Paper Tiger

I'm winding up work on my 'USMC Gung Ho!' campaign and when that's done, I'd like to start a new version of the same campaign but this time with German Gebirgsjager units instead. But I'd like to give it a German name instead of 'Gung Ho!', a title which demonstrated my pedigree as an old ASLer.
So the daft question is, what would be an appropriate German expression to use instead of Gung Ho!? I've googled it and got 'ubereifrig' or 'wild entschlossen' among others and of course, I'm clueless. What would you German speakers prefer I use or would something else be appropriate. I don't have to be able to pronounce it, just spell it and that's what copy and paste are for.
BTW, I was planning to use the title 'Tally Ho!' for the Brit version.

Well, work on this is going much more slowly than I thought. I haven't given up on it but have to confess that I find that playing Red v Red isn't as much fun as playing Blue v Red - it takes absolutely ages to call in air support and high calibre artillery, nearly 30 minutes which is a long wait. Recon is also not as much fun as a result so I'm doing a bit of a rethink on how to approach certain missions.
The sheer number of AI attacks in this campaign is pretty overwhelming as they're hard to do well and I prefer to have more than one plan. Almost every mission is an AI attack or a meeting engagement (even worse!). I've already turned Strong Stand from a meeting to a player attack and will do the same with Hill 142.Anyway, I opened up a few of the maps and got back to work this morning and have a better idea where to go with this. It's going to get finished later rather than sooner.

This is perhaps the first ever variable-difficulty campaign devised. If you are struggling with the difficulty, you will lose levels and play the GREEN version of each mission. The GREEN versions are usually much easier to play and win for most of us regulars If you are winning each mission, you will stay at that experience level, REGULAR, while if you are winning comfortably, you will eventually face a more challenging opponent, VETERAN. So, if you are patient and skip through the first couple of missions, you'll get to play the GREEN versions of the remaining which are more suited for the player who just wants to relax and enjoy a not-too-challenging evening's play. By having variable difficulty, everyone should be able to play the campaign through to the end at their own level of ability.

Well, thanks to Age of Wonders 4, not an enormous amount of progress has been made but I've been working on the first two missions and have finally gotten Overkill and Ambush to where I want them. I'm considering taking out the Adan airfield missions as they are not part of the original campaign and the second one involves a large AI attack and these attack missions are a lot of work to get right.
I've toned down the difficulty of Ambush quite a bit - the new AI fire plans mean that the player will get ripped to pieces by the superior firepower of the attacker. It's an ambush mission - the AI is not supposed to know you're there and to blunder into your well-set ambush. Best guesses aside, I don't really know when the player will launch his ambush so I'm not going to script in fire plans for AI groups and just let them start firing once they know the enemy is there the old fashioned way. But I'm taking this experience with me to the Montebourg rework to make German AI attacks much more effective.
Testing the Guards Counterattack mission is quite hard work because while it's an AI attack, it's also quite a long mission as you have to counter attack, obviously. The opening AI assault is brutal and I'm happy with that but I have yet to win it - the T-90s are not as OP as I'd feared so I'm going to stick with them. The Barrier mission is a meeting arrangement and is going to be a lot of work testing too. I've reworked the original map and extended it quite a bit to improve LoS and added some terrain features to an otherwise barren map. A lot of apparently arid Syria land appears to be worked by farmers so I've worked a couple of features in from real world locations to make it look more interesting.
The AI is defending in Hill 142 so that won't be nearly so much work to finalise. Obviously, Heavy Metal is a complete reboot and another meeting engagement and then there is the final Guards mission, Sadara, which is like Hill 142 but much bigger.
The final mission, Hasrabit, is another large AI attack and quite a beast to manage so there's still a lot of work to do there.
So, it's a lot of work but I'm slowly working my way through it. Slow and steady wins the race (Tell that to Usain Bolt)

Well, work on this is going much more slowly than I thought. I haven't given up on it but have to confess that I find that playing Red v Red isn't as much fun as playing Blue v Red - it takes absolutely ages to call in air support and high calibre artillery, nearly 30 minutes which is a long wait. Recon is also not as much fun as a result so I'm doing a bit of a rethink on how to approach certain missions.
The sheer number of AI attacks in this campaign is pretty overwhelming as they're hard to do well and I prefer to have more than one plan. Almost every mission is an AI attack or a meeting engagement (even worse!). I've already turned Strong Stand from a meeting to a player attack and will do the same with Hill 142.Anyway, I opened up a few of the maps and got back to work this morning and have a better idea where to go with this. It's going to get finished later rather than sooner.

I could write a very long post about this topic but I'll keep it simple.
You PAINT up to three set-up zones for both players - Blue 1, 2 and 3 and Red 1, 2 (pink) and 3 (orange) and any units that are placed in these zones in the editor by the designer can be re-positioned by the player (and the AI through painting yellow zones) anywhere in the same set-up zone. Units not placed in a set-up zone are fixed in place and can't be re-positioned by either side. A lot of the time, players just paint one large Blue-1 or Red-1 set up zone and don't bother with the others. The extra allows the designer to exert a much more sophisticated level of control over AI placement in plans.
You can overlap these zones and units placed in such a mixed zone can be placed in both. I don't do this intentionally as I have my own system.
The player can position the AI's units very precisely in the editor and, as long as you don't paint any yellow set up positions for the group in order 1 in a plan, they will stay there at set-up if that plan is selected. Or you can paint certain sections of the set-up zone with yellow boxes and decide if they'll set up on Lower Floors, Upper Floors, Rooftops or a mix if they are in buildings.
There are five possible AI Plans so if if you're not too particular, you can paint zones for the AI groups and it will place units from that group randomly in that yellow set-up zone in that plan. If you're only planning to use one plan, set the units up by yourself. 

Interesting. I'm afraid so. If the bunker is still right at the edge of the bridge, that's not the updated version of the campaign so you'd need to restart the campaign to get the fix. Saves from the old campaign have the old campaign baked in. The fix wasn't a code fix but rather a scenario design fix.
For the rework, I repositioned it away from the bridge to near the pump house and tested it several times (read that as more than 5 at least) to ensure that the US could get across the bridge and they could every time. 
 

Unusual tat. Is it permanent? It's a play but I can't quite work out  the details. Is there some significance to that particular play?
And yes, I'm back and that's the first fruit. For the time being, I'm importing the new core files units into Montebourg (I've just finished 'Labrynth' which I was dreading doing) and after that, I'll import the new core units into The Scottish Corridor. Once that's done, I'll really get to work revising these two. I've learned a lot since I made Montebourg so reworking the AI plans should be 'fun'. It's the work I love best. 

Just a quick post to reassure you that I am still working on this. However, Age Of Wonders 4 dropped last week and I've spent all my game time playing that and will likely be playing a lot of it for some time to come. I'll be working on this in the evenings in the future as I don't generally 'play' games then. It's also good because it prevents burnout from being a thing.

Well, thanks to Age of Wonders 4, not an enormous amount of progress has been made but I've been working on the first two missions and have finally gotten Overkill and Ambush to where I want them. I'm considering taking out the Adan airfield missions as they are not part of the original campaign and the second one involves a large AI attack and these attack missions are a lot of work to get right.
I've toned down the difficulty of Ambush quite a bit - the new AI fire plans mean that the player will get ripped to pieces by the superior firepower of the attacker. It's an ambush mission - the AI is not supposed to know you're there and to blunder into your well-set ambush. Best guesses aside, I don't really know when the player will launch his ambush so I'm not going to script in fire plans for AI groups and just let them start firing once they know the enemy is there the old fashioned way. But I'm taking this experience with me to the Montebourg rework to make German AI attacks much more effective.
Testing the Guards Counterattack mission is quite hard work because while it's an AI attack, it's also quite a long mission as you have to counter attack, obviously. The opening AI assault is brutal and I'm happy with that but I have yet to win it - the T-90s are not as OP as I'd feared so I'm going to stick with them. The Barrier mission is a meeting arrangement and is going to be a lot of work testing too. I've reworked the original map and extended it quite a bit to improve LoS and added some terrain features to an otherwise barren map. A lot of apparently arid Syria land appears to be worked by farmers so I've worked a couple of features in from real world locations to make it look more interesting.
The AI is defending in Hill 142 so that won't be nearly so much work to finalise. Obviously, Heavy Metal is a complete reboot and another meeting engagement and then there is the final Guards mission, Sadara, which is like Hill 142 but much bigger.
The final mission, Hasrabit, is another large AI attack and quite a beast to manage so there's still a lot of work to do there.
So, it's a lot of work but I'm slowly working my way through it. Slow and steady wins the race (Tell that to Usain Bolt)

Well, thanks to Age of Wonders 4, not an enormous amount of progress has been made but I've been working on the first two missions and have finally gotten Overkill and Ambush to where I want them. I'm considering taking out the Adan airfield missions as they are not part of the original campaign and the second one involves a large AI attack and these attack missions are a lot of work to get right.
I've toned down the difficulty of Ambush quite a bit - the new AI fire plans mean that the player will get ripped to pieces by the superior firepower of the attacker. It's an ambush mission - the AI is not supposed to know you're there and to blunder into your well-set ambush. Best guesses aside, I don't really know when the player will launch his ambush so I'm not going to script in fire plans for AI groups and just let them start firing once they know the enemy is there the old fashioned way. But I'm taking this experience with me to the Montebourg rework to make German AI attacks much more effective.
Testing the Guards Counterattack mission is quite hard work because while it's an AI attack, it's also quite a long mission as you have to counter attack, obviously. The opening AI assault is brutal and I'm happy with that but I have yet to win it - the T-90s are not as OP as I'd feared so I'm going to stick with them. The Barrier mission is a meeting arrangement and is going to be a lot of work testing too. I've reworked the original map and extended it quite a bit to improve LoS and added some terrain features to an otherwise barren map. A lot of apparently arid Syria land appears to be worked by farmers so I've worked a couple of features in from real world locations to make it look more interesting.
The AI is defending in Hill 142 so that won't be nearly so much work to finalise. Obviously, Heavy Metal is a complete reboot and another meeting engagement and then there is the final Guards mission, Sadara, which is like Hill 142 but much bigger.
The final mission, Hasrabit, is another large AI attack and quite a beast to manage so there's still a lot of work to do there.
So, it's a lot of work but I'm slowly working my way through it. Slow and steady wins the race (Tell that to Usain Bolt)

Well, thanks to Age of Wonders 4, not an enormous amount of progress has been made but I've been working on the first two missions and have finally gotten Overkill and Ambush to where I want them. I'm considering taking out the Adan airfield missions as they are not part of the original campaign and the second one involves a large AI attack and these attack missions are a lot of work to get right.
I've toned down the difficulty of Ambush quite a bit - the new AI fire plans mean that the player will get ripped to pieces by the superior firepower of the attacker. It's an ambush mission - the AI is not supposed to know you're there and to blunder into your well-set ambush. Best guesses aside, I don't really know when the player will launch his ambush so I'm not going to script in fire plans for AI groups and just let them start firing once they know the enemy is there the old fashioned way. But I'm taking this experience with me to the Montebourg rework to make German AI attacks much more effective.
Testing the Guards Counterattack mission is quite hard work because while it's an AI attack, it's also quite a long mission as you have to counter attack, obviously. The opening AI assault is brutal and I'm happy with that but I have yet to win it - the T-90s are not as OP as I'd feared so I'm going to stick with them. The Barrier mission is a meeting arrangement and is going to be a lot of work testing too. I've reworked the original map and extended it quite a bit to improve LoS and added some terrain features to an otherwise barren map. A lot of apparently arid Syria land appears to be worked by farmers so I've worked a couple of features in from real world locations to make it look more interesting.
The AI is defending in Hill 142 so that won't be nearly so much work to finalise. Obviously, Heavy Metal is a complete reboot and another meeting engagement and then there is the final Guards mission, Sadara, which is like Hill 142 but much bigger.
The final mission, Hasrabit, is another large AI attack and quite a beast to manage so there's still a lot of work to do there.
So, it's a lot of work but I'm slowly working my way through it. Slow and steady wins the race (Tell that to Usain Bolt)

Well, thanks to Age of Wonders 4, not an enormous amount of progress has been made but I've been working on the first two missions and have finally gotten Overkill and Ambush to where I want them. I'm considering taking out the Adan airfield missions as they are not part of the original campaign and the second one involves a large AI attack and these attack missions are a lot of work to get right.
I've toned down the difficulty of Ambush quite a bit - the new AI fire plans mean that the player will get ripped to pieces by the superior firepower of the attacker. It's an ambush mission - the AI is not supposed to know you're there and to blunder into your well-set ambush. Best guesses aside, I don't really know when the player will launch his ambush so I'm not going to script in fire plans for AI groups and just let them start firing once they know the enemy is there the old fashioned way. But I'm taking this experience with me to the Montebourg rework to make German AI attacks much more effective.
Testing the Guards Counterattack mission is quite hard work because while it's an AI attack, it's also quite a long mission as you have to counter attack, obviously. The opening AI assault is brutal and I'm happy with that but I have yet to win it - the T-90s are not as OP as I'd feared so I'm going to stick with them. The Barrier mission is a meeting arrangement and is going to be a lot of work testing too. I've reworked the original map and extended it quite a bit to improve LoS and added some terrain features to an otherwise barren map. A lot of apparently arid Syria land appears to be worked by farmers so I've worked a couple of features in from real world locations to make it look more interesting.
The AI is defending in Hill 142 so that won't be nearly so much work to finalise. Obviously, Heavy Metal is a complete reboot and another meeting engagement and then there is the final Guards mission, Sadara, which is like Hill 142 but much bigger.
The final mission, Hasrabit, is another large AI attack and quite a beast to manage so there's still a lot of work to do there.
So, it's a lot of work but I'm slowly working my way through it. Slow and steady wins the race (Tell that to Usain Bolt)

Okay, that's it uploaded. The picture failed to load but I don't care about that too much at this point.
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-shock-force-2-2/cm-shock-force-2-campaigns/cmsf2-usmc-gung-ho/
This is a six mission campaign featuring Bravo Company of 1st Battalion 8th Marines. I should mention that it's a rework of my much earlier CMSF1 campaign of the same name but it's so reworked that it's really an all-new campaign that takes advantage of all the CMSF2 features. You'll need the NATO module to play this as the Syrian Airborne features in one of the missions. Sorry about that but I guess most folks reading here already have the full Monty.
It's designed primarily to have fun with one of the most unique factions in the game, the USMC, a light infantry formation that punches far above its weight even without the air support that you'll have in these missions. It should also be quite challenging but not too challenging. Mission 3 - CAAT among the Pigeons is intended to be very easy, to allow you to let rip with a rather unique formation within the MEU. 
I look forward to hearing how you get on. Perhaps you can tell me how many kills HITMAN got in your campaign? You're not beta testing this - I've already played this myself but that's a potential issue, it's been tested by one player with a particular play style and skill set. I try to break these missions but I'm not as creative about that as some of you will be  If you find any typos, let me know. I've been scanning the texts these last couple of days and can't see any but that's likely fatigue. Unless something egregious is found, you should be safe to complete a campaign before a revision comes up. I'm hoping that won't necessary but I've done this before and it can always be improved.
With the exception of CAAT among the Pigeons, each mission has several AI plans to give the campaign replayablity. So, if there's enough interest in it, I will return to this to make a new version featuring the German Gebirgsjagers which look like they'd be a blast to play with as well and not need much work to be done beyond making a core unit file and importing the units into each mission. And finally, I want to make a Brit forces Light Infantry version but that will need more work to do.

I see this situation has been resolved. Sorry, I've been very busy with both work  and AoW4 this past week.
Hope you enjoy the campaign. I've yet to hear from anyone who has completed it or at least any feedback on the final three missions.

Okay, that's it uploaded. The picture failed to load but I don't care about that too much at this point.
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-shock-force-2-2/cm-shock-force-2-campaigns/cmsf2-usmc-gung-ho/
This is a six mission campaign featuring Bravo Company of 1st Battalion 8th Marines. I should mention that it's a rework of my much earlier CMSF1 campaign of the same name but it's so reworked that it's really an all-new campaign that takes advantage of all the CMSF2 features. You'll need the NATO module to play this as the Syrian Airborne features in one of the missions. Sorry about that but I guess most folks reading here already have the full Monty.
It's designed primarily to have fun with one of the most unique factions in the game, the USMC, a light infantry formation that punches far above its weight even without the air support that you'll have in these missions. It should also be quite challenging but not too challenging. Mission 3 - CAAT among the Pigeons is intended to be very easy, to allow you to let rip with a rather unique formation within the MEU. 
I look forward to hearing how you get on. Perhaps you can tell me how many kills HITMAN got in your campaign? You're not beta testing this - I've already played this myself but that's a potential issue, it's been tested by one player with a particular play style and skill set. I try to break these missions but I'm not as creative about that as some of you will be  If you find any typos, let me know. I've been scanning the texts these last couple of days and can't see any but that's likely fatigue. Unless something egregious is found, you should be safe to complete a campaign before a revision comes up. I'm hoping that won't necessary but I've done this before and it can always be improved.
With the exception of CAAT among the Pigeons, each mission has several AI plans to give the campaign replayablity. So, if there's enough interest in it, I will return to this to make a new version featuring the German Gebirgsjagers which look like they'd be a blast to play with as well and not need much work to be done beyond making a core unit file and importing the units into each mission. And finally, I want to make a Brit forces Light Infantry version but that will need more work to do.

The best laid plans of mice and men...
Work on the German version is already under way. Core units are done and I've started playing around with the opener. Let's just say that it looks, feels and plays very differently from the USMC version. The USMC really is a beast with large platoons and enormous firepower. The Jaegers are much lighter but their artillery... (rubs hands) this is going to be a blast to develop.
I'm going to have to rename these missions with more German style names. Gung Ho! was inspired by the HBO series, Generation Kill and I recall one episode where they were talking about Betty and Wilma so it all sprang from there. Doing German football players seems more than a bit lame but I know absolutely NOTHING about popular German culture. The missions' and objectives' names in Gung Ho! were a real nostalgia trip for me because we grew up with a lot of US TV on the BBC and ITV in the 70s and 80s. Starsky and Hutch, Kojak and The Rockford Files were the coolest things on Brit TV for a while. Even my dad loved them. Some tips from folks with German upbringing in a similar period might help with the authenticity.  

Just a quick post to reassure you that I am still working on this. However, Age Of Wonders 4 dropped last week and I've spent all my game time playing that and will likely be playing a lot of it for some time to come. I'll be working on this in the evenings in the future as I don't generally 'play' games then. It's also good because it prevents burnout from being a thing.

That's Ramadan finally and officially over so I can probably expect to get an uninterrupted night's sleep once again. When I'm a bit sleepy, i tend to spend more time working on maps and I've now updated all the maps for the campaign. I even reworked the 'Breakout' which I was kind of dreading doing as it was the most ASL-like of all the maps. I also got 'Overkill' finalised last night so that one's behind me. Now I'm on holiday for about 10 days and today I got started on serious AI planning. This is the plan going forward.
I'm going to focus on getting all the Special Forces missions up and working so that I can compile them and test them together. This shouldn't take long as the maps for all of them are now done and I've already imported all the core forces and placed the enemy forces. Today, I worked exclusively on 'Ambush' and it became very obvious early in serious testing that the river and the bridges were going to have to go. The AI really struggles on the attack even in the best of circumstances so add two bottlenecks across a river and have a mech infantry company try an assault across it and you're really flogging a dead horse. So the river was removed as well as the bridges and it plays much, much better. This is the type of mission that I'm likely to play over and over again while working on the campaign, short and small, fun but dangerous, so it'll get iterated upon as testing goes on.
Tomorrow, I'll get started on Strong Stand and the airfield missions and that will be all the Phase I SF missions done. However, the Phase II missions are almost entirely new because of the extensive map reworks as well as me rationalising the campaign so that there is some consistency to the friendly board edges. so will take a lot more time to test.
Here's the old Breakout map:

Here's the new one from the same angle.

And from the other end

Gone are the elevations, the mud, the foliage and about half a million flavour objects. I've added a river (the player has to move across it so there's no worries about the AI being able to navigate across it). Gone is the massive, boring workshed complex and it's been replaced with a real-world farm complex, only a few kilometers west of 'Hasrabit' as it happens. I was lucky to find a large, square farmhouse to replace the old one too so I'm happy with the result. 

Strong Stand and Adan Airfield are both done now, AI plans made and tested and victories scored in both missions. With extensive use of triggers in both missions, they make the Adan mission feel alive with units reacting to your moves. They're scripted not to be 'John Wick' efficient but to behave realistically. But they'll still fight.  
This is Adan Airfield. I've reworked the Minakh Airfield map and made a whole new mission from it. There will be two versions, the Attack version, which will be the new opener (because the result will have consequences for the rest of Phase I) and the Defend version in Phase II which is intended to be a real tough one and will similarly have consequences for all the Phase II missions.

I suspect some folks are going to rage at me for giving you 40 minutes to capture the airfield. I just forced a surrender with just over 9 minutes on the clock so it's more than doable.
Here's the Strong Stand map:

It's been extended a fair bit and the compounds have all been reworked to make them more realistic.

That's not a small amount of work but it's all done and the mission appears to be doable too. The original version was a real dog to play, 2+hours fighting in the dark against a numerically superior mechanised force that was well trained and equipped. It's a Light Infantry action and Special forces are just not that good against mechanised forces and, to be honest, i was finding the prospect of testing it a bit daunting so I decided to rip it all apart and start again with a whole new Red OB with new AI plans. Now it's a lot of fun to play.
So that's all the Special Forces phase I missions finished. So it's on to Phase II now which will take a bit longer as the maps have been changed so substantially that they'll need a lot of testing to get right. The Phase II missions are
Adan Airfield (Defend)
Buying the Farm
Breakout, and
Hasrabit.
After that, I'll get to the Republican Guards missions.

I have to say that the game engine has improved massively while I've been absent. Today, I really got my teeth into my first proper AI assault and the new orders really, really make a huge difference to the AI's effectiveness. It's still nowhere near as good as a human opponent but it's about as good as an AI can get and it means that I can keep the numbers roughly even, with BlueFor outnumbering RedFor. Of course, a substantial part of that force is going to get wiped
In the original 'Buying the Farm' mission, a small force of reserve infantry started in the centre of the map and were attacked immediately by a mech company. Later, when we were able to add Artiilery Fire zones to our AI plans, I subjected the poor sods to a massive artillery barrage. In the meantime, your Special Forces were building up and getting ready to come to the rescue.
I wanted to maintain as much of that as possible but I was struggling to get the AI to attack a well-defended railway station surrounded by berms. No matter how big the barrage (and it was getting really stupid) when the attackers crossed the berm, they were mowed down. There was nothing for your Special Forces to do so the berms had to go and what a difference that made! Now the AI artillery barrage has been massively reduced to sensible proportions and the AI clears the station very efficiently with few casualties. I tested and tweaked the AI attack all morning and early afternoon before finally bringing in the core forces and play testing.
It's still 'Buying the Farm' but it's tougher and more fun, at least for me. I might have to rename the mission though as it's a railway station instead of a large square block of 1-story buildings, perhaps 'Repo Men' as the AI takes control of the station and it's your job to repossess what was stolen. Now I just need to make sure that it's winnable without being too bloody, a three-hour slog or too demanding of your core artillery assets. As before, you'll have some very shaky reserve infantry forces and some bottom of the barrel tanks to help you win the fight. 

I've had a really bad cold this week and didn't make the tremendous progress I was hoping for but regardless, I soldiered on and got something done while I was sniffling and coughing and dosed up with the really potent medicine they prescribe out here such non life threatening illnesses. (I'm not complaining though) When I'm feeling really, really crap, I work on maps as it requires almost no concentration so I started adding some new terrain features to the Guard Counterattack mission (that name's going to have to change - it's SO ASL!) as well as making other similar tweaks to other missions, in particular to the Breakout mission which I'll talk about below.
But the MAIN work has been on the two Phase II Special Forces missions, 'Buying the Farm' and 'Breakout'. Since observing the AI carry out its plan is quite easy work when you're feeling sick, I can settle back with a cup of tea and make  notes and the necessary adjustments. I had big ambitions for the AI attack in the Farm mission but I have had to temper them as the AI really, REALLY can't make any sort of attack across a bridge. I can't get them to manage the crossing unopposed either as it's an absolute mess to watch as the vehicles just get confused and just mill about. I really don't like to undo hours of work planning and adjusting AI plans to reposition the forces for the assault and was even trying to justify leaving it in to myself as making the player's job easier. But that's just a poor excuse for crap scripting.  But it's not for nothing as I will be working on the AI for the Republican Guards later and there are no bottlenecks on their maps so the experience will serve me well when I get around to that.
'Breakout' is a much simpler beast to script. It's another 'living' battlefield experience but you'll be on the clock on this one - find the AA guns, knock them out and exit your forces from the map. Getting the timing right on this one will be challenging - it's not a hard mission to kill the guns but getting off the map is a different story. While having too much time will just make it a filler mission.

Not going to lie, I'm kind of burned out on doing infantry-centric missions at this point. I don't know if it's the cold and the resulting poor quality sleep or if I've really just played too much of the same kind of missions for too long. Whatever the reason is, I know that I just can't face playtesting either Farm or Breakout any further without doing something else instead. Fortunately, 😉 the campaign has a mix of Infantry (Special Forces) missions and Mech (Republican Guard) missions to mix things up for the player so I'm going to avail myself of that option as well and do some work on the Guards missions for a few days before returning to work these two.
Besides, working on the AI attack plan on the Farm mission has got me enthused about reworking the AI in these set of missions. The AI attack plans in The Guards Counterattack mission are abysmal. (Although there are four of them and some are very aggressive which compensates a bit) You're still fighting an entire battalion in the original version of this mission which is just too much. While I've already removed an entire company from the AI's OB, that might change if the T-90s are just too OP for the AI to go up against. The tools exist now to make the AI much more effective on the attack (though nowhere near as devious as a real opponent) and I've got far more experience with the editor now so I don't need to rely on maxing out the AI's OB to create a challenge.
I seem to recall sneaking along the board edges to get LoS on the enemy in the earliest versions of this game and I don't want to be doing that again. I'm looking for a better experience this time around.
I'm a bit disappointed because I'd rather hoped to have almost all the SF missions in the bag before I return to work next week but what's the big rush? I need to spend quite a bit of time playing each of these missions properly before I can make it available for the community so I'm just going to go with the flow and accept that it's time to work on the Guards missions for a few days instead. It's not like it's time wasted.

Just a quick post to reassure you that I am still working on this. However, Age Of Wonders 4 dropped last week and I've spent all my game time playing that and will likely be playing a lot of it for some time to come. I'll be working on this in the evenings in the future as I don't generally 'play' games then. It's also good because it prevents burnout from being a thing.

Just a quick post to reassure you that I am still working on this. However, Age Of Wonders 4 dropped last week and I've spent all my game time playing that and will likely be playing a lot of it for some time to come. I'll be working on this in the evenings in the future as I don't generally 'play' games then. It's also good because it prevents burnout from being a thing.