[A brief introduction to my previous work]

I might have to review Road to Dinas when I have some time. I've forgotten so much about it so I can't give you any pointers about any missions (yet). I know that there were some quite big actions in it and that it was free of the concerns about civilian casualties which meant being able to fire large quantities of HE at buildings.

I can't get it on the Repository though as the link is broken. There'a absolutely no rush though as I want to rework 'Gung Ho!' first.

[Revising The Road to Montebourg campaign]

It's always heartening to geed feedback on your work, even better if it is positive.

Don't worry, I'm taking care not to up the difficulty too much. In the revised version, the 2/8 INF's experience will largely be Green because in testing, I found these units performed more realistically with Green. However, you get air support in some missions which compensates for the loss.

The PIR and GIR units won't be changed in any way except of course, there will be flamethrowers in some missions. I haven't seen them yet but they're in the new core unit file.

As it happens, today, I worked on the second, 'new' mission, based on Brecourt, and this is a fine opportunity to make use of the AI triggers. There is a small counterattack that was 'timed' in the original mission but now it will happen when you touch an objective. Not saying which one though. I'm learning how to handle units more effectively in RT now so testing the missions has become much more fun.

'Turnbulls' Stand' has a much better set of AI attack plans now. (I was appalled when I reviewed the AI plans as they were pretty basic and lacked any real co-ordination. While that is more realistic given the historical action meant that the Germans were surprised, it was an 8-hour action condensed into 40 minutes so it can't be too unco-ordinated. Otherwise, it's a wipe out for the AI)

I'm not sure if you'll be pushing them back but based on what I've watched on Youtube, I wouldn't put it past a good player to slay them regardless and drive them off the map. Not to spoil anything but they have a more realistic attack behaviour now. I pulled off a couple of victories in testing yesterday though and I'm still far from being a 'good' player yet so it's not going to be an impossible task for a reasonable player. Oh, and there are old, captured French tanks which have replaced the MkIVs. Boy, do they suck! But they're fast.

[A brief introduction to my previous work]

BTW, a small footnote to this:

My early design inspirations were George Mc's scenarios. I always considered any scenario from him to be a master class work. Challenging but fair. Perhaps it's a Scottish thing? :D

For map design, Pete Wenman was a major inspiration and pointed me in the right direction. His map work is fantastic and I drew some considerable inspiration from his early CMSF maps.

There are others that I admire very much but I wouldn't say they inspired or influenced my work. They have developed their own distinct style and so it's theirs.

[A brief introduction to my previous work]

I guess I look like the new kid in town but I used to be a bit active around here a while back. For reasons I won't go into in this post, I took a long break (10 years) and am back cautiously getting reacquainted with the new game.

First, how do I roll? I really like to play missions on realistic-looking maps. I don't like to play anything that is too easy or too difficult so I work for a challenging but fair difficulty a lot of the time and I like to play with all the bells and whistles - that means the player gets artillery, air support and any of the other things that a player would want to play with.

So what have I done? let's look at the unofficial Repository stuff first.

 

Hasrabit - 10 missions Red v Red

Player controls Republican Guards and Special Forces against Rebel Syrian army units

Road to Dinas 16+ missions IIRC, Red v Red

Player controls Rebel Syrian army forces against the RG and SF. Basically, the other side.

Right from the start, I worked with a twin-story mode in all my campaigns where you play with two (or more) formations with thair own stories, some cross-over and each with a finale for both. I've stuck with this format almost exclusively.

Road to Dinas got me noticed and I was invited to join the Beta team and from then on, most of my content was on the 'disks' that you bought. However, I did make up a short campaign for the USMC called 'Gung Ho!' which I'll talk about later. Not to be too modest but my stand-alone scenarios were nowhere near as good as my campaign stuff and there were very few of them. Campaigns are MY thing, the medium I'm most at home with. So, onto the official campaigns. There are a few of these ...

 

CMSF NATO

I was asked to head the creation of three NATO campaigns for that module. I produced the concepts and campaign plan for all three and was a major contributor to the German campaign. The Canadian campaign is almost entirely my own creation with one mission from MikeyD included so that I couldn't say that it was ALL my own work. I didn't contribute anything to the Dutch campaign other than the design. Not that there was an issue or lack of interest in the Dutch, but rather that there were other testers who all wanted to contribute.

This marks a shift as well for me as I was previously doing Red v Red where the two sides were fairly matched and casualties weren't really a thing. With the player having all the tools you'd like to play around with, I had to resort to low tolerance for friendly casualties. After all, when it's not an existential war, the Western countries tend to frown on taking heavy casualties and don't particularly like to cause civilian casualties either. Both of these strongly factor into the NATO campaigns. This was not going to be an issue for WW2 though.

 

CMBN

The Road to Montebourg - 18 missions

This was a monster but I was so excited to be playing with a WW2 theatre again that it wasn't as much work as you might think.

The Scottish Corridor - 14 missions + a hidden bonus

I started getting creative with the campaign scripting and so this has a complex structure.

The Road to Nijmegen - well, it's a long one

This was the last of my official campaigns. It's an absolute monster and pushed me to the limits. I playtest all my own content very thoroughly in Real Time and so the large battalion-sized Irish Guards missions took an age to get right. The Breakout from the Neerpelt mission was one of my personal favourites and I spent ages tweaking it to get it to where I was happy with it.

The difficulty here was mainly derived from maintaining your forces so that they were battle-worthy in future missions. While there were still casualty awards for both sides, the real problem for the player was the attrition of your forces. These campaigns were all long so husbanding your forces was very important.

With regards to difficulty, there were some real 'pigs' in the historical WW2 missions because, historically, the Allies lost these actions or were hurt very badly winning them. A good example was the Hell in the Hedgerows in Montebourg. Or the entire Scottish Corridor campaign  Otherwise, challenging and fun is my gig. Hopefully, you'll be seeing more in the not-too-distant future.

[Revising The Road to Montebourg campaign]

I wouldn't worry about me burning out this time. My real-life work situation is practically serene compared to what was going on 10+ years ago. Plus my mother died which was a bit upsetting. While I plan to do some smaller campaigns, I doubt I'll ever try anything as ambitious as the Nijmegen campaign again. But declaring that would be stupid - these projects take on a life of their own as I work on them and I think, 'Ah, a mission with this would be cool!'

That's a good suggestion - it's been 10+ years since I made anything so who knows who I am. I'll make up another post for the main boards after this.

[Revising The Road to Montebourg campaign]

Some of you may have noticed that I've poked my head up again after a very long absence. I've just been very busy with real life and wanted to spend some time playing games rather than designing content. But this game is a bit like crack for me, it's just so addictive and watching Usually Hapless play this campaign on Youtube got me back into it. (Yes, it's ALL your fault Hapless  )

I've done a bit of work fixing things and now want to turn my attention to my first campaign for CMBN, the Montebourg campaign. It's the oldest and was made using v1.0 of the engine meaning that there are only 8 AI groups and no air support. There have also been a number of changes to the game which mean that I can experiment with some of the new stuff while reworking this one.

It's not going to be a total overhaul but it will no longer work for players with only the CMBN base game so it's a Repository jobbie. I'll let you guys know what you'll need but it will probably require the full Monty as I want flamethrowers in it. It's also worth saying that anything new in it will be historically accurate and not just added in for the laughs. So no SS with JgPZIVs. Pity.

So, I'll keep you up to date with my progress on this. I'm not looking to do a LOT of work. It's mainly to reacquaint myself with the scenario designer and writing AI plans.

 

Mission 1

I have no plans to change anything at all about the opening mission at all. It's fine as is.

Mission 2

There is a 'new' short 'Brecourt' mission. It's not really new though as it was in the revised version on the Repository. I'll need to tweak this one as the game seems to have become more lethal since I last played it but otherwise, it's good to go.

Mission 3

The first mission to get a full rework is Turnbull's Stand. I'm reworking the AI attack as there were only two AI plans and they were terrible. I've made a number of revisions to the map itself to reflect the reality of the day so it's a bit more open with less bocage and more hedges.

I've spent pretty much all morning and most of the afternoon learning how to script an AI attack using the new tools and the first AI plan is almost done. I want a second one with an entirely different focus but it should be much faster to do as I'm not 'learning' anymore. Then, I'll mix it up so that there's four attack plans.

 

And that's where I'm up to. There's no timetable on this. I'm not in any hurry but by posting about it here, I've kind of declared my intentions and am far more likely to stick with it.

[New file at the Repository: The Road to Montebourg (Revised) (2012-05-27)]

9 hours ago, Erwin said:

Both campaigns are about 30.4MB.  If you have a dropbox I can send both or the one you want now if you like.  (Send me a link.)

Original dated:  5/29/12

Revised:  1/30/19

Sorry, I was in a hurry when I typed my response. My wife was calling me to do something so it's a tad abrupt.

How are you Erwin? Thanks for the offer but Bootie has restored the Montebourg revised file and he's dug up my old CMSF campaign , USMC Gung Ho! which I'd really like to revisit for CMSF2. I want to do some work on the old campaigns before embarking on a new one.

[New file at the Repository: The Road to Montebourg (Revised) (2012-05-27)]

I've got it thanks. Booties has restored the links and the file downloads properly too.

[uncam: Combat Mission campaign extractor]

I'm a bit hesitant to make definite statements about what I'm going to do at this point but I'm getting re-inspired. I'd like to look at CMSF2 soon but first, I want to get some issues with my CMBN campaigns sorted out.

I'm concerned about the difficulty of The Scottish Corridor mission, especially the finale, Fair and Square. I'd be happy to hear some feedback on that before making any real plans. 

I think Nijmegen is in a good place and would prefer not to have to do a lot of work on that apart from fixing an issue witha bunker in the Mook Bridge mission. The Irish Guards missions were extremely hard work to build and test because I wanted them to be really special, especially 'Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead', my favourute mission from that campaign.

[New file at the Repository: The Road to Montebourg (Revised) (2012-05-27)]

Hi guys. I've been trying to download the revised version but I'm told that there is no file to download. If anyone has a copy of this revision, I'd be very grateful if you could let me know and see if I( can download it from somewhere.

[uncam: Combat Mission campaign extractor]

21 hours ago, JM Stuff said:

Hi guy I dont know you because I starting to post on this forum after you go, but I saw a lot of yours mods and there were already interresting, just to say, welcome back to the forum that never died !

 

Heemm I think I missed to see the day that this post was on the forum !

Cheers

 

Trust me, I'm grateful. Without your tool, I wouldn't be able to do anything with my CM campaigns because I lost everything. I got the campaign script and all the missions with your tool. Some of the missions are missing an OB but I know what's missing because they're variants of the main missions.

[uncam: Combat Mission campaign extractor]

I just burned out after CMBN Market Garden, I guess. Even before starting the maps, the RESEARCH that was required to make a campaign like the three I made for CMBN was a massive undertaking. I'm going to take it VERY slowly but yes, I plan to make some new content. I doubt very much I'll ever make anything like 'The Road to Nijmegen' again because some of the missions in that featured an entire reinforced battalion and that exceeds my pain threshold for RTS. I can DO it but I miss so much of the action in RT because I'm too focused on what platoon X is doing and that's a lot of the fun in CM for me. I like to get the camera down to ground level and see the action from my pixel troops' POV rather than the God view.

I expect you'll see campaigns with reinforced company sized actions and a few smaller reinforced platoon missions to change the pace from me. But there's quite a lot changed with regards to AI scripting - more groups is always going to result in better AI plans but the triggers were relatively new when I last played and I didn't see much need for them. I'd like to see what some of the other guys have doe with the new scripting and see if it's better.

[uncam: Combat Mission campaign extractor]

On 7/12/2018 at 4:19 PM, Rokko said:

Hello,

I had pretty much given up on CM back in 2016 for various reasons and mostly lost interest in anything CM related as well. The announcment of CMSF2 has brought me back somewhat and, coincidentally, I am currently learning a new programming language. So I decided to write a little application I had wanted to write even way back then, which can extract scenarios from campaign files so you can look at them in the editor or edit them. Mad Mike's ScAnCaDe is a great tool for parsing scenario files, extracting campaigns and visualizing scenario and campaign metadata. However, it does not work with the 'legacy' CM games Shock Force 1 and Afghanistan. Also, who knows if Mad Mike is still around to update it anymore for future versions. He did a great job deciphering the various campaign file formats that have existed throughout CM's lifetime and much of what I did is based on his groundwork (which involves a lot of staring at hundreds of rows of bytecode and figuring out which bytes stand for which variables), so credit where credit is due. And while according to the devs you should be able to play any old campaign in CMSF2 out of the box, now you can also extract the scenario files from these campaigns and update them to the new engine standards, even if the original creators are now longer around.

I decided to focus on the extraction part and didn't bother with any of the metadata listing and visualizing. The tool should be able to extract any campaign file from any CM game so far and should also work with CMSF2 once it's released. I originally wanted to extract every bit of information required to also recompile the campaign from the extracted data without any further input, but that proved to be more difficult than I anticipated because some of that information is compressed or decrypted within the campaign files and I have not found a way yet how to extract that. This includes the campaign victory/loss texts and the complete core units and campaign briefing data. Maybe I will manage to add this at a later point. For now the scenario extraction works really well however, but I need some feedback from others. I don't have any CM games installed currently besides Shock Force and thus have only been able to  thorougly test the CMSF stock campaign as well as many campaigns downloaded from the Scenario Depot. So if anyone finds a campaign that does not work, make sure to post or send me the error log file that should be created. Usage of the application is as simple as it can be, just put the .exe file in a directory that contains any number of campaign files and start the executable.

 

uncam-0.9.zip

You are my favourite person from now on. Thank you for making such a simple tool available.

 

I'm afraid I had a horrible computer crash a few years back and lost everything CM-related and now I can access all the campaign files and perhaps rework them.

 

Thanks

 

PT

[Inverstigating the Scottish Corridor campaign]

Hi guys.

 

I have been kept very busy this last year or so with real life work commitments and I see that some folks have reported that The Scottish Corridor campaign has been broken by an earlier update.

 

I have had a look at the campaign with the latest build and it all seems to be working fine. I got a bit of a scare when I went into the Tiger mission and found that I couldn't see any British AT guns. But the AT teams start limbered up and you have to unlimber them and deploy them yourself.

 

I also read that there are missing Churchils from a mission. The mission I read he report about was 'No Hiding Place'. There are nine tanks available to you in that mission and there are nine tanks when you play it.

 

If there are any other issues or anything you think I should look at, please report it here and I'll do my best to fix it up in time for the next patch.

[Missions in NATO module....]

Sorry, but I can't remember the exact number of missions in the NATO campaigns but I'm

pretty sure the german campaign has most missions.

Best user made - well its a matter of taste but I really like USMC Gung Ho!

I know I've been away for a long, long time but I thought that USMC Gung Ho was the best thing I ever made.

 

Nice to see that folks are stil playing these old works.

[Third mission Road to Nijmegen Campaign AAR [video]]

It looks like there are more than one possible AI setups in the campaign.

There are four set-ups in this mission and two in the other Guards missions. Most of my campaign missions, from Montebourg to Nijmegen, have at least two AI plans, some a lot more. I design with replayability in mind.

[I'm so used to combined arms]

Hi! I meant no offense, or that it's bad.

None taken.

I enjoy LONG campaigns as well :].

IMO, scenarios are like short stories whereas campaigns are like novels. I tend to 'write' trilogies.

It's just that I found about every third to every other mission to be extremely difficult.

I wouldn't be surprised to read that every third mission or so is extremely difficult. That's because these missions are tests. If the player 'passes', he gets to step up a difficulty level, to Veteran for example, or back to Regular if he's currently playing Green. The big flaw in this system is that people like to win every mission and will replay until they get a win instead of accepting the loss and getting to play easier missions.

I can probably come back to this when I'm a higher skill level and do a bit better. Or maybe even just immerse myself in the inferiority of the british forces and enjoy that

I try to craft my missions so that they are challenging AND fun to play. If they're not fun, what's the point? Of course, my idea of what is 'fun' is likely to differ from yours. However, I'd argue that 'The Scottish Corridor' is perhaps the least fun to play of my campaigns because the subject material, Operation Epsom, was so grim and such a hard slog.

You might indeed find the German campaign more 'fun' to play for the time being. And if you kind of like what I've tried to do with this campaign you might enjoy 'The Road to Montebourg' which was designed primarily for fun.

But whatever, I hope you have fun playing what you're playing.

[I'm so used to combined arms]

Heh heh. This one continues to upset people. It got a lot of hate on release. If you hate it now, wait 'til you play 'Crescendo of Doom'.

The Cameronians are generally regular experience with Normal motivation.

The ASH are generally Green experience with Normal to High motivation.

Both have good NCOs and leadership.

There are actually a few, very good units scattered about in both infantry formations.

Churchills are definitely a bit crap when compared to Shermans and are certainly NO MATCH for Panthers. However, the OBs and match-ups in most of these campaign missions are about as historical as I could make them. The Brits didn't do very well 'Going to Church' either. The 7th and 9th RTRs were both equipped with Churchills and they did do battle with some Panthers along the way.

Yes, it's a long campaign. That's just the way I make them. It could easily have been released as two separate campaigns, one for the Cameronians, 'The Road to Grainville' and one for the ASH, 'The Road to Gavrus', but two core groups is pretty much how I've been designing campaigns from the get-go. (Hasrabit had the Republican Guards and the Special Forces)

[Updating The Road to Montebourg]

I'll have a wee look at that one and see if there's a problem. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

[Game Mechanics: Human vs. AI]

I would like to know which kinds of 'Orders' the AI uses in either QB's or Scenarios, and which 'Orders' are used under what circumstances?

The AI can use Fast (Dash), Quick (Quick), Advance (mainly Assault movement orders for infantry squads and Quick for support teams), Assault and Max Assault (which might mean Slow) movement commands. It never uses Hunt and will only use Move when the units are approaching exhaustion. Under which circumstances depends on which order the scenario/QB map designer issues to that particular order.

Important to remember that the AI cannot reverse its vehicles except when the Tac AI determines that they are threatened and tells them to back up. If you want them to back up as part of an order, they will turn their backsides to the enemy to do so.

ex; Does the AI use 'Run', 'Hide', or 'Covered Arcs'.

As above for Run. The Fire order can make the AI group Hide when it reaches its current order. As for covered arcs, we can issue these by giving them an Ambush order with a range. However, these are NOT the same as the covered arcs you are likely to use. They are 360 degree covered arcs so if you want to play by the same rules as the AI, you have to do this too.

One nice thing about giving an AI group an Ambush order is that they will maintain their facing at the end of the movement order rather than swivelling to face their next order.

How does everyone else handle or balance their QB's or Scenario's against the AI ?

Through repeated play, intensive testing, in particular, observing AI units following their orders in Scenario Author mode and making adjustments where necessary. It's a lot of work but, for me, it's fun work. I spend at least as much time testing AI plans as I do creating my maps.

[Such heavy losses.]

A quick reply, you might want to have a few guys performing a Target Light fire mission on the building you're attempting to enter. As long as you don't throw any HE at the building, your boys won't get hurt by the small arms fire.

Also, place a movement waypoint outside the door so that your assaulting squad can use Target on the building as well. Go in hard and heavy and don't mind the ammo expenditure. There's plenty more in your vehicles.

Or you can use SMOKE. It's amazing how frequently folks forget to use this valuable asset. I use it all the time.

[How about WW1?]

Auuuuustrallllliaaaaaaaaaaa.

I should have said the Commonwealth instead of Britain, my bad! The New Zealanders threw their hat in the ring too.

[How about WW1?]

I don't think that WW1 would offer much for the CMx2 engine, that's for sure. I might be wrong but I suspect that the BFC guys are really armour fans and that might apply to their customer base as well. Me, I'm more of an Infantry guy I like tanks but I don't want them to be the centrepiece of my missions.

I think WW1 Grand Strategy, done properly, would make for a very good wargame. I am looking forward to AGEOD's 'To End All Wars' too. But it might be a few months after the release before it becomes really first-class. If they can make sure that fronts remain reasonably static and hard to crack without one side making a major effort, it'll be a classic.

To be sure, the air and naval aspects of the war have been more popular with the gaming community at large.

[How about WW1?]

For me, WW1 is the ultimate war for a wargame as it featured static lines, massive, lengthy offensives that resulted in gains of a few kilometers at most. I have no idea why but that's a big, big draw for me.

It probably doesn't help that it's not a war that the US got involved in until near the end either . Until 1917, it's just Germany, Austria-Hungary, The Ottomans, France, Britain, Italy and Russia plus a few Balkan minors thrown in for good measure.

[What is your favorite combat mission?]

I assume it won't be the buggy mess that CMSF was when it released

That was a one off and I don't expect that ever to happen again. We can speculate that BFC were forced to released the game before they thought it was ready due to contractual relations with another game company. Steve posted once that v1.05 was the version he'd have liked to release the game in. That was about 3-4 months after the release. Since then, BFC have been releasing games when they are ready and every other CMx2 title has been pretty solid at launch.