Paper Tiger

Tha last map is the Hasrabit map and it's based on a real location, a large village just to the south of Damascus International Airport. As soon as I googled it, I knew that I wanted to make it into a map. This one could take place at a different time of the day depending on the level of success you've had so far in the campaign. When you play this one, the Republican Guards have been pulled out of the area and you'll have the Special Forces and some Uncons representing the civilian militia loyal to the government to defend the town. This map could grow quite a lot as I'd like to put in a fictional bridge either to the north or to the west. That's the Hasrabit market square. I'm looking forward to doing some MOUT here. I'm hoping to have worn down the Special Forces core units by the time you get here so that it will be largely uncon and some IEDs. But again, I'll have to wait until after 1.06 before I can start playtesting this one as there are a few low walls again. And I haven't really sussed it out yet. I have plans for two more scenarios including the one I hope will kill most of your Special Forces. It will be something along the lines of the ASL scenario 'Hill 621'. I'll probably start that map later this afternoon. The other will come to me after I shoehorn the other scenarios into a coherent story line and test compile the campaign to see how it plays with the core forces getting reduced in each situation. If I can play without losing too much of my core force, I'll stick in another core force killer.

The last two maps are pretty much finished but the forces have yet to be determined. This screenshot was the original Hasrabit village but I've created a whole new map for the finale so this one will probably be quite a big clash of arms between the Republican Guards and a rebel mech force. The map is beautiful and this is the one I designed for a US v Syrian action. The screenshot is taked from the location where an M1 SEP took 10+ hits from Special Forces kornets and only got disabled. As you can see, it had a good view of the enemy positions. :eek: I'm a bit worried about this one as it's huge and runs quite slowly on my computer at the moment and I expect 1.06 to hurt it badly so it might not make it. Oh my god! I completely forgot about 'Passed Off'. It's the real senario 5 and it takes place at the same time as 'Buying the Farm' How could I forget this one . This one is finished and it's a toughie. Once again, it's a large map and it takes place after dawn. Two Republican Guards companies must halt a determined mech attack into the pass. It's almost finished. Presently, there are only two AI attack plans and one of them's a bit lame. I need to find one that really challenges the Blue force. Having said that, even the lame plan hurts the Blue force.

And that's pretty much where I'm up to at the moment. I have maps for four more situations finished at the moment and I'm working them into the story this weekend. I'm working on 'Hill 142 part 2' this afternoon and it takes place on a map that was created from the other one. I just cut off the eastern edge and expanded the western edge and it's looking really good. In this one, the Republican Guards must hold the hill against a very determined counterattack from the valley. That one's viewd from the red sep-up area and it's looking at the hill from the other side. Again, the map's huge. I'm still determining the Red force for this one as the Blue force should be a bit depleted by now. It will take part later in the morning and it should be clear. After that, there's going to be a big armour clash on this one. This one is called 'The Valley of Death', >groan< but never mind. This map is a reworking of the QB map that I contributed to the QB group but it looks quite different now. I have some ideas to make this one very exciting. More later.

Scenario 5 is called 'Buying the Farm' and it takes us back to the valley and the Special Forces again. Depending on how well you did in the last situation, you will face one of two different levels of challenge. Again, the map is large and it takes place after dawn so it's very hazy. It soesn't look that great from afar but down on the ground with the troops, it looks really good. That's from one of the playtests I did last week. The map is finished and I've picked the forces but I've only got a rudimentary AI attack plan. There are also some low walls in important positions so it will require some more work to get finished.

'Strong Stand' takes place on a map based very closely on a real location located just east of the real location that Hasrabit is based on. The map isn't finished yet. Then, in scenario 3, we finally get to see the Republican Guards in action. The following screenshot has been modified because the situation takes place after the moon sets so it's DARK. But don't be alarmed, with the icons on, you'll have no problems. The moon has set. This one was originally slated to be the campaign opener. It's a meeting engagement and it's got a killer AI plan attached to it. But it's one of four so don't get too worried. This one is finished too unless 1.06 changes night spotting too much. The Republican Guards NEED the dark to give them the edge as they are 'slightly' outnumbered. Scenario 4 is called 'Hill 142 part 1' and it's obviously a two parter. It starts before dawn but the sun rises during the scenario and changes the way it's played. Once again, the attached screenshot is modified so that you can see what it will look like after the sun rises. This map is pretty big and it has some pretty large elevation changes. Two companies of Republican Guards must approach and capture the big hill in the background. It's being used as an observation post for rebel artillery and it must be captured before the sun rises fully and allows the observers to see what's going on in the valley to the east. So far, the map is finished and I've playtested it a couple of times and had a BLAST. It's not too lethal but there are some surprises that I'm keeping quiet. The terrain allows for some real tactical possibilities.

The first few scenarios take place at night. At present, the opener is called 'Ambush' and it takes place at night while there is still a half moon. This one is a Special Forces mission and it's a fairly easy start for the player but it can surprise me occassionally when I play it. It takes place in the fertile valley and it's quite a short mission, the logic behind that being that after hitting the lead elements hard, the ambushing force must get out of dodge a.s.a.p. This one is finished. The only real changes that I might make now will be to the map just to improve it's visual appeal. After that, we have another Special Forces mission called 'Strong Stand'. It takes place about an hour after Ambush so the moon is still shining. This scenario is still under development as it has LOTS of low walls which make playtesting a pain. I've also read that the Syrians will be able to see better after 1.06 so I'll have to see how that affects the night situations. Shouldn't be a problem for Ambush but it might hurt here. I'm planning this one to be a toughie.

Introduction This is till a long way from completion, at least another month but now that I've learned how to post screenshots I thought I'd share some of them with you all. This will also act as a spur to me to finish the thing as I sometimes get lazy and just play the game instead of working on the campaign. I will continue to post in this thread on it's progress as the weeks go by. Anyway, it's a Red on Red campaign, the background being 'The Three Day Coup', and it's part of a larger scenario that will include further campaigns. The first is called Hasrabit and it's set in a fictional region to the south west of Damascus between the capital and the Golan heights. The story isn't that important just now but I'll post more about that later. When I started this campaign, it was originally planned to have 5 or 6 scenarios with the Blue player having a Republican Guard Battalion group. But then, I designed a really nice farmland map and I had the idea to expand the campaign to include a 'left flank' to the campaign in the form of a fertile valley. This allowed me to add a battalion of Special Forces to the core units and they have some very tough battles to fight. So far, mainly at night. This effectively gives me two linked campaigns but they are both dependent on each other. The campaign will definitely be dynamic but not too dynamic as scripting it would be a nightmare. And there are only two possible outcomes to each scenario, win or lose. You can't get a different branch for each different victory level so the main criterion in many of the scenarios will be casualties lost. Lose a substantial part of your force and it's pulled from the campaign and you won't see them again. This is to avoid patently absurd situations where the player must fight a reinforced battalion with a few stragglers. Not much fun. Instead, the Guards will get pulled from the region if the situation looks unfavourable for them and then we jump to the last battle. However, having said that, it's not always true. There is already one scenario that's time limited. If you don't capture the victory location before a certain time, the Special Forces in the next situation will get hammered by artillery at the start. Win it and they won't. Air support for the Blue side is dependent on success in some missions. Fail in a key situation and the air support is pulled and the airbase evacuated.

I remember playing one called 'Village of Trouble'. It was good fun but it had a 'hot' start which isn't to everyone's taste. It worked for me. 'Soldier's Fury' was good fun too. Apart from those two, I haven't downloaded very much from CMMODS because I design and play my own stuff most of the time so if I haven't mentioned anyone's scenario, it's because I haven't played it yet.

Crescendo of Doom killed it for me sadly. Just when we got the Brits, we also got Bypass Movement. That's when it all got too much for me. I liked the armour game in COI and some of the scenarios were really good too. yup, CMx1 was my dream come true. It could only have been bettered had AH or Hasbro done a killer version of ASL for the computer. An ASL heads up for you if you're interested, cplsteiner is trying to do Hill 621 for CMSF. You should check out his map in the scenario forum. It's a beauty.

M1A1TC.. nice one man. Is that pano modded too? I don't remember seeing one like that in the game.

bwgulley: As I recall the SL campaign was only 6 scenarios, of course the player could make it as long as they wanted. Wow, that brings back memories. You're talking about the original Squad Leader game aren't you? Man, playing SL, (not ASL) was a real DOG but for some strange reason, I couldn't get enough of it.

Sounds good. Of course, it will have to be Bradleys over Strykers because otherwise the US gets the game killer, javelins. So I'd go with Bradleys v BMPs. The BMP-1 is actually quite good and it's more common. I'd probably go with a Mech Infantry Battalion rather that the Republican Guards as they'd be unlikely to be doing this sort of thing. Strip them of most of their BMPs and allow the remainder to arrive as reinforcements. I'd be VERY wary of putting in an M1 but as long as it arrives quite late, it shouldn't unbalance things too badly. I always lost that 105mm StuG quite quickly. Can't see that happening with the M1 too often. Oh, and I'd restrict the US troops set up zone to the centre of the board and hit it with an AI artillery barrage to simulate the bad order that the germans started with. Nothing too heavy, maybe 81mm mortars so that some troops will get killed/wounded/pinned etc before the Red infantry pours onboard. Yes, as you can tell, I've been thinking about this situation quite a lot and I'd like to see you do it justice. I actually am working the 'spirit' of this situation into my campaign with most of these ideas but it's a 'stuff up' mission and so some people won't see it.

Woo hoo, it worked . Sorry, I'm not trying to plug this old chestnut again. Just trying to see if I can upload images successfully from photobucket. Coming soon, screenshots from my forthcoming campaign

just experimenting

Thanks for sharing that with us Frenchy. Downloading it now...

The M1A1 is just too tough for the Syrians to handle so it HAS to go. I had the idea of substituting Bradleys for the AFVs for the US, they have a significant AT capability but are very fragile. I suppose you could do the same with Strykers. Just leave out the M1's, give the Syrians high motivation and you've got yourself a game. Total fantasy but FUN. Hey, look at 'In Harms Way', that's way out there in the twilight zone but it worked for me. Good luck.

Wow, that looks like a really cool tool. I'm at work just now so I'll download it later and try it out over the weekend. Is it easy to use?

Yeah I had a brief stress about this after reading the blog. I thought to myself, "What am I going to be getting for this big performance hit?" Of course, I thought the answer was nothing except that LoS will work better. It's not like Dynamic Night Lighting where I get a new and really cool enhancement to the experience. Then, after I was reassured that it shouldn't be a huge performance hit AND I can upgrade my processor if I really have to, I started to appreciate just what that means. LoS will work much more like we expect it to. Finally, a lot of the subtleties I've put into my maps will pay off. I hate putting down large flat open areas and I take the time to introduce small undulations here and there to provide some small cover to attacking forces. Now, perhaps, they'll work as I'd hoped they would. I will probaly be using the 'Slow' movement command more frequently and units will acquire the ability to actually hide behind walls. That's a HUGE enhancement and I can't wait!

Good news indeed. My computer 'man' is on a business trip to Jakarta until the end of the month so I can't upgrade my processor until he returns. That will fit in nicely with the arrival of the Gamersgate version of the patch. whenever that arrives.

Well, I won't say that "you just don't get it". You just don't like it and that's fine. I've never played a PBEM or online game so I can't comment on that. There certainly seem to be plenty of people who would agree with you there though. Perhaps you should spend a bit more time with the game if you really want to find it's depth. The pathfinding AI does take a bit of time to get used to, especially if you are accustomed to the CMx1 pathfinding. I was a bit surprised that my units didn't literally follow my path along the line like they did in CM1. Instead, they usually zig zag a bit. But if you're not into micromanaging every units movement over a long distance in RT, the pathfinding AI is really good. Asa long as there are no enemy units in sight, I can give them LONG paths to a destination and they'll negotiate the terrain effectively. Movement in sight of the enemy should be shorter and more careful, naturally. An example from a scenario I'm currently designing: Blue forces attack and clear a village and move on to their next objective. Some reinforcements arrive and I can just give them one 'Move' or 'Quick' order from their starting positions to the village which is secured and they move there following the roads without me having to input lots of waypoints. That's a lot less micromanagement which I really appreciate when the action is getting exciting. It also makes the AI a little bit more challenging. Again, another example from another scenario under development. Blue must ambush a Red force moiving through some lightly forested hilly terrain at night. I created one AI plan to test it out and so far, that one plan has sufficed every time I play it because the AI tends to maximise the cover available to it and does some surprising things when given an order to move 500m from one zone to another. They don't just go in a straight line from A to B but use the terrain, sometimes going way off on the flanks. The first time I tested it, I got slaughtered because I expected them to do precisely that, go in a straight line. Well, that's the pathfinding AI. as for variety, well, it took me some time to figure that this is not a Modern Era combat simulator, it's a Modern era combat between Syria and the US simulator. Once I 'got' that, I found that there is a great variety available. Yes, the US will slaughter the Syrians in the open. that's indisputable, except by Syrians I suppose. To really hurt the US, you have to hit them in urban terrain. Now, so far, MOUT operations haven't really grabbed me because of some bugs. And I have a predeliction for open terrain combat and I find that Red on Red works really well there. The game allows me to do pretty much anything I want, as long as it's in a 'Syrian' setting. The Syrians do actually have some quite good stuff to play around with and it makes for a good Red on Red game. And if you're not worried about 'combined arms realism' there are plenty of good scenarios to download at CMMODS with infantry only bashes which are a LOT of fun. Maybe you should try again next wekk when 1.06 comes out and that horrible low wall bug gets fixed. I think the game is worth the effort to get to know.

Wow! I haven't tried anything like that. I'll set something up this weekend and see how that works. Thanks for that.

That's really good to hear. So, at LEAST another week then. But I know that with ELOS, a new Syrian re-supply capability, enhanced spotting at night, some new enhancement to the interface, and FINALLY,no more low walls bug it'll be worth the wait. Keep up the good work. cheers

Oops, hit the TAB key by mistake and it sent my post while I was editing it. Never mind.

Yeah, that Preserve victory condition is a beauty for constricting the US player. I expect I'll be returning to MOUT after 1.06 arrives and do a standard Blue v Red situation, I'll be using that one a lot. It's not much use for a Red v Red situation as I suspect that they wouldn't give a s@*t about the civvies. I would like to see the civilian density somehow matter more in the game. I suspect that a larger density of civilians makes it more difficult for the Blue side to spot IED's. If the random 'preserve' command you're thinking about was somehow linked to civilian density, that might make it a bit more relevant. There's a lot of potential in the existing victory conditions that hasn't been fully explored yet (by me!). I've been experimenting with some of them for my campaign and had some interesting results. I'd like to see an exit option added at some point in the future so that I can create some interesting hit and run missions. At the moment, both sides are stuck on the board until a) The night game is a very different baby from the day game, I'm surprised that it doesn't get brought up very often. I can't really play any scenarios when there's no moon with Syrian infantry because they can't see anything (yeah, I read that this is a bug and will be fixed with 1.06). But it rocks for vehicle engagements. The T-72Turms comes into it's own at night when playing Red v Red and the BMP-2 is superior to the BMP-1 at night too. Since the US forces train to fight at night so that they can "own" it, it would be nice to see the night game developed a bit more from both sides' perspective. Flares will add so much to the night game when they arrive.

Presently, there are only two full night situations in the campaign but after playing around with the phases of the moon yesterday, I found a sweet spot with a half moon allowing long range spotting for infantry at night. Then later, after the moon sets, short range to give the Republican Guards vehicles the edge when spotting at night. Special Forces at night are FUN to play. The RPG-27 is really lethal to other Syrian armour.