Paper Tiger

I've just finalised the list of missions that will make up my own Marines campaign. It will be short, consisting of six missions only but I'm hoping that, played together, they will provide the BLUE player with a very tough challenge indeed. I just don't have time to playtest this thoroughly and release it any time soon as I'm very busy creating content for the NATO module. So it will probably have to be a Beta version. The sisx missions will be: Mission 1: Pre-dawn mission. Two platoons of Infantry assault a small town defended by Syrian Reserve Infantry. Lots of artillery support for BLUE. Duration: appx 1 hour 10 minutes. No extra time Map size: Medium DINAS Mission name - Petani Mission 2 : Cross-dawn mission which sees the MEU Recon units perform a lengthy recon (appx 25 minutes) before the third Marine platoon arrives. As daylight increases BLUE is reinforced. Again, plenty of artillery support and air support is added here too, especially for supporting the Recon teams Duration: 2 hours. No extra time Map size ENORMOUS (over 3km long) DINAS Mission name - Orchard Road Mission 3: Late morning mission that sees two teams from the CAAT operating alone ahead of the main force. They are backed up by air support but have little artillery available. Duration: about 1 hour Map size: Big DINA Mission name - SAM Hill Mission 4: Night mission. Once again, two platoons assault the northern sector of a small town defended by Syrian Reserve Infantry and a small number of Special Forces. Much tougher than mission 1! Map size: Medium Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes DINAS Mission name - Sabatani Mission 5: Afternoon mission. the full company performs an assault on a large farm. Let's just keep this one a surprise Duration: 2 hours Map Size: Large DINAS Mission name - Where Farmers Dare Mission 6: Late afternoon, evening mission. The entire OB is present for this one. I'm just finalising the AI plans and will start playtesting this one later today/tomorrow morning. Map size: Large Duration: Minimum 2 hours 30 minutes - possibly 3 hours This is a map that I intended to use in Dinas but got dropped in final testing. Right, my questions are: How realistic is it to have just two platoons from a single company perform an assault? They are backed up by teams from the CAAT but the third platoon is attached to some other MEU formation and is not available in this mission. My rationale for doing this is this - The Marines Infantry company is a BEAST! To put in the entire company would require me to beef up the defender and that would require more playtesting. Secondly, who assigns names to objectives in an operation? My thinking is that the Battalion commander issues objectives to his Company commanders and they, with their XOs prepare the actual mission plan. Is that right? Thirdly, I have given the three platoons from BRAVO company the call signs Fred, Barney and Bamm Bamm (need I say from where?). Is that a bit frivilous or demeaning? The four tanks from the tank platoon are named after the four archangels, the three CAAT teams ar HUEY, DUEY and LUEY (commanding officer call sign is Donald and LUEY never appers in the campaign) The Battaion Commander's call sign is 'Preacherman'.

Yes, the event trigger would allow us to create far more challenging AI opponents, wouldn't it?

Hi marioa. Someone already asked this and I posted about it in this thread. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=88705&page=2

Actually, I am planning to give it a bit of an overhaul before I post it at the Repository. When I made it, I was still labouring under the misapprehension that I could only issue the AI side with a total of 16 orders, not each AI group. As a result of this, the AI plans in those missions are very lame. I have already reworked a couple of the missions, 'Buying the Farm' and 'Ambush' and with the new AI plans, the AI is much tougher to beat. I definitely won't be able to get the 'final' version finished before NATO but I expect that, when it does finally arrive, it will be worth the wait.

Hi, where can I get mods and scenarios from Paper Tiger? You can find Dinas and Second Storm at BFC's repository. Here's a link: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314 Both 'In Harm's Way' and 'Hasrabit' are missing for the time being. They used to be on CMMODs but got lost when that site closed down. To be honest, 'In Harm's Way' is a bit crap now. It was my first attempt at a mission using the editor. 'Hasrabit' will definitely get reposted though, probably some time after the NATO module gets released. As for this particular project, five missions are ready for testing and I'm thinking maybe just one more for a total of 6. Since you have a single company and some units from the CAAT as core forces, your force won't be in much of a shape to fight the last two.

Both the Warrior and the Bulldog are fitted with anti-IED and ECM mounts. When it's present, the symbol is the blue horizontal saw-tooth wave line.

How many folks here are using Duo Core processors, or Quad? I have a Duo Core 64 bit processor and while CMSF actually runs fine for me as it stands, as the game engine develops, it's going to demand still more and more of our CPUs so surely, this would be development time very well spent, perhaps after Normandy is released? This really is a very CPU intensive game and it's only going to get more so.

<ahem> Unfortunately, demanding an increase in draw distance is rather like demanding very large maps and improved shadows. Since processor burdon increases exponentially instead of linearly a 'little' improvement puts a lot of extra burdon on your system.... So if you demand big maps they're obliged to decrease draw distance, if you demand increased draw distance they're obliged to accept fewer units on a map. Its a zero-sum game No they're not, and nobody is talking about map size. They're just asking if they can draw the trees and other details at distances more than 600m or whatever. At present, the game doesn't allow them to do this but they're going to get this option soon enough and then it will be up to them where they set it.

Hi Wodan I have a duo core running at 3.7, 2 gig of DDR3 ram and a 4870 1gig card Unfortunately, CMSF is not optimised for dual or quad core processors so that cool duo core you're sporting there won't be giving you any real boost. As for your query about LoD, I believe it is BFC's intention to allow players to choose this setting themselves in future titles. However, I suspect that most folks will keep it set appx where it is already, or even adjust it downwards when they see how much it will hit their frames per second. its hardly graphic intensive game... Agreed, but the real resource hogs are the LoS checks and computing each bullet's/projectile's trajectory in real time. That's what'll reduce your uber cool computer to the level of a Sinclair ZX-81

Found this one while searching for info on something else and so it seems as good a place to post this as any. In between working on the NATO module (I've no plans to do anything for the WW2 title - at least for the time being) I've got started work on a short-ish campaign for the Marines, so far, the plan is for about 8 missions. I don't have a lot of time to knock up lots of new maps and so I'm reworking some of my Dinas maps to make them work for a BLUE v RED game as opposed to RED v RED. I'm about half way there now and hope to have it finished sometime very early next month. It will be an infantry-centric campaign, although the RED side will occassionaly field some tanks. I also plan to have BMP-3 equipped Airborne units in one mission (The 'Sulit Airfield' conversion) and the T-90 in a second battle using a new map that I made for Dinas but didn't make the final cut. Actually the map for that Sulit Airfield mission is a recreation of a real airbase to the south of Hims (Al Qusayr) so it will fit in nicely.

CMx1 was a computer game that appealed to wargamers. One of the criticisms that keeps resurfacing is that CMx2 is not as good a wargame as CMx1 and it's not difficult to understand why some are of that view. They are probably, at heart, board wargamers, folks who played all the great Avalon Hill and SPI classics, of whom I am one. But unless you happened to live in a big city with an active wargaming club, it was hard to find opponents to play these games with you. Fortunately, the CMx1 series of games were sufficiently 'board-like' to appeal to wargamers who were also able to get online and exchange turns with other wargamers from all over the world - and BFC had a core fan-base of on-line community of wargamers. It really was wargamer heaven. No more sitting on buses on a Sunday afternoon with your copy of Breakout:Normandy concealed in a plastic bag to prevent girls from seeing it and thinking you were a geek. Wargamers care more about game systems than anything else while Computer gamers usually yearn for better graphics to enhance their gaming experience. You can usually tell who the old-time board gamers are by their passionately voiced complaints that the CMx2 engine is less of a wargame than CMx1 because they feel it placed too much emphasis on graphics and pretty explosions. They just wanted another CMx1 title with the serious issues ironed out but they didn't get what they hoped for. CMx2 probably appeals more to a younger, new generation of wargamers - the computer wargamer - younger people who missed out on the hey-day of board wargaming and who grew up playing computer games as kids instead of the board games that I did, perhaps even missing out on games like Monopoly and Risk but nevertheless, wanted to play wargames. With the exception of its QB system, CMx2 matches CMx1 as a wargame as the WW2 grogs will finally find out when their long, frustrating wait in the wilderness finally comes to an end later this year. -apologies for any inconsistencies in the above post as my wife has been chattering away to me throughout and I haven't had a chance to read it undisturbed - bless her

Actually, I've seen something like this before but I'm not sure if the conditions for this are the same. If you put a road or a trench on an otherwise impassable surface, it will allow vehicles and troops to move down the slope. What terrain is the cliff made up of? Oho! I was too quick off the mark there. I just duplicated your screenshot using Bradleys (with ERA if that's a factor). Hang on a sec longer and I'll see if it happens with other vehicles in the game. Just ran a check using Strykers, including the MGS variant and they all did the 'duck tail in the air' stunt I'll post my test as a bug and we'll see what BFC says. Very good catch.

Yup, I saw this happening back in the days when I was designing 'Hasrabit' so I am already aware of this issue and that's one of the reasons why I use them so rarely. I don't like the way the AI will run its units into an active artillery barrage either.

No screenshots but I once called in a heavy air strike on a building block, set the time for 10 minutes to allow for better accuracy and then promptly forgot all about it. I moved a couple of squads into some buildings across the road from the block before I remembered. Nobody on my side was hurt but they were shaken up a bit.

I've brought this up on the Beta boards.

Don't worry. I've posted about this with a link to your thread so we'll see what happens.

Yes, I've seen this behaviour before only the hero (Syrian FOS) was in a trench surrounded by troops firing on him at point blank range. Because he was Crack/Fanatic, he wouldn't surrender so I just had to bring in a tank to finish him off. I brought it up a while ago but I can't remember what was done. I'll do a search later and see what that turns up and we'll see if it needs to be reported as a bug.

does the level of command present affect the carrying out of AI plans? Not that I'm aware of. Higher level officers will affect C2 though so uniits might start spreading the word about discovered enemy dispositions a bit faster. I believe this helps units spot the '?' units a bit faster but it won't affect AI planning in any way. Since RED's a bit crap at 'spreading the word' I doubt your Red colonel will make much difference. But if the AI controlled side is BLUE, it should help a lot.

what are all the ai commands and what do they each do? Ouch! That's a very BIG question and would require a substantial post to answer. Fortunately almost all the answers can be found by reading the manual. Have a wee read through the relevant sections first and then ask something more specific.

One last word of advice. You should definitely, definitely test your AI plans using Scenario Author Test Mode as this will allow you to watch everythning that the AI side does.

Which order type should I use to have the vehicles assist and support the infantry? If you give an AI group that consists of vehicles and infantry and give them an Assault or Max Assault command, you'll find that the vehicles move rarely or not at all respectively. It's better to give such groups ADVANCE orders. The Assault command works well with Infantry-only groups. As for Max Assault, I never use this one.

It can't be the only military power in the world without trucks... At the moment, only the US side fields any trucks in the game. The Brit module had trucks but they were US trucks, with US soldier models and voices. I'd like to see trucks for the Brits, Dutch, Canadians, Germans and the Syrians. And I'd like a pony too please...

Apart from small arms performances, will there be other parameters making an infantryman from one nationality different from another? Something like doctrine, culture, training...? To the best of my knowledge, there are no National modifiers but only Steve/Charles can say this with any certainty. But don't despair because I believe equipment does make a HUGE difference. If you play a mission a couple of times as the US Marines and then sub in Brit units with identical training, morale and leadership modifiers, you'll surely find that the mission plays differently. With regards to doctrine, it's possible to set the scenario's victory parameters to punish the player that is too gung ho about blowing up civilian buildings or doesn't give a stuff about his own side's casualties. I think you're going to find NATO quite a different experience fom anything you've seen before in CMSF. hcroft: LOL. That looks like Scotland. That's Krak de Chevaliers, yes?

After all, it is terribly filthy. I know it was a joke and I did get it but it's a good prompt for me to say this. Since starting work on the NATO module, I have spent hours and hours examining the northern part of Syria in Google Earth and I have to say that it looks beautiful. I'd love to go on a walking holiday there someday. So much history as well. It's much more temperate than southern Syria. There are quite a few Syrians who are proud enough of their country's beauty to post lots of pics of the region which has helped with designing the maps. It's going to make for some interesting scenarios for the module. To date, I haven't seen one desert map. I was surprised to find that I am one of those who are finding it very hard to get back into WW2 since discovering the complexities of Modern Era combat. For me, the NATO module is a far more exciting prospect than WW2. In particular, modern era German equipment is way cooler than the WW2 kit. Hopefully, Webwing will show some screenies of the German kit next...

Do you mean the Dutch and the Germans? Keep asking and I'm sure Webwing will show you some more pics.