Ithikial_AU

That could be on me as other projects cropped up but there definitely is a MS Word copy floating around somewhere. Whether it makes the public patches or not is not up to me.

6 – Compiling, Testing and Post-Release

“To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.”

Winston Churchill




 


 
Compiling the Campaign – Putting the Final Pieces Together

You’ve done all the work. Time to put the pieces together and release it! Well… almost. True, it’s time to compile the campaign but then there comes testing and tweaking to make sure it all works and flows as you intended.

First, lets do the mechanical work and construct a campaign file. This is also the moment of truth to see if you’ve missed something big in your campaign script or the available scenarios. Remember you need to have multiple copies of the same scenario with a different file name depending on the campaign script and if there are more than pathway for a player to reach the same scenario.

Step one is to open your Core Unit File in the editor. This is the file with all the core units for both sides listed out that you have by now imported into each of your individual scenarios. It is also the file that should have the campaign briefing text and graphics. It will also have the small image that will appear from the campaign selection screen. At this point you should also ensure that all your campaign files are in the same folder alongside the Core Unit File. This includes all of the individual .btt scenario files and the campaign script document. Any other files such as individual briefings text documents and graphics can be in the same folder – they won’t stuff anything up but the game won’t refer to them either. These should already be imported into the appropriate scenario.

Step two is to click on the top left menu from within the editor and select the “Make Campaign” option. The image below is what I see when compiling my campaign for the Fire and Rubble release.


At this point a pop-up with a green background will appear. This is alerting you of the items you need to make sure this process will work and what will happen once you hit continue. Essentially, the same as I have just listed above.


If you are happy to proceed select the continue button. Something similar to the image below will then appear as the game asks you to select the appropriate Campaign Script file. It will search in the same directory and limit the selection to raw text files. Ensure you select the campaign script file and not a scenario briefing!

This is also a good time to point out that the campaign script text file name (minus the .txt suffix) will be the name of the .cam file, or the name of the campaign as the player will see it in the campaign selection screen. So ensure your campaign script document is not called “Campaign Script.txt” or something similar. In the image below you can see my campaign script highlighted in red text. The campaign title within the editor itself (refer to blue arrow in the image below), will be the name used by the game as the player creates saved games to come back to, so ensure there are no numbers in this title to prevent any funny errors for the player.


When you have located the campaign script click on it within the pop-up window and wait for a second. If nothing happens and you are just staring at the editor screen, then everything has worked successfully. You can now close the editor and from the main menu click on the option to start a new campaign. From this list your new campaign should already by listed as a .cam file has been created and added to the appropriate directory.

But in 95% of cases (reliable statistical analysis of campaign designers) something will go wrong first. In these cases the game will stop what it is doing and a .cam file will not be created. Essentially, nothing will happen. A red background pop-up will appear outlining the problem. Below are some examples of errors that can appear.

The first example below is an error caused by one of the outlined battles in the campaign script not existing in the directory. A common reason for this to occur is that the specific .btt file is in another folder or there is a naming difference between the .btt file and the script itself.  


The second error below is somewhat similar to the first except that a battle that the script is trying to make a connection to, (through a Win or Lose pathway) can not be found. A common reason for this is that there is no unique .btt file created for that part of a pathway – common in very long campaigns where the number of variants of the same battle can increase substantially. Alternatively and similar to before, the error can also occur due to a naming problem between the .btt file and the campaign script.


The final example is caused by some unknown characters in the campaign script the game cannot read. This usually occurs when players add dashes, semi-colons and other symbols into their campaign scripts and .btt file names. For simplicity purposes, avoid the use of these characters completely. The line number presented is where to look in the campaign script for the character that is causing the issue. A program like MS Word or Notepad++, which have line numbering options can help you edit your campaign script a bit quicker.


Note that the game will stop trying to compile the campaign as soon as it hits one error. This means that only one error will be displayed, and you will need to exit the game, fix the error, and then try compiling the campaign again. At which point you may hit another error. You need to fix each error as they appear until none are reported.

Testing – Scenarios and the Campaign

When it comes to testing a final campaign there are two layers to consider; 1) do the individual scenarios play as intended; and 2) does the campaign flow from start to finish as intended.

Testing individual scenarios can occur as they are being built, like what a designer may do when building an individual standalone scenario. However, there is one very large difference that is difficult to artificially ‘fix’. What the testers are playing will never match the end product that the players will realistically experience. Testers jumping into Mission 5, won’t be experiencing the battle with the results (including unit losses) the player has experienced leading up to that scenario in the campaign.

It’s because of this that a campaign needs to be tested with full playthroughs and ideally by ‘blind testers’, or people who are unaware of the individual scenario designs including the placement of enemies. Also encouraging a tester or two to purposefully lose key scenarios to go down ‘lose’ pathways is also of assistance to ensure each pathway gets a degree of review.

As a designer looking to help out testers, providing a visual campaign tree with small blurbs about what each scenario entails, including friendly forces the tester should have available, will provide them a big help. It’s this way they can identify if the campaign script and the core unit file is working as intended with the correct scenarios and forces showing up and the right time.

This is not to say that individual scenario testing is a waste of time and shouldn’t be undertaken for campaign scenarios. For this type of testing, I advise referring to Jon’s Scenario Design AAR handbook for tips and things to look out for. However, testers moving through a campaign as a player and moving into follow on scenarios in a condition that a player will reasonably be in is the most important additional piece of information a tester requires after each battle.

After Release

When you release your campaign, the player will only require the .cam file that is generated when compiling the campaign. The game will only draw information contained inside the .cam file.

There is an unwritten rule (until now!) in campaign design, and that is as a designer to hold on to all the component files that is within the generated .cam file. This is for security going forward as regular game patching and upgrading cycles may inadvertently break something or make the campaign unwinnable in the future as settings are tweaked. Perhaps the best example for of this was some early designed campaigns from the first release of CMBN when automatic weaponry effectiveness was a lot less than it is now. Playing these same campaigns today will likely lead to very different outcomes than the designers originally intended.

If the designer does not want the responsibility, it is advised to provide the files to the players downloading the campaign files in case someone wants to fix any problems that arise down the track.

Final tips for an enjoyable campaign from the player’s side

And there we are. After just under 70 pages of writing and around 18,000 words that’s about it. Good luck for everyone that decides to take the dive into making a campaign.

Some final thoughts and of course what I provide below is highly subjective.

-          Ensure it is winnable. It’s a game, not a slog!

-          Don’t expect your players to be a tactical genius. This may sound counter to the point of Combat Mission but even the most experienced players will get their ass handed to them from time to time. Ensure that under most circumstances a battle will always provide the player with a chance of ‘winning’.

o   This is not saying every scenario needs to be balanced, if anything most scenarios will need to be balanced in the players favour, especially where core units that need to appear in follow up scenarios are part of the mix.

o   For example. Let’s say the campaign is trying to be a historical recreation of every engagement that Easy Company, 506th PIR fought from Normandy through to Market Garden. There would easily be a dozen or more scenarios here with a real mix of forces the player must go up against. There is also no real replenishment historically available except for the replacements at the end of Normandy and before Market Garden. So, what happens if the player takes Carentan at around Mission 5 but suffers very heavy casualties in doing so? What happens next? The player is thrust into defending against the fresh 17 SS Panzergrenadier Division counterattack with no more than 20 soldiers to deploy? It simply won’t work and I can promise you the player will switch off in anger/despair before even attempting to defend Bloody Gulch.

o   The campaign by design should of pushed the player down the ‘lose’ route in this situation and either kicked the player out of the campaign as a whole or skipped to Market Garden noting Easy Company was not part of the defensive action. Don’t expect your players to be a Lieutenant Winters when the time comes.

o   This is extremely hard to get right and honestly won’t ever be perfect given the wide range of player skills out there and countless combinations of outcomes from each scenario from a game like Combat Mission.

o   As rules of thumb:

§  don’t rely solely on your designated Core Units for every single mission/task the player needs to achieve;

§  follow history as a guide throughout your design as a guide about what your troops could theoretically be expected to achieve;

§  ensure unique units are the backbone of completing objectives later in a campaign. (ie. The player’s core units are expected to fend off an armoured counter attack at some point, but the only has three possible 57mm AT guns at their disposal… and they were potentially lost two scenarios ago).

Don’t ignore the narrative and make the player care for spending dozens of hours with your creation.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Full write up on the step by step process of a campaign in CM2 era games. The individual scenarios can only have a binary win/lose outcome but the final campaign outcome can be either left to the game to work out based on victory point allocations across the campaign (very tough to nail down as a designer for a desired outcome), or via a preset value in the campaign script by the designer.

I've already fixed it.  Just need to make sure something is workable for the other titles in case those one switch over to a new animation system.

Ta. I may nick that file and add it to the pack. Once other fixes are done on my end I'll send to Bootie for the CMMODSIV.

It's usually good to keep the player forces in their initial deployment positions or zones and not moving when testing to check when the AI plan will definitely make contact with the player even if they are very conservative and barely move their forces. Also flags possible problems with first turn spots and LOF. Unless that is intended.

I've already fixed it.  Just need to make sure something is workable for the other titles in case those one switch over to a new animation system.

Ta. I may nick that file and add it to the pack. Once other fixes are done on my end I'll send to Bootie for the CMMODSIV.

I've needed to create unit files for each of the regiments involved in the fighting including the various strong points along the beach. Realised these, coupled with the master maps is probably all the multiplayer crowd would need to tinker and create their own running series of linked battles over this time period rather than follow the prescribed scenarios. They'll have to work out house rules amongst themselves. Probably on a fraction of buyers will be interested but there is always the odd one out there.
Big reason the BP won't creep that far north is the excellent community work he's put in over the years. The other is if you look at the base game release it really followed the exploits north of Utah Beach already so didn't want to tread over old ground. There is only a slight crossover with the Utah Breach map that showed up in a CMBN Road to Montebourg but this was more a generic beach map given at the time of CM2 v1.0 there was no map overlay function in the editor and map size limits were much smaller. Now we can sit there with photos and BIGOT maps and go for more detail and also much larger areas. There is another crossover in scenarios that will occur but that's a secret and I don't think players will mind given it's small and popular.
As for that road, that's a small section of Purple Heart Lane. It's quite deceptive looking at the photos and maps just to see how long a road and open space it was for the 502nd PIR to get across. Everyone is going to hate my guts and another beta member who will remain nameless for the moment to protect his good standing in the community. No secret back doors to avoid the bridges.
A fictional PzIV? There were no PzIV's in the 12SS PzGren Div in Normandy. Not 100% what you are asking here but the short answer anyway will be: Nope. Only what is currently available in the CMBN family formation and equipment wise will be included in the pack. Might as well get this out of the way as someone will realise this eventually. That also means a bit of proxying for the 17SS in terms of their StuGs. Sadly they won't be StuGIV's but StuGIII's as the former is not part of the CMBN vehicle roster. Battle Packs are purely scenarios and campaigns, they do not add in new units/formations/nations to the game family etc.
And more importantly when is the next Ashes series on? Over your side of the world in 6 months or so?
Update: Getting late here. Off to bed but see what I can answer in the coming days.

@BFCElvis - For pinning please.
 
Steve has let me off the proverbial leash to release some bones for CMBN in 2023.
 
Relive the opening days of the Normandy Campaign from the perspective of American and German forces fighting for control of the Cotentin Peninsula of France. From D-Day through to the 13th of June, take command of forces from the 4th Infantry, 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions, as they fight for a foothold on the western edge of Operation Overlord. Alternatively, take command of German formations in the area, including the 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment as it tries to hold back the Allied Invasion.
A Taster of Included Content
 
-          Three Campaigns
o   We Start Here – Follow the exploits of the 101st Airborne and 4th Infantry on D-Day. Follow the first paratroopers to hit the ground just after midnight, through to the evening of June 6th. Get off the beach.
o   Purple Heart Lane – Command the 101st Airborne from the Battle of Ste Come du Mont through to the Battle of Carentan.
§  A slight experiment in campaign design, allowing the player to fight a rolling battle at their own pace over several in game days. Can you keep pace with history or will the 17SS Panzer Grenadier Division arrive in time to make your task more difficult?
Current count, 110 scenario variants so that is quite a long campaign script.
§  A recreation of the Carentan Operation from Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord.
o   Fist of Iron – Take control of the 17SS Panzer Grenadier Division on the 13th of June as they launch their counterattack to retake Carentan. Can you defy history?
-          Scenarios (purposefully incomplete to leave some surprises)
o   La Madeleine / Tare Green – The 4th Infantry Division head north along the beach to clear the German Strongpoints.


o   Clash of Eagles – 101st Airborne and 6 Fallschirmjäger Regiment elements clash around Vierville.
o   Hill 30 – 101st Airborne try to hold the line southwest of Carentan against a determined 17SS Counter Attack.
-          Master Maps
o   Seven maps covering just over 70 square kilometres of now famous battlefields, recreated from Allied aerial photographs and D-Day planning maps from 1944.
-          (Possibly) Master Unit Files. In combination with the Master Maps will allow players to easily put together fight their own linked multiplayer campaign battles. [Let me know views on this one].
Requirements
 
Players will be required to own:
-          Combat Mission Battle for Normandy Base Game;
-          Commonwealth Forces Module;
-          Market Garden Module; and
-          Vehicle Pack.
 
Likely Questions
 
Why are we going back to D-Day?


When the CMBN base game was designed there was a conscious decision to focus on the US Army and German Heer forces only. This meant that key German formations that were fighting around the 101st Airborne area were not available. With Waffen SS and Fallschirmjäger formations now part of the game family we are able to recreate these famous engagements inside the CM2 engine. It's also a chance to present a number of different tactical scenario situations rarely used in previously in stock scenarios such as the use of naval gunfire, extensive fortifications, spotting victory point allocations etc.
Why the focus on the 101st Airborne? No love for the 82nd Airborne?


There are already a number of community made scenarios and maps available for players focusing on the exploits of the 82nd Airborne to the north of the location depicted in this Battle Pack. We didn’t want to crossover too heavily with the work the community had already undertaken.
Will any new formations or units be added to the CMBN family with this release?


No. Like other Battle Packs the focus is on campaigns and scenarios. Unlike Modules which focus on the new units and formations introduced, Battle Packs provide us the opportunity to mix and match all the content available in a game family.
What’s the release date?


When it is ready. This will be sometime after the CMBN Steam release. This pack has also been a bit different when compared to others to date. When this was announced at the start of the year the actual work had only just commenced rather than being in development for some time already. Saying that, the mapping is virtually complete and scenarios are being built.
How will I be able to get my hands on it?


From all the existing places you can currently buy Combat Mission products.
In the promotional photos that bush is 0.764 meters away from where it was historically!


Everything is a work in progress. Also, I suggest you may want another glass of a fermented vegetable drink.
Wait a minute who the hell are you?
One of the volunteer beta team. Like GeorgeMC and JonS before me, one of us generally leads a Battle Pack development though this time I've been lucky enough for a number of other betas to help out and get all that mapping done. Also dabbled in some modding and YouTube in previous years.
Can we see some pictures?
Oh alright.

Yep. That's one of the two bigger things to fix. The other is the UI in game with the change to the big red button and play buttons. It's known but little time to get around to fixing this. Easiest way to fix the main menu is to detail the modded main menu and return to default for now. Mod is purely graphical, doesn't change anything like button sizes etc.

Agreed. It does mean there's more complexity and things to think about before pushing the button but it's never a full preventative measure. Countries will know they will lose out economically at different times based on the circumstances they are presented with, but they take courses of action anyway whether it is going to war or responding to pandemic.
The question is where is that line and are there multiple lines depending on the assessed severity of an action and longer term ramifications. Historically and reinforced more recently with Ukraine, the open defiance of sovereign borders still appears to be a line most of the world won't tolerate and will do something in response regardless of economic and trade impact. That something may vary however.
Side note: Who is Taiwan's biggest trading partner? China. China also exports a lot to Taiwan. Is this going to stop them possibly going to war if China decides it's in their interest to bring the wayward province 'back into line'? Wouldn't think so. One thing about markets is they tend to spring back after any market driven or political action downturn. Again... post pandemic. Money will find it's way into every crevice of an economy hunting value - even after wars.
As for China and Vietnam... GMT's Next War: Vietnam is still a hex based wargame on my to do list.  

It's always been questionable in my mind that some economists and commentators reckon that globalisation is a force that prevents war. It adds a layer to the decision making but trade as an absolute block on major powers not going into conflict due to economic loss? Seems like economic study/dark arts trying rationalise human decision making, that wealth is all that matters to everybody, especially at a time of violent crisis?
If I cast my mind back to my Uni days about 20 years ago (I'm old now), you have three primary causes for conflict to break out:
- Nationalism / Territorial - "I disagree with you owning that piece of land"
- Ideological - "I disagree with the way you think and do things"
- Ethnic - "I disagree with your religion, language, upbringing, race... I disagree with who you are."
The idea was conflict in 19th and early 20th century was primarily driven by the first point. This switched over to ideological in the run up to WW2 and the Cold War. The post Cold War era has been focused more on Ethnic issues driving conflicts. Now they are generalisations and it's pretty easy to argue that for many conflicts there are more than one driver in play or one is in play while others are used as political smoke screen by political elites to justify entering a conflict. Not to mention outliers or the belligerent sides having different perceptions on what is driving the conflict.
There was no reason not to think ethnic driven issues would continue to be the primary driver most conflict into the 2020's but I think the dangling of the idea of USA pullback/isolationism during the Trump years emboldened a bunch of other global players to start pushing against the west as the 'world cop' was potentially off the beat. Nationalism and Ideology (latter a smokescreen?) have been able to pop up again as a result. If we find ourselves in another 1939 situation but this time the world opts to let it happen because, "we want our trade numbers to stay strong", I think is a bigger cross against humanity and our political systems. The fallout of not responding to unwarranted aggression is also likely to have a bigger impact on global stability.
Mark Twain may have been right all along... "The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog."

It's always been questionable in my mind that some economists and commentators reckon that globalisation is a force that prevents war. It adds a layer to the decision making but trade as an absolute block on major powers not going into conflict due to economic loss? Seems like economic study/dark arts trying rationalise human decision making, that wealth is all that matters to everybody, especially at a time of violent crisis?
If I cast my mind back to my Uni days about 20 years ago (I'm old now), you have three primary causes for conflict to break out:
- Nationalism / Territorial - "I disagree with you owning that piece of land"
- Ideological - "I disagree with the way you think and do things"
- Ethnic - "I disagree with your religion, language, upbringing, race... I disagree with who you are."
The idea was conflict in 19th and early 20th century was primarily driven by the first point. This switched over to ideological in the run up to WW2 and the Cold War. The post Cold War era has been focused more on Ethnic issues driving conflicts. Now they are generalisations and it's pretty easy to argue that for many conflicts there are more than one driver in play or one is in play while others are used as political smoke screen by political elites to justify entering a conflict. Not to mention outliers or the belligerent sides having different perceptions on what is driving the conflict.
There was no reason not to think ethnic driven issues would continue to be the primary driver most conflict into the 2020's but I think the dangling of the idea of USA pullback/isolationism during the Trump years emboldened a bunch of other global players to start pushing against the west as the 'world cop' was potentially off the beat. Nationalism and Ideology (latter a smokescreen?) have been able to pop up again as a result. If we find ourselves in another 1939 situation but this time the world opts to let it happen because, "we want our trade numbers to stay strong", I think is a bigger cross against humanity and our political systems. The fallout of not responding to unwarranted aggression is also likely to have a bigger impact on global stability.
Mark Twain may have been right all along... "The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog."