Swervin11b

WriterJWA has SF 1 and enjoys it. He’s told me a lot about it and I’ll probably end up going that route. If SF2 is coming out soon I may wait until then. Oh nice. That’d be really cool. I think it would add another dimension of realism to the simulation as well as eliminating one of the somewhat “gamey” features. Time would still be consequential to victory, but not regulated by the arbitrary nature of a clock. I’m going to read up on scenario design a bit so I can least make more educated suggestions as well as grasp how the mechanics of the game work

This may have been true of the initial invasion, but the insurgency was decidedly foggy as hell, especially in its infancy when we hadn’t developed the doctrine to deal with things like IEDs or car bombs. Their asymmetric tactics really forced us to be creative. At that, it could go conventional really quickly. Our preponderance of firepower was mitigated by the fact that we were fighting in populated areas in which we just couldn’t use our assets. The need to minimize civilian casualties actually made for situations in which we had to take a lot more risks - and potentially more casualties. Even routine route clearance was a calculated risk. But yeah, the insurgents used the fog in their favor. They’d hit lead vehicles first and then have secondary bombs go off when we went to help casualties, for instance. Between that and hiding in plain sight among people we couldn’t (and wouldn’t) target, it was a complicated conflict. (Please don’t read any snark at all into that, and apologies for being off the main topic. Merely discussing personal observations that may provide you insights)

Full disclosure - I’m friends with WriterJWA in real life. I’ve been watching this and his other topic on scenario design for a while. I’m also really new to the game, having only played CMFB for a couple months and CMBN for much less. I started out with a few campaigns and scenarios and vacated them, although I plan to once I really master the mechanics of the game and the interface. Quick Battles are a great way to train, and there seems to be more freedom to accomplish your mission however you see fit as the commander. In the few campaigns I did play, I did badly. I suspect it’s because I’m so new to the game, but I got the sense that they were *very* difficult. Some are meant to be (Sing Sing comes to mind). In any that I attempted though, I think the clock made most of the difference. There was little time to be careful - to probe, work the flanks, and prep - adding a degree of pressure for which I can’t quite grasp the real life parallel. An idea: Would it be possible to make the factor of time something more open ended but with consequences for follow on missions? It’d be something like a penalty or bonus system for subsequent missions. For instance, Col Joe Snuffy lollygags his way through the first town. If he takes more than X hours he misses link up with his reinforcements for the next mission, or he sacrfices an off map arty battery for the next mission because they’ve got another tasking. This would perhaps reflect the real life consequences of time on the battlefield. (Please keep in mind that this novice suggestion without fully grasping what’s possible to accomplish on the scenario design end) Anyway...This is one of the most fantastic games I’ve ever played. It is really close to an all-out combined arms simulation. I appreciate the work that’s gone into it