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Best way to playtest a campaign?


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Hi All,

I am creating a campaign currently and have the master map all sorted along with the units ready to import and individual battle maps. However wanted to know which is the best way of play testing:

I have read the game engine manual, and it says I can compact all the individual scenarios together to form the campaign. However doing so may mean that if the first scenario in the campaign is too tough (for example) the player wont be able to process to next battle to review and make further suggestions until I've been able to correct the initial mistakes and bounce it back (which may be the case for the 2nd and 3rd battles and so on) - prolonging the process. Is it better to not compile all the scenarios into a singular campaign file and keep them separate so play testers can review each one individually to give feedback on? How do you prefer to review/playtest? 

Any suggestions would be appreciated 

.

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Now you made me curious - what is the setting of the campaign? I haven't made any campaigns, but could you make the victory settings (points) on the easy side so that the player can progress to the next scenario, but as feedback to you know what the real settings would be and if they would have made it. Also play to meet the harder target, but progress nonetheless. Did that make sense?

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17 minutes ago, rocketman said:

Now you made me curious - what is the setting of the campaign? I haven't made any campaigns, but could you make the victory settings (points) on the easy side so that the player can progress to the next scenario, but as feedback to you know what the real settings would be and if they would have made it. Also play to meet the harder target, but progress nonetheless. Did that make sense?

Its set in September 1944. The 3rd Canadian Regiment attack the German garrison and fortifications near Calais. Its semi-historical. History notes that the Canadians didn't have too much of a hard time relieving the Germans from their positions as, after heavy bombardment, most surrendered anyway. Ive done a lot of research on the units in play, location and typography to make it as accurate as possible, albeit the Germans wont surrender so easily this time - not without a fight anyway. 

That's an option on making the victory conditions easy, although I was thinking of having a 4  or so parameters to help give the player choice of what to go for when battling for victory over the battles which makes it a little more complicated - I'm not hugely experienced on the VP system. Still be worth considering -- Thank you. 

Edited by rtdood
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29 minutes ago, rtdood said:

I am creating a campaign currently and have the master map all sorted along with the units ready to import and individual battle maps. However wanted to know which is the best way of play testing

I would suggest having some helpers test the individual battles for the first pass. That lets you avoid the issue of becoming blocked by a mission that is too difficult. The flip side of that is some battles might be too easy because core units will be full strength instead of depleted by casualties. To compensate for that you could just take that into account when reviewing or have testers hold back some of those forces and not fight with them. For example, if your core company lost a third of its strength when you tested the first battle then have a platoon just stay out of the fight.

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haven´t made a campaign yet either, but another possibility would be to include a "branch" mission in the campaign chain where you can decide on an easier battle beeing the next in row. This "branch" battle wouldn´t actually be a real battle, but just set up in a way that you can quick move onto one or another victory location (few meters away) that upon "cease fire" would decide on the "real" follow up battle. Could then either be i.e "wait and reinforce" or "attack/defend with what you have". I´d already set up a small CMX2 test campaign chain, so I know that it basically works. This similar to (user made) campaigns in the SPWAW game where I´ve some good experiences setting these up.

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i'm with IanL on this...best test each battle individually i belive...

When testing battle 2 'tweak' it in such a way to represent the most likely casulty-level, ammo situation from battle one...i"m sure you have some sence for what those casualties are likely to be...preferably ömake something like maybe 3 different versions - via tweaking these levels - to test various likely results from battle one...

Next...do the same with battle 3...what is the likely situation after battle 2. make a few versions of that and se how things play out in battle 3.

If you are happy with how the 3rd battle tweaks play-out...with regards to difficulty level of the enemy and the likely looks of your remaining forces...

now maybe it is time to try the campaign so far...to see if things actually plays out fairly well as espected...

it it does...

tweak battle 4 to reflect the situation after your test campaign playthrouh...

test this 4th tweaked battle...tweak battle 5 and test it..

add the desired battle versions 4 and 5 to the campaign and test it again...

it will be a hell of a lot of playtesting...i know...😓

finding some playtesters to help out would most certanly be preferable...to not get burnt out by all the playtesting...

but if you cant find any doing something like above is what i would do...

it is a lot of work though...

campaigns are a beast to design...especially when it comes to testing...

 

 

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Yep, sorry. I was unclear about that. For just testing purposes single battles off course. I meant those cases where a rather wide range of end game results could make next battle selection more difficult in every case. :) Or if beeing lazy to test all these cases out which could be time consuming for sure. Think I´ll tackle sort of this campaign/operation very soon. Like the challenge.

Edit: I´d volunteer for playtesting @rtdood I´m very interested in canadian fought WW2 battles. B)

Edited by RockinHarry
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  • 1 month later...

Hi all,

Happy Monday - I'm pleased to announce it's ready for playtesting! 

I've done numerous edits and play-testing to each battle scenario, so whilst I started estimating about 7 or 8 battles for the campaign, it currently stands at 10. 

I have also included the master maps for reference. Once laying out generally where enemy units were concentrated I realised its better to have them as small/medium scenarios rather than larger ones so to avoid overlapping areas. Feedback would be welcomed if the play-tester feels that 2 small battles would be better together as 1 medium battle for example :). 

Feel free to drop me a PM and I'll be happy to send the compressed files out (There is a readme file included to give a little more explanation about the make up of the campaign) 

Scenarios are to be played as: Player vs German AI

Any feedback is appreciated :). 

Cheers :) 

 

  

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  • 2 months later...

I'm still looking for play-testers!!!

As of yet, I've only had 1 person come forward. Surely there must be at least a couple more that would be interested in giving it a go in exchange for providing me some feedback? 

For clarification its Player (Canada) vs Ger AI. If interested drop me a pm 😀.

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Hi RT,

 I'd be happy to playtest one of the ten you mentioned were in the campaign. Rather than PM'ing you,
I figured I'd just post here in the thread to act perhaps as a "nudge" of sorts to others who may
be on the fence as to whether they'd like to help out or not.

  Regards,
         Odd

        

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On 10/31/2019 at 4:21 PM, Oddball-47 said:

Hi RT,

 I'd be happy to playtest one of the ten you mentioned were in the campaign. Rather than PM'ing you,
I figured I'd just post here in the thread to act perhaps as a "nudge" of sorts to others who may
be on the fence as to whether they'd like to help out or not.

  Regards,
         Odd

        

 

On 10/31/2019 at 5:07 PM, mirekm61 said:

I can help you test

Thank you both :) 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/27/2019 at 12:28 AM, Oddball-47 said:

Hi RT,

 Have you made any changes with that first mission of the campaign based on input/results
from the testing guys?

Regards, Odd

I've started to implement some changes based on the feedback. There are a couple still working their way through that scenario and have yet to complete this until they get back to me with any further suggestions. Feel free to have a look over any of the other scenarios if you are able too in the meantime. 

Cheers,  

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