Paper Tiger

Okay, this comes from this morning's playtest. this is the board at 6am... It's the same as the scenario start. This lack of light kills this situation and makes it completely unplayable. Red MOUT operations are hard enough without having to do it in low light conditions as well. I'd timed this one so that the player could take advantage of, first, the low light to approach positions and, later, take advantage of the light to attack the village. Now it's broken. That's a shame as I get the feeling this will be EXTREMELY LOW priority for fixing.

I'll be playtesting this situation again after posting this so I should get some screenshots from later in the game. Pre-1.06 the sun definitely rose at around 5am and it got brighter and brighter and that was part of the tactical challenge.

Okay, here are a few screenshots from a small test I did this morning. This is a picture from the scenario editor; there are four groups deployed in the four houses from left to right. Also note that there are actually four AI groups, this picture shows only one but it's edited to show them all as one group so that I don't have to post 4 pictures. The first building occupies one whole tile. There's no problem with the set up for this group... everybody's in the building. But there is no set up area outside the building. The next building is placed on two half tiles. Both those tiles are selected as set up zones. How does the AI set up this group? and on the other side... That makes NOBODY deployed inside the building. They have obviously chosen not to. What about an askew building? Again, everybody deploys outside the building. What's wrong with them. Did somebody fart in the house? And finally, a larger building thats askew... at last, ONE unit sets upinside the building but all the rest deploy outside. Now, I don't remember seeing this before but then I haven't really been designing any MOUT situations where the defender is the AI.Last night, I seleced larger areas with buildings and open space and not once did an AI unit set up in a building. The ONLY way to get them to deploy inside a building is to paint the 'whole tile' buildings only. Otherwise, it's outside for you. So, is this a 1.06 bug like the sun not rising during a scenario anymore? This is a real ball breaker for MOUT operations where the AI is the defender. Please note that when attacking, the AI moves into buildings just fine. This is a SET UP issue only...

that's the new "Hill 142 part 1' map at 6.00am in the morning. The new orchards are not there JUST for eye candy but I don't want to give anything away. I'm going to spend some more time editing the map to get it looking beautiful close up too, adding lots of flavour objects etc. And then I have to work out a new OB for Red so that it's not quite so tough for the Blue player. so far, I'm making very good progress and it's looking good for an early March release. However, I've had to drop 'Hill 142 part 2' for the time being and draw another map as the old one kept crashing after about 4 minutes. But, except for 'Hill 142 Part 1', all the Phase 1 battles are now finished and after I finalise the OB for The Hill, I'm going to do another test compile to see how things play out. At the moment, it's not a campaign like the one that came with the game. Instead, it's more like an adventure where you can get dumped out of it early. With that in mind, I don't really care just how hard the situations are on the core forces but each extra mission will be a reward for success in a previous one. There will be LOTS of branches now that I'm confident with the campaign scripting. I have some ideas that I'll keep quiet about how to make this special. This topic seems to have turned into a bit of a developers diary.

The first four piccies come from the scenario editor at four different times during the scenario... Board at 4.40am Board at 5.00am Board at 5.20am Board at 6.00am This one comes from some in-game action at 5.16am. And it stays that way until the end. Bummer!

This weekend I managed to complete 'Strong Stand' and it's a beauty. It's the closest thing I've come across so far that really FEELS like CMBO. I'm not going to say much more about it, other than it's really intense. I think some people will love it and others will hate it. Then today, I returned to Hill 142 Part 1 to work on it again. After playtesting it a couple of times, I changed the map adding two large orchards on either side of the village. Then, I tried to get the AI to deploy in the buildings but it wouldn't happen. I cut down the groups deployment zones so that they included buildings only but when there was a half tile in that set up area that was outside, thats' where they'd set up. Bummer, it looks like this is a new bug introduced by 1.06. If so, it's not going to kill this campaign as the MOUT operations that will be included will be when the player is the defender. If necessary, I can rework the map so that there are no half tiles although that's a lot of work. Further playtesting got me to thinking that it's too tough at the moment but then I noticed that the sun wasn't rising as it used to before 1.06. That was causing some big problems for the player as the entire battle is fought in reduced light conditions. Another bug? I noticed that it got darker when the moon set in 'Strong Stand' but the sun doesn't rise anymore. This will hurt this mission in particular. If these are bugs, it's a real shame because it will be at least another 4-6 weeks before we can reasonably expect another patch, possibly a LOT longer.

Today, I've been playtesting a scenario of mine that starts at 4.40 am and runs until 6.10am. Before 1.06, the sun rose a little after 5 and changed the nature of the battlefield but this hasn't been happening at all today, not once. It stays dark the entire battle. So I opened the editor and forwarded the time to 6am and it's brilliant sunshine. So it looks like the sun doesn't rise with 1.06 Bummer. Anybody else seeing this?

Anybody else seeing this? I have tried and tried to get the AI to set up in buildings in the editor but it just won't do it. I even selected the houses only as set up zones but the AI sets up outside even if there's just the tiniest outside area in its designated set up area. They would rather set up in the middle of a road than take advantage of the cover available in their set up zones. I can post screenshots if that's going to help. I missed a good one a few minutes ago where four machine gun squads were lined up outside a house like sardines in a can while their HQ unit was deployed upstairs in the house just behind them. There probably wasn't any room for him in the half tile so he HAD to set up in the house. I'd imagine this will make MOUT operations a bit lame if it's going to happen a lot.

Obviously NOT in 1.07 . I've just been 'google earthing' Syria and there are a lot of industrial type buildings that we just can't do presently; huge factory complexes, storage sheds tht look like huge row houses, etc . They are abundant in both urban and rural environments. Are there plans to expand the stock of building TYPES in the Marines module?

Frenchy: -Am I mistaken? Be nice if there were a color cue for R1 units, R2 units, etc...- nice idea. Yes, deploying units can be a BIG JOB! Usually, the entire force is dumped in one corner of the map and it's hard to see the formations. However, the whole process can be speeded up by double-clicking on a single unit and all other units in it's formation will be selected too. Then you can move them all to a clear part of the board and mount them up etc. Then continue, sorting units into their larger formations in the separate board areas until everything is sorted. Finally, return everything to the set-up zones where you want them. Reinforcements must be placed where they will enter the map as there is no 'Reinforcement entry point' in CMx2 (yet) ALL of the above is important for the side/s you intend the human player to play. However, if one side is intended to be played solely by the AI then just drag and drop EVERYTHING into that sides set-up zone and the AI plan will do all the rest for you, mount - dismount, groups and formations, reinforcements etc... As long as you create a new group for the reinforcements, you can specify where they will enter the board in the AI plan. Scripting's not as hard as it appears. Play around a bit with it and watch what happens. And there are a few threads in this forum about how to do it if you need some help. Good luck man

Nope, not that I'm aware of. You just have to guess. I'm having this problem with my scenario today. A 'Dismount on contact' order for the editor would be VERY useful.

Do you play CMx1 too? I think you're getting the two games muddled. That's how 'Hunt' worked in CMx1. It's never worked like that in CMx2. In CMx2 'Hunt' works more like CMx1's 'Move to contact' command.

heckler_rider As you said, it's not the game itself. That's solely the responsibility of the scenario designer. Why not fire up something different and see how you enjoy it then. I'm more like you, I prefer to move to contact first rather than start in LoS of the enemy. But sometimes, that's what the scenario designer wants to happen and it can be a lot of fun to play too. It can be very exciting... As for the artillery thing, the AI artillery MUST fire everything it's got about 30 seconds after the scenario starts so there's not much a scenario designer can do with it if it's not targeting set up zones. I tend to use it to restrict a players movement or for terrain denial but after it starts firing, there's no secret anymore and there's simply no point in trying to do anything beyond that with it.

I really like the idea that the AI could switch plans mid-game too. Since the game keeps casualty figures as percentages, it would be nice if it were tied to a plan as a condition, ie, if casualties exceed 50% stop attacking. However, I can foresee how this might cause problems occassionally when the defender is on the verge of collapse and the AI attacker hits the magic number and switches to defensive mode instead. But that happens in real life too.

It's good to know that it's going to get enhanced later but I'm far more interested in seeing AI artillery work as the manual says it should. In my opinion, this is one of the core game elements and it really deserves some attention. I can wait a long time for enhancements but does it really have such a low priority for fixing after 1.06?

thewood: I agree that the editor could be made a tiny bit more user-friendly too. It would be VERY useful if a sides forces were automatically placed in that sides set-up zone and mounted if possible rather than open the deploy units and spend 20-40 minutes dragging them from the opposite map corner to the set up area and then mounting them up etc etc etc. That's a LOT of work sometimes, especially when the situation is a big one. If the situation is only designed to be playable by one side, I'm aware that it's only necessary to have the AI force IN the set up zone and they'll mount/dismount according to their instructions but it's still a lot of work for the human side. The ability to actually SEE the flavour objects in the menu instead of a big number would also be a HUGE improvement to the editor.

If this is going to be the 'wish list' for 1.07, I'd like to add my voice to AI artillery improvements. It's one of the game fundamentals and even a small improvement in 1.07 would make the game more interesting, for example, if the "Destroy", "Damage" and "Suppress" options actually meant something in game. At the moment, I'm having to give the AI force a huge amount of artillery just to make sure that all the places they'd WANT to hit are hit because I can't match them to the AI plan. I understand that this is a long way off though. It would also be nice to have the ability to exit troops from the mapboard for VPs. I'd imagine the latter would require a considerable amount of coding though as they'd have to figure out a way to place an objective box offboard.

You can't edit a compiled campaign so nobody will be able to do that I'm afraid. There do appear to be some weird anomolies on pre-1.06 scenarios that I've noted elsewhere. I noticed that AI plans in some situations, not all, had their weight changed to "use sometimes" But I cahnged them all back and everything seems to be working fine again.

Whew, I spent the whole day, and most of the evening working on 'Strong Stand'. More about that later. But on Wednesday, I ran another playtest of 'Passed Off' and lost again because of THIS GUY!!! watch out for the Lone Gunman... Boy, those vehicle crewmen are tough cookies. That's him touching the phase line for a victory. The fun part is that he died about three seconds later. I was careless and I lost. The action in this scenario gets pretty intense sometimes. I guess it's nearly finished now but I've had so much fun playing this one since last weekend that I want to enhance it even more. Anyway, yesterday, I started work on the second of the Special Force missions called 'Strong Stand', or SS for short. I wasn't able to do any playtesting on this one before as there are lots of low walls and it's also at night. The original plan was for a single Special Forces Company with AT-14s to defend a farm against a determined Mech Battalion Group attack. I played through various iterations of it the whole day without any success and I was starting to think "nice map, shame about the battle". No matter what I did, how I set up or approached the situation, I was getting slaughtered. Those Special Forces are really good but 'They're no supermen". Not like the single US infantry PLATOON in "In Harms Way". Then, once again, when I took a break from it to eat dinner, I had an idea to make it work. So, after hastily shoving the remains of my meal down my throat, I returned to it and got my idea working. And boy, did it work! I was a bit concerned that it was going to be a clone of 'The Farm' but at night. I really want each battle to have it's own particular flavour and so I changed the victory conditions so that both sides are fighting for different objectives but in such a way as to make it logical for the player. Obviously, the west of the farm is important to the Red side while the east side is important to the Blue side. You're going to have to fight through Red's positions to get to your own objectives. I also whittled down the forces on both sides to stop it from turning into a monster, and I'm going to whittle Blues forces down even further later today. I also scripted a new AI plan with new groups to take account of the changes and fired it up and it all worked beautifully. I have my battle, now I just have to hone it and add another AI plan. In the battle, you get one company of Special Forces and you must hold the board until the first of your reinforcements arrive. And the cavalry is.... ta dah!... a bunch of nervous conscripts with the crappiest equipment the Syrians have, including a small number of really pathetic T-55s. Then your mission is to fight back and recapture the lost ground and occupy your objectives. I was a bit worried that fighting a battle with conscripts would be really boring but, because it's Red on Red and not Syria v the US, the conscripts are not nearly so useless. They require much more careful handling than the most players are going to be used to but that's your challenge. The real work I have now is to get another AI plan working and playtest it through to the finale. I only played the first hour last night but I really liked what I was seeing so I'm sticking with it. The map is also a beauty since I spent 2-3 hours expanding it, adding terrain features for both sides to fight over and LOTS of flavour objects. What a difference a few of them make. They are a LOT of work to get positioned in believable groupings but I think the effort is worth it. The Louch: Thanks for the offer. I think getting somebody else to playtest these scenarios would be a very good idea as I have my own playing style. I am slightly conservative but a more aggressive, high risk player might blow the scenario apart without any problems simply because he played it differently from me. That was one of the problems I was facing yesterday with SS. I was refining the AI plan to counter one of MY moves and later, it occurred to me that if the player sets up differently, he'd be able to slaughter the AI as it quickly moved with passengers mounted to their first objective. The missions don't look like Eastern Block I'm afraid but so far, they're so intense that I don't think you'll care too much. Hey, Pandur, if your rig can run a map that size, you shouldn't have any problems running the scenarios in this campaign. There's no map even close to that size, although the original Hasrabit map was pretty close. And it had this, (still does)... I always wanted to do something like that with the scenario editor. I've also noticed that all the extra work I put in creating my maps has finally paid off with 1.06. It's the patch I was waiting for and the maps really have a life of their own. Players will have to examine the terrain carefully when they're setting up, do a proper recon first because nothing is as simple as it first appears. I playtested 'Ambush' again yesterday morning and although I won, I took some losses because the AI behaviour is improved and the terrain helped the attacker. Yes, 1.06 is the best thing that happened to this game.

If I'm bumping this to get somebody's attention, I might as well add that it would be cool if the AI artillery zones were somehow linked to the AI plans. An example would be that the AI support zones are done in the same way but each AI plan could have it's own pick of the 20? Would this be possible?

Since you can't paint those objective zones off map, I'd say no. Have you tried painting one on a map and then shortening that map so that the objective zone is entirely offboard? If you try that, make sure you make a back up copy of your map first as it might stuff things up.

I have noticed that 1.06 has altered some of my scenarios currently under development. I played a couple this morning and they were definitely different. AI plans that were previously set as 'Not used' were reset to 'Use sometimes' as were all the other higher frequency scenarios, all 'Use sometimes'. Also, although the scenario was designed for a night when the moon was about half full and already set, it started with a full moon. I opened it in the editor and snuck a map preview and found that it was correct, resaved and everything was fine again. It looks like the new patch does a one time (hopefully) re-edit of some of your scenarios, nothing drastic, just unexpected. Syrian forces have much better night spotting abilities now. One Republican Guard squad spotted a tank at around 100m, a HUGE improvement over 1.05 when they couldn't see anything without some moonlight.

Thanks for the reply Mark. That helps a lot. The reason I'm asking is because I'm designing a campaign in which all the scenarios are fought within a single day, albeit within a relatively small area. I'm trying to keep it as realistic as possible so if some units lose their rides, they turn up at the next mission without them. Within a 24 hour framework, I'm thinking they won't get a new ride for the next mission, therefore replacements between scenarios are set at 0. And if they lose 50%+ of their force, the company/companies are not available again in the campaign.

This morning I playtested a couple of situations and was surprised to find that 1.06 has altered the scenarios somewhat. First, in 'Murder in the night', I opened it up and the moon was full. It should be less than half full and have already set. So I opened it up in the editor and checked the time and the date but nothing was different. Then I did a map preview and it was dark again. So I opened it up to play again and it was dark. Then, the AI used a plan that was previously disabled. So, after slaughtering the AI, I opened it up with the editor again and found that all four plans were 'use sometimes' when there should only two, one 'use frequently' the other 'rarely'. Republican Guard Infantry spot a bit better in the dark now thankfully. One squad spotted a tank at 100m which is a huge improvement over 1.05. Before, they couldn't see a vehicle a few metres away from them. Also, the BMP-2s always fire their AT-5s at tanks now so the scenario is acting like I intended it to. Then I tried 'Hill 142 Part 2' and the map was different, the previous uncut version. I was unable to play on that map without ridiculously low fps, (ie 1!) but I decided to try it out with 1.06. Frames were still very low, sometimes down to 4fps but almost playable but then, after about 5 minutes it just crashed. That's the end of that version of the situation. Fortunately I have another copy of the reduced map in the scenario folder (and the original that still has the village in the QB folder) that I've been working on so I'll go with that one instead. I have a plan to alter the terrain on that new map extensively so it will look different from the screenshot posted on the first page. I started work on 'Strong Stand' and even with it's rudimentary AI plan and OB it played okay. Most of the time was spent editing the map and it's looking like a really good place for a battle. Now I need to create a battle that does it justice. It's going to need a lot of work to get it anywhere close to the standard of 'The Farm'. Fortunately, tomorrow is a holiday here (Chinese New Year) so I'll be able to spend most of the day working on that situation. Like 'The Farm' and 'Passed off', it will probably grow through extensive playtesting until the situation is really tight.

It seems that this discussion is about what happens DURING a battle but I'm interested to know what happens to the poor suckers AFTER the action is over. The enemy has gone and its' time to pack up and move on either to the next objective or back homr. Does somebody come to pick up those without a ride (ie trucks) or do they have to walk. And a related point, is it feasible that they might receive a replacement vehicle shortly afterwards, ie the same day?