How do you beat soviet mission 3?

[SHVAKS]

How do you beat this one?
This is a significant difficulty bump from mission 1 and 2. In this mission I have neither advantage in fire power nor space to manuver. 
The forward observer which is supposed to be on the field from the start does not appear, so the opening 10 minutes I only have two mortar batteries plus 8 extremely unrealiable cluster bombs which are very ineffective on bradleys. I'm playing on elite so I can only get the real fire missions going after 10(1 company arrives) + 5(time to get the observers into place, when they are not deleted by bradleys) + 12-16 minutes to actually call down the fire missions. My fire plan simply do not exist so my other plans have no chance of succeeding

I can clear some enemy positions after much casualty and fighting with RNG but any bradley position in a wooded area will block me enough to kill momentum and get the btrs clustered. Not mentioning the surprise that comes into play at 25 min mark which I can't counter nor hide from if I am forcing myself to play blind. When the infantry ATGMs arrive it is already too late.

I am wondering if the design here is to just force the player to surrender and take the losses and move onto the next mission. The attack was shattered and the russians chose somewhere else to attack. Makes perfect sense to me but on the other hand I have no skills at CM. Could anyone please provide some tips on how to reliably beat this without savescumming or using hindsight?

[wolfgang500]

Which campaign are you talking about?

[SHVAKS]

1 hour ago, wolfgang500 said:

Which campaign are you talking about?

Soviet campaign, normal version

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

This mission? I haven't played it but this is just one of the playthroughs on YouTube

MMM

[SHVAKS]

5 hours ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said:

This mission? I haven't played it but this is just one of the playthroughs on YouTube

MMM

Already watched this video several times. My general strategy is the same as this video, going through the left side to get more cover and fight in close range. However a lot of the things shown in this video seems to work because of RNG. It also rarely shows the top down view on the map, so I don't entirely know if I am doing something different than the video says.
By "one of the playthroughs", are there any more video playthroughs on YT? To my knowledge this is the only video playthrough available on the internet. Searching "combat mission cold war soviet mission3", "combat mission cold war soviet campaign" or "combat mission cold war nuke and bypass" will give you several playlists but they are all the same.

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

I remember seeing more than one video of that campaign, pretty sure @Grey_Fox did a series but not sure if he did that mission. 

[Simcoe]

Honestly, you should save yourself a lot of heartache and save scum the opening few rounds. 

Make sure you take out a few of the Bradley's that have sight lines into your forces spawn points. Also, keep restarting if you lose any FO's.

The rest isn't too bad. Use your fist wave to take out the brafleys on the left hill then use the next wave to move on the right. Have both waves mutually support eachother.

[The_Capt]

Go left.

[M.Herm]

On 9/20/2023 at 3:40 AM, SHVAKS said:

How do you beat this one?
This is a significant difficulty bump from mission 1 and 2. In this mission I have neither advantage in fire power nor space to manuver. 
The forward observer which is supposed to be on the field from the start does not appear, so the opening 10 minutes I only have two mortar batteries plus 8 extremely unrealiable cluster bombs which are very ineffective on bradleys. I'm playing on elite so I can only get the real fire missions going after 10(1 company arrives) + 5(time to get the observers into place, when they are not deleted by bradleys) + 12-16 minutes to actually call down the fire missions. My fire plan simply do not exist so my other plans have no chance of succeeding

I can clear some enemy positions after much casualty and fighting with RNG but any bradley position in a wooded area will block me enough to kill momentum and get the btrs clustered. Not mentioning the surprise that comes into play at 25 min mark which I can't counter nor hide from if I am forcing myself to play blind. When the infantry ATGMs arrive it is already too late.

I am wondering if the design here is to just force the player to surrender and take the losses and move onto the next mission. The attack was shattered and the russians chose somewhere else to attack. Makes perfect sense to me but on the other hand I have no skills at CM. Could anyone please provide some tips on how to reliably beat this without savescumming or using hindsight?

 

Hello, you should update your campaign. It got reworked. You have two Aircrafts for CAS, the two mortars, Cluster and a heavy artillery asset from the beginning. With two FOs, one as air controller.

 

Reworked campaign 

https://battlefront.sharefile.com/share/view/s6826f342dd2d4beca70a3b4ef5b23912/fod6cb39-505e-4a66-bf19-409119affd0e

That video is from me, the cluster bombs are annoying, but they come in more frequently only at the end, surely it is bad luck, as in my video when your AD does not shoot down the US Aircraft. There are only four firing positions, placing ATGMs there will deal with every problem you come along.

I played the scenario some month ago again for the march or die playthrough, all fine, annoying how less damage the artillery sometimes only deals.

By the way, what is RNG ? (Not a native English speaker)

Greetings

M.Herm

 

edit: March or DIe

Edited October 6, 2023 by M.H.

[M.Herm]

To make my point clear, here a graphic depiction of what I mean.

 

[SHVAKS]

On 10/6/2023 at 4:58 AM, M.H. said:

To make my point clear, here a graphic depiction of what I mean.

 

Thank you M.Herm, after much trying and save scumming on my end I managed to get a total victory with some casualties. I saw your graphical depiction afterwards and it is basically the same plan I took.

On 10/5/2023 at 10:48 PM, M.H. said:

 

Hello, you should update your campaign. It got reworked. You have two Aircrafts for CAS, the two mortars, Cluster and a heavy artillery asset from the beginning. With two FOs, one as air controller.

 

Reworked campaign 

https://battlefront.sharefile.com/share/view/s6826f342dd2d4beca70a3b4ef5b23912/fod6cb39-505e-4a66-bf19-409119affd0e

That video is from me, the cluster bombs are annoying, but they come in more frequently only at the end, surely it is bad luck, as in my video when your AD does not shoot down the US Aircraft. There are only four firing positions, placing ATGMs there will deal with every problem you come along.

I played the scenario some month ago again for the march or die playthrough, all fine, annoying how less damage the artillery sometimes only deals.

By the way, what is RNG ? (Not a native English speaker)

Greetings

M.Herm

 

edit: March or DIe

I saw the reworked campaign post long before this post, however I am playing on the steam version so I assume it is auto updated into the game. I got the bombers, mortars and artys, but the arty FO does not show up, presumely because I am winning too hard in the last mission (which never made any sense to me), So I am forced to play the opening with the two bombers and mortars. Is the reworked campaign a standalone update that one must download even if they are playing the steam version?

 

The graphical depiction of the battleplan you showed is basically the same plan I worked out with the help of your playthroughs on youtube. However I think it is affected too much by RNG (random number generator, commonly used to describe randomness in games) that it has a very high chance to fail even if one executes it well and knows enemy positions beforehand. Let's go through the problems of this plan:

1. Because the tanks come in piecemeal as platoons and not as a full company, you cannot use them to effectively engage the bradleys at any time, except for the final push through the left flank. In each wave of the attack, the only effective weapon to fight the bradleys are one tank platoon and one AT platoon (sustained loss in last mission), so you either goes against the soviet doctrine of "using a company to crush a platoon" and engage the bradleys, or you do nothing at all and lose momentum.

2. Wait a minute, you say, there are additional ATGM dismounts that you can use! Speaking of them, I find them very ineffective except for the 2500m range ones that comes after wave #3. I even worked out all three 1000m ATGM positions on your battleplan myself without looking at your video, and I find those positions as underwhelming as the ATGMs themselves.

Location 1 (botton yellow dot in your image): I snuck ATGMs into that position starting from my first playthrough, they never spot anything throughout several tries and I eventually gave up on that building.

Location 2 (middle yellow dot in your image): I found this position after several tries. Getting there is very hard unless all bradleys on the left ridge is destroyed which makes this position unnecessary. In cases where my ATGM teams actually gets into this positions, they are engaging hull down bradleys from buildings, which is the least ideal location for them to be. Bradleys on left ridge are hull down to this position making them very hard to spot and be hit, and are in ideal positions to spot my launch and fire back. When my ATGM units fire, the backblast blind them causing a high chance to lose control of the missile. Out of 3-4 tries where I took this position, I managed to kill exactly one Bradley so I ended up not bothering taking them.

Location 3 (top yellow dot): This position is somewhat useful as they have better chance to engage the Bradleys on the left ridge and in the forested areas along the road. However it has the same problems as location 2: Bradleys are highly likely to spot the launch and take out the ATGM team, sometimes even when the missile is still in flight. I ended up only taking this position in my winning playthrough, took out around 3 Bradleys and sustained heavy losses while doing so.

Location 4 (red dot): the only good position in my opinion. Somehow the M60s are very reluctant to fire on this position even if they have very good view on it. Putting the long range ATGMs here will solve all the problems coming from M60s. 

3. Regarding my heavy arty, I was only able to get the FO as part of first wave and that's already very late. Given CM's modeling of the negligible effect arty has on heavy vehicles, it is very hard to use them to take out the bradleys. In my winning playthrough, I have expended all heavy arty assets on the Bradley platoon on left ridge and only took out two of them. 

4. Lastly, the enemy clusters come in very early into the mission and they don't stop. I don't know how many cluster bombing missions the AI player has in this mission but it feels like too many to the point of making me think it is bugged.

After finishing this mission I really think this is the worst CM mission I have seen so far. You can win but there is no fun to it, nor does it teach you anything besides the obvious"don't use BTR formations to attack Bradleys". Everything needs to go perfect in order for the plan to work and that's what you want to avoid in a scenario because it tells the player he wins because he is lucky. I am confused because there are missions like this for the soviets in the game while everyone seem to get that if there is a US mission where every Tow and Dragon missile needs to hit perfectly or otherwise you get steamrolled, it won't be a fun one. I really hope more QV gets applied to campaigns in future CM contents and QVs should actually be paid to test these missions. Seems like a very severe oversight that resulted in this abysmal experience.

[The_Capt]

Heh, you guys were warned. The Soviet campaign is not to be taken on lightly.  It was designed to be brutally realistic.  If a player can pull “fun” out of it (and they have), well good on them.  I think one has to be a special masochist to really enjoy some of these fights, but they are extremely realistic.  We pulled straight from Soviet and US doctrines, and period plans.  Eirterfeld is straight out of a staff wargame from back in the day.  We knew the CM crowd was not “casual” to begin with so catering to the upper end of challenge was a design decision early on.  

I saw one video of someone actually completing the Soviet campaign, respect.  So if you did not enjoy it, well that was kinda expected.  The US campaign is much more forgiving.  The NTC one is pretty kind as well.  The Soviet one is basically the CM version of Punishment mode, especially March or Die.  We knew this when we built and tested them.  Trust me, we dialled them back off historical difficulty.  Soviet tactical forces did not get a lot of time and space to plan,  So if Div or Regt Recce failed, and by the halfway point of a fight they would, then lead tactical units - who by this point are 2nd ech - were going to be driving into a lot of fights that look like this one.

S’ok to hate the Soviet Campaign…it can take it.

[SHVAKS]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Heh, you guys were warned. The Soviet campaign is not to be taken on lightly.  It was designed to be brutally realistic.  If a player can pull “fun” out of it (and they have), well good on them.  I think one has to be a special masochist to really enjoy some of these fights, but they are extremely realistic.  We pulled straight from Soviet and US doctrines, and period plans.  Eirterfeld is straight out of a staff wargame from back in the day.  We knew the CM crowd was not “casual” to begin with so catering to the upper end of challenge was a design decision early on.  

I saw one video of someone actually completing the Soviet campaign, respect.  So if you did not enjoy it, well that was kinda expected.  The US campaign is much more forgiving.  The NTC one is pretty kind as well.  The Soviet one is basically the CM version of Punishment mode, especially March or Die.  We knew this when we built and tested them.  Trust me, we dialled them back off historical difficulty.  Soviet tactical forces did not get a lot of time and space to plan,  So if Div or Regt Recce failed, and by the halfway point of a fight they would, then lead tactical units - who by this point are 2nd ech - were going to be driving into a lot of fights that look like this one.

S’ok to hate the Soviet Campaign…it can take it.

I fully get that the soviet campaign is designed to be brutally difficult. My frustration is not about the difficulty itself and I think you missed my point.
Plenty of games/simulators/interactive experiences were made brutally difficult and people still enjoy them one way or another. Difficulty itself does not prevent enjoyment and fun, it is what follows, or the lack thereof, that affects enjoyment of the player.

The problem with soviet mission 3 specifically is that I feel it does not provide anything when you beat this difficult scenario:

There is so much based on chance and luck in this scenario that executing the same strategy can lead to extremely varied results to the point that singular engagements start to greatly affect the result of the mission. The first two missions averted this pitfall well. In the first two missions you are not supposed to be stopped by a platoon of M60s or TOWs on a hill because you have the tools to solve the problem, and when you execute the soviet doctrine well, it will pay off in those missions. However in this one it doesn't seem to be the case. Your cluster didn't hit that Bradley which sees your FO in the first turn he showed up? Better reload the mission! You snuck into the best firing positions for your ATGMs? Better save now so you can savescum and not see them all gets taken out before their missile hits! It is a poor design choice because it doesn't mentally reward the player when the scenario is beaten. It reinforces the notion that "you win because you are lucky" or "you win because you have the power of hindsight and knows where the Bradleys are".

On your notion that the mission is unfair but is realistic: Being realistic doesn't magically make a good scenario in a wargame. Again this goes back to my previous point: You can have a US scenario where a single cut-off platoon with zero support defends against a Soviet company or more. Is it realistic? Probably, as this is exactly what Soviet doctrine is trying to achieve. Will is be a good scenario? Probably not. And I think both you and I understand why.

If you are going the full realistic route to showcase what would likely happen in "the real deal", what the soviet doctrine is about and especially its limitations, which I assume you are as you have posted this in various threads on Soviet campaign/doctrine, would it be better if the player gets a bit more context on what exactly you are expressing with these scenarios? As you provided the context that when Div or Regt Recce failed, the 2nd echelon will very likely drive into fights like this, it at least helped me make sense on why this scenario is here. So why isn't this info in game somewhere? All the player knows from the briefing is that the recon elements "found" the enemy and we must push through. No mention of forward recon elements being pinned down/destroyed or anything that indicates they are not doing their job. You can certainly use the realism argument on this as in real life the Soviet commander won't have perfect information either but the point is the lack of information like this prevents it from being the learning experience you intended it to be. Letting the player know about what happened, even after the campaign is done, would be a great way to provide context and make people appreciate this experience more.

[The_Capt]

17 hours ago, SHVAKS said:

If you are going the full realistic route to showcase what would likely happen in "the real deal", what the soviet doctrine is about and especially its limitations, which I assume you are as you have posted this in various threads on Soviet campaign/doctrine, would it be better if the player gets a bit more context on what exactly you are expressing with these scenarios?

Just going to pull on this one here.  So we knew from the start what audience this game was going to appeal to - I personally think that is probably the most important rule of design.  We knew exactly who we were designing for from the start - the obsessively detail orientated grognard.  If anyone else wanted to play the game, great, but the core audience was not the casual gamer.

So this meant that our audience within this community already likely knew more about Soviet doctrine than we did.  We decided very early on to focus less on hand-holding and more on realism over form, and let the customer pull the "fun" out of that.  This is very niche market focus.  So our core demographic is not looking at this scenario wondering what is going on, they already know that three battles in on this axis of Soviet advance is going to get pretty hard.  They also are not looking for luck, they are looking for a realistic starting position and then the ability to see how they would fair within it - that is the "fun".

Now of course we knew we could not make them all brutal so trade-offs were made and we scaled them to ensure we did not totally alienate.  The Soviet Campaign was specifically designed to cater to the truly crazy type who would find this fun...you were warned.  We put a LOT of content into this game - this on top of what CM delivers wrt editors and multiplayer options.  So we did not feel bad about making the really hard campaign.

*Spoilers below - read with caution*

Now as to your experience, well you are making some pretty wide assumptions here.  The first being that no skill can win this fight.  That is not true.  We beta-test every campaign and scenario and they do not pass until someone can beat them through skill.  Our beta testers are one skilled bunch an they found this one challenging, we scaled it back quite a bit to balance it better.  But they could beat it through skill.  They came up with some pretty creative ways to do it but it can be done.  My way, when I went through is what I typed up awhile back.. I went left.  The only real cover exists far left or right.  Left axis through the trees is a hard push but you avoid the Bradleys, while pounding them and has a lone US infantry platoon dug in which can be overrun.  Once you do that you are behind the urban area and can advance outside of the killzone.  The fact we dropped you right into a killzone at outset should be obvious, the challenge is to get out of it and still advance.

So you did not find this one fun?  Well there is a big ole editor and a bunch of master maps, go make one you do find fun.  There is also a really large community that does this for you so I encourage you to explore it out.  Just know we knew exactly what we were doing when we built the scenario.  This is not a failure in QA/QC, it is the direct result of those processes. This was not neglect or laziness, it was deliberate.  Scenario 4 in the campaign is also pretty hard, you are on defence on that one.  5 is more fun, we decided people needed a break.  And Alsfeld is one massive game of smash face in a culminating battle - I found that one to be a blast but not too many actually get to it. 

So difficulty does not preclude "fun"...for some.  And it was those "some" we were doing this game, and the Soviet Campaign in particular, for.  If that ain't you, well no worries, lots of other content to go and play.  A lot of really well balanced scenarios you can enjoy - (although I would really stay away from Valley of Ashes played from the Soviet side if you found this scenario "not fun", that one is brutal). 

[SHVAKS]

Thanks for the context behind your design philosophy. I have experience, although limited, designing games myself and I work in the game industry too so I always appreciate these kind of inside perspective. Now onto some of my responses:

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Just going to pull on this one here.  So we knew from the start what audience this game was going to appeal to - I personally think that is probably the most important rule of design.  We knew exactly who we were designing for from the start - the obsessively detail orientated grognard.  If anyone else wanted to play the game, great, but the core audience was not the casual gamer.

So this meant that our audience within this community already likely knew more about Soviet doctrine than we did.  We decided very early on to focus less on hand-holding and more on realism over form, and let the customer pull the "fun" out of that.  This is very niche market focus.  So our core demographic is not looking at this scenario wondering what is going on, they already know that three battles in on this axis of Soviet advance is going to get pretty hard.  They also are not looking for luck, they are looking for a realistic starting position and then the ability to see how they would fair within it - that is the "fun".

Now of course we knew we could not make them all brutal so trade-offs were made and we scaled them to ensure we did not totally alienate.  The Soviet Campaign was specifically designed to cater to the truly crazy type who would find this fun...you were warned.  We put a LOT of content into this game - this on top of what CM delivers wrt editors and multiplayer options.  So we did not feel bad about making the really hard campaign.

The core audience for CMCW is pretty obvious and I agree on your reasoning on why the campaign is made this way. However I don't think some extra hand-holding is going to dissuade the "obsessively detail orientated grognard" from enjoying the game in their own way. The whole idea of "hand-holding" to me is a bit biased to be honest, because it implies that it is dumbing down the experience and a lot of people here would have issues with that.

There is always a way you can provide an enjoyable experience for both the hardcore and casual audiences. And in the case of CMCW where you don't want to sacrifice realism, that is by providing bits and pieces of info in game to serve as hints, or if you feel that is too much, providing some extra background info and "behind the design of..." in the user manual would still be an improvement for the casual bunch.

I am not suggesting that 100% of the game should be comfortably beatable by your average casual gamer, that would be absurd. What I am suggesting is that there could other forms of gain for your average gamer when they can't beat some of these scenarios. As an example, people like me may repeatedly bash their heads on things like mission 3 and never beat it, hit the surrender button, then either walk away because there is nothing more the mission can offer, or be presented with an informative excerpt that tells them why this mission is so hard (hint: it is the real life) and some background on Soviet doctrine and the idea that this brutal encounter happened exactly because of such doctrines. I guarantee you if this is in the game, there will less people like me posting threads like "mission 3 bad" and more casual players will have a better appreciation of your efforts in crafting these scenarios even if the difficulty is not for them, and they may even start learning things themselves and eventually convert to your core audience. 

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Now as to your experience, well you are making some pretty wide assumptions here.  The first being that no skill can win this fight.  That is not true.  We beta-test every campaign and scenario and they do not pass until someone can beat them through skill.  Our beta testers are one skilled bunch an they found this one challenging, we scaled it back quite a bit to balance it better.  But they could beat it through skill.  They came up with some pretty creative ways to do it but it can be done.  My way, when I went through is what I typed up awhile back.. I went left.  The only real cover exists far left or right.  Left axis through the trees is a hard push but you avoid the Bradleys, while pounding them and has a lone US infantry platoon dug in which can be overrun.  Once you do that you are behind the urban area and can advance outside of the killzone.  The fact we dropped you right into a killzone at outset should be obvious, the challenge is to get out of it and still advance.

Again I'm sorry if my previous thread has some confusing wording, but "no skill can win this fight" is just not something I said or intended to say.

What I am saying is that regardless of whether skill is applied in mission 3, the player will not feel he won by skill. In my experience, I chose to go immediately to the left and hug the covers as soon as wave 1 showed up because I recognized it is Czechmate 2.0 and I am in a kill zone. After bashing my head on this mission 2-3 times, I watched M.Herm's video to get a rough idea on what I should be doing, then I did some more terrain analysis and found all the good locations for my ATGMs before M.Herm posted his illustration above (we ended up finding the same positions) however it doesn't really make the fight against the Bradleys on the left flank that much easier just become of random chances.

I think it would be reasonable for me to argue that there is at least some application of skill on my end, but it got canceled by the very "swingey" random chances that is part of CM. Lets arbitrarily assume that one needs to score 100 points to beat a mission, and getting lucky gives you points while getting unlucky takes points away. In Soviet mission 1 and 2, Skill and the correct application of tactics will give you more than 100 points, so you have a comfortable margin to absorb hiccups caused by random chances on the battlefield. In mission 3 I feel like the application of skill and tactics will give you at most 80 points, the rest 20 points need to come from getting lucky by chance (Bradley does not hit your FO, your cluster/arty hits the target, your ATGM actually does their jobs .etc). In the end if someone wins in this situation, no matter how many skill and tactic points he scores out of 80, the deciding factor will be the player gets the rest 20 points because of luck. The player could have applied a lot of skill, but in the end he will feel he won because of luck. In the end I think this is a problem of designing for "what it is" versus designing for the feeling it evokes. And I think while designing for what it is is important for a combat sim, designing for feeling is equally important as this is the most important pillar in all other types of games.

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So you did not find this one fun?  Well there is a big ole editor and a bunch of master maps, go make one you do find fun.  There is also a really large community that does this for you so I encourage you to explore it out.  Just know we knew exactly what we were doing when we built the scenario.  This is not a failure in QA/QC, it is the direct result of those processes. This was not neglect or laziness, it was deliberate.  Scenario 4 in the campaign is also pretty hard, you are on defence on that one.  5 is more fun, we decided people needed a break.  And Alsfeld is one massive game of smash face in a culminating battle - I found that one to be a blast but not too many actually get to it. 

So difficulty does not preclude "fun"...for some.  And it was those "some" we were doing this game, and the Soviet Campaign in particular, for.  If that ain't you, well no worries, lots of other content to go and play.  A lot of really well balanced scenarios you can enjoy - (although I would really stay away from Valley of Ashes played from the Soviet side if you found this scenario "not fun", that one is brutal). 

Finally onto your final words. I understand you have a strong vision as a designer on what the Soviet campaign in CM is going to be and I appreciate your effort in sticking to that so this has nothing to do with QA anymore. What I think of this is that there may be a case for another way CM missions can be designed. Looping back to your argument of catering to your core audience: 

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Just going to pull on this one here.  So we knew from the start what audience this game was going to appeal to - I personally think that is probably the most important rule of design.  We knew exactly who we were designing for from the start - the obsessively detail orientated grognard.  If anyone else wanted to play the game, great, but the core audience was not the casual gamer.

Focusing on your core audience is good in this niche market, but I think there is an argument for an alternative approach: I think designing for the hardcore veterans would be the least efficient solution if you want this series to stay alive and grow: Often times the hardcore veterans would have specific tastes and likings that they want from a game, and you can't really cater to them all because everyone is different. This is simply down to experience: the more one gets into CM, the more one would find the part of CM that he enjoys and stick to that. Meanwhile the casual and new players are the ones you have most control of, because they have more similarities: They don't know a lot about CM, and they may lack historical context and other stuff that veterans of the series may take for granted. By focusing on them and solving their pain points you would be achieving more for a lot less effort, while converting some of the uninitiated to your core audience in the process.

To be clear, I do not want any of the hardcore oriented stuff to be removed or dumbed down. You have the soviet campaign which is probably the hardest campaign in CM history and that's no small feat to design and  to make it realistic and playable. However it is just a huge missed opportunity if you only dedicate it to a small batch of people in this niche franchise in this niche market. There are ways you could make it enjoyable for people outside of your core audience group without sacrificing the hardcore experience you want to achieve, and I hope those are worth considering by you and others in the design team.

[The_Capt]

50 minutes ago, SHVAKS said:

Thanks for the context behind your design philosophy. I have experience, although limited, designing games myself and I work in the game industry too so I always appreciate these kind of inside perspective. Now onto some of my responses:

The core audience for CMCW is pretty obvious and I agree on your reasoning on why the campaign is made this way. However I don't think some extra hand-holding is going to dissuade the "obsessively detail orientated grognard" from enjoying the game in their own way. The whole idea of "hand-holding" to me is a bit biased to be honest, because it implies that it is dumbing down the experience and a lot of people here would have issues with that.

There is always a way you can provide an enjoyable experience for both the hardcore and casual audiences. And in the case of CMCW where you don't want to sacrifice realism, that is by providing bits and pieces of info in game to serve as hints, or if you feel that is too much, providing some extra background info and "behind the design of..." in the user manual would still be an improvement for the casual bunch.

I am not suggesting that 100% of the game should be comfortably beatable by your average casual gamer, that would be absurd. What I am suggesting is that there could other forms of gain for your average gamer when they can't beat some of these scenarios. As an example, people like me may repeatedly bash their heads on things like mission 3 and never beat it, hit the surrender button, then either walk away because there is nothing more the mission can offer, or be presented with an informative excerpt that tells them why this mission is so hard (hint: it is the real life) and some background on Soviet doctrine and the idea that this brutal encounter happened exactly because of such doctrines. I guarantee you if this is in the game, there will less people like me posting threads like "mission 3 bad" and more casual players will have a better appreciation of your efforts in crafting these scenarios even if the difficulty is not for them, and they may even start learning things themselves and eventually convert to your core audience. 

Again I'm sorry if my previous thread has some confusing wording, but "no skill can win this fight" is just not something I said or intended to say.

What I am saying is that regardless of whether skill is applied in mission 3, the player will not feel he won by skill. In my experience, I chose to go immediately to the left and hug the covers as soon as wave 1 showed up because I recognized it is Czechmate 2.0 and I am in a kill zone. After bashing my head on this mission 2-3 times, I watched M.Herm's video to get a rough idea on what I should be doing, then I did some more terrain analysis and found all the good locations for my ATGMs before M.Herm posted his illustration above (we ended up finding the same positions) however it doesn't really make the fight against the Bradleys on the left flank that much easier just become of random chances.

I think it would be reasonable for me to argue that there is at least some application of skill on my end, but it got canceled by the very "swingey" random chances that is part of CM. Lets arbitrarily assume that one needs to score 100 points to beat a mission, and getting lucky gives you points while getting unlucky takes points away. In Soviet mission 1 and 2, Skill and the correct application of tactics will give you more than 100 points, so you have a comfortable margin to absorb hiccups caused by random chances on the battlefield. In mission 3 I feel like the application of skill and tactics will give you at most 80 points, the rest 20 points need to come from getting lucky by chance (Bradley does not hit your FO, your cluster/arty hits the target, your ATGM actually does their jobs .etc). In the end if someone wins in this situation, no matter how many skill and tactic points he scores out of 80, the deciding factor will be the player gets the rest 20 points because of luck. The player could have applied a lot of skill, but in the end he will feel he won because of luck. In the end I think this is a problem of designing for "what it is" versus designing for the feeling it evokes. And I think while designing for what it is is important for a combat sim, designing for feeling is equally important as this is the most important pillar in all other types of games.

Finally onto your final words. I understand you have a strong vision as a designer on what the Soviet campaign in CM is going to be and I appreciate your effort in sticking to that so this has nothing to do with QA anymore. What I think of this is that there may be a case for another way CM missions can be designed. Looping back to your argument of catering to your core audience: 

Focusing on your core audience is good in this niche market, but I think there is an argument for an alternative approach: I think designing for the hardcore veterans would be the least efficient solution if you want this series to stay alive and grow: Often times the hardcore veterans would have specific tastes and likings that they want from a game, and you can't really cater to them all because everyone is different. This is simply down to experience: the more one gets into CM, the more one would find the part of CM that he enjoys and stick to that. Meanwhile the casual and new players are the ones you have most control of, because they have more similarities: They don't know a lot about CM, and they may lack historical context and other stuff that veterans of the series may take for granted. By focusing on them and solving their pain points you would be achieving more for a lot less effort, while converting some of the uninitiated to your core audience in the process.

To be clear, I do not want any of the hardcore oriented stuff to be removed or dumbed down. You have the soviet campaign which is probably the hardest campaign in CM history and that's no small feat to design and  to make it realistic and playable. However it is just a huge missed opportunity if you only dedicate it to a small batch of people in this niche franchise in this niche market. There are ways you could make it enjoyable for people outside of your core audience group without sacrificing the hardcore experience you want to achieve, and I hope those are worth considering by you and others in the design team.

As someone who has done game design then you know that your own experience is not necessarily reflective of everyones experience.  Take a look at the Cold War forum.  A few people before you have come out not liking the Soviet campaign, or even Scenario 3 but it is not overwhelming by any stretch.  In fact most of the feedback we have received has been overwhelmingly positive from the community we built the game for.  And we do have some new folks getting into a whole new era of warfare they did not know about before.

As to skill, well I beat Scenario 3 (after more than one try) and felt like I had to use skill.  I even learned something about how the Soviet system could work in this situation.  There is a counter-point, and based on feedback I know I am not the only one.

So I read your points and do not even entirely disagree but as far as CMCW is concerned, but the core community has already spoken.  We must be doing something right.  Handholding is a plague on modern gaming.  So much so the retro Rogue-like movement is very alive and well.  For this community, spoon feeding post-game solutions or explanations kinda takes away from the community as a whole in trying to figure a game out.  Go online and see how many videos have been made of folks playing CMCW.

So I am not claiming CMCW or the Soviet campaign are perfect.  But they are squarely in the red rings as far as the primary audience is concerned.  Not going to mess around with that solution to much - if it ain’t broke don’t fix it…kinda thinking.  As to market growth.  Look, first rule of game design as far as I am concerned is the same as warfare - know what game you are in.  CM is a niche within a niche.  It will never, and has never gone mainstream.  This is a point of pride for all these weirdos, some who have been with this whole thing for over 20 years.  We welcome new gamers with open arms.  This has to be one of the last non-toxic gaming communities left.  But we aim to target the fan base.  If we can do that and pull in some new interest, great.  In many ways CMCW pushed the envelop of what CM can do.  We used huge maps and large forces…that was a turn off for some.  But we adhered to realism and authenticity.  We made a game designed for the community, by members of that community.  The only reason I got engaged in this discussion was that you seemed to infer that we did not do QA/QC and that is why you had a bad experience.  Not how it went down.  Deliberate design decisions.

So when we get BAOR done, it will have an easier, middle and hard campaigns. Some scenarios bordering on unfair but a lot of real war scenarios are unfair.  We won’t be dropping hints or suggestions…let the grogs grumble.  But the right people will love it to death, and maybe some new ones too.  
 

[Millien]

On 10/14/2023 at 6:54 PM, The_Capt said:

So when we get BAOR done, it will have an easier, middle and hard campaigns. Some scenarios bordering on unfair but a lot of real war scenarios are unfair.  We won’t be dropping hints or suggestions…let the grogs grumble.  But the right people will love it to death, and maybe some new ones too.  

Personally, I still had about 35% of the regiment still standing by the end of the campaign for the ride of the 120th, so I imagine we can get it down even further with the new module!

On a more serious note, I have to say that the March or Die campaign is one of my favourites within the entire series, let alone Cold War itself. A lot of CM campaigns are oftentimes quite plodding or relatively forgiving in terms of opposition, losses, and expectations. While the 120th campaign is relatively short, sharp and feels like you are in genuine danger constantly. I could fire a PM into the air and hit NATO aircraft, and almost every mission has some kind of sucker punch to catch an aggressive or unprepared commander off balance, with very deadly results. It's unfair, the U.S. forces are designed and set up to destroy you easily, and you are stuck with T-62s and BTRs while facing off against M2s, TTS, or even worse threats. Every new mission, after the first three, has you taking stock of what is left of your degraded force and making compromises and solutions as to how to handle a new situation that is different from all the previous ones you have come across. And that is why it is excellent, it's under no illusions as to what things would look like for the Soviets in these circumstances, and it puts soviet doctrine and the player's ability to analyze the situation to the test every mission. It is certainly not for everyone, you need to accept losses, at times very large ones, and the ability to roll with the punches. But it's hard to imagine Cold War without such care put toward the design of the campaigns, and it is very exciting to hear similar levels for the BAOR module!

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Millien said:

Personally, I still had about 35% of the regiment still standing by the end of the campaign for the ride of the 120th, so I imagine we can get it down even further with the new module!

On a more serious note, I have to say that the March or Die campaign is one of my favourites within the entire series, let alone Cold War itself. A lot of CM campaigns are oftentimes quite plodding or relatively forgiving in terms of opposition, losses, and expectations. While the 120th campaign is relatively short, sharp and feels like you are in genuine danger constantly. I could fire a PM into the air and hit NATO aircraft, and almost every mission has some kind of sucker punch to catch an aggressive or unprepared commander off balance, with very deadly results. It's unfair, the U.S. forces are designed and set up to destroy you easily, and you are stuck with T-62s and BTRs while facing off against M2s, TTS, or even worse threats. Every new mission, after the first three, has you taking stock of what is left of your degraded force and making compromises and solutions as to how to handle a new situation that is different from all the previous ones you have come across. And that is why it is excellent, it's under no illusions as to what things would look like for the Soviets in these circumstances, and it puts soviet doctrine and the player's ability to analyze the situation to the test every mission. It is certainly not for everyone, you need to accept losses, at times very large ones, and the ability to roll with the punches. But it's hard to imagine Cold War without such care put toward the design of the campaigns, and it is very exciting to hear similar levels for the BAOR module!

35%…that is pretty good.  One thing I do regret is the last battle of the campaign - Alsfeld.  Not the scenario, the one last push with everything one has left is solid.  No, it was the work we put into the map and the scenario knowing that few people would ever play it.  We did up all the US Campaign scenarios as stand-alones but not the Soviet for the reason that those ones need to be earned (the master maps are avail though).

When we sat down with the scenarios and campaigns we decided to do “reality first”.  What did the doctrine of the day say?  Bil was a Int NCO during the Cold War and has a lot of experience there.  Where would each side realistically be at that point? What time and space made sense for the fight?  We did do balancing at the end - some got too brutal even for us.  But we tried to get as close as possible.  Fun, was something we really left to each player to decide for themselves.  Also why we created levels of accessibility as not to alienate anyone totally.

Anyway, glad to hear you enjoyed it.  We got a lot of positive feedback from the core community on this title.  We can live with those outside maybe not loving everything. So long as the fan base is happy, we are happy.  (And we know the fan base is a bunch of grognards so “happy” is a relative term).

[M.Herm]

On 10/12/2023 at 4:39 AM, SHVAKS said:

Location 1 (botton yellow dot in your image): I snuck ATGMs into that position starting from my first playthrough, they never spot anything throughout several tries and I eventually gave up on that building.

Let me pick out this point.
1. I found the screenshot here, in this case you can see that the ATGMs are not alone there, two FOs had already noticed something there anyway, in this case the bmp2 has eliminated the opponent.
2. it is of course also important how you have completed the previous mission, here it is decided whether you have early intel, without this of course everything is already half failed anyway and the player is up for a frustrating experience,

[LuckyDog]

I've been waiting to read this post until I finished the third mission; having played it twice and achieved a minor victory, I feel 'qualified' to add my thoughts. Note: I did have the cluster and regular arty in the menu, but could only use the mortar/air support as I had one FAC and the scout leader. Maybe I have an old version of the campaign.

*** Spoliers***

I went right on my first attempt (draw), and it looked like the videos in the "How hot is Ukraine gonna get" thread. I recovered, pushed the village, and had success against the M60s but stopped below the hill on the left with the four Bradleys. On attempt two, I went left and got much further, but I think I only hit one Bradley with direct fire; the rest were taken out by artillery. USAF and US cluster rounds reduced my force in the village so much that I couldn't overcome the last Bradley near the exit road (M901s were destroyed).

 @SHVAKS mentioned the difficulty in keeping the scout team alive - welcome to the CM school of hard knocks! Previous pain has led me to believe that 1) if you have to wait 5 minutes for real troops, then there is something out there to be seen, and 2) Soviet vehicles are so poor at spotting that I dismount anyone with Binos and hide the vehicles, and 3) if you have to hide your vehicles, dismount the crew to prevent VP loss when they inevitably go bang... 

@M.Herm's map does a great job of explicitly showing the best locations for your troops. I've started seeing this campaign as a maneuver puzzle, with pathfinding and subtlety as essential. It took me at least 4 attempts to get to mission three because I thought my Soviet horde should use overwhelming firepower and shock to overcome anything in its path!

I'd love @The_Capt's feedback on whether Soviet commanders would have the time and tactical training in maneuver warfare to implement what is required to overcome this mission, or would they stop and bypass elsewhere? Did NATO forces plan such intricate and effective ambush/denial zones?

I enjoyed this mission; thank you!

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, LuckyDog said:

I'd love @The_Capt's feedback on whether Soviet commanders would have the time and tactical training in maneuver warfare to implement what is required to overcome this mission, or would they stop and bypass elsewhere? Did NATO forces plan such intricate and effective ambush/denial zones?

First answer to “Did NATO forces plan etc?”  Absolutely, yes.  The 11 ACR (V Corp) owned this ground: had war gamed it, exercised over it and planned for a Soviet attack in this area for decades.  They had PTPTs (peace time prepared targets) already sketched in, in some places only needed to add mines or explosives to obstacles pre-sighted.  In game I was probably too forgiving for levels of US/NATO prep but there was a strategic surprise element built into the backstory.

Soviet doctrine actually had a fair amount manoeuvre built into it, however, it was normally only ever exercised at operational levels.  An MRR or TR was really considered a tactical munition - point at enemy and pull trigger.  One had to go up to divisional level before anything resembling manoeuvre warfare kicked in.  The Soviets were hampered by centralized control however, so we really do not know how things would have really panned out.

Mission 3 is extremely realistic from a Bn or Regt COs point of view.  This is day 3 or 4 of the war so recon would have largely been stripped away in the forward Recon Battles.  So formations and units would be relying on their own recon/FSE’s.  An MRB CO would have been pointed and ordered at a primary objective with limited recon against an opponent how really knew and owned the ground.  A collision of this sort (I.e. rolling straight into a KZ situation) is very realistic for the forces and time of the battle.  Removing the Soviet players ability to shape or pre-position was by-design to reflect this situation.  You are an MRB CO smashing forward.  If you die, there are entire echelons behind you that may bypass but you are stuck with this situation.  We really were aiming to put the player in realistic Soviet shoes, not simply allow them to fight as westerners in Soviet kit.

Is it unfair?  Most definitely.  Is it realistic.  Absolutely.

[LuckyDog]

Thank you for the detailed answer and for not adding minefields! From a defence in-depth perspective, how far back did NATO forces prepare firing positions and PTPTs? (if you are allowed to say) Based on my expectations of human nature, those positioned closer to the front would pay way more attention to this than further back. Is this scenario still in the zone where the troops feel like this is essential?

Until this mission, it feels like I haven't hit the main line of resistance - rather, some painful tripwires. Your answer gave me some perspective about why I cannot stop and bypass - this is the "lane" for my MRR, and I have to move along or die trying.

In this scenario, the US kit quality definitely helps—without M2s, it would be much easier. However, this brings up a general issue with the ability of tanks and AFVs to spot infantry in woods when they are hunting them from the side/back. The commander may have their head on swivel, but It seems they spot me way before I spot them. Maybe this is my tradeoff for a less intricate defence and no minefields...

[The_Capt]

On 3/19/2024 at 6:51 PM, LuckyDog said:

Thank you for the detailed answer and for not adding minefields! From a defence in-depth perspective, how far back did NATO forces prepare firing positions and PTPTs? (if you are allowed to say) Based on my expectations of human nature, those positioned closer to the front would pay way more attention to this than further back. Is this scenario still in the zone where the troops feel like this is essential?

Until this mission, it feels like I haven't hit the main line of resistance - rather, some painful tripwires. Your answer gave me some perspective about why I cannot stop and bypass - this is the "lane" for my MRR, and I have to move along or die trying.

In this scenario, the US kit quality definitely helps—without M2s, it would be much easier. However, this brings up a general issue with the ability of tanks and AFVs to spot infantry in woods when they are hunting them from the side/back. The commander may have their head on swivel, but It seems they spot me way before I spot them. Maybe this is my tradeoff for a less intricate defence and no minefields...

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you.  Missed this one.  So NATO never really had a “Reagan Line”.  It was pretty much “painful tripwires” all the way back to the French border.  The intent was to bleed the Soviets out over the entire distance with a series of defensive positions and fights, shifting efforts to best effect along different axis.  Then when AirLand battle kicked in they matured this to stretching the Soviets out and then hitting them deep to break the system.  Soviet offset was tac nukes.

My sense is, as far as CM can model, the NATO strategy would have worked.  The Soviets likely would have bogged down and run out of gas well before France and the English Channel.  Seven Days to the Rhine was a pipe dream without tac nukes but those weapons would have led to serious escalation risks that no one really wanted to take.