Scenarios: the difficult vs. the 'easy'

[sttp]

Hi everyone. Just wondering... any kind of consensus here about which stock scenarios tend to be the most difficult vs. which tend to be a little "easier"? Some days I want to delve deeply into a scenario where I really need to micro-manage everything -- victory there is much more satisfying -- but other days I don't have 15 minutes between turns and would prefer to be able to be a more hands-off commander, i.e., settle for 'what the hell, good enough' and just watch my AI troops duke it out.

For the latter type of scenario, I guess I mean something like the Arnhem road bridge battle, where you can pretty much just do some basic positioning and then enjoy the chaos. It seems like 'Sticking it Out' may also fall into that category. (At least its first half. I haven't finished it though, so... you never know.) I suppose any defense-oriented scenario could be much more hands-off, but I was hoping not to limit myself to that.

Knowing the forum veteran's opinions on this helps in terms of self-evaluation, too. If I get my butt kicked in a scenario that a bunch of you find to be pretty straightforward, I know I need to go re-examine something.

It'd be good to hear people's opinions.

Thanks.

(Oh, BTW, I did do a forum search on this, but other than some scattered comments didn't have much luck. And FWIW I'm referring to all modules, playing against the AI.)

[Bulletpoint]

I think difficult scenarios are nice (maybe I even have a masochistic streak when it comes to denying myself armour support), but I don't like it when I feel the scenario designer has stacked everything against me by sculpting the landscape, leaving no avenues of attack, no way to flank or anything. Real life battlefields were rarely 100% perfect for the defender. Good scenarios should have an interesting mix of opportunities and risks for the attacker, I feel. And the map should look and fel like a real place, not a "board game setup".

Edited October 23, 2015 by Bulletpoint

[markshot]

I am relatively new to this v2 engine.  What I am enjoying most is that the scenarios are quite a bit more replayable than v1.  With v1, I had 6,000 scenarios and every three years I would cycle through them again.  At my age, it take about three years to forget the mostly everything. 

[Bulletpoint]

I am relatively new to this v2 engine.  What I am enjoying most is that the scenarios are quite a bit more replayable than v1.  With v1, I had 6,000 scenarios and every three years I would cycle through them again.  At my age, it take about three years to forget the mostly everything. 

So that means you played 5-6 scenarios every single day of the week, including workdays, weekdays, holidays? I'd hesitate before accepting a challenge for a game from you

[markshot]

Yes.  But I stayed away from large and huge scenarios.  Partly for performance reasons and partly because when they get so large (especially if the points are infantry), they become tedious with such long turn planning.

 

Actually, the perfect game series for that is RDOA/HTTR/COTA/BFTB.  I bought RDOA when it was here and was a member of the team for many years.  The engine is incredibly scalable.  So, you can command at any level and avoid being mired in micro-management.  The balance is purely up to you.  A very elegant system.

 

* After that we moved to Matrix and Panther Games has subsequently moved to LnL.  But it was right after I figured CMBO out that I bought RDOA.

 

PS:  I have only played one PBEM in my life against a tank veteran I made friends with among the original Steel Beasts game crowd.  I beat him in the final turns.  He rushed an unprotected Sherman into a town.  I got a Schreck team setup just before he came down the road ... and well you know.  A tanker should know better than that!  I thought I would never have a better PBEM and quit while I was ahead!