waive the casualty restrictions on BLUE credibly. It can be very tough balancing BLUE v RED missions, especially when said missions are being fought in the open where BLUE is the undisputed king. Option A - imposing casualty restrictions is one way to do it, and it's not an unrealistic condition, just an undesirable one for some. Another option to balance it, option B, is to remove BLUE's more fun toys and thus reduce BLUE more or less to a WW2 force of infantry with a few mortars for support. Personally, I'd much rather have a battery of 155mm heavy howitzers and some air support in my pocket when I'm playing and try to minimise my casualties. I think that's more fun than the 'You have no heavy artillery or air support in this mission' type of hamstringing condition allows you to have. Just my own preference. Some prefer option B. I make for folks who like to play BLUE with all the bells and whistles. Nothing wrong with that. edit at ask: BTW, just out of curiousity, how many scenario designers actually restrict BLUE in the fashion that I do, i.e, expect the BLUE player to take 15% or less casualties? (Hardly just a handful!) I honestly admit that, apart from George Mc stand alones and a couple of FMB's excellent mini campaigns, I have very little more than the stock missions that came with the game/modules and I was under the impression that 'USMC Second Storm' was the first real attempt to do this. 'USMC Gung Ho!' is a further elaboration of the idea.

Since we're discussing a way to make BLUE v RED scenarios balanced I think some of our 'Modern Era' fans are simply closet WW2 gamers who want to play Modern Era as if it were WW2. Hell, I did that for long enough. That's why I created two LARGE Red v Red campaigns that allowed me to play CMBB style battles. I think that restricting the number of casualties that the BLUE player can take while pursuing his mission produces far more realistic missions and results that more closely reflect what you'd likely see in real life as opposed to simply allowing the BLUE player to soak them up and win his victory dearly. It may very well be true what you say about folks at home being willing to accept high casualties. However, I don't believe that Company and Platoon leaders are quite so willing to squander the lives of the soldiers under their command in pursuit of their objectives and the game reflects fighting at that level. To me that's what the casualty restrictions on BLUE represent.

Scipio I don't think I have misunderstood anything at all.:confused: It's been nearly three years since CMSF was released, right? Now, nobody is going to accuse BFC of being lazy or lacking the will to create new content for their existing title or new titles are they? Surely nobody is THAT stupid. So let's consider what might have happened had CMSF been made open for modification, say one year after it was released, just after they had finished the Marines module. I think we'd have seen a WW2 mod very quickly afterwards, wouldn't we? North African Theatre first because of CMSF's existing terrain, but once folks had modded the terrain, we'd have seen both Western and Eastern Fronts in short order. This is hardly an incredible scenario. There are a lot of very knowledgeable folks who would have preferred BFC to go straight to a new WW2 game with the new engine. Had BFC opened their code, at least some of them would have got to work a.s.a.p. to create a WW2 Mod. And I don't think the Modern Era would have been neglected either. There are quite a few of us (obviously) that enjoy it and so perhaps, staying with the scenario I've outlined above, we'd have seen Brits, Germans, Dutch and Canadians by now as well. And of course, the Modern Era Russians would definitely have been done a LONG time ago, and somebody would have done China, North Korea... see where we're going? Now, while that would be FANTASTIC for us, how would that possibly help BFC? They sell one title and that's the end of the story for them. They can't possibly compete with the collective creativity of this community. And, make no mistake, some of those user-created mods would be of a very, very high quality indeed because there are some very talented modders within our little community, of which I count you as one. Possibly these mods would be so good that a LOT of folks who already had them wouldn't want to shell out $45+ for BFC's official WW2 title or whatever. So, once again, no. I disagree with your assertion that those worries are overdone. 'Open for modification' means a swift and certain death for BFC.

This is so old... The other reason I read out of this is 'we do not people want to mod the complete game, because we can't sell what they have created on their own for free', for example a CMx2 set in WWII Pacific. While I understand the worries, I think that they are overdone. (My bold) I don't. I think they are absolutely correct in making that assumption. It's BFC's intellectual property and they want to make as much money out of their herculean efforts as they possibly can. Only a fool would deny them the right to do so. The CMx2 core engine is already three years old now. Three years in software technology is a long time. I doubt that BFC will have released only the today announced games (including Bulge, Eastfront and CMSF2) before the engine is so ridiculous obsolete as CMx1 is today. Even if they would now hold the old promise "one major release and 2-3 modules per year". By then even a replacement for Windows Seven will be released... Nobody can argue with that but frankly, it's BFC's pooch to screw. If they can't keep producing enough games to stay in business, that's their own fault. But they're not going to get a penny from any user created mods either so opening the code only helps them to go out of business faster.

In mission 2, I always find myself nearing my goal only to run out of time. An extra 30 minutes would make a huge difference. Okay, then that's decided. I have upped the time limit to 3 hours for both versions of the Chaparral mission for a new version later. I confess that I have a tendency to listen more to the guys who blow through missions without much difficulty like AkumaSD . I HATE making stuff that is too easy - mission 3 (CAAT Fight) excepted.

To play for, maybe, thirty or forty hours only to find the further progress is impossible, because of early casualties, is intensely frustrating. And there, sir, you find the reason why the campaign ejects you when you are consistently taking too many casualties. You do not have to waste 30-40 hours of your time struggling through only to find that you don't have sufficient force left in later missions. Think of it as a safeguard. There are only six missions in this campaign, five of which feature two or more platoons of the same company. That's a very small core group. If I remove the casualty restrictions, sure, you'll go through to the next mission but what you are describing is what is inevitably going to happen. But the casualty limit is also employed in conjunction with a second condition, the PRESERVE condition. There are only two missions in the campaign where the PRESERVE objective plays any part in determining victory. Those are missions 1 and 4. I think the problem some folks are having is understanding what the PRESERVE condition does when it's utilised in conjunction with the FFP limit. When you click START, you have all those PRESERVE points in the bank. They can only go down as a result of your actions. They give no benefit to the RED side. Except for those rare special cases (Mosques and Schools which you are alerted to in the briefing and Tac Map) RED gets nothing if you reduce each PRESERVE Objective to rubble. What is does is reduce the total number of victory points that the player can earn in a mission. Coupled with the Friendly casualty restrictions this presents the player with another (and in some folks' cases and unwelcome) decision to make when he is playing the mission. Now, the enemy still gains the same number of points for killing your soldiers so the mission's 15% casualty limit drops as your PRESERVE points are lost. This allows me to weight the importance of PRESERVE over the other victory conditions in the mission. If I decide that the PRESERVE condition is paramount (which it's not in THIS campaign) then you may only end up with 100 vps at the end of the mission. Or, if I give the PRESERVE Objective less weight, you may still have 400vps+. Your commander will forgive your blatant disregard for civilian casualties if you are able to achieve your objectives and keep your men alive. (It's not called 'Gung Ho!' just because that was the name of the ASL marines module either) Regarding difficulty. I play this game exclusively against the AI and when I do so, I expect the scenario/campaign to present me with a real challenge. I genuinely dislike it when a mission finishes too quickly or if it's too easy. THAT feels like a waste of my time and it is a guarantee that I will never play it again. I design my missions/campaigns first and foremost for my own enjoyment and then I share it with the community. If you appreciate a challenge, then I hope you'll get some pleasure from my work too. Having said all that, I am very interested to hear how folks fare in the optimal version of mission 2 as I am not sure if it needs another 30 minutes tacked on. I do actually playtest my stuff very thoroughly but it's not so easy to playtest a 3 hour monster. (Playtesting 'British Mettle' nearly drove me crazy and I can't stand the thought of playing it again) I could finish the mission quite nicely in 2 hours 30 minutes but then, I do know what the enemy is NOT going to do, that there will never be any mines anywhere except point A and B, etc... snake eye: I have added you to my Ignore list. I'm sorry but I don't believe that you are as innocent or as well-intentioned as you are purporting to be and I refuse to be baited further by you. That is my right.

Oh dear God! I wish I could close down my own thread as I've had enough of this one. Sorry, but you are wearing me down with your constant complaining. I HAVE explained my reasons to you but you simply dismiss them and then have the temerity to accuse me of not being able to 'get into other peoples shoes'. You are taking this all far too seriously and I've wasted too much of my time trying to justify my design decisions to you. I do know what you want. You don't want casualty restrictions placed on BLUE. Playing unmindfully of your own friendly casualties is getting into high gear. There are plenty of folks who make them that way. My advice to you is to play their missions instead and, in future, when you see 'Scenario author: Paper Tiger', you can just pass on it and we'll all be happy.

Well, that's all fine and dandy but you seem to be forgetting about the 15% Friendly casualty limit. It's not there just to create a more realistic challenge for BLUE. It's also there to ensure that, as the player progresses through the campaign, he still has a viable force in the later missions. What's the point of having a 'troop deployment in the town like that' when you've taken around 20% casualties achieving it? Two more missions like that and you're force will be destroyed and you will be forced to retire from the campaign as your force is no longer fit for active duty. There are six missions using the same small core group and the first three are the easy ones... I'm sorry but I don't see anything wrong with those results, snake eye. The campaign is scored that way for a reason and not because I'm some tyro campaign/scenario designer.

As a gamer who stated with panzergruppe guderian back in '70's I missed that one but I had a friend who played it a few times. Avalon Hill title, yes? Those were the days... Regarding the Syrian army, I'd have to say that I think it's a very formidable foe. Their equipment is almost as good as you could expect any RED equipped force to be circa 2008. The T-90 and the BMP-3 are both in the game although you don't see them very often. The main problem the Syrian army looks so weedy is that a lot of early scenarios allowed BLUE to win while taking huge casualties in doing so, allowing BLUE to roll over a numerically superior Syrian force. Tweak the VP conditions so that those casualties hurt BLUE, as they should, and you gain a whole new respect for the Syrian army's capabilities. Oh, and welcome to the boards.

Okay, let's have a look at this. RED starts the mission with 750vps, BLUE with 350vps: RED 500vps 60% or less casualties 250vps for occupying Bedrock BLUE 100vps for 5% or less Friendly casualties 250vps for PRESERVE objectives 1st Minor Defeat - TLR Marines Syrians 7 KIA 44 5 WIA 17 0 MIA 43 0 Tk lost 3 0 Trk lost 0 1 o.v.lost 0 200 points 633 Okay, mission 1 is obvious. RED still has it's FFP bonus, some casualty points for killing BLUE and possibly some points for damage to the mosque. BLUE has 200 PRESERVE points. 2nd Draw no Winner - Syrian Surrender Marines Syrians 9 KIA 80 23 WIA 55 0 MIA 90 0 Tk lost 4 1 Trk lost 0 0 o.v.lost 0 325 points 361 Mission 2 is still obvious. Your Friendly casualties are WAY too high. 3rd Minor Defeat - TLR Marines Syrians 5 KIA 39 3 WIA 32 0 MIA 60 0 Tk lost 3 1 Trk lost 0 2 o.v.lost 0 100 points 943 Mission 3 looks like you smashed the town up very nicely, only 100vps for PRESERVE no doubt, but you didn't really hurt REDfor as they got their points for preserving their force and occupying the objective. Probably got some for damaging the Mosque too. Plus casualty points. 4th Minor Defeat - Syrian Surrender Marines Syrians 17 KIA 56 24 WIA 46 5 MIA 130 0 Tk lost 4 3 Trk lost 0 1 o.v.lost 0 300 points 706 4th try. A Surrender so you get the points for capturing BEDROCK (100vps) and destroying REDFor (150vps) and some PRESERVE points. But just look at your Friendly Casualties! It looks like you lost 3 of the AAVs as well as 46 men. No wonder your commander was pissed. 5th Draw no Winner - Syrian Surrender Marines Syrians 9 KIA 87 16 WIA 60 0 MIA 81 0 Tk lost 4 1 Trk lost 0 2 o.v.lost 0 400 points 372 And finally, another surrender, this time with more PRESERVE points. Again, look at your casualties. You have 163 men at the start of the battle. You lost 25 of them one AAV and a couple of Humvees. And you probably damaged the Mosque again too. So I don't see anything wrong with the scoring conventions at all. You're taking too many casualties when you are completing the mission. You came close on your last attempt.

And with luck, all that cool stuff can be back-inserted by the player into scenarios created for the earlier game. I think. Maybe I would be surprised if that happens to be the case. I suspect that the Bulge title will feature all new OBs for both sides. You guys are the WW2 grogs so you'll know just how much (or little) each side's OBs changed in the second half of the freakin' war in the ETO. Certainly the new title will require new terrain textures (autumnal and winter foliage), buildings and will have to feature snow (light, deep, falling etc). Thus the need for a new title. They won't be compatible with the Normandy game.

There's a video of Dutch forces in action up there. edit to add: Ach, I've just seen this in the announcements at the top of the page. Funny, I hardly ever notice them...

The question is 'why'?? Just read what Lt Belenko wrote few posts above. Some (many??) people doesn't even seem to be aware that and how CMSF can be played H2H or how player are organized. I can't speak for other but the answer to your question is because I'm not interested in playing online games. I like to sit down and play a mission from start to finish without pausing and so exchanging turns each day with another player for 120 days is not appealing at all. Further, I live in Indonesia which means that my electricity supply or my internet connection are liable to go at any time, without warning (true it only happens once or twice a week but that's enough to put you off). Further, my time zone is way out of kilter with the rest of you. And, most compelling of all is that I've read that it is the experience of people who do play games online that they cannot go back to playing the'boring' AI once they have played against a human opponent. I do not wish that to become my experience. BTW, even though I was an avid board wargamer when I was younger, I liked to play wargames that covered Napoleonic/ACW eras through to the modern era but could rarely find anyone at my wargaming club that would play anything other than 'boring old' WW2 games. (That's a joke BTW) I played SPI's fantastic monster 'The Next War' several times solitaire as well as their two modern era classics, 'Suez to Golan' and 'Red Star: White Star'. I still play the latter two from time to time when I'm back in Scotland. I could never find anyone to play those games against.

snake eye I have no idea what to say to you. The tactical map gives you a VERY detailed breakdown of all the VPs you can earn/lose in the game. For destroying REDfor you get 150vps For controlling the BEDROCK objective you get 100vps For preserving the five building zones you get 50 points each for a total of 250vps You will get 100vps if you complete the mission taking 5% or less friendly casualties You LOSE 100vps if you destroy the mosque. It's all there. The TAC map also shows you how the five preserve zones are delineated as well as the BEDROCK objective. It took me a while to get a screenshot of those preserve locations so that the player could see everything. I doubt anybody is going to spell it out more clearly for you in their missions or work harder to do so either. I HATE being bamboozled by briefings that don't tell the player what he is expected to do myself so I strive to avoid doing so in my own work. There are no tricks employed to make the mission artificially challenging, such as having RED forces arrive as reinforcements after BLUE's opening artillery barrage has ceased. The only time I have ever had any problems winning this mission is when I just rushed the Marines at the objective hoping that the sheer volume of firepower they put out would do the job. It didn't and besides, you are not allowed to win if you take 15% or higher friendly casualties regardless of how well you do. I suspect this is where you are having your problem. This is a very important condition as it forces the player to keep his force reasonably intact so that he has a viable force in the later missions. Go ahead and post a screenshot of your AAR screen and we'll see what's happening.

Interesting result. That mission has changed substantially from its Dinas counterpart, not the least because RED lost all its tanks. The BLUE side lost the tank platoon as well but instead, fields those fantastic LAVs and AAVs and, coupled with the javelins, TOW humvees and the SMAW teams, BLUE has a fantastic amount of fire power at his diposal. And yet, it seems to be a tougher mission than the Dinas version for some reason. I'm looking forward to hearing how you get on with the finale. I've been 'creative' with the minefields in that one... BTW, you'll be happy to hear that each mission sports at least two distinctly different AI plans, (The Bridges mission has four) so if you want to replay the campaign later, it might surprise you.

Not to mention the Solitaire ASL system which was really good as well. Some folks seem to have a really hard time swallowing the truth that most people play computer games against the AI. It's just that the PBEM/Online community spend more time online, posting on the forums and so, are more vocal and more visible. They 'meet' PBEMers of other games online as well and so, understandably, they fall into the trap of thinking that they encompass the entire world of computer gaming.

I'm not testing the WW2 title so I can't say for sure but what you're probably seeing is due to Syria's very arid terrain which doesn't seem to offer much concealment. However, I've seen screenshots of the latest build and trust me, the Normandy temperate terrain LOOKS massively different from the Syrian terrain and I'm pretty sure the concealment it offers is significantly higher too. But you'll have to wait for a WW2 tester or BFC to confirm this. I'm WAY too busy with NATO to dip into it right now.