Questions about campaign set-up

[Paper Tiger]

Merry Christmas guys

I was trying to set up my first campaign this afternoon. I have the maps all ready and the concept all worked out so I read the manual and I went ahead and tried to set up a campaign. Needless to say, it's not quite as easy as the manual suggests. I'm confused about the campaign starting scenario and how to allocate the core units. The first scenario is to be called 'Murder in the night' but I don't want to use all the core units. Am I right when I think that the set-up scenario is different from the 'first' scenario?

The first scenario will have the name of the campaign tentatively called "The Bloodiest Day". Is it here that I create the core unit file?

Sorry to appear dense. I often thnk manuals are written to help people who already know how the game works. It's so easy with hindsight or experience to see what the manual means but before that experience threshold is crossed, it's a bit vague.

I don't want to say too much about the campaign until I am closer to compiling it, probably early in the New Year. Fortunately, it's a holiday week so I'll have loads of time to playtest it.

Have a good holiday

[Cpl Steiner]

Paper Tiger,

Here's how it works.

First of all, you create a "core units" scenario, which just has your core units, a campaign briefing, and the icon you will see in the "Load New Campaign Game" screen. Just as for a normal scenario, you can delete some units from the roster. For instance you can use just a single company from a rifle battalion if you wish.

Next, you create all your scenarios. For each scenario, in the "Units" screen, load the core units scenario using the "Import Campaign Units" option. You can then delete any of the core units you don't want to be in this battle. In the above example, perhaps only 1st platoon is in the first battle. [EDIT] You can even "undelete" units you deleted when creating the core units scenario file. For instance, in the example above, you could add in another company of the parent battalion.

Next, you create a campaign script file that links all the scenarios together.

Finally, you load the core units scenario and select the "Make Campaign" option from the main menu. It will ask for the script file and then will use that to load all the scenarios. If all your file names are correct, the new campaign file will be created.

[ December 24, 2007, 09:18 AM: Message edited by: Cpl Steiner ]

[Webwing]

Paper Tiger,

Great to know that you are doing a campaign!

Cpl Steiner has given you a great answer.

I'd just add that you don't necessarily need the core units. You can leave that empty and add units in your missions as you normally do.

On the other hand you can have core units for both sides if you wish.

The only purpose of the core units is so that the campaign engine can track those units from mission to mission. The units that are not in this core file will not be tracked.

I think this is the one cool feature of the campaign and without it you will just have a sequence of missions.

But anyway those are options you have but they are not mandatory for the campaign to work.

Be careful when you do the script for the campaign. If you open it in a program like Word some lines might jump and mess your comment tags which will give you an error when compiling the campaign.

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[Paper Tiger]

Hey, thanks for the replies guys. Especially good to hear about the 'Make Campaign' order later. I was actually starting with that, DOH! I'm having such fun playtesting the scenarios that I don't want to mess about unnecessarily trying to figure out how the campaign set up works by trial and error. Later today I'll get that scenario file set up and the core units created. This should be fun.

Webwing: yup, I'm going to need the core units. The action follows a single Republican Guards Mech battalion through one day of (very intense) action. The whole battalion doesn't appear on the board until the last scenario, tentatively named 'The Guards Counterattack" Definitely NOT the Squad Leader scenario. Do really badly in the early scenarios and you won't have much left with which to counterattack.

I was planning to use Notebook for the campaign script by the way. Thanks again for the replies. Have a merry christmas.

[Webwing]

I'm having such fun playtesting the scenarios that I don't want to mess about unnecessarily trying to figure out how the campaign set up works by trial and error. Later today I'll get that scenario file set up and the core units created. This should be fun.

Paper Tiger,

Are you playtesting the missions before creating core units? That means you already added units to it. I hope not else you'll lose a lot of work.

It should be the other way around...

Create the core units, import them in your missions, deploy then, playtest them.

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[Paper Tiger]

Great advice guys. I created the campaign scenario with the core units and it all went smoothly from there. I openened the first scenario, pressed 'import core units' in the Units section of the editor, selected the campaign scenario and voila! I just had to delete the original Blue forces. Fortunately, I've only done one 'scenario' so far, the others are just maps and ideas so I haven't lost much time.