German Campaign.....Slaughterhouse!

[Hister]

Got myself MG module and fired up this campaign as a first thing to do after all the mods were in place.

Finished first mission of this campaign with minor victory.

SPOILER ALERT!

A note to mission designers

Packing buildings with so many British men does not seem realistic. Units should have been split and not whole platoons be put in single floors like it was done. Looks ridiculous.

If it was like that historically then I take my words back.

Also, I found the map a bit too empty and not so realistically made. When you try Umlaut's Seizing Cimbienne map you get mightily spoiled in the urban department...

Besides that I had a blast (pun intended)! Awesome immersion. Unforgiving urban battle.

Had to cease fire 'cos all my units were rattled, stuG ran out of ammunition and so did SPW 251/17 Ausf. D which I found as an essential arsenal for rooting those pesky British paras out of their occupied buildings. What a cool weapon this is!

A footage from the carnage:

[sburke]

Got myself MG module and fired up this campaign as a first thing to do after all the mods were in place.

Finished first mission of this campaign with minor victory.

SPOILER ALERT!

A note to mission designers

Packing buildings with so many British men does not seem realistic. Units should have been split and not whole platoons be put in single floors like it was done. Looks ridiculous.

If it was like that historically then I take my words back.

Also, I found the map a bit too empty and not so realistically made. When you try Umlaut's Seizing Cimbienne map you get mightily spoiled in the urban department...

Besides that I had a blast (pun intended)! Awesome immersion. Unforgiving urban battle.

Had to cease fire 'cos all my units were rattled, stuG ran out of ammunition and so did SPW 251/17 Ausf. D which I found as an essential arsenal for rooting those pesky British paras out of their occupied buildings. What a cool weapon this is!

Couple things

I am not sure which scenario that is, there are several on that map. I know of two but neither of those do I recall having a StuG so I can't answer to the specifics, but I think all of them originated from the same map and Allied OoB.

I did Frosty Welcome. The map and OoB battle were provided by Pete and he helped me a lot to understand what the situation was. The actual number of men that you see is actually the real number of men present. Pete rebuilt the entire force. We discussed whether or not to alter the order of battle. It was my choice not to. My goal was for the player to feel the intensity of the battle. There is just no way the player should be able to defeat the British force. That is not the goal, the VL are obtainable thought probably not as easily done if played HTH. So yes they were like that historically. In my scenario I actually moved some men out of the schoolhouse as I felt it was just too much and as I couldn't recreate the fortified defensive position that the Engineers had in the schoolhouse (particularly not having a cellar) it just didn't make sense. However those men held that building for 3 days. Pete referred me to "Arnhem's Alamo" by Niall Cherry. The schoolhouse was held by approx. 60 men from A & B troops 1st Para Sqdr RE and from 9th Platn C Co. 3rd BN Parachute Regiment.

As to the map, it is a true urban map. While I really appreciate the care Umlaut put into Ciembienne (CMBN) it is entirely fictional and he had however much time he needed to create it. The Arnhem map is however about as close as we can get in CM to the actual town. Pete put in a phenomenal amount of work in getting as close as he could to the actual city.

If you are in any doubt as to how much Pete did for the MG module, just take a look at the master map he did. It is incredible.

We all have our view of what we think things should look like. I have my own as well, there is a large urban map for CMFI up on the repository which I think is every bit as detailed as either Arnhem and Ciembienne, but is a much more blasted urban battleground. That is one of the cool things about this game- you could go in if you like and edit the map for Arnhem. Put in all the flavor items and whatnot that you want. As long as you only look at the map in 2d and 3d you will know very little about enemy dispositions. Make it look how you'd like. You bought it, you've earned the privilege to make it appeal to you.

[Hister]

Thank you for a detailed answer and explanations sburke!

I was referring to School Daze mission that is included in the German campaign in Market Garden module! That's why I posted my remarks in this thread which discusses German game campaign and not a standalone mission made by you.

When I get a game I usually jump straight to the campaign and don't bother with single scenarios until I get stuck in campaign or I find something off about them. Generally speaking my design philosophy would be to make campaigns be representative of the game, to be kings and as such should be really well made (highly polished map, etc.). I do believe I'm not the only one who shares this view. I prefer quality to quantity. Paper Tiger managed to pull this off with his "Road to X" campaigns. I'm a map whore I know but I get put off when I see a map where not much effort went into it. I'm hesitant to even play such a campaign. This does not refer to MG maps - am mainly talking about base game which has some really atrociously made maps, mind you.

OK, OK, I know I'm being very critical and that in order to really have any moral saying I should have probably make my own maps and scenarios like you graciously hinted in your above post. BUT just read what I have on the matter below please and be patient with me.

You got me curious so I fired-up your Frosty Welcome mission and found out that map is much bigger then in aforementioned mission. It also differs from School Daze in that it has a bombardment damage (shell holes and damaged buildings) and a few tweaks here and there regarding the hedge/wall composition, fences, etc. (BTW, in School Daze mission a fence has been put below the two schools and having this type of fence there looks odd in an urban area (check my screenshot above) - so I'm happy that it's not included in your mission).

I also found out that you've inserted a proper amount of British paras inside the buildings meaning you spread the force out and haven't put a whole platoon inside the same floor of the same building like it is in School Daze mission which looks and feels totally unrealistic/off. It seems almost as if a mission designer had a bare minimum amount of time and had to slap all the available units inside the buildings and hasn't bothered to even split them up before doing so.

Why haven't devs used your scenario for a first mission in the German campaign??? It seems to me much more effort went into it then into School Daze. There out to be a sound reason but I'm still puzzled as to why. Jon Sowden's detailed map (Sheriff of Oosterbeek) for example should also have easily been included in the German campaign but it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong - I love what Pete did with the map. It definitely had to be a huge undertaking!

*I will fire the master map - so far I was hesitant because my framerates drop to non-enjoyable and visuals get degraded already when I open huge maps. I plan to upgrade my hardware with a better GPU sooner rather then later especially to be able to enjoy CM more (GTX 770 I'm looking at you).

To make them lovely maps the way things were back then is simply amazing! But the devil is in the small details as the saying goes. Map is almost perfect but to be even better it should have additional detail that can't be seen from contemporary topographical maps/aviation photography. I miss things that would make city look more real, more functional, more "organic" if you will. Umlaut managed to pull it off with his Cimbienne map and he utterly spoiled me. He proved something like this is possible and the town being fictional or not does not matter here, really. The only real "excuse" would be the time available for the deliverance and yeah, I can't bitch about that, can I.

Will start your Frosty Welcome scenario now and am looking forward to getting my ass kicked as the Germans.