Ithikial_AU

3.6km x 2.9 I think. Don't quote me on that. Shhhh. There's been a lot more since then and a part of this series is planned to cover the additional research information that you may not really need for individual scenarios but helps create campaigns. Never under estimate this community, there is a grog for everything. Sorry very slight spoiler but no partisans here. I will explain the Panzer III's in a further part while talking about unit selection depending on how far down that rabbit hole I can go. Seeing behind the scenes I'm honestly amazed at the level of detail some of the TOE discussions get down to. Short version, most Panzer III's were pulled from front line units after Kursk and were sent back for conversions into StuG's, though a few were sent to Panzer Schools as training vehicles. The Germans in August 1944 were throwing everything they could at the Soviets as Bagration ran out of steam at the gates of Warsaw. At the same time the Soviets cut off Army Group North from their land route back to Germany at the end of July - a larger German force than what was trapped at Stalingrad. This included emptying training depots with their trainee crews from Germany and sending them east. They had guns and tracks. One of those units was sent to Latvia at the start of August.

1 – Outline Campaign Concept “Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.” Niccolò Machiavelli Step one of making a campaign: quit Combat Mission and start planning. This first and the second section of this write up will all be done outside of the game itself. A Combat Mission campaign is a project with many moving parts that need to talk to each other ideally in a seamless way to make a great experience for your audience. Before properly begin, I want you to go through this checklist and ask these questions: - Have you made a scenario yet? - Are you inspired? (This is going to take a while) - Can a Combat Mission Campaign do what you want it to? The third one is a bit fuzzy for some so that’s what we’ll be answering below in this part, but hopefully you’ve said yes to all three. The first is paramount as designing a scenario from scratch has enough to learn on its own without adding on yet more to learn. Considering campaigns are single player only, you will have to know how to create AI plans. Is that historical series of engagements grabbed your attention? No way around it, you’re creating a bunch of scenarios on the same subject matter so it’s going to take time. Jon Snowden started his Scenario Design DAR/AAR stating: “Scenarios usually begin with a hazy idea of what I want to do.” Campaigns usually start by having a hazy idea but then also wondering what would come next? For historical based campaigns there’s usually a series of engagements that line up that you want to re-create. For fictional campaigns it’s usually a bit more creative such as “The player has taken the hill, so what should I place on the other side?” There are always more inspiration and ideas… one day. (And there are no Battlefront secrets in the screenshot, I’ve checked). What is a Combat Mission Campaign? It’s a pre-determined series of linked scenarios that can track and carry across the same units between multiple engagements. That is it. Combat Mission is still a strategy game and campaigns do no introduce any role-playing elements such as units gaining experience after ‘x enemy kills’ or the like. The campaign must be a self-contained within the same game family – so a campaign can’t begin in Combat Mission: Battle of Normandy and transfer through to Combat Mission: Final Blitzkrieg. Though there is nothing stopping a designer from breaking this one, the focus of tracking specific units between battles does naturally lend the system to favouring short time scales ranging from a few hours through to a week or so of combat. If you look through all the stock campaign releases that have come with every base game and module, you’ll see they largely follow the same pattern where you command a handful of formations through a number of trials over the course of a few days or weeks. So back to my third question: Can a Combat Mission Campaign do what you want it to? Idea: I want the player to command Army Group North in its defence of Riga. I also want to throw in a hypothetical scenario around what would happen if an additional Soviet Tank Army also joined in the attack. I want a pony. Ithikial’s Response: Combat Mission is the wrong scale for that type of wargame. I also want a pony. Idea: I want the player to command the 2nd Battalion, 506 PIR, from D-Day through to the end of the war. Ithikial’s Response: Well that’s doable on paper, but before you begin that’s already two campaigns across two titles that can’t ‘talk’ to each other. It’s also likely dozens of scenarios that need to be individually built and have planned out branching pathways. Have you considered what happens if Lt Winters is killed at Brecourt Manor? What does that mean for Easy Co. at Bloody Gulch? I promise you’ll burn out and the project will never get finished. Idea: I want the player to command 3rd Battalion, 116 Infantry Regiment in July 1944 as it fights towards St Lo. The campaign will end once they manage to link up with the 1st “Lost” Battalion east of the city on the city. Ithikial’s Response: I want to play that. There’s a good chance it will work. The message here and for most of this first part is that campaigns can spiral out of control very easily if there is no time, force composition and geography limit you place upon yourself as a designer to keep the project workable and a player interested. What if I said the Battle of Tukums actually started out first as a seven-scenario campaign tracking the Panzergrafs’ units from their jump off at Saldus in western Latvia, through to Tukums and then onto the Riga outskirts themselves, plus a few more scenarios as they widened the corridor they created over the following days. It was too big with the major set piece battle around the town itself occurring in the front half of the series. Everything else would quickly become filler. So the campaign turned into a large scenario merging two of the earlier planned engagements of the campaign that were to occur concurrently in the timeline. Then when I realised there could be potentially over 1,500 moving pixeltrüppen at one time on the screen with 100 plus tanks… I really didn’t want to be the cause of melting CPU’s and complaints back to Battlefront help desk, so it was split up again into three distinct parts ranging from 0830 hours in the morning through to around 1400 hours in the afternoon. The green square is what this campaign is focused on. The purple boxes are what the first cut of what this campaign would of looked like and I still think would of played worst for it. So, remember when I opened this part saying the first thing to do is “Quit Combat Mission”? All of the above was done through a few forum posts (behind the scenes), ongoing research and planning, and (because it’s me) a spreadsheet or two to organise my thoughts. There was no time wasted in the editor making maps and creating scenarios that went nowhere which is a path to losing interest in a project pretty quick. Now there are going to be some unique terminology that I’m going to keep coming back to in every part of this series so it is prudent to get this out of the way up front: A Glossary of Terms Core Unit Any unit (on both sides) that will take part in more than one scenario and where it’s end condition will transfer from one to another. Non-Core Unit Any unit (on both sides) that will only take part in one scenario or where the unit’s end condition does not matter for follow on scenarios. Campaign Briefing The first briefing the player will read once commencing the campaign and will likely refer back to throughout the course of playing to review the overall objective. In most cases contains high level information on overall situation, objectives and a high level of detail on units under their command. (A part will be dedicated to this). Campaign Script [Cue spooky music] The behind the scenes code that tells Combat Mission what to do between scenarios. The branching ‘road map’ the player will go down between individual scenarios and the information about what should change for the core units transferring into a battle. Has been known to cause designers to cry, scare away newcomers and cause marriage breakdowns*. Core Unit File A master file that is the central collection point for all campaign level elements. It is also the file that is used to compile and create the final campaign. Will include all Core Units, the Campaign Briefing, Campaign Briefing Imagery, the Campaign Script (sort of we’ll get to that). * There may not be any tangible evidence of this one. End of Part 1. Your homework to be posted in the comments below: - Is there a Stock Campaign that has come out with a product release that sticks out in your mind as one you really enjoyed? - Why do you remember it and what makes it stand out?

The Battle of Tukums: A Campaign Design AAR/DAR Back in 2013, Jon Snowden collated an extensive collection of material detailing how members of the community could jump into the editor within a CM2 era title and design a scenario from start to finish while building a stock scenario for a pending release. That manual currently sits on all of your hard drives if you have brought anything from Battlefront or updated a title over the last half a decade as it’s included with all your installers. What the Kiwi started, the Aussie is subtly encouraging you to take the next step and select the ‘Make Campaign’ option inside the editor. True, not everything that is bigger is necessarily better, but have you seen the size of New Zealand*. This will definitely be a ‘module’ added on to the ‘base game’ book that was created by Jon all those years ago. I will not be covering old ground about how to make a map and creating AI plans. I strongly encourage you to take a look at that manual if you haven't already. Even after all these years I need to double check a few things from time to time. Finally, everything below will vary from just factual explanations through to subjective opinions based off my own personal experience. Of course, there are alternative approaches out there so please explore. I’m just putting this disclaimer here because, well, this is the internet. * Honestly, at times part of me wishes I was living in New Zealand. Cooler weather, funny accents, better internet connection... I just don't understand the fascination with rugby.

I like where the WW2 version is at following the R2V update but the modern version needed some love. Started some work but got sideline by other activities. A new version maybe after Christmas but don't hold me to that. Should be able to simple copy results across when the time comes. Still no plans to merge the two together.

I'm doing the CMSF2 nations. Nothing stopping them working in CMBS as well.

Some of the USA faces. Admit I wasn't planning of releasing since I'm mixing mods from across titles and other mod makers. Mix of balaclavas and face paint.

I notice you are playing CMSF2 from the blue force side so I'd imagine the professional soldiers with high experience is partly causing this. Switch to WW2 titles or to the Syrians and you may experience something a touch different. It's also easier to spot things that are moving so the Syrians maybe spotting your troops as they move into position. You also become very easy to spot once your pixeltruppen start firing their weapons effectively sending giant "I am here" flares. Yes the recent patch did toughen up the morale of infantry in hard cover but that was after some horrible (IMO and I think many others) experiences of troops breaking far to easily and fleeing hard cover/good positions where running meant getting killed quicker. See my German "Fire and Rubble" Beta AAR thread over in the CMRT forum where I explain my experiences in more detail fighting in an urban environment. Tips and tricks: - High explosive is now incredibly important in dislodging an enemy from building (or at least doing it quicker). - Watch you ammo counts. Your troops will be expending a terrible lot of ammunition now in city fighting given the morale tweaks. - Keep in mind the calibre of your small arms. A .50 cal round can punch right through a building and out the other side. A 5.56 NATO probably doesn't get past the wall. - Earlier comments are right. If you target the enemy infantry directly your troops will only shoot when they have positive spots. Plot an area fire order and the troops will keep up the fire. Just because they will likely lose sight of the enemy in the occupied building doesn't mean they can't cause the enemy casualties if the enemy is still occupying the location the fire is heading towards. - If possible try to get into position first so your troops have more chance of spotting and shooting first. - The first few seconds of the engagement are critical. Try to overwhelm the enemy in the first few seconds of a firefight when they are unaware and still out of position/exposed in windows etc. Open fire with one team of a few rifles it alerts the enemy. Open with a whole platoon and there's a good 10 fold increase of bullets heading their way as they are exposed. My AAR has a good example of this where the Soviet slaughtered pretty much a full platoon and about 15 seconds as they were still setting up inside the building. - The hunt command is essential for entering pretty much any building in a modern title so your troops are guns up and ready to engage contact. Hope that helps.

I made something similar for myself. Half way through creating 'night' faces for all nationalities for CMSF2. Mix of balaclavas and guys running around with face paint. Handy thing to have though.

Hide is an order that does more than what it says on the tin. It tells your troops to keep their heads down so is very useful in barrage situations if they are in hard cover. Well except for a direct hit or air bursts. Troops that don't hide will pop their heads up from foxholes and trenches as soon as the suppression lifts which can cause problems if the barrage is lighter or there has not been a nearby impact for a while. The trade off is you gain protection but lose quite a bit of spotting ability so can be risky if you know there are enemy nearby coming up behind the barrage. A number of times I've kept the bulk of troops hidden but kept a lone fireteam or the platoon HQ as a lookout so they can at least get spots. Even if I don't get solid contacts I'll probably get some general warning of enemy movements if I do this. If you are confident the fire is more a harassment and there are no enemy forces nearby, it's a no brainer to 'hide' your troops until the barrage passes.

Hold up. Did you update to 2.04? Also I think the updated campaign with fixes needs to be released. @BFCElvis ?

It's all cool mate happy for the feedback. Yeah if you knocked out 9 tanks then it's hard for the Allied player to claw their way back. For a minute I there I thought something had gone horribly wrong with the VP allocation. A touch on edge after the CMSF2 Dutch Campaign problem. Glad you enjoyed it. It's not a like for like H2H match up so probably not suitable for tournament play but mirror matches would probably be the most equal approach for tackling this one in multiplayer.

It does but you can't set up a map that is already been the site of a battle. Well you can with buildings/ruins and craters added manually but you can't tweak the trees to reflect the a battered state.

Glad to be a bad influence.

<-- Scenario designer. Happy to take a look at the save game if you still have. Victory conditions are in the briefing and the VP allocation is in top image. I think you destroyed enough of the Shermans to get across the line. The Shermans award the most VP on purpose for the German player. The Germans need to focus down the Irish Guard armour to cause problems for a possible further allied advance north of the bridge. We know Market Garden wouldn't be launched until a week later, but at this point but the Germans had no idea and had nothing ready to defend anything north of the position all the way to Eindhoven at this point. The mission is only semi-historical as the German counterattack depicted happened at dawn the following morning rather than immediately after the storming of the bridge. I've promised myself that I'd go back and tweak this one if BF ever released an update that introduced tank riders to CMBN as the Brits road them as they stormed the bridge itself. I've also still got the German source material from Ulf I mention in the scenario designer comments section and part of me wants to create a scenario for the Hectel fight just south of this one between the Welsh Guards with their Cromwells (there just aren't enough scenarios with Cromwells ) and SS defenders with Jadpanther support. But too many projects on as it is plus RL.

The two big things I've wanted to be able to do as a designer with the AI is: - Triggers for reserve forces. Would allow the 'rescue/activation' of additional units once specific location is reached on the map by friendly or enemy forces. - The ability for designers to run both side's AI plans in parallel as part of the testing process. Essentially so they push play and watch a battle unfold. This allows them to see where forces start spotting each other and if the AI plans are broadly working as intended before they send it out to another person(s) to test blindly. Playing one side at a time when you know everything about the AI opponent is a bit of a wasteful time sink IMO.

Oooh I like the idea of 'tricking' the games for to generate trees with no foliage. Always bugged me when you are trying to create a pre-destroyed landscape to fight over it was impossible to have defoliated trees among the destruction. The flavour objects introduced in some later titles helps a bit but that does take forever to 'plant' an entire forest.

Five Lions was a CMSF2 narrative campaign that actually went through to completion and had a Syrian campaign victory. CMSF2 and to a lesser extent CMBS are lopsided in favour of blue force so the trick I used here was to have varying and secret campaign objectives for both sides. You'll have a more balanced approach if you go with the WW2 titles I'd imagine. As for a mass community event, all I'll say is good luck. Part of the reason this went through to completion was the small number of players (4 per side) including one overall commander. Plus there was a fixed end point to the campaign so a limited number of campaign turns that everyone knew they were working towards. For a mass community event setting up a system where players just need to play a battle and report the outcome by a certain date is a lot safer, and all the umpire needs to do is record results as they come in. Trying to have a true campaign with operational level movements with dozens of players on each side will boil down to a lot of forum posts, not a lot of agreement and growing apathy as it goes on or runs into inevitable delays as players wait for others to finish battles. Sorry to be blunt, just seen many of these campaigns fizzle out before. Know what you are trying to do up front and have everything prepped. Going big may sound and look great but also bloats the workload on one or handful of people.

Nah that's fine, that should be enough info. I'll take another look tonight to triple check.

I double checked this and can't see this from the units that start the battle on map. I think you may have got lucky and ambushed some reinforcing Syrian Units before they got to their final positions. I wouldn't say unplayable but there's less information presented than promised in the briefing. I think there was a mix up between the briefing graphics and the text in the briefing. I've tweaked the words to give the player intel in the briefing without laying out exactly where each minefield is located. See my earlier post on the matter. As for changes: - Briefing tweaks such as this one and issues raised earlier. - Fix to Mission 5 Heartland. The VP allocation was out and made that mission far too difficult and unaligned to the briefing. I caught Smart Wargames stream the other night and my heart sank when we got to the AAR screen. The scenario played our largely as intended so no apologies for the RPG-29's - it is regional command and control center after all - but it shouldn't kick you out of the campaign at this point unless you are thoroughly trounced and can't capture the main objective. In which case the Dutch battlegroup stays behind in Al-Raqqah. The problem was that the final VP assigned still had some values leftover from the original release which made it incredibly hard to achieve with a depleted force. Got past me and the other other testers at the time. Pretty sure it's in the Scenario Design part of the briefing but when we revamped this campaign we actually made it easier. The original kicked you out of the campaign following two defeats in a row no matter where you were in the campaign. Not to mention there wasn't any replenishment of headcount or vehicle repair throughout.

Have to start over.

I think something got missed with the updated tac map as part of the revamp. I've tweaked the briefing alongside other fixes picked up over the the past few months. New version should be available soon. For your play through, avoid areas that provide cover and concealment on your approach.

Yes that's one of the little tweaks to the early part of that campaign revamp we made. If you win the first mission, the next two (which occur simultaneously) are set at dusk, but if you lose the first mission they occur much later on in the dead of night and IIRC the troops start those battles in a tired state. Just simulating the advance being stalled somewhat once the Dutch force crossed the border from Turkey.

Master maps weren't 'a thing' back with the Commonwealth Module was released. Also the Scottish Corridor campaign takes place over a very large area so perhaps not Master Map material. You can use one of the campaign extraction tools to draw out all the individual scenarios, delete all the units and AI plans and you'll have a blank map to play with.

I always wondered what would happen if CM did away with it's complex code running behind the scenes and just had health bars and fixed damaged values instead. I'm guessing a complete replacement of it's player base as a starting point. Personally it's ARMA3 > HLL and PS. The big difference is variety. ARMA is a sandbox with a much larger array of opportunities for different missions and setups to keep it fresh from the user end. Even after all this time something keeps bringing it's players back in whether it's from the devs or community. Other titles are relying more on map and expansion packs from developers. Giving the more realism focused fans a sandbox to play in keeps them around and engaged. The one that maybe a bit of an odd in this space is Men at War. Not suggesting it's the same as CM by any stretch but attempts by modders to push that casual setup towards the realism side of the fence seemed out of place. Just a curious one. (And not suggesting even something like Robz Realism Mod puts that game into CM league in terms of complexity).

My research at the time, plus other historians suggests the organisation of Operation Windsor was done pretty much at the brigade level rather than the at the Division level. Rod Keller, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division commander at the time was too busy planning Operation Charnwood with the Second Army, and effectively delegated Windsor to his 8th Brigade under Col Blackader. (Not that Blackadder). Windsor as a replacement to the aborted Operation Ottawa still went ahead to both keep up the pressure on the Caen sector of the front following the end of Operation Epsom, but also the capture of the airfield and German strong point would mean Caen itself would be directly threatened from the west for Operation Charnwood and force the 12th SS Panzer into a more precarious position. Anyone who's played my campaign will see the great prepared defensive position the Germans had in this part of the line. 3rd Division HQ certainly didn't hamstrung 8th Brigade and effectively said yes to every request Col Blackader made in the days leading up to the assault. This included receiving an additional battalion of infantry (from 7th Brigade) for the assault on the south side of the airfield and the copious amounts of artillery support from across Second Army. It's limited success was, I think, was more to do with the non-inventive plan from the Canadians and the fact there was no other major action across the entire Caen front, which made it quite easy for the Germans to concentrate and respond. The Germans did have abandon the south side of the airfield at the start of Operation Charnwood and the Canadians didn't use Carpiquet for it's start line for the assault on Caen a few days later. Instead they went in via a route north of the airfield. Short version: British probably didn't have much influence or say on the name of the operation. The original 1944 Operation Windsor organisational paperwork: http://canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/op-windsor1.pdf