Warts 'n' all

'ang on a minute. If you wanna to call 'im "Declan" you 'ave to pay me copyright, me ol' China.

Many thanks Declan.  Yes the latest all in one installer for CMBN has the old game engine 4 manual, dating back to 2016.

I'm going to get stuck into this campaign today.
Cue ... 
 

Given that you come from the land that gave us The Wurzels, perhaps comedy is best left alone.

But note that there are a lot more scenarios, maps, and campaigns on this website and thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3, and also floating around (Much is old content from battlefront.com's old repository that eventually shut down).

I am having a very bad time at Ogledow, unlike Dlw's original post here.  I decided to go on the offensive right away w 5 tigers and infantry support.  One tiger picked sniped by something but I kept going.  Ran into a buzz saw of JS2 tanks.  Was all in my favor at first then things started going very, very badly.  Stupid fog putting RU tanks into point blank range.
Tigers leave town on a hunting mission.  Well, the ones that actually work left town.
https://imgur.com/anQO2Jq
Everything OK so far, had a quick fight w RU forces in copse of trees but only one casualty on my side.
https://imgur.com/PHsHw

And now we've got a fight:  JS2 shows up.

and dies, HA take that GeorgeMC-ovich!

Burn, baby, burn.  I was feeling pretty good at this point.

Three JS2 down, no loss on my side.  Victory for my tigers, though the close range is terrifying.

A few minutes later..... and I've lost three of my 5 tigers.  At least they died w sword in hand and will go to tank valhalla, unlike all the ones that simply broke down.

And the fight goes on.  I do not think tiger2s were made for this kind of close up fighting.  All my advantages are gone due to fog, but won this duel at 50m.  Is this all the JS2s??  Are there more?  There was one on my left in some trees earlier but I hit him though not a kill.  Is his gun damaged?

So I have managed to wreck a bunch of tigers, lose some infantry, and still don't have the objective.  This aint good.  What else is hiding back there in the fog???
 
 
https://imgur.com/anQO2J

Sorry... 🥶

That was just my attempt at a joke, failed 😬.

Well, WimO's trying to put them all together into a campaign, so no H2H here..
Anyway WimO is too modest. I liked his campaign very much, even though some debugging was required.
I'm disappointed that Levy stands alone at Cauquigny disappeared, this was my preferred scenario of the set, and I don't think it need that much adjustments to be near-perfect!
Good luck for the campaign compiling!

Here I am temporarily resurfacing to give an update about the status of WimO's 82nd Airborne Campaign debugging.\
After PEB14's helpful feedback I had another look at the scenarios commented on and had an eye-opening shock. In come cases AI timings had gone off the rails due to having reduced scenario time lines without adjusting AI. In others I forgot to give AI orders. Some scenarios suffered from reloading the core units file during develpment for one side and then forgetting that it also reloaded for he other side. Overall there were a lot of screw-ups. I think the project was overwhelming for my declining faculties.
So, here's the situation today. I withdrew into my computer man-cave and set about full-time debugging. I decided to create a smaller 5 scenario version of the campaign as a starting point. At this point the following five scenarios have been reworked, debugged, repeatedly tested and confirmed to work satisfactorily when free-standing. To me 'satisfactorily' means that you can win or lose (usually the former).
Manoir Leroux, Angriff der Grenadiere, No Better Place to Die, Saul's Run and Le Motey.
Today I will compile them into a campaign and begin the multitude of play tests required to determine what I feel are the most appropriate settings for Refit, Repair, Resupply and Rest between scenarios. That will take some time.
So now ... I'm going to disappear again for a while.
 

Here's another picture of "The Man with the Big Cigar" in Mote Park, I think that the officer with the swagger stick is saying "There's nothing to worry about Prime Minister, I'm sure it can take the weight of your drinks cabinet".
 

cheers,
rob

I think that your conclusion is the correct one. Unless it slipped under my radar.

You will often see CM videos on youtube where the player ceases fire before the end. And of course there is nothing to stop you doing so. But the aim of this particular thread is to give @WimO as much feedback as possible as to how this campaign plays out. So even if you are having a hard time in a future mission I would try and stick it out to the end.

All correct. The system is not too far off but the number of players who play H2H is a fraction of the number of players who play against the AI and they see the number who would play a campaign via PBEM as a fraction of that. So, it's just never percolated up high enough in priority for them to spend time on.
I personally would love it so I bring it up from time to time.

Not sure this is the proper place to bring this up so redirect me if not.
Is there some reason campaign games can't be played H2H?  Seems like they'd be great fun.  Is it because a real player taking the AI side would do a much better job?
Jim
 

EUREKA! I am jumping for joy. This morning I invented a solution for the Cease Fire humbug.
What is the Cease Fire humbug? A scenario designer creates a scenario that must be played to the full time limit of the scenario to experience the whole story.  The story being, all of the AI activity that is going on unseen by the player. However, the story gets interrupted by a player, satisfied with what he has accomplished in the scenario, aborting the story by giving the Command to Cease Fire. Game over. Player satisfied but story interrupted.
I have found a solution that will allow a scenario to play normally with normal results if the player plays it to the end but will result in a TOTAL DEFEAT if the player selects Ceasefire any time before the last minute in the scenario. Play tested and works perfectly. Ta - Daaaaa! Now I just need to do a little rework on all of my scenarios for the campaign.
Should I keep this a secret? (chuckle, chuckle, tee hee.) I feel like Asterix and the Secret Potion. Was that the time Getafix had amnesia?
Imagine the following situation: A player has captured all necessary occupy objectives to win the game, no enemies visible anymore, and there are five minutes left to play. He hits Cease FIre and the report comes up with TOTAL DEFEAT! I imagine the response would be a completely confounded "What the ...?"  And maybe a little hostility towards the game designer? I guess I had better include a warning with each scenario to avoid this possibility.

HITTING CEASEFIRE:
In the present version, if you hit ceasefire in Boots on the Ground you can indeed win and circumvent the action at the end of the game. That is an issue that has been corrected in version 2 to be posted later. In most of the other scenarios, if you choose ceasefire too early, you will lose. I am glad to see this discussion. It makes me consider visually hiding all objectives from the player, i.e. no ALT-J and only providing verbal objective instructions - as in real life. Got to think some more about this.
In version 2 of Boots on the Ground, you will end the game in the range of minor loss, draw and  minor victory. Both in the present version and in version 2 the German AI has three plans which vary in aggression. There were timing problems in v1 with the AI not completing  its moves to combat that have been fixed in v2 resulting in a more aggressive and 'patrolling' AI.
To me, as a miniatures wargamer, hitting the Ceasefire button when things are going your way, is like quitting playing a game across the table before time is up. An unrelated example: A friend of mine and I are co-operatively playing the campaign For King and Country. We are half way through the final scenario and are sitting on a minor Allied victory. We could quit now and win the campaign but with an hour of game time left, we don't know if the AI has anymore attack plans or not. So we are going to play it out. Why miss the rest of the story?
Maybe I just need to add an introductory note: If you want to role play the full experience of these historical events, do not ever select the Cease Fire command. If you do, you will miss out on some of the excitement, suspense, and yes - occasional boredom.
In the final analysis, it's all about what YOU, the player want when you are playing the game. A quick exit once you sit on the perceived objectives or a story? It's not for me to say. I serve the snack tray. You choose your treats.

Thanks @Warts 'n' all
I'll rewind to my last turn and see it through to the bitter end 👍
Appreciate your help guys
Drew

Thanks to PEB14 who has been giving me a lot of feedback on my Mission Boston - Objective La Fiere campaign. There were some wrinkles in the first scenario to iron out. No problems - just wrinkes. The scenario was playing okay but players were discombobulated by the final result of a Total or Major Victory.  That wrinkle has been smoothed out now to a more historical 'feeling' lesser level. Although surviving the scenario could be regarded as a T.V., it was too easy to achieve this by just bypassing historical mission objectives. The wrinkle made no difference to the progress of the campaign.
However, I anticipate releasing version 2 this summer once feedback on the other scenarios has come in.
At this time I am  preparing for this weekend's HOT LEAD miniature wargaming convention. So far I've pre-registered  for Circus Maximus on Friday and The Black Flight on Saturday. Yee-hah!

Thank you Sir!
A pleasure to give a modest helping hand to such a beautiful project!

A great story. New blood in the forum often can improve things.
If you get a chance, please send us a couple photos! Good luck.

My guess is you didn't try to reach Assembly 2 at all?
Did you face German counterattacks at Cauquigny?

I don't mind the typos. It's only when some Scots gits changed their name from Steward to Stuart that I got a bit tetchy.