Henri Posted October 25, 2002 Share Posted October 25, 2002 I finally got the game last night and tried the tutorial. The second tutorial "Jaegermeister" as the Soviets is rather tough and has some unclear instructions and surprising events. There are two groups that are supposed to go to the right to different places, one of them the recon element that I could not identify as such. The tanks are supposed to carry some infantry and cover the town, but of course there is no place for the tanks to go through the woods to get further to the right without passing in front of the woods and getting clobbered by AT guns. Then later the tutorial text speaks of one of these groups having reached their position on the left. Is the map wraparound? The tutorial mentions adjusting for a 4 minute delay for a rocket barrage on the town; I didn't see any possible delay adjustment for the rocket spotter, and the delay was 16 minutes, by which time a lot of damage had been done by the enemy. I got the infantry on the right into the nearest woods on the right and hid them as instructed, but one of the tanks there got clobbered by an AT gun and another immobilized (of course it had to be the HQ!) when they tried to go around the woods. The main force is supposed to go on the left up to the ridge then hide until ready to attack, but the first group was spotted and fired on by a MG when it went through the clearing. Two of the tanks were immobilized going through the scattered woods on the left, and one was clobbered by AT guns when it tried to go around the woods instead. All this while trying to follow instructions not to get spotted until ready to assault... As instructed by the tutorial, I moved the 4 SU-122's to the hill in front of the town and used "shoot and scoot" tactics to peek over the hill, shoot then back down. I managed to rout a few German infantry units this way, but when the first Tiger showed up, two shells from the Su-122's bounced off the beast, who promptly killed two SU-122's, plus a couple of JsII's on my right, one of them the immobilized HQ and another who tried the same shoot and scoot tactic. Eventually a few other Grman tanks showed up, and they quuickly shooted my scooters to kingdom come, and I found myself with over 10 dead tanks, no more tank killers, no dead German tanks, and no chance at all of carrying out a successful assault. I was particularly surprised to see a Tiger being able to kill two scooting SU-122's with first-shot kills, while two shells from the SU-122's more powerful gun bounced off the Tiger. Now I know from the tutorial text that in a stand-up fight, Russian tanks have no chance against an equal number of German tanks, but seeing a single Tiger holding out against 4 scooting and shooting SU-122's plus a few JSII's seems like a bit much. Anyway I suspect that this scenario was changed somewhat since the manual was printed, because it seems to me that the instructions given are impossible to follow. Opinions? Henri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rune Posted October 25, 2002 Share Posted October 25, 2002 Scenario did not change. The directions are reversed...I think he wanted to do everything from the viewpoint of the Germans, which confuses people. Rune Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PIATpunk Posted October 25, 2002 Share Posted October 25, 2002 I invested some hours in this scen in close co-operation with the text of the tutorial and ended up with all my armor dead and 6 tigers/panthers all happily ruling the roost. A most unbalanced and unhappy start to my CMBB experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolloff Posted October 25, 2002 Share Posted October 25, 2002 There are some AARs for Jaegermeister in the scenario talk forum. If you search for the scenario title you should be able to find the thread. Cheers Matthias Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Epée Posted October 25, 2002 Share Posted October 25, 2002 If you plot your rocket arty on turn one, there is no delay.You can hit 'Q' to add 1 min delays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henri Posted October 25, 2002 Author Share Posted October 25, 2002 Originally posted by Epée: If you plot your rocket arty on turn one, there is no delay.You can hit 'Q' to add 1 min delays.Thx, I didn't know that (guess I should read the manual tonight - and to thnk that there are Europeans complaining that they don't have the full manual while mine is sitting unread next to my computer...). Anyway I went to the scenarios forum and found the thread on the Jaegermeister tutorial, whcih confirms wht I found about the confusing explanations and mistakes in the tutorial text in the manual. This looks like a good totorial, but since the role of a tutorial is to learn the ropes, perhaps some easier tutorial could be prepared for newbies or old CBMO players like me with bad memories who haven't played CMBO for over a year.And a revised and clearer version of the tutorial text for that scenario should be posted somewhere. A new player needs some positive reinforcement to tell him that he is learning something, and having four SU-122 tanks desroyers killed by 2 tigers while trying to learn how to do a shoot and scoot is not very positive reinforcement. I mean this to be interpreted in a positive way: this is a good game, but if many new people are going to be brought into this game, there is a need for some intermediate learning scenarios. As a matter of fact, it would be good to have individual scenarios for learning specific skills, such as shoot and scoot, assaulting with infantry, using artilery and so on. having all of them together is a bit much even for an experienced wargamer. BTW, that scenario would make a much better demo scenario than the poor ones that come with the demo. If not for the confidence I had in the designers, I would not have bought the game based on the demo. Henri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rune Posted October 25, 2002 Share Posted October 25, 2002 Henri, There is a beginners tutorial, The Iron Roadblock. The problem with making so many tutorials, is: 1. It takes a LOT of time to make the scenario, then get someone to actually create the text. If you notice, I made the scenario while others did the harder work of creating the tutorial. 2. It would be a pain to have all these tutorials if done translated to different languages. 3. Some people don't even bother learning it was a tutorial, and just go off on playability and balance. Hey guys, it is a tutorial. 4. Assume in a tutorial the scenario designer put units in a position for a reason. Altering the starting positions, or allowing the AI, to changes the tutorial. Thanks for the good words about the scenario. I thank the people who did the harder work with the actual text. Rune Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henri Posted October 25, 2002 Author Share Posted October 25, 2002 Originally posted by rune: Henri, There is a beginners tutorial, The Iron Roadblock. The problem with making so many tutorials, is: Yes I know, but... Iron Roadblock is a good starter tutorial, but IMHO the jump in difficulty from that first tutorial to the second Jaegermeister is too great for most players including me (and I am an experienced CMBO player who has considerable online plaing experience -although it has been a while and I have forgotten a lot). So I am only suggeting that it would be useful to 1) improve the text of tutorial #2 to make it less confusing; 2) encourage someone to make a more "intermediate" tutorial to ease new players into the game. Given all of the scenarios available, there may already BE such a scenario. And while I'm at it, is there a list of the scenarios giving their relative difficulty for both sides? Since some are complaining about the imbalance of some of the scenarios, "learning" scenarios should give an edge to the player, and playing the "easy" side in an unbalanced scenario is a good start. Anyway Rune, it,s good to see that you're still at it making good scenarios. I presume that there are or soon will be "Rune-paks" for CMBB? I'm a bit lost about where to find info about CMBB except for this forum, to which I have not contributed much since I left in a huff over a year ago and moved on to other games. It may happen again when I stop resisting the urge to write someting about maneuver warfare... Henri Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cameroon Posted October 25, 2002 Share Posted October 25, 2002 Originally posted by PIATpunk: I invested some hours in this scen in close co-operation with the text of the tutorial and ended up with all my armor dead and 6 tigers/panthers all happily ruling the roost. A most unbalanced and unhappy start to my CMBB experience.My experience was exactly the opposite. After I figured out the errors in the tutorial, I trounced the AI. I gave a run-down in the Jaegermeister thread mentioned above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolloff Posted October 25, 2002 Share Posted October 25, 2002 Henri, it might be worth your time to download the CMBO to CMBB conversions of "Valley of Trouble", "A Chance Encounter" and "Riesberg" from Tom´s Combat Mission HQ. There you can fiddle around with the new units, orders etc. on well known terrain, assuming you know these scenarios. Looking at your forum ID I´m sure you do. I´ve played two of these recently and although in comparison to the state-of-the-art scenario design in CMBB they are very simple and un-evil, they seem to be perfect to get a grip on the system and game mechanics and are certainly still fun. I´d say Move and Scoot those StuGs in Chance Encounter! Cheers Nolloff [ October 25, 2002, 05:00 PM: Message edited by: Nolloff ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rune Posted October 26, 2002 Share Posted October 26, 2002 Henri, Difficulty is too subjective a thing. A lot of people are having problems with cemetary hill, but I tested it for Andreas, and wiped out the defenders with little loss. To me, I think it was a great scenario, average in difficulty, but to a lot of people, it is too difficult. Just too difficult to met a happy medium with so many different types of players. As for a Rune Pak, I already have one done, but it won't be released until the scenarios in it are used in 2 tourneys and in the Stalingrad pack. I also made a brand new Kursk scenario on some of the infantry battles over the hedgehogs, but it is still in testing. As for more tutorials, the game ia already out. I don't think addiing or changing things int he scenarios or manual will happen now. Rune Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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