Work in progress - The Road to Dimas

[CogNative]

"Since the cat is already out of the bag on this one, my next project is going to have much smaller Blue forces, probably as small as a single platoon."

PT, Sounds like a fine idea. Not that I have mastered you larger works. I have not. I still got in harms way the other PM:)

I just noticed over 3K views of this thread! You are creating interest if not replies on your hard work. Now the idea of Iron Level 1 or 2 platoons campaigns seems to me to fit the CMSF combatant on a laptop just fine with an occasional CAS incorporated for fun:D

[Paper Tiger]

I just noticed over 3K views of this thread!

I probably account for 3-5% of those views alone. I hadn't noticed that before you mentioned it. This thread has been 'alive' for quite a long time as well. Hopefully though, it will become unnecessary very soon and then I can start another one.

Well, we're still all waiting for the v1.11 patch and it is putting a cramp on things as all but one mission is pretty much finalised for compiled testing. And that unfinished mission is the last mission in the campaign. I really need to playtest the whole thing a couple of times to get a feel for what's doable in that last mission. You don't want to fight your way through 15 missions just to get to a totally unwinnable finale. well, I don't anyway.

Since the sucky AI vehicle pathfinding hurts the AI as much as it does me, I'll have to wait for v1.11 to finish work on the missions that have a serious AI attack in them. The 'Jameelah' mission in particular is suffering from this as at present, the infantry tends to run ahead of it's vehicular support and gets creamed before they can provide fire support. This is because they're still struggling to navigate their way along a road with a couple of trees on the verge or merging together. No doubt, v1.11 will put this to rest and then I'll see how effective that attack really is.

I am not sure that I will issue a new version of the Perdition mini campaign as I have had to substantially rework both the 'Tumah Crossing' and 'Perditions Flames' missions to get the AI to reliably use it's artillery assets during the missions and that meant all-new AI groups as there were no spare groups. And while I was at it, I changed the Red OBs somewhat to provide a better challenge. So perhaps I'll just leave 'Perdition' alone for the time being and just concentrate 100% on getting this monster finished.

[dan/california]

I have been waiting for 1.11 to attempt several of theses amazing looking campaigns. Keep up the good work. The possibility of eventual playing some of these maps against another person is drool inducing.

[CogNative]

You don't want to fight your way through 15 missions just to get to a totally unwinnable finale.

Include me PT. I can only imagine the frustration of 15 missions and no brass ring!

1.11 pre Holidays?

[Paper Tiger]

Just a quick screenshot from this morning's playtesting session. That's from 'Sulit Airfield' and this mission, as well as 'Petani' and 'Persik' are now all finalised. That means that the briefings and all the artwork, tac maps etc, have been finished as well as the special versions that will be needed for those who choose to accept a result and not follow the optimal path to the finish.

[Paper Tiger]

Ach, I must confess that I'm a bit disappointed that we still haven't got the v1.11 patch yet. No doubt it will be worth the wait but it has meant that the serious work that needs to be done on the last three or four missions has to wait until I get it. I figure I'll need between 3-4 weeks to get this thing finished after I get the patch installed.

But in the meantime, I haven't been idle. Instead, I have spent the whole weekend getting the briefings written and the artwork done and it's looking good. Almost every mission now has at least 2 AI plans to improve replayability, some even more. Now, I just need to get Jameelah and the Lakes missions AI attack plans working properly and then it's on to Dinas, the finale. I reckon the first two missions will take 3-5 days to get finished and then I'll have to do some compiled playtests to see what you're likely to have and then, it's finale time. I already have a pretty good idea what I'm going to do with the finale. The maps' been done for a while and indeed, I've played on it a couple of times. I reckon that's another weeks work.

So it won't be ready for Xmas as I'd hoped I'm afraid, but I'm REALLY going to push for a date just before the New Year.

[dan/california]

The amount and quality of work you put out is simply amazing.

[CogNative]

"...the special versions that will be needed for those who choose to accept a result and not follow the optimal path to the finish."

I nice way to say get stumped:)

Dan is right. Great work PT. I hope a BFC Elf sticks a v1.11 in your sock.

[Paper Tiger]

"...the special versions that will be needed for those who choose to accept a result and not follow the optimal path to the finish."

I nice way to say get stumped

As it happens, I am scripting and designing this campaign to be WAY more dynamic than 'Hasrabit' so you'll get a surprise when you read the announcement when it's finished. But I'm not giving it away yet.

Still no v1.11 and I'm not convinced that we'll get it for the weekend either. But I'm still hard at work on this. As it happens, it takes 4-5 days just to write all the briefings for a campaign and I left all that work until the end when I was making Hasrabit. This time, all that work, including the artwork, is pretty much finished so once that last mission is finalised it'll be good to go immediately.

[Paper Tiger]

Still no v.11 patch but I'm confident that we'll have it in time for the holidays, hopefully before this weekend. After writing most of the briefings and debugging the campaign script, and testing it to see that the branches work okay, I returned to playtesting last week. With the Phase 1 battles all finished and still waiting for the patch, I moved on to improving both the 'Bridges' and 'Farmers' missions.

That just left me the 'Lakes' mission from Phase 2 to do and that's phase 2 completed too. So I got started on it on Saturday. Fortunately, the AI vehicle pathfinding doesn't screw up on this one up too badly so I have been able to move this one nearer to completion too. However, it will still require a fair bit of playtesting after v1.11 comes along as I need to develop a second AI attack plan.

Here's another one. While it's designed primarily to be a tank action, there'll be plenty for your infantry to do as well.

A quick word to those of you who are a bit nervous that their rigs won't be able to run battles on maps this size. I am including two 'Save Point' missions that immediately precede the two monster map scenarios; this one and 'Orchard Road'. It's TINY and loads in a few seconds and here you can save your progress before moving on to loading up the monsters. Should these missions prove unplayable on your rig, you will have the option to return to the save point and 'choose' not to play it by losing the Save Point mission. The campaign script will simply skip it and count it as a loss. Not perfect but at least you'll get to play the rest of the campaign.

Finally, yesterday, I returned to the Phase 3 battle Jameela and did quite a bit of work on that mission. In fact it got a complete overhaul. In this mission, you have to defend a small village against a determined attack by a Mech Infantry Company backed up by some tanks. The terrain REALLY favoured the defence and it was quite fun but way too easy. It was proving difficult to get a good attack to work and my initial solution was to give the AI a large amount of artillery and air support.

The air support pretty much gutted your tanks force at the start and, as a result of this, the AI was able to get into the village. But it just didn't feel fair. I know war is not fair and you actually get the chance to screw the AI like this from time to time too, but in a campaign, where you carefully husband your forces through several difficult missions only to have them blown away by air support at the start of the mission would probably piss most of you off.

Anyway, I started tinkering around with the elevations and I was looking at the map in the 3D preview mode and I 'saw' what I wanted the map to look like. So, back to the editor and out came most of the trees and the elevations were flattened out and the dry river bed with it's two bridges alos went. After a couple of hours work, the new map was ready for a quick spin and it's stunning. Now I just have to rework the AI plans to take account of the terrain changes and I'll have a second working mission to playtest. It's now SO far from the original 'In Harms Way' map that, apart from some flavour objects, it no longer resembles it in any way.

Anyways, what this means is that I don't have much work left to do now. There's only one mission left to do any REAL work on now and that's the finale. I will still need at least 3-4 weeks to playtest everything compiled after I get the patch and there will inevitably be some slow down in work over the Xmas holiday but I am really hoping it should be available after the New Year.

[handihoc]

PT, in the first pic above, is that a COW standing in the middle of the field in front of the nearest tank???

Where can I download the Syrian cow mod??

[ChrisND]

I think it's a bmp. It does look like a cow from that angle though.

There's a joke in there somewhere...

[CogNative]

"I am including two 'Save Point' missions that immediately precede the two monster map scenarios.." Great Idea PT.

"Still no v.11 patch but I'm confident that we'll have it in time for the holidays, hopefully before this weekend." You must have been good all year PT. V1.11 before the Christmas holiday weekend!

Yes, It does look like a cow from that angle! The rest of The Road to Dimas get better every time I tune in. "..there'll be plenty for your infantry to do as well." Thanks PT.

[Paper Tiger]

It's one of those GAZ jeep thingies... but you're right, it does look like a cow though. No doubt we'll get cows with the WW2 module. Beef flavour objects!

[handihoc]

Actually, I'm thinking it could also be a Wildebeest. Heh-heh!

I was only joking though. But wildlife flavour objects would be cool.

[CogNative]

Reminds me of the VN Water Buffalo story one buddy shared. He wasted the Old Lady's Water Buffalo as it came out of thick vegetation towards his unit in the VC held area they were patrolling. The Old Lady was mortified and adrift in her world.

His entire unit (101 Airborne Screaming Eagle "Duty-Honor Country" ) felt so bad they collected more than enough funds to replace the Water Buffalo.

[Paper Tiger]

Finally, we have some news on the patch and I suspect that the changes to the infantry behaviour model are going to change some of my 'finalised' missions so that they require rebalancing. There are a lot of poor quality, poorly motivated conscript or green troops in the early missions so these missions will probably play very differently with v1.11.

Anyway, I haven't been lazy this week and I've pretty much finished the Jameela mission. At the moment it has just one AI attack plan and it works pretty well so far. I'll continue to tweak it over the weekend while I draw up AI Plan 2 for next week. However, I plan to spend most of my time this weekend getting the 'alternates' finished for all the other missions. I'll need to give these a bit more attention than I did the 'Hasrabit' alternative missions as I suspect that after you read the announcement, most of you will decide to play some of these.

Alternatives basically means that you fight the same battle but either your OB has changed in some way or the enemy's has, or his morale is higher due to an earlier victory. There were a LOT of these in 'Hasrabit' and the mission 'Buying the farm' actually had eight different versions. The mission with the largest number of variants in 'Dinas' is 'Sagger Point' with six although I'm still hummimg and hawing about how dynamic to make the phase 3 battles. The more dynamic I make them, the more variants I need of the phase 2 battles. It's already going to be a huge upload/download so I'll have to keep that in mind. The size of the finished campaign isn't a problem for me as after I compile it, it goes straight into my campaign folder. Not so for you guys though.

One of the things that really bumps up the size of the campaign file is the artwork. The BMP photo files are quite big and with so many individual mission in the campaign (now it's just over 50 with the Save Points and Depot missions included) that's going to make for a lot of pictures.

Finally, before I get started with the my work for the weekend, I thought I'd share a couple of maps with you. Like Hasrabit, Dinas takes place in a fictional part of Syria and so I have to draw up some maps to make it all REAL for me, so that I can create a story that's consistent from one mission to the next. While fictional, some of the mission maps are based on real locations in Syria, most especially in the 'Sulit Airfield' mission and to a lesser extent in the 'Orchard Road' mission.

The first map is of the large Suib Orchard complex where most of the phase 1 battles will be fought.

The second is a map of the Tumah bend where most of the Phase 2 battles wll be fought. There is a third map for phase 3 but it's a bit scrappy looking just now.

By the way, just because you see 'Infantry Regiment' appearing on those maps doesn't mean that the enemy is almost exclusively infantry. There are quite a few reserve tanks thrown in to many of these battles as well as some emplaced tanks at the 'prepared' positions at Suib and Sagger Point. This is definitely NOT an Infantry only bash. I LOVE the vehicle action so there'll be plenty of that kind of action in Dinas.

[panzermartin]

*Battlefront.com mode on*

Paper tiger,

We are actually looking for an additional scenario/campaign designer for the upcoming titles. Would you be interested in joining our team?

Steve

"Battlefront.com mode off"

[Paper Tiger]

Ali! You bugger! For ONE second I thought it was real. Still, it gave me a laugh.

My plan to work on the variants soon came to a halt earlier today when I realised that I might have to make changes to the optimal version after I install v1.11. It's much easier, and safer, to have just one version of each mission until the optimal versions are compiled and playtested. hen, when I have my gold missions, I can quickly knock out the variants. But the briefings for them all are done now.

Instead, I got back to work on 'The Lakes' mission, first to get the briefings and artwork in and then later, to try out the new AI OB. The first playthrough was a huge success but VERY difficult. Since a loss at this mission exits you from the campaign, I don't see any problem making it a real toughie. The map's stunning and it's a really good fight so it shouldn't be a great hardship to play it a few times to get that win. I got some great screenshots from the action too but they're for later.

[panzermartin]

Your work is impressive PT. This is a result of real passion. I'm not kidding about BFC hiring you. Without wanting to hurt anyone, part of the initial disappointment with CMSF was the somewhat plain stock scenarios and QB maps. The comparison is inevitable with your work. The game engine is impressive and a good map/scenario is all it needs to make it shine.

I know talented guys like GeorgeMC, Webwing and MarkEzra are already working on the British module but it wouldnt hurt to have another gifted creator on board. Do you think you will have the same passion for a WW2 theme or mid east and soviet stuff are your "fetish"?

PS. Dont forget, I will patiently wait for that seperate map pack

[Paper Tiger]

When I first bought CMBO aeons ago, the thing I fell in love with was the scenario editor. I used to try and convert ASL scenarios for CMBO but they were never any good. But I had fun. Then came CMBB and the love affair with the editor intensified. WW2 Russian Front will probably always be my favourite and I can't wait to get my hands on CM Bagration sometime in the future. But, as with CMBO, my scenario designing efforts weren't very good. As it happens, I uploaded one of these ancient creations to the Repostory a couple of weeks ago just to see how uploading worked. It's nothing special so don't rush off and try it out. However, it is BLOODY HARD!!!

Once the Brit pack arrives, I'm going to try my hand at a Brit campaign as well as finishing off my mini Marines campaign. But I have to confess that I don't have any passion for playing as the US. I'm not American so I guess that doesn't help. But then neither's George Mc and I'm a great admirer of his work. I'll be giving his armour campaign a run through when I get this project finished for sure.

I'm not going to lie and say that I wouldn't like to be a Beta tester but it's certainly true that, apart from the delays waiting for patches and the new stuff, I'm VERY happy working on my own projects according to my own schedule. I don't think I would enjoy the creative process quite so much if I had BFC breathing down my neck to get me to finish something before the 27th January 2009.

Today was a VERY productive day. I compiled three Group B missions and played them all the way through to the end. As well as catching some errors in the briefings and badly placed flavour objects, I was pleasantly surprised to find that those three missions are very well balanced. I won the first two missions quite easily with very low casualties and just got beat in third. Since those three missions comprise one 'thread' in the story, I can leave them alone until v1.11. Then I returned to 'Sulit Airfield'. It's been a while since I last tested it and I got a real buzz playing it as the map is one of my very best works. The only problem with it though is that it's hard. Oh yes, it's very winnable but I'm not sure that the core forces that take part in it will be much good for anything later in the campaign.

Since I've started playtesting in earnest, I'm playing them now and trying to beat them as Blue. When I design, I usually root for the AI and I test mainly to make sure that the AI puts up a good fight and covers all the angles I can think of. That's where I was with Sulit. But today, playing as Blue desperately trying to preserve my boys, it feels very different. I'll play it a couple more times before I get v1.11 and see how I feel about it.

I even got started on some serious work on the finale this afternoon and that makes me feel like it's all nearly finished. Unfortunately, I won't be able to do so much work next week because of the holidays. But I hope to get it finished quickly after the new year. To be honest, I'm rather keen to get started on something new. It's been nearly six months in the making.

[CogNative]

PT, Get ready to Fall in love again:)

Looking forward to your perspective on the 1.11 patch. You clearly have a lot of experience with the editor and the nuance of the game. Maybe we will be on the Road to Dimas soon?

Happy Holidays to all.

[Paper Tiger]

Well, I'm in the process of downloading the patch and I'll have a chance to have a look at the changes it makes either later tonight or sometime later tomorrow (maybe!). This being the last few days before the Xmas holidays has meant that I haven't been able to spend ANY time at all this week working on this project and I probably won't be able to do much more than update my maps before the weekend.

After reading the change list, I have a feeling that the new AI behaviour combined with experienced units spotting more efficiently will end up making the missions easier to win as Blue and that's not really a bad thing. The change that will likely cause the most problems for balance are the new AI artillery routines.

The new ablility to save your campaign progress before you move onto the next mission and to switch between WeGo and RT means that I won't have to bother with those save point missions anymore. Really, in almost all of these missions Blue only has a single company with support elements so while the maps are big, the forces aren't. And that's true well into Phase 2 and even most of the Phase 3 battles. At the moment, the only missions with 2 infantry companys are 'Sagger Point', 'Flames' and 'Dinas - Agony of Doom', the last two being the campaign finales. The rest all have one infantry company with some tanks and support elements, engineers, BRDM-ATGM 2 (AT-5) vehicles etc. Nothing to give your processor a hard time.

Oops, time to get back to the party...err work again.

[Clevinger]

As a member of the CMSF French community, I know that a lot of my fellows hesitate to play a campaign without a french briefing...

I played your 2 previous campaigns, and to me, they are among the best. It would be a shame to prevent someone to play it .

Would you be interested that I translate your briefings into french, so every members of my site can play it?

[Paper Tiger]

Clevinger

If you are happy to do that, then that's fine by me. Once I have finalised it, I will send you copies of all the briefings and I'll post a seperate French version for you guys.