Paper Tiger

but what if the tank moves somewhere before the first wave of shells get there? will you call another artillary strike? If you made the tank a POINT TARGET when you set up the artillery strike, your FOS will track that particular tank until it goes out of his LOS. If you set it up as an AREA TARGET and the units move out of the target zone then that's a waste. BTW, mortars are very good at killing Red tanks. I've been using this tactic with varying degrees of success for a long time now, certainly more than 6 months. However helicopters are my favourite tank killers.

Okay, I had a long look at this last night/this morning and it seems that I forgot to give the Blue side the friendly point bonus that ensured the win. So I changed the script to allow the player to progress from the Depot mission with a draw. However, I'm currently helping BFC test the Brit module and that means that my version of the game is a form of v1.2. Therefore, I could post the corrected campaign right now but you wouldn't be able to play it until you get 1.2. Bummer! There's always something that gets past the first draught...

What is the result of cease firing the depot mission? It's not the script that's at fault. If you got a minor victory, you should go on to either SAM Hill or Sagger Point. I have a horrible feeling that I've stuffed up the Depot mission victory conditions.

Well, since I've actually played this particular mission many times and won it with single figure casualties without needing to resupply my troops once from an IFV, I can say that sounds like you were overdoing it a bit there, mate. The key is to start with a good artillery barrage. Yes, western forces don't do this but it's a good bet that in a civil war scenaro such as the campaign is set in, neither side would care too much about the civilain population. After the barrage lifts, then take it slowly, get a good foothold in the village and expand it carefully. I usually task one platoon to the northern section of the village, one to the centre and one to the south and the engineers help out getting you into the courtyards. "But there's only 45 minutes to do this PT!!!" Doing it this way usually results in an AI surrender well before the mission time expired so you've got plenty time to do it too. As it happens, I'm currently working on a new scenario where a US heavy Mech Infantry company (later to be substituted for a Brit Mech Infantry Company when I get the Brits) do something very similar to this mission and it's much tougher to do it in 45 minutes as you can't have that huge opening barrage on the town.

this is a really fun campaign Thanks for that. I didn't want to create a campaign that was so challenging that it would just be stressful to play. You can definitely do that with Blue v red and people will thank you for it but perhaps not so much so with Red v Red. Hopefully, it'll still be fun when the difficulty ramps up a bit later, probably quite soon actually. handihoc: In fact, I wondered whether that half of the map was loosely based on an early TOW Normandy map that I remember playing quite a while back (can't remember the name), as there were a few similarities? I've never played TOW so I've never seen that map. Actually, it's a fairly accurate renditon of a real locaton in Syria. The back part of the map should look a little familiar if you played 'Hasrabit' as it's a more accurate representation of the 'Strong Stand' orchard. West Yard, central yard and farmhouse on the right? I would say it could have been a little beefier in the latter stages If you got a bad result in 'Hit and Run' you'd need all those two hours to get the win. I agree with you though that the battle could have been tougher, and indeed it was to start with, but I had to think about the consequences of having a potentially 'killer' mission in the early part of the campaign. You really ARE going to need those cores again later so the real difficulty of this mission probably won't become apparent until later. I suspect you'll agree with my decision when you get round to the later missions. It DID seem a bit of a waste of a good map for an easy battle though but you will be seeing this map again as a stand alone battle after the UK module comes out. It'll be a UK v Syrian bash and I'm going to try and make it difficult. There's been no artillery fire in the three battles so far. There is no artillery in the early mission because the enemy forces are in disarray and haven't had time to prepapre their defences. However, the Suib Orchard map is a prepared position so, yes, the Red side has a LITTLE artillery in this mission. But there are two AI plans for this mission, one being my own placement, (and I suspect you didn't get that one), and the second by the AI. There weren't enough AI groups to give the spotters their own dedicated group so that meant that they are part of another, larger group. Sometimes, the AI places them in less than optimal positions. Don't worry though as you're definitely going to see some AI artillery used in the forthcoming missions. Just out of curiousity, did you use much artillery to get your win in 'Orchard Road'? zmoney: If I had one wish it would be that at least the rocket launcher would refill after every mission The rocket artillery is good for around four shots and it's only available when you're attacking on maps with a reasonable number of buildings. as it's a Regimental asset it is never resupplied but you will get a second section to play with for phase 2, as well as any that you saved from Phase 1. HA! Yeah, that'll happen. Clevinger: You might wish you had some for Suib. However, the rocket artillery is not essential for the later Phase 1 missions. Some mortars will come in very handy though... If those rockets weren't ammo restricted, you'd have a pretty easy time winning this campaign. BTW, give me a shout if you still want to translate all those briefings man...

I believe that has been a feature since v1.0. I remember seeing a promo video on Youtube showing trees moving in the wind (and that was all!) before the game was released. Stick the wind on High and you'll see it with type C and D trees very quickly.

Because with 27 casualties and a couple of vehicles shot up alone in this mission all three platoons are now more or less at squad strength :[ Interesting! I wonder if you are doing what I was doing when I designed 'Hasrabit'. During playtesting the later missions of that campaign, I had a large number of BMP-2s with next to no soldiers. Because of their ability to resupply my troops I was too cautious about putting them in harms way in the earlier missions and as a result, would end up taking really bad infantry casualties instead. So I changed my tactics and found that aggressively supporting my infantry with my BMP-2s resulted in substantially lower infantry casualties but, quite naturally, much higher BMP casualties. While nowhere near as good as the Guard's BMP-2, (not to mention the BMP-3!) your BMP-1s are actually quite good at providing fire support especially if you use a few of them in concert to work on the trickier positions. I had a lot of fun playing this one listening to my helicopters screeching in and the crack of the BMP-1's cannon while advancing my infantry to fire positions on the south bank of the dry river. To answer your original question... yes, they will see action again but the casualties have been taken into account in their next mission. Although, if your company is down to about the equivalent of one platoon, it might prove tough to beat. When playtesting this particular 'thread' of the campaign, C Company could do both Petani and Suib with less than 33% casualties and be in good shape for their next mission. However, quite a few of them would be walking... As to losing your Battalion Command group, it'll definitely hurt the speed with which you can call in your artillery if you keep your Battalion FOS close to him. I did notice some definite C2 benefits from having the Battalion Group present too when I was playtesting Group B's final mission with 2 or more companies from the same battalion too. Otherwise, as long as you still have your Company commanders, it's no big deal.

handihoc: I often play Petani as a stand alone mission just for fun as I love it so much. It sounds like you got a good result. My best result with the final version was 6 men killed, 7 wounded but also 1 tank lost... ouch! Those Conscripts have the worst morale settings too yet they can still put the hurt on you. You'll probably like all the little towns and villages in the campaign if you liked the Petani layout. There are four such missions: Petani, Sabatani, Suib and Jameela. However, the Phase 1 map I'm looking forward to getting feedback on is 'Sulit Airfield'. I'm very proud of THAT one. We'll see what you guys think soon.

Star Trek - James T Kirk, Spock, Bones and Scotty Star Trek TNG - Jean Luc Picard Think of CMSF as series 2 of Star trek TNG (NOT season 1) I was brought up on Star Trek and so the first lot mean a LOT to me. However, TNG was just so much better once you got used to the new faces and setting. If you started on CMx1, you'll probably find CMx2 a bit difficult to start with. Do it the other way round, who wants to watch THAT. Download the v1.11 Demo mate and decide for yourself.

Dear God... the medication I'm taking just now must be making me crazy... I can't understand a word of that...

Hi Pandur is it like in Hasrabit where one sometimes "needs" his force shot up partly pretty bad becouse... 1st) the mission is meant to be that hard and, 2nd) if you save/load yourself through it, will result in an unpratically high amount of units in the last few missions and thats why these missions are meant to reduce your force considerable!? Yes, and yes... although I have played the final mission with Blue's full OB present. It plays like a dog but it DOES play. It would be more realistic to think between 35-50% force reducton through casualties. If you're lucky enough to get through the entire thing with nearly your full OB, well, just play it in WEGo and you probably won't have any problems handling nearly a full battalion in the finale.:eek: Look forward to getting some feedback from you guys REAL soon... Hope you enjoy it. cheers PT

Finally, after literally hundreds of hours of hard work (again!), the 'Road to Dinas' campaign is available for downloading in two flavours. For those who wish to play a fully dynamic campaign where the results of each mission have a strong influence on the events in the following missions, the full campaign is available at the Repository in the Marines sub folder. Recognising that most of you would rather play a linear version, a much smaller download is also available at the Repository and will be available at CMMODS later this weekend. In the linear version, you must get a victory in each mission before you can progress to the next one. Please note, this is a RED v RED campaign and so will not be to everyone's taste. Further, you will require the MARINES module before you can play it. In this 15 mission campaign set during the same fictional Syrian civil war that was the backdrop for my 'Hasrabit' campaign, you will command two Battalion Groups of Rebel forces through 24 hours of action as they attempt to overwhelm forces loyal to the regime. However, unlike 'Hasrabit', you will generally have the inferior equipment, especially when you come up against you main opponent, the 3rd Armour Division. Important Note There are NO T-90s or BMP-3s in this campaign. If there were, the enemy would have them and not you. However, there are Airborne Units (Enemy side only guys) and some cool (!) new BRDM-2 AT-5 ATGM vehicles (Hey, I LIKE them:D) from the MARINES module. So what DO you get? Your Core Forces You command what amounts to an entire Syrian Mech Infantry Regiment divided into two Battalion Groups, imaginatively named A and B. Group A's Mech Infantry Company rides the BTR-60PB and their attached Tank Company is equipped with the T-72M from the bottom end of the Regular tank unit's roster. Their mission will be to drive straight along the main road to Dinas. Group B's Mech Infantry Company rides the superior BMP-1P and their attached Tank Company is equipped with the T-62MV. Their mission will be to go around the flanks of the defenders and attack Dinas from the rear. Further, there are two other Tank Companies, both equipped with the T-55MV, the best tanks and crews in your force. They will only be released to you when you make contact with forces of the 3rd later in the day. There are a number of Regimental assets that you will be able to use: a full company of Crack Engineers, a reduced plaoon of BRDM-2 AT-5 ATGM vehicles, a section of BM-21 Heavy Rocket Artillery. The latter will most often be available to you when you are attacking villages or towns. As explained in the campaign briefing, during some of the early morning missions, you will also be able to call on some helicopters for support. Once again, these are core forces so after their ammo is expended, these assets are lost for the duration of the campaign. Artillery Management If you go crazy and use all the artillery assets assigned to you in a single mission, at first you'll be complaining to me that it's just too easy. And then, a few missions further into the campaign and you'll be complaining that it's now too tough... "Hey PT , what happened to all my arillery support? I NEED it!" It's certainly true that a generous amount of artillery in the first mission will practically hand you the win before the real shooting starts but you'll pay for that easy victory later. So you'll have to plan your artillery missions a bit more thoughtfully. You have a lot but it will soon run out if you go crazy with it. By all means USE it but perhaps you could try using tighter artillery zones and use one tube instead of two? Campaign Structure There are three distinct phases in the campaign: Phase 1 which sees both Battalion Groups move to seize their morning objectives: Group A, the large hill designated 'Sagger Point' and for Group B, the military airbase at Sulit. Depending on your success in Phase 1, your forces will receive fresh supplies before embarking on Phase 2 of their mission, the battles for the bridges over the river Tumah. It is in this phase when you will first encounter the forces of the 3rd Armoured Division. Finally, in Phase 3, what remains of your core forces will conduct an assault on the town of Dinas itself in the early hours of the morning, Group B from the north, Group A from the south. In the early stages of the campaign, you will mostly be facing quaking and confused conscript or green troops and tanks as they are thrown into the fray of battle by their commanders in a desperate attempt to delay your advance. However, as the campaign progresses, you will eventually come into contact with the forces of the 3rd Armoured Division, an Elite formation that is equipped with tanks and crews that are superior to your own. For those of you who choose to play the dynamic campaign, you will find that the enemy will react to your successes. You may find yourself confronting a superior OrBat or being on the receiving end of enemy air power in a later mission. This is because the most threatened sections of the front will receive the better forces from the enemy High Command. While success is always rewarded, you may find that the less-than-optimal path to the finale is the easier of the two journeys. So don't be surprised if you read in a thread here that someone only faced conscripts in mission 10 while you fought Special Forces or you got hammered by an air strike but they didn't. It just means that they failed to win one of the earlier missions while you won it. Following the optimal path to the finale will give you a much better chance to repair vehicles and equipment damaged during each mission. Failing one or more missions in a single Phase will give you a much reduced chance of repairs in the following missions until you get yourself back on the winning track. Victory Conditions I have tried to be consistent with the scenario victory parameters throughout the campaign. I have striven to allow the human player to choose his own path to victory within a single mission. You will rarely be tasked with controlling every VP location on the board. Instead, you will find that you have to control at least one of them exclusively and contest control of the others with the AI when the mission ends. This will give you some flexibility in how you approach each mission. In a campaign, winning individual missions while taking high casualties is already punished by you having to fight later battles with a significantly reduced force. If you are consistently winning each mission and earning the Friendly Force Preservation bonus, then you're doing well. If the AI is earning the Enemy Casualty bonus, then things are not going so well for you. In a few missions it will not be possible for you to win without taking heavy casualties. Don't fret when this happens as the core units following missions have been designed and playtested to take account of this. Determining Victory When you play each mission, the campaign script will determine that you won the mission if you managed to get a 'Minor Victory' or better. A 'Draw' or any loss in ANY mission will be treated as a loss by the campaign script. Losing a combination of earlier missions in the campaign will also result in the campaign terminating. When there is a possiblity of this happening you will be informed of it in your briefing. Since it's a long campaign and your core forces will see action at least TWICE in the course of playing it, you may be worried about taking casualties. As a general rule of thumb, in Phase 1 missions, if you are earning your Friendly Force Preservation bonus, then you're doing really well so don't worry. You can afford to get wins without earning this bonus occassionally as well so don't panic if you dont get it. Mission List Phase 1 1 Petani - Shock and Awe 2 Hit and Run 3 Orchard Road 4 Sabatani 5 Suib 6 Sulit Airfield 7 Depot mission (resupply only) 8 SAM Hill 9 Sagger Point 10 Depot mission (resupply only) Phase 2 11 Road to Amarah 12 Where Farmers Dare 13 Tumah Crossing or Jameela* 14 Jameela or Tumah Crossing* 15 The Lakes* Phase 3 16 Perdition's Flames 17 Dinas - The Agony of Doom. * denotes that a failure to win this mission will result in the campaign terminating in the DYNAMIC version only Phew. That's all. Enjoy...PT:D

In all likelihood, this will be my last post here before this monster is finished. I played through the finale once again this morning after making some significant adjustments to the terrain as a result of my earlier playtests. Further playtesting is just treading water now so I'm going to get everything finished a.s.a.p so that it's available to download this weekend. That work consists mainly of rewriting the briefings for a number of missions as a result of the changes made to the campaign structure I mentioned a few posts ago. I also need to test the script again to make sure that all the branches work correctly and then, I'm done with it. Oh, I have no doubt that there'll be a Dinasv2 at some point in the future as there are bound to be a lot of errors that were missed as a result of it only being playtested by myself. But there's nothing that should make it unplayable. My only REAL fear is that it will be too easy. But then, I thought that 'Hasrabit' was too easy when I released it too. I guess you'll all get the opportunity to try it out for yourself later this week... at last.

Okay, here's your first look at the map for the finale... I've tried to go for as devastated a look as I possible could with this one so there's LOTS of junk flavour objects strewn around everywhere. I played this through a couple of times this morning and everything seems to be fine. I need to play around a bit with the AI groups but otherwise, it's almost done. It's not really possible to balance this one as there's simply no way to tell what either side will have. Both sides have core units and this is the final showdown between the two. So, depending on your success in the earlier missions, it could either be a walkover to an utterly unwinnable disaster. :eek:

Okay, I got that problem sorted very quickly. The 'Tumah Crossing' mission is now a late afternoon mission and it plays just fine... again. When I made the 'Hasrabit' campaign, I was playing the game with Syria's finest, the Republican Guards T-72M1V-TURMS and the Special Forces, both of which spot well at night. And the Perdition mini-campaign was designed primarily to take advantage of the game's dynamic lighting effects to make the maps look good... superficial? Yes, I am. But in this campaign, your core forces are ...ahem... not very good... or, to put it another way, crap. The T-55MV is the tank of choice for YOU in this campaign, and you get some poorer quality stuff to play around with too... actually, it's proven to be a lot of fun making and playing these missions with less than optimal equipment on either side. Anyway, Blue's tanks couldn't spot anything better than a ? marker at ranges of 1km+ at night and they just got picked off one by one as I attempted to manoeuvre them closer to the enemy positions. I guess some of you could pull this stunt off and get a win but it's not really my 'thing'. This meant having to substantially rewrite the campaign script to accomodate the new structure and that means I'll have to test all that again to make sure it works as designed. But the good news is that now I have nothing left to do except get the two finale missions done. The 'Perdition's Flames' mission is getting a bit of an overhaul to take advantage of the new Facing fix that used to turn your units to face some point in the centre of a large map. I originally wanted this battle to be between two Mech Infantry forces so I'm going to give it a shot this time. And the map for the other finale is now finished and I'm going to start serious playtesting on it tomorrow. Hopefully, this should be finished VERY soon...

Quick progress report. ALL the phase 1 and phase 2 battles are now finalised and I'm currently trying to get the 'Tumah Crossing' mission from the Perdition campaign balanced. Since it's been changed to a night battle, Blue's tanks are at a severe disadvantage spotting and so far, after three attempts today, I got slaughtered by the AI every time. And the best kill total I got in any single mission was 1 Red tank. I will give it one more go and if I still can't get a win, I'm going to have to rethink the campaign structure to make it work, probably by shifting the time of the missions to make it a late afternoon mission instead. Anyway, once this is done, it's just the finale to go and that's coming along nicely.

Sounds like you're working on a few linked missions. Why don't you make them into a mini campaign instead?

Definitely NOT insider information but for what it's worth. I believe that the ?'s mean that your unit knows that there is an unidentified unit at that location. It can get this in one of a few ways: a it directly observes the unit itself but hasn't gathered enough info to fully identify it. (You see this happen a lot in night missions or when the enemy unit is moving in concealing terrain) b it HAD identified a unit but subsequently lost LOS to that unit. c it gets the information passed to it from another unit that has spotted it via C2. d it gets it at the start of the mission if set by the scenario designer in the scenario parameters If your unit has a direct LOS to that icon it can target that icon but the firing unit will only use area fire as the unit hasn't been identified yet. I think the AI can benefit fom this in two ways... I don't KNOW if this is true but if a unit receives info on an enemy unit via C2 or via method d, and then moves into LOS itself, it will receive some bonus when spotting that unit. Second, v1.11 introduced a feature that allows the TAC AI to continue to fire at fully spotted targets that duck out of sight but using the 'target light' command rather than the full 'target' command. The AI can take advantage of this feature too.

That's where you'll find your version of the game. Sounds like you installed from an old CD copy of the game. As mentioned by the other posters, you won't see any scenarios made with ANY version higher than v1 in your scenario folder.

So, has your "Final" folder gained some news files ? I guess the answer to that qusestion would be 'yes' but not many. That's because I'm testing some of the separate 'threads' in the campsign and when I'm satisfied that they're finished, the whole batch get's moved into the 'Final' folder. there are only 4 in there just now but two more will go in tomorrow and then I will 'finalise' the last two phase 1 battles. Yes, almost every mission has been tested as a stand-alone mission but it's only when you compile them and play them that way that their true difficulty level is determined. With that in mind, I compiled the 'Sulit' thread and found that the Sulit mission was just WAY too difficult for a campaign. I could JUST scrape a victory from it but I'd take 90%+ friendly casualties doing it and that's just a joke if it's part of a campaign. I tried playing it several different ways to see if it was my tactics that were at fault but it didn't matter how I played it, it was almost unwinnable. It's actually very EASY to do make difficult campaigns but not so easy to ensure they're balanced. I really could just compile everything right now and post it on the Repository before the weekend but it would be impossible to win it. So I spent the last three days getting the missions in that thread rebalanced and now they're all just perfect and ready to be transferred. The map for the finale is still being 'drawn'. There are a large number of flavour objects in this one as I have a very clear idea of the look I want it to have. When you finally see it, you'll understand just what a lot of work it was to create it. But everything is going to schedule.

One of the nice things about creating a long campaign is that you can include a few 'easy' missions that are simply good fun to play. This morning, I had a quick run through of the opening mission 'Petani' once again and I managed to force the AI to surrender with only 1 KIA and 6 Wounded which is a record. It didn't feel easy though and I got a bit confused once the shooting started as to where it was coming from but otherwise, it was a very enjoyable 35 minutes. As a stand-alone mission, folks might enjoy it but never play it again as it's very easy but as a campaign opener, it's just perfect. Convinced that this mission is now 100% finished it has been transferred into my 'Final' folder. Once they go in there, they're ready for the final compilation. Presently, there are only 3 missions in that folder (the first three) but I expect to have the vast majority of them in there by next weekend. I also changed the OB of a few group B missions to make the 'Jameela' mission a bit more exciting. I played that mission all the way through again this afternoon for fun and had a blast. I have to confess that I really like playing these single company sized actions. As it stands, there are only three missions that have more than one infantry company in them and they are all finales, 'Sagger Point', 'Perdition's Flames' and 'Dinas - the Agony of Doom'. The rest all have one Mech Infantry company with support elements attached and it's quite manageable in Real Time. It's quite likely that I'm going to drop the 'Bridges' mission from the campaign in order to keep one Group A mech Infantry company in reasonably good strength for the finale. The Phase 1 finale and Phase 2 battles are proving to be quite tough on your cores and I'd like to have a fighting chance in the finale (Hey, I DO have to playtest this monster and it's hard to stay razor sharp all the time). Anyway, 15 missions seems long enough for a campaign. Of course, I have also been doing a lot of work on the finale as well. The map is looking really good and playtesting is properly under way. However, these preliminary playtests are pretty useless from a balancing point of view as there are Red core forces in it as well and I'll have to play the relevant missions compiled before I get an idea what's going to happen with this. I hope to post some screenshots of the new map in action before next weekend.

A final word about the new 'buggering off' behaviour to use Steve's own phrase. I think this is the most important change to the game system we've seen since the introduction of ELoS. It has totally transformed the game in a fantastic way and I am really excited about the possibilities it opens up for scenario design in the future. cheers PT

I guess this better sums up my thinking on this topic I posted this a couple of days ago in the 'Run for your life' thread. After a bit more thought, I would like to amend those settings for Airborne and Special Forces to make them veterans and also allow them a few more Crack units. However, in spite of their receiving the best of the equipment and standing head and shoulders better over their 'regular' Syrian counterparts, I don't really believe that a Republican Guard unit is any match for a standard US military formation and so they should mostly be regular when fighting the US. Certainly they will display more 'balls' than the regulars when facing US forces but from what I've seen in-game, regular performance is about how I'd expect them to perform in real life against a western army. Set them higher than that and you're just playing a game. BTW I'm not saying that they should NEVER be Crack or Elite, just that it should be a VERY rare occurrence. Please note that I'm only talking about Syrian vs the US or Brits or Germans etc and not vs other Syrian units. In a Red v Red situation, I have no problem with setting Republican Guards to Crack with some Elite because they really are very good compared to their lesser trained brothers in arms in the regular arm. With regards to US experience levels, we ARE talking about a conventional war and therefore I see no reason to set US forces at anything LESS than Veteran, except to play a game, as they really are much better trained than the Syrians. And besides, your government isn't going to stick untrained US units into a shooting war in the Middle East just yet. However, against Uncons, well, I can certainly see some justification for lowering their experience levels to regular for such situations as it's no longer a fully fledged shooting war. Please note: conventional war, shooting war, NOT police actions where it's entirely possible for National Guard units to face uncons. Unless you can correct me, I don't believe that NG units were used in front line operations in either GW1 or GW2. However, that is a belief and I have no evidence to back it up. Further, I am not married to that belief and I will be very happy to revise that opinion if you can show me otherwise. I also revised my opinion of the worth of Special Forces and Airborne units as I do have a very high regard for their training and I suspect that they would put up a very good show against a US force. But I don't have that same regard for Republican Guard units though, thus the generally 'regular' experience settings for them when facing front line US units. My whole point is that if you want to create realistic scenarios (not fun, exciting and challenging scenarios) where US units Armed Forces face off in a conventional conflict with the Syrian Armed Forces, you'll probably get better and more accurate results with those settings than with pumping up the Red sides experience levels. I'm certainly not criticising anyone's work and I have no issues with these fun, fantasy missions either. I play them and have fun too but I'm not going to remotely kid myself that they're realistic. Finally, EVERYTHING I have written is merely my opinion. If you disagree with it, fine. No problem. You make 'em the way you want to and I'll make 'em my own way. I'm not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking but you will find that my 'scenario design philosphy' (if you could call something so uninformed a philosophy) is to make my missions as realistic as possible. This will be important when I return to doing Blue v Red missions after the Brit Pack arrives. I have my own ideas how to make challenging 21st Century Blue v Red missions without making my squaddies 'regular' or depriving them too often of the assets (artillery and air support) or the vehicles they should reasonably expect to have. No doubt you'll all hate them but I make 'em the way I like to play them.

Ha ha. There are no landmarks in my core units file. Those landmarks were from another map in the same CAMPAIGN and the only possible connection I can see between the twop of them is the core units file. Anyway, that really is a minor issue. The gluing together of Syrian weapons teams and the missing GAZ's are a bit of a pain when they happen though. Hopefully, I will be starting up a new campaign quite soon so I'll keep my eyes peeled. Pandur Yes, I've deleted them and undeleted them with no success. I suspect that the map 'remembers' if that's somehow possible because the same core units appear fine in other missions. However, once the campaign is compiled and it happens once, it's permanent and it's a real pain. The only way I've been able to work around this issue has been to delete the units from the missions and substitute them with non-core units. they NEVER stick.

Hmm, my preliminary run through of the final mission this morning played like a dog frame rate wise so it might take a bit longer to get this finished than I thought. I was playing it with your full OB and there's NO way in hell that you're going to have anything like your full cores for this mission. But even with one full company on the board, it was only running at between 5-10fps. Strangely enough, the solution to this problem lies in tweaking an earlier mission to make it a bit more difficult and I've already started work on that. The map for the finale does look good though...