[The Hasrabit Campaign]

bodkin:

are you playing v2 of the campaign? Did you lose any of the earlier missions? Almost all of them have some influence on this mission. regardless on how well you did in them, you have two modules of 81mm mortars available to you in this mission, and in v2, you have more ammo for these modules, (although you had enough to do the job in v1. The problem was that there wouldn't be much left for the next SF mission.) You also have a helicopter with several heavy strikes. And, to top it off, a bit later in the mission, four tanks to support your attack while the enemy has none. Of course, the latter two assets are only available if you succeed in some of the earlier missions.

Also, what are you doing with your artillery? One of the things I learned during the making of this campaign is that some types of missions are much more lethal than others. I don't want to post any spoilers yet but patience and developing intelligence on the enemy positions before making any substantial movements on the central objectives is the key. Just like in 'The Guards Counterattack', the reserves don't last very long and they won't hurt the Red side very much. But they are invaluable for gathering intelligence on the enemy forces for you.

[Reinforcements idea]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I occassionally don't WANT those reinforcements as I feel I've got the situation under control already AND I don't want the frame rate hit that comes with their arrival.

[The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns]

Hey, while we're at it. I want to ask about making changes to the core units file. I wanted to have my core units get progressively weaker as the campaign drew on so I follwed the instruction in the manual carefully. But when I complied the campaign and checked their status, nothing had changed. Is this not working or did I screw up.

quote from the manual

"From time to time changes may be made to the Core Units File hat require synchronization with existing Campaign battles. This is generally an extremely easy and painless thing to do.

Just open up the scenario file and Import Campaign Units again. Core Units already in the scenario retain almost all of their

customization, such as placement, Group assignments, Orders, etc. Therefore, synchronizing with the Core Units File does not

wipe out hard work! What it does do is remove units no longer in the Core Units File, imports newly added units, and updates attributes (such as names, experience, etc.). The latter is

probably the only potential drawback of synchronizing since customized settings like that must be redone."

Okay, it doesn't mention 'weakened' but I also tried altering their experience both ways and that didn't work either. It looks like the campaign can only use the first core unit file. If that's true, then it's a pity as there is great potential in this.

[The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns]

Steve

"The decision is made (IIRC) between setup and the actual start of the game. If you save before that (i.e. during setup or at the end of the previous battle) the AI Plan for that battle has not been chosen. As soon as the game starts playing out it's locked in for the rest of the battle, no matter when you save or come back to it."

Aha, excellent. That answers my question. So I HAVE just been unlucky. Thanks for the reply.

[Your Best Screen Shot?]

pandur

I"f you would like the map to try it out or re-work it to do something on your own with it, i can send it to you.

EDIT: at least it would give you a fast hint on how the frames are on your system without spending time to make something up on your own."

hey, that would be nice of you. You know where to find my email address. I think you might have just inspired me for my next set of missions, long range clashes between battalion sized Red mechanised forces. I'm already picturing the maps for two of them. But they'll be BIG. :eek:

[The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns]

FMB

"So does this mean that if I load the save game that the campaign automatically makes (i.e. during the setup phase) I will get the same attack plan every time?"

yup, that's my question too. When I've reloaded missions from the save point I always seem to get the same AI plan. With Strong Stand, there's an equal chance that I'll get attack plan A OR attack plan B. But I always seem to get the same one from THAT save point. It's like the AI has already chosen it's attack plan BEFORE the mission is saved.

Webwing, you must have noticed if this is true. When you say restart, you mean reload from that save point, yes? Or do you mean restart the campaign? I'm pretty sure you meant the first.

[Better fortifications in modual?]

Yeah, I have a tendency to keep my requests unreasonably reasonable . I'd love to see wire fully implemented in the game but if it's too much work for Charles and the team to do, THEN I'd settle for it as a flavour object as long as it blocks infantry movement.

I suspect it will come with the WW2 module. It's hard to see how it could be omitted from that theatre.

[The Hasrabit Campaign]

Here you go Pandur,

I posted thais list of changes on page 1 but understand you don't wish to encounter any spoilers while trying to find it.

"Strong Stand.

Just before releasing the campaign, I made a quick change to the Red OB to give them enough strength to keep them in the fight until time expired. However, I forgot to change the VP allocations in the game to account for this. I have deleted the 'new' units. This means that you'll now be playing the heavily playtested version which is MUCH easier to win.

Hill 142

Three changes to this one.

a) after reading afreu's post I realised that one of the Red VP conditions was Touch and not Occupy. I changed that.

I also removed the tank that begins on the map at the start. Instead, it will arrive as a reinforcement with the other tanks later in the mission. Again, that was a last minute change to the campaign. The commanders tank was originally assigned to B Company's task force. I had my reasons for changing it but when I moved it I put it in Blue AI group 5, NOT reinforcement group 5.

c) I also noticed that the briefing for one of the branched missions was the wrong one.

Buying the farm

I deleted the tank from the Red OB. I figure this mission is difficult enough without having to fight off this monster too. Again, this was a (rather sadistic) last minute change which I regretted as soon as I read the first posts in this thread.

Core Units

I removed the 'Weakened' condition from the Special Forces as the valley is their home base. The RG units still have 'weakened' status.

I had originally planned to have two sets of core units, one for the night missions and one for the day. But the option to edit core units in some missions in a campaign doesn't seem to be working so I just made them all weak throughout the campaign.

Breakout

I added a TON of flavour objects to the map. I forgot to add any before I compiled the camapign. They're there now.

Artillery

I gave the Special Forces artillery modules a bit of extra ammo to make sure that you still have some for 'Breakout'. You NEED artillery to get through that one. It's not much extra however so still need to be economical with it."

So, that's the list of changes for v2. If I've learned one thing from making this campaign, it's don't make any last minute changes without playtesting those missions again. Both the 'Strong Stand' and the tank error in the Hill mission were introduced on the morning I posted it. And that same morning, I also added a tank to 'The Farm' because I was a bit concerned that I'd made the whole campaign too easy :eek: . As soon as I read the first post about 'Ambush' I regretted it. It's gone now so don't worry. Hope you have fun with it...

Secondbrooks

Sorry about that error mate. I hope it doesn't spoil the experience for you. I don't really blame anybody for reloading and restarting THAT mission as it's a tough one to beat the first time. It was very hard for me to be objective about playtesting 'The Barrier' as I know the AI attack so well and I know how to take it apart.

[Last stand at Blood Ridge]

Mishga

nice to see you posting again. It's been a long time. And so many new scenarios too. Now we know what you've been doing. I thought perhaps you got a bit stressed out with producing so many maps for the QBG and you needed a CMSF Holiday.

I'm actually taking a short break from CMSF for a few days until I get inspired to do do something else. Once I'm back in the mood, I'll try and give this one a spin. It sounds like my sort of battle... desperate.

[Your Best Screen Shot?]

I have an idea for a short campaign consisting mostly of armour battles, tentatively called 'Death if the Third' keeping in with my Syrian Civil war storyline. However, I'm a bit 'worked out' with the last one and I'd prefer to do some work on something much smaller next. However, it's good to see that 3500m range tank battles are 'doable'.

[How often do you use Area Fire!?]

I haven't played as the US side for MONTHS now but when I did, I often used it. But that's from way back in the 1.04 days. Playing as the Syrians, I usually only use it after I've spotted something and it becomes a ?. Since the Red resupply option was introduced, I started to use it quite often and when I'm playing my campaign missions, I use it a lot as the republican Guards, even without any ?s.

[Better fortifications in modual?]

It was touched on earlier in this thread so let's see if I can get a definitive answer. Are there any plans to add wire to the game at some point? Even as a flavour object?

[Your Best Screen Shot?]

Kirq

nice one there. The top half of your picture is what does it for me too. I still remember the days when computer games were black and white squares moving jerkily across a tiny screen. (But still curiously absorbing)

Geez, Pandur. What mission is that!? I though I'd done a couple of big ones. 3500m!!! There's NO WAY my computer would be able to handle anything like that. Especially with all that smoke too. Nice pics though, especially the second one.

[Briefing text too small? ole Sniper eyes....]

I'd like to add my voice to this request too. It's hard work reading the briefings in a mission with the tiny type.

[The Hasrabit Campaign]

Secondbrooks

Yeah, you found a mistake but it's been corrected for v2. The Qabar South VP location was set as Touch, not Occupy. I'm not sure how I missed that one as it must have been in there from the start. I guess, every time I playtested it either got the enemy to surrender or they got me to surrender. So I never figured there was anything funny with it. Trust me, I playtested that one a ton of times because I loved it so much. And then, the morning I released it I made a change to the composition of the two Republican Guards task groups. I moved the company commander's tank from Company B's group to join the A-C team. (there was a very good reason for doing this. I just wish I'd thought of it sooner) But I pressed F5 instead of 5 and put them in Blue AI group 5 (which of course, there isn't) instead of reinforcement group 5. I could see the '5' on the screen and just moved on. Imagine my surprise when I loaded it up and found a tank on the map at the start. I would imagine it helps liven things up a bit at the start though. It's gone now in v2.

As for the size of some of the missions, yeah, I have to agree with you there too. But some of the maps really needed a big OB to do them justice. My next project will be much smaller and hopefully more intimate than this one. There are no monsters though. I found a way to script the overall story to keep 'Saudara' reasonably small and challenging.

You don't get hurt badly by a loss in 'Hill 142', but it will make the mission a bit tougher to beat. Try to get a win in "The Barrier" though.

afreu

yes, the first half of the mission is quiet but there's still a lot that you can do until the tanks arrive, ie scouting out targets. I really love the assault on the village phase. It's usually an extremely violent affair when i do it.

You ran away from the enemy in 'The Barrier' eh? I'm glad to read you didn't reload and try again. 'The Barrier' is a tough one to beat but, like the briefing says, it's a psychological barrier for you as much as your pixelated troops. It's actually quite tough for the AI to reach that point if you contest the mission with them and once your armour arrives, you can kick their asses. I stop them cold every time now but it's a matter of casualties incurred while doing so.

The two missions I am genuinely scared of playing are 'Strong Stand' and 'The Barrier'. I get sweaty palms before playing both of them and groan when they come up but once the mission gets underway, I usually end up having a great time. After 'Ambush', 'The Barrier' is the shortest mission in the campaign. I don't reckon my nerves would hold out for much more than 35-40 minutes in that mission.

'Strong Stand' has two attack plans. Personally, I prefer it when the yard in the centre is the main focus of their attack. The northern workshed attack is much scarier, for me at least.

[The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns]

Thanks for the reminder, I wanted to ask about that. So far, every time I've reverted to the save point at the begiining of the new mission in a campaign, the AI always uses the same attack plan. (For testing guys ) There are a few missions in my campaign that have two or more AI plans, and when I loaded them back up, I always got the same AI plan. Perhaps I've just been unlucky? Or has the AI already chosen it's plan when the save box comes up?

[The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns]

Saving DURING a mission and reloading from that point is about as gamey as it gets. I freely admit that I do this with RPGs and console games if the option is available but to do it in a wargame really seems like the worst form of cheating.

I like the idea that the game would automatically save at the end of a mission and overwrite the previous save file but I think that would be VERY unpopular. So, I accept that people are just going to play it the way that they want to and that's that, and I'm fine with that too. I'm just tyrying to encourage a few stalwarts to attempt to play the whole thing without reloading a failed mission. Apart from 'The farm' mission, none of the branches lead to catastrophic levels of difficulty. I was tempted to make failure in that particular mission an automatic 'out'. But I decided to let people have the chance to reverse the loss. But it will be really TOUGH to do that.

I read somewhere else about people complaining about core force abuse. To my mind, there is a remarkably simple way for the designer to discourage this sort of behaviour, and others have suggested this too. It's to select all the non-core forces in the mission editor and make them one (or more) group for the unit parameter victory condition. If you select 'Destroy' (NOT Destroy all) and allocate say 2000 points to the Red side for that group's destruction, you'll be able to really punish the player for losing units in these groups. Determining the point allocation requires some work on the designers part to get right here but it works.

In my campaign, this really isn't an issue as you're expected to abuse those pathetic reserve forces shamelessly when they're available . It's factored into the Friendly casualties bonii too so that you can lose most or all of the Reserves and still get earn the bonus.

[The Hasrabit Campaign]

FMB

I tried downloading v2 this morning and something appears to be wrong with it. I was at work but had left instructions for my wife how to do it. She phoned me later to say that it hadn't worked but when I checked CMMODS at work, v2 appeared to be there.

Anyway, if you didn't get a short read me about the changes with the campaign file, you didn't get v2. I tried uploading it again twice this morning with no success. Man, CMMODS can be very tricky sometimes. I'm going to try again tomorrow morning. I can't apologise enough to you folks. After hyping this thing up for months, I'm a bit embarrassed that I've stuffed up the upload.

Back to your result. The AI receives a Friendly Casualty bonus in most scenarios to prevent the player from hitting 'cease fire' early to get a win. In some missions, it's set quite high and 'Strong Stand' is one of them. It's high here because I want the AI to stay in the fight for the orchards and the east yard. Really, if you've beaten the attack and recaptured the farmhouse, they really don't have much left so I suspect you must have been very close to that threshold.

afreu

how far are you through the campaign? I am very curious to hear people's opinions about the missions, especially 'Hill 142' and 'Buying the farm'. I think they're the best two missions in Phase 1 and possible candidates for best missions in the whole campaign. Personally, I think 'Saudara''s the best but it'll be a while before you folks get there.

[The Hasrabit Campaign]

Normal Dude:

"Wow, after playing the second scenario, I think I would rather have teeth pulled than try to take an objective with green troops."

I know how you feel. The combination of the night setting, friendly fire and their low experience/morale make this one of the most challenging attacks you have to make in the whole campaign. If they're not handled just right, it's easy to lose control of them and you just sit helplessly and watch them slaughter each other. I remember one playtest when some of them panicked under fire and they ran back into the farmhouse. But once they got in there, they started firing on their buddies who started panicking and firing back. Once they started firing their RPGs at their own tanks and they tanks fired back, I knew that I was a goner.

Did you get a win?

[The Hasrabit Campaign]

FMB

"I only ended up controlling the Farmhouse and contesting the other two after losing 3 tanks and having the last one immobilized. I also took appalling casualties in doing so and so ended up with a Total Defeat."

If you're playing version 2, and you were contesting control of the peach orchard and the east yard, you must have been REALLY close to getting that win. The enemy must have been dangerously close to losing their friendly casualty bonus and when they do that, resistance collapses and they usually surrender.

Don't panic as the consequences of losing this mission are not catastrophic. It'll just make another later scenario a bit more 'exciting' to play, that's all. Good luck with "The Guards Counterattack'. You' be the one dishing it out for a change.

[The Hasrabit Campaign]

Ha ha! If you think they're hard to handle now, you should have seen what 1.08 did to this scenario when they were all conscripts with low motivation. They were utterly uncontrollable once the shooting started. I bumped them up to Green and that ALMOST got it back to where it was before 1.08.

You're right, the Green vehicle crews do have a tendency to exit their vehicles when they come under fire. Fun when that happens, isn't it.

[The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns]

Sorry guys, I was posting at work and I had to stop suddenly and actually DO some work! Bummer. Anyway, I didn't get round to finishing my post. I was hoping to argue that it'd better for players to approach a dynamic campaign as if it were a single grand scenario.

To make the story work, I had to set up a couple of missions where a particular condition must be met to 'get a win'. It would be better to think of victory/defeat meaning go to branch A or branch B rather than, "phew, I sucked big time in this mission". A good example of this will be found when you play 'The Barrier'. You don't have enough time to hunt down and kill the entire enemy force so you can't negate a successful AI 'touch objective' by getting the AI to surrender.

FMB, I certainly wasn't 'aiming' anything at you. I have to confess that even I think it would be better to start again if you get a bad start there. Prior to 1.08, that mission was extremely simple to win as long as you knew how to use the tools you'd been given. I felt it was unlikely that most of you guys were familiar with handling Special Forces so it was actually intended to be a Special Forces training mission. However, the TAC AI self-preservation routines introduced in 1.08 certainly made it a bit more challenging than I'd wanted it to be. I hope you enjoy the newer version. It should be a lot more forgiving of your losses.

Combatintman

Thanks for your comments. Yeah, some of the early missions are quite big. I tried really hard to keep them challenging while going easy on the CPU. After all, if they won't run smoothly on MY computer, what's the point? I've been told that WEGO is the great equaliser for CPUs. Perhaps they might still be playable on your rig using WEGO?

Webwing.

The AI does quite a lot of attacking in this campaign. I've spent a LOT of time just designing the AI attack plans. If you think it's impressive in Ambush, I can't wait to hear what you think of 'The Barrier' >shudder<

[The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns]

I have posted a new version of my campaign at CMMODS to correct a couple of the worst mistakes I made. However, having read a couple of things being posted about campaigns in other threads I wanted to start this discussion.

The campaign I put up attempts to be dynamic. That is, that the result of each mission will have some influence on what happens in subsequent missions in the campaign. The campaign therefore has a number of different paths to the finale.

However, it's very likely that the majority of players will simply reload a mission that they failed to win before progressing to the next one. Okay, that's fine if you want to do that. After all, it's on YOUR hard drive now, do what you want. But if you do that, you'll miss the branched missions.

I think the reason why people do this is because they are more accustomed to playing scenarios, or a campaign that requires the player to get a win before you can progress to the next mission. But a dynamic campaign is more like a story or an adventure. It's really one huge extended scenario and I think it is better to play it with this in mind.

To create a dynamic campaign, each mission must check if a particular condition has been met. therefore, you may feel like you kicked some ass in that mission but still got a loss because you failed to fulfill some important aspect of the mission. An example was quoted by Webwing in the 'Where do we go from here' thread. Somebody completed one of the missions but got a loss because he didn't find/kill the Red artillery spotter. Because of this failure, the artillery spotter was sitting in his foxhole calling in the coordinates of your units when the next mission started.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

[The Hasrabit Campaign]

I've just uploaded a new version of the campaign to CMMODS that takes care of a small number of issues listed below.

Strong Stand.

Just before releasing the campaign, I made a quick change to the Red OB to give them enough strength to keep them in the fight until time expired. However, I forgot to change the VP allocations in the game to account for this. I have deleted the 'new' units. This means that you'll now be playing the heavily playtested version which is MUCH easier to win.

Hill 142

Three changes to this one.

a) after reading afreu's post I realised that one of the Red VP conditions was Touch and not Occupy. I changed that.

I also removed the tank that begins on the map at the start. Instead, it will arrive as a reinforcement with the other tanks later in the mission. Again, that was a last minute change to the campaign. The commanders tank was originally assigned to B Company's task force. I had my reasons for changing it but when I moved it I put it in Blue AI group 5, NOT reinforcement group 5.

c) I also noticed that the briefing for one of the branched missions was the wrong one.

Buying the farm

I deleted the tank from the Red OB. I figure this mission is difficult enough without having to fight off this monster too. Again, this was a (rather sadistic) last minute change which I regretted as soon as I read the first posts in this thread.

Core Units

I removed the 'Weakened' condition from the Special Forces as the valley is their home base. The RG units still have 'weakened' status.

I had originally planned to have two sets of core units, one for the night missions and one for the day. But the option to edit core units in some missions in a campaign doesn't seem to be working so I just made them all weak throughout the campaign.

Breakout

I added a TON of flavour objects to the map. I forgot to add any before I compiled the camapign. They're there now.

Artillery

I gave the Special Forces artillery modules a bit of extra ammo to make sure that you still have some for 'Breakout'. You NEED artillery to get through that one. It's not much extra however so still need to be economical with it.

I really must apologise to you guys who have already started playing this campaign. I admit that I was in such a hurry to get it released in time for the weekend that I put it up without thoroughly checking the changes I made to it first. I should really have playtested the new version of 'Strong Stand'. Instead, I playtested 'Saudara' and 'The Barrier' exclusively during the final stages of development.

I am hoping that these changes will make the campaign a bit easier to complete. I think 'The Farm' mission is one of the best in the campaign and sticking in that tank was a very bad idea. Instead, you'll really haver to fight to get your win without having to deal with a tank in open terrain as well.

[The Hasrabit Campaign]

That sounds right. That mission can only be successfully completed IF you kill the artillery spotter. Failure to do so results in a branch leading to a mission with more artillery support for the AI. The bonus was given to the AI to make sure that ONLY this condition (ie getting the artillery observer) was the deciding factor. Of course, you can't win it if you don't control the village either. To make a campaign dynamic with real consequences to success and failure, it's necessary to skew the VP conditions to ensure the player fulfills his objective.

Anyway I'll have another look at it this morning. Did you win in the earlier missions afreu?