CMFI and Scenarios

[slysniper]

I will tell you some of the problems, we are getting more and more fragmented for one thing. Many spend their time at club sites. They support them, more than you see they do anything here. That is not bad, but each club takes away some from the interest here.

I have visited the sites and some of them are much better in the site layout and are more of a community than here. They host Tournaments on a regular basis. And they have areas broken out for different types of decussions. So if I want tactics, then I go to Threads that are grouped under that Topic.

Personnally, I think Battlefront should have some focus to make this site, the fan site. That this site should supports all these activities. And that encourages us to stay. The larger the group, the more the community thrives.

But you can continue to see us breaking into smaller and smaller groups.

The biggest one is now we have the CMX1 fans and the CMX2 fans.

There is many a player that has not made the transition.

So you have to add new blood since many of the old faithful are still in the past or onto other things. But as pointed out, it is hard to get new players to help support the efforts without really receiving nothing in return.

[slysniper]

As for getting feedback, I resolved this problem very easily.

I assigned all the passwords in my Tournament, then all I had to do if I had the interest was ask the players to send me a copy of their game file, then I would play the turns to see what was happening. I did not need AAR, I could see everything I needed to know.

This also helped in the tournament. I did not have many, but I had a few dropouts or losers that stopped playing before completing their matches. With this method I could pick up the game or get someone else to and get all matches completed.

The funny thing with that was, I had one guy drop a match because he thought it was unfair and he was losing, so I played it out for him and won the battle. Skill level is more inmportart than design in these games, but many players just cannot accept that.

[A Canadian Cat]

As for getting feedback, I resolved this problem very easily.

I assigned all the passwords in my Tournament, then all I had to do if I had the interest was ask the players to send me a copy of their game file, then I would play the turns to see what was happening. I did not need AAR, I could see everything I needed to know.

Interesting idea. That would take some time loading turns over and over. A lot of work but it means you are guaranteed to be able to see what you want to see.

The funny thing with that was, I had one guy drop a match because he thought it was unfair and he was losing, so I played it out for him and won the battle. Skill level is more inmportart than design in these games, but many players just cannot accept that.

Great story. IMHO to move forward and learn to play this game you have to be able to still be having fun even when you are loosing. When I am facing a defeat I try to find little victories (take out one more tank, defend that one building even though the rest of the object is lost).

[Erwin]

Good attitude. Also, I learned that one should NEVER give up. So many H2H games (in CM1) that I thought I was losing, I found that one could turn em around and win.

I recall one delicious CMBB game where my oppo was clearly winning and was telling me all the things I was doing wrong, and gave me lots of advice as to what I could do better... But, it was variable ending, and he was over-confident. He made a few errors here and there, and I ended up with a very solid win lol. Never heard from him again natch.

[slysniper]

When I am facing a defeat I try to find little victories (take out one more tank, defend that one building even though the rest of the object is lost).

That is exactly what I try and do, I give myself goals, no matter the situation. Goals that I see are possible. The funny thing about that is. Not only does it keep me interested if I am losing. But it also is the way to turn battles around. Make a few of them goals in a position you might think is poor and you might find yourself now in a position that might be able to take advantage of.

I just did that recently, thought I had no chance in one battle I was playing. I was out gunned and out positioned and I was the attacker.

So I just kept looking at the situation for a few turns and decided I could at least maybe push my remaining infantry into his area through some thick woods. It was not likely to be good or benefit me, but it was about the only offensive option I had that might work without for sure crushing my own units.

So I pulled back my armor and started the infantry probes. Without getting into too much detail. It managed to turn the battle around since my units did well in the woods against the defences he had and then he was not prepared for my continuing push with my infantry there. I won the battle and the funny thing was I had less units and was still on the attack when it ended. It sure looked funny at the end. he had me outnumbered in the areas I was pushing but he was convinced I had more units and that he was not capable of stopping me.

[Steiner14]

I think making a scenario is way too much labor and the reward is limited.

I guess things would change, if scenario designers would have triggers. Now most of the time is wasted on balancing it, by judging how the battle develops. And it's too difficult to make surprising scenarios.

With triggers things would change. Even H2H-battles could be boosted with triggers. Less time investing into checking how a battle develops, more time for creativity.

[De Savage]

Playtesting and balancing scenario takes most time. Currently I have one 1h 45 min scenario under work. I can only offer max. 2 hours per evening, so I can playtest once. Then I need to fix something and playtest it again, and again, and again... Very time consuming. I'm thinking that short & simple scenarios works best against AI, longer will always be little boring.

Triggers would be GREAT help. It's impossible to know the pace of player and you have to make your best guess to timing reinforcements, counter-attacks etc. With triggers you could add much more interesting scenarios. You could make AI to react player's moves.

[MikeyD]

An advantage of smaller, more constricted scenarios for AI designers is you have a better chance of second-guessing the player's moves and planning accordingly. Some monster map with a 3 hour timescale, how can you make any assumptions? The player might march around the map edge, wait out the clock, then attack from behind. That's not something you can factor into your AI orders sets.

A second advantage of smaller scenario design is the project doesn't take up your whole life. A cluster of houses, a PzIv and some infantry occupying. Make it raining at dusk. And your scenario's already half made.

[JonS]

Triggers would be GREAT help.

And you think testing is difficult and time consuming now!? :eek:

Triggers will be nice, but I honestly do not see them even remotely reducing the time taking up in testing.

[kohlenklau]

Despite what it says in the upper right corner, I have been around a bit longer...drifted away during military service, forgot my old username and password, etc. Now retired from active duty career.

Anyway, I have never submitted a scenario...YET.

But I have written many for my own enjoyment. CMBO, CMBB, CMAK, CMBN, and now CMFI. Most were historically based from some book I was reading. Like many others I would sink myself into a possessed frenzy of internet and buying more obscure books to research to plan the map and track down the units and names. "Alamo in the Ardennes" using CMAK winter snow mode and mods, gloves on the troops! A CMBB mod with Hetzers late war on the eastern front holding back a Soviet onslaught. The obligatory Kampfgruppe Peiper "Operation" in CMAK.

Side bar, that is why I really loved the percentage chance of arrival based AI reinforcements in CMX1. It gave me a lot of variety and surprise in what I could expect in a scenario I had written. What is even better is my bad memory on how I scripted it and the passage of time. I used to fire up my favorite self-authored CMAK scenarios and have a blast. I couldn't remember exactly what would come but it was a good battle.

A month or so back, I posted a request for playtesters for my CMBN "Bloody Aachen" scenario and got a few takers, maybe 6, sent it to them, only one eventually said he played part of the game and he was kind enough to make some positive comments and gave me some recommendations. I haven't done crap with it since. I just lost my oomph. I might go back and tweak it but maybe never post it.

Maybe I am fine to just play my own and other folks scenarios, In other folks scenarios it is good to see their style and appreciate a different way or their polished photoshop skills in the briefing. (by the way, some of these recent AAR's are freaking studio quality!) In my own scenarios I can get lazy and without photoshop for the briefing, more or less skip the briefing and go right to the action. Or a rudimentary text only plain jane briefing to remind me of whatever needed said...

Hand me another Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat my dear wife!

[George MC]

Some monster map with a 3 hour timescale, how can you make any assumptions? The player might march around the map edge, wait out the clock, then attack from behind. That's not something you can factor into your AI orders sets.

Errrm... Yes. You can factor in what they may or may not do to 'deal' with that situation - it's called designing

[GreenAsJade]

If I played vs AI, I'd be looking forwards to your monster scenarios with anticipation GeorgeMc!

GaJ

[Georgie]

Is it me or does it seem that there are a sparsity of H2H CMFI scenarios?

I know the game comes with 17 scenarios but several are played against the AI only and some of the large ones are a little too large for my PBEM's

I checked the usual suspects for extra scenarios, The Repository, A Few Good Men, The Blitz and the MODs Warehouse but found just one here and there.

(Too bad The Scenario Depot and The Proving Grounds don't host CM2 scenarios)

Are there any places I missed or should I say where do you get your scenarios from?

Will BF be creating "Scenario Packs" along with other future updates/patches?

One problem I imagine is the inability to convert CMBN maps to CMFI maps. Good medium size and large maps and very time consuming. BF is producing different games at a record pace and with them so close together it is splitting the community between the games. There needs to be a map tool and a mod tool to keep the interest of the scenario designers, map makers and mod designers. If they make a map or scenario or a mod with great effort and then see it bypassed with a new game some of them will lose interest with the hopeless effort of providing some thing for each game. HELP BF.