Monty's Mighty Moustache

I did make a few tweaks to the scenario and hopefully the new version will be released with the Steam release.  I've submitted it anyway so hopefully they will grab it when the time comes.  I wasn't overly concerned at first about the set up zone, although I felt it was not ideal I figured it was manageable.  I think what might be happening is that many players haven't figured out their course of action by the time the main attack force arrives and thus they are basically sitting in the setup zone rather than executing their plan of attack.  That's why I gave the player 15 minutes to play around with the minor recon force prior to the arrival of the main force - in the hope that the player would have a plan of action by then and the setup zone 'problem' would be minimized since the player would be on the move.  
I think I've addressed the issue by planting a whole bunch of the biggest trees available in the editor - they are probably about twice as tall as the ones currently there.  Even so some of the TOWs still get in there somehow, but it should be minimized to the point where it should be acceptable for most players.  It does look a little funny to me, but it's all I could think to do.  I also anticipated the Bradley down by the river situation and modified the American setup accordingly.  It's still possible for the American player to do that, but it's an even less probable thing for someone to think to do with the way I have redeployed everything.  
I also made a few minor adjustments to the American AI and reduced their combat power ever so slightly - probably not even noticeable for most players.  I also made some modifications to the Soviet briefing in an effort to help steer players in the right direction if they are not familiar with Soviet equipment / capabilities or perhaps newer to the game.  I increased the time by ten minutes as well.
I've had scenarios panned before so it's nothing new.  You can't make as many scenarios as I have if you have a thin skin.  Sometimes they work out and sometimes they don't.  Hopefully the modifications I've made will result in fewer complaints.  I typically try not to comment in scenario threads except for maybe a single post or two, but I was a little surprised and confused by some of the reactions that players were having when playing this scenario.  My honest reaction was 'what the heck are these guys doing?'  I'm thinking that most of the frustration was the TOW into the setup area when they can't spot what's hitting them.  If you are unsure of what your course of action is and stuff is 'spontaneously combusting' I can definitely see someone getting aggravated by that.  Hopefully now if a player wants to sit in the deployment zone for thirty minutes while they determine a course of action it will be safer for them to do so.

PM sent.  I just finished updating everything (as far as I know). 
Just have to compile the scenarios.  Unless some unexpected problem is found it will be off to Bootie soon after the compilation.  

Campaign briefing:
On the 16th of march 1944 a Fieseler Storch with SS-Gruppenführer Herbert-Otto Gille, the commanding officer of 5. SS-Panzer Division "Wiking" and his adjutant SS-Hauptsturmführer Westphal on board landed inside the town of Kovel. 
Kovel was just about to be surrounded by soviet units, many of them from the 47th army, your main adversary.
Kovel with the German garrison: 5000 soldiers and civilians inside it, was completely surrounded by the Red Army on the 19th of march 1944. 
Gille would be a major morale boost for the Kovel garrison and even though some would criticize Gille for not being at his divisional HQ outside Kovel during the battle his confidence in his officers abilities convinced him it was the right thing to do, besides that Hitler had declared Kovel a "Fester Platz" and had ordered Gille to get into Kovel and hold the city at all costs.
 

Nashorn in action. 



 

Hah! Bunch of old codgers 🧓👴👵 some of us have a way to go yet. (Not really sure why these emojis come up when I search for old 😅🥶😰😓🙏🧑‍🤝‍🧑👭👫👬📁📂🗝️🇲🇩 but since you're all old you can have them as well, maybe you have some insight as to what they mean?) 😉

Get off my lawn, you young whippersnapper!

Heh, well I don't think we really have any interest inserting this into CMCW ( I am tracking the scout tac aviation).  First Soviets in AFG and Russian in Chechnya are not aspirational military historical examples, no matter what they did or did not do.  In terms of CMCW, I think it would be suicidal (as has been mentioned) if for the amount of artillery in play alone, to the point that if we modeled it accurately (and I like to think that we would), no one would use it after the first try or two.  DPICM is bad enough on infantry when they are inside the vehicles...outside is bordering on silly.  
FYI, over the last 20 years NATO troops fought in some of the most mined/IED's parts of the world and we never rode on vehicles as a matter of SOP.  Being inside a burning vehicle is bad...being under a burning vehicle that has been flipped on top of you is worse.

Not normally, the master maps are provided so scenario editors can cut them down and use the section they want rather than having to create the map from scratch. I’ve found that sometimes the master maps make their way into the Scenarios folder in the Game Data, mostly CMBN (Market Garden maps in particular seem to be in the Scenarios folder) so it’s possible they’re just in the wrong place  They usually live in a Master Maps folder.
The only way I know of to be sure would be to move them and then try loading all the scenarios and see if any of them break  But someone may know of a better way to check.
MMM

Not normally, the master maps are provided so scenario editors can cut them down and use the section they want rather than having to create the map from scratch. I’ve found that sometimes the master maps make their way into the Scenarios folder in the Game Data, mostly CMBN (Market Garden maps in particular seem to be in the Scenarios folder) so it’s possible they’re just in the wrong place  They usually live in a Master Maps folder.
The only way I know of to be sure would be to move them and then try loading all the scenarios and see if any of them break  But someone may know of a better way to check.
MMM

Warren gave a great breakdown. I would add that one of the most common complaints I see everywhere about CM games set in a modern setting is that the maps are too small. "Knife fighting in a phone booth" is a phrase that is usually thrown around quite regularly. I sympathize with that assessment to a degree.
I think that Cold War goes a long way of showing that with the proper sized maps, you can get real maneuver in a modern setting. Of course, the double edged sword here is that some people prefer those phone booth knife fights. I think that Warren is correct that Cold War currently is mostly the larger fights and does not have many smaller fights, and that going forward it will be important to try to include more of those smaller fights. But I think it was the right call going with the larger battles for the first game. After all, this was to be a massive mechanized fight, and I think it was important that Cold War capture that feeling and sense of scale out of the gate. 
All that said, I do think that Combat Mission has an issue with what I call administrative burden, or overhead. The player has to give so many orders to so many individual units, that it can get really tiresome keeping up with everything. Just getting a single company to road march can take hundreds of clicks and pause commands, etc. 
Reducing the admin burden on the player I think would go a long way to facilitating the playability of the larger battles. But that is completely in the hands of Steve and Charles, and is well beyond the scope of a game or module. 

OK, I need to say this because clearly noone important in your life has. 
Customer feedback is good, but so long as it is constructive feedback. Everything you have said, and the way you have said it, has been destructive. Being polite isn't about making friends with me or other members. It is about not being a jerk and raising the chance that your complaints get listened to. Ever heard of the critique sandwich? You say something good, something bad, something good. Far more likely to get taken seriously. When everything you say is negative, it is very easy to just tune it out. 
Notice how your posts were promptly ignored by the staff/devs/beta testers? And they were still replying to people with honest, polite questions? 
I am of the opinion you owe them an apology not only for derailing a thread, but spreading falsehoods about a DRM conspiracy. This simply isn't the case, as Kevin's solution shows. 

It is not a block or DRM, at least nothing more then it used to be, just a minor change to a format. You are misstating the intent. If they wanted to block/DRM you really, and put effort in that, it would be different.

It isn't taken away if it isn't an advertised feature. No one is saying it is unreasonable, but I am personally saying that the way you are going about this isn't polite or likely to get you friends. Your subjective opinion of the maps themselves, and how long they 'last' is just that. 

Artkin, respectfully, this is a lot of vinegar when honey might be more profitable. 

you should consider therapy my friend, enjoy what you have! there is so much content between the 2 new games 

There are some minor differences with RT and CW compared to the others, the pause/play button on the UI now lights up either symbol depending on whether the game is paused or playing, tabbing out seems to work a little different from the others (my example being that if I hit end turn on one of the "older" games, when I tab back in it'll be paused at the start of the turn replay, but on RT or CW, it will have started playing the turn out) and the needing to run as admin to overwrite saves are what I've noticed so far.
 
I expect the former is minor enough to not be worth a patch for the other games and the latter probably unintended quirks of some update.

Soviet Campaigns = Tough and Challenging:
- First off the player has to manage an entire MRB TF (so Bn and a Tank Coy as a min) in each battle (except the last one but lets leave that one for now).  Over the Campaign the player is basically managing an MRR across the campaign scenarios, so 3 x MRBs, a TB and AT Bn as they fight down towards Alsfeld.
- The Campaign reflects Soviet doctrine (and POV to be honest) so there is very little RRR between battles (in March or Die it is zero).  So if one loses the better part of a tank company in Battle #1, you have to live with those losses for the rest of the campaign.  It is very easy to run out of gas by the end if a player is reckless.
- Force ratios are pretty forgiving actually, Soviets will go into each fight with at least a 2:1 advantage or higher.
- Tough as in US troops quality and positioning.  The US troops are 11 ACR and 3rd Armd Div, about the best equipped and trained the West had in this area.  They have owned the ground for nearly 40 years at this point and know every inch of it.  So each fight sees them very well positioned and with the best stuff.
As to saving and bush-searching, well I will leave that decision to you but each fight in on the clock so don't take too long.  Bottom line is that the campaign is not recommended for first time players as it will likely be frustrating.  Veterans should be prepared for shaking hands and tears in their eyes if they make it to seeing the street lights of Alsfeld.

To be fair there are excellent soviet doctrine training scenarios in the game that should help you out. The briefing includes a list of reference materials for the same. The US field manuals are all available online too and full of great information. It would be great if there was a bit more info in the manuals but it’s not like the info isn’t out there. 
MMM

To be fair there are excellent soviet doctrine training scenarios in the game that should help you out. The briefing includes a list of reference materials for the same. The US field manuals are all available online too and full of great information. It would be great if there was a bit more info in the manuals but it’s not like the info isn’t out there. 
MMM

I was not aware of this, explains some things in an ongoing PBEM QB I am involved in. I will stop shouting at my computer now
MMM

I was not aware of this, explains some things in an ongoing PBEM QB I am involved in. I will stop shouting at my computer now
MMM

Shoot and scoot maneuvers are possible to some degree. ATGM vehicles do not fire ATGMs if waypoints are still available. So you can not give the order to drive from a hidden position into a hull down position, give a pause order of some seconds and then go reverse into the hidden position, as the vehicle will not fire ATGMs from the paused waypoint. At least not as the game is done right now, because of engine limitations.
But there is a work around, if you give a pause order in the hidden position first, then drive up to the hull down position, so that the vehicle will stand there for about 10-15 seconds, before the turn ends, then it will shoot, as there are no following waypoints ahead. You can then drive reverse into the hidden position in the beginning of the next turn, to perform a full shoot and scoot maneuver.

You can’t as far as I am aware. I make a rough sketch of the AO and mark where I’ve placed them for later. Doesn’t have to be very accurate, close enough usually reminds me where it was located.
There is a mod knocking about that makes them white so they are easier to find.
MMM

Part II - following on from the above.
Once the enemy security outpost was eliminated the platoons swapped out and a fresh platoon carried forward the attack, whilst the lead platoon, tended to their wounded, re-orged and rearmed and took up position as the reserve.
By this stage some armour support in the shape of three Panthers had joined the attacking force. They all rolled forward.

The enemy supporting positions that had revealed their location attempting to support their security outpost were taken under fire from the supporting 105mm 'Wespe' battery.
Whilst the defenders were pinned down the assaulting SPW platoon drove onto the enemy position.
Under covering MG fire from their SPW the grenadiers assaulted forward to clear the foxholes.



it was not all straightforward. Some defenders rather than cowering in the bottom of their foxhole actively and effectively engaged the attacking grenadiers.