Peach Operations

Squads are supposed to have a "bug-out" mode, I think -- it was added a while back. I've never seen it used more than a few times -- a pinned squad will suddenly give itself fast movement orders to the nearest piece of cover. Even when this does happen, though, the squad doesn't move (presumably because they're pinned). So, in practice, they never actually run for it. If this is realistic -- I wouldn't know -- then I suppose I could accept it (grudgingly). But otherwise, I'd have to agree that this is more significant than a lot of other things (placeable trenches included). I've tended to hope that it's still "on the list" in some regard.

Squads are supposed to have a "bug-out" mode, I think -- it was added a while back. I've never seen it used more than a few times -- a pinned squad will suddenly give itself fast movement orders to the nearest piece of cover. Even when this does happen, though, the squad doesn't move (presumably because they're pinned). So, in practice, they never actually run for it. If this is realistic -- I wouldn't know -- then I suppose I could accept it (grudgingly). But otherwise, I'd have to agree that this is more significant than a lot of other things (placeable trenches included). I've tended to hope that it's still "on the list" in some regard.

(idle speculation alert) It sounds like we're looking at a present-day Russia vs NATO matchup (which would explain the "we're not doing WP vs NATO"). It would make sense -- NATO vs WP would require a lot of older Western equipment to be modelled, and BFC is probably not going to do that. But the western side in a present-day fight would involve the gear planned for CMSF + modules. For present-day Russia, you have late-Cold War + present day russian gear (which is also planned for CMSF + modules). Red air support is also consistent with this concept. ..or maybe I'm full of ****.

Mine was $20, from Gamestop. I forgot when I bought it, but the patch on BF.C at the time was 1.05. I'm guessing this is what Steve is talking about when he complains about retailers marking down their products several months after release.

Since you asked.. (SPOILER as usual) I finally got around to it.. huge loss. I barely had any SF left. A Co could've been consolidated into a reinforced platoon, if the game allowed reorganizing. It's amazing what a few crack-quality troops can do, though, against an enemy piling his troops through narrow streets. I set up two positions -- one one the edge of Hasrabit market, and the other in the middle / rear of Hasrabit Central. The former devoured forces marching directly on it, the latter messed up rebel troops trying to outflank it (the notion of trying to fix my central sector troops is foreign to the brain-dead AI, but you knew that ). I did need to use reinforcements to stop the (first) flanking maneuver, though. The big problem came when trying to deliver the volume of suppressing fire needed to conduct counterattacks -- combined with a few stupid mistakes, my troops were out of steam by the time the second rebel wave arrived. The rebels then shredded what I had left in Hasrabit Central and grabbed a foothold in South. I still held parts of Hasrabit South (including market and hospital) at the end, but that was it. I imagine this might have been easier if I had some reservist forces (beyond the engineers), or some helicopters, or more of my SF left. I'm not sure if there's a way to beat the scenario in the state my forces were in. I could handle my troops better, but each block retaken has its costs, and I just didn't have many troops to spare. That said, the above is a result of the previous battles, not anything inherent in scenario.

I had three tanks for Saudara part 2, if that helps.

SPOILER, etc... Played Saudara pt 2, and there's a problem -- my FO can't call in the airstrike. The words "DENIED" show up over the plane. Said FO can still call in mortars, but not the strike.. Wasn't necessary, anyway -- tanks on the hills are good enough for dealing with rebel positions in the town, once said rebels reveal themselves. I didn't have to seize anything but the cemetary hill -- the rebels surrendered before my troops actually got into town. It might be tougher if the rebel BMPs were on hills overlooking the town -- currently my tanks could just work their way around the outside after clearing the cemetary hill, killing BMPs one by one. At some points I had to demolish walls so my tanks could see the BMPs, of course, but that's not too difficult. Oddly enough, the rebel ATGM doesn't appear to be on the hill you're told to clear of ATGMs.. And the suggested ATGM position given for your troops can't see the road heading into Saudara (as far as I can tell, anyway). I'm guessing that this is intended, but I thought I'd mention it, just in case.

That's odd -- I had helicopters in your campaign during the Hill 142 mission, and I'm pretty sure they sent some kind of guided munition into the rebel tanks (more than once, even). It wasn't cannon or rockets -- just a single missile flying directly into enemy vehicles. I think I gave the helicopters area fire / medium strike orders, if that helps.

Replayed Breakout, got a draw (which apparently is enough to move on). My ATGM teams still took hits getting set up, and apparently lost some of their ammo as a result, but were able to hide and take out nearly all the tanks. The enemy around the pump house and mansion weren't as bad as I thought they'd be, even if my squads had to assault BTRs and a tank from close range! The store houses still were a problem, though -- I took two rows of them and lost much of what I had left trying to take the third. Also played Saudara part 1 -- not much to say here. It went pretty well, even though I was missing almost all of D Company (which was smashed when I played The Barrier). Taking the two buildings (the ones assigned as objectives) was almost a sideshow compared to the rebel ATGMs and wave after wave of tanks.

I kinda would prefer the 2D implementation too -- especially when it comes to trenches being hidden. When you can see them from across the map, they become perfect targets for artillery (unless there's so many trenches that you can't shell it all). It sounds like there's no going back with the CMx2 engine built as it is, though.

A laundry list of reactions (with the obligatory SPOILER alert).. I hope you don't mind reading a long post, as I'm just going to put all my thoughts here: First, yes, turning off ATI compatibility for the third mission worked. Ambush: Played a few times; reloaded mid-game at a few points due to weird ATGM team behavior (getting up to reposition for no apparent reason, and subsequently being spotted by the enemy). It'd be nice if there were foxholes or trenches for my units to hide in (as they die very quickly when under fire as is), but then CMSF doesn't let the player place these. The mission is certainly beatable (if done right) though -- it's just very easy to see troops get rapidly wiped out if something goes wrong. Strong Stand: Played through twice, draw the first time, forced rebel surrender the second. The workhouse attack plan was the easiest to defend against IMO -- just sit behind the reverse slope of the hill and mow the attackers down as they come over. The yard attack wasn't much harder either, however -- the big thing is just killing the tanks, in either plan. The reserve forces weren't much useful, but you can find the enemy with them, and sometimes use them to finish off an enemy squad that's been battered by tank fire. I noticed them shooting at each other sometimes, but there didn't appear to be any casualties from that. Guards Counterattack: Not too bad. I confess that I reloaded after losing an arty spotter (wasn't sure that I'd get another, given no replacements), and after being inattentive in another case (easy to have happen in real time mode) -- call me gamey if you wish. Overall, though, the T-72 TURMS-T you are given seem to easily overpower their opposition -- the enemy rarely even sees my tanks, and with shoot-and-scoot tactics, you're only exposed for moments at a time. Forced a rebel surrender. Hill 142 -- fun fun, though I wonder how much infantry you really need here. One of my companies -- after an ill-fated attempt at advancing towards the ford -- sat on the ridge overlooking the town, supporting my advance. Most resistance was suppressed and destroyed by artillery, tanks, or helicopters though -- fire from the infantry didn't seem that significant, particularly given the ranges involved. I forced a Syrian surrender, at the end -- which is interesting, because I'm not sure whether I would have found the arty spotter otherwise (I had a recon unit moving to the area behind the hill, but I'm not sure whether it would've spotted the FO in time). The Barrier -- I gauged (correctly, I think) that this would require a reverse-slope defense after I realized that I wouldn't be able to set up infantry anywhere on the forward side of Point 313 and Point 315. I had held my units back for fear of artillery (which I don't regret -- there were a lot of shells coming down!), but the enemy's vehicles made use of this. The problem was, though that a) I (stupidly) tried to stage hit-and-run attacks with my BMPs against the rebel forces as they tried to mass in the valley, and more importantly I failed to adequately protect the flanks of the hill. I didn't expect both flanks to cave in, moreover, so I wound up with BMPs caught in the middle -- ugh. The enemy attack on my right flank was still cut to pieces, anyway, and the attack on my left flank stalled at Point 341, but by then it was too late, and most of my force was totalled as well. I lost, *sigh*, time to move on.. Buying the Farm: This scenario makes me wish SF units in the game came with MGs of some sort (or maybe extra snipers? not sure how much that would help). Advancing across the fields after the tanks arrive is painful, and before they arrive is worse. Making matters worse is that I seem to have a terrible time getting LOS to the workhouses (though they seem to have no problem getting LOS to me!) I'm not sure what the issue is.. Lost two tanks to that ATGM, too, before I killed it. Ultimately -- at great cost -- I got my forces into the farmhouse and workhouses, and held against the counterattack -- had to send both my remaining tanks forward to shore up the farmhouse's skeleton defense. Retaking the pump house was just not an option. I lost, and badly. The point breakdown was (IIRC): Me: 1000 pts -- Farmhouse 1000 pts -- Workhouses Rebels: 1000 pts -- Pump House 500 pts -- Enemy (ie, my) casualties 2000 pts -- Friendly (ie their) casualties Those 2000 pts for the rebels keeping their casualties down is a killer. I don't know where the threshold is, but it appears as if you'd have to cross the river and attack the enemy forces there, because the rebels on my side of the river were eviscerated (so were my units, of course). It's frustrating, because I was under the impression that taking two out of three objectives could be enough. Maybe that's a false assumption on my part -- the briefing *does* say take all three, and the pump house probably wouldn't be there if it was supposed to be optional. Breakout -- ugh. Due to past losses, I have no air support, and no reserve forces either. And I have 3 ATGM teams, because the fourth was lost in the first battle. I couldn't get my ATGMs into decent positions in time, before the enemy had taken the mansion. One ATGM team and some other infantry were wiped out before they could set up. The other two went into hide mode, and managed to get their weapons deployed after they enemy lost sight of them. They killed a tank or two, and then were spotted (again) and killed. I wasn't going to try to advance the remainder of my depleted infantry force against the enemy (who still had a bunch of BTRs and a few tanks), so I hit cease fire. I may try again today, I don't know. Maybe I should have tried to set up behind Hill 762, but I don't know if the enemy tanks will advance that far. Maybe go slower this time, and see if I can avoid detection? It's iffy, though, and I'm tempted to restart the campaign in general. If I do restart the campaign, I'll have to give thought to holding off attacks 'til all my forces have arrived. I normally would think that you ought to attack early and seize the initiative, but in some cases the enemy was already set in their positions, and I didn't get much benefit from striking early. Overall, a few high points: - I like how many of the scenarios make use of enemy artillery. Even if it's not falling on your forces, it still keeps you off forward slopes while the enemy advances, and forces you to decide when to move forward (if at all) to occupy your troops' battle positions (is the barrage over? Do I want to risk it?). - Probably goes without saying, but I liked the general concept in the Phase 1 missions (do this right, and you'll have air support / less incoming arty / etc). It gives your actions a higher, tangible purpose beyond simply putting text in the "Commander's Intent" section. Didn't like: - Seems like there's a lot of "The enemy is coming to overrun your positions! Throw him back, and retake what you've lost!" It gets kind of redundant. I haven't gotten further than Breakout, so I don't know whether the rest of the campaign continues to follow this theme, admittedly. Not a huge issue, though. - Where's my howitzers? Wouldn't this crucial sector be getting "main effort"-style support? I guess the big question might be playability (given how powerful arty can be in CMSF).

Problem -- the third mission keeps crashing on me. It seems to load fine, but the moment I click the left mouse button -- regardless of what I click on -- the game crashes. This happened both in Hasrabit v1 and v2. Is anyone else having this problem? I'm not sure whether to put this in the Tech Support forum or here. This particular problem doesn't seem to happen with any other scenario/campaign in 1.08. The first two missions do work fine, though.

Sweet. I assume you're trying to model the actual layout of the area? I've been trying to do that with a few areas, but it takes an awful lot of time to do. Where I have made progress, I find that the resulting map is too large/complex to run smoothly on my machine with any decent number of units. :/ Here's to hoping you have better luck. Those pics look awesome.

Tell me about it. I don't even worry too much about Syrian trenches in game if I have 155s or even a couple of 120mm mortar sections. You almost wonder what the point is -- Syrian squads in game appear to be safer in a tiny shack than in their trenches.

Yeah, the disappearing question mark makes it kinda easy to tell that you've finished them off. You ought to have to send someone in to check on the question mark in order to verify that you've knocked out the squad/team. Otherwise, you don't even have to get close -- just hammer from a distance until the question mark goes away (assuming you have the ammunition to do so).

I've seen humvees in the game use a slow movement order to retreat when under heavy fire. It would appear that they're using the same logic as infantry (with sometimes disastrous results). Of course, on a side note, it'd be nice if the infantry TacAI stopped using slow movement orders altogether. I know they sometimes use fast movement orders to retreat now, but I've still seen a lot of situations where squads in the game just sit there with slow movement orders, in the open, taking fire..and I can't get them to bug out no matter how hard I try. I don't really see the point -- I've never seen squads in game make it to safety with slow movement.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but in 1.07, TOWs appear to be unusually powerful relative to tank HEAT rounds. The game will usually let me cave in a building's wall with a TOW hit or two, but if I try the same thing with 120mm HEAT rounds, I have to hit again and again and again (6-7 from what I've seen, though it varies) to achieve the same effect. I've been having a lot of fun with it in missions that involve Bradleys -- just area target the floor of a building that a Syrian infantry squad is using, and one or two TOWs later, they're history. The cannon on my M1s, by contrast, don't seem quite as useful. Is this right?

I have to say, I've never understood the "more variety" complaints myself, given all the stuff the Syrian side has in the game. There are ways you could improve it, though most areas (MILAN ATGMs, for instance) appear to be getting addressed in the Marines module. The only thing I could really think of -- and maybe this is planned, but I haven't heard of it -- are we going to see an IBCT line battalion in the editor in some future module? I know you can take a Stryker battalion and delete the Strykers, but that's not totally accurate, is it?

BTW, to those who say you can't shoot and scoot -- I've been able to make it work with either side, sort of, in real time play. Sometimes they find their targets and engage right away, sometimes not. You do have to use unbuttoned vehicles if playing the Syrian side, and smoke screws everything up (which is understandable). Still, it'd be really helpful if you could just give a shoot-and-scoot order as in CMx1, and maybe allow the unit to spot faster when in the shoot position (since they're likely to be focused on finding the target at that point). It'd also simplify things, especially for turn-based games. But the biggest thing about shoot-and-scoot, IMO, is that the AI player won't do it. You'd think it'd be doable -- after all, they can already have a vehicle back out of view when facing superior firepower; the only thing remaining is to get the enemy to back out while reloading, and to come back when a round is ready to fire.

Someone help me out here -- how do I tell a unit to target an enemy it cannot see? I can try to click on the ? icon, but since the enemy is out of LOS, nothing happens..

Just because something "ups the excitement" doesn't mean it necessarily makes sense, or is a good idea. If someone held a gun to my head and told me that I'd be shot if I lost Webwing's campaign, that would make it *very* intense, but I don't think I'd want that. Seriously, we're talking about missions that a) involve pretty large maps and revolve around dismounted infantry. Unless you intend to conduct human wave attacks, this is going to go fairly slowly. Moreover, I'm not seeing anything in the briefings that would indicate a reason for time pressure. I could fully understand if the bad guys were trying to vacate an area, and your mission was to head them off. Or if you made a scenario where the player has to make an armored breakthrough (which is one idea I've had floating around in my head) -- that would be excellent for time pressure. But none of the missions appear to run along those lines. That said, it's not a bad campaign, and I just played through it with 1.06 -- got a minor victory. Needless to say, I think it's plenty challenging without arbitrary timelimits.

BTW, I want to second the requests for more time in this thread. Especially since more than one of the missions give you air power with 30 or so minutes left. It often seems to take up to 10 minutes for the bombs to start falling, then the bombs fall one at a time at 1-2 minute intervals.. and by the time you cancel the strike you have barely any time left.

I noticed in the (EDIT: Hideout mission, I thought it was the last one) that you can cross the ravine at one point, near the southwest corner of the map. This allows you to go around the hill's left flank and avoid a lot of the enemy in the village north of the hill. I don't know if this was intended -- hence my post -- but I actually like this. Having my pixelated troops launch a frontal assault down the hill, in view of the entire valley on the other side, seems kind of...odd. [ February 11, 2008, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: shadowgamer ]

Well, the arty fire at the start of a scenario could be seen as an attack on your assembly area. If your troops start out mounted, though, that shouldn't be as much of a problem, as the artillery in CMSF usually doesn't hit your vehicles.

I've been able to find a number of topographic maps of Syria on the web, and have been using the contour lines on these maps in creating CMSF maps. Currently, drawing a contour line in the editor means clicking on tile after tile along the length of the desired line. You don't have to click every tile, but the spacing between can't be too great, or else you may have unpredictable results (especially if there's a concentration of directly-set elevation tiles nearby). This can be very time-consuming. It would be very helpful if the editor allowed you to simply draw a contour line by clicking once on each end of the line. You'd hit a button -- say, "Draw contour line" -- then click the two ends of the line, and the editor would set elevation at every tile in between. Also, while I know the game file formats in general are closed to the public, is it possible that the map/scenario file format could be published? I'd love to be able to make some simple tools for myself to aid in making CMSF maps/scenarios.