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My problem with CMBN  from a consumer perspective and why I didn't buy other CMs...


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These things might be forgivable if you eat up all the CM titles, I only ever got Shock Force and Battle for Normandy despite loving the gameplay.

 

Here's why:

  • Custom battles against the AI are almost useless. 

The AI is almost nonfunctional in random battles.

I've had meeting engagements where I'm sitting here doing moves and excited about what's gonna happen and the AI never leaves their starting area. I feel like the AI signed off and left. I'm patched to the recent version AFAIK, I couldn't replicate this in my first attempt (some of the enemy battalion was actually moving two minutes in) but I still remember the huge disappointment as I'm methodically moving and realize the enemy never left their freaking start point. Enemy AI has to be a lot better in future titles.

image.png.44d10a5677775d22d4f75aac1fecf784.png

The system for seeking online human players is subpar at best. I understand there might be revisions, that's great. Literally nobody I know in my life or my gaming circles has ever heard of CM. In the CM X 1 era I did play dozens of PBEM and WeGo battles online. Perhaps because I'm older now I don't have the patience to fervently seek out CM playmates without any built-in infrastructure. 

 

  • There's too few battles and campaigns, severely limiting replayability. 

I've asked before but there doesn't seem to be custom community-made campaigns or battles. If there are, you have to dig farther than I have and I'm fairly certain I asked before. I've played all the battles and campaigns numerous times over a decade (or however long ago this came out.) I don't get why I'm so bored with a game I love.

Campaign play against the AI can work so why is so underutilized?

 

  • The Courage and Fortitude Campaign is basically rage bait trash.

 I posted about this a decade ago (I lost my old account e-mail) and I still think so today, having made the mistake of booting CMBN up to try and get to that last mission once more so I can clear that final city with a somewhat intact couple companies of infantry.

In my mind Courage and Fortitude is the flagship campaign to CMBN because it's the allied infantry campaign. It sucks. Bad. 

The campaign requires too much of hugging the edge of the map, which is a gamey and ridiculous tactic. The first mission is relatively easy although the designer manipulation in the terrain in putting slopes to nullify observation abilities from hedgerows is very annoying. It would be one thing if there were several other infantry-based campaigns but there aren't.


Hard knocks is absurd, Razorback Ridge is absurd. It's not some stroke of genius, it's absurd for the wrong reasons.


In a first person game we call it "spawn camping" when you drop artillery on the spawn area. I made the mistake again (I'm an incredibly forgiving person when it comes to games I like) of starting this crap campaign once more. I wasted about four hours of my life over the last two nights just to decide 'Yeah, ____ this, not worth my time.' If I'm gonna look at pretty lights on my computer screen then I want to feel immersed not severely handicapped. You people are gonna make me start drinking again. 


You can't just squeeze players in a starting area under direct observation of artillery. You can't force them to do incredibly gamey stuff (like sending scout teams around to draw fire away from my cramped starting area - works great to an extent) just to avoid reinforcements spawning into artillery barrages. Razorback Ridge is ridiculous, if you even show your face you get pounded by artillery as more units spawn in under fire. Great war gaming, horrific presentation. If you want to do Omaha Beach, call it Omaha Beach, don't drop my waves of precious pixel troopers in a confined space under enemy observation unless you want to not sell me another CM, which has been accomplished through CMBN, and in large part through Courage and Fortitude specifically.

 

I'd like to try out the Italian, Soviet, and Market Garden games but I won't. It's because CMBN scenarios are lacking and I don't want to deal with that  type of disappointment. When/if it gets on steam, I'll add to my Wishlist and wait for a great sale
 

Edited by Poorlaggedman
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1 minute ago, Poorlaggedman said:

So there are custom campaigns? I'll have to dig around then.

The latest BP is one and Fire and Rubble has six campaigns I wouldn't call any of them easy. Our favorite mode of play is Hotseat. IMHO other MP systems still have a long way to go. There is a way around to make Campaigns MP but we have never done it. But anybody who can complete a campaign is definitely not a Noob. Maps are just right for WW2 play the same size in BS it is definitely too small in the latter.

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1 hour ago, Poorlaggedman said:

So there are custom campaigns? I'll have to dig around then.

Chuck doesn't talk about custom campaigns; he talks about he BFC campaigns sold with Fire & Rubble and the associated module and battlepack.

And YES, there are a few community designed campaigns; I have built a campaign/sceenario database that I plan to release later this year, and I listed 14 community designed campaigns for CMBN, 3 for CMFB, 4 for CMFI and 11 for CMRT.

 

1 hour ago, Poorlaggedman said:

There's too few battles and campaigns, severely limiting replayability. 

 

I've asked before but there doesn't seem to be custom community-made campaigns or battles. If there are, you have to dig farther than I have and I'm fairly certain I asked before. I've played all the battles and campaigns numerous times over a decade (or however long ago this came out.) I don't get why I'm so bored with a game I love.

Campaign play against the AI can work so why is so underutilized?

eer... Did you really look around? I have counted 282 user-made scenarios for the WW2 titles alone. These are only the scenarios available here or at the FGM repository, and only those with AI plans (there are even more designed for H2H play).

Do you consider 282 scenarios "too few"?

If so, consider designind and testing some on your own… 😉 Just have a try and you'll quickly understand why there are not thousands of CM2 campaigns. It's really a LOT of work and playtesting.

But with what's available I think that you have YEARS of gaming ahead.

Unless you have the chance to have all your time free, obviously…

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2 hours ago, Poorlaggedman said:

 

  • Custom battles against the AI are almost useless. 

The AI is almost nonfunctional in random battles.

I've had meeting engagements where I'm sitting here doing moves and excited about what's gonna happen and the AI never leaves their starting area. I feel like the AI signed off and left. I'm patched to the recent version AFAIK, I couldn't replicate this in my first attempt (some of the enemy battalion was actually moving two minutes in) but I still remember the huge disappointment as I'm methodically moving and realize the enemy never left their freaking start point. Enemy AI has to be a lot better in future titles.

 

 

  • There's too few battles and campaigns, severely limiting replayability. 

I've asked before but there doesn't seem to be custom community-made campaigns or battles. If there are, you have to dig farther than I have and I'm fairly certain I asked before. I've played all the battles and campaigns numerous times over a decade (or however long ago this came out.) I don't get why I'm so bored with a game I love.

Campaign play against the AI can work so why is so underutilized?

 

1.  The AI for quick battles is a known fault.  QBs are more for PBEM with human opponents.  I have been playing these games since the way back times and I don't think I've played more than 2 or 3 QBs with any engine.  I pretty much only play campaigns against the AI and scenarios PBEM.  I've never felt at a loss for content either.  Which brings me to...

2.  You're definitely not looking.  I have literally TONS of user made campaigns and scenarios for all the titles.  So many that I don't think I could play all of them in a lifetime.  Quick tip for you, find and download the "All in One" modpack for whatever title you are playing .  The have loads of user made scenarios and campaigns included right there in the modpack.  I feel like just for CMBN there must be over 100 scenarios, at least, and a few campaigns included in the modpack.  It's a must have.

Edited by Phantom Captain
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On 4/9/2023 at 11:24 AM, Poorlaggedman said:

These things might be forgivable if you eat up all the CM titles, I only ever got Shock Force and Battle for Normandy despite loving the gameplay.

 

Here's why:

  • Custom battles against the AI are almost useless. 

The AI is almost nonfunctional in random battles.

I've had meeting engagements where I'm sitting here doing moves and excited about what's gonna happen and the AI never leaves their starting area. I feel like the AI signed off and left. I'm patched to the recent version AFAIK, I couldn't replicate this in my first attempt (some of the enemy battalion was actually moving two minutes in) but I still remember the huge disappointment as I'm methodically moving and realize the enemy never left their freaking start point. Enemy AI has to be a lot better in future titles.

image.png.44d10a5677775d22d4f75aac1fecf784.png

The system for seeking online human players is subpar at best. I understand there might be revisions, that's great. Literally nobody I know in my life or my gaming circles has ever heard of CM. In the CM X 1 era I did play dozens of PBEM and WeGo battles online. Perhaps because I'm older now I don't have the patience to fervently seek out CM playmates without any built-in infrastructure. 

 

  • There's too few battles and campaigns, severely limiting replayability. 

I've asked before but there doesn't seem to be custom community-made campaigns or battles. If there are, you have to dig farther than I have and I'm fairly certain I asked before. I've played all the battles and campaigns numerous times over a decade (or however long ago this came out.) I don't get why I'm so bored with a game I love.

Campaign play against the AI can work so why is so underutilized?

 

  • The Courage and Fortitude Campaign is basically rage bait trash.

 I posted about this a decade ago (I lost my old account e-mail) and I still think so today, having made the mistake of booting CMBN up to try and get to that last mission once more so I can clear that final city with a somewhat intact couple companies of infantry.

In my mind Courage and Fortitude is the flagship campaign to CMBN because it's the allied infantry campaign. It sucks. Bad. 

The campaign requires too much of hugging the edge of the map, which is a gamey and ridiculous tactic. The first mission is relatively easy although the designer manipulation in the terrain in putting slopes to nullify observation abilities from hedgerows is very annoying. It would be one thing if there were several other infantry-based campaigns but there aren't.


Hard knocks is absurd, Razorback Ridge is absurd. It's not some stroke of genius, it's absurd for the wrong reasons.


In a first person game we call it "spawn camping" when you drop artillery on the spawn area. I made the mistake again (I'm an incredibly forgiving person when it comes to games I like) of starting this crap campaign once more. I wasted about four hours of my life over the last two nights just to decide 'Yeah, ____ this, not worth my time.' If I'm gonna look at pretty lights on my computer screen then I want to feel immersed not severely handicapped. You people are gonna make me start drinking again. 


You can't just squeeze players in a starting area under direct observation of artillery. You can't force them to do incredibly gamey stuff (like sending scout teams around to draw fire away from my cramped starting area - works great to an extent) just to avoid reinforcements spawning into artillery barrages. Razorback Ridge is ridiculous, if you even show your face you get pounded by artillery as more units spawn in under fire. Great war gaming, horrific presentation. If you want to do Omaha Beach, call it Omaha Beach, don't drop my waves of precious pixel troopers in a confined space under enemy observation unless you want to not sell me another CM, which has been accomplished through CMBN, and in large part through Courage and Fortitude specifically.

 

I'd like to try out the Italian, Soviet, and Market Garden games but I won't. It's because CMBN scenarios are lacking and I don't want to deal with that  type of disappointment. When/if it gets on steam, I'll add to my Wishlist and wait for a great sale
 

I have to be honest, I've never read anyone complain about a lack of scenarios or campaigns to play with this title. I suspect you haven't found the Few Good Men site where scenario/campaign designers upload their work. I see someone else has posted a link so I won't. It also sounds like you have the base game only and so are confined to playing the three campaigns and the couple of dozen scenarios that it shipped with. If so, yup, that's not going to last you decades. :D You could argue that QBs provide near-infinite replay-ablility but that doesn't really stand up.

For me, Quick Battles are probably the least-used feature in the game. It's not because they're bad, it's because they need to be able to manage ANY force that the player may purchase, armour, all-infantry, what-have-you and the AI plans try to do their best with what it's got. And that sometimes means it can do nothing. I know how much work and dedication went into creating the official QB maps and it was considerable. Almost all my QB time in-game was spent using my own dedicated QB maps that were designed for pure infantry and I only ever used them. They worked every time because they were dedicated infantry-only maps and so the plans worked just fine. (I lost them all though - a shame as I had made some real beauties from where I used to live in Suffolk)

I won't comment on C&F as I'm on the team and the three rules of the club are 'you never talk about Fight Club...'

If you haven't got it already, both the Commonwealth and Market Garden modules add even more scenarios and campaigns although I wouldn't recommend The Scottish Corridor if you're looking for a relaxing, pleasant experience. :D The Road to Nijmegen is not bad though and it's B-I-G. Plus there are German campaigns that come with both of those modules as well.

Edited by Paper Tiger
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I agree with some of the OPs points, and especially campaigns.

Yes, there are a lot of single scenarios for the various titles. But I don't care about that. I play campaigns and that's it. And the options are too few. I've said for going on 20 years now Combat Mission needs a campaign generator.

One of the issues for me is even if you have x number of campaigns, only some of them are going to be the ones I'm looking for. For example I like company sized campaigns. So the pool has been cut by 2/3. What if I want company sized paratrooper campaigns? Down to 10%. What if I want company sized American paratrooper campaigns? Maybe three or four exist. It's not enough to hang our hats on how many campaigns there are if only a handful are the sort we want to play.

There must be a way for the players to generate their own content quickly and easily. Make my own campaigns you might say. Well, the editor is archaic and difficult to use. And even if I did so, I'd know every thing there is to know about it. I made it. And that won't do. The beauty of Combat Mission is in solving the tactical puzzle when it is shrouded in unknowns. If I know the enemy positions, and reinforcements and how many tanks and AT guns they have the mystery is gone. Well, that's the fourth AT gun knocked out. They've no more. No. I need to proceed as if they might have four more. I cannot know ahead of time what the enemy possess.

So, under the existing formula there is no satisfactory way of obtaining the sort of content I seek, that suits me. And that's been a problem since Operations went belly up over twenty years ago.

For players who are not keen to make their own campaigns it leaves us reliant on the few players generous enough to do so. But they aren't taking requests, asking me what I want. And I wouldn't expect them to. So we are left playing whatever comes down the pike while rejecting some as inferior or ill-suited to our own tastes. And that does indeed leave too few. OP is right.

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And to add that he is also right about Quick Battles. They just are not good. The AI, or whatever it is, the scripting perhaps, is too rudimentary to fashion a convincing clash of arms. Quick battles work great in MP, but as a solo thing they are pretty bad. And it's not just the poor AI, it's the force composition. The AI does not make a good picker. In CMx1 we had the Combined Arms preset, and that worked pretty well. The AI would have a nice mix of units. For reason I don't know, this was removed from CMx2 and so you might have a battle against a dozen half tracks and and some scouts.

And then, everything goes forward at it's speed. There is no veil of coordination. The fastest enemy units die first.

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2 hours ago, landser said:

I agree with some of the OPs points, and especially campaigns.

Yes, there are a lot of single scenarios for the various titles. But I don't care about that. I play campaigns and that's it. And the options are too few. I've said for going on 20 years now Combat Mission needs a campaign generator.

One of the issues for me is even if you have x number of campaigns, only some of them are going to be the ones I'm looking for. For example I like company sized campaigns. So the pool has been cut by 2/3. What if I want company sized paratrooper campaigns? Down to 10%. What if I want company sized American paratrooper campaigns? Maybe three or four exist. It's not enough to hang our hats on how many campaigns there are if only a handful are the sort we want to play.

Well, at least you have very specific tastes… Only campaigns featuring half-company sized US paratroopers units against SS Panzer IV companies only…  😅

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11 hours ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said:

Ian’s website is also a useful resource

https://www.combatmission.lesliesoftware.com/#

MMM

It is currently not in a perfect state. It's drifted out of date and all theBlitz links go to a domain for sale site because we lost our domain and had to retool to .org. If you use my site just edit the url to use .org instead of .com for any theBlitz links.

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3 hours ago, landser said:

 Not what I said.

Obviously it's not.

What you said is that you only play campaigns (which means that you disregard 80% of CM2 content), and that most campaigns don't suit your tastes.

That's your right.😐

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There are such a staggering amount of QUALITY user-made campaigns and scenarios for CMBN that by the time you get through them all you'll have forgotten how half of them play and can go through them again as if they were fresh. Of course there are some questionable user-made scenarios as there are bundled scenarios where your troops get spawned in the middle of a firefight or have a company of enemy troops spawn behind you with no warning, but you can just choose to not play them after you discover the "gotcha" moment and move on to one of the other two or three hundred-odd scenarios out there.

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12 hours ago, landser said:

I agree with some of the OPs points, and especially campaigns.

Yes, there are a lot of single scenarios for the various titles. But I don't care about that. I play campaigns and that's it. And the options are too few. I've said for going on 20 years now Combat Mission needs a campaign generator.

One of the issues for me is even if you have x number of campaigns, only some of them are going to be the ones I'm looking for. For example I like company sized campaigns. So the pool has been cut by 2/3. What if I want company sized paratrooper campaigns? Down to 10%. What if I want company sized American paratrooper campaigns? Maybe three or four exist. It's not enough to hang our hats on how many campaigns there are if only a handful are the sort we want to play.

There must be a way for the players to generate their own content quickly and easily. Make my own campaigns you might say. Well, the editor is archaic and difficult to use. And even if I did so, I'd know every thing there is to know about it. I made it. And that won't do. The beauty of Combat Mission is in solving the tactical puzzle when it is shrouded in unknowns. If I know the enemy positions, and reinforcements and how many tanks and AT guns they have the mystery is gone. Well, that's the fourth AT gun knocked out. They've no more. No. I need to proceed as if they might have four more. I cannot know ahead of time what the enemy possess.

So, under the existing formula there is no satisfactory way of obtaining the sort of content I seek, that suits me. And that's been a problem since Operations went belly up over twenty years ago.

For players who are not keen to make their own campaigns it leaves us reliant on the few players generous enough to do so. But they aren't taking requests, asking me what I want. And I wouldn't expect them to. So we are left playing whatever comes down the pike while rejecting some as inferior or ill-suited to our own tastes. And that does indeed leave too few. OP is right.

You raise some very good points there and I have every sympathy towards the argument against design-you-own as well. You explained very clearly why there is no mystery in a mission you made yourself (although by using multiple, useful AI plans, you can mitigate that somewhat but that won't help with you knowing what the AI has in its inventory). I also agree that there are far fewer campaigns than there are scenarios to play and if they're not to your taste and campaigns are where it's at for you, well, that's not helping. However, I'm not sure what other game gives you what you are looking for. Surely that will be a problem for them all?

As for the editor, well, I'm going to have to stand up for that as it's by far the biggest draw of this engine for me. :D I've played with quite a few editors in my time away from CMx2 and some do one aspect better while they suck at others. I find the CMx2 scenario editor very easy to work with. Sure, the UI is a bit old-fashioned and doesn't look exciting or communicate information to you efficiently but what other editor allows you to take a photo of a real-world location and import it into the editor so that you can trace around it? It's really easy to 'paint' the map with different vegetation and to set elevations etc. It's not fun work, that's for sure (which is why I tend to listen to some prog rock album or Bach while I'm doing so) and a large map takes a lot of time to do. But it's not HARD to use.

Maps don't need to be the best ever either. I've had a lot of fun playing campaigns and missions where the map work is <cough> not perfect but who cares if the scenarios and the stories are good. TBH, I probably fart about too much making my maps look as good as possible and would probably churn out the content at twice the rate if I simplified the maps. (Not going to happen, ever.) I think we need to encourage more folks to make campaigns with these huge master maps that folks have been drawing in the last few years.

Now the AI, that's a really tricky one. AI scripting is not hard to do with this editor but it's fiddly. To contrast, I've played some games which use a reactive AI opponent that will use the forces you give it according to the changing situation without the need for scripting and guess what? Once you've sussed out the system, you know exactly what the AI is going to do and this is particularly obvious when it comes to the AI attacking when the attacks are juvenile and borderline unplayable. It's hard to pull off a good AI attack in the CM editor but the end result is usually far superior to anything that a dynamic AI could ever pull off with the same forces. Even when the AI is on the defence, I think scripting makes the AI opponent far more challenging than with a dynamic one. The price of this is that the AI needs to be directed and with no AI plans, there is no AI and even a dynamic AI is superior there.

I think CMx3, if this is ever a thing, will go with scripted AI as well. And that's why you're not going to see randomly generated campaigns any time soon. They would basically by Quick Campaigns and all the issues with QBs described by the OP and yourself would exacerbate the existing frustrations with them no end.

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14 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

You raise some very good points there and I have every sympathy towards the argument against design-you-own as well. You explained very clearly why there is no mystery in a mission you made yourself (although by using multiple, useful AI plans, you can mitigate that somewhat but that won't help with you knowing what the AI has in its inventory).

It's hard for me to concur with the last argument. That's quite obvious that a scenario or a campaign that you designed yourself will not be very challenging for you to play, as you know the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents.

If everybody doesn't bother to create campaigns because it's not interesting to play them afterwards, well, there wouldn't be any community made scenarios and campaigns, would it? When you design scenarios and campaigns, it's not for YOURSELF, it's for the community… (And for the pleasure to CREATE, as well…)

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14 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

Now the AI, that's a really tricky one. AI scripting is not hard to do with this editor but it's fiddly. To contrast, I've played some games which use a reactive AI opponent that will use the forces you give it according to the changing situation without the need for scripting and guess what? Once you've sussed out the system, you know exactly what the AI is going to do and this is particularly obvious when it comes to the AI attacking when the attacks are juvenile and borderline unplayable. It's hard to pull off a good AI attack in the CM editor but the end result is usually far superior to anything that a dynamic AI could ever pull off with the same forces. Even when the AI is on the defence, I think scripting makes the AI opponent far more challenging than with a dynamic one. The price of this is that the AI needs to be directed and with no AI plans, there is no AI and even a dynamic AI is superior there.

I think CMx3, if this is ever a thing, will go with scripted AI as well.

That's very interesting!

If I understand correctly, you mean that scripted Ai is less predictable than reactive (dynamic) AI, because the latter is based on algorithms that you learn to know?

So making the AI better would mean adding more triggers to the present-day scripted AI? Like casualties-based triggers, by example?

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14 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

I probably fart about too much making my maps look as good as possible and would probably churn out the content at twice the rate if I simplified the maps

I wonder what @George MC thinks about this.  Not for the first time I would say that George's maps are things of wonder.  Detailed, beautiful and 3D in the best possible way to make battles very interesting.  If this is news to anyone (perhaps not), look at any of George's maps in CMBN or CMRT.  Or better still play the battles.

Other excellent map makers are available of course 😉.

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7 hours ago, PEB14 said:

That's very interesting!

If I understand correctly, you mean that scripted Ai is less predictable than reactive (dynamic) AI, because the latter is based on algorithms that you learn to know?

So making the AI better would mean adding more triggers to the present-day scripted AI? Like casualties-based triggers, by example?

Absolutely. I've always thought of AI plans as being one massive, game-length WeGo turn 'sent' by the designer to the player and as such, the designer can script some really surprising behaviour.

For me, the improvements I'd like to see but probably never will are:

  • branching AI plans
  • artillery fire plans tied to specific AI plans and not the entire set
  • delays to the above AI pre-planned artillery strikes

All of those would make AI scripting even more efficient. But I'm finding that I can do a whole lot with the latest engine changes that wasn't possible before so I've got enough new toys to play with to enjoy working with the expanded features for quite some time to come.

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7 hours ago, Vacillator said:

I wonder what @George MC thinks about this.  Not for the first time I would say that George's maps are things of wonder.  Detailed, beautiful and 3D in the best possible way to make battles very interesting.  If this is news to anyone (perhaps not), look at any of George's maps in CMBN or CMRT.  Or better still play the battles.

Other excellent map makers are available of course 😉.

Well, I always admit that the two designers that inspired me the most when I was starting out with the editor were GeorgeMc, whom you know, and Pete Wenman who produced some really fine maps for CMSF back at the very start. He was also incredibly creative with mods.

MikeyD put me on to Red v Red. It never occured to me to do that myself and he made an interesting and fun Red v Red mission which I enjoyed a lot - far more than the Blue v Red missions I played.

There was a guy around called Webwing who also inspired me to make a campaign. He was working on something called "In Search of a Ghost" and I thought it would be cool to do a campaign all of my own.

And finally, Bardosy who made really fun campaigns to play.

I guess it sounds like I don't have an original idea in my head after reading that :D but I was inspired by all of these folks and never copied. I've always striven to find my own style.

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On 4/10/2023 at 10:57 PM, Paper Tiger said:

You raise some very good points there ....

Don't want to clutter up the forum by quoting the entire post, and your defense of the editor is admirable, but at the same time I think it stands testimony to how obtuse it is. You're one of the generous people I referred to, and you obviously get on well with the tools. But reading your post, it's clear that even for someone who enjoys building campaigns, that there is an element of the ends justify the means to it all. But anyway, that sort of thing is subjective. Whether the editor is powerful is not really the issue, but instead it's down to how quickly and easily campaigns can be created.

I remember a post you made years ago, around the time you released Montebourg, that it had taken you 800 hours to make it. I mean, come on. Such dedication is also admirable, but surely it illustrates the issue. Montebourg is possibly the most ambitious campaign in the series, so picking an outlier to make my point may not be convincing. I believe Combat Mission needs a campaign generator. And a new campaign system entirely. I'm not holding my breath, this 'episodic' system we have now seems to satisfy the community at large, but for me it has become stale and fails to give the players the sort of content that makes the underlying excellent tactical battlefields shine.

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12 minutes ago, landser said:

I remember a post you made years ago, around the time you released Montebourg, that it had taken you 800 hours to make it. I mean, come on. Such dedication is also admirable, but surely it illustrates the issue. Montebourg is possibly the most ambitious campaign in the series, so picking an outlier to make my point may not be convincing. I believe Combat Mission needs a campaign generator. And a new campaign system entirely. I'm not holding my breath, this 'episodic' system we have now seems to satisfy the community at large, but for me it has become stale and fails to give the players the sort of content that makes the underlying excellent tactical battlefields shine.

It is absolutely cvertain that the scenario/campaign generator might be A LOT more user friendly, at all levels: map making, AI programming, units choice...

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A campaign generator would be fantastic. The player could set a number of parameters, and click generate, and Bob's your uncle. Endless content well-suited to the player.

But with no real AI, it cannot succeed. A campaign generator would not work well in Cmx2, it would essentially be a series of connected battles that all play out like quick battles and that would not be a step forward. Proper AI that can deal with any force composition and map would be a necessity, and that is not on Battlefront's roadmap. This issue has been there since the beginning, and I've read Steve's views on the matter and I know this is not going to be a thing.

My simple idea is something akin to how the campaign is handled in Close Combat games like CC5. It would be an operational map divided in to sectors. On the operation map various battlegroups are deployed. Each 'turn' both sides move their forces (or not). If two opposing battlegroups attempt to occupy the same sector, a meeting engagement follow. If one side remains, while another attempts to enter, an attack/defend or assault/defend occurs depending on how long the stationary unit had remained in place (and had a chance to dig in). The system would need to produce maps, although all could potentially be pre-determined based on the sector's terrain.

A system like this is dynamic. Add logistics, reinforcements, off map assets and we would have a generator capable of adding an operational layer to this great game while giving lasting consequence to battle results.

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