Scenario: Opportunity Knocks (spoilers)

[Michael Emrys]

38 minutes ago, IanL said:

And the map is nearly a real place. Well it is a real place but I made the stream actual water and the road higher quality with a better bridge and tweaked the buildings to fit my purpose but the elevation, fields, trees and even the fact that there is a farm there etc are from a real place. I personally prefer to work to recreate a real place than to try to make a realistic looking place out of my memory.

Many years of looking at game maps have tended to confirm my opinion that most designers have never taken long looks at aerial photos of real places, therefore their game maps end up more closely resembling miniature golf courses than real terrain. Happily, CM map makers have in recent years moved well away from that particular blight. That's a trend I would delight in seeing continue.

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

Agreed there are some truly amazing maps being made these days.

[A Canadian Cat]

Yes, the US forces are a scout platoon of a Cavarly squadron with their vehicles removed and an additional scout team added.

[Michael Emrys]

5 hours ago, IanL said:

Yes, the US forces are a scout platoon of a Cavarly squadron with their vehicles removed and an additional scout team added.

Okay, thanks. I did take a brief look at some dismounted Cav, but they had larger sections, i.e. more men. I'll take another look at the squadron as a whole and see what I come up with.

BTW, I have been trying to set up a QB with an LRS platoon. Their mission is to infiltrate the enemy lines by night and establish a position from which they can observe and call down fire on an enemy HQ. They lose if they are discovered and have to use their own weapons, but they have gobs of arty on call.

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

I may have set the force strength level below 100%.

Sounds like a good LRS scenario.

[Michael Emrys]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

I may have set the force strength level below 100%.

Actually you may not have. I looked into by way of purchasing both a squadron and an independent troop, and the section strengths of the independent troop have four men whereas the scouts sections of the squadron are only half that. I don't know what that means since I am not familiar with contemporary force structures, but it is something to keep in mind.

BTW, I have noticed that the game does not always count exited troops if they enter the exit zone in the last seconds of a turn. Their green arrows do not have time to show up and not in the beginning of the next turn either. They are just gone. I think that sometimes the Red force gets credit for them not being exited, but the whole scoring system seems a little wonky. At least I can't always comprehend it. For instance, why am I awarded exactly 641 points for destroying all three SAMs? That seems a bit odd.

Michael

 

[Erwin]

Yeah, figuring out how to assign VP's seems to be a major challenge for CM2 designers.   The way victory calculations were made in CM1 seemed to make a lot more sense.

[Michael Emrys]

7 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

I looked into by way of purchasing both a squadron and an independent troop, and the section strengths of the independent troop have four men  whereas the scouts sections of the squadron are only half that [Obviously I was confusing sections with teams]. I don't know what that means since I am not familiar with contemporary force structures, but it is something to keep in mind.

Michael

 

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by Michael Emrys

[A Canadian Cat]

8 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

For instance, why am I awarded exactly 641 points for destroying all three SAMs? That seems a bit odd.

There are 670 points allocated to those launchers and crew. The crew are included in that number so surviving crew means getting slightly less than full points.

[A Canadian Cat]

8 hours ago, Erwin said:

Yeah, figuring out how to assign VP's seems to be a major challenge for CM2 designers.

Yes, points is a challenge. That challenge is not restricted to CM2x or even combat mission for that matter.

8 hours ago, Erwin said:

 The way victory calculations were made in CM1 seemed to make a lot more sense.

I think you have your rose coloured glasses on there. We went from an arbitrary and mysterious point allocation for occupying objectives in CM1x to a clearly understood point allocation in CM2x. True CM2x changed how exit points are awarded but not for the worse just different.

[Erwin]

The issue is that in CM1 the level of victory or loss made sense at the end of a mission.  In CM2 it's normal to be confused as to why one won or lost and by what margin.  I often think I have lost but won, or thought I won but lost.  Very confusing.

[Michael Emrys]

9 hours ago, IanL said:

There are 670 points allocated to those launchers and crew. The crew are included in that number so surviving crew means getting slightly less than full points.

Okay, so that part makes sense. What disturbs me, and I can't conceive that it is your responsibility, is not being awarded points for legally exited units, and furthermore Red force getting points for non-exited units. That would appear to be something broken in the game.

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

Yep, sounds like it.

[Michael Emrys]

On December 18, 2016 at 6:48 PM, Michael Emrys said:

BTW, I have noticed that the game does not always count exited troops if they enter the exit zone in the last seconds of a turn.

I ran a check on this by replaying the last four or five minutes of a recent playthrough. Without changing anything else whatsoever, I made sure that all units exited the map in the first half of each minute of the last three turns. Sure enough, this time all exited units were credited and my score was upgraded from Major Victory to Total Victory.

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

So, it sounds like the timing of the units disapearing and the arrows appearing is a little off from when the points get registered.