What kinda scenario do you like ?

[patboy]

Don't know if this subject has been discussed before , but I would like to know what the style of scenario CM player prefer ?

Snowy or muddy terrains or dry ground?

How many turns...?

Year 1941, 42, 43 , 44 or 45 ?

Historical, semi historical or fictionnal scenarios?

Operation or battle etc etc....?

Thanks by advance for your responses

Pat

[z-warfare]

More than 5 or 6000 points and i don't have the patience to play it. Other than that, all other characteristics depend on the scenario itself... I suppose there could be something really good with pretty much any permutation...

-Terrain conditions, anything goes...

-25-60 turns, it's all good...

-Any year, they each have their own flavor...

-Semi historical scenarios have tended to be the most fun, but anything good goes.

-I haven't played many operations.

[Stingray]

I like them short and sweet. I prefer small or tiny scenarios... 25 to 40 turns max.

I am not particular on terrain or weather... any time, any place so long as it is not large or huge.

[ParaBellum]

I prefer battles of battalion size and smaller. Two companies of infantry with a platoon or two of armour support is probably my favourite battle size in CM.

Historical or semi-historical.

I don't care about the year, I like playing around with Pz-IIIs and T-26s as well as Panthers and T-34/85s.

I don't like playing scenarios with deep snow, since as the attacker the advance will take awfully long. I've played battles in deep snow where nothing happened for 20 turns, while the attackers where slowly trudging towards the enemy...

[Splinty]

I like the big ones, 5000 pts or more, dry terrain, lots of armor, mid to late war.

[JasonC]

Small. If you can make it a single company you should. If you have to use 2 on one of the sides, OK. If you are putting in a whole battalion, unless it is meant to be your mega-ist ever and the terrain scale requires it, you are doing something wrong.

Think how you want to design it and then divide everything by 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6.

Map scale can be a km and a half if you need it, preferably only in one dimension though, with 1 km or less on the other.

Don't put in 24 types of vehicle, put in 2 per side at most, then make another scenario to show how another match-up goes.

Turns can be longer, especially if you stagger the arrivals. If you make a meeting engagement, don't start with both sides on their edges at the shot of the starting pistol - instead bring in single platoons at a time as reinforcements, both sides.

Avoid super powered equipment. Make the players get something out of a handful of ordinary guys. Look at Berli's scenarios for examples of this.

Avoid air like the plague. If you put any in, make it one side only and one plane only. Arriving somewhat late, not instantly.

You can give plenty of arty, but avoid the very largest calibers, they are overpowered. Do not plaster the board with TRPs, it makes artillery far too responsive for realism.

Be sparing with bunkers, especially gun armed ones. You can be much more liberal with obstacles for defenders, even ignoring points. In the real deal, continuous obstacle belts were perfectly normal things for attackers to have to overcome.

Avoid many small set up zones with subforced in each, and padlocked forces, unless you are deliberately staging an ambush. Do not decide each player's strategy or set up for them. Do not try to script the battle with arrivals etc. Get out of the players' chairs and let them decide the outcome, not you.

Make sure each side has weapons adequate to KO anything you give to the other side, even if they are hard to use in some way or other. Give the attacking side a significant edge in something or other. Avoid parallel forces or 3:2 parallel forces. Let a side have something distinctive about it not present on the other side - that is what creates interesting combined arms match ups and problems. A "long suit" and "short suits", in other words.

Write simple straightforward briefings, not historical essays about the whole year's campaign or a whole army group. Cover the mission, the friendly force type available, expected enemy and anything known about their exact assets or positions. Do no lie or deliberately withhold crucial info in briefings.

Avoid exit VCs, they are quite hard to get right. If you do use them, only require a portion and that the hardest assets in one side's force, to exit - e.g. his full tanks. Remember that you are effectively requiring that more than half both live and exit, to have any chance of a favorable outcome.

Avoid water obstacles if you expect the AI to be able to play one of the sides. Do not start units mounted on the board if you expect the AI to work. Do not put reinforcement entry zones in full LOS of multiple heavy hitters unless you deliberately want column ambush like results.

Spend an hour going through the units after you enter them, tweaking their weapon load outs and command ratings. Up squad ammo, add special weapons to a higher quality reserve platoon, tweak tungsten and HC ammo, or give a side a key high level commander with very high bonuses - but otherwise be spare with them. Make quality levels beyond vet extremely rare. These touches can make for dramatically more interesting fights as players try to make the most of unusual special abilities.

Avoid very weakened states, conscript quality (except for FOs meant to fire only as prep barrages), and extremely poor ground conditions when there are any vehicles present. Bogging is serious enough in wet, e.g.

Test the game before posting it to the Proving Grounds, and post in there and get it played before posting it to the scenario depot. Read your feedback and expect to tweak the game.

[Sirocco]

I prefer company sized. With larger sized battles it becomes more of a management experience for me.

And I agree with the point made about scenario designers often imposing their ideas on the player through zones and padlocks. It's the reason I prefer QB's, for all their inherent limitations.

[z-warfare]

I second the 'spend an hour tweaking units' - it's fun to have one particularly good commander, where the units you place under his command can then make more of a difference than they otherwise would.

(As a habit I tend to automatically stick whoever has the longest command range and nothing else with some mortars or mortar halftracks, whether they're company, platoon, or section HQ.)

[PFMM]

Well reserached scenarios that are playable under three hours in one session and are not tedious.

The nice thing about Combat Mission is allows you to pick and choose to ones taste.