AlexUK

sorry to hear that, hope it's taken care of with a minimum of pain, disruption, etc.  best of luck, man.
 
cheers,
rob

All true. I really don't like being misled by briefings except when it was the historical norm to do so - i.e. every German tank was reported as a Tiger. The mission itself is all that really matters and no briefing or artwork is going to make the experience of playing a stinker any better. But a bad briefing or artwork can diminish the experience of playing a winner. The briefing and the artwork helps build up a sense of anticipation in some readers and helps them to immerse in the scenario while others just want to get into the action NOW! 
Edit to add:
I also don't like the lack of control I have over what the Early Intel parameter reveals to the player - even on 10%, it sometimes shows too much. Using that setting also 'fixes' the AI plan before the player hits 'Start' whereas it is randomised without any Intel setting. The briefing and artwork can do the intel reveal for me rather than the game settings most of the time.

I’m looking forward to it 🙂 It’s great that you have decided to do this!

The Campaign title will be "Operation Boston - Objective La Fiere".
I am working only on American vs AI. I will not be creating a German vs AI version. All of my previous scenarios are having to be reworked because of the carry over of casualties and such from scenario to scenario.
It is easy to create a single scenario but difficult to create one that is balanced (in terms of victory points) and more difficult to create an AI program that appears reasonably intelligent and difficult for the player to screw up. Also a lot of tinkering is required to prevent the player screwing it up with a cease fire.
That said, ...
It is easy to create a campaign but extremely difficult to create one that is historical and simultaneously has the possibility of altering history. Add to that the same old AI programming and cease fire issues PLUS the casualty carry over.
All of my previous scenarios have to be reworked.
An example: I have been spent five days 8am to 11pm reworking just one scenario over and over, recording progress every 5 minutes to try to get three different variations of the same scenario to work.
As for retiring - this really will be my last effort. Jut gotta get around to painting my samurai figs. Already too late for this years March "Hot Lead" wargaming convention. Aiming for 2024 (if my ticker lasts).

Working on that at this time by turning the series into a campaign (excluding Shanley on Hill 30). Presently in play test, play test, play test ....

I won't get involved in this discussion further as it is leaning towards whataboutism. But to be fair: The US did wage quite a few wars that violated international law. By your own admission, this would make all US soldiers who fought in one of those war criminals. I have zero problem with criticizing the US for their wars but calling each and every soldier a war criminal just for fighting in it is indeed absurd, I think. You are right, blindly following orders and getting away with it is a thing of the past, as it should be. But a judge will always weigh the severity of the what a soldier did under orders against possible consequences of refusing said order, meaning there is no automatism here.

I'm away and bam there's something new!!
Here is a quick mod to "Normize" the Schimwagen
I painted the propeller, it was always painted and not metal color
i put blackout on the headlights and a little mud!!!
The camouflage could be better but the unit arrives from the Russian front and only had 2 hours to paint knowing that they did not sleep....


https://www.dropbox.com/s/u4ethj4iri3c152/schwimmwagen-hull.bmp?dl=0

As it happens, the latest version of the campaign extractor did the job on Hasrabit so I now have two large campaigns to rework over time.
 
The Hasrabit maps are actually pretty good but far too small for what I need now so I'll have to extend them quite a bit before I can rework them.
 
So, the plan is, get the 6 mission USMC campaign finished first and then do the British Forces and NATO versions of this campaign. I'll post more about that once I've finished the maps and have most of the battles working properly. I have no idea how long this is going to take but I'm hoping later next month (April) for the first version and the Brits and Germans to follow not long after that.
After that, I'm going to focus on Hasrabit as it's OLD, most folks won't have played it and you also get to play with Republican Guards and Special Forces with all the goodies that come with them. Of course, map reworks come first and as I'm learning from my current project, that's 2-3 days per map, with 10 maps so that's about a month of work on maps alone. I generally do map work in the evening though so I'll start work on these next week. Since this is Red v Red and easier to do than NATO v Red, I expect reasonably quick progress on this because you're not hampered by any of those 'silly' considerations like civilian casualties or cultural sensitivity. It's just 'get the job done'.
Then finally, Road to Dinas. It won't need quite so much work to redo as the maps are generally big enough. It's the AI that will need a lot of love as there are a few AI attacks and there's also some new kit that could be utilised. I had to use US air forces for Hasrabit as there wasn't Syrian air power in the early versions of the game. Nor were there Shilkas which are a bit of a game changer. But I've learned a few tricks since I released this campaign so it should benefit from my experience.

...working on bringing over enough French terrain stuff to make the scenarios seem to be France.
skybox for the horizons
a few buildings
some trees since Italy is more arid
other stuff
flavor objects...I MEAN...objet d'flavour
 

Yes, subbing the old captured French tanks was the first change I made. The original Montebourg campaign was developed while the base game was in development so I wasn't able to use them first time around. IIRC, there was no allied air support when the game was first released either which is why there's no air support in the base campaign either. That's changed too. 
The Vehicle Pack will be necessary because I'm using flamethrowers this time as well. The Airborne and Glider Infantry both get them in their missions in phase 2. I've yet to see these in action as I've been importing the new core units and placing them but that work is all done now and so proper playtesting begins today. 

I greatly enjoyed your CMBN campaigns so I am really looking forward to any new ones you decide to make.

Looking back at Steve's posts, I see he remarked that other software developers make 5 times more than what he makes or has made. If I ever win Powerball Steve...
Kohlenklau: Hi Steve, did you get the check?
Steve: Yes Mr. Kohlenklau, I got it. Thank you sir. Charles is here...he says we'll have Early War ready very soon. Come on up to view the beta and we'll go out for lobster.
 

There will be something new. I've already got an idea which I'm going to work on quietly. However, I've now got access to all the maps and missions from both Hasrabit and Road to Dinas and I'd really like to bring them up to date.
The main issue with 'new' is that I'll have to learn how to use GIMP with a reasonable degree of competence to create the artwork for anything new. I'll achieve that by bringing the old campaigns up to date (the art work for Hasrabit is ghastly - I think I used Paint to do that). I was really surprised just how good some of the maps for Hasrabit were. The titular village is surprisingly detailed and looks really good as is but the real problem is that the map is tiny, about 600m  x 600m. Plus there are just too many trees and forests, not to mention large swaths of glowing yellow wheatfields on these maps. Very NW European. I don't want to have many trees but rather have plenty of orchards. And there are far too many tall walls around buildings too. I want the maps to look more like they did in my NATO campaigns missions.
While I'm importing the new core units into Montebourg, I'm also working on reworking my CMSF USMC Gung Ho! campaign and the maps are all being reworked as the above suggests and some considerably expanded as well. Since the tactical maps no longer reflect the reality of the revised maps, I'll experiment with a new format for operational and tactical maps.
BTW, unlikely but if any of you think, 'Gung Ho!' I missed that one.' and download it, just wait for the revised version to come. It was made back before I did the NATO campaigns and uses the old attack at 1:3 odds rather than the later attack at at least even odds or better. I missed the USMC because I was working flat out on Dinas which is a monster and so I wanted to play around with the USMC on some revamped Dinas maps. It won't be a long wait.

To catch up, I've imported and placed the core units in all the phase 1 and 3 missions and am now preparing to import them into the phase 2 missions (From Hell to Le Ham). These are more tricky because there are German core units in all these missions so I have left these until last. I should have the German core units done by tonight and have them imported tomorrow which means testing and AI plans can begin in earnest this weekend. And do I have some new ideas...
I have to admit, I really like what I can do with AI triggers. They were just making an appearance when I last played the game and I was initially disappointed that they didn't 'branch'. But I can see how useful they can be in some of the AI reworks I've done for my CMSF2 campaign already.
Once I've redone the AI plans, I'll create the variants and then will compile a new revised Montebourg for the scenario depot. They're not all getting extensive AI reworks, just the ones which I feel would benefit most from some extra attention, like Turnbull's Stand for example which has an AI attack.

Yup, problem solved, thanks!

I've tried downloading it and put it in the right folder but can't see it when I open it. Not the steam version, running on a Mac (not sure I've updated to most recent patch - will that be the reason?)
 

Unusual tat. Is it permanent? It's a play but I can't quite work out  the details. Is there some significance to that particular play?
And yes, I'm back and that's the first fruit. For the time being, I'm importing the new core files units into Montebourg (I've just finished 'Labrynth' which I was dreading doing) and after that, I'll import the new core units into The Scottish Corridor. Once that's done, I'll really get to work revising these two. I've learned a lot since I made Montebourg so reworking the AI plans should be 'fun'. It's the work I love best. 

That's brilliant. Thanks. I've downloaded the dynamic version and have unpacked it. It really is a monster. Redoing that will be a lot of work, but FUN work.
I'm going to have to be careful and not get too carried away and take on too much at the start. I want to get 'Montebourg' redone and also work on my smallest campaign, Gung Ho! before I start work on this project. But now that I have the whole thing, minus the core units file, it's a definite project for this year. It will be a CMSF2 rework so I'll be able to add water and bridges as well as wire fences to replace the rural walls I used on my early maps.

I've pretty much erased my Steam library from my hard drive to make way for some CM titles so I am planning to spend a LOT of time working on campaigns for these titles. I've gotten the bug again and I've already started zooming around in Google Earth for some interesting locations to have a fight.
One of the best things about the modern era game is that you're not constrained by history. My Syrian Civil War scenario for Hasrabit and Road to Dinas was pure baloney but who cares? Some of Hasrabit's maps were based on real world locations, especially Hasrabit itself. (It's not called Hasrabit IRL). Dinas has a mix of some maps based on real world  locations and some fictional. I prefer real world now as it helps to guide me. So, once I found a few good looking locations for a series of actions, I'll start producing maps. I already have the germ of an idea for a new Red v Red campaign but it's really just an idea right now. But it's certainly going to happen.

I'd say the chances of it getting updated are very high indeed.  But I'm going to have to find a copy of the campaign first as I can't download it from the Scenario Depot. It's an old campaign and so all the files were lost when my computer crashed a few years back. But the campaign extractor is my new best friend which has allowed me to return to my CMSF work.
There appear to be a lot of new features in the v2 game, including water, fortifications, more AI groups and on-map MORTARS. (I always wanted those) so it would be a lot of fun to rework this monster campaign to bring it up to date. More AI groups is not a trivial improvement either, having only 8 meant that I couldn't refine the AI as much as I was able to in CMBN.

I might have to review Road to Dinas when I have some time. I've forgotten so much about it so I can't give you any pointers about any missions (yet). I know that there were some quite big actions in it and that it was free of the concerns about civilian casualties which meant being able to fire large quantities of HE at buildings.
I can't get it on the Repository though as the link is broken. There'a absolutely no rush though as I want to rework 'Gung Ho!' first.

I guess I look like the new kid in town but I used to be a bit active around here a while back. For reasons I won't go into in this post, I took a long break (10 years) and am back cautiously getting reacquainted with the new game.
First, how do I roll? I really like to play missions on realistic-looking maps. I don't like to play anything that is too easy or too difficult so I work for a challenging but fair difficulty a lot of the time and I like to play with all the bells and whistles - that means the player gets artillery, air support and any of the other things that a player would want to play with.
So what have I done? let's look at the unofficial Repository stuff first.
 
Hasrabit - 10 missions Red v Red
Player controls Republican Guards and Special Forces against Rebel Syrian army units
Road to Dinas 16+ missions IIRC, Red v Red
Player controls Rebel Syrian army forces against the RG and SF. Basically, the other side.
Right from the start, I worked with a twin-story mode in all my campaigns where you play with two (or more) formations with thair own stories, some cross-over and each with a finale for both. I've stuck with this format almost exclusively.
Road to Dinas got me noticed and I was invited to join the Beta team and from then on, most of my content was on the 'disks' that you bought. However, I did make up a short campaign for the USMC called 'Gung Ho!' which I'll talk about later. Not to be too modest but my stand-alone scenarios were nowhere near as good as my campaign stuff and there were very few of them. Campaigns are MY thing, the medium I'm most at home with. So, onto the official campaigns. There are a few of these ...
 
CMSF NATO
I was asked to head the creation of three NATO campaigns for that module. I produced the concepts and campaign plan for all three and was a major contributor to the German campaign. The Canadian campaign is almost entirely my own creation with one mission from MikeyD included so that I couldn't say that it was ALL my own work. I didn't contribute anything to the Dutch campaign other than the design. Not that there was an issue or lack of interest in the Dutch, but rather that there were other testers who all wanted to contribute.
This marks a shift as well for me as I was previously doing Red v Red where the two sides were fairly matched and casualties weren't really a thing. With the player having all the tools you'd like to play around with, I had to resort to low tolerance for friendly casualties. After all, when it's not an existential war, the Western countries tend to frown on taking heavy casualties and don't particularly like to cause civilian casualties either. Both of these strongly factor into the NATO campaigns. This was not going to be an issue for WW2 though.
 
CMBN
The Road to Montebourg - 18 missions
This was a monster but I was so excited to be playing with a WW2 theatre again that it wasn't as much work as you might think.
The Scottish Corridor - 14 missions + a hidden bonus
I started getting creative with the campaign scripting and so this has a complex structure.
The Road to Nijmegen - well, it's a long one
This was the last of my official campaigns. It's an absolute monster and pushed me to the limits. I playtest all my own content very thoroughly in Real Time and so the large battalion-sized Irish Guards missions took an age to get right. The Breakout from the Neerpelt mission was one of my personal favourites and I spent ages tweaking it to get it to where I was happy with it.
The difficulty here was mainly derived from maintaining your forces so that they were battle-worthy in future missions. While there were still casualty awards for both sides, the real problem for the player was the attrition of your forces. These campaigns were all long so husbanding your forces was very important.
With regards to difficulty, there were some real 'pigs' in the historical WW2 missions because, historically, the Allies lost these actions or were hurt very badly winning them. A good example was the Hell in the Hedgerows in Montebourg. Or the entire Scottish Corridor campaign  Otherwise, challenging and fun is my gig. Hopefully, you'll be seeing more in the not-too-distant future.

It's been a long weekend here so I've been able to spend three consecutive days working on this. I've just finished working on the Brecourt mission and completed it with only one casualty. To be sure it wasn't a fluke, I ran it again (it's only 15 minutes long) and won again, this time with 4 casualties. If you know roughly how that action panned out in real life, the same tactics will serve you well here but if you just rush in, it probably won't work out so well for you. Neither will it work if you take your precious time.
Of course, this is not Easy Company's assault but rather an homage. And it just feels right. BTW, if you have already played the revised version of the campaign, you might notice that I've redesigned the trench network to better reflect the historical set up.
So, Missions 1 and 2 are done as well as Turnbulls' Stand. I'm only going to rework a few missions so it may happen quicker than I'd thought. The main task is importing the new core units to each mission. That's not as small a job as you might think

Some of you may have noticed that I've poked my head up again after a very long absence. I've just been very busy with real life and wanted to spend some time playing games rather than designing content. But this game is a bit like crack for me, it's just so addictive and watching Usually Hapless play this campaign on Youtube got me back into it. (Yes, it's ALL your fault Hapless  )
I've done a bit of work fixing things and now want to turn my attention to my first campaign for CMBN, the Montebourg campaign. It's the oldest and was made using v1.0 of the engine meaning that there are only 8 AI groups and no air support. There have also been a number of changes to the game which mean that I can experiment with some of the new stuff while reworking this one.
It's not going to be a total overhaul but it will no longer work for players with only the CMBN base game so it's a Repository jobbie. I'll let you guys know what you'll need but it will probably require the full Monty as I want flamethrowers in it. It's also worth saying that anything new in it will be historically accurate and not just added in for the laughs. So no SS with JgPZIVs. Pity.
So, I'll keep you up to date with my progress on this. I'm not looking to do a LOT of work. It's mainly to reacquaint myself with the scenario designer and writing AI plans.
 
Mission 1
I have no plans to change anything at all about the opening mission at all. It's fine as is.
Mission 2
There is a 'new' short 'Brecourt' mission. It's not really new though as it was in the revised version on the Repository. I'll need to tweak this one as the game seems to have become more lethal since I last played it but otherwise, it's good to go.
Mission 3
The first mission to get a full rework is Turnbull's Stand. I'm reworking the AI attack as there were only two AI plans and they were terrible. I've made a number of revisions to the map itself to reflect the reality of the day so it's a bit more open with less bocage and more hedges.
I've spent pretty much all morning and most of the afternoon learning how to script an AI attack using the new tools and the first AI plan is almost done. I want a second one with an entirely different focus but it should be much faster to do as I'm not 'learning' anymore. Then, I'll mix it up so that there's four attack plans.
 
And that's where I'm up to. There's no timetable on this. I'm not in any hurry but by posting about it here, I've kind of declared my intentions and am far more likely to stick with it.

All good here.  Glad you are back and hope you get your design mojo back soon.