Trident Valley warning !!!

[noob]

Do not play this scenario if you want balance, its a set up for Red, who on earth thought that 15 Bradleys versus 9 BMP 1's could be anything other than a massacre, then add the Javelin to the mix and you have the CM equivalent of a back alley gang mugging.

This highlights one of the problems with Shock Force, whilst the optic tech has improved the maps have gotten smaller so movement on the battlefield is almost impossible for Red with it's inferior tech, therefore the only concievable way Red can conduct offensive manouvers is with at least a 4 to 1 advantage which i never see apart from NATO Alamo where the exception proves the rule.

The only viable scenarios i have come across are the attack defence set ups with Red having good and plentifull cover, then its an ambush game, which is fun up to a point but for more aggresive players like myself can get tiresome and frustrating, and the irony when playing Blue is that you get rewarded for conservation of forces so whilst it throws up a new and interesting parameter it forces Blue into a more passive role.

Whilst this theatre presents some unique puzzles that are initially interesting it does not make for a sustained and balanced H2H combat sim as the forces are too imbalanced for much varaity at the current scale levels of the game.

I would of liked to have seen the Arab Israeli wars modelled as an alternative to WW2 but now CMBN is arriving the cut and thrust of combat can now be revisited

I love the new game engine by the way, but please lets have a armor only target arc in BN.

[George MC]

Try Armour Attacks Very large open map with lot's of room to maneuver plus Red has T90s.

The early maps were small and yes did limit maneuver options. This was done from a design view as there was some doubt as to what players PCs could cope with. Many of the latter maps are very much larger.

[noob]

Try Armour Attacks Very large open map with lot's of room to maneuver plus Red has T90s.

The early maps were small and yes did limit maneuver options. This was done from a design view as there was some doubt as to what players PCs could cope with. Many of the latter maps are very much larger.

Ok, thanks for the info, i will check it out, bigger map scenarios would be an improvement if only to allow Red ATGMs to engage at maximum ranges.

[noob]

Try Armour Attacks Very large open map with lot's of room to maneuver plus Red has T90s.

The early maps were small and yes did limit maneuver options. This was done from a design view as there was some doubt as to what players PCs could cope with. Many of the latter maps are very much larger.

I cannot get a version of this scenario on the net, do you have it ?

[George MC]

You checked out:

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=select&id=2

Loads of scenarios there as well. Sent ya a PM meantime

[Wengart]

I went into the editor and dropped out the Syrians with Brits and made another one with Marines vs. Brits.

[Praetori]

Terrain and movement.

15 brads vs 9 BMPs doesn't mean automagic defeat for the reds.

It sure is a challenge but it's doable.

Dismounted crews make excellent spotters.

Keep the vehicles below LOS and then double back, enter and make a popup attack. It's much easier in real time than turn based however, cause you can pause and micromanage the hull down positions and shoot 'n scoot much easier.

Being in the LOS of more than a brad at a time is bad for your health but the ATMs from a BMP-1 will kill a brad if done properly. And his return fire (TOW) won't be able to reach you if you hit him first.

[noob]

Terrain and movement.

15 brads vs 9 BMPs doesn't mean automagic defeat for the reds.

It sure is a challenge but it's doable.

Dismounted crews make excellent spotters.

Keep the vehicles below LOS and then double back, enter and make a popup attack. It's much easier in real time than turn based however, cause you can pause and micromanage the hull down positions and shoot 'n scoot much easier.

Being in the LOS of more than a brad at a time is bad for your health but the ATMs from a BMP-1 will kill a brad if done properly. And his return fire (TOW) won't be able to reach you if you hit him first.

I admire your optimism but i have been playing CM since its inception amongst other wargames and i think i understand what makes a good balanced game and a bad unbalanced game if it's a fair test of the players skill that you are looking for, so technically as you point out it's not impossible for Red to win but realistically it is.

The margin for error for Red in this scenario is near zero IMO, its like a set over set scenario before the flop in Texas Hold em Poker, the under set has a chance to win if it hits the one card in the deck it needs but its only got a 5% chance of hitting that card so it's a situation you never want to be in.

To me a double blind balanced scenario is the holy grail as it's the best judge of the player's skill, anything else is just an experiment not a game, scenarios like this do more to annoy players if played double blind than entertain and are basically exercises in futility.

[roadiemullet]

Ive always thought cmsf setting was kind of bizarre in some ways. BFC chose Syria so they could simulate the effects of modern warfare with modern tank on tank battles etc and to move away from an Iraq War clone and yet nearly every scenario you get the reds have extremely poor standards of men, like conscripts etc - just like an Iraq War game! Considering this is completely fictional I think making the Syrians 'tougher' by default wouldn't have been totally outrageous...

[abneo3sierra]

Well..it is easy enough to go into the editor and alter things and make them "tougher" also. I am actually more than a little surprised that those who find it "too easy" or "too hard" do not do this more often rather than complain..in about 45 seconds, can even out any scenario you like, in the editor mode.

[Erik Springelkamp]

Ive always thought cmsf setting was kind of bizarre in some ways. BFC chose Syria so they could simulate the effects of modern warfare with modern tank on tank battles etc and to move away from an Iraq War clone and yet nearly every scenario you get the reds have extremely poor standards of men, like conscripts etc - just like an Iraq War game! Considering this is completely fictional I think making the Syrians 'tougher' by default wouldn't have been totally outrageous...

It was the best guess of Battlefront based on an analysis of the of the Syrian army.

[roadiemullet]

Yeah I understand that of course... based on near enough every other large scale war in the middle east its easy to see why they did this, and yes you can go into the editor and alter the settings at no great effort to oneself... but the effects of having the game like this from the outset do have their consequences, hence the point this thread is making. It's hardly a game-breaker or anything, and its not going to stop me playing it as much as I do haha but noob does have a point.. why couldnt they make it so that the story went the Syrians actually turned out to be very well motivated and unexpectedly well organised... this is fiction after all

[noob]

Well..it is easy enough to go into the editor and alter things and make them "tougher" also. I am actually more than a little surprised that those who find it "too easy" or "too hard" do not do this more often rather than complain..in about 45 seconds, can even out any scenario you like, in the editor mode.

I only play battles that are double blind, i.e. both me and my opponent have nothing but the breifing to go on about enemy forces and friendly reinforcements so putting a scenario into the editor is taboo, you should direct your comments to scenario designers as up to now the only viable scenarios i have played are Red ambushes and Blue attacks with a sledgehammer.

For any Red attacking scenarios Red needs 4 to 1 numerical superiority and or bigger maps for their ATGMs to be able to operate at max ranges, both these things start straining peoples PC's, this is one of the tragic ironies of this version of CM, the optics are massively better but the map sizes are on average a lot smaller than CM WW2 so you get spotted a lot easier and the fire is more devastating so the margin for error drops dramatically compared to CM WW2 and the flexibility of tactics for Red is almost non existant.

IMO the only way to create consistently balanced attack scenarios for Red is to have Air support and nothing less than the T90 and BMP3 for armor and the squads be special forces with ATGMs and RPG 29's, any other Syrian OOB without massive numbers isn't worth a fig on the offensive.

Anyway it won't be an issue in 4 weeks once the great migration to CMBN takes place so this is all acedemic.

[MikeyD]

It seems many scenarios are 'too hard' the first time through and 'too easy' the 3rd or 4th. How many of us have won a 'total victory' in a scenario - after having quit out and restarted the match after losing all our tanks in the fist 10 minutes the first time.

[noob]

Yeah I understand that of course... based on near enough every other large scale war in the middle east its easy to see why they did this, and yes you can go into the editor and alter the settings at no great effort to oneself... but the effects of having the game like this from the outset do have their consequences, hence the point this thread is making. It's hardly a game-breaker or anything, and its not going to stop me playing it as much as I do haha but noob does have a point.. why couldnt they make it so that the story went the Syrians actually turned out to be very well motivated and unexpectedly well organised... this is fiction after all

Well the obvious fictional theatre to model would of been the Cold War turned hot or even better the Arab Israeli wars, then we could relive history again but BF chose to model modern asymetric warfare which is topical but boring compared to the cut and thrust of older theatres.

[noob]

It seems many scenarios are 'too hard' the first time through and 'too easy' the 3rd or 4th. How many of us have won a 'total victory' in a scenario - after having quit out and restarted the match after losing all our tanks in the fist 10 minutes the first time.

Well made point, i don't play Blue much because it's too easy unless the friendly casualty punishment is severe which then forces the aggressor to be passive which is an annoying contradiction and Red's margin for error, even in ambush scenarios is so small the games end up like rock papaer scissors, if you screw up your deployment at the start theres not much chance of redeploying without getting spotted from miles away by a superweapon (Marder).

As a Humans v Terminators game it's a pretty good sim though ;P

[roadiemullet]

Well the obvious fictional theatre to model would of been the Cold War turned hot or even better the Arab Israeli wars, then we could relive history again but BF chose to model modern asymetric warfare which is topical but boring compared to the cut and thrust of older theatres.

mate, I would happily force my parents to sell their life possessions for an Arab-Israeli combat mission... the conflict is perfect for its scope. Never gonna happen though *sigh*

[Praetori]

I admire your optimism but i have been playing CM since its inception amongst other wargames and i think i understand what makes a good balanced game and a bad unbalanced game if it's a fair test of the players skill that you are looking for, so technically as you point out it's not impossible for Red to win but realistically it is.

The margin for error for Red in this scenario is near zero IMO, its like a set over set scenario before the flop in Texas Hold em Poker, the under set has a chance to win if it hits the one card in the deck it needs but its only got a 5% chance of hitting that card so it's a situation you never want to be in.

To me a double blind balanced scenario is the holy grail as it's the best judge of the player's skill, anything else is just an experiment not a game, scenarios like this do more to annoy players if played double blind than entertain and are basically exercises in futility.

You're absolutely right. The mission is not balanced. But as CMSF is a pretty good representation of the real world one shouldn't expect it to be.

I personally like the really hard scenarios and often play RED. When I find the odds stacked against me I usually perform better than when blessed with Abrams and loads of CAS.

A loss is as satisfying as a win as long as I can achieve at least some local victories through good use of my forces.

[noob]

You're absolutely right. The mission is not balanced. But as CMSF is a pretty good representation of the real world one shouldn't expect it to be.

I personally like the really hard scenarios and often play RED. When I find the odds stacked against me I usually perform better than when blessed with Abrams and loads of CAS.

A loss is as satisfying as a win as long as I can achieve at least some local victories through good use of my forces.

Well at least one masochist is happy with the tech imbalance so that fine then, the rest of us that want less predictability and maybe "winning" the odd battle as Red without it being a recreation of Zulu can whistle.

Talking about reality is pointless when you can fly your camera over the battlefield and spot trenches that are behind woods and work out exact LOS with the waypoint tool, what you mean is asymetric warfare is the reality of the modern battlefield which might be topical but it makes for a one dimensional game im afraid.

[Praetori]

Well at least one masochist is happy with the tech imbalance so that fine then, the rest of us that want less predictability and maybe "winning" the odd battle as Red without it being a recreation of Zulu can whistle.

Talking about reality is pointless when you can fly your camera over the battlefield and spot trenches that are behind woods and work out exact LOS with the waypoint tool, what you mean is asymetric warfare is the reality of the modern battlefield which might be topical but it makes for a one dimensional game im afraid.

I meant it's less about the defeat of all enemy forces but more about what you achieve with the resources at hand.

Survival is a popular game-mode in a lot of games these days. The goal is not to "win" but to survive as long as possible. THAT is, IMO, a realistic standpoint as far as Syria vs a Western Coalition conflict goes.

Missions where you're outnumbered and out-gunned doesn't automatically mean it's unbalanced. Maybe the victory points or scenario parameters are skewed in this case. But few against many in a tactical battle can result in a major strategic victory in the long run which most, although not all, of the missions I've played makes quite clear.

[noob]

I meant it's less about the defeat of all enemy forces but more about what you achieve with the resources at hand.

Survival is a popular game-mode in a lot of games these days. The goal is not to "win" but to survive as long as possible

Which games are you talking about ?

THAT is, IMO, a realistic standpoint as far as Syria vs a Western Coalition conflict goes

Yes it's realistic but not very interesting to most wargamers IMO, thats why WW2 is the most popular theatre for wargames, because the variety and balance of weaponry and men is perfect amongst other things so the scenarios can be diverse and not just Partisans versus the SS.

Missions where you're outnumbered and out-gunned doesn't automatically mean it's unbalanced. Maybe the victory points or scenario parameters are skewed in this case. But few against many in a tactical battle can result in a major strategic victory in the long run which most, although not all, of the missions I've played makes quite clear

No it doesn't automatically mean it's unbalanced but generally it does if your both out gunned and out numbered, but as i said earlier its academic now as the migration to WW2 with CMBN will be profound and people can then play a "game" where the scenarios are not one trick ponies like the majority i have come across in CMSF.

Initially i thought the Red situations were a good challenge and offered up interesting and unique situations but one gets bored with an endless stream of ambush scenarios or survival scenarios im afraid, from an entertainment and game perspective modern asymetric warfare is the most boring thing to simulate when you have the variety and diversity of tactics you can use in the average WW2 scenarios.

As a novelty its fine but CMSF to me is just a way of getting used to the new engine ready for CMBN

[Praetori]

Is it Trident Valley or CMSF in general you're not happy with?

Every scenario has its merits. Some portray balanced battles with MP in focus.

Most try to simulate the hypothetical invasion of Syria where "Victory" for the blue side means minimizing friendly losses to appeal to the general public at home.

Some still are more sandbox variants where realistic force components are staged against each other (and the blue side often holds the advantage due to superior tech and C2).

I for one feel more "disturbed" by unrealistic scenario settings trying to create an artificial balance than I do by "unfair" setups (often with VPs assigned to compensate).

I feel that immersion is more important than balance most of the time.

If I wanted a totally balanced game I'd only play QBs or move on to pure H2H scenarios.

[noob]

Is it Trident Valley or CMSF in general you're not happy with?

Both

Every scenario has its merits. Some portray balanced battles with MP in focus.

Most try to simulate the hypothetical invasion of Syria where "Victory" for the blue side means minimizing friendly losses to appeal to the general public at home.

Which IMO is the least exciting and interesting theatre given all the other theatres other than WW2 that haver occured since then for reasons i have made clear unless as you pointed out you are a fan of "David v Goliath" type warfare.

I feel that immersion is more important than balance most of the time.

I dont when it comes to CM, if you want immersion in the modern theatre play ARMA2, CM to me is more of a game than a milsim, im looking for a level playing field so i can match my wits against another human with both parties having an equal chance of winning but using military units not cards or a ball etc, the fact that the CM series started in WW2 was just a bonus to me as WW2 fan and a force / tech balance fan.

Like all games that can be edited its down to the scenario designers to create interesting scenarios, but i think that most players would like the chance to win the games they play not lose them well so IMO CMSF is harder to work with than any other theatre to achieve those aims as one is forced into design corners by the tech imbalance and scale restrictions ( A lot of PCs cant handle the bigger scenarios where Red can utilise their one decent asset, the ATGM, at max ranges )

[abneo3sierra]

I only play battles that are double blind, i.e. both me and my opponent have nothing but the breifing to go on about enemy forces and friendly reinforcements so putting a scenario into the editor is taboo, you should direct your comments to scenario designers as up to now the only viable scenarios i have played are Red ambushes and Blue attacks with a sledgehammer.

For any Red attacking scenarios Red needs 4 to 1 numerical superiority and or bigger maps for their ATGMs to be able to operate at max ranges, both these things start straining peoples PC's, this is one of the tragic ironies of this version of CM, the optics are massively better but the map sizes are on average a lot smaller than CM WW2 so you get spotted a lot easier and the fire is more devastating so the margin for error drops dramatically compared to CM WW2 and the flexibility of tactics for Red is almost non existant.

IMO the only way to create consistently balanced attack scenarios for Red is to have Air support and nothing less than the T90 and BMP3 for armor and the squads be special forces with ATGMs and RPG 29's, any other Syrian OOB without massive numbers isn't worth a fig on the offensive.

Anyway it won't be an issue in 4 weeks once the great migration to CMBN takes place so this is all acedemic.

I have won as Red with less than a 2:1 advantage in the attack.

Also, I can see your point about "double blind" but that can be pretty well done in editor,also(that is the entire idea behind the AI section of the editor)

[noob]

I have won as Red with less than a 2:1 advantage in the attack.

Which might reflect the quality of your opponent more than the tech imbalance

However when two players of the same skill level play each other the tech imbalance will be noticable and the only remedy will be numbers.