Ithikial_AU

What he said. You may need to manually update the pivot tables as well to read the new dates. Excel can be a bit funny in that area. There is an update planned a little while from now that has the real world date extended to 2030.

5 – Campaign Briefing and Narrative (Making Me Care) “Words are how we think; stories are how we link.” Christina Baldwin Campaign briefings are a unique part of a designer’s arsenal to provide additional information and narrative to the player. Campaigns are fundamentally larger affairs either in units, terrain and/or time. There should as a result be more information to impart to the player to provide them with context, purpose and information. The only physical difference between a campaign briefing and regular scenario briefings is that a campaign briefing will always be viewed first and can be accessed throughout a campaign by a player to go back and reference information. I’m structuring this part of the series similar to a normal briefing itself to explain what I feel needs to go into each section. Of all the sections of this write up, this is certainly the most subjective. A briefing’s design and content can be as simple or as detailed as you want, and as we’ve seen from the community over the years, they can range from official military writeups through to personal first-person accounts. It’s a narrative. What I’m trying to say here is it is largely up to you. For Tukums, I was in a little bit of a bind because the overall commander of the forces involved is actually on the field for most of the campaign. Therefore, writing a briefing that was very formal, like it was a well thought out and planned operation seemed to be a bit off. For a little while I was actually considering a first person briefing for this campaign from the perspective of Strachwitz, however opted against this eventually given it would be part of a stock release. Situation I believe this part of the briefing is the most important, particularly for a campaign where the broader state of affairs around the battle is likely going to play an influence on the player’s experience. The first thing I do is provide the narrative for how we got the starting point of this campaign. Why is the player and his forces being asked to undertake this mission? For historical scenarios like the Tukums work it’s pretty easy since history is your guide. For Tukums, it’s to break through the Soviet lines and reconnect a land bridge with the cut off Army Group North. For a fictional scenario, in particular the modern era titles, it’s a touch more difficult but imagination is a great tool. Don’t be scared to create a little but plausible story to get the player invested. Given the slightly larger scale of most campaigns and the type of content that needs to be conveyed I’ve always tended towards writing campaign briefings from the one command level higher than the units going into battle. So, for example if the focus of the campaign is the operations of a battalion, then write the campaign briefing from the perspective of the regiment/brigade level headquarters providing a briefing to the battalion commander (ie. the player). If the focus of the campaign is at the company level, the battalion headquarters is giving the orders. This does mean reducing the scope of the situation to suit the audience. A company commander is only going to need to know what the rest of his battalion is doing and where his force fits into their goals. A company commander doesn’t need to know every detail of Ike’s plan for crossing the Rhine. A battalion commander likely knows what his regiment/brigade is tasked with undertaking and perhaps a dabble in the Division’s overall plans if it’s a prepared operation. The graphics should help visualise the overall objectives of the Campaign. Help position where the player’s force fits into the wider picture. Some general level intelligence on the enemy and high-level formations the player has at their command. All stock scenarios and campaigns follow the same graphical design with the Operational graphic (the middle sized one) outlining broad unit movements and support elements available. This also makes it clear to the player which units are perhaps more important to keep alive given they carry across to more scenarios. A campaign briefing doesn’t have access to a Tactical Map. Mission With the narrative set up in the Situation part of the briefing, the Mission part can then be used to provide overall goals of the campaign. Outline the end goal of the campaign, what will be different after all battles are completed successfully. It’s very easy to slip into the trap of expanding more details that should be outlined in the Situation part of the briefing. Campaign end points may not always be designed to end in a state as intended at the start of the campaign. The multiple path dilemma. The “ideal outcome” or the “planned” outcome is usually what needs to be presented at this early point in the campaign. If a planned out campaign has multiple phases, or a briefing via a “step by step” approach may be warranted. This will give the player an idea about how much of the heavy lifting specific forces of the player is expected to carry out. As an example, the Tukums campaign briefing Mission part is provided below and in full. Keep it short, keep it sweet, keep it clear. It has just gone 08:30 hours. Your mission is to occur in two phases over the course of the morning: Phase one - move your panzer and panzergrenadier force north to capture and occupy the town of Tukums, including the rail station to the west of the town. Phase two - pivot part of your force back to the east and progress towards Riga to affect a linkup with Army Group North. The remainder of your force is to remain behind and hold Tukums. Soviet opposition should be dealt with quickly and efficiently when encountered. You are operating largely on your own with little in the way of other friendly forces close by in most directions. Most importantly is to deal with any armour that is encountered. The 52nd Security Division is following in trail to hold the ground taken; however, it lacks any significant heavy weapons of its own to fend off any Soviet armour that may move into the area. This coupled with the strategic map (as above) demonstrates to the player what his forces are intended to do across the whole campaign. Friendly Units A campaign briefing will be available to players throughout the campaign (via the menu) so it’s good to take this opportunity to provide them with a detailed run down of all forces, especially Core Units, in a tidy format that can be used as a ready reference. Also take some time to present some recent unit history to help explain why the force is the way it is. Has it just come out of another battle and 70% strength? Are the leaders particularly good/bad? Provide some context to the player so they are not surprised when they enter the first battle and are still missing half the story about what they are commanding. For Tukums, my research had provided a pretty good understanding where most of the force had come from before forming only the day before the start of the operation around the area of Saldus in Latvia. The briefing will provide some of this information and some of the relative strengths and weaknesses to look out for as a player. For displaying the Order of Battle itself, you are limited by the game only allowing raw text files to be imported so will need to be a little creative with keystrokes to make it easy organise. I’ve used different asterisk symbols to help distinguish the levels of the player’s order of battle. This is how it will appear in the briefing for Tukums (excluding the surrounding briefing text): Legend **** Parent Unit (Higher headquarters not present on map) ** Battalion / formation level command (or equivalent) - Element under the command of higher battalion/formation East Bank Force As is his style, Generalmajor Graf von Strachwitz has decided to lead the assault on the east bank personally. ** Heer Panzerverbande Headquarters Company - Adhoc Panzer Company – 10 x Pz IV - Armoured recon elements (attached from Waffen SS Brigade Gross) **** Heer Panzer Brigade 101 ** 2101st Panzer Battalion - Headquarter element, including mobile flak (4 x Möbelwagons) - 3 x Panzer Companies (11 x Panther Ausf G each) Note: The planned delivery of a fourth company consisting of JzPzIV(V) as initially promised has not arrived from Germany. ** 2101st Panzergrenadier Battalion (armoured) - 2 x Panzergrenadier Companies (armoured) - 1 x Heavy Company (armoured) - 1 x Pioneer Company (armoured) ** Waffen SS Ersatz Battalion [-] [dismounted] (detached from Panzer Brigade Gross) - 1 x Rifle Company (dismounted) - 1 x Heavy Company (dismounted) West Bank Force SS-Sturmbannführer der Waffen-SS Martin Gross commands this adhoc force from the mixed Panzer Company. ****Waffen SS Panzer Brigade Gross ** SS-Panzer-Abteilung "Gross" - Adhoc mix of outdated Panzer III and Panzer IV variants and a single Panther Ausf D - 1 x Tiger I. A detached company from Schwere SS-Panzer Abteilung 103 was scheduled to join the Brigade with its seven Tiger I’s, however as of this morning they only have one running vehicle, which has been delayed. The Tiger will also join SS-Panzer-Abteilung “Gross” once it arrives in the area of operations. ** SS Ersatz Infantry Battalion [-] [dismounted] (elements detached to east bank force) - 2 x Rifle Companies (dismounted) ** SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung "Gross" - Equivalent of two platoons of armoured cars. (Some elements detached to Panzer Brigade 101). ** SS-Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung - 1 x StuG Company (12 x StuG III) Though not an issue for Tukums, keep in mind other Core Units that may show up half way through the campaign. Depending on the overall narrative, as a designer you will need to determine if it’s best to inform the player in the Campaign Briefing about these units or not. Core units that arrive later or unplanned is something a commander isn’t necessarily going to know about before they set off on their planned operation. Again, this is why I personally like to imagine campaign briefings are the equivalent of a pre-planned meeting taking place with the player’s higher command. The campaign briefing… Enemy Units Narrative will heavily drive this part of the briefing. What works in one campaign will be different for every other campaign. Below is only some broad level advice given the sheer range of possibilities. For historical campaigns your research should outline what one side knows about the other’s dispositions prior to launching an assault. Campaign focused research should help you considerably here as many historians will outline what one side knows about the other at key points in a campaign. Though it maybe tempting to mention things like King Tigers being a part of the enemy force, dig deeper early in your research to find out if the forces your player commands actually knew about their presence at the time the operation kicks off. Knowing who knew what when is a great way of determining what should go into a campaign briefing. If you need to fill in the gaps, a formation that has manned the line for weeks will know at the least what enemy division(s) is in front of them from general patrolling and intelligence gathering. This may provide a general sense of factors such as armour being in the area but won’t include a lot of specifics. General high-level statements like that. A more rushed campaign without planning would be another matter. A fictional campaign will allow a lot of freedom with how much information you give the player but all I can provide in advice is to keep it realistic. A modern military launching an operation against a non-conventional force, (such as what is possible in CMSF2) isn’t going to go in completely blind not know estimates of numbers and equipment of the enemy. Plans How the player should ideally go about hitting all objectives. Not going to try and touch this one at all. Will vary across every campaign. The historical direction/outcomes of the campaign you’re a designing or the intended direction of the same historical campaign are likely the best places to get an idea about where to start. Just don’t get carried away and provide all the answers to the player. Notes and Final Tips (Make Me Care) A Campaign Briefing doesn’t negate the need for individual scenario briefings. Keep in mind the first thing the player is going to see once they hit continue (besides a loading screen) is another whole briefing detailing the first mission. This second briefing is the last chance you as a designer will have to know exactly where and in what situation the player will be in. Once they hit the big red button the range of possibilities starts growing. What units the player of your campaign will use, lose and what branching pathways they go down will be up to them (and the game) and outside of your hands. As a result, with every individual briefing you will have to provide some information but be a touch more general than if creating a single self-contained scenario. For example, under the Friendly Forces section you can’t outline ever unit that the player will command in that battle since you as a designer will not know what has survived and what hasn’t when the player reaches each point. Focus on more general statements for scenario briefings such as names of high-level formations that are taking part rather than details. Remember the campaign briefing is always available for the player throughout the campaign via the menu screen so the detailed information is best included in that briefing to provide ongoing information throughout the play through. If you’ve read this far then as a wargamer you’ll probably read a longer briefing. So as a final piece of advice: Make me care! As a designer you’ve likely poured many hours, days and weeks into this piece of work and you are asking your players to do the same. Having them open up a campaign ten scenarios in length and the campaign briefing is all on one page, there’s no briefing graphics and a lack of content about why the operation is taking place they are likely not going to commit. (I haven’t in the past). The Campaign Briefing is your main narrative tool to set the scene and tell the player why the battles they are about to play are important. Telling a player to go take that hill, then move to the village and then win is not inspiring for what could be weeks of commitment on a player’s part to play through your work. If you’ve done your research and planning (especially for historical battles) then writing up the briefings should be straight forward. Next up… campaign scripting.

*Cough* https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/uncategorized/ithikials-combat-mission-victory-calculator-version-2/ *Cough*

I haven't been on YouTube for years! I think Josey Wales, DoubleD and Hapless have the honour of carrying the torch now.

What he said. Distracted in a good way at the moment with Fire and Rubble but this will be finished. Final three sections will be: 5 - Campaign Briefings (drafting now) 6 - Campaign Scripts 7 - Testing and Balance (Dad is also out of hospital doing well) Cheers Ithikial

Just prior to the Courland Pocket being formed actually but broadly in the same vicinity. The Soviets cut off Army Group North twice. The first (and somewhat less well known) occurred in late July 1944, with a land connection re-established mid-August. Rather than bulling back to a more defensible position, Hitler ordered the Army Group to hold firm which in part led to them being cut off and trapped again soon after in what became to Courland Pocket. Pub trivia - the number of troops trapped in to the first pocket in Estonia and eastern Latvia was larger than what was lost at Stalingrad.

Apologies if there are still typos and flow problems in the post above. It's been a work in progress in drips and drabs over the past week both in and out of hospital. My Dad had an operation last week so there have been constant visits. Will review again after the holidays before the next part.

4 – Creating the Core Unit File “I am the vanguard of your destruction.” Sovereign Before we begin, a recap from Part 1: 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). The Core Unit File is the glue that holds all the campaign specific elements together. At this point as you start to pull individual components together, (I’m assuming you have started to make individual scenarios that you’ll be joining together), it’s wise to create a folder within the documents folder (or Mac equivalent) to place all your components into. Campaign components from .btt files to text and bmps will start piling up from now on. (Remember this is a small campaign with only three scenarios with some variants, much larger for a dozen scenarios). The image above is what Tukums looks like all broken down, well as of mid-December 2020. I’ve titled every component file into a consistent naming convention across all files that both works for me and is also a pretty logical coding structure for anyone that needs to come along and finish this in case I get hit by a bus or win the lottery. (The latter would probably mean I get more time to do this kind of thing though…) How this naming convention works is simply the numbers are the scenario order and the letter immediately after it equates to the variant. Variant A is “doing great”, while Variant C is “not so great.” Where there isn’t any Variant letter, means the component applies to all variants of that scenario or there aren’t any variants to begin with. For the individual scenario file names, these will be important for the campaign script but won’t show up for the player inside the campaign. The scenario titles entered inside the game via the editor will be what is viewable via the briefings. At this point create a brand-new scenario. This will not be a scenario but your Core Unit File. It is a regular scenario .btt file like any other. Under the “Mission” menu go first to the “Description” tab. Enter your campaign title and a brief description as per a normal scenario. Above this enter some broad details about most of your campaign and don’t forget to import a bmp as a campaign cover art so players can easily spot your campaign from the menu. Now move down to the “Data” tab. Most of this is redundant for a Core Unit File given this won’t be a scenario on its own. However, you still need to enter some important information here ahead of force selection. Remember to enter the correct date for when your campaign starts so the force selection screen lines up with the intended date of the campaign. Listing the correct “Region” will also influence some appearance options for some units in some titles. The other selections are redundant for the Core Unit File but will need to be set for each scenario in the campaign. Now head over to the “Briefing” tab. As per a regular scenario you need to provide briefings to the player outlining what it is they need to accomplish. Campaigns receive an additional briefing on top of the individual ones for each scenario. The next part of this series will focus on this campaign briefing. For now, all the text and artwork will be entered into the Core Unit File at this location. (The briefing text is distorted on purpose ) Most of the other menus are redundant for now so let’s switch over to the main part of the Core Unit File, the picking of your Core Units. There is no need to do any map work in this .btt file or provide AI plans as part of this file. Again, remembering back to Part 1 of this series: 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. Therefore, in this unit selection screen you need to enter every unit that will appear in more than one scenario, (including variants), in the exact same way as you would when designing an individual scenario. The game assigns a background code for each unit to track each individual pixeltrüppen and vehicle as they progress through the campaign. Your Core Units are the vanguard of forces for the player. It will likely be quite a long list of formations and units when you are done but keep in mind that depending on how your campaign is designed, this entire force is unlikely to appear altogether at once and in an undamaged state. Don’t forget you also need to include off map assets in this list if they are appearing across multiple engagements. For example, an artillery battery or air support assets that the player needs to use to support two separate engagements happening concurrently. To help manage this long list of formations I would advise: - Don’t skimp on going through and naming every formation with their historical unit names. This makes it very easy when it comes to importing your core unit file into individual scenarios and ensuring the right formation is showing up in the correct scenario. This includes off map support like artillery batteries so you can easily track - Providing leader names (if known) is also a nice way of ensuring the correct sub units appear at the right place and right time in an individual scenario. It also adds a bit of flavour for the player. o In the Tukums campaign one of the units on the field will be the Panzergraf, Hyacinth Graf Strachwitz von Groß-Zauche und Camminetz himself. Given his front of the pack command style it would be amiss to have him commanding the forces from 35 kilometers behind the lines. (Yes that is also a deliberate Blackadder reference ) - Purchase the major formations that are the focus of the campaign first so they appear at the top of the list. This makes life a touch easier when importing the units into individual scenarios. Once you have purchased the major formations it’s time to go through each of them and tweak every formation to suit the campaign itself. Remove individual vehicles of sub-units that have no place in your campaign – for example if only two companies of tanks took part rather than a whole battalion. When there is a formation with a mix of Core and Non-Core Units, (for example Company A is Core but Company B is non-Core), the entire formation needs to be added to the Core Unit File – so essentially all sub-formations and units will be Core Units though some won’t appear in more than one scenario. This is where the more detailed research you’ve undertaken as outlined in Part 2 of this series starts to come into its own and why unit histories are a key resource for historical campaign design. Also don’t forget to select the options at the bottom of the force selection screen ensuring the experience levels and appearance is correct for all units, keeping in mind these selections will run across the campaign. It’s usually safer to keep supply levels and headcounts at 100% in the core unit file and adjust the first mission as required. The majority of campaigns created will only have core units for the player. However, a campaign designer can just as easily apply core units to an opposing force if they want battle’s casualties inflicted upon the enemy AI player to carry across to subsequent battles. If you want to place all units in use across the campaign into the one Core Unit File, even if some are only going to show up once you can do that as well. However, you need to keep in mind that every time you import the forces into an individual scenario, you’ll have some ‘clean up’ to do. (See below). The Tukums campaign takes advantage of this in full as both the player and the opposing AI force are entirely Core Units. With a campaign with such a short time window this gave me quite a lot of flexibility when it came to organising the forces that appear in each scenario and whether some carry across to the next scenario based on the previous result. Importing Core Units Into Scenarios Once you have your core units sorted it’s time to start importing them into each individual scenario. Open up each of your scenarios one at a time. Drop down to the “Units” menu and rather than manually adding in units like an individual scenario, click on the “Import Campaign Units” tab. See the red text on the next image. Once you have clicked on this, you’ll be presented with the pop-up alert. Read it carefully and if you are happy hit the continue button. Once you hit continue an explorer window will open linking back to your game’s Documents folder (or Mac equivalent). From here, select the appropriate Core Unit File and hit okay. You’ll see your unit list is now populated with the formations you’ve already designed earlier as part of the Core Unit File. These will be imported as is in their entirety. From here you need to go through the list of formations and units to delete those that are not required in the specific scenario. If you accidently delete the wrong formation you will need to start again so save often. Deleting these formations will have no bearing on the Core Unit File itself so don’t be afraid if the formation entirely disappears from your list. Just ensure you are deleting them from the individual scenario file and not the Core Unit File. Once you have the Core Units that you require for the specific scenario, add additional units that are required for this scenario only (the non-core units). You’ll see a difference on the right-hand side of the window, with the formations that are Core Units tagged as such. If there is no tag, then the formation is not a Core Unit. Once the units are sorted (for both sides) start assigning AI Groups, AI plans, Victory Points and deploying the forces on the map all as you would in a regular individual scenario. Yes, this is a lot of work and can pile up when you have different variants and pathways to cover. Planning the work and direction of the campaign up front helps minimise any unnecessary work, while having variants that are slight differences on others also helps speed this process up. For this latter, build the scenario variant with the most units on the map in full first and then make copies of the same .btt file. Rename these copies and reduce the units that are not meant to appear as appropriate. Reimporting Core Units into Scenarios Crisis! You’ve discovered an error in your Core Unit File. New information has come to light that your order of battle is wrong! Meanwhile in testing it’s become clear that one of the scenarios is just too hard and the forces allocated and needs to be tweaked. What do you do? Your Core Unit File will change over the course of a project. You will inevitably discover something missing, or an error that needs to be fixed. Make all the changes into the Core Unit File itself. Then open each scenario and re-import the formations and units from the Core Unit File again as before. The Combat Mission Scenario Editor is pretty clever and detects if there have been any changes when you reimport a Core Unit File. Where the parent formations remain the same, all your unit deployments, AI reinforcement plans and AI plans will all still be there same as before. You do not need to reapply anything. What you do need to attend to each time you re-import the Core Unit File is to ensure the new units are joined to the correct AI groups, deployed on the map and similar. You will also need to delete the formations that are not meant show up in the respective scenario as they will all be added to the scenario – by default they will appear towards the bottom of the unit list in the scenario unit selection. Just remember if your changes to the Core Unit File means the deletion and replacement of an entire formation (such as the full Battalion of Panzers), then you’ll have to start everything from scratch. So like a broken record I’ll play it again… research, plan and organise.

Tip to make maps a little less daunting. At least what works for me. - Do the nature stuff first. Elevations, ground tile coverage (map out forests etc) and water. - Roads and rail next as they are the most trickiest to match up to a pre-existing map given the 45 degree limitation. Also bridges. - Everything else. I like to focus on pockets at a time and build it up to near completion before moving on. Stay out of the 3D preview mode until a batch of work is done in a pocket and review all at once.

There will be a delay on the next part of this series. Need to work on the campaign itself this weekend and then dissemble my home office. I'm getting a custom designed home office installed on Monday. Hopefully back with you late next week.

@Bulletpoint - Combatintman has it pretty much covered. The main 1930's era map in high resolution I'm using does place individual large buildings and based on that source there were alley ways between the buildings. Most of the town was rubble after the war so was rebuilt and changes were probably made by the new Soviet authorities. I did refer to some 1930's photos and basically drew from that most buildings should be between the two and three story levels in terms of height. The modular buildings give it an urban look but in reality Tukums is still a smaller country town rather than a proper city like Berlin or Riga. I also didn't want to go purely with individual buildings though as that would give it too much of a residential/farming look. I also had to make some compromises to add in the waterway and train line which would likely impact the flow of the battle more than an extra buildings here or there as it limited vehicle movement. On the map it became a very tight space indeed just south of the buildings at one point.

https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy/cm-battle-for-normandy-campaigns/the-lions-of-carpiquet/

Next up is core units. I may need to clear this next part with Battlefront before release.

3 – Map Making for Campaigns “Geographers never get lost. They just do accidental field work.” Nicholas Chrisman Talking about mapping for campaigns this early is because it is one the major time sinks for any campaign development, but can begin to occur while you are undertaking your research. This is also advised as many of the following steps really can’t occur properly until the maps are ready. So, you have your reference files, had some fun in a paint program to create BMP files for your overlays and have started the long task of creating maps inside the editor for the scenarios you need to build. You’re still researching on the sidelines as you start prepping other elements of your campaign but the maps are the first real tangible elements you are working on that will form part of the final product. A few things to be aware of as your start mapping and that will also map impact on your plans: Battle damage does not carry over between individual scenarios The CM2 engine treats each campaign scenario is an individual entity and the map state at the end of one battle does not carry over in any way to the next battle if the terrain is partially or fully identical to the previous battle. What that means in practice is that church tower that the player blasts with a full battery of M7 Priests in scenario 1, will be repaired to its initial state at the start of scenario 2. (The pixeltrüppen are master builders between fights). This also applies to any damaged terrain element, destroyed vehicles and the multitude of craters that may appear across a map after a scenario. Before you ask, yes, it’s a long-standing wish among many in the community for the importation of map states between battles. Battlefront is aware. For now, we need to use the tools we have. There are four ways around this limitation: 1) Your individual scenarios never take place on the same map. a. Easy solution if your historical or fictional narrative allows this. If a second engagement of the map is so minor with no real influence on the campaign then push on and skip it, or tweak history and roll that engagement into the main scenario you will be simulating. 2) Earlier battles on a map that is going to be used multiple times have specific force limitations around fierce composition on both sides. a. Restrict the availability of high explosive weaponry to nothing more than an 81mm mortars or a 50mm gun on a tank. (Modern settings you’ll likely have to be more restrictive). Small craters are safely ignored b. If historically or narrative appropriate, design your campaign so earlier engagements be more recon based fights with the all-out attack with all the toys occurring on the final battle on the particular map. If this isn’t possible, you’ll need to use method 3 or 4 below. 3) Pre-set the scenarios to occur after any major ordnance has been expended so you as a designer can occur where this will occur on the map. a. I’ll admit I’m not a big fan of this option as it takes players out of the equation. The best wargames give the player objectives, tools and freedom to work out how to get the job done. Pulling back on the tools and freedom can be a bit of a betrayal to the player – and let’s face it we all like explosions. b. Give the AI control of the off-map elements and have them target their own positions. This way you can ensure the ‘explosions’ will still occur during the battle and will occur in a position of your choosing as a designer. However, you’ll still have to undertake the next option and it’s a fine balancing act to ensure the AI expends the right amount of ammunition and doesn’t use any excess rounds on the player. I did think of this option at one point for Tukums but shied away from it. 4) Create two versions of the same map – a “Clean” and a “Damaged” map state. a. This way you use the clean map in the first scenario and switch over to the damaged version for the follow-on battles. b. The best way to do this is to complete your clean version in full and then copy the file and rubble down the second copy appropriately. c. You can never completely control how the player will use any assets you give them so this will always be an element of educated guess work of you as a designer, knowing what are the tough nuts to crack that will likely use their heavy weapons on and designing appropriately. In Tukums I’m following history and focusing the damage on the town itself as that was the central point of focus for the naval fire support. The town of Tukums (south side) as it appears in campaign. What the map will look like as a starting point for mission 3. Like an indirect support mission would is real life, have a dedicated focal point for where the damage will occur. The most damage is caused here and spreads out from there. This not only saves time but also in many cases will but will look better. In the case of Tukums I’m focusing on the large buildings around the square including the churches which were used as reference points by German spotting players. Know what type of ordnance is falling so the damage you are simulating is appropriate. An 81mm mortar won’t topple whole buildings and a 302mm Naval shell won’t leave small craters. In Tukums all craters are the largest two sizes given the shells that could fall are either 302mm or 105mm rounds. I’m not worrying about trying to predict where a handful of mortars will be used. A closer look at one part of Tukums. In the damaged state you’ll notice I’m using the red dirt around each crater. This better shows the more churned up dirt and broken pavers of the roads and sidewalk. I’ve also removed a few trees where they’ve had the misfortune of being in the same location as an impact site. (The game will keep the trees on the map if you don’t manually take them out when placing a crater). Not shown in this picture but remember to remove any walls or fences near a crater as they will likely be blown over by the blast. Switching over to the 3D preview mode the craters should serve as reference points. Methodically go through each crater and think about whether or not the impact of the shell would have caused any additional damage around it. - Remove flavour objects as appropriate; - Damage walls of buildings for craters that land next to a building. - Scatter damaged rooftops among your buildings to show that not every shell falls earth. A ruined village but with all pristine rooves looks very odd. (Or the town as an amazing roof tiler). - The independent buildings with their damaged wall states are much better than modular buildings in helping to convey a damaged environment, so mix these in amongst the modular buildings. - If you use the appropriate ‘rubble’ mod tags, it’s also good to go back and simulate the debris strewn over the roads and ground around collapsed and damaged buildings. Combined, this all helps sell the feel of a pre-existing battlefield to the player. Not from Tukums but a (modded) CMBN map with the same principles applied in a bit extreme manner given the more extensive pounding this village took in that scenario. I had to keep the church walls in place for balance, making it a touch more difficult for the player. Don't forget subtle terrain elevation changes for rubble piles to better sell the effect. I generally use the rule of one elevation change for each story of building that has collapsed after the first. These tips and tricks are also important for any scenario that is intended to take place on an earlier battlefield where you are walking into literally someone else’s mess. This will be clear from your research if your landmark has already been mentioned six times before your campaign takes place. It’s doubtful that it’s going to look clean and untouched by the scars of war. It’s a little bugbear of mine that so many Combat Mission engagements happen on pristine maps. You Can’t Import a Map into an Existing Scenario This is the big reason why mapping should start very early in the campaign design process while research continues. At some point you will hit a roadblock where you can’t progress any further without having some complete maps to work with for individual scenario design. If you build a map and then begin working on the scenario by placing units and creating AI plans, you can’t then go back and change a master map / reference map and import that additional work into your existing scenario. You’ll effectively have the start your scenario from scratch again. This creates a natural hard cut off or mid-point in making a campaign centred around mapping. Think of it like making a movie. Making your maps is like on set filming but there gets a point when filming is completed and the whole production has to go into post production to bring all the elements together into a finished product. You can go back and film again during post production, but it’s expensive and time consuming. If you constantly go back to mapping as you are piecing together the campaign (particularly if you have multiple maps of the same area – as per above), you’ll end up in a cycle of delays and frustration, plus these ongoing edits likely won’t be as up to spec as the rest of your mapping product as you rush through as your attention is on other elements of the campaign. This is also why “Master Maps” are seen as a great way of mapping out terrain for a campaign. As we’ve discussed previously in part 1, Combat Mission campaigns do naturally favour smaller scale series of engagements over a relatively small area of a wider theatre of operations. There’s a good chance when working on something historical that you will be creating multiple engagements that are within an afternoon stroll of each other. Village A that your historical force took in the morning and then village B only 500m down the road which was taken in the afternoon. Rather than trying to create all the prep work for multiple maps, do it once on a larger scale and create the one master map including all the ground between the two scenarios. This will give you flexibility down the track if you need to edit the boundaries of a scenario for either something you’ve picked up in research or through testing. Remember you can import your units into a new battlefield, but you can’t import the battlefield into the scenario. Master Maps don’t need to be functional on their own. It’s simply one giant blank map for you to work with throughout the rest of the production process. It makes scaling and style really easy to maintain across a wide area since everything is present in the same file. When you jump into 3D mode you can quickly see if everything is matching and looking like it’s taking place in the same vicinity. For Tukums this allowed me to ensure all the buildings across the map were brick or stone (with only a handful of exceptions) with red tiled roofs to do as much as I could to keep that Baltic Region look. If I built three individual maps, I may have missed this tiny but noticeable element until it was too late. “Combat will occur on the ground between two adjoining maps.” Murphy’s Law of Combat – no. 60 This is also true of Combat Mission. Your scenarios may partially crossover into the same terrain. Sadly, battlefield commanders generally don’t have future wargamers in mind when fighting their enemies. This occurs in Tukums as Mission 1 and 2 do share small slither of the same terrain around the waterway. For mission 1 I’m expecting it to be largely dead ground for the player of no real interest but it needs to be present since the map is always a rectangle. By using a Master Map, I can ensure this crossover of terrain is identical between multiple engagements. If all the trees and swamps look different, the player will after 6+ hours of playing the missions will notice this type of inconsistency. Campaigns are naturally bigger affairs than most scenarios. Have a map to suit. If you players are going to be fighting over the same terrain for a longer period of time, it needs the attention to detail because if you miss something, a player spending 6+ hours on the same map is bound to pick it up. Master maps (though big and daunting) are the chief way to ensure consistency and quality across your work.

A point that will be touched on in an upcoming part. There's a lot of unknowns in the TOE that gives you some artistic license. The excel table is also quite old so has since been tweaked in game.

<Sigh> Fixed.

Sorry for the length and text. Promise we are finally launching the game itself in the following parts.

Formations & Units The Combat Mission scenario editor has a lot of customisation for formations and units built into it from the get go. Morale, experience, fatigue, ammunition, headcount can all be set to meet your requirements. Then there’s the ability to tweak formations themselves by deleting and adding single vehicles/infantry teams. It’s a boon for a historical scenario maker. Much of the hard work has already been done for you prior to a game or module being released. The amount of effort that goes into ensuring the Tables of Equipment are as accurate as they can be is immense. To give you a sense of the detail and questions asked before it appears in a final game here is a rough outline of one such debate over a formation appearing with the Fire and Rubble module and in this campaign. There was back and forth debate over the composition of what small arms specific squads should have. When one researcher found the digital scans of the original 1944 paperwork outlining the design of the new battalion and how many rounds of a certain type of bullet would be required for the formation to be adequately supplied… it settled the matter. What this allows you to do when researching a campaign is to have confidence that when you read that a German Fusilier Battalion took part in the attack, you can select that same battalion in the editor and it will likely match perfectly or very closely to what took part in the battle you are trying to recreate. It’s a strong base that you can tinker at around the edges to account for casualties or additional units that were attached for the engagement. A big problem you’ll come across reading military history books outlining the course of a campaigns is that in many cases they rarely go below the battalion level or provide regular updates on the status of the unit. It may look odd at first glance when you read that a battalion seems to be in two places at once or a full battalion is required to move in and take an area the size of a hamlet. In reality it’s likely elements from that battalion were spread out to achieve multiple objectives or some elements were held in reserve. This means it’s always handy to have at least two difference sources, one focusing on the campaign plus additional sources focusing on unit histories (or failing that campaigns from only one sides viewpoint). Unit histories and indeed a number of websites that provide unit-based information and diary like content will likely help you far more in creating your own order of battle for the campaign you are designing. Read them in parallel and plot important information onto the timeline noted above. These are the questions I ask when pulling together information on formations I need to include in a campaign (for both the player and the opposing side): - Starting condition at commencement of the wider operation o Are they fresh off the train from the training depot or are they already battered from earlier fighting? - Starting condition at the commencement of the fighting you are focusing on o Potentially different compared to the start of the operation. Vehicle breakdowns, earlier skirmishers you aren’t including etc. - Condition before each engagement/scenario you will be designing (if possible) o Helps you gauge how much of a challenge each prior scenario was for the formation historically. o For example, if A Company had been in two prior scenarios and went into their third engagement historically at 80% strength, but your campaign testing shows that even with good tactics they are usually going into the same engagement at around 40% strength; then you know your balance is probably off or something in earlier scenarios is not lining up to history. - Condition at the end of the operation (or end point of what is being recreated) o As above. A good gauge for measuring how hard your individual scenarios are and perhaps appropriate victory point allocations for units. o For example, if the force was a shell of it’s starting strength but was still slapped on the back and told “job well done” before being removed from the lines, then perhaps victory point allocations favouring the survival of units is not the best approach. - What happened between engagements? o Another engagement? Is it worth creating a scenario for? o Did they have time to rest and refit? Did they get any replacements? Did they replenish their ammunition? (Do the work now and it makes Campaign Scripting a whole lot easier) o Would the ability to have a rest and refit be only possible if they had won the earlier battle? (Start thinking now how your individual scenarios will link together and branch out). It’s very similar to designing an individual scenario in my opinion, but it’s perhaps more pertinent that you ‘get it right’ up front, particularly for helping with overall campaign balance when the same force is going to be following the player through multiple engagements. For Tukums I default back to MS Excel again to plan out what the historical force and visualise how it may look inside the editor. More on this when we get to the Core Unit File creation. See the table below for the planning for the German force. Something similar was done for the Soviets but I won’t go into detail there given spoilers. All I will say is it did change a few times and again required a detective’s caps to work out what units were where and at what time. Example of linking Formations back to Timelines The worst thing you can do as a campaign designer is throw in all this hard work and not see anyone finish the end product or bail because it’s led them down a branching path with no prospect of having any hope in hell of achieving victory in follow on scenarios. How many times have you loaded up a follow-on battle in a campaign and been expected to clear a map with the same battered formation you just fought with, and this time it’s urban warfare? This is where plotting the formations and units involved on a timeline really helps. It allows you to see how much combat (and the number of Combat Mission scenarios) each formation is expected to face. If a company of infantry is expected to fight through eight scenarios without any chance of replenishment and then the last fight is in an urban environment, how realistic will it be and how realistic will it be for a player to have that formation in fighting shape by that last mission? Even a genius commander is slowly going to take casualties. In the end remember this is aiming for a hyper realistic wargame simulation, but it is still a game. If you make things appear impossible you will likely encourage a ‘save scum’ mentality because the player likely doesn’t know what this formation is meant to tackle next. For Tukums it was actually quite easy to answer this question given most of the player’s formations would have to fight through no more than two engagements each. There’s still a lot that can go wrong but a strong chance the player would always have a chance right up the third and final scenario that determines if the player is victorious or not. In the end… I have a clear idea of the geography I need to map out in the editor (3920m x 2000m in this case), with no real wasted space the player will have no interest in at some point. I have a timeline of events that I’ve filled with content and a detailed core unit file. You get a rough idea of how time progresses and where the flow of the campaign should go between each engagement. You get something like this… Mmmm. Looks a bit like a campaign script doesn’t it. A Special Note on Fictional Campaigns As you can probably tell, all of the above is focused heavily on a historical based campaign where I have limitations and boundaries for every question. No matter how hard I try I can’t justify adding a company of King Tigers to the players force since none where present. Just because what you maybe designing is fictional doesn’t mean you have a free reign on to do what you want. Well technically you do, it is a game after all, but what I mean is the game itself is designed first and foremost as a realistic strategy game. Keep your fictional planning within realistic proportions. Some examples of what I mean: - The mission is to take a hamlet held by a platoon of militia and civilians are confirmed present. Better give the player Corp or Army level artillery assets to assist. - It’s time to take the centre of the city in a tight urban warfare. I’m the player only needs a pure armour force and no infantry support. - Congratulations on winning your last mission. For your next mission your force has been transported 100 kilometers away to over the course of 30 minutes. Combat Mission is designed to reflect the real world. Situations like this drop players out of the narrative very quickly. Remember your players are the same bunch of wargamers that will pipe up when the angle of the Panther’s front armour is one degree off. They like realism. Though I must admit I’m still waiting on a science fiction based Combat Mission: Earth vs Mars type of setting.

Geography As mentioned previously your research will likely bring up names of towns and other landmarks that are regularly repeated across sources. These become your first homing points to work out what you need to map out. Initially I use something accessible like GoogleMaps to work out where everything is in correlation to everything else. I think pencil in some rough map boundaries (rectangles given shape of Combat Mission maps), in a simple paint program over the top of some screenshots. When it comes to setting up the map overlays for the editor itself, I don’t like to rely on GoogleMaps or anything modern for historical work. This is due to terrain and urban areas in particular that are likely to be far more developed after more than 75 years of post war development. For more information around map overlays see JonS’ initial manual. For Tukums I found some 1930’s era maps of Latvia that provided detailed topographic and building placement maps. This was a high detailed scan (>1gb file size) of a physical map which meant I could zoom in and move things around without the risk of the scale being contorted (a real problem with web-based options) or the resolution becoming too poor when I zoomed right in. This all came in handy as I realised half way through the mapping process that I needed to extend my master map by a full kilometer to the west half way through building the map. It was easy to add the extra map onto the file in a basic paint program and then in game in game extend the map further in the editor so the dimensions matched up with the existing map I had already started. The reason I had to extend the map was a realisation in my Timeline and Formation research about the likely units involved and which direction they had approached Tukums from based on their movements earlier in the morning. Not all engagements (for scenarios or campaigns) will have the high level of detail that you require as a designer so you will need to put on your detective caps and do some digging and logical analysis to fill in all the gaps. Example of linking Geography back to Timelines This was particularly the case with Tukums where the Soviet sourced information was very light on or were based on false reports from commanding generals in the field. (Considering the Soviets lost badly on this day, it’s perhaps surprising there were a few mis-truths in the Soviet source material given it wasn’t good for your health to promote yourself as an incompetent commander. Meanwhile on the German side, the attack was led by a commander that was known to lead from the front and not from behind a desk writing reports. Detailed blow by blow accounts of what occurred were not going to show up including mapping out a clear route and path the German attackers would be coming from. As a result, you get some sources vaguely suggesting an attack from the west while others suggest one from the south. The Soviet sources (falsely) claim enemy came in from the north after an amphibious landing. (See note above the Soviets above). What we do know was the German movements of this ad-hoc Panzer force from the start of their part in Operation Doppelkopf the day before this campaign takes place with start positions well to the south west of Tukums as a town call Saldus (distance around 62 kilometers by road). There was a clear road linking Saldus to Tukums which would suggest the force moved directly from one point to the next leading to an assumption the Germans therefore attacked the town from the west. However, multiple accounts noted the German force first moved to the Latvian town of Džūkste which was east north east from Saldus and almost direct south from Tukums. This latter option makes more sense as Džūkste is on the main road leading from Saldus to Riga (the overall end goal of this wider operation). The turn north does to this day remains a bit of a mystery both with such an exposed northern flank occupied by at least two Soviet Divisions (including confirmed armour sightings), it was perhaps a shift to get closer to the coast to ensure a more sucre left flank as they made the final dash into Riga. Combat just south of this route was already very fierce with multiple Panzer Divisions bogging down in a stalemate with Soviet forces. This allowed me to fill in the gaps from the history books for the purposes of generating the campaign and making sure I’m mapping what is the likely battlefield. Small tidbits of information and personal accounts help reinforce that I’ve made the right decision or not. In this instance the experience of a Tiger I crew who reported arriving at the battle and driving through a lumber operation outside of the town. I can spot this lumberyard on the historical maps (another benefit for not relying on Google) and it still lines up with my planned mapping boundaries. A quick GoogleMap to show the difference between the direct route to Tukums and the likely route of approach given the German force went towards Džūkste beforehand. A little bit more research up front can fundamentally alter the campaign and where the player ends up fighting. Plus saves you a lot of time mapping out potentially the wrong part of Europe!

Timelines The timeline is what it says on the tin – a timeline. A chronological listing of all events and other important information that pertains to the outcome of what you are simulating inside Combat Mission. I like to build out a timeline of events as I read source material usually down to the hour. Yes, there may by gaps when everything seems to stop for an extended period, for instance as both sides hunkered down for a night of rest, but this inaction is still important information for the purposes of campaign design. Different sources will usually tell you different parts of the battles from specific viewpoints. When you are trying to cover days of combat and other tangible events impacting your campaign, being able to see all known elements in front of you spread out in the order that they happened is a huge help in knowing if you are covering the right content. If you are an uber designer you may go down the Gantt chart route for generating this timeline, but honestly, it’s easy enough to do this in Microsoft Excel or even just a simple paint program. Even the old-fashioned way with a pencil and paper is suitable. Draw it out with little key points and notes outlining what happened when. Key things you need to look out for while researching and then plot on your timeline: - When and where formations entered the general area of operations. o Important to see if specific formations actually took part in what engagement and whether they came on as reserves. - Movement of formations and where possible the sub-formations/units throughout the campaign. o Historians will likely focus on key movements between towns or landmarks but with enough information and a detailed map you can usually plot the route they took. o Sub-units are still terribly influential in a Combat Mission environment. For example, a platoon of Tiger I’s has the ability to potentially swing an entire battle, but it’s unlikely a full battalion is moving around together so it’s easy for these details to be missed. - Kick off times of planned movements and attacks. o Will help determine start times for scenarios but also where set out the boundaries for your in-game map builds. - When forces became aware of their opponent’s presence or were spotted. o For adjusting start times and reducing the amount of mapping work. For example, if the operation kicked off at 0630 hours but the force you are following first travelled three kilometres and didn’t meet any resistance, do you really need to map out another 3 square kilometres plus worth of terrain in the editor? - When the first shots or major fighting erupted. - When and where key units were located. (Includes reactionary movements of opposing forces). o Helps plot which units should be in what scenarios. o Reinforcement timings. - When major fighting died down or an engagement clearly ended. (The hill/church tower was captured) o To plot out initial end times and therefore individual scenario lengths. o Time allocation is a big factor in overall difficulty of individual scenarios and campaigns. Reduce time players have in campaigns and they are likely to act recklessly to try and achieve their objectives which may not be historically accurate and mess up balance for future scenarios. (Remember Combat Mission commanders pushing pixeltrüppen around the battlefield are more likely to be a blood thirsty lot who aren’t under the same strains of a real officer in the field who has to write letters home to mothers. Once you have a populated timeline you should be able bookend the timings of each of your scenarios around natural beginning and and end points based on the chronology of these events and the engagements. As always, remember to tweak as your project progresses and new information comes to light. For Tukums, once it became clear the actual campaign was going to be centred around the engagements of a single day (see part 1), my time line was a very narrow window of effectively 6 hours or so. A lot still happens in 6 hours and I had to pay more attention to when units arrived in the area on both sides. I also had to deal with contradictory sources (more on that later when we get to units). My research led me to the conclusion that it should be a three-scenario campaign, with scenarios 1 and 2 occurring concurrently on either side of a waterway, while scenario 3 takes place directly after. There is no real time gap between the engagements unlike a usual campaign. This is important because it dictates that there was never any chance for the forces involved to be receive replenishment or resupply between engagements. Knowing this key piece of information up front helps in the design and feel of the campaign throughout the remainder of the process right up to writing the campaign script. <I’m purposefully being light on in this section and not showing any graphics given likely spoilers>

2 – Plan, Plan, Research, Plan “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” Dwight D. Eisenhower In the first part we talked about having the idea, working out what is included and then narrowing it down to something manageable for you as a designer. We have a rough idea of a start and finish and what is going to be included. So, what do we do next? Be flexible and ready to tweak that initial idea because it won’t work out as first intended. Be prepared to change as at least one of the following will happen throughout the planning and design process right up to final testing: - There is a limitation in the game itself. A specific specialist vehicle that isn’t available or the formation structure just can’t be replicated perfectly in the editor are two examples of this. - No matter how much you look, you can’t seem to nail down what happened at a specific place in time. You need to fill in a gap in recorded history. - There’s a lot of work for you as a designer to do to meet history for no real gameplay purpose. o Would you map out a further square kilometer of terrain where only a few scattered shots were fired between two opposing squads? (Not every single contact with the enemy is worth it’s on scenario – particularly if it has no bearing on the outcomes of your main focus). - Your work is historically accurate but then you discover… it’s just not fun. I’m not going to spend a few pages talking about how to undertake basic research and essentially how to suck eggs. Over the years there’s a general pattern I’ve noticed that most wargamers are a pretty cluey bunch with many educated with university degrees, so looking up journals, books or even a basic Google search isn’t too hard. I’ll spend my time instead focusing more on the questions I keep asking myself as I go through this research process. “Research is formalised curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” Zora Neale Hurston Below is your checklist for detailed planning that will save you time and heartache down the track when you are building your Core Unit File, maps to fight over and writing the Campaign Script. Moving too far forward leaving gaps in any element now will slow you down later. However, mapping can usually start a little earlier while you are still researching. Planning for a campaign revolves around the the triumvirate of Timelines, Formations & Units, and Geography. You need information on all of these elements to populate a campaign file and ideally all three must ‘talk’ to each other or sync up seamlessly to assist the player in easily understanding what is going on at all times. I find asking the following questions even while you a building the content inside the editor is a big assistance: - Do I have a time line of the engagements that occurred within parameters I’ve set for this campaign? Is it telling a consistent narrative I and the player can follow? (More on this in a future part). - Do I have a clear geography that I need to create maps for in the editor? - Do I have a full list of formations involved for both sides and their respective histories leading up to and during the period of my campaign?

Part 2 is taking a little longer than expected. But in good news what was going it be part 3 is now rolled into part 2.

*Cough* German Reinforcements *Cough*

Seems a bit redundant with CMFI fleshed out now. Without looking at the files/textures but have a silly idea... why not mod tag all the textures with a common mod tag and there you have a southern France / Operation Dragoon look and feel to the game. Well still no French forces but still.

Yes, that all comes down to victory point allocations and degrees of victory, so yes non-core units still certainly have an influence here for sure. Another part of this write up will be on Victory Point allocations for campaigns. Yes. Will be addressed in a future part. Need to start in the conceptual and planning stage and move through to how the game handles these things. Partisans are not part of this campaign. Traditional fight between both armies. Exactly. Just they will never appear again in the campaign and condition is not tracked. For those still a touch confused... 1st Battalion is a US Infantry Battalion (and it's subsidiaries) is a core unit. Elements of this formation appear in every scenario of a campaign. They are the focus. In scenario 3, C Company from the 1st Battalion [Core] is fighting in it's second engagement of the campaign, it's casualties and condition is carried over from this earlier battle. This scenario however has C Company [Core] fighting alongside Company E from the 2nd Battalion which is a Non-Core Unit. Whatever happens to Company E [Non-Core] will effect this outcome of this Scenario 3 but Company E will never be seen or heard from again after it has finished fighting in this engagement. Company C from 1st Battalion [Core] moves on to scenario 4 in whatever state it is in at the end of this battle.