zaybz

First of all: Have you tried the German Market Garden campaign? I quite liked that one.
Secondly, on the topic of the campaigns: I have played on my Youtube channel the Russian Campaign and the German Market Garden campaign, as well as lots of other campaigns "off camera). In my eyes you can't really judge the campaigns in general, but on an individual basis.
Road to Montebourg, Scottish Corridor and Road to Nijmegen are all made by Papertiger and are similar in style. I have a love hate relationship with them. I love their attention to detail, their graphical fidelity that always seems a cut above the others, the historical correctness and the huge amount of work that obviously went into them. Most of the scenarios have force sizes that (in my eyes) are manageable in CM.
Problem is: They are hard, and not necessarily in a good way. Many people say they have too short time limits and to a degree that might be true, but I think that is not the actual problem. The problem is that they often leave very little room for error, which in CM is always dangerous because of what in commercial games is often called "RNGesus", meaning the element randomness. I have played CM turns several times and often extremely different results came from the same order. This is in itself not bad and belongs into a military simulation, but in many PaperTiger missions you feel that one mistake will f.... your whole scenario over, and by extension the campaign. Sometimes not even a mistake, but just sheer bad luck. The scenarios are designed with such little tolerances that the little annoyances of randomness and the CM engine are magnified.
This leads to frustration, especially since, as Pericles pointed out, CM campaigns represent a considerable investment of free time.
Anyway, the other campaigns he mentioned I haven't tried (yet), so I can't comment, but some short reviews of those I played (or started to play):
CM BN
Road to Montebourg - See above, but was in my eyes the best of the PaperTiger campaigns, engine changes might have messed it up. That is another danger if you script the scenarios this much, btw.
Road to Nijmegen - See above, don't think I finished it ever.
Scottish Corridor - See above, don't think I ever finished the bonus battle
Kampfgruppe Engel - Kind of in progress (had a long pause for other reasons), seems quite good so far
A moment in time - Quite good, but one unwinnable scenario that left me scratching my head as to why it was in there
CM FI
Troina Campaign - Almost bit through my laptop due to the incredibly frustrating and unfair second level. Apparently this was fixed at some point, but tbh it seemed like the whole thing was one annoying and frustrating infantry slog through artillery fire.
Monte Cassino - Same, really frustrating in a boring kind of way
Raging Buffalo - Very good campaign, varied scenarios, great maps, manageable force size, some unusual vehicles to fight against
Foiling Fustian - One of the best campaigns, very weird forces, infantry focused, interesting scenarios and maps
Conrath - Spot the at-guns, bombard them, roll through map, repeat. Rather boring, can't remember if I ever finished it, so not a good sign.
CM RT
Hammer's Flank - Good campaign, forces a bit big and "unpersonal", but some great scenarios in there. Terrain sometimes a bit boring.
So all in all a mixed bag, although I haven't played all of them and some of the ones I don't like might be good in other people's eyes. Who knows, maybe someone enjoys storming one nondescript hill after the other, so the Monte Cassino on might be right up that person's alley.

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. 

I did that and got a tactical defeat (my best result in three attempts).
I'd won the first 4 missions (German surrender in all cases) but I've got completely stuck on this one. It might be (just) winnable but it says you'll need your forces to defend in a later mission.
As I assume your paratroopers are not going to get resupplied, they'll also be having to do it with hardly any ammunition too.
So I've decided the best way to handle this one is cease fire on the first turn resulting in a defeat but at least you'll have your force intact with a full loadout to deal with whichever mission they're next required in.

I just "completed" this mission, running 4.02. The bridge is bugged for the Americans, after you blow the wire you cannot cross the bridge, or even step foot on it. I assaulted along the american side of the lock trying to kill enough germans to trigger a surrender, but they retreated behind the woods and out of view of my soldiers and I had to just wait out the extra time and then lose the mission despite completely breaking the defense. Very disappointing.

It was once said that there where many different issues with bridges, and they had to fix it case by case, so the glitch you found might even be a different one (with the same result) than the one the Youtuber found. I once had a similar problem where only vehicles could not cross the bridge.
That a campaign revolving around bridges has seen the light of day with this kind of glitches is another issue altogether. And I think it's even more in favor of my proposal of having a public list of bugs with status on each one.

and this means what exactly?  The bridge glitch remains within the campaign, which can only be played as the Americans. Many have experienced this glitch as I have

Dealing with those 88s without knowing where they are (as you do if you win the breakout) is going to be very tough. It's a bit perverse to make the scenario following a loss harder than it would have been following a victory, and then say "oh, but you have to lose two in a row to get bumped to the extended versions of the subsequent scenarios". If you lost one Combined Arms advance into unknown opposition, how likely is it that you'll win the next?

I've been playing this one and I just completed the "For Those About to Die" battle. Minor defeat . . . and that was after the second time trying it. Seems like an impossible task. Oh, maybe I could get it right the third time, but where's the fun in that? The first time I tried it I got cut to ribbons in short order.

Seems designed to fail. Attacking a numerically superior foe with no support and having to move alllllllllll the way across the map with little time to do so.

Very frustrating.

Same went for that breakout scenario the Irish tanks (Neerpelt Something?). I had to restart that one three or four times until I finally got it right.

I don't expect to win every time easily . . . but it's kind of a drag to be set with something that just seems as though it requires the skill of Patton and a lot of luck. I'm hardly a newbie either.

Makes me very hesitant to even bother with the campaigns that come with the game.

Seems like every version has had a couple of battles that are practically impossible.

Been much happier with the user created stuff.

Hi,

well I think my campaign is bugged.

The same problem I had in mission 4 now reappeared in mission 8.
I don't get points for exiting the map. Is this working as intended?

If so you couldn't afford any losses in that mission at all.
I could get a maximum of 200 Points in that mission. 100 for <10% casualties and 100 points for good condition.
While the Germans get points for Casualties inflicted.

If this is a bug does anyone know a workaround. Or do I will have to play this missions perfectly?

I know I'm not as good as a lot of the people here but I finished that Mission with taking 25% Casulties had good condition, the Germans surrendered and I had 20 minutes left on the clock.
For me that sounds like a good break through. The score says it's a draw. 100 vs 130 Points

hm... just let me know if this working as Intended please.

thx.

And again after playing another 4 Missions those were great too. I had a lot of fun. thx for the good work.

Hi,

I just finished the fourth mission the check at hoek and got a draw because of an missdirection in the briefing.

the briefing told me that my primary objective is to exit my forces. secondary would be to destroy enemy units and deny some territory.

As I didn't saw a way to manage both objectives without taking a lot of casulties and deplet a lot of ammonition I decidet to go around a lot of the defences and exit my force with as few casulties as possible.

Well the end was. I got only points for the condition and (if fullfilt) the casulty rate of my exiting troops, but NOT for my troops exiting the map an though fullfilling the primary objective. If I would have gotten the points I would have had double as many and easely won the mission.

Well not much that could be done know but, perhabs there is a fix possible (either for the briefing or the mission) in the next patch or so.

And for those lucky reading this before playing the campaigne:
Mission 4 destroy the germans ^^

Another topic.

I only played 4 missions, but those were all great. I know it will get harder and perhabs there will be a point where i just don't want to fight an unfair fight but till now everything was great. And I love your AI plans. the movment of German troops seems realistic and they counter my moves and shift positions. That is just great. Well done Sir!

So thanks for the good work and perhabs fix that briefing.

(400 points instead of 1000... still mad)

:-)
PS: Wow I read this forum a lot since i got CM:BN half a year ago and this was my first post.
PPS: I want more AARs ^^

Sirs,
 
we really need a easy-to use line of sight tool. This would make live much easier in CM. Terrain analysis ist key (we all now). But it's soooo complicated to use the waypoint and target function to do this. 
 
So dear sirs from battlefront - what do you think about it?
 
Thanx
Daniel

I've dl-ed the kindle version, thanks!
I'm also curious about Howie's Bloody Buron, but it's only available second hand and at a ludicrous price.

Well done and prepare your funds for more 👍.

Just a quick note to say: I took the plunge!
CMBN big bundle. Now I'm half way through Devils Descent! 

Just a quick note to say: I took the plunge!
CMBN big bundle. Now I'm half way through Devils Descent! 

Oh my, you are going to be a very busy fellow!   Congratulations! 

I think Devils Descent by Field Marshall Blucher would fit your bill well. Easily one of the top 3 CMBN campaigns IMO. However I do not think you'll find what you.re looking for viz a long campaign. Any campaign really only will cover a period of several battles - at most a week or two.

I checked the "Neptune monograph - prepared by commander task force 122 on 21 april 1944" which was the last major detailed briefing before D-day. There is a section called "Terrain and Coast" and bocage is mentioned in pretty sweeping formulations like "in 'bocage' country" and so on. There is no detailed description of the characteristics of bocage and how it could affect operations. There are two photographs, one view over fields and one from close by. But neither of them come across as being something different than a regular tall hedge. So from this it seems like the Allies was ill-prepared. Add to that the German advanced tactics for fighting in bocage which, of course, made things even harder than imaginable.

Just as special forces deployed to Northern Iraq in 1991 had the wrong camo, no cold-weather gear, and inadequate maps. It snowed.

I can recommend this account of a platoon commander in the 15th Scottish Infantry Division, it’s quite beautifully written and the experience of Operation Epsom is bleak and harrowing (I picked it up to read after recently completing the Scottish Corridor campaign in CMBN) 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23534415-lion-rampant
This is an excellent Sherman Tank commander memoir, what I particularly like is the author goes into Normandy as a green replacement so you get a matching viewpoint as you read along. The audiobook on Audible is really good too. 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tank-Action-Armoured-Commanders-1944-45-ebook/dp/B01BT3Z9WK
Final recommendation is this book, which is slightly heavier than a pure memoir, but goes into forensic detail how all the different branches of the Canadian and British armies got through the Normandy campaign. If you want real specifics of how things were organised and fought on the ground I think it’s pretty great.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stout-Hearts-British-Canadians-Normandy/dp/1909982555
(It’s quite a thick and large book so the paperback is your most reasonable option)

I think it was recommended to make a folder called "Z" and place the mod .brz files in it. The files are loaded alphabetically and therefore any mods in the folder called "Z" would be loaded last - which is what you want.

You don't have to call it "Z" I guess. "Z-Force", "Zebedee", "Zee Amerikans Are Coming Hans", etc would all work I would have thought?

That's why most developers when adding replays do instruction sets for the AI. Rather than recording what happened on the screen and/or what ever battlefront does to save their replays.

30 gig file for a 2 hour game? I don't think that's how replays work in video games, but ok. It would be 30gigs if it physically recorded the game in mp3. But for a video game with a internal replay system what most game developers do is each replay is a set of instructions for the AI. Just a small couple kb (few mb at most) file with a bunch of instructions to make sure the AI play out the game exactly as it was originally played out. But I guess that's impossible and womble feels the need to be condescending to prove that.

I played this a while back: