The Hasrabit Campaign

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Wow, the reserves in Strong Stand are really, really hard to use--which I think was what you were going for. One piece of AI that I think is really, really weird is when BTRs' machine guns can force my T-55 crewmen to dismount, rather disastrously. I lost a T-55 to this; my tank was actually fine except for some minor damage to non-vital systems but my crew got out and died almost immediately.

SPOILER

Tanks are key for the second phase, I found. It was just too hard without their suppressive fire; I only ended up controlling the Farmhouse and contesting the other two after losing 3 tanks and having the last one immobilized. I also took appalling casualties in doing so and so ended up with a Total Defeat. Oh well, on to the Guards Counterattack!

-FMB

[Paper Tiger]

Ha ha! If you think they're hard to handle now, you should have seen what 1.08 did to this scenario when they were all conscripts with low motivation. They were utterly uncontrollable once the shooting started. I bumped them up to Green and that ALMOST got it back to where it was before 1.08.

You're right, the Green vehicle crews do have a tendency to exit their vehicles when they come under fire. Fun when that happens, isn't it.

[ChrisND]

Wow, after playing the second scenario, I think I would rather have teeth pulled than try to take an objective with green troops.

[Paper Tiger]

FMB

"I only ended up controlling the Farmhouse and contesting the other two after losing 3 tanks and having the last one immobilized. I also took appalling casualties in doing so and so ended up with a Total Defeat."

If you're playing version 2, and you were contesting control of the peach orchard and the east yard, you must have been REALLY close to getting that win. The enemy must have been dangerously close to losing their friendly casualty bonus and when they do that, resistance collapses and they usually surrender.

Don't panic as the consequences of losing this mission are not catastrophic. It'll just make another later scenario a bit more 'exciting' to play, that's all. Good luck with "The Guards Counterattack'. You' be the one dishing it out for a change.

[Paper Tiger]

Normal Dude:

"Wow, after playing the second scenario, I think I would rather have teeth pulled than try to take an objective with green troops."

I know how you feel. The combination of the night setting, friendly fire and their low experience/morale make this one of the most challenging attacks you have to make in the whole campaign. If they're not handled just right, it's easy to lose control of them and you just sit helplessly and watch them slaughter each other. I remember one playtest when some of them panicked under fire and they ran back into the farmhouse. But once they got in there, they started firing on their buddies who started panicking and firing back. Once they started firing their RPGs at their own tanks and they tanks fired back, I knew that I was a goner.

Did you get a win?

[afreu]

BTW on what difficulty level do you guys play the campaign?

I'm still playing on beginner, don't have the time and patience for higher difficulty.

In the strong stand mission I managed to defeat the attack with minimal casualties. Than I used the tanks and the SF troops to attack the farm house and the peach orchard while the reserves were pulling security. Reduced the enemy positions with heavy support fire from the tanks but took some SF casualties when clearing the orchards.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

afreu, I'm playing on Veteran; I think Normal Dude is playing on Elite. I agree, the defensive part is relatively easy, but for me the Reserves are almost unmanageable.

Paper Tiger,

I might not actually be playing version 2 (even though I downloaded and unzipped it properly (??)) because they had a ton more points than I did (1250 compared to about 250 or so). Also, the enemy force composition didn't seem different at all from the first time I played it. Basically, I noted almost no changes. Guess I might have to try downloading it again.

-FMB

[ April 23, 2008, 11:06 AM: Message edited by: Field Marshal Blücher ]

[Paper Tiger]

FMB

I tried downloading v2 this morning and something appears to be wrong with it. I was at work but had left instructions for my wife how to do it. She phoned me later to say that it hadn't worked but when I checked CMMODS at work, v2 appeared to be there.

Anyway, if you didn't get a short read me about the changes with the campaign file, you didn't get v2. I tried uploading it again twice this morning with no success. Man, CMMODS can be very tricky sometimes. I'm going to try again tomorrow morning. I can't apologise enough to you folks. After hyping this thing up for months, I'm a bit embarrassed that I've stuffed up the upload.

Back to your result. The AI receives a Friendly Casualty bonus in most scenarios to prevent the player from hitting 'cease fire' early to get a win. In some missions, it's set quite high and 'Strong Stand' is one of them. It's high here because I want the AI to stay in the fight for the orchards and the east yard. Really, if you've beaten the attack and recaptured the farmhouse, they really don't have much left so I suspect you must have been very close to that threshold.

afreu

how far are you through the campaign? I am very curious to hear people's opinions about the missions, especially 'Hill 142' and 'Buying the farm'. I think they're the best two missions in Phase 1 and possible candidates for best missions in the whole campaign. Personally, I think 'Saudara''s the best but it'll be a while before you folks get there.

[Peach Operations]

Problem -- the third mission keeps crashing on me. It seems to load fine, but the moment I click the left mouse button -- regardless of what I click on -- the game crashes. This happened both in Hasrabit v1 and v2. Is anyone else having this problem?

I'm not sure whether to put this in the Tech Support forum or here. This particular problem doesn't seem to happen with any other scenario/campaign in 1.08.

The first two missions do work fine, though.

[afreu]

I finished the Hill 142 mission but missed the artillery observer. With the new version released, I restarted the campaign. Now I'm at 'Strong stand'. Got surprised by the AI using a different plan and they messed up my carefully placed units

*SPOILER*

Hill 142 is a really good mission, especially the terrain is excellent. The action only starts after the tanks and the mechanized infantry arrives. Until than there's not much to do other than trying to kill the ATGMs. I've to admit I cheated here a bit, by just sending an APC forward as bait and than returning to an earlier safegame. The actual attack of the village is quite intense. I only used the two T-72 platoons and 2 infantry platoons. One of the tank platoons provided covering fire from hill A together with a team of artillery obervers calling in mortars and airstrikes. The other T-72 platoon advanced along the road and the infantry through the orchard. At the end of the battle all but one of the buildings were completely destroyed.

I tried and than skipped the mission after Hill 142. I managed to take out a lot of vehicles coming down the central valley with the ATGMs while trying to hold back the enemy forces advancing on the left with the two BMPs. Which of course doesn't work. Only when I threw all the mechanized infantry of the reinforcements into the battle I only barely managed to eliminate this force. But with some enemy unity already near the end of the map I wasn't sure if they already reached the line I was supposed to hold. So I just quit the mission and continued to the 'Buying the farm' scenario.

[Secondbrooks]

Originally posted by Peach Operations:

Problem -- the third mission keeps crashing on me. It seems to load fine, but the moment I click the left mouse button -- regardless of what I click on -- the game crashes. This happened both in Hasrabit v1 and v2. Is anyone else having this problem?

I'm not sure whether to put this in the Tech Support forum or here. This particular problem doesn't seem to happen with any other scenario/campaign in 1.08.

The first two missions do work fine, though.

Toggle ATI left-click combatibility to OFF. Games unfortunately gets sluggish atleast for me, when doing this. But it's the only way to play mission's which have mines or IEDs. The reason are mines. i've posted it to bug thread, but i think i've been ignored

About campaign. Nice story, briefing are very good, maps are nice, but i hate the size of battles, two times smaller and they would be just optimal for mt taste.... Well you can't have all, you know. Night fights and Syrian night blindness and ability to cause gray hairs with frienly fire (RPG!) even when being veterans and crack-level troops is combination which i think i never get used to.

On my way to SF mission, 6th mission in campaign i believe, and going to get bit of artyshells to my neck (not my fault! as i will explain).

In RG mission where i have to hunt down forward observer to help out SF in their next mission. I killed the bastard, but there might be bug: Enemy got points from objective, in village, which they were not even close and i had many teams and squads in there (touch bjective instead of occupy objective?). Atleast i could not see exact reason for enemy's points. There were only few guys left between manssion and village. Because of that i got draw and not victory and to my understandment i suffer from it in next SF mission in form of artillery.

But hell, nice campaign.

[ April 24, 2008, 03:27 PM: Message edited by: Secondbrooks ]

[Paper Tiger]

Secondbrooks

Yeah, you found a mistake but it's been corrected for v2. The Qabar South VP location was set as Touch, not Occupy. I'm not sure how I missed that one as it must have been in there from the start. I guess, every time I playtested it either got the enemy to surrender or they got me to surrender. So I never figured there was anything funny with it. Trust me, I playtested that one a ton of times because I loved it so much. And then, the morning I released it I made a change to the composition of the two Republican Guards task groups. I moved the company commander's tank from Company B's group to join the A-C team. (there was a very good reason for doing this. I just wish I'd thought of it sooner) But I pressed F5 instead of 5 and put them in Blue AI group 5 (which of course, there isn't) instead of reinforcement group 5. I could see the '5' on the screen and just moved on. Imagine my surprise when I loaded it up and found a tank on the map at the start. I would imagine it helps liven things up a bit at the start though. It's gone now in v2.

As for the size of some of the missions, yeah, I have to agree with you there too. But some of the maps really needed a big OB to do them justice. My next project will be much smaller and hopefully more intimate than this one. There are no monsters though. I found a way to script the overall story to keep 'Saudara' reasonably small and challenging.

You don't get hurt badly by a loss in 'Hill 142', but it will make the mission a bit tougher to beat. Try to get a win in "The Barrier" though.

afreu

yes, the first half of the mission is quiet but there's still a lot that you can do until the tanks arrive, ie scouting out targets. I really love the assault on the village phase. It's usually an extremely violent affair when i do it.

You ran away from the enemy in 'The Barrier' eh? I'm glad to read you didn't reload and try again. 'The Barrier' is a tough one to beat but, like the briefing says, it's a psychological barrier for you as much as your pixelated troops. It's actually quite tough for the AI to reach that point if you contest the mission with them and once your armour arrives, you can kick their asses. I stop them cold every time now but it's a matter of casualties incurred while doing so.

The two missions I am genuinely scared of playing are 'Strong Stand' and 'The Barrier'. I get sweaty palms before playing both of them and groan when they come up but once the mission gets underway, I usually end up having a great time. After 'Ambush', 'The Barrier' is the shortest mission in the campaign. I don't reckon my nerves would hold out for much more than 35-40 minutes in that mission.

'Strong Stand' has two attack plans. Personally, I prefer it when the yard in the centre is the main focus of their attack. The northern workshed attack is much scarier, for me at least.

[Secondbrooks]

Originally posted by Paper Tiger:

Yeah, you found a mistake but it's been corrected for v2. The Qabar South VP location was set as Touch, not Occupy.

... snip ...

Try to get a win in "The Barrier" though.

Ah yes. I though my version is v2, but it wasn't.

Barrier has been sorted out already. I reloaded it couple of times... Another being that i accidentaly oreders my ATGM teams to dismount from BMP in middle of mortar strike, while my intention was to move BMP out from barrage. Second reload was that i suddenly found out that i've lost whole company of BMPs and two my T-72s as i was micromanaging my platoon on far left flank... I just though my BMP company was ripping enemy attack to pieces with help of T-72s ... After that i think learned to keep my eye on all my men, not just one small part.

Yes. I've noticed that my scenarios, intented to be small, starts to grow as it seems that small force just isn't enough to bring the whole set of battle. Maybe i just need to learn to play big forces properly, like previous example of my company getting wiped out and me not being aware of it (which indeed sounds to be utterly dumb thing to happen)

[Pandur]

ok i cant wait, i gona delay all the blue on red stuff and start hasrabit now

i didnt read any post here so far, to keep me away from spoilers.

i am downloading the newer version now as i just have the first one. wheres the difference!?

[Paper Tiger]

Here you go Pandur,

I posted thais list of changes on page 1 but understand you don't wish to encounter any spoilers while trying to find it.

"Strong Stand.

Just before releasing the campaign, I made a quick change to the Red OB to give them enough strength to keep them in the fight until time expired. However, I forgot to change the VP allocations in the game to account for this. I have deleted the 'new' units. This means that you'll now be playing the heavily playtested version which is MUCH easier to win.

Hill 142

Three changes to this one.

a) after reading afreu's post I realised that one of the Red VP conditions was Touch and not Occupy. I changed that.

I also removed the tank that begins on the map at the start. Instead, it will arrive as a reinforcement with the other tanks later in the mission. Again, that was a last minute change to the campaign. The commanders tank was originally assigned to B Company's task force. I had my reasons for changing it but when I moved it I put it in Blue AI group 5, NOT reinforcement group 5.

c) I also noticed that the briefing for one of the branched missions was the wrong one.

Buying the farm

I deleted the tank from the Red OB. I figure this mission is difficult enough without having to fight off this monster too. Again, this was a (rather sadistic) last minute change which I regretted as soon as I read the first posts in this thread.

Core Units

I removed the 'Weakened' condition from the Special Forces as the valley is their home base. The RG units still have 'weakened' status.

I had originally planned to have two sets of core units, one for the night missions and one for the day. But the option to edit core units in some missions in a campaign doesn't seem to be working so I just made them all weak throughout the campaign.

Breakout

I added a TON of flavour objects to the map. I forgot to add any before I compiled the camapign. They're there now.

Artillery

I gave the Special Forces artillery modules a bit of extra ammo to make sure that you still have some for 'Breakout'. You NEED artillery to get through that one. It's not much extra however so still need to be economical with it."

So, that's the list of changes for v2. If I've learned one thing from making this campaign, it's don't make any last minute changes without playtesting those missions again. Both the 'Strong Stand' and the tank error in the Hill mission were introduced on the morning I posted it. And that same morning, I also added a tank to 'The Farm' because I was a bit concerned that I'd made the whole campaign too easy :eek: . As soon as I read the first post about 'Ambush' I regretted it. It's gone now so don't worry. Hope you have fun with it...

Secondbrooks

Sorry about that error mate. I hope it doesn't spoil the experience for you. I don't really blame anybody for reloading and restarting THAT mission as it's a tough one to beat the first time. It was very hard for me to be objective about playtesting 'The Barrier' as I know the AI attack so well and I know how to take it apart.

[bodkin]

I'm mostly enjoying the campaign, but I'm finding 'buying the farm' very frustrating in WEGO.

My troops don't want to stay in the safety of the road ditches and keep wanting to creep out into the fields around them to get shot to pieces.

The enemy is also well armed and well positioned for ambush adding to the difficulty. My troops often get ambushed early in a turn then I have to watch in horror as they do the crawl of death.

Anyway, I think a bit more mortar support would be very welcome.

[Paper Tiger]

bodkin:

are you playing v2 of the campaign? Did you lose any of the earlier missions? Almost all of them have some influence on this mission. regardless on how well you did in them, you have two modules of 81mm mortars available to you in this mission, and in v2, you have more ammo for these modules, (although you had enough to do the job in v1. The problem was that there wouldn't be much left for the next SF mission.) You also have a helicopter with several heavy strikes. And, to top it off, a bit later in the mission, four tanks to support your attack while the enemy has none. Of course, the latter two assets are only available if you succeed in some of the earlier missions.

Also, what are you doing with your artillery? One of the things I learned during the making of this campaign is that some types of missions are much more lethal than others. I don't want to post any spoilers yet but patience and developing intelligence on the enemy positions before making any substantial movements on the central objectives is the key. Just like in 'The Guards Counterattack', the reserves don't last very long and they won't hurt the Red side very much. But they are invaluable for gathering intelligence on the enemy forces for you.

[bodkin]

Paper Tiger,

I won all the previous missions with mostly high level victories. I don't know if I've got version 2 or not, I downloaded it but then you mentioned that version 1 was still being downloaded. I haven't seen a red tank in Buying the Farm so I presume I've got the latest version.

I find the tanks in Buying the Farm of little use, as soon as they make themselves seen a hail of very accurate RPG's come flying at them from across the map. You basically have to keep them hidden until the red ambush infantry are cleared out so then there's no real use for the tanks.

Anyway thanks for all the great work you've done on this, it is appreciated.

[Paper Tiger]

bodkin:

You might have more success if you hold them back at longer ranges and put down some area fire on the buildings you know are occupied before moving them in close to support your assault. They're CRAP, but they've got plenty of HE .

To be honest, the tanks were a late addition to the mission. I added them a month or so ago and added nothing to the Red side to compensate. Before the tanks were added, I could still get a win with just the Special Forces BUT, it was quite difficult .

BTW, 'Buying the farm' is one of my favourite missions in the campaign. I always love playing it.

[Pandur]

ok, i was ill the last two days. couldnt do anything beside watching movies and staying in bed.

however the day i said i gona startt his, i started and finished the first battle sucessfully.

***********slight spoilers***********************

well, the first battle is already on the edge, its gona a though one.

i found decent positions for me ATGM´s. they all got off all their shots, just one Tank returned fire, and hit trees, lucky me!

the ATGM´s sorted out some tanks and BTR´s too unfortunately. at the time they where out of rockets, 5 tanks and quiet some BTR´s where left.

i got em all with RPG29´s, as i didnt had anything else anyways.

however one tank let of a shot into one of my groups...

all in all, 4 killed 5 wounded in that mission.

now iam a few turns into mission 2, i figured the farm and the quater thingy is pretty "bad" to defend. lets see how things turn out. if they have as many tanks as the last time, it looks bad for me

[Paper Tiger]

Pandur

as long as those BTRs were carrying passengers, those shots weren't wasted. FIVE Tank kills with RPG29s! That must be a record for this mission. Well done. That sounds like a good result for 'Ambush'. No advise for you about the other missions though. I'm sure you'll have "fun" figuring them out for yourself.

[bodkin]

**Spoiler Warning**

Part of my frustration with BTF came from the fact I lost just about all of A Company trying to assault the farmhouse. However this was more a game engine fault as I sent about four squads at once into 'assault' the central one story building. Every man got killed as they ran into the room.

This was mainly because they kept trying to get to the central spot of the room where the waypoint ended before trying to fire back.

In hindsight 'hunt' command may work better.

I don't know if the red side really needed an ATGM team as well as all the RPG's and grenade launchers, that was just cruel.

I'm going to start this mission again and try to learn from my mistakes.

[Paper Tiger]

bodkin

"I don't know if the red side really needed an ATGM team as well as all the RPG's and grenade launchers, that was just cruel."

That's what the artillery's for. Watch their attack on the conscripts carefully and then target the 'exposed' infantry with your artillery next time. Then, obliterate the farmhouse and the wokhouse buildings with your tanks before making your assault. Assault is a very risky proposition unless you KNOW that the enemy is suppressed.

I really didn't want anybody taking any artillery to the final Special Forces mission 'Hasrabit' as it would make it too easy to get a win there. But, rather than just remove it from your OB, I decided to give the player the option to have it if he really wanted to. So Red got lots of assets in BTF to make you use up as much as possible. You have the option to conserve the artillery but you'll make the mission much more difficult for yourself. Just try and keep a little back for 'Breakout' as a little comes in very handy there.

I playtested all the SF mission (save Ambush) compiled right to the end and it's all doable if you use the artillery in the middle missions (SS, BTF and BO). And, that wasn't the v2 build which gives the player more artillery than I did it with. Those reserve tanks are your best friend. They're not part of your core forces so you should USE them as much as possible when you get them. Don't worry about ammo or any such thing, just blast the map and try to have a bit of fun doing it.

[bodkin]

** SPOILER WARNING **

I finally finished BTF and I can't remember playing a harder mission.

Don't take this the wrong way, but

I just found it frustrating to play and the counter attack in the last 20 minutes was overwhelming.

I guess I prefer smaller tactical encounters rather than massed waves of troops sort of stuff.

[Pandur]

i just finished Strong Stand and, ... oh ... my ... god!

-SF company reduced by about 35%-40%

-lost one tank and another one was M killed in a bad spot

- reserves->worthless. however, while they where mainly tasked in harassment of their reserve friends, they bough the farm for me with about one reserve platoon casualties in total. half of them panicked away.

after that i had them play a well knowen childrens game with the only diffence that none of them was tasked to search, but all of them to hide. that stopped the FF at least.

-enemy surrendered with 9 minutes left, means "auto" total victory(about 45 man KIA/WIA/MIA on my side).

that mission could be a "commandos"(the game, by Pyro studios)mission

i couldnt do it without quiet some reloads.

now the worst thing, i get to the next mission and as soon as i klick "anything" it crashes.

not quiet sure what to do now...i tried to reload the last save in mission 2 and re-win it to get to mission 3 again, no go. crashes again as soon as i klick.

dang...