Pericles

Just wanted to give my prediction for CM3's first module. Has to be this. 

I've noticed some maps in the FB campaigns and scenarios have buildings that are partially buried. For example, one of the doors will be underground because of the way the buildings are placed on slopes. Do I have a corrupt game file, or is it simply that Battlefront decided not to fix this issue and that the community doesn't really care. 

Not really. I wrote 5-10 minutes, not to brag but to be modest in my estimate of how long it usually takes someone to play through an hour-long mission. 
So taking 10 minutes as an average order time, and taking 3 minutes as an average playback time, that's 13 minutes per turn. Multiply that by the number of turns (60) and we have 13 hours to play an hour-long mission! If you game for 2 hours a day, that's almost a full week for one mission. Now consider that campaigns string together a number of missions and we're talking one week best estimate. 
So my point stands. Campaigns ought to be good, given the enormous investment of time. CMBN campaigns are not good, if you are like me and believe that immersion and realism are what's "good" in CM games. 

I have tried to play four campaigns in CMBN and easily have over 100 hours of gameplay. Overall, my opinion of CMBN campaigns is low. Lions of Carpiquet, The Scottish Corridor, Courage and Fortitude (with the Razorback Ridge mission). I gave Road to Nijmegen a try but the first mission really defeated me as you have to send your infantry across a large field and version 4.0 infantry behavior makes this frustrating. 
One thing about CM gameplay is that it takes a great deal of time. Completing an hour-long mission is 60 turns. Orders for each turn take about 5-10 minutes to complete with a few exceptions. Then you watch and re-watch the 1 minute-long action sequence, which can take 3-5 minutes to complete. That's a minimum of about 8 hours for an hour-long mission. That's about 5 days if you game for 1-2 hours a day. Anyway, it's a lot of time. The question is whether it's time spent where you're left feeling like "damn, that was great, glad I did it". 
I rarely feel this way at the end of my CMBN campaign experiences. I just stopped playing the Lions of Carpiquet campaign. Huge 4x company battles, massive maps, but Mission 2 is not winnable and Mission 3 is the exact same map of Mission 1. I successfully defeated the Germans on the map in Mission 1 and now I am asked for some reason to retake the map in Mission 3. There is nothing to be gained from this. The campaign author claims that the campaign is historically accurate, but really? There seems to be something missing here in terms of text explaining why the positions I took in Mission 1 must be retaken all over again in Mission 3. Even with the explanation though, I have no interest in grinding through the same landscape over the course of the next week. 
This highlights the critical importance of excellent campaign design. And it lacks in all of the CMBN campaigns I've played. The missions are either completely unrealistic (Razorback Ridge), suffer from bad final missions that highlight the weaknesses of CMx2 coding (Scottish Corridor's night mission where infantry can't see tanks unless their within 10 m of them for longer than a minute (or something like that)), suffer from infantry 4.0, or have no consistency and repeat maps. I will give the Road to Nijmegen a chance again in the near future and report back. 
Any thoughts?
Note: I have not had the same problem with the CMBS stock campaigns. They all play very very well. 

Tim Stone - who was fired from RockPaperShotgun a couple months ago for taking a conservative stance on the trans issue - now has a new website. Enjoy his writing and support him at (https://tallyhocorner.com/). 

Tim Stone - who was fired from RockPaperShotgun a couple months ago for taking a conservative stance on the trans issue - now has a new website. Enjoy his writing and support him at (https://tallyhocorner.com/). 

Tim Stone - who was fired from RockPaperShotgun a couple months ago for taking a conservative stance on the trans issue - now has a new website. Enjoy his writing and support him at (https://tallyhocorner.com/). 

I have often overlooked mission briefing editing mistakes, including grammatical errors that interrupt the flow of reading and mistakes in listings of assets available. 
However, I recently read through a mission briefing that takes the cake in terms of editing errors (there are five of them in the short briefing). The mission is R2V One Final Effort, where you fight as the Indian army. Normally, I wouldn't take the time to make a comment about this, but the author of the scenario goes out of his way in the Designer's Notes to thank someone else for "assisting with briefing review and editing". This just doesn't seem right. 
In any case, I'm sure the mission is well designed, just needed to chime in on the on-going "mission briefings could use better editing" feedback. Like, seriously. 
Here are the five errors: 
"...streaming north is what can only be described as..." [should be "in", not "is"]
"...have already been or likely to be liberated..." [should be "are likely" not "likely"]
"Using whatever transport available elements of the..." [should be "available, elements" not "available elements"]
"One Humber IV armoured car is also available to you command to assist" [should be something else (maybe "your command to assist")]
"...estimated that perhaps there are two platoons of worth of infantry." [should be "worth of infantry" not "of worth of infantry"]

No, I committed two platoons to move up the middle forest area and had one of those platoons decimated by the Germans hiding on the other side of the forest road next to the trucks (quick moved several squads across the road a few action spaces without scout precheck). I then swiftly uninstalled the game to stop myself from falling into a more serious CM spiral. 
I will be sure to try it again when I have time. It was tricky but I only skimmed the surface. I liked the plausibility of the scenario, with the Germans in retreat trying to rest for the night and the Indians with low morale knowing the end of the war is near. 

I have often overlooked mission briefing editing mistakes, including grammatical errors that interrupt the flow of reading and mistakes in listings of assets available. 
However, I recently read through a mission briefing that takes the cake in terms of editing errors (there are five of them in the short briefing). The mission is R2V One Final Effort, where you fight as the Indian army. Normally, I wouldn't take the time to make a comment about this, but the author of the scenario goes out of his way in the Designer's Notes to thank someone else for "assisting with briefing review and editing". This just doesn't seem right. 
In any case, I'm sure the mission is well designed, just needed to chime in on the on-going "mission briefings could use better editing" feedback. Like, seriously. 
Here are the five errors: 
"...streaming north is what can only be described as..." [should be "in", not "is"]
"...have already been or likely to be liberated..." [should be "are likely" not "likely"]
"Using whatever transport available elements of the..." [should be "available, elements" not "available elements"]
"One Humber IV armoured car is also available to you command to assist" [should be something else (maybe "your command to assist")]
"...estimated that perhaps there are two platoons of worth of infantry." [should be "worth of infantry" not "of worth of infantry"]

I have often overlooked mission briefing editing mistakes, including grammatical errors that interrupt the flow of reading and mistakes in listings of assets available. 
However, I recently read through a mission briefing that takes the cake in terms of editing errors (there are five of them in the short briefing). The mission is R2V One Final Effort, where you fight as the Indian army. Normally, I wouldn't take the time to make a comment about this, but the author of the scenario goes out of his way in the Designer's Notes to thank someone else for "assisting with briefing review and editing". This just doesn't seem right. 
In any case, I'm sure the mission is well designed, just needed to chime in on the on-going "mission briefings could use better editing" feedback. Like, seriously. 
Here are the five errors: 
"...streaming north is what can only be described as..." [should be "in", not "is"]
"...have already been or likely to be liberated..." [should be "are likely" not "likely"]
"Using whatever transport available elements of the..." [should be "available, elements" not "available elements"]
"One Humber IV armoured car is also available to you command to assist" [should be something else (maybe "your command to assist")]
"...estimated that perhaps there are two platoons of worth of infantry." [should be "worth of infantry" not "of worth of infantry"]

I would love to see an EU army - the softest army in the history of armies

In the particular case of the video below, I don't see how the unit is thinking only of itself based on the knowledge it has available to it when it runs back toward the enemy a second time instead of down the road or behind the wall. It simply doesn't make any sense given the in-game situation (e.g. the unit is aware of enemy contacts North). Would you agree, or am I missing something? 
Battlefront wrote: "However, we have been at a point now, for a while, where it's getting harder and harder to find reproducible, addressable corner cases.  That's good."
Agreed. And the discussions in this thread may have contributed to the identification of a reproducible corner case in the Wilcox scenario. 
If it's not sufficiently addressable, then that's not good, but only mildly not good. I realize that expecting a video game like this to be completely free of errors is not realistic. As a customer and proponent of the CM franchise I will continue to poke and prod with evidence, reason, and an open mind in an attempt to contribute to the improvement of the game experience. 
 

In the particular case of the video below, I don't see how the unit is thinking only of itself based on the knowledge it has available to it when it runs back toward the enemy a second time instead of down the road or behind the wall. It simply doesn't make any sense given the in-game situation (e.g. the unit is aware of enemy contacts North). Would you agree, or am I missing something? 
Battlefront wrote: "However, we have been at a point now, for a while, where it's getting harder and harder to find reproducible, addressable corner cases.  That's good."
Agreed. And the discussions in this thread may have contributed to the identification of a reproducible corner case in the Wilcox scenario. 
If it's not sufficiently addressable, then that's not good, but only mildly not good. I realize that expecting a video game like this to be completely free of errors is not realistic. As a customer and proponent of the CM franchise I will continue to poke and prod with evidence, reason, and an open mind in an attempt to contribute to the improvement of the game experience. 
 

In the particular case of the video below, I don't see how the unit is thinking only of itself based on the knowledge it has available to it when it runs back toward the enemy a second time instead of down the road or behind the wall. It simply doesn't make any sense given the in-game situation (e.g. the unit is aware of enemy contacts North). Would you agree, or am I missing something? 
Battlefront wrote: "However, we have been at a point now, for a while, where it's getting harder and harder to find reproducible, addressable corner cases.  That's good."
Agreed. And the discussions in this thread may have contributed to the identification of a reproducible corner case in the Wilcox scenario. 
If it's not sufficiently addressable, then that's not good, but only mildly not good. I realize that expecting a video game like this to be completely free of errors is not realistic. As a customer and proponent of the CM franchise I will continue to poke and prod with evidence, reason, and an open mind in an attempt to contribute to the improvement of the game experience. 
 

IanL - Do you have a response to my question? I asked whether you agree that this is a bug now that I provided video evidence. I'm interested to know your thoughts on this given your experience with CM (e.g. you have over 12,000 posts on the forum). 

I have uploaded three videos to Youtube regarding the pathfinding problems. Links are pasted below. 
I have also started a thread that might get us some idea as to whether there is actually a coding solution to this problem. 
 
 
 
 

Very glad you enjoyed it. Like most others are saying, this is the freshest CM scenario I've ever played. I tend to steer away from using the term "innovation", but this is truly innovative. 
I decided not to go with the air assault - transporting my men by helicopter at 1 pm in the afternoon in a Separatist invested area seemed like a bad idea. 
I wasn't sure about the affected radius around the tires so I went with the river crossing (once and only once). 
The intel is definitely understandable and useful. 
Stay tuned for part 2, the Power Plant remains hot and I'm about to attempt to extract a couple defectors from the North Outpost. 

Here is part 1 of a cinematic AAR of the Tactical Operations Center scenario. A bit on the hasty side but hopefully it does the scenario some justice. 
 

Why is it that infantry units often spot other infantry units moving through forests before spotting armored vehicles moving through forests? 
The reason I ask is because I just witnessed a Russian BMP move into a forest about 10 meters from one of my Ukranian infantry units. Russian infantry units dismounted from the BMP - these were promptly spotted by the Ukranian infantry unit (basically right after they dismounted). But the BMP was not spotted even though it is closer. I suppose they'll notice it next turn. 
I guess I'm supposed to imagine that foliage and brush not graphically modeled in the game is hiding their view of the behemoth 10 m next to them? 
All I'm saying is that it doesn't seem right to for them to be able spot infantry and not the BMP in this case. I have witnessed this spotting behavior once before. 

I have prepared a video AAR of a mission from The Charge of the Stryker Brigade campaign.
I have had some issues with the design of some missions in the campaign, but most missions are masterfully designed, including this one. Enjoy. 
 

True. My charge that the scenario was designed "incompetently" was too harsh. It was borne out of frustration. 
No I have never attempted to design a scenario. 
Overall, pointing out problems with AI/scenario design is constructive if the problems are real. I provide two examples in this thread of enemy bunching in the first 10 minutes of a scenario in a stock campaign. This is sufficient empirical evidence that there is a problem. It does not matter if I play the scenario over again and find that the AI does not bunch. The fact is, the AI bunched in two separate instances in the first 10 minutes of the scenario.
The problem may be with the AI ("TacAI"), it may be with the scenario design tools, or it may be with the scenario designer's decisions. Given the comments so far,  it seems I was wrong to conclude that the problem is solely with the decisions made by the scenario designer. It is all of the above. Perhaps the designer could have split the enemy into smaller groups. 
Overall the designer for this campaign has done well. But bunching like this really takes the wind out of my sails. 

Here is an example of unsatisfactory, immersion-breaking AI from the "Charge of the Stryker Brigade" campaign. These three enemy units had not yet been engaged... they are just hanging out in a group in the middle of a road with their flanks to the enemy (me). Two of their tank friends had been destroyed many minutes before this screen capture was taken.
Unacceptable? Yes. Will I continue this mission? Yes.