Latest Usually Hapless Video (Scotish Corridor 10)

[PEB14]

I was particularly interested by the latest UsuallyHapless' video, as I played the very same scenario just 2 weeks before its release:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMWAoOAeQbE

Once again, a very good video.

Basically, UH achieved victory by reaching two objectives:

- eliminate the enemy tanks

- manoeuver around the enemy flank.

While both objectives are perfectly sound, what bothers me is the way these are achieved.

The most significant doubt resides in the fact that all enemy tanks are knocked out of action thanks to... artillery indirect fire. Really? What are the odds to destroy two Panthers with a less than 100 rounds artillery barrage of 18 pounder guns ??? Was UH unusually "hapful" , or is the destruction of heavy tanks thanks to indirect artillery fire a common occurrence in Combat Mission WW2 titles?

Second, the flanking maneuver is performed by willingly moving a couple of squads through an unmarked minefield. I strongly doubt a British WW2 platoon commander would attack this way, except on the most extreme circumstances. This tactic sounds very gamey to me when playing Western powers troops (no doubt German, Soviet or Japanese commanders would have had less concern). I believe it would be very interesting to have such orders come at a cost in terms of morale.

What do you think?

[Brille]

Well while ww2 arty wasn´t as accurate as nowadays it could pose a big threat to tanks, once they are on target. And it seems that the Panthers in this match were bunched up pretty good.

Tanks in general could avoid artillery due to their armor and mobility but if they stand there stationary it would be just a matter of time until they get obliterated.

Even if the rounds don´t penetrate, it can do enough damage to the exterior that the tank is rendered useless.

And by the way the Panther was never classified as heavy tank according to the german side. I know the soviets and other allies tended to see it this way but it wasn´t. The Panther was a medium tank that should replace the Mark IV (which it didn´t). A heavy tank at this stage would be more likely to be equaly or at least better armored all around, just like the Tiger and King Tiger.

The only well armored part on a Panther was it´s front alone. From all the other sides even smaller ATG could put some holes in there at a reasonable distance.

The roof/deck is no exception to that: There were only 16mm of protection...no problem even for HE shells. In comparison there were 25mm of protection on the Tigers deck.

So yeah, surely possible.

 

@Minefields: Well I guess no soldier would be eager to be commanded through a known  minefield and so would be their direct commanders (exceptions prove the rule). There may be maniacs but even those understand usually that there would be no gain in legless screaming subordinates.

Never the less I still tend to see combat mission as a game so I would say "nah" to gamey here. Sure, soldiers wouldn´t do that normally but there are many things that Pixeltruppen do were real soldiers would deny that order or at least question it. It all depends on the commander (hapless) and what he is willing to risk.

Though I must say that I would see it better if mines in general put maybe a bit more stress on the soldiers. Not only got a comrade of them wounded there, the rest of the squad/team are now faced with the fact that they could be next if they move one step further. Plus they also hear their screaming comrade. In CMx2 I have the feeling that soldiers shake off their minefield experience to soon. But maybe that´s just me.

 

 

[PEB14]

@Brille

Well, I shouldn't have classified the Panthers as heavies as it obviously hides my point. Sure destroying a tank with indirect fire is possible; I just read somewhere that about 10% of German tanks were indeed destroyed by artillery fire on the Western Front. My point was more, killing 2 Panther with less than 100 shells fired is either unbelievable luck… or irrealistic rendering of WW2 artillery accuracy in CM!

So the question is more: do you people use indirect artillery against enemy tanks on a regular basis? Do you observe a lot of tanks killed by artillery in WW2 CM games?

Regarding the minefields, I 100% agree with your points.

[Halmbarte]

5 hours ago, PEB14 said:

@Brille

Well, I shouldn't have classified the Panthers as heavies as it obviously hides my point. Sure destroying a tank with indirect fire is possible; I just read somewhere that about 10% of German tanks were indeed destroyed by artillery fire on the Western Front. My point was more, killing 2 Panther with less than 100 shells fired is either unbelievable luck… or irrealistic rendering of WW2 artillery accuracy in CM!

So the question is more: do you people use indirect artillery against enemy tanks on a regular basis? Do you observe a lot of tanks killed by artillery in WW2 CM games?

Regarding the minefields, I 100% agree with your points.

Yes, all the time. I want those tank commanders buttoned up as much as possible. If I get hits on the tanks that are close enough to disable subsystems or immobilize them all the better. 

 

And sometimes you'll get lucky. It is always nice to drop a 120mm mortar round into the top of a M901 or a 25pr into the top of a Stug, even if those don't happen all that often. 

H

[PEB14]

2 hours ago, Halmbarte said:

Yes, all the time. I want those tank commanders buttoned up as much as possible. If I get hits on the tanks that are close enough to disable subsystems or immobilize them all the better. 

 

And sometimes you'll get lucky. It is always nice to drop a 120mm mortar round into the top of a M901 or a 25pr into the top of a Stug, even if those don't happen all that often. 

H

OK. So disabling 2 tanks with a single barrage is just sheer luck from your experience?

[chuckdyke]

All the years I played in WW2 scenarios one Stug III when I had a heavy barrage for Maximum near the end of a scenario. 

[PEB14]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

All the years I played in WW2 scenarios one Stug III when I had a heavy barrage for Maximum near the end of a scenario. 

You mean, in all your long WW2 CM carrier, it happened only once to you??

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, PEB14 said:

You mean, in all your long WW2 CM carrier, it happened only once to you??

Yes confirmed I had a few mobility kill but not destroyed.

[Brille]

I guess many players don´t consider to fire artillery at tanks in the ww2 games. It takes long to arrive, if no trp is available at the location, and vehicles/tanks are usually mobile enough to outrun concentrated fire.

So even if artillery is used against tanks, most players would do the most logical thing and move them out of the way. Arty is known for its area denial ability, not just against infantry but this is rarely used in game.

But if one pushes it´s luck and let the tanks stay in the hot zone and bunched up together, one is asking for trouble.

In my CMx2 career I witnessed maybe a handful of incidents where one of the opponents or my tanks got hit by artillery and destroyed in the same way. But as far as I remember I never intentionally used artillery against tanks ... at least in the WW2 games (open topped vehicles are another story).

One incident that sticked in my memory was against the ai: It was in CMFB in the KG Peiper campaign.

I had a line of Panthers parked in a town, waiting for the infantry to clear some enemy held buildings up front. Suddenly the ai unleashed a concentrated 105mm artillery barrage that landed directly on my Panthers. 2 of them where totally destroyed and burning and 1 got immobilized. I rage quitted that battle for the day hahaha.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Brille

[chuckdyke]

Yes the way the 25 PDRs took out the Stug III it was in the last remaining pocket few turns to go and my last barrage was heavy on maximum. Surprised behind a building a cloud of black smoke in the after action saw the spotter was credited with a StugIII. 

[Halmbarte]

9 hours ago, PEB14 said:

OK. So disabling 2 tanks with a single barrage is just sheer luck from your experience?

Yes. I see a lot more immobilizations from near misses than direct hits. 

Another thing is the armor thickness of the target. For example, in CW, I had armor hiding in a village that was getting a 122mm rocket bombardment. A M48 took a direct hit on the rear deck and had some systems damage. A M113 suffered a near miss during the same barrage and was destroyed and the squad sheltering inside took multiple KIA. I've also seen BTRs get passengers killed by VT the went off nearby. 

H

[PEB14]

Fine!

So the conclusion of the discussion is quite clear: our friend Usually Hapless definitively needs to change his pseudo, as the chances to knock out 2 Panther in the same scenario thanks to a short 25 PDRs artillery barrage are quite slim…

And that's pretty good, because it shall be possible, but it certainly shouldn't be too common!

[Vacillator]

Sorry a bit late here.

After never having any tanks 'hit' by artillery, in my latest two PBEMs I've had a Panther KO'd in CMRT from a lucky hit in the engine compartment while advancing on an open road, and a Panther KO'd in CMFB after bogging and immobilising on a hidden road in the woods - two turns later a single 'lucky' (aka random) shot hit it in the engine compartment.

Bad luck yeah, maybe I had good luck for a few years previously?

[Bulletpoint]

In my experience, you have to be pretty lucky to take out tanks with artillery, and especially with the smaller or medium sized guns. But yes, if they hit directly on the thin top armour, they can definitely knock out a tank.

Had a game where I got desperate to clear out some Shermans from a town, and I plastered the place with 150mm.. several shells landing pretty much right next to the tanks. But they didn't get knocked out.

Regarding this mission, if I remember right the enemy tanks are set to withdraw at some point, either if you reach a trigger zone or if enough time passes. I remember it as a pretty difficult scenario, and if it was really UH's first go at it, then he did very well. My first try ended in disaster because I tried to go the other way and line up my tanks to form a base of fire. The Panthers have much better LOF through those orchards than I thought they would.

On my second attempt, I did pretty much what OH does in his video, apart from the shelling of the tanks.

Edited September 3, 2023 by Bulletpoint

[PEB14]

@Bulletpoint

UH is a great player and a formidable AAR storyteller, and as such a great source of inspiration, at least for me. (The above post wasn't meant to be direspectful, absolutely not!) All the way through playing the Scottish Corridor campaign I like to watch his videos and compare our strategies and performances. When I managed to do better than him (on two occasions), I was pretty proud ! Comparison leads also to very strange results, sometimes the results achieved at the end of missions are quite... surprising!

Indeed this mission 10 is a difficult one. Even more difficult that it should, because you generally win the previous one by a large margin, and so one generally has to play the "hard" version of "Going to Church".

I myself had tried something similar to Usually Hapless' plan (flanking movement along the railway). Unfortunately the Panther indeed have good LOS through the orchards and, even though I tried to hide my tanks behind the buildings, after one half hour I had lost two or three tanks and a dozen of casualties and achieved absolutely nothing. I asked for a ceasefire to preserve my forces and took the loss.

It's now mission 11 but to be honest I'm not motivated anymore. I now have to play a meeting engagement on the same map (that I don't like) again, with the same crappy, 57 mm Churchills against Panther, and after 10 missions of British suffering I'm losing focus and motivation... I've waited one month to start the mission, and I haven't played it for one week now...

I think this campaign is just too long...

[Paper Tiger]

On 9/4/2023 at 1:23 PM, PEB14 said:

@Bulletpoint

UH is a great player and a formidable AAR storyteller, and as such a great source of inspiration, at least for me. (The above post wasn't meant to be direspectful, absolutely not!) All the way through playing the Scottish Corridor campaign I like to watch his videos and compare our strategies and performances. When I managed to do better than him (on two occasions), I was pretty proud ! Comparison leads also to very strange results, sometimes the results achieved at the end of missions are quite... surprising!

Indeed this mission 10 is a difficult one. Even more difficult that it should, because you generally win the previous one by a large margin, and so one generally has to play the "hard" version of "Going to Church".

I myself had tried something similar to Usually Hapless' plan (flanking movement along the railway). Unfortunately the Panther indeed have good LOS through the orchards and, even though I tried to hide my tanks behind the buildings, after one half hour I had lost two or three tanks and a dozen of casualties and achieved absolutely nothing. I asked for a ceasefire to preserve my forces and took the loss.

It's now mission 11 but to be honest I'm not motivated anymore. I now have to play a meeting engagement on the same map (that I don't like) again, with the same crappy, 57 mm Churchills against Panther, and after 10 missions of British suffering I'm losing focus and motivation... I've waited one month to start the mission, and I haven't played it for one week now...

I think this campaign is just too long...

I've been considering splitting this one up into two, shorter campaigns- one for the 9th Cameronians and the other for the 2nd ASH. There's no real overlap for these two stories. No promises but I would like to drop the difficulty down a notch. I watched Hapless' video series on this campaign and it did make me reconsider the difficulty. After all, not many of us are lucky enough to get out work played like this and I would like to encourage it rather than 'embarrass' the good folks who do. It was meant to be a HARD campaign, after all, it was a very hard operation but I think the last two Grainville missions need to be toned down and that JgPzIV in mission 2 subbed for something a little less intimidating.

[PEB14]

7 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

I've been considering splitting this one up into two, shorter campaigns- one for the 9th Cameronians and the other for the 2nd ASH. There's no real overlap for these two stories. No promises but I would like to drop the difficulty down a notch. I watched Hapless' video series on this campaign and it did make me reconsider the difficulty. After all, not many of us are lucky enough to get out work played like this and I would like to encourage it rather than 'embarrass' the good folks who do. It was meant to be a HARD campaign, after all, it was a very hard operation but I think the last two Grainville missions need to be toned down and that JgPzIV in mission 2 subbed for something a little less intimidating.

@Paper Tiger

Since the post you've quoted, I've finished the campaign, achieving a Tactical Victory. This was my first "serious" campaign so I'm pretty satisfied with the result. Therefore I'm a little surprised to have the campaign rated as "too difficult"! I suffered only two defeats and one draw as a newbie… (And the scoring leading to the draw is highly debatable! ). Isn't a campaign too difficult when it's simply hard to achieve a final victory?

Regarding the JgPzIV in mission 2: I personnally met a StuG, which probably means that the JgPzIV is only for the "elite" mission path… I also achieved Total Victories in the last two Grainville missions, so I don't feel you need to tone them done — except perhaps those from the "elite" mission path… but isn't it supposed to be challenging?

On the other hand I agree with you that splitting the campaign in two (Cameronians/ASH) would have made it more enjoyable to me, as both focus and overall stakes would be clearer.

I enjoyed the first half of the campaign very much. Fun missions of very different kinds with different tools at hand. But the whole Grainville affair sounded too repetitive to me.

More generally, while defensive missions lead to some epic stories to tell, I feel there are too much of them in the Scottish Corridor. Whatever the author's gifts, I think the AI scripting is too basic to produce varied and convincing attacks; assaults generally turn into bloodbaths, during which a brainless AI attacker tries to submerge the human side with hordes of infantry and tanks (and artillery). Enjoyable once but not in the long run…

The amount of work you needed to manage campaign's branching must simply be astonishing. The choice to have different levels of missions obviously helps the weakest players while providing more challenge for the better ones; but it also leads to some frustrating results, as it significantly lessens the impact of successes and defeats. You can fail to take a key position, or to exit troops as requested: you will progress to the next mission anyway, and the tactical situation at the beginning of the next mission will generally be the same whenever you won or lost the previous one. So the message delivered from this design might be understood as: forget the mission and spare your men, wether you achieve your assigned objectives or not, the results will be the same in the long run.

I was also frustrated by scoring sometimes. By example, in mission 2: I achieved all assigned objectives, except my own force preservation ratio. Our friend Usually Hapless deliberately stopped his effort to spare his forces for the next missions: doing so he scored better than I did !

My preferred mission? The bonus one. You've got pretty much all toys available to do the job: Churchill of all brands, SP guns, tank destroyers, engineers, artillery (from mortars to heavy howitzers), planes). And those Tiger II… How enjoyable to knock them out…

The one I disliked the most ? Grainville Château. You don't have many tactical choices (only one, obvious one…), the time allowance is ridiculously short (a general issue with most of your Scottish Corridor scenarios IMHO)… and in the version I played, the German IG gun was in position to cover diagonally the British approach to the Château's southernmost border hedges: I was butchered. (Interestingly, none of the players who published AAR on Youtube faced this German deployment). Terrible and not funny at all, as you can do nothing against it (no time!).

All in all I learned a lot thanks to this campaign; I'm certainly a better player after playing it, so I MUST thank you for designing it !

 

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, PEB14 said:

Since the post you've quoted, I've finished the campaign, achieving a Tactical Victory.

When folks post their results it would be helpful to specify the experience level (eg: Elite or...?) and that it was either WEGO or Real Time.  Can make a big difference.  But, thanks for the interesting post.  It's great that PT is reworking many of his xnt campaigns.

[PEB14]

12 hours ago, Erwin said:

When folks post their results it would be helpful to specify the experience level (eg: Elite or...?) and that it was either WEGO or Real Time.  Can make a big difference.  But, thanks for the interesting post.  It's great that PT is reworking many of his xnt campaigns.

Elite (I only play at that level) and WEGO.

And thanks for the kind word!

[Erwin]

Elite WEGO is the way to go! 

 

[Paper Tiger]

On 12/11/2023 at 12:25 AM, PEB14 said:

@Paper Tiger

Since the post you've quoted, I've finished the campaign, achieving a Tactical Victory. This was my first "serious" campaign so I'm pretty satisfied with the result. Therefore I'm a little surprised to have the campaign rated as "too difficult"! I suffered only two defeats and one draw as a newbie… (And the scoring leading to the draw is highly debatable! ). Isn't a campaign too difficult when it's simply hard to achieve a final victory?

Regarding the JgPzIV in mission 2: I personnally met a StuG, which probably means that the JgPzIV is only for the "elite" mission path… I also achieved Total Victories in the last two Grainville missions, so I don't feel you need to tone them done — except perhaps those from the "elite" mission path… but isn't it supposed to be challenging?

On the other hand I agree with you that splitting the campaign in two (Cameronians/ASH) would have made it more enjoyable to me, as both focus and overall stakes would be clearer.

I enjoyed the first half of the campaign very much. Fun missions of very different kinds with different tools at hand. But the whole Grainville affair sounded too repetitive to me.

More generally, while defensive missions lead to some epic stories to tell, I feel there are too much of them in the Scottish Corridor. Whatever the author's gifts, I think the AI scripting is too basic to produce varied and convincing attacks; assaults generally turn into bloodbaths, during which a brainless AI attacker tries to submerge the human side with hordes of infantry and tanks (and artillery). Enjoyable once but not in the long run…

The amount of work you needed to manage campaign's branching must simply be astonishing. The choice to have different levels of missions obviously helps the weakest players while providing more challenge for the better ones; but it also leads to some frustrating results, as it significantly lessens the impact of successes and defeats. You can fail to take a key position, or to exit troops as requested: you will progress to the next mission anyway, and the tactical situation at the beginning of the next mission will generally be the same whenever you won or lost the previous one. So the message delivered from this design might be understood as: forget the mission and spare your men, wether you achieve your assigned objectives or not, the results will be the same in the long run.

I was also frustrated by scoring sometimes. By example, in mission 2: I achieved all assigned objectives, except my own force preservation ratio. Our friend Usually Hapless deliberately stopped his effort to spare his forces for the next missions: doing so he scored better than I did !

My preferred mission? The bonus one. You've got pretty much all toys available to do the job: Churchill of all brands, SP guns, tank destroyers, engineers, artillery (from mortars to heavy howitzers), planes). And those Tiger II… How enjoyable to knock them out…

The one I disliked the most ? Grainville Château. You don't have many tactical choices (only one, obvious one…), the time allowance is ridiculously short (a general issue with most of your Scottish Corridor scenarios IMHO)… and in the version I played, the German IG gun was in position to cover diagonally the British approach to the Château's southernmost border hedges: I was butchered. (Interestingly, none of the players who published AAR on Youtube faced this German deployment). Terrible and not funny at all, as you can do nothing against it (no time!).

All in all I learned a lot thanks to this campaign; I'm certainly a better player after playing it, so I MUST thank you for designing it !

 

That was helpful, thanks. Perhaps I'm not phrasing it properly but my concern is mostly about the 'fun' aspect of the campaign - it's hard and (IMO anyway) mostly fair but it's not always fun. I'm not sure how much 'fun' I can create from such a campaign as the weather was appalling at the start and when it cleared, they ran into a tidal wave of SS counterattacks as we see at Grainville. I intend to leave the difficulty as is though. Defensive missions are the hardest to do well because the AI just follows orders blindly regardless of what is obviously happening around them.

I tried to vary the Grainville missions so that they're all distinctly different, attacks coming from different directions, new areas of the map exposed,  but you're right, it does get a bit repetitive.

With regards to scoring, I really don't want to tinker with that as it would require new artwork and I'm trying to avoid that. The VP conditions in the Road to Cheux mission encourage you to contest the VP location and keep your casualties below 20% while killing the enemy units for VPs.

IIRC, watching Hapless' videos of the two opening missions, he didn't use smoke very much at all. The Brits have the ability to generate a lot of smoke on the battlefield which allows them to infiltrate enemy positions and I used it ALL THE TIME when playing as the Brits. It's like their superpower.  I suspect if you use smoke more frequently, it's not so hard to get good results when you're on the attack.

The reason why you don't see others get the same set up in a mission is that most, if not all missions have at least 2 distinctly different AI plans. Chateau is a very small mission so it's probably got more. It's been SO long since I played any of these missions that I can't remember what it's designed to do but I'll have the last of the new core units imported into these last three missions later today and I'll give that one a spin first to see if there is anything wrong. I don't like forcing one approach to win at all - thus the different AI plans which usually counter one approach hard but are weak against others.

I'm thinking about what to do with this revision - it seems a bit pointless to just remake them and post them as you can just play the Scottish Corridor from the 'disk' and it will be the same, only much longer. I already have some ideas about using triggers to make AI attacks more effective and to add some new AI groups to the larger attacks. I enjoy scripting AI attacks and I remember enjoying these as the Germans get the fun toys to play with. In the end, the real fun in the The Scottish Corridor belongs to the designer who gets to 'play' around with some of the coolest WW2 kit. I'll see what i can do to improve these AI plans.

If anyone has noticed anything weird, let me know. I tried reading one of the longer, old threads on the campaign here but most of the 'feedback' in its 10+ pages is just embarrassing to read now. I am more than open to adding a little extra time to certain missions for starters - perhaps the first two ASH missions need a bit more time? Let me know what you think.

[wolfgang500]

I am late here, too, sorry. My experience with Scottish Corridor is twofold. (I am playing iron). The first thing is that it is a very hard campaign indeed, and as a player you have to be top motivated to play to the end. Yes, it is frustating to run into counteratttacks all the time, and your Infantery being whittled away. But I like this sort of thing as compared to sniffing a platoon of infantry through a dense forrest searching for Cinderella or Schneewittchen or through a village. Here comes into play my second point : I always try to stick to reality as much as possible (that´s my hobby). And in reality Operation Epsom wasn´t a children´s party, right? In the end, after gaining some useless bocage country it proved  a costly failure. And this is what this campaign is mirrowing - quite correctly, as I believe.
However, we all are here to have fun playing and there is some advice I can give according to my experience. (I learned it the hard way and quit mid-campaign twice before finishing my third attempt). The main thing is to preserve your infantry even in the first couple of missions. I would rather accept a less than total victory, even a small defeat, if that victory would come with heavy casualties. The Churchills are not so much a problem, but take care of them, too. You will need the infantry badly later on. As the Arty is concerned it is wise to use it extensively but also economically: more than in some other campaigns/scenarios you should judge beforehand where it would probably pay to lay a barrage - never fire "out of the cuffs" because that might be a lonely MG or a sniper and the MLR might be further back. And yes, it pays to lay a barrage on stationary tanks if you have identified them positively. In reality the SS commander would move them out of course, but AI often fails to do that.
Ok, I apologise to everybody who knew this wisdom before (most of you, I suppose) and wish much fun. I will try Scottish Corridor again very soon, this thread created some appetite ...
P.S.: To answer the original question: It is quite realistic to hope that accurate artillery fire affects tanks - even in WWII environment. There are many reports from German participants that sights were rendered useless, tracks being shed off or even heavy damage done to the tank by penetrating turret tops or engine covers which were only lighty armored even on Panthers or Tigers. For details read Helmut Ritgen: The History of Panzerlehrdivision. I think it´s available in English, too

[PEB14]

11 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

That was helpful, thanks. Perhaps I'm not phrasing it properly but my concern is mostly about the 'fun' aspect of the campaign - it's hard and (IMO anyway) mostly fair but it's not always fun. I'm not sure how much 'fun' I can create from such a campaign as the weather was appalling at the start and when it cleared, they ran into a tidal wave of SS counterattacks as we see at Grainville. I intend to leave the difficulty as is though. Defensive missions are the hardest to do well because the AI just follows orders blindly regardless of what is obviously happening around them.

I tried to vary the Grainville missions so that they're all distinctly different, attacks coming from different directions, new areas of the map exposed,  but you're right, it does get a bit repetitive.

I see your point.

I enjoyed missions 1, 3, 5, 9 and bonus a lot. Great fun.

Missions 7 and 8 were slightly below, but still very enjoyable to me.

I played badly Mission 2 but that was 100% on me.

i was lucky on Mission 4 and achieved a good result, but that was certainly not the funniest of them all.

Mission 6 was VERY frustrating. The briefing called for a cakewalk but I ended pinned down and decimated by well sited HMG and mortars (those cooks are definitively well armed... ). Frustration was enhanced by the fact that I only achieved a draw for one casualty... Damn thresholds... And add to it the fact that, whether you exit troops or not, your situation is the same at the beginning of the next mission...

Mission 10 was also very frustrating. Just look at Double Vision and Usually Hapless AAR's and you'll get the point. You can play it the cheesy and lucky way (UH) - and score a win, or deploy treasures of imagination and lose in the end (DV). This is the only mission is ceasefired - and considering the tactical situation I never regretted. I was pleased to see that the following mission was highly influenced by this decision, though: good point IMHO.

Missions 11, 13, 14: you said everything: variations around a theme. Repetitive, but it taught me to defend with tanks. I fell in love with those Churchill VII...

Mission 12: as I said, I don't believe it offers much in terms of tactical options. By far the least interesting mission of the campaign. I remmeber that Double Vision played it very skillfully though.

 

11 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

IIRC, watching Hapless' videos of the two opening missions, he didn't use smoke very much at all. The Brits have the ability to generate a lot of smoke on the battlefield which allows them to infiltrate enemy positions and I used it ALL THE TIME when playing as the Brits. It's like their superpower.  I suspect if you use smoke more frequently, it's not so hard to get good results when you're on the attack.

You're perfectly correct. In Mission 1, I chose a different approach from DV and UH, leading a two-front attack. The one on the right was heavily supported with smoke (artillery and light moratrs); it achieved excellent results. I missed Total Victory only because I screwed up a couple of attacks on the left front. My bad.

By the way, there is an issue with this Mission 1: the balance of German forces is so that you can have the whole German force surrender without even attacking the left flank objective. That's something you could enhance.

 

11 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

If anyone has noticed anything weird, let me know. I tried reading one of the longer, old threads on the campaign here but most of the 'feedback' in its 10+ pages is just embarrassing to read now. I am more than open to adding a little extra time to certain missions for starters - perhaps the first two ASH missions need a bit more time? Let me know what you think.

Nearly all offensive missions (including the bonus one) could do with some more time! You're really harsh with time allowance.

Weird issues? AI offensive attacks may lead to some weird behaviours, but I think it's unavoidable.

As already mentioned, some missions scoring is sometimes weird IMHO.

And the lack of consequences for some missions failure lead to weird situations sometimes... But that's a matter of general campaign design, not of the single missions.

 

Thanks for taking the time to listen to feedback!

 

[Paper Tiger]

No problem, constructive feedback is always welcome and exchanges like this help clarify my objectives.

Mission 1 - early surrender - that's an easy fix - just add some reinforcements to the German OB that never arrive and they'll fight on a bit longer. However, this will inflate the German player OK soldiers count at the end and make it look like you were fighting a larger force, I was insanely proud of how tiny but effective the defending force was in that mission - I put a LOT of work into the AI anticipating the player moves etc and it paid off. And the icing on the cake was people's reaction when they found the enemy force was so small at the end - they thought they were fighting a large force. That was 10+ years ago though and the moment has passed so I think I'll add another squad or two to the German OB as reinforcements that never arrive to delay the surrender. 

I've already added an extra 10 minutes to the first missions of both campaigns (1 and 4 as you mentioned above).

Mission 10 - that's the Going to Church mission, right? That was a historical loss and there is a good account of it. I was again insanely proud of the mission too because the enemy force is very small but effectively placed. Not only that but when I read the first-hand account of a tanker's experience in that battle, I was surprised that it generally gave you the same experience, especially when you turn the corner at the bocage line and see the church clearly at the top before the 'fun' starts. I don't want to change anything with that one as you're supposed to lose it but if you can get a win, kudos and you get a different mission to follow.

Mission 6 was 'Ten out of Ten', right? I can add a bit more time. Again, reading the historical account of that action will suggest a way to win that one and it works in this mission - no spoilers. But I'll have a look at it - perhaps just another 10 minutes will do the job or maybe some extra artillery that's not core. I'll have a look anyway.

Mission 12 has to be the Chateau mission, right? That's definitely going to get a look at. I wanted it to be a fun mission so I'll try and focus on the fun part there. But it may just be that you got an AI plan that really stuffed up your chances. I'm definitely going to replay that one a few times.

I'm glad you enjoyed the Mondraineville mission (5) as it was meant to be fun - lots of light forces on both sides. Hapless had a bad experience there - I'll have to re-watch his videos of missions 4 and 5 because I recall he went to the Green branch after losing mission 5 which must have hurt a bit. IIRC, he didn't USE Company B very effectively in mission 4 because exiting it off the map was important but I used it as a fighting force and took some casualties but won it handily. As I said, I watched these videos earlier this year (around April) and may be misrecalling. I just remember feeling sorry that he didn't get a win and that was my fault as I was really enjoying the series.  I think there is a psychology that comes into play when you use these types of victory conditions, similar to what we observe when you set a Preserve Order in CMSF - players treat it as a DON'T DESTROY' condition when all it does is reduce the overall total number of points earned at the end - as long as your casualties are low enough, you still win big and the enemy gets no VPs for you failing to earn the points. That's my thinking anyway. I have some time this evening so I'll watch those two videos again.

 

Now, consequences. That's definitely possible to do with a rework because I've spilt the campaign into two smaller ones and so it will be easier to keep track of the variations that would be required. The 'consequence' was that you went to the Green branch if you lost but you still followed the same line as if you won it. It was a cool idea back then which addressed the complaint that people expected to be able to complete the campaigns on the disk that they paid for. Since this is a free rework and playing it is entirely voluntary, I have no such qualms. Of course, extensive reworks of missions to have real consequences beyond going Green will take quite a bit of time to do but why not?

[PEB14]

9 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

Mission 10 - that's the Going to Church mission, right? That was a historical loss and there is a good account of it. I was again insanely proud of the mission too because the enemy force is very small but effectively placed.

Yeah!

I understood that losing the mission was part of the campaign basic plan when I discovered that the outcome did branch the campaign beyond Green/Insane rating. That's fine with me!

 

9 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

Mission 12 has to be the Chateau mission, right? That's definitely going to get a look at. I wanted it to be a fun mission so I'll try and focus on the fun part there. But it may just be that you got an AI plan that really stuffed up your chances. I'm definitely going to replay that one a few times.

IMHO there are several issues with Chateau. The first one is, given the briefing and time schedule, there is only one reasonable tactical approach to the Chateau itself - the one UH and DV followed (and so did I obviously). This is not really an issue, but it becomes one when combined with the very tight time allowance: you get no margin: no possibility to modify your approach by example, no time to rely on anything else but blind mortar bombing, no possibility to redirect the air support... After that approach phase, the scenario seems to turn into a very technical assault on the building complex (ses the escellent DV AAR) that might be fun - but I'll never know because of the second issue.

I tried to analyse what went differently in my game compared with UH's and DV's. It looks like I got the less frequent AI plan, AND that within this AI plan the German 75mm IG got deployed in the right place (from the AI point of view, obviously ) to cover the main route of approach (the only reasonable one...) towards the Chateau. Combined with the above (no time for alternative approach/redirection of air attack/correct mortar barrage), it ruined my game.

If I had got 20 more minutes, things may have turned completely differently: I wouldn't have called a (useless...) preplanned mortar barrage on some irrelevant hedgerow, I would have have stopped my attack until my aircraft was redirected towards the IG, etc...

 

9 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

I'm glad you enjoyed the Mondraineville mission (5) as it was meant to be fun - lots of light forces on both sides. Hapless had a bad experience there - I'll have to re-watch his videos of missions 4 and 5 because I recall he went to the Green branch after losing mission 5 which must have hurt a bit. IIRC, he didn't USE Company B very effectively in mission 4 because exiting it off the map was important but I used it as a fighting force and took some casualties but won it handily. As I said, I watched these videos earlier this year (around April) and may be misrecalling. I just remember feeling sorry that he didn't get a win and that was my fault as I was really enjoying the series.  I think there is a psychology that comes into play when you use these types of victory conditions, similar to what we observe when you set a Preserve Order in CMSF - players treat it as a DON'T DESTROY' condition when all it does is reduce the overall total number of points earned at the end - as long as your casualties are low enough, you still win big and the enemy gets no VPs for you failing to earn the points. That's my thinking anyway. I have some time this evening so I'll watch those two videos again.

Yes, lot of unusual and varied forces in Mondrainville. Plus it's a meeting engagement, which adds to the fun. I remember that one of those AT gun and supporting HMG caused me pain til the very end. I didn't achieve a Total Victory but it was very funny to play. IMHO AI plans were among the best of the campaign, leading to a challenging yet realistic battle.

IIRCUH screwed up Mission 4 because he failed to get from the briefing the importance of exiting that Commpany (was it B Co?). I was surprised because the briefing was very clear to me.

I agree with you that having to exit one company refrains the player from using it offensively. Finally, I felt Mission 4 bloody as usual (f***g mines!) but not overly difficult in the end. I think I was lucky though, when I disabled that IG gun without even noticing...

 

9 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:

Now, consequences. That's definitely possible to do with a rework because I've spilt the campaign into two smaller ones and so it will be easier to keep track of the variations that would be required. The 'consequence' was that you went to the Green branch if you lost but you still followed the same line as if you won it. It was a cool idea back then which addressed the complaint that people expected to be able to complete the campaigns on the disk that they paid for. Since this is a free rework and playing it is entirely voluntary, I have no such qualms. Of course, extensive reworks of missions to have real consequences beyond going Green will take quite a bit of time to do but why not?

I perfectly understand why you designed the campaign as you did: basically it helps weaker player and adds chellenge to the better ones. Fine and sound.

My approach to a campaign is more along the "actions and consequences" line: if you fail a critical mission, either you lose the campaign, or you shall pay a price in later missions of the campaigns. (Or the other way round, obviously.) That's how I've built the campaign I'm presenty working on.

Both approaches have pros and cons:

• Green/Insane branches pros: campaign is suitable for players of any level; players can withstand bad luck or poor choices at the wrong time and still go on.
• Green/Insane branches cons: players are not encouraged to win missions (as they will get penalties if they win and no bad consequence if they lose). So it encourages procrastination and force preservation, with is ALREADY the basic premise of a campaign... Also, campaign consistency may be so-so (the forces you failed to exit on time in Mission X appear at the right place at the right moment during Mission X+1...).
• Actions and consequences pros: campaign consistency is good, and players are encouraged to win mission. Force preservation comes at a cost... More realistic campaign overall.
• Actions and consequences cons: players can be ousted out of the campaign fairly quickly; players will pay mistakes and bad luck potentially til the campaign's end; also, designer shall be able to provide coherent branching, including ahistorical paths, and shall manage the rewards/penalties associated with the successive missions' results.

Regarding the Scottish Corridor: you somehow mixed both approaches. The general design is undoubtely along the Green/Insane branches way, but the outcome of "Going to Church" clearly belongs to the Actions and consequences approach.

My only real clue is, you probably got too tolerant regarding defeats. I mean, there are some critical battles that you just can't afford to lose...

By the way, this reminds me of an inconsistency regarding the campaign briefing. IIRC the campaign briefing states that you cannot afford to lose any of the Granville missions, otherwise the campaign would end. This is clearly not true. You might check that.