Paper Tiger

And they'll have to say 'Meu' and not 'Moo'.

How long until this degenerates into another 'cowbell' thread...

Will the initial bugs and setbacks that were patched and fixed in CMSF automatically be patched for CM Normandy and Afghanistan?Or will they start out with the same issues and have to be patched? No, this game uses the CMx2 engine and not a 'new' one. Where you might see problems is with the new stuff that is being added to the engine as you mentioned here... Will they have their own new set of issues to be fixed since new things are being added like water and anti-tank guns? Trust me. The Normandy Beta Testers are all over this and reporting anything they find as you are reading this. With so much new stuff going in it's not beyond the realms of all possibility that there may be a few wrinkles in the first release. BFC needs to sell games to stay in business so they can't sit on it until everything is perfected. That will never happen and so there will come a time when they must put the title out. But if there are then you know that BFC will have them fixed within a patch or two.

What an excellent question. I'd like to hear the answer to that one too.

My idea is "Warriors of Queen". That would be "The Queen's Warriors"

Nice result. I usually get a surrender too but much closer to the end than that. I expect if you'd taken another 15-20 minutes, you'd have reduced your casualties and got at least a Minor Victory. This is what I'm seeing on my current half hearted attempt at a playthrough (no time for a proper session). Since BLUE's force takes some time to assemble fully on the battlefield I am in no hurry to get the at-start platoons into forward positions and so I walk them there. I usually place them at start either on the right or the left end of the set up zone to avoid walking them through a lot of wheatfield and that helps a lot. Once into the orchards, they can move forward carefully until they start exposing enemy MGs and then, the battle commences...slowly. Since my Harrier has just arrived, I guess I'm about 40 minutes or so into it and I've pretty much cleared out the central yard and making efforts to clear out the yards on the north and south edges. I reckon that's another 10-15 minutes worth of movement and that means I'll start my assault on Block C at around the half way mark. Just like I used to do it when I was playtesting it. The BIG mistake you can make in this mission is to use the FAST command or QUICK too often. Until you're ready to attack the main objectives, there's no need to hurry.

however I was wondering if it would be possible to include a branch in the NATO campaign that uses another module. If you did this, then you would require that other module to play the campaign. The branch doesn't 'kick in' anything new into the campaign when it's activated. It's all there when the campaign is compiled and so if there are units from the Marines module in one branch, they're in the full campaign. A real shame as the very best stuff the Syrian have to field (theoretically as I don't think they have many of those T-90s yet) is in that module. And I LOVE the Syrian Airborne formation. I would very much like to do a campaign with them as the core units. But alas, no time...

I have played every incarnation of CMSF from v1.01 to the present day. I won't deny that it wasn't brilliant at v1.01 but I used the time to learn the game mechanics and, most importantly, how to use the editor and make up a stock of QB maps. Meanwhile, the game became comfortably playable very quickly, round about v1.04. That's when I started creating my first scenarios. There was a wee step back with the v1.05 patch which introduced the 'low walls block LoS' bug that prompted BFC to implement the ELoS system that they were intending to introduce in the WW2 title. After v1.06 the game was pretty solid and just got better and better with each build. V1.10 saw a degradation of the vehicle pathfinding routines but otherwise, it was a huge leap forward and the pathfinding was fixed by the totally uber v1.11 patch which finally gave us back the Blue Bar. So, while I can understand why some got turned off by the bugs in the earliest builds, it didn't take long to get the game fixed. I stuck with it through the teething problems because I knew BFC would fix it up and fix it up they did. It was sad reading some of the more rabid naysayers who insisted that BFC wouldn't stick by their game and fix it up. How wrong they were. But that's probably something they'd prefer to forget.

What you're describing is a Morale + Experience problem and not a Syrian problem per se. If you give US units similar poor morale and experience levels, they will behave in exactly the same way. Of course, such a setting would be unrealistic in most instances, whereas, for the Syrians, it is a more realistic setting given the nature of their troops. Try bumping their Morale up to Fanatical and you'll find they'll hold their positions... fanatically.

Well, that's probably the best result I've ever seen for this mission. You were SO CLOSE to triggering the AI surrender and if you'd gotten that, with your Friendly casualties, that would have given you a Total British Victory. Of course, you doubled the length of the scenario so that would help quite a bit. I'll have a look at this one again later this week as it sounds like a tweak is needed to restore the original balance. I might have to undo the Brits' at-start Fatigue setting as most start out Tired already.

I don't think the temperature will fall after the sun goes down. If it's set to Extreme Heat at the start, it will stay that way until the end, whenver that might be. It does sound like the v1.21 patch has busted this mission. Are you running across the wheatfields? In v1.20, they could run across the wheatfields in front of their DP but after that, I'd walk them carefully to the half way point. That took up most of the first hour. then they would be fresh for the assault on the objectives. I'm working very hard on something new just now and don't really want to stop and go back and play this mission in full just now so any feedback will be appreciated.

Yup, that's right. The 70s tv show. I was brought up on that and I loved Windsor Davies' Sergeant Major... I should really have a look at this one again sometime soon as the v1.21 patch will have made it more difficult to complete in the allocated time. Let me know how you get on souldierz.

replace the airborne guys to special forces and keep the campaign marine-free OR can I leave the airborne guys and the BMP-3s...? That's a bit of a no-brainer to answer. USE THE AIRBORNE UNITS . If folks don't have the Marines module, tough! The Airborne units have different weapons which makes them very different from SF units. And , of course, you get to include the BMP-3, a unit which hasn't been used enough by Scenario designers in my opinion. Let me know when you've got a new version for testing and, if my schedule permits, I'll give it another spin.

Hmm... "apples are better than oranges". "What, are you an idiot? Everyone knows that oranges are better than apples!" etc... until someone starts crying It's simply a question of taste. I definitely prefer Modern Era over WW2 now. SSS Grymm I don't think you need to worry about BFC's focus getting so lost in WW2 that they never get back to doing CMSF2. There are quite a few folks who have been surprised by how enjoyable they found Modern Era combat to be and are very keen to see it in a temperate climate. I believe Steve might be one of them but I'll let him confirm this. But it's our turn to be patient. After all, I'd imagine the WW2 fans who were a bit peed with BFC for doing Modern Era first instead of WW2 have been experiencing some of this frustration for the last 5 years or so. Just be grateful that, unlike some of them, we are able to enjoy playing WW2 as well so the wait will actually be quite fun.

Work on CM Shock Force is almost finished now. The NATO module will likely be the last major addition to the game and adding a new RED force would slow down work on both NATO and the forthcoming WW2 game. maybe a CMSF World War 3 game would be better You're describing CMSF2 which will be BFC's next Modern Era project sometime later this year (hopefully). A new title will see new BLUE and RED forces in a temperate setting rather than the present arid Syrian environment. I'd buy it in a heart beat Agreed. I'm more excited about this than WW2... although I confess WW2 is fun.

It's already been established that anyone can change the time limit from 40 minutes or whatever to 4 hours and take his own sweet time slaughtering the AI player while learning the nuances of the game. It's in the game and it's yours to play the way you will but don't complain that scenario designers set the limit at something less than you'd like. CHANGE IT and be happy. It's not an issue. As for 15 minute scenarios. I haven't seen any but please direct me to one or two of them as I enjoy playing smaller battles that are simply focussed on a single firefight. I will admit that I've created a couple of monsters in my time but the missions I've had the most fun playtesting have been the shorter ones, less than a hour. Some folks like to recon the enemy positions thoroughly and manoeuvre their forces into positions from which to make their assault, a phase that might last up to an hour, while others just want to cut to the chase and go right to the real meat of the situation, the firefight for the objective. I am more the first type. I am searching for that ideal firefight and I like to set it up for myself.

The ability to extend missions to 4 hours was introduced back with v1.20. It's simple enough to change this yourself but I can confirm that you can't do this with campaign missions. They cannot be edited or customised by the player. You should be careful doing this though as in most cases, this will break the mission. No more AI plans and the AI side's inability to resupply its units are just two important factors. When you change it, perhaps you should save the amended version of 'missiontitle' as 'missiontitleext' or something so that you don't lose the original. I don't do many stand-alones myself. I'm a campaign guy. But when I do, I design my missions to be challenging for the Human BLUE player against the RED AI and time plays a large part in that challenge. It's not some arbitrary limit that I set just for kicks. Change the time limit and you're reducing the challenge. But heck... it's your game. Play it the way you want.

souldierz: OUCH! Long post or feedback... use Notepad first.

Ryujin summed it up nicely when he said it's all downhill from the start of the mission. The scenario designer sets the unit's morale when he creates the mission. Units give Normal (or whatever) status will have that status throughout the mission. Depending on how high/low that setting is, the units will cower/butt out accordingly. Leadership, C2, and training appear to influence this as well, especially leadership. How much, I can't say. As for campaigns, I had this effect in place for 'Dinas'. Win a mission and the Red force in a following mission morale would go down. Lose it and it'd go up. The campaign designer has to 'make' it that way though. It won't happen automatically if you get a win/loss.

Hi again I am glad to hear that you're considering chnging the initial OB. With the exception of the Sniper unit, I don't really consider any of the non-platoon HQ units to be combat units. They are the brains of the outfit, guiding the organs of action, the platoons and their rides. And of course, providing C2 links. Therefore, I like to keep them well behind my infantry and the action. I do not want to have them in the front wave on an assault on a defended objective. I'm also glad that you'll sub the engineer platoon for a second infanty platoon. I assume that the engineers are part of the core forces, right? In which case, they will be needed later for the inevitable fighting in built up areas. To use them in this role is a waste and I am reluctant to use such important units in an action they are unsuited to. Unless you are going to stick in lots of mines of course. But even then, they should come on later. With regards to artillery and the opening barrage. The player has no real intel on enemy dispositions so he's going to have to take a chance using one. If he chooses to put a barrage down on the border crossing he will have wasted it and held up his advance as well. So the AI side is the winner there. Perhaps you are worried that the player will restart the mission and use this 'intel' to plot a pre-planned atillery strike though. Unless you create a second AI set up plan, that will always be a major problem so it's best just to ignore it and let the player do what he's going to do. Finally, how to stop the AI from surrendering? You could improve the morale level of the defenders for a start. However, this is not something you should do lightly as it will change the way the mission plays out. If you improve morale, you may wish to reduce the REDFor slightly. You can also keep RED in the fight longer if you omit the vehicles from the OB. Vehicles contribute more points to the surrender threshold than infantry do, a LOT more.

Hi Bardosy I am in the office just now but I'll reply to your post tomorrow when I have some time. cheers PT

Kanonier BTW, I hope you're not associating me with critical posts on the website Nah, it was prompted by gibsonM's remarks about, 'if we find something wrong with it, it'll knock back the release date' or whatever. InFire Baptize Would you really want to hear comments from people who like the game all the time? Hmm... I don't understand your logic there mate. Of course we like it. If we didn't, why on earth would we be so stupid as to spend our precious time playing it? You assume that because we beta test that we think there's nothing wrong with the game or that it couldn't be improved? Pure nonsense. We provide very good feedback thankyou.

Hi Bardosy I am about half way through the first mission and I thought I'd post a few comments on what I've seen so far. I am going to assume that you're creating this to be a fun-to-play experience and are not overly concerned with it feeling 'authentic'. That's fine by me. However, I was a bit confused by my opening OB in the first mission. I get some HQ units and the scouts, no artillery or air support and I must enter the board through a very narrow objective. Ho hum. I had no real problems getting into the border crossing. However, I then get some more HQ units and some engineers. Still no artillery! I slowly move out of the border crossing and run into some serious resistance. When my first real infantry platoon arrives, I'm already about 30% of the way through the mission. That's where I am now... So, some comments. Start the mission with at least one platoon of infantry onboard. Hold back the HQ units. And give me some artillery or some tanks at the start. Preferably BIG guns too. It appears that this border crossing is crawling with defenders so it's a bit unfair denying me artillery at the start to help clear the way. The engineers appear to be unsuitable for this mission. Sub them with a second infantry platoon and give me a good force with which to fight my way out of the terrain bottleneck. The defenders seem to be well placed to support each other so no complaints there. Just that the Brits start the mission with an utterly useless and inappropriate force with which to do the job. so my suggestions if you're interested... start with at least one infantry platoon onboard, preferably two, give the Brits some heavy artillery to set up a pre planned artillery strike, or at least one air strike at the start, take the engineers out of the mission, delay the arrival of the HQ units.

It's interesting to note that if we Beta testers really were the brown-nosing 'yes' men that they claim we are over at the Nuthouse, you would probably have the WW2 title in your hands sometime around March or April. Of course, thankfully, we're not. We don't think everything is 'rosy' in the world of CM. We work very hard to make it better and better.

undercovergeek if you are planning on creating missions of your own to play using the scenario editor then I would strongly recommend you start learning with the CMSF game. It will give you plenty of time to learn how to draw maps and create AI plans etc and that would be time well spent. Otherwise, a lot depends on how you feel about fighting in the Modern Era. There are some terrific scenarios available to play nowadays that present you with a REAL challenge playing as BLUE. However, to access some of them, you'll need to buy at least one of the modules.