Paper Tiger
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Posts posted by Paper Tiger
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c3k,
you're surely not being serious now? Do you really feel that this game will be substantially improved by giving each individual tree in the game hit points? Is the performance hit really worth the extra detail? As already noted by other posters, they do get destroyed in the game anyway. they're just tough to destroy.
You seem to have extraordinarly high expectations of the fidelity of this simulation. I thinks we're all a bit more concerned about how accurately it models ballistics, firepower and other such things rather than have more easily destroyable trees. Personally, I'd prefer it if they gave more attention to buildings.
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handihoc
glad you're enjoying it. I suspect you'll have enough time to finish it before the Marines module arrives.
If you enjoyed the first two missions, you'll probably really enjoy what's coming very soon. The Red on Red experience is a very different one for so many reasons. The most important is that you can create quite exciting conventional battles in the open and give the human player full access to artillery and air support without overwhelming the poor AI. I have also tried to give each mission it's own particular flavour and allow the player a great deal of flexibilty in how he will approach the mission.
Regarding your niggles, the first is due to the enemy still having enough of it's force intact to prevent it's surrender. BTW, were those enemy units vehicles? I noticed that the BTRs run away quite often from the green zones and hide at the back of the board. Other than that, if you've cleared out the green zones, there really shouldn't be much left and they usually surrender before time runs out.
With regards to the second, yup, it's an occupy victory location. Even that crummy Reserve FO will get you the points as long as there aren't any enemy forces in that zone either. Touch is just too easy to do.
The Republican Guards are up next. They play VERY differently from the Special Forces missions. I'll look forward to hearing how you got on with them.
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I have to confess that I'm a little surprised at how long it's taking BFC to decide what their policy is on this matter. It's so obvious what's going to happen if they allow it.
The reason most of us are posting in the scenario forum and not in the main forum is not due to modesty or a lack of confidence in our abilities. Rather it's because it seems to be the obvious place for such announcements and discussions. If this is acceptable to BFC, I for one, will be posting in the main forum almost exclusively from now on as I don't see the point in doing so in a forum that very few people visit. Instead, it can be reserved for 'How do I do this in the scenario editor?' posts.
As it happens, I visit the scenario forum every time I visit these forums and occassionally spend more time there than in the main forum.
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Well, it seems that others have started posting about their scenarios in the main forum already.
When I read Steve's post above, I interpret that to mean that you can advertise in the main forum but shouldn't really discuss the scenario here but in the scenario forum. Okay... but most people will post their feedback and discuss the scenario in the original thread posted on the main forum which is natural.
At the moment, most people are posting their projects in the scenario forum. So what's the rule? Given that people are going to post their feedback in the original ad, where should we post our ads for new scenarios, in the main forum or the scenario forum?
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webwing:
"I haven't been visiting the Scenario Design forum lately."
you must have been posting as I was writing. That's one of the reasons why I'm asking this question. How many people visit that forum regularly. If the moderators moved these posts from the main forum to the scenario forum perhaps more people would use it. I have zero objection to anyone posting in the main forum as long as I can do it myself.
Quite a long time ago, I do remember seeing someone who did this get as very sharp post from someone telling him to post it in the scenario forum and I have slavishly followed that advice since I read it. If I have the moderator's approval for doing this, I'll put it in my signature and post all further adds for my stuff here instead.
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Err, I guess it's still very late at night where you're posting from Steve. That might explain why you found my initial post a bit vague...
Where should we advertise our new scenarios/campaigns, the main forum or the scenario and design forum? If the scenario forum is not for posting about and discussing scenarios, both BFC and player-made, what is it for?
I guess if the moderators have no problem with us doing this then you're very quickly going to see a flurry of posters advertising their missions/campaigns here in the main forum.
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Where should we be posting about our new scenarios/campaigns? In the scenario forum or in the main forum? I have seen moderators on other boards simply move threads that are created in one forum to the appropriate forum.
I'm not posting this because I'm angry or complaining but simply because there are probably quite a few of us who would like to have their scenarios discussed on the front page of the main forum as well.
thanks for your attention
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Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like your cores were just too badly beaten up in the earlier missions. I did playtest that one a few times and usually managed to get a win but it was always HARD. I had thought of including the Reserve tanks from Breakout as part of the OB for Hasrabit. After all, what happened to them after Breakout? A bit like what happened to Behrooz (!) in season 4 of 24.
I'll wait and see how others fair with it and it's likely that I'll make those tanks cores for v3 when it finally happens. But it's a bit late for you. Sorry about that.
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No problem. Even if I disagree with them, I appreciate the design decisions that you made when creating this campaign. The ATGM vehicles are very effective infantry killers. I know 'cos I used a couple of them in my first ever offering. So it was frustrating to see them nerfed so badly in your campaign.
I just hope that my 'feedback' doesn't sound too critical. I realise that you're not designing these missions for ME and other people are happy enough with them. And, at the end of the day, I obviously enjoyed it enough to post about it. Good luck with your next project....
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I have just finished adapting another mission from the Hasrabit campaign to be played as a stand-alone mission. There have been a number of changes made to this mission to make it challenging, not the least of which are reductions to Blue's OB.
Two Republican Guards companies, supported by some tanks, lots of artillery and a couple of helicopters, assault a small Rebel held village in the early hours of the morning. Their main mission is to find and kill the Rebel artillery spotter before he can start calling in missions on the Loyalists forces' positions in the valley below. It is to be played as Blue only.
This one starts at 4.10am while the full moon is till in the sky and finishes at around 6am when the sun is shining. It starts very small and the first half of the mission is slow paced. But there's still plenty to do. The second half of the mission, the assault on Qabar itself is violent and intense.
In the campaign, this mission was quite easy for the Republican Guards to win, especially if he did well in the first RG mission. Some of the changes that have been made to this mission will find their way into the final version of the campaign as they make the mission much more challenging for the Republican Guards.
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Okay, I gave mission two another spin this morning and got a Tactical Victory with only 3KIA and 4 Wounded. It wasn't difficult to get either...
SPOILERS
Since I KNEW that there were loads of MGs on the right flank I hit it with the mortars with a pre-registered barrage at the start and moved everybody onto the left flank. I made very slow but definite progress and got up onto the 'plateau' with my entire force without too much trouble. Once I captured the plateau I found that most of those MG teams were still there and firing on my troops so I hit cease fire with 3 mins to go and got a tactical victory. Okay, so it was doable. I was wrong. But the only way I was able to do this was because I already had the intel from playing it the first time. Call it Deja vu. Or call it cheating
Never mind, onto the third mission. "Stiffer resistance"! OMG! I was already uncomfortable. Nice map though and I was happy to see that I had a whole platoon of Stryker ATGM vehicles. But on closer inspection I saw that they were conscripts! And with -2 modifiers to boot. Looking at the map, it was fairly obvious what was going to happen and I wasn't surprised by anything at all.
The conscript vehicles were utterly useless except for popping smoke which got me into the woods in the centre of the map overlooking the houses. The vehicles wouldn't perform any area fire commands and when an enemy unit did pop up in their LoS, they usually ducked down again before the conscripts could do anything. I have to confess that I gave up and quit because I was thoroughly demoralised by the way my conscripts were performing. I had no artillery suppport and only two javelins.
Okay, some more, hopefully, constructive feedback. The Syrian opposition is just too strong for this to be much fun (for me anyway) Elite MG teams with +2 modifiers are fine but please, not so many of them.
The US conscripts are farcical. Certainly, they conscripted for the Vietnam war but, to the best of my knowledge, they haven't done it since. Especially putting them in command of their high tech vehicles in the lead element on the first day of a major invasion. Come on!
You also need to give the US WAY more artillery. And I don't mean more batteries, just some more ammo. I spent all my ammo in mission 2 and so there was none left for mission 3. No resupply is fine but it's impossible to believe that a front line US unit would receive so little support from it's own mortars on the very first day of operations. Full resupply between missions 2 and 3 would definitely make mission 3 more fun.
So, in summary, to make this mini campaign a really good one, rework it so that:
a) the Syrian MG teams are veteran AT BEST with 0 or even negative modifiers. That would make the game more challenging AND fun.
Make the US conscripts Green at least, or better yet, Regular but reduce the number of ATGM vehicles from 4 to 2 to balance things out. This would make the final mission more interesting and fun too.c) give the US side a full resupply in the campaign script between missions 2 and 3. And maybe more ammo too. You're stretching the Captain FUBAR thing way too far with this.
d) please give us more info on what we're supposed to do in the mission, even if it's wrong or misleading. Your current instructions are too vague. I know that's the designer's intention but at least mark the victory point objectives on the maps.
e) The 'unwinnable' first mission is a clever idea but it's very easy to circumvent it simply by hitting cease fire at the start and skipping the mission. You need to find some way to encourage the player to stay in the fight.
It's almost a classic. With maybe some air support thrown in you could have a first class mini campaign here.
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Barleyman
a very interesting post and I know exactly how you feel. It took me a while to figure out that I wasn't going to be able to play the kind of missions I wanted to play in CMSF with the US v Syria. Yes, there are ways to make VERY challenging scenarios but that's usually done by handicapping the US in some way. But that's not what I want.
Because the US has the most powerful military in the world coupled with the sexiest equipment, I want to play a challenging US v Syria mission using ALL the bells and whistles. Otherwise, there's a big pinch for me. After all, the game simulates these aspects (US air and artillery support) really, really well and I want to be able to use them. Since neither the Russians or the Chinese are in the game (yet) it's not possible to have this experience yet.
Instead, it looks like the Syrians are about to get slaughtered by a different arm of the American military with even more devastating firepower at their disposal (cool!). Yup, they're getting the T-90 and the BMP-3 but I'm pretty sure that the US military as it stands is more than a match for these. The T-90 is going to get killed by a javelin just as easily as a T-72 I suspect. And the M1A2SEPS is really the KING of the world on the battlefield. That's why the US spent so much money developing and fielding it. It doesn't want any comers for control of the countryside. I don't think the T-90 is going to change that. In the real world, that's fine by me. In a game, it's not so funny.
Before talking about Red on Red, you really should try 'Armour Attacks' (UK spelling) at CMMODS. It's probably as close to what you want as you're going to get.
Red on Red will give you a more challenging conventional warfare experience but it's definitely not for everybody. It's an acquired taste and the modelling of Red artillery and air power in the game is a bit less than thrilling. But you can do quite realistic meeting engagements and straight forward battles between mechanised and armour forces this way. There are some designers who are doing a lot of work this way. Check out The Louch's 'Polyanskoe' or MikeD's 'King Copper Mines' at CMMODS to see if you like it.
The alternative is to do what almost everybody else here does and just 'get' into the infantry/MOUT actions. The real challenge here is to win the mission without losing more than 5% of your force which is actually quite a realistic condition. Sometimes it works for me but I prefer the fighting outside of the built up areas than the MOUT.
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"Well, good on you. This is a great idea that I wish the other campaign designers would do also."
Fortunately, this particular mission required very little work to adapt it for single play. I will definitely adapt some other missions from the campaign as stand alone missions but they will need to be reworked quite a bit as the 'core' forces in them have already seen action in the campaign and so they'll be a bit unbalanced in favour of the human player.
I could do 'Strong Stand' just as easily but somehow I don't think it would be a popular choice...
slug88
thanks a lot for that as well. Glad you enjoyed Part 1. I hope to do Saudara parts 1 and 2 as stand alone missions later as well but, as you can appreciate, they will need a lot of work to make them playable. Good luck with Part 2 and the finale in Hasrabit town itself. I look forward to hearing how you did in it.
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Oh don't worry, I didn't perform any suicide charges and I took almost zero casualties except for one man and the humvee. (I also killed nobody on the Red side...) However, I have no idea how I am supposed to win the second mission. Since I know now that I'm supposed to quit the first mission, I'll just skip it and move straight onto the second and try again but I can't see how a win is possible unless you are extraordinarily lucky.
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Hi Mishga
well, I was suffering a bit from red on red fatigue earlier this afternoon so I thought I'd download this campaign and try it out. I am going to provide you with some honest feedback which will contain LOADS of spoilers so other forum memebers beware... here goes..
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
Yes, I'm serious folks...... SPOILERS!
okay, I loaded up the first mission and quickly figured out what I had to do. All Elite troops with +2 modifiers but no support except for a humvee. The scouts also can't lay down smoke. A shame as I figured I was going to need it. It was obvious where the enemy was but there was no covering terrain to approach their position so I figured I'd send one platoon to one flank and the second to the other and hit the crest line simultaneously. Since the humvee would be easy meat for an enemy RPG team, I thought I'd hold it back until I'd gathered some intel on the enemy.
Well, it was a nice plan but when I hunted to the crest line my elite troops came under some very heavy fire immediately and they started cowering. This was on both flanks and apart from the humvee, there was nothing left. So with the enemy engaging both my platoons on both flanks, I committed the humvee to the centre. It retreated very quickly so I sent it in again and it got killed. Pooh! With everybody cowering and nothing else possible I hit the cease fire button and got a shock when I saw what I was up against.
Okay, onto mission 2. Some of my troops were now -2. I'm not sure why? (Perhaps because I lost? If that's true then you made the cam[aign dynamic?) Anyway, I had a Stryker this time, albeit an FST vehicle, and some artillery as well. Woo hoo. I figured this would be a bit more fun. But as soon as I hit the start button I saw that there were two HMG bunkers on either side of the lone building. No problem, I called in some artilery on one while I tried to get my troops into firing positions. To cut a long story short, the artillery ran out of ammo very quickly while my stryker cowered in the corner from the INCREDIBLE amount of MG fire that was coming in. No troops could get a LOS to any units as the enemy defensive fire was appalling. So eventually I hit cease fire again and when I saw what I'd been up against I started laughing my ass off. My wife wanted to know what was so funny but I knew she wouldn't understand...
O...M...G! I can't believe you playtested these missions as I think they're utterly impossible to win. They're fun, but completely unwinnable. If I'm wrong and you did playtest them until you could get a win, PLEASE tell me how as I must suck at this game.
The mini campaign idea is a really good one and I am planning to do some mini campaigns when the Marines module comes out. But in your campaign you really need to give the Blue side a bit more in the way of support. And also reduce the quality of those Syrian machine gun platoons. So... many... machineguns!!!
I really wanted to enjoy this and in a way I did but not for the reasons that you really want. I was actually still laughing my ass off when I was in the shower this evening thinking about all those MGs in mission 2.
My honest advice to you is to spend a LOT more time playtesting your own missions, especially if you're going to compile them into a campaign. If you do that, the entire community will be much richer for it as the basic idea of your campaign is both sound and fun.
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Well, now that we KNOW there won't be up-armoured humvees or underpasses, what about throwing us another bone on what will be coming? That blog post is already a week old. I want to know more about the Marines Engineer and Recon Battalions, as well as the Red stuff. Of course, I want to know what the 'surprises' will be too but I'm not holding my breath....
I'm hoping it will include 'Exit units for victory points' conditions. That would be COOL!
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Hey there, sometimes sh%t happens. There's obviously a random element in the game when calculating kills so it sounds like you were just really unlucky. T-62s are nothing special in the world of CMSF. You didn't say if the tank was amongst trees. Trees definitely protect tanks especially from javelins.
On the other side of the coin, I saw a M1A2SEPS take 10+!!! hits from AT-14s, the best ATGM missile in the Red arsenal and only getting a mobility kill. That finished me with combined arms missions playing as the US.
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I have just uploaded this mission from my campaign as a stand-alone mission for download at CMMODS. Not everyone has the time or the inclination to play a whole campaign so I'm going to upload special versions of some of my favourite missions from the Hasrabit campaign. This one is my favourite and you'll probably recognise the map from screenshots I've posted elsewhere as I think the map is quite photogenic. But it's not just pretty, it's a REAL tough fight too!
The first mission sees two Special Forces companies contesting control of a farm complex with a Rebel mechanised infantry company. There is some armour support for Blue but it's mainly an infantry bash. It is two hours long with a bit of extra time but don't count on much. There's only one AI attack plan but I don't anticipate many people playing this over and over again. Besides, the AI attack is good enough to play against several times without getting boring.
It is for Blue vs AI only.
Next up will be Hill 142.
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Okay guys, check your email accounts. I've just posted you something. Have fun and I look forward to your feedback.
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Great. I'll compile the first two missions later this morning and get them sent off to you to try out this weekend. Neither of them are finalised yet. At the moment, they're 'unpolished', no briefings or maps but I'll give you the background so that you can play them as if there were.
This is good news as it means I'll be 'free' to start work on the third map today instead of doing lots of playtesting on the first two.
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Then I expect speculating on when it will arrive would be equally useless? A LONG wait (ie 4-6 weeks) is going to drive me crazy!!! BTW, my wife has already given me her permission to buy this so the credit card is just waiting for the good news to arrive.
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I am in the process of designing a second campaign, once again Red on Red and this time, I'd like to have a few playtesters to help me finish these missions and find any mistakes before I release it.
There will be either 4 or five missions in the final campaign. I have the first two missions pretty much finished and I will start work on the map for the third mission tomorrow or the weekend. At the rate I'm working at, it should take about another 6-8 weeks to get it finished.
If you want to playtest, I will need you to play each mission at least once, possibly a few times and give me feedback on them. Playtesting these missions hopefully shouldn't be too onerous a task as the maps are quite interesting and the forces are not unmanageably large, ie presently one mech company and a company of tanks with LOTS of artillery support on large maps (more than 2k in one direction, at least 1k in the other).
If you can help me out, post a message in this thread and I'll get back to you.
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A campaign needs some sort of storyline to bind it all together. However, it's not necessary to start out with your story and build the campaign around it. When I started my last jobbie, I had about 5 or 6 maps and a rough idea of the core forces I wanted but no story. The story evolved as I playtested the missions or drew new maps. That was last time. In my current project, I had the story all worked out before I started and am designing the scenarios to match it.
As to the quality. I don't have much time to play other people's missions as I spend all my game time working on my own projects. However, perhaps you could download a few from CMMODS youself and see how they compare to yours work? Mark Ezra is quite prolific too so you could check out some of his missions. Big City Blues was very good I believe. There have also been a few good missions from Pete Wenman and the Phantom and the fighting CB and quite a few others that I've never got round to doing yet. And of course, there's webwing's Ghost campaign which is the most popular offering so far.
I would recommend some of George Mc's to you too but you'll just get discouraged if you compare your work to his.
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"Yet another heavy Allied force stomps the ever loving living ****e out of the poor bloody Syrians"
LOL
I'll definitely want to give it a try as the Brits for a chnage,that's for sure. I think the Marines module will finish off all the credible equipment possibilities for Syria as an opponent. To introduce equipment from a more fearsome, but less credible, Red foe, BFC will have to concoct a new hypothetical conflict scenario and that'll take some time to do.
I would imagine even the most die hard WW2 grog would gag at the possibilities this game engine has to offer were it expanded to simulate a conventional conflict between Nato and the Russians. Who wouldn't want that? Plenty of bucks lining that road.
Make the US conscripts Green at least, or better yet, Regular but reduce the number of ATGM vehicles from 4 to 2 to balance things out. This would make the final mission more interesting and fun too.
Open letter to the moderator
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
Moon
yes, I'd missed that. That's good news. So I'll wait until you finish the move and you can tell us all what your policy is.
The reason I ask is very simple. It's very obvious that if we all start posting our announcements in the main forum, they'll very quickly fill up the first page. Then the announcement will either be missed 'cos it's on page 2 or 3 OR someone will bump their thread back to page 1 and thus knock somebody elses off the first page.
I have no desire to add to that particular mess. Yes, I'd love it if one of my scenarios proved popular enough to keep a thread going on the first page of the main forum but, as I do Red on Red, that's not likely to happen:D . So for now, I'll stick to making my announcements in the scenario forum where they'll stay on the first page without me having to bump them.
Now we can just let this post sink off the front page into oblivion...