New Scenario for testing: "Paradise Road"

[birdstrike]

Thanks for your comments.

Yes, I admit I had a hard time playing it, too. Though there are quite a number of ways to approach the scenario, some of which I wouldn't have thought of myself .

I hope you don't give up yet. At least not before trying it again when the 1.04 patch is released.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by birdstrike:

I hope you don't give up yet.

In my third try, I seem to make some good progress! I was much more successful using infantry only to spot and shoot at ATGM teams than with my earlier 'right flank rush' attempts.

The ATGMs apparently being silenced or suppressed, I have now 6 vehicles within 150 meters of the first crossroad and start to move up the infantry to mop up! Meanwhile, the back-country is air-bursted up over identified targets.

The only problem is that I have only 8 minutes left (wife demanded instant sleep yesterday). This should be enough to grab the cross-road, but not enough to advance to the exit victory location, because we *know* what is waiting there in ambush !

So the major question will be how points are awarded! I have very light losses and one VL. I shall see what this means in terms of victory conditions, when I finish it tonight!

Best regards,

Thomm

PS: I was very surprised to see one of my recon teams being blown sky-high by an ATGM! That was quite a lesson :eek:

[Cpl Steiner]

birdstrike,

Just finished my second attempt. Got a US Total Victory with 2 dead and a large number of wounded. The enemy surrendered without me actually reaching the final objective.

The map is very good, especially the mosque complex. I bet that took some time to make! As others have said, there is also much variety in the ways you can approach the scenario.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

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For my second attempt I chose to dismount everyone and approach the town on foot using the ditch beside the road. This proved quite successful as my infantry spotted and KO'd the ATGM teams with few casualties and only one wrecked empty Humvee (the crew having already got out for the cover of the ditch).

Once on the outskirts of town I made liberal use of my artillery and air cover to flatten spotted enemy positions, with some trepidation that I might be causing civilian casualties due to some of the strikes being bigger than I expected. I must have got lucky though as no points were awarded to the enemy for collateral damage by scenario end. Once the second platoon showed up I felt confident enough to deploy some vehicles at the crossroads and their squads entered the middle of town to spot more enemy positions and get involved in a few firefights.

All in all, a fun scenario with a nice map and lots of player options to consider.

5 out of 5.

[Nick Carter]

This scenario killed me. I finally won after the 4th try. It was awesome.

Spoiler****

I did find that it was very hard to hit anyone on the rooftops, more a game problem than a scenario problem. Also as usual pathfinding resulted in a number of cancelled moves as Strykers tried to go the long way round.

The first few times I was hesitant to use the artillery in the Mosque area as I thought I was meant to 100% preserve it, finally on the 4th go I was so mad that I did target using AP and that really kept the enemy's head down.

Organizing the squads after dismounting is a pain, but probably realistic.

It would be easier of air support and arty came online a big sooner in the scenario, but without support those first 15 minutes are really fun and hairy. The lack of Javelins also keeps it from being a typical building smasher (I didn't even fire any during the 4th go)

Again, most enjoyable.

[Thomm]

Finally, US Major Victory on the third attempt!

Friendly losses: 4 killed, 10 wounded, 1 Stryker (unnecessary rushing).

Thanks for this cool scenario!

Best regards,

Thomm

PS: Strange: in the debriefing, there was the entry '20 other vehicles lost' for the blue side, but I lost only one Stryker?!

[birdstrike]

Wow, Rollstoy, Nick, thanks for the reports.

Enlightening to see how people approach the scenario. And it sounds like you had fun.

I too noticed, the destroyed buildings not giving points to the AI. This seems to be a game issue which still needs to be resoveld. Somtimes it works, but more often it doesn't. I don't have a clue what actually triggers it.

But at least, it has a definite psychological effect and keeps the players from turning the town into a parking lot.

Concerning the destroyed vehicles: these are actually the abandoned civil cars on the roads. These don't give you negative points, however.

I had them on the red side at first, but they didn't give cover to the U.S. units and were blocking shots which made things even more difficult, so I added them to the blue side.

But to avoid confusion in the future, maybe I add a small design note in the briefing, I forgot that these would be shown in the debriefing.

[Nick Carter]

birdstrike,

I didn't notice any "preserve" objectives in the scenario editor - I played 1b, maybe you forgot to add them, or I don't know my way around teh scenario editor as yet...

I think a little damage should be ok, just not levelling the mosque entirely, especially the center bit.

[birdstrike]

I prefer using a "destroyed" objective for the enemy instead of a "preserve" for friendlies. That way the points get awarded to the enemy when somehting is destroyed. Seems more logical to me. When they work, the damage penalites are not so much as to give the player a huge disadvatage for destroying a house, but blasting a whole block sure will. And yes, IIRC the mosque has a higher penalty if destroyed.

[birdstrike]

btw, I just realized I left out Cpl Steiner when thanking the players for their reports in my previous post, my mistake.

Your comments are of course much appreciated, as always, Cpl Steiner. And thanks for the 5of5

[molotov_billy]

Fantastic scenario! Thanks for making this - scenarios are keeping CMSF interesting, for me.

[birdstrike]

Thanks for playing.

[Ricochet67]

Thanks for creating the scenario, Birdstrike. I quite enjoyed it. I played on Veteran in RT. I somehow managed to snag a US Major Victory even though quite a few insurgents were still breathing when the mission time expired. My fault for advancing too warily. Normally I'm guilty of moving too fast and foolishly losing men but I'm trying to change my ways.

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***SPOILERS***

I drove a hundred metres down the road towards town before dismounting everyone from the Humvees. Unfortunately, the Stryker and a half squad were incinerated by the AT-14 Kornet (I really needed to pay attention to the briefing). The majority of the 9 US KIA occurred here.

The troops proceeded on the right flank through the trees to the hill. The advance was so slow that the reinforcements arrived and augmented the troops on the hill. Initial airstrikes were conducted against the southern wall of the mosque and around the crossroads. The 4 MG teams supported by hulldown Strykers held the hill and put fire into the town. Likewise JTAC stayed with this group to call in supporting arty/airstrikes.

The infantry used bounding movement to advance down the hill into the trees and again into the trench south of the town. Most of the 10 US WIA occurred during this advance. The 4 Strykers moved up into the cover of buildings/tall walls to the SE and half squads moved into the surrounding buildings. Meanwhile a platoon in the trench laid suppressing fire on any insurgents to the NE.

When the scenario timer expired, I held the SE quarter of the town including the crossroads. The insurgents still had plenty of fight remaining with 49 OK, 37 KIA and 33 WIA and 5 other vehicles lost. Additionally, one of the AT-14s was still operational.

Unfortunately, by reviewing the map after the battle, I spoiled the "surprise". I'll play it again in a few weeks when my recall isn't so perfect.

[dima]

Birdstrike, great scenario, as always. If I can just make a suggestion to make it longer. 1 hour is not enough for carefull assault considering that mosque can't be damaged.

[birdstrike]

Thanks D,

I'd gladly expand the time limit, but this is one of those "never arriving reiforcement" íssues. (I'm thinking about a possible workaround - by creating an unaccessible area somewhere on the map to dump the reinforcements there).

The best advice I can give right now, is to be aggressive and don't focus on occupying the mosque too much, it really is only a secondary target.

@Ricochet,

sorry for replying a little late , I missed your post completely. Thanks for the comments, though. If you're still around, you might want to try out the new version.

[Chainsaw]

Birdstrike: I just played the scenario earlier before and I have to say...

Excellent scenario! I just loved it. its my area so to say, I prefer size of max a Coy+ to play around with and not to huge maps, and this fits perfect. the oposition was though enough but I still managed to beat them to surrender, had some bad casualtys but sure a intressting firefight..

5/5 points on repository!

/Thomas

[birdstrike]

Cool, thanks.

Yes, blue is likely to suffer heavy casualties, this is in part intended, but I'm aware that this is also made somewhat worse by the current time limit. An increase of about 10-15 minutes would be perfect, I think.

But before I make any fundamental changes to the map, I want to wait if we get the possibiltiy to have reinforcements arrive later, in the near future.