BletchleyGeek

Occasional typos are a thing. Illiteracy reflects poorly on the writer.
Its or it's.
You're or your.
Could have or could of.
(And by posting the above, I've put a bullseye on my back.  )
 

Principles or principals?
In principle I think the principals of a firm should explain their game design principles.
------
I usually ost (=post) drunk, so that's my excuse (error picked up just in time) 
---
A very short book called "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White may help the confused.
 

Bang on -  usually lose the will to live within five minutes of watching a CM video with the narrator spending ages going through the briefing and then watching them plot all the flipping moves and lots of 'didn't mean to do that'.  This guy nailed it, enough of the briefing to read you in - good initial overview and then a nice mix of beautifully shot vignettes interspersed with overheads to help you track it.  All backed up with a narrative that explained what was going on ... left, center, right.
Although everyone has their personal tastes - if I made a CM video, I would want it to be this one, or one in this style.

I find myself nodding along to many of the posts you make Bulletpoint, but here I must disagree. By this logic, all we need is a single Combat Mission title since it's all basically the same.
Speaking for myself, that's certainly not what I am looking to do, though it would be nice haha. It's more down to the equipment and especially the armored vehicles. Panzer Is and IIs, BT-7s, T-26s, short-gunned Pz IIIs against T-34s and KVs, doorknocker AT guns, maybe the return of command delay? Far less lethal, far more interesting, for me anyway. The heavy armor and big guns of the 1944-45 period we have, or are getting, is less compelling than the brand of combat that 1941-42 would serve up.  Duels are more asymmetric, which is appealing to me in any wargaming scenario.

I am pretty sure BFC would love someone to volunteer and proof read the website and send corrections. Next thing you find yourself proof reading and sending corrections to the Fire and Rubble manual...

Bit like this chap then ...
https://www.paradata.org.uk/article/major-chris-keebles-account-goose-green
Great idea btw

Thanks Masicle!  I have done similar for myself. I occasionally do a batch of  simple scenarios and then leave them sit for a couple of months while working on others or whatever. Pretty soon I have a lot of scenarios the details of which that I’ll have long forgotten.
 
My general rules of thumb are:
1. Don’t bother with anything more than victory points for terrain objectives, if that (I don’t care if I win against the AI, because I just enjoy playing in a war movie—I get down in the weeds and play my tactical best, and if I grab that village/hill/bridge, then great! If not, better luck next time);
2. Attacker/me should have not much better than about 3:2 infantry odds (I’m not an armor grog, so mostly infantry battles for me) with a few assets;
3. Attacker assets are either armor, arty, or air...pick one;
4. Enemy assets can be any or all of the above;
5. Use soft factors to tweak the odds as needed.
I haven’t saved many that I made, because to me there’s no point and not as much fun in replaying them when I already know the enemy’s composition. I always thought, though, that it would be nice to have a central repository for these type of bare-bones scenarios...no fluff, no fancy and confusing objectives (to me, anyway...it’s not that easy adding in casualty or unit type VPs), and nothing but a quick and dirty briefing: “See that big hill the other side of that bridge? Take it! There are some enemy troops in the way. They could have some armor support.”
Maybe if there are enough interested parties we could start a new thread where people post their basic type scenarios to Dropbox or whatever file sharing/download site works for them, like you just did, Macisle.

Beautiful work @benpark, I particularly like the autumn one.

Ok guys, just did a trial test and in a couple of turns I caused seven (!) teleportations from under a bridge to its top. Just like that. First observation that causes it is road under a bridge with a clearing that comes close to the tank to get through. The other is if a vehicle drives to close to a pillar and with the waypoint line through it. So I'm optimistic about this type of test getting somewhere. Will release in the coming days for those who want to participate.
Here is the basic test area. Will explain more later on.

I absolutely do this in bigger scenarios - after all, you are one person doing the job of the CO, 2IC, Intelligence Officer, Ops Officer, Logistics Officer etc.  It is a visual record of what would have been written in the HQ log sheet from a message sent over the radio net '0, this 10, contact 0800hrs, three enemy dismounts engaged my position before going to ground at grid 123456, am observing over.'

There are a number of games inside the game. QB's, The Editor, Scenarios, Campaigns.  A few things that keep QB's interesting for me, with the inherent randomness of these in mind-
I most often use the "Suggestions" button (top left of the UI) to keep the FoW aspect, but this also allows some control over what the selection is. Click it multiple times until a sensible parent formation appears. The game engine will also assign attachments, so individual tanks, etc. will be added without the player seeing that. I'll sometimes do a hybrid- peeking just enough to strip out hefty amounts of arty/air support, etc.
The player should also be aware of the map sizes of a QB, and choose forces/transport for each side accordingly. Making an infantry formation run 2k to contact isn't likely to yield useful results, regardless of AI plan. A 4k by 4k QB map is possible, but only really useful for wheeled and tracked forces, lots of ammo, and an extended time-period.
I'd also point out that the QB designer can't dictate which plan is used by which force- there are some variables to this that can be planned around, but the entire endeavor is based in randomness. The randomized forces get assigned to an AI plan, but which forces/AI plan is random (attack, meeting, or defense). Add 3+ randomized AI plans (if designed), and that's a lot of randomness to play within.
I tend to pick maps that are based on actual terrain, or close to it. I prefer something random on a historically-derived battlefield, with nearly accurate forces, that extends the game beyond the scenarios and campaigns in an interesting way.
Matching map sizes and forces isn't a bad initial idea, if one wants somewhat expected results. Not necessary, but it helps. People can put Huge forces on Tiny maps, but it's going to get varying degrees of weird. That's CM, though- it does things based in real world data, but it can also get strange, if that's the plan. Not my plan for the game (my stats- realism/experience expected, play at level 1-3 mainly, icons "off" as much as possible, Iron Man when icons "on", embrace chaos as part of the experience side, observe from ground level as much as possible). Huge sized, all-flamethrower forces on tiny maps aren't my thing- but I don't begrudge that method of experimentation a bit. QB's serve all types of play, on the fly- you just need to set some parameters to get the right mix to suit.

Beautiful work @benpark, I particularly like the autumn one.

I think this is one of those rare occasions in which somebody steals his own thunder  After catching up with the thread I opened up www.battlefront.com and spotted this onthe front page


 
Beware of any typos in the dates on the upcoming announcement!

My dad went to Somerset once. Kent had a great morning, he drank too much at lunchtime, and they got stuffed by Viv and the boys in the afternoon.

Lol I'm good. Just helping myself to some friday evening beer banter. 😉

Fine - sit there and imagine Steve rubbing his hands thinking 'let's bid for a military contract just so we can delay the module for a couple more months.'
I agree that a comment was made that said that COVID had allowed BFC greater focus on development but those of us that create content and kick the tyres around things have had other concerns as outlined.
Stuff happens and RL is complex - this has been a difficult year for most if not all of us.  My wider perspective is that I'm lucky to be alive and therefore banging on about whether a game module is going to release in the next few weeks or not is very much lacking in perspective.  So yes it is about perspective and as I've explained I've got a lot more skin in the CMRT module game than you will ever have.  Mine is a sh1t tin of work, yours is, when you're going to spend 50 bucks or whatever it is going to cost.
So - you're looking forward to the module ... trust me, we get it but please let's have less of the conspiracy theories about why it hasn't been released.

+1  Glad you made it home safe, my friend.  

Happy to talk about that if you want ...
I haven't seen my mother for over a year now because of the pandemic and probably won't see her until next year because of it - in fact I fear that I may never see her before she passes away.  I got stuck for three and a half months in Afghanistan because of the pandemic,  I got quarantined for two weeks when I finally got home because of the pandemic.  Three of my colleagues have died because of the pandemic and eleven have caught COVID-19.  Obviously as you should know quite well from your wife - the whole time I was in Afghanistan I was wondering whether I was going to wake up at zero late thirty with broken glass all over my bed, ringing ears and have to go out and shoot some bearded zealot carting an AK and a suicide vest.
Then of course I have to worry that my wife's work dropped off the side of the cliff for a couple of months and thinking about how we were going to cope and when I got home having to focus on family life which is always a balance of doing good stuff and the inevitable jobs that need doing.
Despite that, when I got home, I cranked out a ton of work on my scenario in order to support the earliest possible release of this module.
Now that is not a developer's point of view, it is a testers point of view and I'm sure other testers have faced similar challenges.  I contend that:
It is facile to assert that COVID-19 has somehow given space for more rapid development. A sense of perspective is required.

Sure - but we could all take our tinfoil hats off about Steam, military contracts et al.  The latter reminds me of those discussions when Shock Force came out ... remember those ... "It is a click fest", "Battlefront is chasing military contracts"  Then remember that they all ended up in the Gamesquad Forum talking to each other and see how that went.  Remember that the introduction of real time play was described as all sorts of doom and gloom while conveniently forgetting that WEGO was still an option and still is ...
The brown smelly stuff bust bottom line is that this module is being worked on, it will be next out of the door and as the saying will probably go ... it will be ready when it is ready.
To give you some context - I have a scenario which I hope will release with the title - I started it in 2018, it is still not ready for release because of various issues.  This year alone, I have spent the equivalent of working every day, 24 hours a day for a month and a half and probably longer testing it, tweaking it, retesting it and stripping out every single unit in the scenario and replacing them again and then testing and tweaking again ... no fun when you have a regiment-minus of Germans and about the same on the Soviet side on a map that is roughly 3.5km x 3km - and that is smaller than it was originally made because of various issues identified in testing.  Then of course there is the time spent researching the scenario (it is historical) and making the map and then the time spent by the testers opening up the scenario, trying to play it and hitting the various issues.
I won't even go into the work that other contributors have put into the module which make my effort above seem a small drop in the ocean.
To conclude - the thing is being worked on and there is no "good reason for delay if you want to find it."

As observed by @chi-chi, the smart thing is hitting where the other side is weakest... and weakest can be not just a flank, but what Robert Leonhard calls the "center of gravity". In Ancient times, an obvious "center of gravity" usually was the commander of the enemy army. The Persians (and Alexander too!) sought to engage the enemy commander and his entourage as a matter of priority - cut the head off, and the body may run for a couple meters but not much longer.

For a study that looks into the eye of the tiger, I think the "Battle Studies" by Colonel Ardant Du Picq  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7294/7294-h/7294-h.htm, offers sometimes quite insightful observations:
 
I have been recommending this other book a lot lately too: https://www.amazon.com.au/War-Games-Psychology-Leo-Murray-ebook/dp/B079DC9WVN

Enjoy! 😊
Don’t get killed in turn 1 in this one!

Listening to the Podcast with the founder at a little over the one hour mark he did say that Fire and Rubble was delayed due to the pandemic and their military contract but "will definitely be out this year".
With only a little over 3 months left in the year it should be out soon.

Greetings
I wanted to let everyone know that we at Developer Dialogue had the incredible opportunity to interview the founder & creator of Battlefront.com, Stephen Grammont. During the interview we dove into the history of the Combat Mission franchise, discuss the company’s latest partnership with Slitherine and uncover some bombshells.  We also uncover why Battlefront never released on Steam, until now.
 
Special thank you to Stephen for taking part in this interview, it was an amazing experience.
 
If you guys are interested you can listen to it here:
 
YouTube: 
 
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/developer-dialogue/id1524192396 
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/33DiH9pCrcV9bVw4WeDWmS 
Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc3ByZWFrZXIuY29tL3Nob3cvNDUwNTYyMi9lcGlzb2Rlcy9mZWVk

@Falaise I feel your pain! 
 
I appreciate the feedback on the map and it’s relationship to the real world. Actually really chuffed that I managed to get it close to the real place. 
 
Good luck for your next replay. Maybe go into battle buttoned up next time

Mon dieu @Falaise my sympathies.  You may have seen earlier in the thread that was not my experience of the battle, in which there was no demise.  I would say " if at first you dont succeed" but of course that wasn't an option for either side in 1944.
Oh, and the Tiger track link is a shame but at least you have the memory.