Berlin defense campaign underwhelming?

[Dlw]

Just wanted to hear some thoughts if anyone else shared my view on the defense campaign inside berlin for the germans as somewhat underwhelming? While the 1st mission was really good and I enjoyed it a lot with the amount of men and artillery in such a small area, the 2nd mission really felt like a letdown to me, I understand the architecture limitations for the developers but the brandenburg gate & reichstag looked totally unsimilar and an IS-2 somehow glitched ontop of the gate and was bugged to ****. I know the AI isn't very good on the attack as well but their performance in the 1st mission felt miles better than the final one where they proceeded to piecemeal attack allowing themselves to be mowed down by volkssturm and wasting their armor turning it in circles over and over to get panzerfausted or sprint into buildings to my spawn and sit there taking potshots till the end of the game. I liked the detail in the reinforcements and historical accuracy but what should have felt like the last stand felt more like abusing braindead AI, or is it just me?

[Codreanu]

I played this from the Soviet side and I feel the same way, the first mission was incredible and really made me feel like I had to fight for every single inch of ground but the 2nd mission was very boring, felt like there were hardly any Germans for me to fight and there was only the tiniest of garrisons around the "Reichstag" itself which deserved it's own unique model and not some office buildings smashed together. The Brandenburg gate being a bridge that your tanks get stuck on top of was silly too. The second mission deserved a lot more attention than it got, or it should have just been chopped entirely and the first mission just being it's own solo scenario.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Codreanu

[Dlw]

Yea the 2nd map has a good background with the admin buildings but the reichstag and brandenburg gate felt rushed and bugged as hell, the Reichstag was hard to take for the russians and in this they got mowed the moment they peeked their heads from the blown out wall models was silly.

[benpark]

The Soviets should be roaring out of the gate on that second one. Are you playing the patched version?

[SimpleSimon]

It's funny that the things that bug me about campaigns are way different from the things that seem to bug others. Bugs and technical glitches and the Brandenburg gate looking like a Lego House are just really trivial stuff to me. Games are complicated software to make and I'm not terribly miffed that BF sometimes tries to feature memorable or set piece locations with a bit of imagination on my end. "Pretend this shack is the Eagle's Nest" works for me since that's all just contextual stuff. 

Nah, things that annoy me with Fire and Rubble's scenarios are situations like "historically this attack failed and we're sending you in with same historic loadout so you can fail at it too." Lmao nope. 

[Codreanu]

3 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

Nah, things that annoy me with Fire and Rubble's scenarios are situations like "historically this attack failed and we're sending you in with same historic loadout so you can fail at it too." Lmao nope. 

I actually like these types of scenarios, it makes me feel less bad about myself when I lose knowing the side I'm playing as lost in real life too. The fun of the games for me too is immersing myself in the experience and seeing what I can accomplish, a scenario designer's opinion on what constitutes a victory or a defeat shouldn't matter, it should be about how well you felt you did with the tools you were given. Of course this goes out the window a bit when you're playing a campaign and the designer's definitions of success or failure can end your run, but that's when the save-load feature comes in handy

[dbsapp]

10 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

 

Nah, things that annoy me with Fire and Rubble's scenarios are situations like "historically this attack failed and we're sending you in with same historic loadout so you can fail at it too." Lmao nope. 

Never encountered this type of missions in CMFR. 

But they have it in original CMRT - bunkers burning scenario for example. 

 

[Ultradave]

I don't mind this at all. FR is end of the war - Germans on the ropes. I'm fine with a "can you do better than they did historically?" scenario.

[SimpleSimon]

14 hours ago, Ultradave said:

I don't mind this at all. FR is end of the war - Germans on the ropes. I'm fine with a "can you do better than they did historically?" scenario.

From the way the campaigns and scenarios (such as Red Dawn) are designed it does not look like the Germans are on the ropes. We're back to situations with 4 Pak40s and 3 88s watching stretches of highway with no safe path of maneuver toward and totally insufficient firepower on the Soviets' end to just crush. Some of the guns in scenario 2 of To Berlin were spaced less than 200m from eachother-the defense line was so dense. The very next scenario featured for air support...a single IL2. Lmao "Historic" 

The designers of scenarios like these read heaps but understood little. Doesn't bother me all that much since I can just use the Editor to fix everything and I have the knowledge to do so but it's really unfortunate for people who were hoping to use RT/FR as a learning experience. 

[chuckdyke]

6 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

to use RT/FR as a learning experience. 

I don't think computer games are historical learning experiences. Scenario 2-PAK 75 vs 50 JS2's or 2 Germans on bicycles against an allied armoured column? Battles are as honest and as fair as a bullfight in Spain. Realistic and historical battles make poor computer games. My favourite game is Baranovichi score no points by killing Germans and win by reaching the end of the map. This is realistic the defender needs to slow down the attacker only. To have realistic games the maps could be bigger but then there is data processing. 

[dbsapp]

A agree with both - German campaign definitely doesn't look like "Germans are on the ropes". It's more like 1941 German juggernaut against weak Soviet defense.

But I still enjoy CMFR because the scenarios are well designed and entertaining. 

Computer games are not historical learning experience for sure, they are just a games, with more or less "realism", but it's never absolute. 

[Ultradave]

On the ropes= Germany the country. Almost the end of the war. No hope of a miraculous victory. 
 

Could they lash out locally and effectively? Sure. And that makes for some scenarios with reasonable balance and interest.

Dave

[Modernrocco]

I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign as a whole.

[Dlw]

On 8/16/2021 at 11:26 AM, benpark said:

The Soviets should be roaring out of the gate on that second one. Are you playing the patched version?

not sure, for me Russians piecemealed and final scenario w/ the Reichstag was no challenge, had majority of my forces and volkssturm mowed down most of the sov troops in alleyways as 1 squad at a time filed through with 0 tank support, the tanks being too busy rotating on rubble piles for 6 turns and getting glitched on top of the Brandenburg gate

[benpark]

The way to know is to Cease Fire at the end. In the release version, the Soviet AI groups somehow lost some assignments - so if you see large, unused Soviet groups left at that stage you should patch (you should anyway, as there are other fixes). Then, they should be quite aggressive (as in the first battle).

[Bubba883XL]

i liked it, atmosphere was good.. only thing i got annoyed at was the pak, positioned to the right of the Reichstag, couldn't see over the little walls and was completely useless...lol...

 

and yeah the games do have some limitations but all n all i thought it was a fair representation...the Combat mission engine has always been bit limited...my only complaint was that the object could've been bit taller lol

[benpark]

I've just done a deep dive on this for a future patch at some point. Soviets are proving aggressive again in the second mission.

Part of the issue with an underwhelming attack on the second battle is that this is conceived as a linked campaign from either side - it's tracked from BOTH sides, with some added support in case of a total wash in the first battle for the AI. If people completely destroy the enemy from either side, that means the night's fighting is basically done if there's no force left but the added assets. I'll probably branch it, adding another mission with only part of the force carrying over - there will be some benefit to decimating the enemy, but far less.

I'll see about rethinking the German side a bit, as this is meant to exhibit some of the terrors of the advent of heavy armor versus man-portable AT assets in urban terrain in this particular instance as well as able.

I'll look at the wall, and maybe swap it for the rubble one, which is lower.

Edited October 3, 2021 by benpark

[Bubba883XL]

On 10/2/2021 at 7:18 PM, benpark said:

I've just done a deep dive on this for a future patch at some point. Soviets are proving aggressive again in the second mission.

Part of the issue with an underwhelming attack on the second battle is that this is conceived as a linked campaign from either side - it's tracked from BOTH sides, with some added support in case of a total wash in the first battle for the AI. If people completely destroy the enemy from either side, that means the night's fighting is basically done if there's no force left but the added assets. I'll probably branch it, adding another mission with only part of the force carrying over - there will be some benefit to decimating the enemy, but far less.

I'll see about rethinking the German side a bit, as this is meant to exhibit some of the terrors of the advent of heavy armor versus man-portable AT assets in urban terrain in this particular instance as well as able.

I'll look at the wall, and maybe swap it for the rubble one, which is lower.

cool, it may just have been my positioning , or the terrain was taller on the soviet side of the river, etc. . but thanks for taking a look, bubba.

[Dlw]

On 10/2/2021 at 2:18 PM, benpark said:

I've just done a deep dive on this for a future patch at some point. Soviets are proving aggressive again in the second mission.

Part of the issue with an underwhelming attack on the second battle is that this is conceived as a linked campaign from either side - it's tracked from BOTH sides, with some added support in case of a total wash in the first battle for the AI. If people completely destroy the enemy from either side, that means the night's fighting is basically done if there's no force left but the added assets. I'll probably branch it, adding another mission with only part of the force carrying over - there will be some benefit to decimating the enemy, but far less.

I'll see about rethinking the German side a bit, as this is meant to exhibit some of the terrors of the advent of heavy armor versus man-portable AT assets in urban terrain in this particular instance as well as able.

I'll look at the wall, and maybe swap it for the rubble one, which is lower.

I think a nice addition to the mission would be two heavy flaks flanking the map from high positions to represent the berlin flak towers which were the main reason sov tanks could not approach the RS without heavy casualties, this with more sov tanks & inf to make the german scenario harder. In my mission I still had a lot of soldiers ready to fight

[DougPhresh]

I'm a little concerned reading some of the feedback here - I was looking forward to buying FR, having just read The Wehrmacht's Last Stand, The End, and Violence In Defeat: The Wehrmacht on German Soil. I would have really liked to see the Wehrmacht as a broken force fighting a lost war, with cobbled together groups of stragglers, depleted and disorganized units, and disheartened Volkstrum clinging to the field mostly out of fear of falling into Russian hands rather than anything else. That's a Wehrmacht we hardly ever get to see in wargaming, while we've all seen the force depicted at its apogee. 

[Glubokii Boy]

24 minutes ago, DougPhresh said:

I'm a little concerned reading some of the feedback here - I was looking forward to buying FR, having just read The Wehrmacht's Last Stand, The End, and Violence In Defeat: The Wehrmacht on German Soil. I would have really liked to see the Wehrmacht as a broken force fighting a lost war, with cobbled together groups of stragglers, depleted and disorganized units, and disheartened Volkstrum clinging to the field mostly out of fear of falling into Russian hands rather than anything else. That's a Wehrmacht we hardly ever get to see in wargaming, while we've all seen the force depicted at its apogee. 

The module comes with far more content then that campaign and many of the already released and upcomming comunity made scenarios and campaigns will most liekly need the module to be able to play....

If the basic subject intrest you...It's a no brainer to buy this module imo 

[Artkin]

Agreed, this module is the best BFC has ever put out. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

TBH CM:RT is kind of incomplete without some of the content included in F&R.....Notably Partisans. 

[NPye]

I made all new Berlin Maps, heres a closer look????

 

[NPye]

and this...