Paper Tiger

As well as reassuring folks that I'm not taking a break on this project again, posting updates serves to keep me actively working on this. If I didn't post my progress, I'd probably take a break from it and 'forget' for a few weeks. I REALLY want to get this finished preferably by the end of the year but as long as I keep working on it, it will get finished either on time or a bit later. Having said that, there probably will be a short break in updates from tomorrow for a day or two for obvious reasons.
Predictably, I couldn't leave Neuville alone. I've already made some small but important changes to the German forces that will make them a little bit more effective. The defending force is TINY as well so I can assign each unit to its own AI group with some to spare so it would be foolish not to take advantage of the new tools to make the defence more responsive to the player's moves. That's the point of making this revision after all.

Here's an update on how this is going. I have changed the structure of the original campaign to give it a new opening mission which, together with the original starting mission, Beau Guillot, will form a new campaign prelude, the outcome of which will determine certain parameters for the three Chapter 1 - Georgian Ridge missions. 
Having revised and tested the new AI plans for both the prelude and all the chapter one missions including the variants, I'll be picking up where I left off with Turnbull's Stand tomorrow. This is one of the very few AI attack missions so it will require a bit more time to get right but I learned a LOT from making USMC Gung Ho! so I'm guessing this will be better than the previous revision I made earlier this year. I'll just have to make sure that it's winnable. It's almost certainly going to play very differently from the old version, that's for sure.
I seem to be taking about a day to revise a defensive mission at the moment so if I am able to stick with a decent schedule, I should have most of this done before Xmas. However, the two blocks to swift progress will be Le Ham and the finale, Eroudeville. Le Ham didn't have any AI plan associated with it - it was a pure set-up with no variants and I can't let that stand. Eroudeville has a pretty sizeable AI attack so that will take a few days to revise as well.
 
A few observations about the new core forces - having the US 2/8 INF mostly Green makes for a rather different experience and I nearly undid the change as it was definitely harder to manage these forces in combat. But instead I've added some extra firepower to some of their missions to compensate them for the loss. In Guillot, you get a Destroyer on call to help soften up the defenders and there is air power in a couple of the Georgian Ridge missions. In Hameau, I've added an AA Quad Half Track to provide the attacker with some extra punch as well. The defenders get a little boost too to keep things interesting - nothing massively OP of course, but after all, most of you will have already played the original campaign so these changes should make it feel fresh.
The new AI plans are a considerable improvement over the old as well and the AI is much better on the defence now than it previously was so you'll need to be a little more cautious. Except for the new opener, there are always two or more AI plans in each mission, usually five. The opener is a recreation of a certain famous, historical action which I released as a stand-alone scenario to the old repository so it's intended to be fixed.
I have also found an old mission, Maxwell's House, which I kept a back up of on the Beta boards. It was offered as a possible scenario for the Arnhem module but it didn't cut the mustard. Fortunately, it was still in my folder there so I have been able to revisit it as well. it's a German attack on a tiny but highly detailed rubbled map defended by a very small but elite force of Red Devils in Arnhem. NOT Historical at all, just 100% for fun. It's definitely NOT going to be added to the Nijmegen campaign - that one is finished and I have no plans to touch it again (play perhaps  but definitely not redesign) The Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead and the Aalst missions pretty much broke me, the work that went into them was tremendous. The other two Irish Guards missions that formed that series were no picnic to make and test either.

As well as reassuring folks that I'm not taking a break on this project again, posting updates serves to keep me actively working on this. If I didn't post my progress, I'd probably take a break from it and 'forget' for a few weeks. I REALLY want to get this finished preferably by the end of the year but as long as I keep working on it, it will get finished either on time or a bit later. Having said that, there probably will be a short break in updates from tomorrow for a day or two for obvious reasons.
Predictably, I couldn't leave Neuville alone. I've already made some small but important changes to the German forces that will make them a little bit more effective. The defending force is TINY as well so I can assign each unit to its own AI group with some to spare so it would be foolish not to take advantage of the new tools to make the defence more responsive to the player's moves. That's the point of making this revision after all.

As well as reassuring folks that I'm not taking a break on this project again, posting updates serves to keep me actively working on this. If I didn't post my progress, I'd probably take a break from it and 'forget' for a few weeks. I REALLY want to get this finished preferably by the end of the year but as long as I keep working on it, it will get finished either on time or a bit later. Having said that, there probably will be a short break in updates from tomorrow for a day or two for obvious reasons.
Predictably, I couldn't leave Neuville alone. I've already made some small but important changes to the German forces that will make them a little bit more effective. The defending force is TINY as well so I can assign each unit to its own AI group with some to spare so it would be foolish not to take advantage of the new tools to make the defence more responsive to the player's moves. That's the point of making this revision after all.

I've got an attack plan that works reasonably well now. I managed to get a DRAW by cease firing at about T+40 and I hadn't exited any of my forces so that was a comfortable win. I made a few adjustments to the AI victory conditions as a result and so I think that's enough for now. It's quite a short mission with a very low unit count for the player so I'm going to continue to test it and tweak it while work is ongoing on the next missions in this chapter. Victory point adjustments made are basically now instead of having three TOUCH compound locations, I now have three phase lines which extend about 150m on both sides of the road on the south side of the stream which award the Germans points for touching. The further they advance, the more points they earn each line hot so you'll have to work hard to keep their heads down until you think it's time to run.
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them. With each StuG being in its own unique group, I can use them more aggressively in my defensive plans rather than just positioning them at the start of the game. Giving a movement order to an AI group with two vehicles on opposite sides of the road isn't going to end well.
I'm not going to agonise over this and will just get two working plans and create variants and that's that for this one. I'd really like to have the chapter 2 missions finished before Christmas.
I have very few plans to change much with the Glider Infantry missions in chapter 3 but I'm probably going to put the nebelwerfers into Hell in the Hedgerows as that also happened to these poor buggers in real life. They really took a pounding and lost that mission but I shied away from it when I made the original. But war is hell so why not? I need the casualties to make their following missions more challenging. So I expect a quick turn over on chapter 3 with perhaps only the Holding Action needing any real attention.
And that leaves the short chapter 4 missions which I'd really like to have finished before New year. Yes, that'll happen.  That's my plan though. Much as I'd like to do a compete overhaul of each mission, that would take me another 4-6 weeks after the New year and I'm almost certainly going to want to move onto something else in a couple of weeks.

I've got a fairly easy three weeks ahead of me so I've decided to revise this one but it's not going to be a straight up remake. Rather, I'm going to split the campaign into two separate campaigns, one for the 9th Cameronians (9 missions) and a second, shorter one for the 2nd ASH (6 missions). I see no good reason to keep this as one long campaign as it's not for official release and splitting it up will make it much easier to manage script-wise. There will be some tweaks to how the player goes to the Veteran or Green branches but I want to get core units done before tackling the new scripts.
Although it was made prior to the 16 AI groups patch, I'm quite happy with the AI as it stands so don't expect any significant changes here. However, the most important change will be that the core units will not start at 80% strength but rather at full strength. While these units were at 80% strength historically, it's not a particularly good way to represent this in the game so I've decided that the fighting strength of these formations should be at 100% and the 'reserve' companies are seriously under-strength. That seems to be a better way to represent this. One side effect of this though is that I'm going to remove the PIAT team attached to every platoon and give 1 section its PIAT instead. This also serves to reduce the number of units the player has to manage and that's fine by me.
I made the new Cameronians core units file last night and have started importing units into the Cameronian missions. I don't expect this will take very long and so it's possible this will be finished later this week. After that, I'll do the same for the ASH missions. I don't want to make any changes that require significant play-testing either. The plan is to have this campaign 'working' again for possible future revisions. But I'm happy to 'fix' any issues you guys might have with it as long as they're quick.
If, and that's a big IF, there is the interest, I may decide to enhance one or both of these campaigns adding flamethrower units as well as further improving the AI, especially the big attacks at the end of each. Regardless of interest, the next step after this is to finish the Montebourg revision so if you have any comments or suggestions for  this one, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
 
Move it! Move it! Let's go!

That's both Licornets and Labrynth completed. I wasn't planning to do a complete overhaul of these missions but I just couldn't leave them alone and so both these missions have entirely new AIs. Licornets has been particularly overhauled to create the illusion of an actual intelligent response but as usual, if you do something that goes off the plan, well, there's not much I can do about that. Triggers are a 'do this now or later' condition and can't branch so I have had to anticipate what the player might do and put the hurt on him if he's careless.
I was also a bit concerned that these two missions were samey and so I redid the German OB to give Labrynth its own unique flavour. No spoilers but it's different. But that's more than half way through the campaign now and so far, they've all been reworked quite substantially. That's far more work than I had planned to do but hey, that's just how I roll.
I have no plans to overhaul the chapter 2 finale but we'll see what happens when I test it tomorrow. I might end up re-doing it all as well. But even if I do, it's not going to take much more than a day to do.
I really won't be changing anything much with the chapter 3 missions except for Le Ham which doesn't have any AI. I'm not planning anything special there beyond having two plans and some AI reaction to player moves. And that means there's only the final three to consider.
But I really am getting impatient to get this finished asap now as I'm beginning to feel the itch to do something else.

Here's an update on how this is going. I have changed the structure of the original campaign to give it a new opening mission which, together with the original starting mission, Beau Guillot, will form a new campaign prelude, the outcome of which will determine certain parameters for the three Chapter 1 - Georgian Ridge missions. 
Having revised and tested the new AI plans for both the prelude and all the chapter one missions including the variants, I'll be picking up where I left off with Turnbull's Stand tomorrow. This is one of the very few AI attack missions so it will require a bit more time to get right but I learned a LOT from making USMC Gung Ho! so I'm guessing this will be better than the previous revision I made earlier this year. I'll just have to make sure that it's winnable. It's almost certainly going to play very differently from the old version, that's for sure.
I seem to be taking about a day to revise a defensive mission at the moment so if I am able to stick with a decent schedule, I should have most of this done before Xmas. However, the two blocks to swift progress will be Le Ham and the finale, Eroudeville. Le Ham didn't have any AI plan associated with it - it was a pure set-up with no variants and I can't let that stand. Eroudeville has a pretty sizeable AI attack so that will take a few days to revise as well.
 
A few observations about the new core forces - having the US 2/8 INF mostly Green makes for a rather different experience and I nearly undid the change as it was definitely harder to manage these forces in combat. But instead I've added some extra firepower to some of their missions to compensate them for the loss. In Guillot, you get a Destroyer on call to help soften up the defenders and there is air power in a couple of the Georgian Ridge missions. In Hameau, I've added an AA Quad Half Track to provide the attacker with some extra punch as well. The defenders get a little boost too to keep things interesting - nothing massively OP of course, but after all, most of you will have already played the original campaign so these changes should make it feel fresh.
The new AI plans are a considerable improvement over the old as well and the AI is much better on the defence now than it previously was so you'll need to be a little more cautious. Except for the new opener, there are always two or more AI plans in each mission, usually five. The opener is a recreation of a certain famous, historical action which I released as a stand-alone scenario to the old repository so it's intended to be fixed.
I have also found an old mission, Maxwell's House, which I kept a back up of on the Beta boards. It was offered as a possible scenario for the Arnhem module but it didn't cut the mustard. Fortunately, it was still in my folder there so I have been able to revisit it as well. it's a German attack on a tiny but highly detailed rubbled map defended by a very small but elite force of Red Devils in Arnhem. NOT Historical at all, just 100% for fun. It's definitely NOT going to be added to the Nijmegen campaign - that one is finished and I have no plans to touch it again (play perhaps  but definitely not redesign) The Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead and the Aalst missions pretty much broke me, the work that went into them was tremendous. The other two Irish Guards missions that formed that series were no picnic to make and test either.

That's both Licornets and Labrynth completed. I wasn't planning to do a complete overhaul of these missions but I just couldn't leave them alone and so both these missions have entirely new AIs. Licornets has been particularly overhauled to create the illusion of an actual intelligent response but as usual, if you do something that goes off the plan, well, there's not much I can do about that. Triggers are a 'do this now or later' condition and can't branch so I have had to anticipate what the player might do and put the hurt on him if he's careless.
I was also a bit concerned that these two missions were samey and so I redid the German OB to give Labrynth its own unique flavour. No spoilers but it's different. But that's more than half way through the campaign now and so far, they've all been reworked quite substantially. That's far more work than I had planned to do but hey, that's just how I roll.
I have no plans to overhaul the chapter 2 finale but we'll see what happens when I test it tomorrow. I might end up re-doing it all as well. But even if I do, it's not going to take much more than a day to do.
I really won't be changing anything much with the chapter 3 missions except for Le Ham which doesn't have any AI. I'm not planning anything special there beyond having two plans and some AI reaction to player moves. And that means there's only the final three to consider.
But I really am getting impatient to get this finished asap now as I'm beginning to feel the itch to do something else.

That's both Licornets and Labrynth completed. I wasn't planning to do a complete overhaul of these missions but I just couldn't leave them alone and so both these missions have entirely new AIs. Licornets has been particularly overhauled to create the illusion of an actual intelligent response but as usual, if you do something that goes off the plan, well, there's not much I can do about that. Triggers are a 'do this now or later' condition and can't branch so I have had to anticipate what the player might do and put the hurt on him if he's careless.
I was also a bit concerned that these two missions were samey and so I redid the German OB to give Labrynth its own unique flavour. No spoilers but it's different. But that's more than half way through the campaign now and so far, they've all been reworked quite substantially. That's far more work than I had planned to do but hey, that's just how I roll.
I have no plans to overhaul the chapter 2 finale but we'll see what happens when I test it tomorrow. I might end up re-doing it all as well. But even if I do, it's not going to take much more than a day to do.
I really won't be changing anything much with the chapter 3 missions except for Le Ham which doesn't have any AI. I'm not planning anything special there beyond having two plans and some AI reaction to player moves. And that means there's only the final three to consider.
But I really am getting impatient to get this finished asap now as I'm beginning to feel the itch to do something else.

I've got an attack plan that works reasonably well now. I managed to get a DRAW by cease firing at about T+40 and I hadn't exited any of my forces so that was a comfortable win. I made a few adjustments to the AI victory conditions as a result and so I think that's enough for now. It's quite a short mission with a very low unit count for the player so I'm going to continue to test it and tweak it while work is ongoing on the next missions in this chapter. Victory point adjustments made are basically now instead of having three TOUCH compound locations, I now have three phase lines which extend about 150m on both sides of the road on the south side of the stream which award the Germans points for touching. The further they advance, the more points they earn each line hot so you'll have to work hard to keep their heads down until you think it's time to run.
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them. With each StuG being in its own unique group, I can use them more aggressively in my defensive plans rather than just positioning them at the start of the game. Giving a movement order to an AI group with two vehicles on opposite sides of the road isn't going to end well.
I'm not going to agonise over this and will just get two working plans and create variants and that's that for this one. I'd really like to have the chapter 2 missions finished before Christmas.
I have very few plans to change much with the Glider Infantry missions in chapter 3 but I'm probably going to put the nebelwerfers into Hell in the Hedgerows as that also happened to these poor buggers in real life. They really took a pounding and lost that mission but I shied away from it when I made the original. But war is hell so why not? I need the casualties to make their following missions more challenging. So I expect a quick turn over on chapter 3 with perhaps only the Holding Action needing any real attention.
And that leaves the short chapter 4 missions which I'd really like to have finished before New year. Yes, that'll happen.  That's my plan though. Much as I'd like to do a compete overhaul of each mission, that would take me another 4-6 weeks after the New year and I'm almost certainly going to want to move onto something else in a couple of weeks.

I've got an attack plan that works reasonably well now. I managed to get a DRAW by cease firing at about T+40 and I hadn't exited any of my forces so that was a comfortable win. I made a few adjustments to the AI victory conditions as a result and so I think that's enough for now. It's quite a short mission with a very low unit count for the player so I'm going to continue to test it and tweak it while work is ongoing on the next missions in this chapter. Victory point adjustments made are basically now instead of having three TOUCH compound locations, I now have three phase lines which extend about 150m on both sides of the road on the south side of the stream which award the Germans points for touching. The further they advance, the more points they earn each line hot so you'll have to work hard to keep their heads down until you think it's time to run.
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them. With each StuG being in its own unique group, I can use them more aggressively in my defensive plans rather than just positioning them at the start of the game. Giving a movement order to an AI group with two vehicles on opposite sides of the road isn't going to end well.
I'm not going to agonise over this and will just get two working plans and create variants and that's that for this one. I'd really like to have the chapter 2 missions finished before Christmas.
I have very few plans to change much with the Glider Infantry missions in chapter 3 but I'm probably going to put the nebelwerfers into Hell in the Hedgerows as that also happened to these poor buggers in real life. They really took a pounding and lost that mission but I shied away from it when I made the original. But war is hell so why not? I need the casualties to make their following missions more challenging. So I expect a quick turn over on chapter 3 with perhaps only the Holding Action needing any real attention.
And that leaves the short chapter 4 missions which I'd really like to have finished before New year. Yes, that'll happen.  That's my plan though. Much as I'd like to do a compete overhaul of each mission, that would take me another 4-6 weeks after the New year and I'm almost certainly going to want to move onto something else in a couple of weeks.

I've got an attack plan that works reasonably well now. I managed to get a DRAW by cease firing at about T+40 and I hadn't exited any of my forces so that was a comfortable win. I made a few adjustments to the AI victory conditions as a result and so I think that's enough for now. It's quite a short mission with a very low unit count for the player so I'm going to continue to test it and tweak it while work is ongoing on the next missions in this chapter. Victory point adjustments made are basically now instead of having three TOUCH compound locations, I now have three phase lines which extend about 150m on both sides of the road on the south side of the stream which award the Germans points for touching. The further they advance, the more points they earn each line hot so you'll have to work hard to keep their heads down until you think it's time to run.
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them. With each StuG being in its own unique group, I can use them more aggressively in my defensive plans rather than just positioning them at the start of the game. Giving a movement order to an AI group with two vehicles on opposite sides of the road isn't going to end well.
I'm not going to agonise over this and will just get two working plans and create variants and that's that for this one. I'd really like to have the chapter 2 missions finished before Christmas.
I have very few plans to change much with the Glider Infantry missions in chapter 3 but I'm probably going to put the nebelwerfers into Hell in the Hedgerows as that also happened to these poor buggers in real life. They really took a pounding and lost that mission but I shied away from it when I made the original. But war is hell so why not? I need the casualties to make their following missions more challenging. So I expect a quick turn over on chapter 3 with perhaps only the Holding Action needing any real attention.
And that leaves the short chapter 4 missions which I'd really like to have finished before New year. Yes, that'll happen.  That's my plan though. Much as I'd like to do a compete overhaul of each mission, that would take me another 4-6 weeks after the New year and I'm almost certainly going to want to move onto something else in a couple of weeks.

I've got an attack plan that works reasonably well now. I managed to get a DRAW by cease firing at about T+40 and I hadn't exited any of my forces so that was a comfortable win. I made a few adjustments to the AI victory conditions as a result and so I think that's enough for now. It's quite a short mission with a very low unit count for the player so I'm going to continue to test it and tweak it while work is ongoing on the next missions in this chapter. Victory point adjustments made are basically now instead of having three TOUCH compound locations, I now have three phase lines which extend about 150m on both sides of the road on the south side of the stream which award the Germans points for touching. The further they advance, the more points they earn each line hot so you'll have to work hard to keep their heads down until you think it's time to run.
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them. With each StuG being in its own unique group, I can use them more aggressively in my defensive plans rather than just positioning them at the start of the game. Giving a movement order to an AI group with two vehicles on opposite sides of the road isn't going to end well.
I'm not going to agonise over this and will just get two working plans and create variants and that's that for this one. I'd really like to have the chapter 2 missions finished before Christmas.
I have very few plans to change much with the Glider Infantry missions in chapter 3 but I'm probably going to put the nebelwerfers into Hell in the Hedgerows as that also happened to these poor buggers in real life. They really took a pounding and lost that mission but I shied away from it when I made the original. But war is hell so why not? I need the casualties to make their following missions more challenging. So I expect a quick turn over on chapter 3 with perhaps only the Holding Action needing any real attention.
And that leaves the short chapter 4 missions which I'd really like to have finished before New year. Yes, that'll happen.  That's my plan though. Much as I'd like to do a compete overhaul of each mission, that would take me another 4-6 weeks after the New year and I'm almost certainly going to want to move onto something else in a couple of weeks.

I've got an attack plan that works reasonably well now. I managed to get a DRAW by cease firing at about T+40 and I hadn't exited any of my forces so that was a comfortable win. I made a few adjustments to the AI victory conditions as a result and so I think that's enough for now. It's quite a short mission with a very low unit count for the player so I'm going to continue to test it and tweak it while work is ongoing on the next missions in this chapter. Victory point adjustments made are basically now instead of having three TOUCH compound locations, I now have three phase lines which extend about 150m on both sides of the road on the south side of the stream which award the Germans points for touching. The further they advance, the more points they earn each line hot so you'll have to work hard to keep their heads down until you think it's time to run.
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them. With each StuG being in its own unique group, I can use them more aggressively in my defensive plans rather than just positioning them at the start of the game. Giving a movement order to an AI group with two vehicles on opposite sides of the road isn't going to end well.
I'm not going to agonise over this and will just get two working plans and create variants and that's that for this one. I'd really like to have the chapter 2 missions finished before Christmas.
I have very few plans to change much with the Glider Infantry missions in chapter 3 but I'm probably going to put the nebelwerfers into Hell in the Hedgerows as that also happened to these poor buggers in real life. They really took a pounding and lost that mission but I shied away from it when I made the original. But war is hell so why not? I need the casualties to make their following missions more challenging. So I expect a quick turn over on chapter 3 with perhaps only the Holding Action needing any real attention.
And that leaves the short chapter 4 missions which I'd really like to have finished before New year. Yes, that'll happen.  That's my plan though. Much as I'd like to do a compete overhaul of each mission, that would take me another 4-6 weeks after the New year and I'm almost certainly going to want to move onto something else in a couple of weeks.

I've got an attack plan that works reasonably well now. I managed to get a DRAW by cease firing at about T+40 and I hadn't exited any of my forces so that was a comfortable win. I made a few adjustments to the AI victory conditions as a result and so I think that's enough for now. It's quite a short mission with a very low unit count for the player so I'm going to continue to test it and tweak it while work is ongoing on the next missions in this chapter. Victory point adjustments made are basically now instead of having three TOUCH compound locations, I now have three phase lines which extend about 150m on both sides of the road on the south side of the stream which award the Germans points for touching. The further they advance, the more points they earn each line hot so you'll have to work hard to keep their heads down until you think it's time to run.
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them. With each StuG being in its own unique group, I can use them more aggressively in my defensive plans rather than just positioning them at the start of the game. Giving a movement order to an AI group with two vehicles on opposite sides of the road isn't going to end well.
I'm not going to agonise over this and will just get two working plans and create variants and that's that for this one. I'd really like to have the chapter 2 missions finished before Christmas.
I have very few plans to change much with the Glider Infantry missions in chapter 3 but I'm probably going to put the nebelwerfers into Hell in the Hedgerows as that also happened to these poor buggers in real life. They really took a pounding and lost that mission but I shied away from it when I made the original. But war is hell so why not? I need the casualties to make their following missions more challenging. So I expect a quick turn over on chapter 3 with perhaps only the Holding Action needing any real attention.
And that leaves the short chapter 4 missions which I'd really like to have finished before New year. Yes, that'll happen.  That's my plan though. Much as I'd like to do a compete overhaul of each mission, that would take me another 4-6 weeks after the New year and I'm almost certainly going to want to move onto something else in a couple of weeks.

I've got an attack plan that works reasonably well now. I managed to get a DRAW by cease firing at about T+40 and I hadn't exited any of my forces so that was a comfortable win. I made a few adjustments to the AI victory conditions as a result and so I think that's enough for now. It's quite a short mission with a very low unit count for the player so I'm going to continue to test it and tweak it while work is ongoing on the next missions in this chapter. Victory point adjustments made are basically now instead of having three TOUCH compound locations, I now have three phase lines which extend about 150m on both sides of the road on the south side of the stream which award the Germans points for touching. The further they advance, the more points they earn each line hot so you'll have to work hard to keep their heads down until you think it's time to run.
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them. With each StuG being in its own unique group, I can use them more aggressively in my defensive plans rather than just positioning them at the start of the game. Giving a movement order to an AI group with two vehicles on opposite sides of the road isn't going to end well.
I'm not going to agonise over this and will just get two working plans and create variants and that's that for this one. I'd really like to have the chapter 2 missions finished before Christmas.
I have very few plans to change much with the Glider Infantry missions in chapter 3 but I'm probably going to put the nebelwerfers into Hell in the Hedgerows as that also happened to these poor buggers in real life. They really took a pounding and lost that mission but I shied away from it when I made the original. But war is hell so why not? I need the casualties to make their following missions more challenging. So I expect a quick turn over on chapter 3 with perhaps only the Holding Action needing any real attention.
And that leaves the short chapter 4 missions which I'd really like to have finished before New year. Yes, that'll happen.  That's my plan though. Much as I'd like to do a compete overhaul of each mission, that would take me another 4-6 weeks after the New year and I'm almost certainly going to want to move onto something else in a couple of weeks.

Edit to add:
I was responding to Warts and All's post above...
What an ungrateful bastidge - it would take me less than 30 seconds to count 50+ coins and I'd be grateful for the sale.  Not to mention the free space the box would give me in the shop.
My crush was on Anne Wilson but that's an earlier time, back in the Heart - Little Queen - Dog and Butterfly - Magazine era.
 
Now a few comments on my OB for Turnbull's force. Most of the sources I've read agree that he had a team of 42 men including himself. This included two BAR teams and a Bazooka team. There is some disagree ment on the number of AT guns though, some say two but having read Keegan's account of the morning, I've made some assumptions - the paras jogged to Neuville from Ste Mere Eglise. They found a .30mm machine gun along the way. Vandervoort arrived in a jeep with a 57mm AT gun which was given to the Bazooka team in a building near the road. He sent a runner to communicate with Turnbull from which I infer that he was near the orchard and not on the east side of the road.
I'm going with Turnbull's HQ (5 men), 2 squads (24 men - 2nd squad w Bazooka)), two BARs (4 men), 1 Para LMG (2 men),  57mm AT gun team (7 men) reduced strength for a total of 42 men. (The AT gun team is not core so should be okay when the mcampaign is complied. However, sometimes the reduction rounds up rather than down and you can occasionally get 43 men. But they're AT gunners so it's not going to break anything. And that's the best I can do with the way the game engine is.
I'm glad the French tanks and one of the AT teams are gone because this is how playtesting went:
First tank shows up - one shot - one kill.
Second tank shows up - one shot - one kill
Marder shows its face (MGs can take it out but again, one shot - one kill.
Leaving my two AT guns with about 12 rounds of ammo left to rip the German squads apart. They are very effective when used against infantry. Easy win for Turnbull.
 
So that's my OB for this mission. I have approximately two companies of German infantry with two StuGs on the attack so I've made the infantry Green and Low morale so that they're not too much for the defender. You'll need to keep them suppressed so that they don't overwhelm you with machine gun fire. Now it's the mortars which will kill you which is how it went down that day.

Edit to add:
I was responding to Warts and All's post above...
What an ungrateful bastidge - it would take me less than 30 seconds to count 50+ coins and I'd be grateful for the sale.  Not to mention the free space the box would give me in the shop.
My crush was on Anne Wilson but that's an earlier time, back in the Heart - Little Queen - Dog and Butterfly - Magazine era.
 
Now a few comments on my OB for Turnbull's force. Most of the sources I've read agree that he had a team of 42 men including himself. This included two BAR teams and a Bazooka team. There is some disagree ment on the number of AT guns though, some say two but having read Keegan's account of the morning, I've made some assumptions - the paras jogged to Neuville from Ste Mere Eglise. They found a .30mm machine gun along the way. Vandervoort arrived in a jeep with a 57mm AT gun which was given to the Bazooka team in a building near the road. He sent a runner to communicate with Turnbull from which I infer that he was near the orchard and not on the east side of the road.
I'm going with Turnbull's HQ (5 men), 2 squads (24 men - 2nd squad w Bazooka)), two BARs (4 men), 1 Para LMG (2 men),  57mm AT gun team (7 men) reduced strength for a total of 42 men. (The AT gun team is not core so should be okay when the mcampaign is complied. However, sometimes the reduction rounds up rather than down and you can occasionally get 43 men. But they're AT gunners so it's not going to break anything. And that's the best I can do with the way the game engine is.
I'm glad the French tanks and one of the AT teams are gone because this is how playtesting went:
First tank shows up - one shot - one kill.
Second tank shows up - one shot - one kill
Marder shows its face (MGs can take it out but again, one shot - one kill.
Leaving my two AT guns with about 12 rounds of ammo left to rip the German squads apart. They are very effective when used against infantry. Easy win for Turnbull.
 
So that's my OB for this mission. I have approximately two companies of German infantry with two StuGs on the attack so I've made the infantry Green and Low morale so that they're not too much for the defender. You'll need to keep them suppressed so that they don't overwhelm you with machine gun fire. Now it's the mortars which will kill you which is how it went down that day.

Not yet but it's on the to-do list. The real hold-up is reworking the Le Ham mission which is a monster. It turns out that there were no AI plans for this mission and I have to remedy that.
Otherwise, most of the details are complete. I've learned how to use some of those special moves like Withdraw for example so I'd like to revisit most of the AI plans and see if they can be improved further but I'm not going to let it turn into another monster revision that will never get finished. 

A few thoughts on what I've been doing these last couple of day. I've been working on Turnbull's Stand and learning how to use Order triggers. After quite a bit of experimentation, I understand how it all works and there are some cool things I can do with them but building an entire attack plan with them is an exercise in frustration. I can achieve much the same result by using objective triggers and Exit After timers  so I revised my attack plan today.
I reread the account of Turnbull's action on D-Day this evening and was surprised to read that he had no heavy weapons, no mortars, just a couple of MGs he'd picked up along the way and a bazooka team. Vandervoort dropped off a 57mm AT gun before the main German assault and that was all he had.
Also, the German 'tanks' were not French tanks but were probably Stugs so I've taken them out. To be honest, they were 100% pure crap and utterly useless in the hands of the AI so subbing them gave me great joy. The only way to keep them alive was to keep them hidden which is not much fun.
In keeping with the historical account, I have made several major revisions to the map and the mission. Now you can only set up in the orchard on the west side of the road. The two East Touch objectives are also gone - you're only keeping the Germans out of the orchard.
Finally, you have two squads now with the attached teams giving you 42 men, the exact number Turnbull had on that day. The German don't outnumber you 5:1 but the mission is only 50 minutes long so who cares?
I am pretty sure my original OB was inspired by an ASL scenario, probably called Turnbull's Stand. That's where the French tanks and the Marder came from. So it's ASL no more and now as historical as I can make it. When reading about the action this evening, I was surprised to find that I've scripted something the Germans tried to do and Turnbull had to react to so I'm happy with the AI work I've done today.
I'll continue to test this tomorrow which makes three days of work on this. After this, I'll get back to much easier AI defensive plans.

Here's an update on how this is going. I have changed the structure of the original campaign to give it a new opening mission which, together with the original starting mission, Beau Guillot, will form a new campaign prelude, the outcome of which will determine certain parameters for the three Chapter 1 - Georgian Ridge missions. 
Having revised and tested the new AI plans for both the prelude and all the chapter one missions including the variants, I'll be picking up where I left off with Turnbull's Stand tomorrow. This is one of the very few AI attack missions so it will require a bit more time to get right but I learned a LOT from making USMC Gung Ho! so I'm guessing this will be better than the previous revision I made earlier this year. I'll just have to make sure that it's winnable. It's almost certainly going to play very differently from the old version, that's for sure.
I seem to be taking about a day to revise a defensive mission at the moment so if I am able to stick with a decent schedule, I should have most of this done before Xmas. However, the two blocks to swift progress will be Le Ham and the finale, Eroudeville. Le Ham didn't have any AI plan associated with it - it was a pure set-up with no variants and I can't let that stand. Eroudeville has a pretty sizeable AI attack so that will take a few days to revise as well.
 
A few observations about the new core forces - having the US 2/8 INF mostly Green makes for a rather different experience and I nearly undid the change as it was definitely harder to manage these forces in combat. But instead I've added some extra firepower to some of their missions to compensate them for the loss. In Guillot, you get a Destroyer on call to help soften up the defenders and there is air power in a couple of the Georgian Ridge missions. In Hameau, I've added an AA Quad Half Track to provide the attacker with some extra punch as well. The defenders get a little boost too to keep things interesting - nothing massively OP of course, but after all, most of you will have already played the original campaign so these changes should make it feel fresh.
The new AI plans are a considerable improvement over the old as well and the AI is much better on the defence now than it previously was so you'll need to be a little more cautious. Except for the new opener, there are always two or more AI plans in each mission, usually five. The opener is a recreation of a certain famous, historical action which I released as a stand-alone scenario to the old repository so it's intended to be fixed.
I have also found an old mission, Maxwell's House, which I kept a back up of on the Beta boards. It was offered as a possible scenario for the Arnhem module but it didn't cut the mustard. Fortunately, it was still in my folder there so I have been able to revisit it as well. it's a German attack on a tiny but highly detailed rubbled map defended by a very small but elite force of Red Devils in Arnhem. NOT Historical at all, just 100% for fun. It's definitely NOT going to be added to the Nijmegen campaign - that one is finished and I have no plans to touch it again (play perhaps  but definitely not redesign) The Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead and the Aalst missions pretty much broke me, the work that went into them was tremendous. The other two Irish Guards missions that formed that series were no picnic to make and test either.

Yes, subbing the old captured French tanks was the first change I made. The original Montebourg campaign was developed while the base game was in development so I wasn't able to use them first time around. IIRC, there was no allied air support when the game was first released either which is why there's no air support in the base campaign either. That's changed too. 
The Vehicle Pack will be necessary because I'm using flamethrowers this time as well. The Airborne and Glider Infantry both get them in their missions in phase 2. I've yet to see these in action as I've been importing the new core units and placing them but that work is all done now and so proper playtesting begins today. 

To catch up, I've imported and placed the core units in all the phase 1 and 3 missions and am now preparing to import them into the phase 2 missions (From Hell to Le Ham). These are more tricky because there are German core units in all these missions so I have left these until last. I should have the German core units done by tonight and have them imported tomorrow which means testing and AI plans can begin in earnest this weekend. And do I have some new ideas...
I have to admit, I really like what I can do with AI triggers. They were just making an appearance when I last played the game and I was initially disappointed that they didn't 'branch'. But I can see how useful they can be in some of the AI reworks I've done for my CMSF2 campaign already.
Once I've redone the AI plans, I'll create the variants and then will compile a new revised Montebourg for the scenario depot. They're not all getting extensive AI reworks, just the ones which I feel would benefit most from some extra attention, like Turnbull's Stand for example which has an AI attack.

It's been a long weekend here so I've been able to spend three consecutive days working on this. I've just finished working on the Brecourt mission and completed it with only one casualty. To be sure it wasn't a fluke, I ran it again (it's only 15 minutes long) and won again, this time with 4 casualties. If you know roughly how that action panned out in real life, the same tactics will serve you well here but if you just rush in, it probably won't work out so well for you. Neither will it work if you take your precious time.
Of course, this is not Easy Company's assault but rather an homage. And it just feels right. BTW, if you have already played the revised version of the campaign, you might notice that I've redesigned the trench network to better reflect the historical set up.
So, Missions 1 and 2 are done as well as Turnbulls' Stand. I'm only going to rework a few missions so it may happen quicker than I'd thought. The main task is importing the new core units to each mission. That's not as small a job as you might think