2015 Christmas Bones

[76mm]

You want to pay for them it should be YOUR choice, not have it foisted on you as a DLC.

But, um, isn't it your choice if you buy the DLC or not?  

[76mm]

Before this campaign thing dies: I have high hopes that CM will eventually support im- and export of data (one example: export surviving troops at the end of one battle which can be imported into a QB/scenario). Thus we can build our own campaign system around this.

If BFC does the tactical end and doesn't want to touch the operational level this would a logical conclusion (IMHO of course ).

This is my #1 feature request for CMx2 (just as in CMx1, and probably CMx3).

[sburke]

This is my #1 feature request for CMx2 (just as in CMx1, and probably CMx3).

yeah this is probably my #1 as well. It would really facilitate user run campaigns.

[womble]

Import/export of game elements would also pretty much cover the code needed to have copy-paste from one scenario or map file into another. Imagine if you could spend time making a small "diorama-sized" map that could be imported along with other peoples' dioramas into a map being built (and then edited for fit and uniqueness). A large library of "map fragments" would quickly build, I think, because making small maps doesn't take the time that making whole maps does, so it'd be more attractive to more people...

[Ithikial_AU]

Import/export of game elements would also pretty much cover the code needed to have copy-paste from one scenario or map file into another. Imagine if you could spend time making a small "diorama-sized" map that could be imported along with other peoples' dioramas into a map being built (and then edited for fit and uniqueness). A large library of "map fragments" would quickly build, I think, because making small maps doesn't take the time that making whole maps does, so it'd be more attractive to more people...

This. The ability to copy/paste pieces of maps together would allow for community efforts to be merged together into a whole and make the time heavy task of map making that little bit easier. Oh and an undo button in the editor.

[Warts 'n' all]

Personally I'm looking forward to the "Antipodean" analysis of this game on youtube. Not that I'm telling anyone what kind of videos to make you understand.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Yes. There are some Nordwind scenarios and other Jan 45 scenarios included.

Personally I'd love to see Poland included as soon as possible, but the plan currently is to expand the equipment, forces, and capabilities of the nations already present before moving to other nations. However all of this is very preliminary.

Volksgrenadiers won't be a problem, after all they have been made for Final Blitzkrieg. Brazil is a solid "maybe".

Nordwind is a fascinating campaign with some very interesting battles every bit as gqmeable as those in the Ardennes

Regarding Red Thunder I agree. My priority for the Germans at least must be the Waffen SS.

For Italy I had no idea Volksgrenadiers were even present until I gt a copy of Victory in Italy by Richard Doherty which lists 98th, 278thand 334th Volksgrenadier divisions as part of the Wehrmacht orbat in the spring of 1945

 

[LUCASWILLEN05]

I would however still like to see a 1939 - 1940 Blitzkrieg game (Combat Mission Blitzkrieg) and a Western Desert game (Combat Mission Rommel) eventually but these are obviously a long way down the track. WW2 Pacific however is not really my thing at the moment due to the lack of armour compared to the ETO. For the same reason I see the French and Polish campaigns being combined into one game with other campaigns such as Norway, Finland and a hypothetical Czechoslovakia campaign being dded on later.

Though the early Blitzkrieg campaigns look like easy German victories they were not so in tactical terms. British and French tanks were often better than those of the Germans which should make for interesting encounters at the tactical level, Just an idea for the game designers to contemplate while they work on the rest of late WW2 and the res of the Russian Front series :-)

[CarlWAW]

Yes, but it's not a straight forward concept as one might think.  We thought it would be fairly straight forward too when we coded Operations and quickly found that the "corner cases" (i.e. minor issues that come up infrequently) turned out to be major issues too frequently.

Persistent map damage + fixed reinforcements in the form of Supply Trucks would largely mimic CMx1 Operations, then leaving it in the hands of the player to actively resupply units, that would work pretty well IMHO.  But Operations offered a lot more:

1.  Automatic frontline "straightening"

2.  Automatic rest/refit/reequip of units based on various factors

3.  Selecting what portion of the map to play on based on success/failure of the previous battle (this was a rolling front sort of thing)

4.  Dynamic reinforcements based on progress or lack there of

 

 

That's indeed a lot more. I think I understand.

Probably some other things that I'm forgetting, but I think you get the picture that to fully support an Operations concept there's a lot more we would have to do than persistent damage.

That takes us down the rabbit hole we don't want to revisit.

Sorry, this conclusion I do not understand. Why do you have to fully support that Operations concept to use snapshot data? I see no connection between the two.

Let me portray a kind of different "operation" system not from the bottom-up, single battles building up a campagin, but from the top-down: one (big) task given. With a signle ormal map, available VLs, predetermined supply/reinforcements. The supply of units is up to the player.

The gameplay difference: instead of everything that could happen is cramped into 2:00 hours, with "snapshots" of units the time for an "operation" could be 10 battles 30 minutes each for this one task ("operation"?).

30 minutes timeframe now? If a battle within the current campaign-system or as single battle makes no difference: the tactical possibilities are very much known prior, because the battle can only last a certain amount of time and not several days longer because of unforseen surprises. With a snapshot-possibility within campaigns you could eliminate this problem.

You probably know better than me how important the "new" effect is. Because of CMs complexity and tactical depth IMO it offers a very good long-time motivation because it stays "new" for a long time. But nevertheless IMO at some point the time restriction and the knowledge that everything that theoretically could happen, must happen within the already started battle with it's given timeframe, takes reduces long time motivation. The game would be capable to model much more, but the predictability because of the fixed timeframe, does not allow to use and to show it.

Imagine: the time pressure for the attacker, now by a ticking clock, could be transformed into a good supply/reinforcement stream for the defender.

Or: defensive positions that alone could take one hour of artillery to weaken and then several attacks to finally break (wouldn't Stalingrad, Kursk, Normandy campaigns become much more attractive, if you could model that?).

I see no necessity to go the CM1 Operation route to achieve "operations". From what I have learned by now, the old Operations probably wouldn''t even be that well suited for a more powerful model anyway.

 

You already have the core unit concept and their status can be transferred into the next battle. Where is the problem, if the unit's location and orientation on the map was saved, too? This cannot eat much memory because also between turns the unit locations must be preserved. But just in case if a snapshot was needed for the next battle: if the Campaign does not branch away since certain triggers were not activated and the battle continues on the same map. Then you have persistant map damage, you have core units and then you could place them where they have been. Why not?

Edited December 30, 2015 by CarlWAW

[Battlefront.com]

Sorry, this conclusion I do not understand. Why do you have to fully support that Operations concept to use snapshot data? I see no connection between the two.

The point is that the people asking for the old Operations to be redone aren't going to get it without a pretty big effort on our part.  Even if we do persistent map damage, they won't get what they are asking for.  However, they will mostly get what they need to create the sort of "snapshot" thing you're talking about, which is pretty darned close to Operations.

Steve

Edited December 30, 2015 by Battlefront.com

[snarre]

Yep that gind option would be cool to player vs player games what i moustly play again some frends . Because now we are tjust re done map and moved setup zone line there where we stopped last battle. Had to all time mark on paper what building get destroyed 

Edited December 31, 2015 by snarre

[CarlWAW]

Wow, now I feel honored, that I wasn't on a completely wrong path. I sense that engine 4 will become a tremendous leap forward in tactics and gameplay, too!

[Macisle]

This. The ability to copy/paste pieces of maps together would allow for community efforts to be merged together into a whole and make the time heavy task of map making that little bit easier. Oh and an undo button in the editor.

This is number two on my wish list for the Editor (number one is having multiple scenario versions targeted at SP Attack, SP Defend, and H2H under one file).

Well, actually, if I think about it, being able to copy-paste map sections is probably number one, since it's no real problem to release separate targeted scenario versions as things stand now.

Edited December 31, 2015 by Macisle

[sburke]

The point is that the people asking for the old Operations to be redone aren't going to get it without a pretty big effort on our part.  Even if we do persistent map damage, they won't get what they are asking for.  However, they will mostly get what they need to create the sort of "snapshot" thing you're talking about, which is pretty darned close to Operations.

Steve

wait, what??

would it be possible to elaborate on what it is you are thinking to include? This sounds like it has a lot of potential,  but in rereading this thread I guess I am missing a post somewhere. More than likely. I am already suffering from jet lag and was woken at some ungodly hour by some howling feral cat this morning. 

My personal hope is to simply take a current bts save file of a game , open it in the editor, correct whatever it is we want to and the save as a btt.  Someone could then use that saved order of battle and import it into a new scenario or just reuse that existing scenario and map.  That would go a long way towards facilitating a human player driven operations layer for a campaign. 

[LukeFF]

I think this is the best bet we have of getting a steady flow of new scenarios and campaigns since the free community made scenarios are few and far between...

A partnership between BFC and some of the talented community members to produce 'battle packs' is a brilliant idea imo and i hope it will be s success that can be 

expanded upon to involve more and more 'developers'...hopefully leading to mulitple battlepacks every year !

The price...10 dollars...is ridicoluisly cheap...for the amount of work spent on this...

Plus, this is something the community has asked for, i.e., more mission content from BFC. So, this is a good example of them providing something the community has requested.

[LukeFF]

there needs be a scenario called "Sikh and Destroy"

puns, all the puns

 

Perfect! Chris, there's your cover art for the CMFI module.  

Edited December 31, 2015 by LukeFF

[JonS]

there's a massive FOW hole there, Steve,  which would get exploited in regular H2H play.

[J Bennett]

Include Gurkhas too bitte.

[76mm]

wait, what??

would it be possible to elaborate on what it is you are thinking to include? This sounds like it has a lot of potential,  but in rereading this thread I guess I am missing a post somewhere. More than likely. I am already suffering from jet lag and was woken at some ungodly hour by some howling feral cat this morning. 

My personal hope is to simply take a current bts save file of a game , open it in the editor, correct whatever it is we want to and the save as a btt.  Someone could then use that saved order of battle and import it into a new scenario or just reuse that existing scenario and map.  That would go a long way towards facilitating a human player driven operations layer for a campaign. 

+1

[sburke]

there's a massive FOW hole there, Steve,  which would get exploited in regular H2H play.

true, but I rarely take into account what the jerks will do with something.  That is an issue I think Steve and company havre to worry about more.  I refuse to even put passwords on my pbem games.  If I need to worry about a password, I need a different opponent.  

[The Steppenwulf]

there's a massive FOW hole there, Steve,  which would get exploited in regular H2H play.

Yes it seems true prima facie that the integrity of a H2H game would be compromised with this function.

However, if conversion of a .bts file to .btt were limited to an end of game flag, or alternatively, required both player's password to enable conversion then you have a lock of sorts to prevent using the function as an in-game exploit.

Naturally sequential .bts files (follow on battles) would be fow exploitable (at the in-between stage) but since the function is only likely to be used by H2H campaign players, chances are they have a campaign umpire or neutral performing the duty of "next game set-up"; at the very least more likely to be trusting of each other. 
 

[RockinHarry]

Personally I´d like to see extracted maps for the purpose of reusing them in a scripted camapaign vs the AIP (as said), but that could just be a first step. I´d spice them up with, ...if it´s a map with lots of damaged and rubbled buildings,...heaps of rubble and other stuff to increase immersion. Also the damaged or broken trees created during game play from artillery barrages is something I like to be preserved, but I´d like even more to have these available in the editor. Wasn´t there once a function in the game where you could create shattered trees by (repeatedly) placing craters in an AS with trees? Also wondering what happened with the "baked" scenario format from CMSF.

[poesel]

I agree with @sburke that a human driven operations style is the way to go. Everything else gets too complicated very soon as everyone expects something different from the op level. That is an expectation that BFC can't match.

As Steppenwulf already said there is no FOW hole if both passwords have to be entered to open a QB in the scenario editor. Usually you need an umpire anyway so there is no real problem.

[A Canadian Cat]

My personal hope is to simply take a current bts save file of a game , open it in the editor, correct whatever it is we want to and the save as a btt.  Someone could then use that saved order of battle and import it into a new scenario or just reuse that existing scenario and map.  That would go a long way towards facilitating a human player driven operations layer for a campaign. 

That would be very useful, I agree. Being able to do things like that would be very helpful to people using CM to run operations. I think doing work like that to help the community is valuable even if it feels like a feature out of water for the game itself.

true, but I rarely take into account what the jerks will do with something.  That is an issue I think Steve and company havre to worry about more.  I refuse to even put passwords on my pbem games.  

I use the same two pw over and over one for red and one for blue. My reasoning is that with something there, as a password, I will not accidentally open my opponent's file. Mind you now that we use turn management programs that is pretty rare these days.

If I need to worry about a password, I need a different opponent.  

LOL indeed.

[A Canadian Cat]

Oh, one more thing - i would really like campaigns to be playable via PBEM head to head. In fact, honestly, if that was the only change they make I would still jump for joy. Have I said that before? I think I might have