German Campaign - second Mission - ridiculus!!!

[George MC]

I think it's a valid point that the enemy tanks should not turn around in the middle of the battle simply because the scenario designer assumed that they would be reversing, not turning... it seems this detail slipped through scenario gameplay testing.

Out of interest you know how the AI plan process works? At the risk of teaching you to suck eggs when creating AI plans the unit will orientate to face the next order. The challenge when doing plans if you want the AI to pull back is there is no reverse order. So units Are ordered in the AI plan to pull back will turn around showing their backsides ready to carry out the next order. Now when designing you can mitigate the worse effects of this but tbh it's not an exact science. If the player pushes faster then they may catch the AI arse first.

Btw all the scenarios were tested extensively prior to release. What you are seeing is a current limitation of the AI planning engine. I'd like to see it changed but got the moment it is a possible drawback albeit one the designer, when it's known can try to work around.

[Collingwood]

Every now and then I play a scenario where it becomes clear that the designer didn't guess that I would use a (stupid/ingenious) strategy which totally unhinges the AI.

Because the designer is restricted (even with triggers) to anticipating what the human will do - it's a pre-planned script. Imagine if boxers had to face each other this way: at 15 seconds I will jab with my left and then uppercut with my right, 'cos he's probably gonna be right in front of my fist at that moment. Oops too bad he kicked me in the nuts, and as I bent over in agony he then kneed me in the face, now I can't see anything for the stars and blood in my eyes. Hey no-one told me this would be a cage fight!

You're right about retreating armour, nothing much the designer can do to avoid that except not have orders to go away from the direction of your advance.

The AI is a plan, and as they say "no plan survives contact with the enemy". I don't know about this particular campaign battle, but as you know many scenarios have alternate AI plans - perhaps you got unlucky and drew one that didn't play out as you would have preferred.

I've also had the alternate experience where I end up not completing the scenario because for example the designer thought it would be cool to hide a heavy tank in an unapproachable position overlooking the map, so it could pick off every single (light) tank I have to advance through the shooting gallery. Yeah very clever, thanks. 'bye.

As for briefings - "trust them and die". I do understand the designer is trying to create a realistic experience.

For example I just played a certain scenario where the briefing was effectively "this should be a doddle, walk in there and smash them up. Take half a dozen objectives all over the map. Have fun"

In fact, I was subjected to half an hour of prolonged death from the sky, ATGs everywhere, companies of infantry everywhere - well maybe platoons but you know how unseen infantry multiply - and more armour than you can shake a stick at. So I couldn't achieve anything with mechanised infantry* until my reinforcements (tanks) arrived, and even then it was a prolonged armour duel at range before I could safely advance softer units.

Briefly I thought 'WTF' but then remembered to always expect the worst - this is the kind of nasty, unexpected surprise that would have been all too common in real life. Aside from which there's no point making a scenario where it actually is a walkover. It's when things get hairy that they get challenging and therefore fun. It's a hard balance to achieve and I salute the designers who pull it off.

* as Steve pointed out in another thread, HTs are definitely too skittish. I had several inexplicably reverse out of planned moves despite no threat being present, and not having taken a hit, nor any enemy in sight. I had to dismount all infantry to get them anywhere - no big deal, the AI needs every bit of help it can get.

[Rottanen]

Yes, I also enjoyed the CM1 Operations concept. I know some hated it for reasons I never quite understood. It was a lot of fun.

Me too. Playing long operations was probably the most enjoyable option in cmbb. Weather changes, different daytimes etc. really made feel like having dynamic battlefield at hand. I understand what problems this brings with the AI thought.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

[quote=Collingwood;15209

In fact, I was subjected to half an hour of prolonged death from the sky, ATGs everywhere, companies of infantry everywhere - well maybe platoons but you know how unseen infantry multiply - and more armour than you can shake a stick at. So I couldn't achieve anything with motorised infantry* until my reinforcements (tanks) arrived, and even then it was a prolonged armour duel at range before I could safely advance softer units.

Briefly I thought 'WTF' but then remembered to always expect the worst - this is the kind of nasty, unexpected surprise that would have been all too common in real life. Aside from which there's no point making a scenario where it actually is a walkover. It's when things get hairy that they get challenging and therefore fun. It's a hard balance to achieve and I salute the designers who pull it off.

[agusto]

edit: accidential posting.

[agusto]

As for briefings - "trust them and die". I do understand the designer is trying to create a realistic experience.

For example I just played a certain scenario where the briefing was effectively "this should be a doddle, walk in there and smash them up. Take half a dozen objectives all over the map. Have fun"

In fact, I was subjected to half an hour of prolonged death from the sky, ATGs everywhere, companies of infantry everywhere - well maybe platoons but you know how unseen infantry multiply - and more armour than you can shake a stick at. So I couldn't achieve anything with mechanised infantry* until my reinforcements (tanks) arrived, and even then it was a prolonged armour duel at range before I could safely advance softer units.

Briefly I thought 'WTF' but then remembered to always expect the worst - this is the kind of nasty, unexpected surprise that would have been all too common in real life. Aside from which there's no point making a scenario where it actually is a walkover. It's when things get hairy that they get challenging and therefore fun. It's a hard balance to achieve and I salute the designers who pull it off.

Adding nasty surprises to a scenario by means of providing incorrect or incomplete intel in the briefing is kind of a two sided sword from the scenario designers point of view. On the one hand, players might easily be frustrated if their carefully thought up plan falls apart within a matter seconds. On the other hand, the most exciting and interesting battles i ve ever played were those with nasty surprises in them. I remember one battle in particular where the designer told me in the briefing that only a very few retreating and beaten up enemy units are ahead of my formation and that i am basically supposed to only reach the other edge of the map without taking casualties. So i advanced along the main road with my vehicles in a colum formation and my infantry mounted, only having small recon parties approximately 100 meters to the sides and 200 meters in front of my formation. 20 minuts into battle, my forward recon element was annihilated along with the the tip of my column by a nightly enemy couter attack of at least a company of armour and another company of infantry. What ensued after this extremly nasty surprise was one of the most exciting, chaotic and challenging defensive battles i ve ever fought. I wasnt prepared for this and caught completely by surprise. It was a lot of fun and a great challenge to organize my units from a useless march colum into a defensive posture suitable for fighting a superior enemy within less then 5 minutes.

[spawncaptain]

Spoiler alert

That was the 3rd mission of the German CMBN campaign. I gave up when the next mission wanted me to attack a village surrounded by thick bocage held by entrenched infantry and tank destroyers in 40 minutes.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Spoiler alert

That was the 3rd mission of the German CMBN campaign. I gave up when the next mission wanted me to attack a village surrounded by thick bocage held by entrenched infantry and tank destroyers in 40 minutes.

War is hell as they say. Play sme more of the scenarios and get used to conditions on the Russian Front, then try again. And maybe play on some of the easier settings if you can't (yet) handle the Iron Mode

[MARS42]

Adding nasty surprises to a scenario by means of providing incorrect or incomplete intel in the briefing is kind of a two sided sword from the scenario designers point of view.

Only for unterstanding my point of view:

I have no problem with wrong intel and briefing about enemy forces, i was an army captain myself and know, how difficult a good enemy briefing can be.

I have a problem with wrong informations about the own side. A call with the radio or Feldkabel and i know, if my support and flanking units are coming or not, even in 1944.

Greets, MARS42

[blow56]

This had always been a problem with scenario designers. The tendency is to foment an artificial sense of urgency by compressing the time-frame, thus forcing irrational and destructive casualties. There is, as I have always stated, little or no justification for this other than to engender a bit of an adrenaline rush in single-play.

The second factor is - for the same reason - a tendency to lose realism in favour of Hollywood. Too many scenarios seem to rely on the last-gasp arrival of some reinforcement - or, in the case of the new toy on the block, the AI Trigger - or an artificial constraint on attacker and defender.

When it comes to designing campaigns, these two faults en masse frequently prove the death of a decent campaign.

Force balance and extra time - then you will see thoughtful tactical maneuvering, imo. And fix the goddamn awful air support, please. Why anyone thought this was an improvement is beyond me.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Only for unterstanding my point of view:

I have no problem with wrong intel and briefing about enemy forces, i was an army captain myself and know, how difficult a good enemy briefing can be.

I have a problem with wrong informations about the own side. A call with the radio or Feldkabel and i know, if my support and flanking units are coming or not, even in 1944.

Greets, MARS42[/QUO

We both know what a SNAFU is and you as a professional probably better than I. Things go wrong and sometimes the support you expect arrives late or no at all.

On the other hand I had a problem with a Normandy campaign game scenario covering the actions around Pegasus Bridge on D Day. No matter what I did I could not get past the first campaign game scenario.

Maybe it is a badly designed scenario or maybe the scenario designer wanted a situation like this to potentially happen.

However, until someone unzips the campaign battles and turns them into battle files we cannot take the campaigns apart and analyse them

[Baneman]

This had always been a problem with scenario designers. The tendency is to foment an artificial sense of urgency by compressing the time-frame, thus forcing irrational and destructive casualties. There is, as I have always stated, little or no justification for this other than to engender a bit of an adrenaline rush in single-play.

...

...extra time - then you will see thoughtful tactical maneuvering, imo. ...

The trouble is, that given plenty of time, anyone can walk all over the AI, triggers or not. You can basically nibble it to death.

Which eventually results in NO scenario being challenging. And if/when you play a human, you will get massacred trying the same technique.

The time constraints in good scenarios are mimicking the ability of a human opponent to get you off balance and keep you off balance by forcing you to think on your feet and react to "things not going to plan" - when the plan was to "nibble the AI to death"

[snarre]

im tjust enjoyed hole camppaing because its hard , had to think what do next and sou what if you lose its tjust game. ewery time you lose or win try to learn and think why you wined it or losed .

[A Canadian Cat]

However, until someone unzips the campaign battles and turns them into battle files we cannot take the campaigns apart and analyse them

Such a tool exists: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=114618

[blow56]

I disagree that you can 'walk all over the AI' given enough time. Ammo is an immediate factor as regards time already and you have to factor that in when planning. And a stubborn, multi-facteted AI defence is still a challenge. In a single scenario you can, at least, replay the affair and reduce the time constraints yourself. In a campaign, you don't have that ability - and if you are pushed with a time element into making mistakes, an entire series of scenarios can be ruined. Perhaps the solution might be to permit the player to set the time limit in each game of a campaign. I suspect it isn't possible, but it would be good. Better if it was tied to a Victory Condition, so that you had to achieve a greater success the longer you took.

[Wodin]

I too hope big maps doesn't mean a shed load of units..as even at WEGO it becomes way to much to take in and deal with (even bordering on those dreaded words "a click fest"), plus as mentioned in a Campaign you want to get attached to your troops.

I do hope we get to see some smaller campaigns unit load wise. Oh and I hate timed scenarios in any game..though so far I've never run out of time in a CMx2 scenario.

[herr_oberst]

3. As in mission 1, the T34 begin to retreat after some time, without loosing control of the situation, that makes no sense. Suddenly the unbreakable line of the russians lifts and the T34s show their backs to my Panzer IVs. What´s this? Without this behaviour i would have had much greater losses in Mission 1 and 2, and would have had some fun, because of realism in the campaign. Briefing says, the enemy retreats, when the situation becomes critical for him, .. i only saw an enemy, who gave up a powerful position on the battlefield.

Haven't played that campaign yet, but perhaps the designer's intent for the Russians was to perform a holding action for a period of time, then retreat. Maybe the surrounding battles "off map" went poorly/were going poorly for them, and the Russian forces you were facing were supposed to retreat to avoid an envelopment.

Or you are the one being lured into a kessel of your own by your overeager pursuit.

Nothing says that all the battles have to be a last man standing kind of event.

Pity that designers can't design an orderly retreat that doesn't show the arses of the defender's AFVs by reversing out of an area. I've been toying with using map areas to decide what happens along those lines, but it's all just musings at the moment.

Perhaps the standard order is to scurry away on or around turn X. The enemy hasn't "come to fight", so leave and preserve your forces for the next encounter.

If the enemy has touched/crossed into area X, then its a stand and fight, since there isn't hidden terrain to scurry away in.

[Marc Anton]

Briefing says 400 points for destroying russian army - i killed all but got only 199 points !

Where is the rest ? Whats wrong with that campaign ?

[Fizou]

Briefing says 400 points for destroying russian army - i killed all but got only 199 points !

Where is the rest ? Whats wrong with that campaign ?

They moved off map?

[agusto]

Maybe the scenario ended before all reinforcements had arrived.

[George MC]

Some of the scenarios have Soviet 'EXIT' victory conditions. So if the Soviets get stuff of the map (you won't really know how much they have on map to start with) then they get points for exiting, whilst you will lose out cos you don't 'kill' everything on the map (although it may seem you have done). Hope this makes sense?

[vonRocko]

I too hope big maps doesn't mean a shed load of units..as even at WEGO it becomes way to much to take in and deal with (even bordering on those dreaded words "a click fest"), plus as mentioned in a Campaign you want to get attached to your troops.

I do hope we get to see some smaller campaigns unit load wise. Oh and I hate timed scenarios in any game..though so far I've never run out of time in a CMx2 scenario.

+1 for me, there are too many units. I like it at a co. level or lower.

[Marc Anton]

Some of the scenarios have Soviet 'EXIT' victory conditions. So if the Soviets get stuff of the map (you won't really know how much they have on map to start with) then they get points for exiting, whilst you will lose out cos you don't 'kill' everything on the map (although it may seem you have done). Hope this makes sense?

Understood, but maybe it would be nice to mention that in the briefing ?

The 4th mission for example has visible exit zones but there is no hint if the enemy needs to exit or the germans ....

[permanent666]

One thing i wish to see in the future are on screen messages - time or objective triggered - as the code is already there (reinforcement messages) I am wondering why this was not implemented yet.

E.g. the briefing tells you that reinforcements will arrive in 10 minutes but after 10 minutes you get the message that the reinforcements could not make it. Or you have to capture village A and then you will get further orders.

This would be a great feature for tutorials and training missions as well.

It would not only provide a more dynamic game experience but also increase usability.

[pnzrldr]

Gents, a couple points,

1. The campaign is designed as a breakthrough, and the Soviet forces are designated to execute a fighting withdrawal until the final battle. No - there is no way to execute a proper tactical withdrawal with the CM AI. While you can now move your forces back based on triggers (either enemy, enemy armor, or friendly hitting a specified location/obj/line) you cannot get them to reverse out, fire covering smoke, face a designated direction, or any other action that would facilitate an effective retrograde. The designers have ruthlessly tried every tool the game engine team could give us for controlling the AI's actions. One could, using triggers, initiate a counterattack from one direction to allow another force to subsequently disengage, but this would require a good bit of mind reading by the scenario designer and could go dreadfully wrong if the human player used an unanticipated course of action. I promise to try this in a future scenario and see how feasible it is. I think some have already done so.

2. Yes, the scenarios include Soviet 'exit' objectives, and many of their forces will leave the map as you advance, depriving you of potential points. You must balance the risk of pressing them closely to gain kills and thus points, against the hazard of their fire. However, do not despair. Any forces that exit the map will be available for your destruction (read this two ways) in subsequent missions, especially mission 6.

3. You all have the same access to the editor that we do. Nothing to prevent you from building your own scenarios - or campaigns - and posting them. You can build them with any unit size you desire, from PLT up through Regiment, and can research the history, create the map underlays from historical documents, build the maps, add flavor objects, select the forces, set their morale and stats, deploy them, build the AI, and carefully playtest them over and over again. It is possible to spend countless unpaid hours building this for the enjoyment of others. You can then spend your time on the forum defending criticisms of your creation. :cool: If you build it, I will play it and supply you with ample feedback. Promise.

4. Despite the playtesting which was done, the campaign undoubtedly has numerous flaws. My sarcasm in 3. above aside, we do welcome your input and criticism. All of us want to deliver fun, challenging content that expands your understanding of historical tactics, sparks your imagination for an immersive experience, and generates greater interest in this our favorite tactical sim. I sincerely hope that despite the issues, the majority are enjoying this and the other content in the game. Thanks for playing, and despite my thin skin, for the comments.

P.S. I only built mission 3, but will wager I speak for the team.