Campaign structure for CM2

[phil stanbridge]

I think the scenarios/operations work pretty well for CM1, but it would be nice to have an ongoing campaign as an option for CM2.

Taking into account the scale of the war on the Eastern Front I'm wondering if something like this would be possible. I personally find ending an operation an anti climax. Espeically when you have put so much time and effort into it. I know all good (?) things eventually end, but let me explain. I spend an age on one operation, I'd perhaps like the option to advance on to the next objective as well, with new orders, new supply. I guess, a bit like joining two operations together, maybe even more. Maybe this is unrealistic?? Imagine the Battle of Kursk for example like this. You know, with the new OOB and all that, resupply etc etc.

I'm guessing that CM2 will focus on one particular part of the war, rather than the whole thing.

This is just my opinion, what do others think?

[Guest Germanboy]

See the FAQ on Colin's page for a piece I have written on campaigns. BTS have repeatedly stated that they feel campaigns are inherently unrealistic and have no place in CM. Just one example - if you incur losses, your replacements will be green, leading to an over time lower (and not better) quality of the troops in your campaign, if it was handled realistically.

CM 2 will feature the whole war in the east 1941-45, but I don't know about the Winter War in Finland (someone get the tranquilisers for Bruno please ) That probably depends on whether Charles feels up to modeling Reindeer, because they were very important at CM's level, no really, I am sure ASL had them modelled

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-15-2000).]

[Triggerhappy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

BTS have repeatedly stated that they feel campaigns are inherently unrealistic and have no place in CM.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Germanboy, BTS have stated a few days ago that they will do "important things first" and that a campaign due to being unrealistic wasn't important to them so it's highly unlikely that there will be one in CM2. Unlikely, but not impossible... I'm still clinging on to that straws...

Hehe, just updated my signature.

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Rührt euch!

CMPFCICM2 - Combat Mission Players for Campaigns in Combat Mission 2 - Join us! ;D

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Triggerhappy:

Unlikely, but not impossible... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We obviously have different readings of their intentions then.

[Chupacabra]

I'd love to see an operational-level overlay to CM9:Beyond Mars, but I doubt you're going to get a CC-style campaign out of BTS. As Germanboy said, BTS has stated quite often that to do so wouldn't be realistic.

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Grand Poobah of the fresh fire of Heh.

[Guest Mikey D]

If not continuing operations, perhaps separate engagements staying on the same terrain to add some 'continuity' to the game?

Of course if I REALLY wanted that I could just whip up my own personal series of same-terrain/same-forces scenarios, couldn't I!

[Francesco]

I hope that CM2 will have a Campaign mode but I hope also that it will be better than the one there is in Close Combat III (yes, I know, Cmis very better that CC, no to compare ....).

Just imagine (in close combat) a campaign with a pair of dozens map to represent a war of almost five years fighted in a 1/10k kilometers long front and distant from one capital to the other!!

Bye!

Francesco

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Veni Vidi Vici

[paullus]

For those who would like a campaign:

Only two men in Audie Murphy's battalion (who hit the beach in North Africa, went on to Italy, and finally NW Europe), made it to the end of the war. Audie was one, a supply sargeant was the other.

It is not realistic to keep units together through more than an operation. Even the Germans mixed and matched constantly. With the wearing down of units and bringing in replacements, the actual skill level of the unit goes down as time goes on, not up.

[Major Tom]

CM is based off the single battle idea. Rarely would a single unit get to participate in every cool action as well (like SP allows them too).

Plus, as has been stated earlier, after just about every CM battle your force is severly depleted, with at least around 50% replacements (unless you get REALLY lucky). The only thing that might remain the same are your Platoon commander names and possibly one or two your tank commanders. By the 2nd or 3rd mission probably no commanders will be the same. It makes no real sense to have these campaigns if you aren't going to get anything out of them that you could get through playing standalone games or operations.

[Thomas Norton]

Realistic v. more game play?

Talonsoft's East Front had campaigns that seemed to carry game play over realism, in fact it was the bugs in the campaigns that drew so many complaints on the TS web site.

In all probability, the addition of campaigns will not increase sales, as those who will buy CM2, while more numerious than CMBO, will buy it regardless of the inclusion of campaigns. So, without that inticement, why do it?

Having stated the obvious, do I want a campaign option for Stalingrad? Kirsk? The Crimea, and the dozen of other battlefields in Russia? Hell yes.

Ok, so my battalion is going to get filled up with replacements, pull the damn unit out of the line and send in a new one. It does not have to be the same unit, it is the economy idiot, sorry wrong speech, it is the extention of the operation concept that is at play here.

You fight a collection of operations over the weeks, months, that the, dare I say it, campaign, took place. If a unit is burned up, it is pushed aside and a new one brought forward. Since you are using up resources to accomplish the objectives, this should be counted up against you.

In a way, this will be what the mega campaign will offer.

Jumping ahead, wouldnt a campaign for Crete be great?

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"The Legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace."

[Francesco]

Another unit that must be remembered to set up a campaign is the one of the famous Desert Rats, which fought in nord Africa and then vs Vittman in nord EU.

Bye!

Francesco

[Guest Germanboy]

The UK 7th Armoured (The Desert Rats) is actually one of the better arguments against a campaign. They sucked rocks during the Normandy campaign, despite all the experience they had from North Africa and Italy. AFAIK the best UK Armoured division in Normandy was 11th Armoured, a unit that had never been in a fight before they arrived in Normandy.

Other good units were 49th 'West Riding Infantry Division, who had also not seen combat in their Normandy make-up (parts of the division were sent to and lost in Norway in 1940), and 6th Airborne. Again a unit with no combat experience as a division AFAIK.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-16-2000).]

[Thermopylae]

A campaign doesn't nessecarily have to rpresent the whol war..it could just be a month or so ins specific scetor..so you might fight an attack against a fixed position as an operation, and then using what was left of your tattered troops, and a good inflow of green replacements for your losses, you might fight an adavance/pursue retreating forces operation on a idfferent op map (after all you are racing ahead several miles a day to try and catach the enemy), and then perhaps defending yet another locale (the division overreaches itself) against counyter attack.

[phil stanbridge]

.. this would be a good idea in my opinion .. A campaign that spans perhaps a few weeks, maybe a month at the most. Something you could really get your teeth into but nothing unrealistic. A long term operation that could be split up by day/night action, much like they are now but on a larger scale.

[Dren]

Instead of having all the scenarios linked, How about just having them in order chronoligicly during the "select Game" phase of CM. This way we would be able to experience new weapons as they were actually released for combat, and have an idea ,historically, of when the battles took place.

[Firefly]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

The UK 7th Armoured (The Desert Rats) is actually one of the better arguments against a campaign. They sucked rocks during the Normandy campaign, despite all the experience they had from North Africa and Italy.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm current reading D'Este's 'Decision in Normandy' where he has a chapter on the poor peformance of the three veteran British dvisions in Normandy - the 7th Armoured, the 51st Highland and to a lesser extent the 50th Northumbrian. He quotes Maj. Gen. G L Verney. who took over command of 7th Armoured in August 1944:

'There is no doubt familiarity with war does not make one more courageous. One becomes cunning, and from cunning to cowardice is but a short step.'

Most commentators with the benefit of hindsight agree that the three divisions were war weary and should have been rested, particularly given the better performance of the fresher divisions.

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His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Firefly:

Most commentators with the benefit of hindsight agree that the three divisions were war weary and should have been rested, particularly given the better performance of the fresher divisions.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Haven't read D'Este, but this chimes pretty much with what I have read. AFAIK the 1st US ID was not too happy on being thrown into the beach defences either. Normandy was a battle honour all four of these divisions would happily have done without, I think.

The other idea mentioned here for a sort of long-term operation is finally trying to get realistic about the campaign model, and moves away from the 'Panzer General' campaign idiocy, excuse me, model. This is what CMMC is trying to do, I believe, and having a larger set of scenarios on the CD for CM2 (a bit like the converted ASL Market Garden campaign on Col.Klotz website) sounds quite interesting actually. It would give the overall flair of fighting for something more than just a VL in Nowhere, France. But that is really more for scenario design in the game's initial release than for coding, the way I understand it.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-16-2000).]

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

Thomas Norton's idea is interesting, and, as I see it, would not have the same unrealistic RPG elements of a EF/WF style campaign. That is, the campaign would consist of related battles, but not fought with the same units. For example, CM2 could have a June-August '41 campaign, maybe called Brest-Litovsk to Smolensk (or maybe Smolensk wasn't until October, but you get the idea). The campaign would feature units from Army Group Center, and could even feature units from specific corps, if they fought enough battles, but, unless it was actually realistic, would not feature the same lower-level units in successive battles.

So the continuation of a failed battle in a campaign might be introduced by stating, "Following the repulse of the 1st Battalion, it was now the time for the 3d btn. to attempt to take Humanwavegorod. However the Russians had not been quiescent, and as the German forces paused to reorganize, the battered defenders were pulled out and reinforced by fresh troops, along with a company of the new T-34 tanks.

This style campaign would also make play balance easier, as each scenario in the campaign would be also be a balanced freestanding scenario.

Of course, with a little preplanning, you could sort of do this now -- have a preplanned set of, say, 12 or 16 scenarios, connected by flow chart type arrows, depending on major victory, tactical victory, or draw, and some way of determining an overall winner, either by advancing to the last scenario, or by total scenario points, or something similar.

For that matter, you wouldn't have to have actual scenarios, you could just have roughed out QB parameters. Battle 1: 1000 pt. meeting engagement,combined arms, village; if German win, go to Battle 2: 1500 pt Attack, armor, rural, gentle slopes, light trees; if German loss, 1500 point probe, combined arms, similar terrain (but it's a different village, so it doesn't have to be identical).

For all I know, people are already doing this.

[Thomas Norton]

Yes, that is the idea, Mr Hedges is right. I think that is the furture campaign, that gives both the concept and the right historical feel to the idea, at the CM level of play, battalion. It will take work at the research level. Could this unit be supported with that unit? But, it could make one impressive game.

Thanks Andrew for seeing it too.

Tom

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"The Legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace."