In Search of a Ghost - New Campaign

[bodkin]

Thanks Webwing, I thought you might be trying to play some sort of trick there.

Well if that's your intention then leave it as it is - a doomed mission were the enemy strength was underestimated.

I don't know if you can display messages on screen using the editor, but it would be nice to communicate to the player somehow that they should forget about the hideout. If I knew that I would have just fought it out on the hill.

[Webwing]

Originally posted by bodkin:

Thanks Webwing, I thought you might be trying to play some sort of trick there.

Well if that's your intention then leave it as it is - a doomed mission were the enemy strength was underestimated.

I don't know if you can display messages on screen using the editor, but it would be nice to communicate to the player somehow that they should forget about the hideout. If I knew that I would have just fought it out on the hill.

Thanks bodkin!

That's why feedback from players is so important.

Once you get to mission 6 the intention is made clear since you will see that you are on top of the hill and still needs to take the hiddeout.

Unfortunately we can not display messages using the editor.

But I think I'll change this for the next version and just say it will be difficult so we will take it in two steps, first the hill and then the hideout.

The way it is now is probably too much of a puzzle. The player feels betrayed or cheated in a way which is not good.

Again, thanks for your feedback.

--

[the Fighting Seabee]

Webwing,

War is like that, man. War sometimes means heartbreak and defeat. Also, intel isn't always good and can actually lead to botched missions. That's the way it is in real life, and that's how it should stay in "In Search of a Ghost". If you want to add that the player should take it in 2 steps, hill then hideout, that would be great. But I'm not sure I would change the mission at all.

More AAR's to follow...

[blow56]

Liked the maps and the scenarios are well-designed ... BUT

Increase the times. There is NO reason for US inf to rush assaults. THis is a common problem and I never see the reasoning behind such rushing. If you want to create tension, have the enemy closing in on your objective - ie game it.

Allow players to deploy. At the moment a lot of your missions waste some of the precious time simply getting troops into a decent attack plan.

Cut that ludicrous 'take the hill' mission. No-one in their right mind would assault such a position with NO in-place attack plan and one battery of 81mm mortars - it was plainly doomed to failure and, seeing the impossibility of it, I did not bother, so conserving the valuable lives of my troops. Too Hollywood. If you want to rescue it rather than ditch it, give the US more arty or air, which is the only one to clear them off the top of the hill with minimal casualties.

Not sure about the parameters of the 'defend the bridges' option. I killed everything that stepped on them, had troops occupying one of them at the end and still got a Total Defeat.

Apart from that - good campaign.

[Webwing]

Originally posted by blow56:

Liked the maps and the scenarios are well-designed ... BUT

Increase the times. There is NO reason for US inf to rush assaults. THis is a common problem and I never see the reasoning behind such rushing. If you want to create tension, have the enemy closing in on your objective - ie game it.

I used to complain about that in other peoples missions!!!

I agree. More time can't hurt since you can always hit the cease fire button anyway.

Allow players to deploy. At the moment a lot of your missions waste some of the precious time simply getting troops into a decent attack plan.

In some missions I think getting into position should be part of the mission. But I'll take a look at that.

Cut that ludicrous 'take the hill' mission. No-one in their right mind would assault such a position with NO in-place attack plan and one battery of 81mm mortars - it was plainly doomed to failure and, seeing the impossibility of it, I did not bother, so conserving the valuable lives of my troops. Too Hollywood. If you want to rescue it rather than ditch it, give the US more arty or air, which is the only one to clear them off the top of the hill with minimal casualties.

I'm reading a lot about the Falklands War. The Brits had to take several hills with very little support sometimes. What they did was to attack at night. Now that CM:SF has dynamic lighting it might be an interesting solution.

Not sure about the parameters of the 'defend the bridges' option. I killed everything that stepped on them, had troops occupying one of them at the end and still got a Total Defeat.

Total Defeat? That means you got no points!!

I don't really know how that was possible!

It is basically the same as the previous (second mission) bridge mission.

The only thing I did different for this one was to give the Red side a bonus. So they start the game winning. I was trying to force the player to play. Else it would start as a draw and the player would simply ask for a cease fire in the start of the mission and that was it.

If you have people on the bridges and the enemy doesn't you get 100 points for each. To do this you must have killed more than 80% of the enemy in which case you get another 100. If you took less that 15% casualties you get another 100. So that should be at least a Major Win.

If you occupy the bridges but took too many loses and the enemy didn't then the bridges are still in danger. In this case it is a draw.

So in your case the only thing I can imagine is that there were some red guy still on the bridge area. You took many loses and the enemy was still not beaten.

But I'll take a look at it again.

Apart from that - good campaign.

Thanks for the feedback!

[blow56]

Ah - I see the reasoning now. Brits in the Falklands. You should know that they only did this with any great success at Goose Green, when the Paras had a pop at eleven trenches, in the dark, filled with troops already on the point of giving up. After Colonel H got smacked, the Paras did the wild thing and the Argies caved in. In fact, if they had hung on a little longer, the Paras might have pulled back. Ex-Para, so I know. That said, the Paras (and Marines, sick though I am to have to say it) did first-class work with minimum (typical British Army) support and proper equipment.

Still doing the old muddle through in Afghanistan, so nothing learned.

The bridge mission - re-analysed it and found ONE Red driver of a knocked-out APC cowering under the vehicle and still on the bridge. Vagaries of the AI - he was hardly occupying the bridge, but it counted it.

I wouldn't be so set against deployment areas if the time limits were maxed, allowing me to send out flank forces. Actually, on reflection, I prefer this, providing my start-points aren't compromised.

Look forward to more from you.

[Webwing]

Originally posted by blow56:

Ah - I see the reasoning now. Brits in the Falklands. You should know that they only did this with any great success at Goose Green, when the Paras had a pop at eleven trenches, in the dark, filled with troops already on the point of giving up. After Colonel H got smacked, the Paras did the wild thing and the Argies caved in. In fact, if they had hung on a little longer, the Paras might have pulled back. Ex-Para, so I know. That said, the Paras (and Marines, sick though I am to have to say it) did first-class work with minimum (typical British Army) support and proper equipment.

Still doing the old muddle through in Afghanistan, so nothing learned.

The bridge mission - re-analysed it and found ONE Red driver of a knocked-out APC cowering under the vehicle and still on the bridge. Vagaries of the AI - he was hardly occupying the bridge, but it counted it.

I wouldn't be so set against deployment areas if the time limits were maxed, allowing me to send out flank forces. Actually, on reflection, I prefer this, providing my start-points aren't compromised.

Look forward to more from you.

blow56,

I read 2 books on the Falklands recently. Although limited in many aspects it is actually a quite interesting conflict for what if scenarios.

I still feel a bit strange to have pros like you, that have been part (or still are) of the real thing, play scenarios I created.

If I can manage to create something that someone with your experience think is believable and interesting then I'm on the right path I guess.

I'd be curious to know what you thought of the 2 last missions. They were the ones that gave me most headaches. Extremely hard to balance them.

--

[Wuehlmaus]

This campaign does set benchmarks! You now worry about each pixel soldier.

[SgtMuhammed]

Enjoyable but the final missions are unrealistic as blow 56 has stated. Were the US actually to try to take such a position it would definitely be at night and with massive support. The US Army realized long ago that human wave tactics in the open will force an almost immediate political end to the war, and not one favorable to US interests. The last thing the US wants is a fair fight and certainly not one where it is at a dissadvantage.

[handihoc]

OK, just finished battle one and here's my verdict

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Very intense battle, playing WEGO Elite. Scored Total Victory with 2 dead and 16 wounded.

Love the map, love the infantry emphasis, but a couple of things happened that made me wonder about the AI and/or scripting. Firstly, the BTR came in and, after waiting on the bend a while and spraying hot metal towards my 2nd platoon, then advanced right up to MG1. By then 1st platoon had taken that position, which the BTR should have been aware of (?). So when it sat outside, my squads just peppered it. Boom!

And why would a solitary vehicle advance when it knows the area is full of enemy inf?

When the F16 came in, I ordered it to heavy bomb MG2. It never managed to do it - I just kept getting the Coming Around message, but it never dropped any ordnance. As it happened, I didn't need it anyway. Got the victory 5 minutes from the end.

In the end, then, though it was a challenging battle, it turned into a relatively easy victory. A vigorous enemy defence, but a couple more enemy squads and/or another vehicle might've really tested me.

Great fun, though, fantastic to watch my guys on the move, and it's so good to be back in the fray!

On to battle 2 . . .

[bardosy]

The F-16 did it (when I played) but extremly missed the target. Luckily in the other direction where my men come.

In the missions I really need a few APC. Not for supress fire or transport, but ammo supply. My squads was always empty...

[Webwing]

Originally posted by Wuehlmaus:

This campaign does set benchmarks! You now worry about each pixel soldier.

Thanks Wuehlmaus!

I planned it so that losing up to 10/15% of your forces each battle would still let you win the campaign.

It's curious to see that most people got realy involved and worried about not losing a single soldier. I don't see how you can do that in this campaign.

-

Originally posted by SgtMuhammed:

Enjoyable but the final missions are unrealistic as blow 56 has stated. Were the US actually to try to take such a position it would definitely be at night and with massive support. The US Army realized long ago that human wave tactics in the open will force an almost immediate political end to the war, and not one favorable to US interests. The last thing the US wants is a fair fight and certainly not one where it is at a dissadvantage.

SgtMuhammed,

You are absolutely right. And so is the US. Having said that, realism and fun do not always walk hand in hand. You can argue that not a single mission that has been made for CMSF is realistic, from one perspective or another.

I am of the opinion that you can't make a fun mission and be realistic. You can do that with WW2 but not here. So I gave that up. What I think can be done is to make them believable. I tried to achieve that setting the campaign in a context where you don't have much at your disposal but still have to act due to time constrains. If you can accept that premisse then the mission is "realistic".

I think the one mission that is unbalanced and to some extent well, totaly off is the 5th. The others need tweaking but they are winnable with not so many casualties.

--

[Webwing]

Originally posted by handihoc:

OK, just finished battle one and here's my verdict

******** BIG SPOILER ALERT!!! *********

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>

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Very intense battle, playing WEGO Elite. Scored Total Victory with 2 dead and 16 wounded.

Love the map, love the infantry emphasis, but a couple of things happened that made me wonder about the AI and/or scripting. Firstly, the BTR came in and, after waiting on the bend a while and spraying hot metal towards my 2nd platoon, then advanced right up to MG1. By then 1st platoon had taken that position, which the BTR should have been aware of (?). So when it sat outside, my squads just peppered it. Boom!

And why would a solitary vehicle advance when it knows the area is full of enemy inf?

When the F16 came in, I ordered it to heavy bomb MG2. It never managed to do it - I just kept getting the Coming Around message, but it never dropped any ordnance. As it happened, I didn't need it anyway. Got the victory 5 minutes from the end.

In the end, then, though it was a challenging battle, it turned into a relatively easy victory. A vigorous enemy defence, but a couple more enemy squads and/or another vehicle might've really tested me.

Great fun, though, fantastic to watch my guys on the move, and it's so good to be back in the fray!

On to battle 2 . . .

I'm looking forward to the AAR for the second mission!!

-

[Webwing]

Originally posted by bardosy:

The F-16 did it (when I played) but extremly missed the target. Luckily in the other direction where my men come.

In the missions I really need a few APC. Not for supress fire or transport, but ammo supply. My squads was always empty...

bardosy,

Conserving ammo is a major concern during this whole campaign. But if you use it wisely you should be fine.

--

[handihoc]

Finished the second mission. Had a lot of problems with CTDs, but eventually managed to finish the last few turns without further crashes.

**************SPOILER ALERT!!**************>

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Again, a really well constructed map, with a challenging layout. Really loved the long approach, unnecessarily cautious as it turned out, and then the numerous ambushes. The feel of hunting street by street, building to building, with sudden attacks coming from nowhere, was very tense and great to observe.

Some hard fighting and intense encounters in places, but again, I think the enemy could've been beefed up a bit, especially towards the end. The only counterattack seemed to come from three enemy inf squads across the two bridges, approaching across the open. My mg's and sniper were able to pick them off with little trouble.

I expected a substantially bigger response, and was saving my mortars for that, but in the end didn't get to use them. Total US Victory 24 minutes before timeout. 3 dead, 10 wounded.

Very enjoyable scenario, as previously. But my experience so far, if you are planning to update the campaign, is that careful tactical planning and timely manoeuvring with the US troops will lead to a relatively easy win. The Syrians need more beef!

[vincere]

Finished the second mission. Had a lot of problems with CTDs,

Man, I'm really trying to finish the 2nd battle but am havibg too many CTDs and now I can't get past a turn for CTD. Is there something inherently wrong with 2nd battle or campaign's compatibility with 1.06?

[handihoc]

I've tried playing the Euphrates mission that came with 1.05. It runs very smoothly, much more smoothly under 1.06 than 1.05 BUT I've had a couple of CTDs. They seem to happen mostly on repeated playback ie, in WEGO, play the action once, no problem, play it again and there seems to be a strong likelihood of a CTD.

In the Ghost mission 2, the CTDs seemed more random, though some did occur on repeated playback. No idea why, but others are reporting the same in the tech forum, not just in this campaign. So I guess BF will be on the case.

Goddamit, one of these days this game is gonna play like it should!

[vincere]

handihoc, thanks, that's really informative. Sounds like a general CTD problem that BF will have to squash. FYI most of my CTDs were indeed in wego repeated play back.

Goddamit, it's close, I've been having a ball between CTDs

[dpabrams]

I have to say the maps are great and the all infantry with little or no support is great also. I can hack it without armor or fire and forget, man pack arty BUT green and conscript US troops ruins it for me.

[Peach Operations]

I noticed in the (EDIT: Hideout mission, I thought it was the last one) that you can cross the ravine at one point, near the southwest corner of the map. This allows you to go around the hill's left flank and avoid a lot of the enemy in the village north of the hill.

I don't know if this was intended -- hence my post -- but I actually like this. Having my pixelated troops launch a frontal assault down the hill, in view of the entire valley on the other side, seems kind of...odd.

[ February 11, 2008, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: shadowgamer ]

[Peach Operations]

BTW, I want to second the requests for more time in this thread. Especially since more than one of the missions give you air power with 30 or so minutes left. It often seems to take up to 10 minutes for the bombs to start falling, then the bombs fall one at a time at 1-2 minute intervals.. and by the time you cancel the strike you have barely any time left.

[Paper Tiger]

I still haven't had any time to start this one because I'm too busy working on something else but once it's finished, I can't wait to give it a go.

However, I do notice people posting "give us more time please" for certain situations and I often wonder why. Time pressure is a really good way for a scenario designer to up the excitement and difficulty of a situation, especially if you're playing as the US side. Two hours is a very long time to play one single scenario, especially if you have to playtest the monster 10-20 times first to get everything right.

But we all have our own tastes. I suppose Webwing could do two different versions of his campaign, one as it is with time pressure, and the other with each scenario two hours long for those who prefer it that way.

[Peach Operations]

Just because something "ups the excitement" doesn't mean it necessarily makes sense, or is a good idea. If someone held a gun to my head and told me that I'd be shot if I lost Webwing's campaign, that would make it *very* intense, but I don't think I'd want that.

Seriously, we're talking about missions that a) involve pretty large maps and revolve around dismounted infantry. Unless you intend to conduct human wave attacks, this is going to go fairly slowly.

Moreover, I'm not seeing anything in the briefings that would indicate a reason for time pressure. I could fully understand if the bad guys were trying to vacate an area, and your mission was to head them off. Or if you made a scenario where the player has to make an armored breakthrough (which is one idea I've had floating around in my head) -- that would be excellent for time pressure. But none of the missions appear to run along those lines.

That said, it's not a bad campaign, and I just played through it with 1.06 -- got a minor victory. Needless to say, I think it's plenty challenging without arbitrary timelimits.

[Webwing]

Hey guys!!!

I’ve been pretty busy lately so not very active here. Also I had to trash the upgraded campaign I was working on and start it all over again after 1.06. But I’m happy with it since 1.06 made CMSF such a better game.

Let me just address some points mentioned here and talk about some other points from my own perspective.

If you read this thread and others about the Ghost campaign you will notice that while some complain that it is too difficult, with too many casualties, etc., others say it is too easy.

I wanted the player to reason like if he was there. In that sense I wanted it to be realistic. Bad surprises included. Also some realistic reasoning like in the above mentioned Hideout mission. Would you in real life go for a frontal assault? Most likely not. So look around for options, send some scouts to find some options for you. And there are a few. It’s not a puzzle. It’s the way I imagine a good commander would behave

I wanted infantry mostly. Why? Don’t I love tanks? I surely do and I also love Javelins and all the heavy firepower. But I thought this would be an interesting break and a way to exercise infantry tactics that work so well in CMSF and also balance and otherwise asymmetrical conflict.

I wanted people to have a feeling that each battle was contributing to the final goal, and not just a bunch of missions in a sequence.

I wanted players to get involved with the troops and worry about casualties. And most players seem to worry a lot more than I anticipated.

I wanted not only elite troops but all levels of experience in your force and for you to have to deal with it and employ them in the best way possible.

I wanted the campaign to have a rhythm, to start small and grow as you went from one mission to the next.

Some missions are long and you have no real time pressure. Others you have half an hour to accomplish the impossible.

Those were some of the things I had in mind.

Among some of the challenges was the fact that without support you had to conserve ammo, which can actually be a good thing. But if the mission lasts too long you will run out of ammo for sure. At this point there is no way to resupply the troops. But even that might count as realistic.

I made some mistakes that I plan to correct in the next version and there are a lot of things that can be improved. Actually I’d love to revamp this campaign, add some more missions and make it a Marines Module campaign! We’ll see if I’ll find the time and energy for that.

-

[SlapHappy]

The Bridges Counterrattack mission is insane!

Could someone please tell me how they possibly beat that one? I haven't had much luck with any of the missions, honestly, but this one made my jaw drop to the ground.