Red missions, red tactics, AI and difficulty

[MetalCraze]

So are there any good fanmade missions for reds (vs. blufor) for the base game or Marines that you can recommend?

Also what are the best tactics that let you win against the blufor both in cities and in the open as syrians (f.e. mech infantry vs. mech infantry in QBs)? Apart from cranking up numbers.

And what's with the AI? Most of the time it never tries to retake the lost areas.

Which also leads to a question about the campaign - I'm currently playing the original campaign on Elite difficulty and so far (~12 mission) it was ridiculously easy - while the details that the game keeps track of are impressive - it still feels like the mowing down syrians sim as missions hardly ever require any tactics and some objectives can be reached by the banal rush (with hardly any losses - I even noticed that syrians have the trouble shooting my troops from 50 meters). I understand that this is an asymmetric warfare and all, but I want challenge - will the campaign get better?

[zwobot]

Like the manual already says, it's often a good idea to let Blufor units come close to your positions so they can't use their support assets as much (air, artillery and mortar). But then you have the problem that Redfor units usually don't have the endurance to survive a close engagement. Blufor infantry normally is more experienced and has higher morale than their Redfor counterparts. So the Blue player might take some casualties but in a 1:1 ration engagement Blue will eventually gain the upper hand and waste your infantry.

Hit and run might be an option but I never had big success with it. Once you reveal your Red infantry and open fire they are likely to draw fire and become combat ineffective before they even can maneuver into a different position. Same applies to tanks in my experience. Your only chance with them is to achieve a local superiority in numbers (2:1, 3:1 or even more) but this is difficult and even if you manage to gain this superiority there might be an infantry squad hidden somewhere which will then waste you with Javelins...

If you have ATGMs you should try to engage with them at maximum range. This will reduce the chance of them being spotted.

I like to play Redfor but it's so damn hard achieve any satisfying results (even if there are assymetric objectives so you can score a win with some 80% casualties as long as you manage to destroy some Blue vehicles or even a tank...).

[Alan8325]

One reason you notice this is that most of the Syrian units you are encountering are "conscript" to "regular" in experience while your troops are "veteran" and "crack." Also, the original campaign doesn't have some of the latest Red hardware.

I don't know if you've tried the Marines campaign yet, but it is much more difficult. The Syrians have T-90s, BMP-3s and Airborne units that normally come with "veteran" and "crack" experience.

As for the AI, a scenario can have several AI "plans," one of which is randomly picked at the beginning of the scenario. Once a plan is chosen at the beginning, however, it cannot change on the fly as a result of battlefield conditions. I believe Battlefront has plans to improve the AI in future releases, but I'm not sure.

[Paper Tiger]

And what's with the AI? Most of the time it never tries to retake the lost areas.

Have you come to this game after playing the original CM titles? CMSF's AI is scripted by the scenario designer. Therefore, it doesn't react in any way towards the change of status of a VP location the way it did in CMx1. (Of course, if you follow the path the scenario designer hoped you would, the AI may 'appear' to react to your moves. But that won't happen very often.)

With regards to the original campaign, the missions were designed using a beta build of v1.0. The TAC AI has evolved so much since the game was released that many of the missions that came with the game play very differently now. That's one of the unfortunate side effects of the game continually being improved without anyone updating the campaigns and missions that came with the base game.

If you don't have any of the modules yet and you want a challenge playing as BLUE, I'm sure you'll be able to find plenty of very challenging missions at the Repository. You might try to find Webwing's 'In Search of a Ghost' campaign which might give you a bit more of a challenge that TF Thunder.

[MetalCraze]

Thanks guys.

Guess I will move onto Marines campaign then.

I also tried In Search Of A Ghost - and although at times it is obvious that at certain points the AI was biffed up in skill (sees you further) or it is easy to see how the author wished you to complete the mission (on a 3rd one you have large empty hills and fields and trees grow only near houses you need to clear) the town missions are well done indeed - feels like you are fighting for the each block.

Too bad about the AI though, I wish it was unpredictable.