sfhand Posted November 20, 2014 Share Posted November 20, 2014 I have made what I consider to be the CMx2 equivalent of a CMx1 Operation. One needs all CMBN content patched to v 3.11 to play the scenario. One should also have a stout rig as the scenario takes place on an 8x2km map. Over the 4 hour battle each side will have fielded ~2 battalions of infantry and ~1 company of armor plus some extra stuff. The scenario consists of 5 battles across a real world location set in an alternate universe. I hope to add AI plans to both sides but will wait on that until after the forces are finalized. I am currently playtesting the battle from each side but I would like input from a battle I'm not involved with. So, if any of you are looking to start a new pbem and want to help move this forward please send me a pm and I'll get the scenario to you. Thanks in advance... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 sfhand, Am afraid I can't help with the playtest, but I do admire your ambition. I can but cringe, though, with the realization that to have any statistical validity at all, you're going to need to run this 4-hour battle a minimum of five times. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 I'm ... interested. How does it work ? Do you fight all 5 battles as time-separated events in one "actual PBEM battle" or what ? If someone else comes along, I'll give it a go. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Jack Ripper Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 I'd like to try it, but I'd need to see if I can run the scenario first. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Sounds like a blast but my 5-year old laptop would choke on it. Next year. .. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted November 21, 2014 Author Share Posted November 21, 2014 Baneman and SLIM, thanks for stepping into the breach! I am inboxing both of you as soon as I finish with this post so I can get the scenario to you. I would be happier if you don't look at it in the editor until after you've played it through and have offered your feedback. Here's what I can tell you about it. I took a topo map from the mid 90's of Marin County, CA (where I live) and selected an 8x2km section of it that has 3 valleys (separated by hills... of course) with a river running through the central valley. One should imagine a large body of water to the east and mountains to the west both of which prohibit off map flanking actions - this actually does not deviate much from reality. There is one bridge over the river with no other way to cross. Keeping the bridge viable is central to the aims of both sides (both players should agree if you destroy the bridge you lose automatically AND players should not try to cross the bridge without being confident they will succeed). I may need to add more ways of crossing the river, time will tell. The way the battle progresses is as follows. In this alternate reality the Axis and Allies share a border (the river) and are not yet at war - Allies are north and Axis is south. Both are planning to attack the other in the near future (both are in the process of massing their forces with the Allies conducting joint military exercises nearby). Unexpectedly (of course!), a skirmish breaks out between an Axis patrol and the Allied border guards resulting in the Axis patrol crossing the border. The Axis HQ is furious and orders them to hold the ground without advancing until reinforcements arrive (good luck with that!). There is an axis phase line on the north side of the river with "do not pass until xx:xx" instructions as its label. The Allies send what forces they have from their garrison in San Rafael. Their plan is to push back the Axis all the way to their garrison in Mill Valley. They know reinforcements are on the way so they have set up a series of phase lines that they don't want their forces to cross until the reinforcements have arrived (no bridges too far). As the allied player you will see the phase lines which have "do not pass until xx:xx" instructions for a label. Failure to comply with the phase line instructions will break the scenario! A final note. Many of the hills are steep. They are steeper in realty than on the map. The combination of CM editor created cliffs and thick forest makes controlling the road networks a crucial component to success for both sides. I recommend turning the trees off and scrutinizing the map closely. I also recommend turning the trees off to plot movement orders on the winding roads over the hills. While the editor has some road design limitations I assure you the roads are very twisty in real life. Thanks guys for being willing to take a look at it. Anyone else up for the challenge? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted November 21, 2014 Author Share Posted November 21, 2014 Sounds like a blast but my 5-year old laptop would choke on it. Next year. .. It is unplayable on my 7 year old laptop. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted November 21, 2014 Author Share Posted November 21, 2014 sfhand, Am afraid I can't help with the playtest, but I do admire your ambition. I can but cringe, though, with the realization that to have any statistical validity at all, you're going to need to run this 4-hour battle a minimum of five times. Regards, John Kettler John, I am looking forward to playing this scenario many times... it should be a hoot! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletpoint Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 I think I'd need a brain upgrade to play anything of this scale.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted November 22, 2014 Author Share Posted November 22, 2014 I think I'd need a brain upgrade to play anything of this scale.. I may not have adequately described each battle. What I am striving for is each battle of the first 3 battles being between sides each with 1 Co of mech infantry and 1 platoon of armor, plus some extra stuff. There is also off map artillery and planes but not a lot of each. The last two battle will be larger, one because I expect forest fighting to chew through infantry and the other because if one side is to capture the other's garrison they will have a bloody time doing so. Seriously, if you want to give it a spin (no ai yet so only h2h) you would be doing me a big favor. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted November 27, 2014 Author Share Posted November 27, 2014 Hmmm... both of the games I was "playtesting" never got off the ground. Something about my opponents being betas and not having the bandwidth (which usually means good things are happening, so I'm not complaining). Anyway, I am hoping one of two of you brave souls will step up and help by playtesting with me. Ideally I'd like to get 2 games going so I can play each side. So please, if you are even remotely interested send me a pm and we can get a game going. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted November 27, 2014 Author Share Posted November 27, 2014 Great, one brave soul has stepped forward. C'mon fellas (and ladies if any are present), what possible harm could come from checking this out. The worst that could happen is I might want to continue as your opponent One more volunteer, please. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Jack Ripper Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Baneman and I are attempting to start a game. I was out of town for a few days so we've had trouble getting set up. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted December 1, 2014 Author Share Posted December 1, 2014 I hope you enjoy the match! I am still looking for anyone with a capable rig who is willing to playtest a pbem match with me in an effort to balance the forces prior to attempting to make the AI plans. I think it is pretty funny that there is a thread about the lack of feedback for scenario designers after people have played their scenarios when I can't even get a couple of volunteers to play a "developmental" pbem game attempting to bring CMx1 style operations into the mix. (I've got one game going with a beta, but he is understandably too busy for a lot of turn bandwidth) Again, many thanks to you and Baneman. And thanks as well to the two guys who were willing to help but unable due to hardware constraints. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Jack Ripper Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 I am still looking for anyone with a capable rig who is willing to playtest a pbem match with me in an effort to balance the forces prior to attempting to make the AI plans. If I don't hear back from Baneman by this weekend, I could run a game with you. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted December 1, 2014 Author Share Posted December 1, 2014 I think you and Baneman are going to be good to go... however, if either one of you can't play the scenario I will fill in. I view that as a last resort, however, I'd much rather have both of your input without my involvement in the process. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Jack Ripper Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Baneman reports he is getting Out Of Memory errors. I'll report if there's any news. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Yes, I've made some changes to my machine and will have another go tonight. The thing is - the scenario loads ok, but after getting most of the way through the deployment, I saved. It's that save that is misbehaving. If necessary, I'll redo the deployment from start and then we'll be able to see if Slim's machine chokes or not. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 I'll just put this out there for public consumption... When I was making the map my 7 year old laptop (a very capable machine in its day) started getting OOM errors when I was trying to deploy forces. After increasing the swap file size the OOM went away (but the machine still chokes on the file, i.e., the camera movement stutters, when I play "Frosty Welcome" on it the machine gun bursts sound like rifle shots, I'm guessing swap file related disk access time is the major culprit). My current desktop has an i5-2500k overclocked to ~4GH with 16GB of RAM and an older 680gtx video card. So far it has not encountered any problems and the camera pans smoothly with graphic options set to high. Baneman, I'll happily send you a dropbox invite to see if my desktop can open the save (heh... we can even use it to send pbem turns if you like). Same goes for you SLIM. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 A teaser... first contact, second action turn. My recon encounters the enemy (not shown because I wanted to give my oppo some intel and he already knows what he has ). Anyway, I loved watching the units roll down the road and thought I would share. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted December 3, 2014 Author Share Posted December 3, 2014 Same contact, different view to give map size perspective (this is a very small slice of the map). I don't know the muzzle velocity of the gun that's firing but it's flight time is ~2-3 seconds... and it is dialing in on the jeeps. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Update : Working on the assumption / hope that it was just a dodgy save, I redid the deploy from start ( password turns load ok ), had no problems and sent the file to Slim. Now we wait to see if it will work on both sides... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfhand Posted December 5, 2014 Author Share Posted December 5, 2014 I've got my fingers crossed... glad to hear you are good to go. Meanwhile, a couple more videos of my initial scouting of the two main roads into the contested valley... This one is a continuation of the last video: While this one shows first contact on the other main road into the valley: (the German soldier who bites it in the foreground is killed right after he arms a grenade, unfortunately I didn't hear any of his squad mates taking damage from the explosion although another grenade is thrown from near the dropped on. All in all, considering both videos, not a good turn for me. But hopefully entertaining for someone. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Jack Ripper Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 I finished my deployment, and all systems are go. I had to spend about an hour doing a terrain survey, there is a lot of impassible terrain that can't be seen unless the trees are off. In regards to performance issues, I get a steady 7-9 FPS with all settings maxed out. The camera does stutter a bit even with the trees off, but otherwise everything runs pretty well. I'm going to try to write some kind of DAR/AAR to go with the game. I think it would be a good way to keep track of first impressions. - SLIM 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 Will be going through the first turn tonight. Will also try to determine fps. Only noticed camera stutter when trying to do a major camera movement - 90 degrees etc. Running fully maxed out, Best/Best, but no mods. If the turn works ok, I may play a bit to see what, if any, fps differences the settings make and/or mods. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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