Starting again post-1.07: What is the best way to proceed?

[Bahger]

Well, my interest in the game continues to reassert itself with 1.07. Having all but abandoned CMSF shortly after its initial release, I'm happy to see BFC roll up their sleeves and correct an enormous litany of game-busting problems.

I did a fairly small meeting engagement yesterday in the much-improved QB module and was relieved. Vehicles went where I sent them except where the terrain was impassable, vehicle defensive behavior was much more acceptable, troops exhibited far greater battlefield situational awareness and I was able to execute a movement to contact that was jeopardised only by my own occasional carelessness instead of being at the mercy of glitchiness and TacAI problems.

I'm wondering how to proceed. Well, I'm looking to find the most productive way into the game's deeper pleasures without wasting any more time. To this end, I have a couple of questions:

- I gave up on the Campaign after Mission 01 when vehicles repeatedly skylined themselves on a berm, uncommanded, and got destroyed. This was a total immersion-spoiler for me. Should I try the Campaign one more time in the hope of never seeing this kind of ugliness again?

- Mission design in the Campaign is said to be of inconsistent quality. I'm interested in high-fidelity tactical engagements of all shapes and sizes but feel that in this game in particular, one is at the mercy of the designer. Would I be better off with user-designed scenarios at CMMods and, if so, can anyone point me at a way to refine my search for good-quality scenarios that emphasize movement and fire (not necessarily MOUT)?

- Are many of you playing Blue vs Blue scenarios, or Blue vs Red scenarios that are not quite as asymmetrical as the game's core concept seems to promise? If so, which do you recommend?

- Is there any tool in-game that I might have missed that enables the player to position units in hull-down positions? I seem to recall a useful virtual FOV tool in earlier CM games. I find it difficult to assess undulating terrain without such a tool and am not sure if, in SF, defilade is left to the TacAI to assess and not the player...

I apologise to those who may have read a similar post to this one from me after 1.06. Finding good, replayable scenarios is going to be crucial to maintaining and building upon my renewed interest in the game because I'm still a little skeptical. I have never experienced such appalling pathfinding and TacAI in any serious wargame as manifested itself in the very first Campaign mission of v1.01 and as much as I want to see the glass as half full, I'm unlikely to persevere with CMSF if I witness such Keystone Kops antics again. I'd like to experiment with the kind of well-designed, replayable scenarios that can combine with the much-improved game code to provide me with that "aha!" moment which will make a me a permanent convert.

Apologies for the lengthy post and thanks in anticipation for all assistance.

[Omenowl]

I use hunt to put tanks on the berms. A worst I have lost 1 tank.

I havent had any weird movement for the most part unless I happened to accidently select two units to move (select 2 units and think I am only moving one)

The buildings can cause some problems on which section to move to if you arent careful. Make sure you prevent them from moving unless the waypoints are in the correct position.

Overall everything went smoothly for 1.07 campaign mission 1. 1 dead 1 wounded (or up to 9 dead and 8 wounded if I did something stupid).

Much to my chagrin I haven't put in all of the missions from CMMODs so I will leave those questions to others.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by Bahger:

I gave up on the Campaign after Mission 01 when vehicles repeatedly skylined themselves on a berm, uncommanded, and got destroyed. This was a total immersion-spoiler for me. Should I try the Campaign one more time in the hope of never seeing this kind of ugliness again?

The top of the berm can be driven on, and it can be accessed from a number of slopes leading down to ground level. It sounds to me like you selected a unit and placed a waypoint so that the movement path crossed the berm. If this is the case then the pathfinding algorithm might have decided to go up a slope onto the berm and along the top rather than around.

I have never experienced what you describe because I've always made sure movement paths are plotted around the berm. I think you should try again and just be a bit more careful with your orders.

Originally posted by Bahger:

Is there any tool in-game that I might have missed that enables the player to position units in hull-down positions? I seem to recall a useful virtual FOV tool in earlier CM games. I find it difficult to assess undulating terrain without such a tool and am not sure if, in SF, defilade is left to the TacAI to assess and not the player.

Well you do have the target order, which will tell you if you are hull down to another point in LOS. If you mean the "Seek Hull Down" command of CMx1 then no, but that never really worked very well in CMx1 so I don't miss it at all.

I'll leave it to others to answer some of your other points.

[Bahger]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

The top of the berm can be driven on, and it can be accessed from a number of slopes leading down to ground level. It sounds to me like you selected a unit and placed a waypoint so that the movement path crossed the berm. If this is the case then the pathfinding algorithm might have decided to go up a slope onto the berm and along the top rather than around.

I have never experienced what you describe because I've always made sure movement paths are plotted around the berm. I think you should try again and just be a bit more careful with your orders.

Nope, give me some credit, I carefully plotted routes for all the vehicles around the berm after I discovered that the "gap" in the berm was a mirage. Each time, they found the top of the berm and drove along it until they got picked off. That was 1.01, though; I now have cautious grounds for optimism.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by Bahger:

Nope, give me some credit, I carefully plotted routes for all the vehicles around the berm after I discovered that the "gap" in the berm was a mirage. Each time, they found the top of the berm and drove along it until they got picked off. That was 1.01, though; I now have cautious grounds for optimism.

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. If you've only played the campaign game in v1.01 then yes, you should definitely play it again in v1.07 as pathfinding is much better now.

[Cameroon]

I suggest the Ghost campaign by Webwing; it's almost entirely Infantry and I've been having a lot of fun getting chewed up (winning, but at more cost than is healthy). I blame my tactics and not any goofy engine issues There are both MOUT and "non MOUT" portions.

I can also recommend The Curve as a good standalone scenario and the QB map packs that MarkEzra and crew released. All of the above are available on CMMODS.

I plan on starting the built-in campaign now, as well. It's funny, when I started playing CMSF I played almost entirely RT and didn't look back at all (WEGO just didn't feel 'right'). Then, with 1.06/1.07, playing WEGO suddenly felt right again. I think this is due to units behaving generally as expected so you don't have to be ready to step in at a moments notice.

I can't offer up more good scenario/campaign suggestions, but that's only because I play too many games that have long lives and lengthy sessions (GalCiv2, Sins of a Solar Empire, CMSF, etc.). Makes it hard to play huge amounts of any one game

[Bahger]

Thanks a lot, Cameroon, I will try your suggestions starting with "The Curve".

I prefer WEGO, too. I like to relax during the execution phase and observe the unravelling of my plan at leisure.

[kevinkins]

I think myself and others still find issues with QBs. The AI does not move in meeting or probe situations. What QBs from the QB map packs have given you guys a fun battle?

Kevin

[Bahger]

Well, the QB ME I tried was on a "stock" village map and, yes, the Red AI enemy was not exactly successful in its attempts to maneuver. I got lucky in that I positioned tanks on my right flank that decimated an entire column of enemy transports attempting to move into the center of the map by T3. I did not attribute my easy victory to lack of enemy mobility as to it being M1A1s vs T-62s. However, I was struck by a certain lack of determination on OPFOR's part to taking ground in a meeting engagement.

I'd be interested in knowing which of the Mark Ezra QB maps I should download and play on. There are four sets of them and I'm not sure where to start.

[MarkEzra]

QBG Maps was a group effort With Mishga and myself producing many but not all of the maps. QBG vol 1 thru 3 are basically standard QB maps. There are also Mishga's Tiny maps for small unit action...quick lunch time battles! There are also a set of large size maps that were duplicated to allow tiny, small, medium or large unit games. My suggestion is to start with the QBG Maps Vol 1, 2, and 3...

[Bahger]

Originally posted by MarkEzra:

QBG Maps was a group effort With Mishga and myself producing many but not all of the maps. QBG vol 1 thru 3 are basically standard QB maps. There are also Mishga's Tiny maps for small unit action...quick lunch time battles! There are also a set of large size maps that were duplicated to allow tiny, small, medium or large unit games. My suggestion is to start with the QBG Maps Vol 1, 2, and 3...

Just d/l-ed the first batch and I have what is probably a slightly goofy question: Is there any way after a QB battle loads that I can tell whether it's a stock map or one of yours?

[Paper Tiger]

There'so way to do that once it's actually loaded. However, if you want to make sure that you get the one one you, I suggest making a copy of your QB maps folder someplace else, like 'My Documents' for example and then delete all the maps from the CMSF QB Maps folder. Then copy back in the ones you want and try them out. If you like it, keep it, if you don't delete it again. That's how I built up my current stock of QB maps. There's a really nice one that came with 1.06, I think it has 'mad' or something in the title. I'm at work at the moment and can't check that. It's one of my favourites at the moment.

[MarkEzra]

Originally posted by Bahger:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by MarkEzra:

QBG Maps was a group effort With Mishga and myself producing many but not all of the maps. QBG vol 1 thru 3 are basically standard QB maps. There are also Mishga's Tiny maps for small unit action...quick lunch time battles! There are also a set of large size maps that were duplicated to allow tiny, small, medium or large unit games. My suggestion is to start with the QBG Maps Vol 1, 2, and 3...

Just d/l-ed the first batch and I have what is probably a slightly goofy question: Is there any way after a QB battle loads that I can tell whether it's a stock map or one of yours? </font>

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by MarkEzra:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bahger:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by MarkEzra:

QBG Maps was a group effort With Mishga and myself producing many but not all of the maps. QBG vol 1 thru 3 are basically standard QB maps. There are also Mishga's Tiny maps for small unit action...quick lunch time battles! There are also a set of large size maps that were duplicated to allow tiny, small, medium or large unit games. My suggestion is to start with the QBG Maps Vol 1, 2, and 3...

Just d/l-ed the first batch and I have what is probably a slightly goofy question: Is there any way after a QB battle loads that I can tell whether it's a stock map or one of yours? </font>

[Bahger]

Hmm, well maybe I'll separate the stock QB maps from the user-made ones, but having added them all together I'm wondering how to separate them. Maybe the file details will be sortable by date, maybe not; any suggestions?

Has anyone experienced inactive AI on stock QB maps post-1.07?

[Cameroon]

Sorting them by date works fine, the original QBs would have the earliest modified dates.

I can't recall if Windows changes the modified date during an install, but if not, then it seems 6/24/07 would be the date you'd want (that's what mine are).

[kevinkins]

Has anyone played a decent QB where the AI has to move? If so please send me that map. I think I have most but cant seem to set them up so a meeting or probe plays well.

Thanks.

Kevin