Multi playr campaign idea and Combat Mission Recorder

[Odin]

Hi Chaps,

Over on TheFewGoodMen, a member called Rico has started a grand campaign (http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/the-rico-shorker-war.18952/), which has inspired me to look into developing my own multiplayer campaign.

The basic premise is to use an overview strategy hex map and allocate a scenario for each tile. Giving players the opportunity to move, withdraw, attack etc.

Although I've only played around with a few ideas so far, the issue of recording casualties is bugging me. I've never created a campaign before, but from my understanding trying to incorporate casualties into a multiplayer campaign is going to necessitate a fair bit of admin, manually updating forces at the players' disposal after a battle has been fought. But what do you lot think would be easiest way? Would it be Combat Mission Recorder (http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=finishdown&id=2762)? When I tried downloading this version the CM recorder software didn't seem to be in the download file. Instead there just seems to be a load of the maker's CM related files. Anyone know where I can get a copy from?

I would also like to incorporate an 'exit zone' option for scenarios fought as part of the campaign. The idea being if a defending force is facing a hopeless situation, the defending player would have the option to move his troops into an exit zone so his men could live to fight another day. However, when looking at CM's after action report, I realised it doesn't detail the men withdrawn using an exit zone. Should CM recorder be able to help get round this?

Thanks

[Ithikial_AU]

Are you talking about losses for each individual unit/squad? That could be a little draining on the sanity and from the outside without knowing the campaign rules you are going to use, may not accurately reflect that forces can reorganise between engagements.

If you only mean recording overall changes for a force that goes into an engagement, then I've got the tool for you. And it's on the verge of being released.

http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/data-nerds-looking-for-a-couple-of-testers.18800/

As for exit zones, wasn't aware you could use them for that purpose. My understanding was they are only meant to be used for scenarios where forces are meant to get off the table to gain VP's.

[Broadsword56]

Are you talking about losses for each individual unit/squad? That could be a little draining on the sanity and from the outside without knowing the campaign rules you are going to use, may not accurately reflect that forces can reorganise between engagements.

If you only mean recording overall changes for a force that goes into an engagement, then I've got the tool for you. And it's on the verge of being released.

http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/threads/data-nerds-looking-for-a-couple-of-testers.18800/

As for exit zones, wasn't aware you could use them for that purpose. My understanding was they are only meant to be used for scenarios where forces are meant to get off the table to gain VP's.

How exciting! Is it possible to make your tool record losses per squad (or at least per company)? Or is it that you don't want to, or that you think it would not be a useful feature? Because believe me, it would be one of the most useful things a tool could do. Because there's no other way to know what a battle's specific KIA, WIA, POW totals to specific units were without doing a manual headcount after the ending screen. In any kind of operational-tactical campaign, one of the biggest headaches is tracking strengths and losses from battle to battle. Yes, of course armies replaced losses between battles. But that can be done in the operational level or with the boardgame, or whatever other campaign mechanism one is using. The main thing is to get a good report on what the losses and strengths are. Any way to automate this would be the Holy Grail, for me and for those I play with.

Re: Exit zones -- Yes, you can use them as simply a way to allow units to exit off the map and escape the battle. When they reach the zone they simply disappear. But it only works if you disregard the in-game VPs and use your own system for deciding victory levels. That's because if you use exit zones then I think your enemy gains VPs for any unit of that formation that fail to exit.

[Odin]

RE Exit zones, I think they could be used to simply allow your troops to exit a map, you just need to avoid adding VP points to their use. I would have 150 points available to each player for each scenario played as part of the campaign - 100 points for the capture of certain terrain objectives (both players would have the same objectives), and an additional 25 points available for inflicting over 60% casualties on an opponent, and 25 points for keeping your own casualties below 30%.

Ithikial that looks like a cool bit of kit you're working on. I think Combat Mission Recorder differs in that it records the casualties suffered and inflicted by individual units, which would be just what I need. Unfortunately someone mentioned on TheFewGoodMen that it won't work with anything later than Windows XP, which would rule my PC out

The alternative for me would be to work out the average casualty rate and just deduct that percentage off the overall troop count in the scenario editor (eg lower the headcount by 40% if 80 men out of 200 were killed or wounded during a battle). If certain units were completely wiped out then they would just be cut from the roster.

[Odin]

The other thing about Combat Mission recorder, from my understanding it only records statistics for units contained on the map at the close play. This may cause problems if a unit has exited as it wouldn't take their casualties into account. Although if anyone knows differently, I'd love to hear.

[Dim]

Has this been brought up before?

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dynamic-campaign-generator-dcg

The dynamic campaign generator for men of war. I had a lot of fun with it a year or two ago. Maybe something similar this to could be made? No idea about how it would work, or does with men of war.

Putting it briefly, it is a seperate application run outside of men of war, in which there is a point system for purchasing your units. Its very similar to the QB selction in Combat Mission. From there you can select which size of campaign you wish to run, which gives you a grid or line of possible missions to select. It tracks your losses etc over the missions, even down to ammunition, which you can pay points to resupply. There are opposing AI armies present too which also move, attack and defend across the grid. When you attack a square that has no AI army present, the defenders are far lighter. When I was playing it a while ago, they were just starting to bring in different types of squares too, such as ones that you could attack when not adjacent to your own square, triggering a commando raid-esque mission where you could only bring limited amounts of inf and no armor.

Each time you finish a mission, you save the game to a specified save name, and the program reads your progress from that save, generates your outcome and the next map which you select is created and saved over that name. Hit go in the program, bring MoW back up, and reload the save, bam! next mission.

It seems possible on a basic level, just using randomly selected QB maps for the missions, but again, I have no idea about the work behind it.

[Ithikial_AU]

How exciting! Is it possible to make your tool record losses per squad (or at least per company)?

Little out of scope. What I've just finished and currently writing up the Read Me for is more designed as a record of overall battle results rather than tracking individual units you may decide to take for multiple custom scenarios/quick battles. You enter the results and it gives you stats about how you fair under different circumstances. ie. How you perform against different opponents, what forces each of you decided to take etc. Perhaps you have lots of multiplayer victories but only when you take a Waffen SS Panzer force. In reality but can't get close to a win when you play as Luftwaffe Field Division or when the weather is snowing. This will show you this (and the community if you decide to share) in spades.

For campaigns like Odin is talking about, you could use it to track battles between fixed forces. Just depends how he decides to structure his OOB and how the strategic rules work. Already using an earlier version of this with the Few Good Men Operation Overlord Campaign to track how many casualties were are inflicting on each other - finding out who is the most bloody player or who can't keep their vehicles in working order etc.

[tdogg]

^ Interesting tool, I think many of us are looking for something that can auto record losses after battles to use with campaign play. Can it do this along with the MP game stat tracking that you mentioned ? If it doesn't, have you ever thought of adding that option ?