Operations

[Harv]

Originally posted by Blow2:

Stuff not fit to actually be shown twice

Voxman? Is that you? So glad you came back to visit. And how has your life been while you were away?

Can't say we missed you much, but be sure to keep up the good work with your wise insight and ever so constructive criticism for the time you're here again. Can you please post more of the same, as it brings back such fond memories.

Thank you ever so much.

Harv

Ps. Remember, the paragraph is your friend, and you have nothing to fear by using more than one per post.

[Blow2]

I would also be interested to hear views on the Ops in CM:AK and have read, with interest, all the comments my post started. The gist of them seems to be that I am whining because, as someone said, I got an etch-a-sketch instead of a Playstation for Christmas, that saying the Ops in CM:AK suck is not proper criticism for Ops and Battles and that the hard-working designer/playtesters, giving up their weekends and days off to bring us this game, deserve better.

Fair comment - if this was Scenario Depot or The Proving Ground, where I have an Op called Kubyshevska, so you can go along, play it and call it crap if you like. Politely, since I gave up my weekends and days off to do it, like all the others who contribute their work for inspection. The BIG difference here is ... Iam not charging you money to do it. I didn't get something as bad as an etch-a-sketch when I bought CM:AK, but I didn't get what I was expecting for the money either. Those nice people who designed and playtested CM:AK didn't do it entirely out of love, let's not forget and the only way most of us find out what the game is like is if we buy it first . In my opinion, they didn't do a good job on some parts of it.

If you want specifics, I will give them - just ask.

You can burn me up for being abusive, if that ever happens, but I can't believe many of the flamers out there accusing me of whining and dissing the nice people at Battlefront would, for a moment, put up with buying a car that immediately needed fixing, or, as I said before, keeping quiet about their favourite band producing a duff album.

If I am wrong, of course, I have a gold brick here for sale ..

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Blow2:

put up with buying a car that immediately needed fixing, or, as I said before, keeping quiet about their favourite band producing a duff album.

The broken car analogy is incorrect, as there is nothing 'broken' about the Ops on the CD. They were designed with the same editor that everyone else has, so implying that they are broken means everyone else's would be as well.

The favorite band producing a duff album is a better analogy, be even here you seem to be missing the point. Ops, just like songs on an album, are a representation of the artist's best efforts. Some will be smashing successes, other complete duds. However, keep in mind that this is all based on the listener's (or player in this case) opinion. I may not like the third song on the 'B' side, yet the next guy might want to hear it every 10 minutes.

The scenarios and Ops are the same as songs on an album. I may not like scenario 'X', but who am I to say it is crap and needs fixing? Or that this designer isn't as good as the next one?

[Blow2]

Kingfish, you are the guy paying out the money for it, that's what gives you the right to complain, or say that one designer is better than another. Just as I am. Just as anyone is. Those who post their work, for free, to be judged by their peers, deserve to be cut a lot of slack. THAT"S a labour of love. Those who post duff Ops IN MY OPINION, on a CD I have paid good money for deserve to get the rough edge of my annoyance. Anyone else is free to come back and say I am wrong. No-one is free to accuse me of whining, or that the people who designed should not be impugned because they are nice and worked so hard. I am nice and work hard, but if the final product I produced pissed paying customers off, I would expect to hear about it.

Having said all that, its only the Ops that annoy me and I started this thread because it seemed clear to me that most CM fans don't like Ops and, consequently, Ops design suffers as a result. The ratio of Battles to Ops in CM:AK lends weight to that. The ratio of Battles to Ops posted in Boots&Saddles, the SD and The Proving Grounds lends weight to that. My fault was in thinking that the people who designed CM could either design good Ops or pick people who did. IN MY OPINION, they did not do either.

[Ron]

Originally posted by Blow2:

I would also be interested to hear views on the Ops in CM:AK and have read, with interest, all the comments my post started.

If you want specifics, I will give them - just ask.

Ok I am asking... What Ops have you played, how many times? What were the aspects you feel need improvement? What was *wrong* with them? People feel you are whining because you haven't expressed any specific criticism. You stated you have played both CMBO and CMBB. CMBO has been out for over three years. Have you created any Ops for it? I would like to play it and see what you have done different.

Personally I played all of the Ops that came with CMBO. Carentan, being my favourite, I played twice. Currently I am playing Assault on Leros, first battle, and am enjoying it immensely - the situation and the problems presented. My only criticism early on was the illogical (to my mind) placement of the frontlines between battles, that was mitigated somewhat with a patch. That's an issue entirely with the CM *system* and not the designers, who being aware of it work with it as best they can.

So the ball is in your court now to be specific in your criticisms. I am very interested in your complaints and what you have done differently in the Ops you have created.

Ron

[Blow2]

Thanks Ron .. a voice of reason at last. I have played CM since it first came out - loved CMBO, loved CMBB even more and consider CM:AK a work of technical art - all save for the Ops.

What annoys me is that everyone has had at least three years of working with this game engine and should know the limitations. The worst one is the AI's attempt to handle front lines. It can't work out anything much more than the basic, which is why I think Assault On Leros is flawed. After 20+ Turns of scrambling around gathering forces, the German player is faced with all of the ones he fought with being cut off, his reinforcements and one Crack Platoon being on what is now the right (east) side of the front. In between, little pockets of trapped Brits, clearly indicated because they are neatly boxed in green dotted lines. I have known the problems of airborne landing Op scenarios since CMBO. I scrapped a CMBB Ops one involving airborne forces supporting an amphibious landing on an island in the Gulf of Finland for the very reason this one fails.

Better to have started it as if it was Turn 2 - Germans in the East, Brits facing them, with padlocked airborne forces, suitably depleted in men and munitions, behind them. That way, by Turn 3, the Germans may have joined forces, or been mopped up and the front-line problem resolved. Not a major fix, but like I say - hundreds if not thousands of scenario designers out there and yet we end up with basic Flaw 101 on the biggest Op on the CD.

Of the two North African Ops, one offers three 30+ Turns on a huge map of mainly soft ground. If you play, as they suggest, the Germans against the AI, you will meet an insane advanced guard of Brits at the base of the first high ground you cross. If you allow Free set up, you may encounter some suicidal Bren carriers, but not much else for 30+ Turns except Brit arty fire. In short, the map is too big, the forces too far apart and the Turns too few . Again this is Design 101 stuff.

The second NA OP is a three-Battle fudge. Doesn't really much matter what you do in Battle One, since you know what you have to do in Battle 2 and the AI front-line practically takes you there, even if you don't achieve anything. Same with one of the Italian Ops - and that's just indicative of what I have been saying all along and my original point . CM designers seem to favour Battles to the point where few want to tackle designing an Op because it throws up too many problems they can't solve easily.

I have said enough. There have been three years of CM scenario-building with this engine and I expected better from the people who invented it. If you want to see an Op I did, try Kubyshevska from The Proving Grounds. It's the last CMBB one I posted and it had some nice comments from testers.

And, of course, like all the available scenarios NOT on this CD - it's free.

[Mad Russian]

I don't like operations. Period. So I rarely play them. That doesn't make operations bad. It is my choice. Since I don't play operations, the CMAK disk is flawed, because I'm not getting my money's worth. The whole CM System sucks because I don't like operations.

Now, of course, this is all true. But the premise is ridiculous. I don't like operations so I don't play them. I don't berate the designers, who make them, because I don't play them. I feel like some of the scenarios are not as good as they might be. SO I make my own. I know what I like and some other people like that same thing. Others don't. Some dont' even like battles. (We're praying for them.)

Listen Blow2, here's the deal. Your opinion is worth as much as everyone else's. But you have to take some of the venom out of it. If you have some idea about what you don't like, state that, not that all operations are lousy, which is not true. The idea that ALL operations suck, unless you don't like operations to begin with, is ridiculous. I have not, nor am I likely to, play any of the operations on the CMAK disk, but to claim that an airborne operation that starts with a scattered drop is flawed seems a bit odd to me. For instance, IF I was to play an operation on an airborne drop, and IF it DIDN'T have a scattered drop , I would think it un-historical. So you see it's all a matter of perspective.

What is not a matter of perspective is a personal attack on the designer. That is what every person on here has tried to get across to you. You should at least try to be objective in your criticism and telling everyone that the one you are "about to do" will get it right isn't cutting it. This crowd is from Missouri, "show us", maybe you are the greatest operation designer in the world but until you have some product we aren't buying the sales pitch.

And now you have my $.02 worth to go along with everyone else's.

Panther Commander

[Los]

SPOILER ALERTS

Ok lets think about this and compare it to what happened for real.

"After 20+ Turns of scrambling around gathering forces, the German player is faced with all of the ones he fought with being cut off, his reinforcements and one Crack Platoon being on what is now the right (east) side of the front."

This is as it should be. 1/2 FJR had to make an airborne assault under heavy fire in occupied territory, got themselves togeter, secured Racchi Ridge and act as a blocking force against the movement of British forces between the Northern and Southern parts of Leros. That day and into the next the Paras fought cut off against furious counter-attacks from North and South. A company+ of paras dropped as reinforcements later in the day were all but annihlated dropping in the same area which 1/2 FJR was holding. (Yeesh one whole stick plowed into the ground by dropping so low that their chutes never opened.)

So at the start of battle two (unless all your paras have ignored their orders and run pell mell through enemy fire to the safety of the Kustenjager!), you should have your paras behind enemy lines but ensconcened in perimeters in critical postiions on Racchi Ridge and other areas. Decisions you make in that first battle after the drop resonate well into battle 2 and 3. As for troops being scattered, the majority of platoons that are seperated can be reconstituted within 2 turns. And in battle 2 the paras should be on the wrong side of the line. It's incumbant upon the German player to link up the forces on the east side and the onces stuck in the central part of the map. Again a link-up of these forces is a central part of an airborne operation.

The Germans should be stuck on the wrong side of the line for at least 2 turns if not three. Which is exactly how the thing plays out if the German player runs things correctly. He has to hold Racchi Ridge and effect link up with the kusten jager and reinforceing ground forces, clearing the brits out of the way between the two as he goes. Once he does that, he'll find himself on the right side of the frontline trace. Until then you have to manage what your units are doing and conserve ammo, perfectly doable with a modicum of thought. The Leros op follows in general what happened in the real op, presenting the German commander with more or less the same problems as his historical counterpart, complete with all the frustrations that have been designed in there on purpose. It's not a design flaw, it's on purpose. You clearly do not want to be presented with those frustrations, fine, move along, but don't couch your personal preference problems with some sort of position that OP design in CM is flawed and then expect us not to rebut.

I too do not like every op battle ever distributed on a CM disk. But those are my personal preferences. I have no interest in Tank Battles or very small battles etc. But certainly others do. So if I play one I sure as hell aren't going to come in here and slag off designers because they included them in here and they don't go accoring to what I think they should be.

Los

p.s. As the designer of Leros, which clearly sent Blow off the deep end, I don't take any personal offence to his rough-around-the-edges comments towards the op. (Though he has made unecessary nastier comments towards others.) In fact, in the past, I've had as much fun discussing the why's and historiocity of the ops as I've had designing them.

[ December 22, 2003, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: Los ]

[Major Rags]

This is why I gave up Miniatures. Everybody wants to debate the rules or the initial setup or the bonuses or the reality.

"How can the Spanish get an attack bonus!!??" "In real life the French cavalry would never route"

It's a game and a darn good one. My hat's off to anyone who spends their otherwise valuable time to build scenarios and such, so I don't have to. I've tried to build some and it takes a long time to get it right.

[flamingknives]

Since the people in this thread have an interest in Ops, I wonder if anyone would care to try out an op I wrote for CMBB.

It's at The Proving Grounds, and called 'All in a Day's Work'

I like to think that I have a fair idea of how ops work and that it's a good scenario, but so far my only playtester has been Andreas, and getting him to wade through a series of 40 min battles, while working on CMAK and being generally lame at keeeping up with his PBEM turns, is very sloooooow work.

In short, more playtesters would be nice.

[Andreas]

Heh - I am working on it. Not my problem if my opponent decides to take a holiday with his family (can you hear this Jon? I hate your SMG wielding recon hordes! And merry Christmas to you too...), and then your British very own BT decides to eff up my broadband access to a point that I have to resort to going back to my parents!!!!! in Germany for decent access.

Gawk!

[JonS]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Heh - I am working on it. Not my problem if my opponent decides to take a holiday with his family (can you hear this Jon? I hate your SMG wielding recon hordes! And merry Christmas to you too...),

What the!?! I got an email from you specifically saying not to send any turns, you loafing Teutonic turncoat. Seriously: send me another email when you're ready to recieve turns again.

I've got a few comments on a couple of the CMAK ops, but I need to do some frenetic last-minute shopping, so you'll have to wait before I cast my pearls before you swine

Regards

JonS

P.S. I like the new BFC Merry Christmas banner. Nice

[DavidFields]

I think most people do not realize how much work goes into the designing of the battles/games.

How you all find time to play so many scenarios is amazing to me. It can take me all week, intermittently, to play one battle. Then I usually want to play it from the other side, and then with a different approach. Before I know it, a month has almost gone by. And then I look at all the battles I have yet to play, on the disc and at the Scenario Depot, and I am both elated at all the fun I can still have, and with a silly remorse that I probably will not get to all the great scenarios before something else comes along (ie-CM2).

But it is hard to have appreciation for everything all the time: like the work that goes into making this computer, or my car, or the fact that the muscles in my lower arm pull tendons which move my fingers (or that I have two healthy children, and I have a wife who has put up with me for almost 25 years.)

So let's try to be kind, no matter what.

Merry Christmas.

(Or, Happy Winter Solstice, which is the holiday most celebrated in my household)

[flamingknives]

Good greif!

CMX2 will probably be out by the time those two sort it out.

It's good so far isn't it?

[30ot6]

Originally posted by Rankorian:

I think most people do not realize how much work goes into the designing of the battles/games.

How you all find time to play so many scenarios is amazing to me. It can take me all week, intermittently, to play one battle. Then I usually want to play it from the other side, and then with a different approach. Before I know it, a month has almost gone by. And then I look at all the battles I have yet to play, on the disc and at the Scenario Depot, and I am both elated at all the fun I can still have, and with a silly remorse that I probably will not get to all the great scenarios before something else comes along (ie-CM2).

But it is hard to have appreciation for everything all the time: like the work that goes into making this computer, or my car, or the fact that the muscles in my lower arm pull tendons which move my fingers (or that I have two healthy children, and I have a wife who has put up with me for almost 25 years.)

So let's try to be kind, no matter what.

Merry Christmas.

(Or, Happy Winter Solstice, which is the holiday most celebrated in my household)

Wow. Someone with a life. Didn't know there were any of those types on this board.

[Rick]

Personally I'd like to point out that so far I've played one Op in CMAK, and I like it except for the fact that includes what has proven the biggest ever tactical challenge for me personally, taking a desert mountain. I can't figure that one out for anything. Every scenario or Op that I've played that includes a challenge like that just wipes me out.