Work in progress - The Hasrabit campaign

[Paper Tiger]

Introduction

This is till a long way from completion, at least another month but now that I've learned how to post screenshots I thought I'd share some of them with you all. This will also act as a spur to me to finish the thing as I sometimes get lazy and just play the game instead of working on the campaign. I will continue to post in this thread on it's progress as the weeks go by.

Anyway, it's a Red on Red campaign, the background being 'The Three Day Coup', and it's part of a larger scenario that will include further campaigns. The first is called Hasrabit and it's set in a fictional region to the south west of Damascus between the capital and the Golan heights. The story isn't that important just now but I'll post more about that later.

When I started this campaign, it was originally planned to have 5 or 6 scenarios with the Blue player having a Republican Guard Battalion group. But then, I designed a really nice farmland map and I had the idea to expand the campaign to include a 'left flank' to the campaign in the form of a fertile valley. This allowed me to add a battalion of Special Forces to the core units and they have some very tough battles to fight. So far, mainly at night. This effectively gives me two linked campaigns but they are both dependent on each other.

The campaign will definitely be dynamic but not too dynamic as scripting it would be a nightmare. And there are only two possible outcomes to each scenario, win or lose. You can't get a different branch for each different victory level so the main criterion in many of the scenarios will be casualties lost. Lose a substantial part of your force and it's pulled from the campaign and you won't see them again. This is to avoid patently absurd situations where the player must fight a reinforced battalion with a few stragglers. Not much fun. Instead, the Guards will get pulled from the region if the situation looks unfavourable for them and then we jump to the last battle.

However, having said that, it's not always true. There is already one scenario that's time limited. If you don't capture the victory location before a certain time, the Special Forces in the next situation will get hammered by artillery at the start. Win it and they won't. Air support for the Blue side is dependent on success in some missions. Fail in a key situation and the air support is pulled and the airbase evacuated.

[Paper Tiger]

The first few scenarios take place at night. At present, the opener is called 'Ambush' and it takes place at night while there is still a half moon. This one is a Special Forces mission and it's a fairly easy start for the player but it can surprise me occassionally when I play it.

It takes place in the fertile valley and it's quite a short mission, the logic behind that being that after hitting the lead elements hard, the ambushing force must get out of dodge a.s.a.p. This one is finished. The only real changes that I might make now will be to the map just to improve it's visual appeal.

After that, we have another Special Forces mission called 'Strong Stand'.

It takes place about an hour after Ambush so the moon is still shining. This scenario is still under development as it has LOTS of low walls which make playtesting a pain. I've also read that the Syrians will be able to see better after 1.06 so I'll have to see how that affects the night situations. Shouldn't be a problem for Ambush but it might hurt here. I'm planning this one to be a toughie.

[Paper Tiger]

'Strong Stand' takes place on a map based very closely on a real location located just east of the real location that Hasrabit is based on. The map isn't finished yet.

Then, in scenario 3, we finally get to see the Republican Guards in action. The following screenshot has been modified because the situation takes place after the moon sets so it's DARK. But don't be alarmed, with the icons on, you'll have no problems. The moon has set.

This one was originally slated to be the campaign opener. It's a meeting engagement and it's got a killer AI plan attached to it. But it's one of four so don't get too worried. This one is finished too unless 1.06 changes night spotting too much. The Republican Guards NEED the dark to give them the edge as they are 'slightly' outnumbered.

Scenario 4 is called 'Hill 142 part 1' and it's obviously a two parter. It starts before dawn but the sun rises during the scenario and changes the way it's played. Once again, the attached screenshot is modified so that you can see what it will look like after the sun rises.

This map is pretty big and it has some pretty large elevation changes. Two companies of Republican Guards must approach and capture the big hill in the background. It's being used as an observation post for rebel artillery and it must be captured before the sun rises fully and allows the observers to see what's going on in the valley to the east. So far, the map is finished and I've playtested it a couple of times and had a BLAST. It's not too lethal but there are some surprises that I'm keeping quiet. The terrain allows for some real tactical possibilities.

[Paper Tiger]

Scenario 5 is called 'Buying the Farm' and it takes us back to the valley and the Special Forces again. Depending on how well you did in the last situation, you will face one of two different levels of challenge. Again, the map is large and it takes place after dawn so it's very hazy.

It soesn't look that great from afar but down on the ground with the troops, it looks really good.

That's from one of the playtests I did last week. The map is finished and I've picked the forces but I've only got a rudimentary AI attack plan. There are also some low walls in important positions so it will require some more work to get finished.

[Pandur]

:eek:

RED ≠ RED + Campain = most awsome!

as said in the "what are you preferences" thread, i gona play it for sure

[Paper Tiger]

And that's pretty much where I'm up to at the moment. I have maps for four more situations finished at the moment and I'm working them into the story this weekend.

I'm working on 'Hill 142 part 2' this afternoon and it takes place on a map that was created from the other one. I just cut off the eastern edge and expanded the western edge and it's looking really good. In this one, the Republican Guards must hold the hill against a very determined counterattack from the valley.

That one's viewd from the red sep-up area and it's looking at the hill from the other side. Again, the map's huge. I'm still determining the Red force for this one as the Blue force should be a bit depleted by now. It will take part later in the morning and it should be clear.

After that, there's going to be a big armour clash on this one. This one is called 'The Valley of Death', >groan< but never mind.

This map is a reworking of the QB map that I contributed to the QB group but it looks quite different now. I have some ideas to make this one very exciting. More later.

[Paper Tiger]

The last two maps are pretty much finished but the forces have yet to be determined. This screenshot was the original Hasrabit village but I've created a whole new map for the finale so this one will probably be quite a big clash of arms between the Republican Guards and a rebel mech force. The map is beautiful and this is the one I designed for a US v Syrian action. The screenshot is taked from the location where an M1 SEP took 10+ hits from Special Forces kornets and only got disabled. As you can see, it had a good view of the enemy positions. :eek:

I'm a bit worried about this one as it's huge and runs quite slowly on my computer at the moment and I expect 1.06 to hurt it badly so it might not make it.

Oh my god! I completely forgot about 'Passed Off'. It's the real senario 5 and it takes place at the same time as 'Buying the Farm'

How could I forget this one . This one is finished and it's a toughie. Once again, it's a large map and it takes place after dawn. Two Republican Guards companies must halt a determined mech attack into the pass. It's almost finished. Presently, there are only two AI attack plans and one of them's a bit lame. I need to find one that really challenges the Blue force. Having said that, even the lame plan hurts the Blue force.

[Paper Tiger]

Tha last map is the Hasrabit map and it's based on a real location, a large village just to the south of Damascus International Airport. As soon as I googled it, I knew that I wanted to make it into a map.

This one could take place at a different time of the day depending on the level of success you've had so far in the campaign. When you play this one, the Republican Guards have been pulled out of the area and you'll have the Special Forces and some Uncons representing the civilian militia loyal to the government to defend the town. This map could grow quite a lot as I'd like to put in a fictional bridge either to the north or to the west.

That's the Hasrabit market square. I'm looking forward to doing some MOUT here. I'm hoping to have worn down the Special Forces core units by the time you get here so that it will be largely uncon and some IEDs. But again, I'll have to wait until after 1.06 before I can start playtesting this one as there are a few low walls again. And I haven't really sussed it out yet.

I have plans for two more scenarios including the one I hope will kill most of your Special Forces. It will be something along the lines of the ASL scenario 'Hill 621'. I'll probably start that map later this afternoon. The other will come to me after I shoehorn the other scenarios into a coherent story line and test compile the campaign to see how it plays with the core forces getting reduced in each situation. If I can play without losing too much of my core force, I'll stick in another core force killer.

[Paper Tiger]

Hey, Pandur, thanks for your comments. I know you like Red on Red too. I'm hoping to make this one something special and maybe it will encourage Battlefront to give us some Red air support in a future module or patch. Yeah, they'll lose it all on day 1 v the US but it would be nice to have for creating campaigns like this one.

There is air support available to Blue in the 'Buying the farm' scenario and probably 'Hill 142 part 2' but they're F-15 Eagles. There's none at night because I feel that might be too dangerous to the Blue side. as it is, you have to watch friendly fire at night a lot more with the Syrians and that adds to the challenge.

[Pandur]

the maps look beautiuful, and dont worry about too many AI plans. i guess hardly anyone will replay a campain twice in "short" order or three times in total. so if you do 5 AI plans for quiet some battles, maybe noone will ever see all five. in my view single battles really need some more AI plans if possible, but campains, i dont think so. 2 or 3 are good. my opinion.

iam not so into airsupport myself, i hardly used it so far. just in "The Curve" becouse there is plenty, and overall much time for the FO´s so i busted some houses far away

i "allways" play in elite, so air support takes considerable time to arive for me, than they have to acually "hit" a thing(drunken shotgun of the gods ). the verry rare situations where i have a FO for 10 turns+ in view of an enemy vehicle to send a plane with point target is, as said, verry rare and mostly the vehicle is killed by the time the plane would arive. other than that the air support is pretty inaccurate and slow i found.

everything i really need to hit fast and accurate gets done by mortars, and/or 155mm´s.

[Paper Tiger]

Yeah, I'd been thinking that about AI plans too. I guess two would suffice in most situations. Ambush just has one at the moment and I figure most people will breeze it and then have a save point for the more difficult mission that follows.

There's not much air support so far and I'm not planning on letting it become an important part of the campaign. Stuff up on 'Strong Stand' and there won't be any air support at all because the air base will be threatened by the rebel advance. It's in 'Buying the farm' and I've had some good results from the heavy strikes, very spectacular. They usually come in after 10 minutes or so.

I'm a bit wary about artillery against the AI as it often swings the game solidly in the player's favour. Blue will always have at least one module of mortars, usually more than one. I was planning to put in a couple of batteries of 122mm SPA but it's too powerful for the AI. It just walks/runs right into the barrage and that's it, game over. That mwould mean the real challenge was predicting where the AI was going to move and then killing them with the artillery because they couldn't react. I prefer to let the grunts on the ground do most of the dirty work. After all, in CMx1, the idea was that the big artillery barrage was finished and it was time to do the fighting.

Of course, the AI gets LOTS! But then, it's not very good at using it effectively.

[handihoc]

Wow. Those are beautiful maps, PT. Really something to look forward to. I've always been something of a campaign junkie so it's great to see so many campaigns turning up, with such diverse and imaginative approaches from individual designers.

Excellent!

[Thomm]

I have tears in my eyes!

This is some beautiful work!

Thanks for doing all this!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Pandur]

Stuff up on 'Strong Stand' and there won't be any air support at all

i see

i will remeber that. but dont give us more spoilers

its good to know that some mission have a real meaning to them but furhter than that i dont want to know anything.

It's in 'Buying the farm' and I've had some good results from the heavy strikes, very spectacular.

becouse i hardly use the air support i have absolutely no clue wich strike type does what in the air support sector. i never used the armor type rounds for mortars and arty too so far(Vt, and general did the trick all the time so far), have no clue if they work, but i need to read up on air in the manual for sure.

I'm a bit wary about artillery against the AI as it often swings the game solidly in the player's favour.

quiet right, though, i have to admit the verry the rare occasions where red has high caliber arty support(Strenth and Faith scenario as example) are verry pleasing

maybe take a selected scenario(the hardest or whatever...) and give the player a single high caliber module with verry limited ammo in addition to the planed mortars, or maybe sacrifice one mortar for that. you could also tie it to an previous battle wich would "by story" indirectly support/relive blue´s heavy arty battery, if you dont win, you just have the mortars later on. ...just an idea, ofcourse up to you if you want to include that.

[Paper Tiger]

Pandur:

I will remeber that. but dont give us more spoilers

Don't worry, it's not a spoiler because it's in the briefing. I think the player has to know when something is important so that he's willing to expend his core force units to get a victory and not just preserve it. Other than that, I'll heed your warning and not give out any spoilers.

And to you other guys, thanks for the comments. I spend a LOT of time working on maps because I like them to look as realistic and as pleasing as possible. I'm looking forward to see how they play with the new ELoS system as I spend a lot of time building subtle (and not so subtle)undulations in the terrain. It's a bit of a shame that the 'Valley of Death' scenario has to happen in the middle of the day because dawn, and the long shadows really bring this map to life. It's beautiful but during the dayh, it looks a bit washed out. Hmm. But it's too unrealistic to have so many actions within such a short space of time.

BTW, Valley of Death is definitely going to get a new name.

[Rokossovski]

Please consider posting some of the maps on cmmods separately from the campaign. They look really great.

[Paper Tiger]

Wow! I'm on the front page. I'm honoured. I'd really better get the finger out with this project then.

Rokossovski: yeah, I'm planning to release the maps separately as quick battle maps but that will only happen after the campaign is all finished.

I got a lot of work done yesterday thankfully. 'Hill 142 part 2' has it's OOB sorted now and I've played it a couple of times. I had to cut the map down from it's original 1600m x 1000m because it was too open and I suspect the number of LOS checks was holding things up. I have already finished battles with larger forces than this one but I was down to 1FPS for the first 15 minutes of the scenario. After I cut the map back and made 100% sure that the Red force set up out of sight of all possible Blue set up zones, I was back up in double figures again until the battle was joined in earnest. Then I was down to about 5-6FPS. That's not too bad because I'm playtesting the situations with the FULL Blue OOB and no doubt, the two companies will be reduced by the time this situation starts. So far, it's TOUGH!

Actually, I've pretty much decided the story line now and that means that the scenarios with the Republican Guard part in the campaign are almost finished. They will be pulled out of the area before the fighting in Hasrabit begins. I just need to do the 'Valley of death' and then I just have the finale and the Special Forces to do. I have to wait for 1.06 to arrive before I can playtest those situations.

I also want to see how good the new Syrian ability to re-supply during battles is before I start writing the script. I'm hoping that they'll have enough for 2 battles and knowing this will help timing the missions a lot.

Does anybody know any Arabic? I'm a bit nervous that some of my made-up names might be offensive. (Example, Hasrabit is nonsense to me but it might mean something in Arabic.) Also, 'Hill 142' is a bit lame, I'd like to use the Arabic for 'The head of the serpent' and the 'tail of the serpent' instead.

[Paper Tiger]

Wow, 'Valley of death' is actually quite an appropriate name for the situation. I playtested it three times this morning and it's UNBELIEVABLY intense, possibly the most intense action I've seen yet in a CMSF scenario. Played in RT, the first 10 minutes are INSANE man!!!. I'm not sure whether I should leave it this way or modify the map or the AI plan to make it a bit less intense. Or maybe it's just my crappy tactics.

Actually, I'm hoping to do a test complilation of the Republican Guard scenarios later this week just to see how the later scenarios really play. I've been using the full OOB in each scenario and that's fine when it's the first time the core forces are in action. But I always lose quite a portion of those forces in 'Murder' and 'Passed off!' So, I want to see how the two 'Hill' scenarios play with the reduced forces as well as 'Valley of Death.' Maybe it won't be quite so intense.

I also won't be able to playtest the 'Saudara' map (the original Hasrabit map pictured above)until I've done this as Blue gets the entire Republican Guard Battalion group against another mech Battalion and that slaughters my processor. I shouldn't have a problem if all the Companies are at 30-50% strength though.

[General_solomon]

great maps. i cant wait to play once 1.06 comes out.

keep up the good work.

[Paper Tiger]

Yeah, it IS a lot of work but the more I work on it the better it gets. I'm looking forward to playing it when 1.06 comes out too. I can't do much more with the Special Forces situations until the low wall bug is eradicated.

It's strange how some scenarios 'grow' as you playtest them. This morning, I decided to overhaul the rudimentary AI Plan that 'Buying the farm' had and the new one was too lethal for the Special Forces. So I had an idea to add a Reserve Militia company with some support weapons to the Blue OB. They start the game onboard and they are really crap, the poorest everything, so handling them is a real challenge. Then, the Special Forces arrive later as reinforcements.

When I playtested the first 30 minutes, it all worked beautifully and I think I now have my 'final' version. Now I have to figure out how to beat the AI attack with what's available. It's a really beautiful map and the more I play on it, the more I find this scenario is becoming my favourite.

Now that I've added one Reserve Militia company to the Special Forces, I feel that I can add more in the other non-night time situations. They definitely won't be core forces because they get lost very quickly. It also solves the problem I had with the Special Forces, no machine guns. Yeah, they have some pretty cool kit and they're almost as good as US troops in certain situations but I feel the lack of heavy support weapons. Now I can add machine guns platoons and other goodies to the Blue OB.

It also solves the problem I had with forcing the player to lose some of his core forces due to restricting their set up zones to areas targetted by a preliminary artillery barrage. I didn't really like this very much because it felt unfair. I don't have any qualms about doing this to your non-core forces. Now, the first 20-30 minutes of the situation are very exciting. When the first Special Forces company arrives, it has it's work cut out for it to stabilise the situation. I feel I really have my back to the wall playing this one. Then, the counterattack can begin in earnest when the second company arrives later.

I love designing scenarios.

[Pandur]

They start the game onboard and they are really crap, the poorest everything, so handling them is a real challenge. Then, the Special Forces arrive later as reinforcements.

at night!? hehe i can already see the militia freaking out when they suddenly see some black dressed guys walking up from behind.

somehow i manage to attrackt friendly fire situation in certain battles in bad light conditions.

however that sounds fun nevertheless.

another thing i wanted to ask, are there sometimes units wich are "not" in your core units troup/file and are in a way expandable!?

or do you start in mission 1 with your core units and dont see any other troops other than the core units for the campain!?

i mean, sometimes expandable troops could help out localy, something along the militia.

but i see why you would like to include everything in the core units file and let the player carry all this man and equipment through the campain, wich is in a way also verry interesting to play i imagine.

i just want to know how you plan to do this

[thewood]

When you build scenarios, do you play test them in WEGO?

[Wiggum]

Great work !

I love RED VS. RED...

[handihoc]

I do love the look of this campaign, but just one word of caution. The size of maps/battles, even on a powerful machine, can really slow things down to an unplayable level.

Not saying that's necessarily the case here, but I'm wondering what spec machine you're playing and testing on? These are great maps, and I do have a powerful machine and am very much looking forward to playing them, but even so I have found some scenarios with large maps and multiple units do still stretch my pc beyond what I would have hoped or expected.

[Paper Tiger]

Pandur:

OMG no, not at night although I'm going to. No, they're in 'Buying the farm', a post dawn scenario, so they should behave themselves better than at night. But yes, you will still have to be careful when you approach them. I saw some friendly fire this morning.

Once the patch arrives, I'll be working on the other Special Forces blockbuster which takes place at night and I'm going to try adding some conscript cannonfodder in that one too. That's definitely one of the bigger challenges of playing Red on red, you're not just fighting the bad guys so you have to manage the battle carefully. That won't be to everyone's taste however.

The Reserve Militia units are not part of the core forces but will be added to some of the scenarios to bulk out the Special Forces. And I'm also getting to see some of those Grenade Launcher platoons in action. I was watching one in action this morning and it was really cool. The core units are the Republican Guards and the Special Forces units, but you can't afford to squander the conscripts as you'll need their help.

thewood:

no, I'm playtesting exclusively in RT. However, if I get a LOT of slowdown with 1.06, I might have to to finish it.

handihoc:

I have a single core Pentium IV 3Ghz 64bit processor, an nVidea 8600GT graphics card and 1Gb of RAM so my kit is nothing special. The processor is the weakest link in the chain with a Vista rating of 4.3. So far, EVERYTHING can be played on my kit with all the settings maxxed out so if your kit's better, you shouldn't have a problem with it.

Having said that, all bets are off until I've seen how much slowdown I get with 1.06. If it's bad, I'll have to postpone work until I get a new processor and motherboard, and reactivate Vista... ho hum.

The 'Saudara' map is the only potentially unusable one as it's HUGE, 1500m x 1200m so I'm going to cut it back this weekend and make it play on an east west axis rather than a north south one. That should help a LOT, and I've got a copy of the original to be used as a QB map later. I designed it for a manoeuver battle between two mech forces and it would be the perfect finale for the Republican Guards battalion if it works in 1.06. If not, I might drop it or wait until I get a new processor.

Thanks for the comments guys. It keeps me motivated to push on with it as hard as my schedule allows. I'm not going to let it grow into a monster.