What type of scenarios failed miserably?

[Plastic viking]

Simple question "What type of scenarios failed miserably?" There have been a lot of scenarios created for CMx1 and for CMSF. Us newbies to scenario making would appreciate your sage advice on what NOT to do. Your experience play-testing our scenarios will be better and we won't jointly waste so much time.

Types of mistakes to make and examples of them would be nice, so we can avoid them.

Thanks!

[Sergei]

The only possible answer to this is "the kind of scenario where the author puts minimal effort in it". Any kind of scenario can be made to work, some easily, some not so much. But in all cases, the designer has to try his best to make it at least somewhat appealing. The briefing needs to be understandable. The map needs to be more than a flat void with two trees. The forces have to make some sense in relation to the briefing. The mission objectives have to be at least somewhat achievable, or the briefing should explain what is a 'good' outcome.

Everything else is a matter of taste. A good designer can make a jeep race scenario fun.

[Wodin]

Not a question that can be answered...the more effort that goes into one the better it will be...as said above...you really need to one either get CMSF and some modules then download some scenarios and see what works...some scenario makers names come to mind that make superb ones...

As CMBN is out soon though then your best waiting and checking out the scenarios included..see what you enjoy and work from there...also you need to ask some of the main scenario designers how they go about it..

The question to ask is what makes a great scenario...that way your told what works not what doesn't...would make it easier I reckon...

[Lt Belenko]

There are scenarios that are historically accurate where one side over powers the other very easily. Just as it happened in real life.

Failure?? Not much fun, but it's just what the designer ordered.

Gamey scenarios with mass quantities of flame spitters (I know none yet in CMBN). These can be really goofy but loads of fun.

Failure: The true grog wouldn't even down load a battle like this.

The answer is: whatever you like or don't like.

[MrSpkr]

Gamey scenarios with mass quantities of flame spitters (I know none yet in CMBN). These can be really goofy but loads of fun.

So you've PLAYED the offerings of Ker Dessel*, have you?

Steve

*Ker Dessel - when you KNOW it is a setup . . .

[Sgt Schultz]

Ahhh, the days of infantry Flambe' when folks would buy a 'toon or two of flame tanks for a QB.

Good times indeed.

If you want to make scenarios... you more or less have to WANT to make them. The new engine is a tad more complex than CM1 it seems. The map is as important as the units and plan, so you may want to learn how to make those first.

Like they state above, you will get out what you put into it more or less. If you really like what you are doing and spend the time and effort, then even if you have a small audience; they will still be happy.

test, test, test.

[MikeyD]

Like Sergei said, most often its the execution. I recall one old *unnamed* "play blue only" CMSF scenario that was set up rather like a whack-a-mole game. You move a little, get an enemy contact, whack 'em. Move a little more, get another contact, and whack 'em again. The enemy AI orders were practically blank. Compared to the astounding NATO module scenarios, for instance, that 'first generation' scenario seemed like another game entirely. I've said it before, the biggest feature of those CMSF modules were the new scenarios.

[herr_oberst]

There are scenarios that are historically accurate where one side over powers the other very easily. Just as it happened in real life.

Failure?? Not much fun, but it's just what the designer ordered.

With the return to the Western Front, some designers may want to try and create some historical scenarios that depict specific recollections from unit histories, however good or bad they turned out for one side or the other.

Bringing a specific scenario "to life" might just be the designer's goal.

[MikeyD]

I do tend to chuckle when people use the phrases 'balanced' and 'historically accurate' in the same sentence. Shooting for one tends to severely restrict the other. Exactly 6 tanks and two infantry platoons each side in a meeting engagement on a mirrored map is not exactly 'historically accurate', regardless of where the battle's said to be set. And a heavily mortared German rifle company behind hedgerows facing an assault by a dozen Shermans and half a battalion of infantry is not exactly 'balanced'.

[DLaurier]

I design scenarios.

Most of them reek of absurdity and futility.

This also describes actual war.

[Pvt. Ryan]

I tended to fail miserably at Rune's scenarios.

[sawomi]

... Us newbies to scenario making would appreciate your sage advice on what NOT to do...

to do:

- an elaborate briefing with flavour and some background about the actual situation off-board

- including a picture for scenario selection screen !!!!

NOT to do:

- giving no setup-space

- let the scenario begin with enemy troops firing at each other from start

- placing ATGMs/SPG-9s (or PAKs in WW2) in deep swales

- letting reinforcments spawn in objectives

etc.

[Bertram]

What scenario fails depends on the player. There are a number of well thought out scenario's out there (for CMSF obviously) that I dont like, but others are enthousiast about. I usually play a scenario once, don't save to go back, and see what happens. If the scenario is a "puzzle" scenario, with one good move, you need to make (you need to rush a unit to the extreme right flank on turn one, so you can use artillery there, otherwise you lose, or you need to rush your tanks to hill A at once, so you can intercept the enemy, otherwise you loose) I usually don't like them. Others play them a number of times, trying diffent solutions, and love to puzzle out the right move to make.

For me those scenario's are a fail, for others they are a nice puzzle....

[ChrisND]

A scenario/map/level usually fails when the vision the scenario designer has for the scenario is not clear, or the execution fails to achieve that vision.

[Mr Byte]

I have only one (purely from my point of view) thing to say

I think that scenario designers in the past balance thing with reinforcements too much

I know when I'm playing a scenario, lets say I'm trying to dislodge some enemy infantry and then suddenly I get some AT reinforcements I just know the enemy have just got or about to get tank support..its a bit of a realism buster for me, I would much rather have them at the start and have to position them just in case not knowing that the enemy will or wont get armor support rather than it be given away by the reinforcement schedule.

Also I wonder at the reinforcements sometimes does every operation have its forces committed in such a piecemeal manner?

[Chainsaw]

Also I wonder at the reinforcements sometimes does every operation have its forces committed in such a piecemeal manner?

Sometimes. I'm currently reading the history of 2nd Essex Regiment, 56th Independent Infantry Brigade in NW Europe and during several of the assaults/movements forward the infantry moved on foot during the night and begun the initial battling in the morning and the 6pdr guns and supporting tanks coming up later.

Another instance had the battalion battling and after a few hours the Bn OC realised he needed support so support was called for and later on a platoon of tanks showed up.

A 3rd instance forced the anti tank guns to move up later on as the terrain was unfavorable for moving universal carriers after the infantry (a few hundred meters of open terrain with enemy PAKs overwatching)

This is just a small example of true life events where the reinforcements would arrive piecemeal later on in the game.

And many scenarios don't have the space to allow a whole Bn+ supporting units to be on the map from the begining, so its betther they spawn later on when the area has been left empty by your own troops moving to contact.

/Thomas

[sonar]

I found in the old engine,as a designer, you were always trying to find ways to get over the ai's limitations and make them act in a convincing manner. With the new editors ai planning feature, even having the ai forces moving to respective objectives, arriving in their correct formations and then having them stay put, will be an enormous help in designing better scenarios. I imagine, this is only the tip of the iceberg, in terms of what will be achieveable with the new editor and for me, it is one of the most exciting features of the new game.

[JasonC]

Scripted scenarios. These are ones in which the designer tries to play movie director and anticipate player courses of action, and then stage manages events with traps, TRPs, reinforcements, terrain funnels, etc. To such designers I have only one thing to say. Get out of my chair and let me command. And I say it vehemently enough to put a brick through the CRT. Nothing is more infuriating than a designer who doesn't know when to back off and let the players play the game, keeping himself out of it.

Giantism. Wouldn't it be cool to put 4 divisions on a giant map? No, it wouldn't. How about just 70 tanks per kilometer of front? No. How about only the biggest baddest beasties ever, in merely impressive quantities, in immediate contact? Um, I got over that sort of thing when I was 7 playing with little model tanks. Grow up. Create an actual tactical situation of some interest, believable as history of some sort, that fits within the playable scope of the game.

Random, jumbled together, or auto generated terrain. Sure the map takes the longest in any scenario. We get that you could turn out 20 if you didn't have to bother with that. But we can too, in two minutes with the "Quick Battle" button. If that is what we wanted we wouldn't need your scenario. Work on the map. Make it look nice, spend some time on realism or immersive feel, but above all create a tactically interesting environment, something the players can hook into, get the feel of, analyze, and use, on offense or defense. Real terrain comes in large uniform blocks, but what is in those blocks matters and their geometry on the field does too. Also, avoid sprinkling random scraps of cover every 50 yards like lily pads. Real terrain doesn't look like that. Look out the window, and start by painting broad areas in the editor with the shift key held down (big patches I mean), not at a Squad Leader board or a QB generated map.

"Challenging" scenarios, as in completely broken force balance and tasks under normal play. Take that hill over there with a light tank platoon and a reduced company of green infantry, over open ground, against a battalion in trenches with God on the phone and a steel factory just off their side of the map churning out fresh critters. See, its challenging! No, it is just stupid. Yes one might be able to exploit stupid AI tricks (make the defender leave cover to "counterattack" for no reason e.g.) to slither through, but that is just exploiting ways the game isn't realistic, to cover the outrages of the designer.

Shooting gallery scenarios. These feature wide open ground, single integrated LOS, abundant long range heavy weapons (tanks and on map artillery), and clay pigeon opponents that burn satisfactorily when looked at sideways. One, it is a movie not a strategy game. Two, the outcome is a randomization of a simulation and has nothing to do with the player decisions. If the right strategy for either side, regardless of what the other side does, is to sit in their starting positions and pull triggers until they win or lose, you've fallen into this pitfall. Start over.

One man's opinions...

[JonS]

Random, auto generated terrain. Sure the map takes the longest in any scenario. We get that you could turn out 20 if you didn't have to bother with that. But we can too, in two minutes with the "Quick Battle" button. If that is what we wanted we wouldn't need your scenario.

pssst ... wrong game

Yes one might be able to exploit stupid AI tricks (make the defender leave cover to "counterattack" for no reason e.g.)

pssst ... wrong game

[sonar]

HI, JasonC don't you think the scripting element will be a bonus if it is used to make the ai act more realistically,for instance if I'm not mistaken it will be possible for instance to have the ai patrol between two villages, using time on objective element. This I think means we have much more flexibility/realism available, as long as it used to assist the ai to be more covincing in it's behaviour.

[GreenAsJade]

Make your historical scenarios _balanced_.

Yes I said it.

Even ole CMx1 had a way to achieve this, with bonus points etc. With its new complex victory conditions, there is absolutely no reason for both sides in any scenario not to have a chance of victory, however that is defined.

GaJ

[Erik Springelkamp]

When I play against the AI (and not in a campaign), I don't care about the victory conditions. They might just as well be absent.

[flamingknives]

Scenarios succeed or fail based on opinions, so what works for one person might not be good for another.

My personal dislike is where the designer decides to lie in the briefing (a depleted company of infantry, I said? Wait 'til you see the look on his face when I roll in a platoon of heavy armour from an open flank with no warning!) Some people go for that sort of thing, but it irritates me no end. The game can be made plenty hard (Paper Tiger makes very challenging scenarios and MarkEzra makes some pretty awesome maps (i.e. all the QB maps)) without resorting to cheap tricks.

[GreenAsJade]

For sure. Lie in the briefing: epic fail.

When I play against the AI (and not in a campaign), I don't care about the victory conditions. They might just as well be absent.

Obviously. What's the point in "beating" the AI?

When you've finished training, then play H2H

GaJ

[Mr Byte]

Sometimes. I'm currently reading the history of 2nd Essex Regiment, 56th Independent Infantry Brigade in NW Europe and during several of the assaults/movements forward the infantry moved on foot during the night and begun the initial battling in the morning and the 6pdr guns and supporting tanks coming up later.

Another instance had the battalion battling and after a few hours the Bn OC realised he needed support so support was called for and later on a platoon of tanks showed up.

A 3rd instance forced the anti tank guns to move up later on as the terrain was unfavorable for moving universal carriers after the infantry (a few hundred meters of open terrain with enemy PAKs overwatching)

This is just a small example of true life events where the reinforcements would arrive piecemeal later on in the game.

And many scenarios don't have the space to allow a whole Bn+ supporting units to be on the map from the begining, so its betther they spawn later on when the area has been left empty by your own troops moving to contact.

/Thomas

all fair and true comments

I'm not saying I dont agree with reinforcements or that they are not historically accurate but...

its this kind of thing

2nd platoon at T+5

3rd platoon 2 tanks mortars and air support at T+15

AT elements AT T+25

because invariably it means in the scenario

T+5 (finished your recon heres you a platoon to beef up your assault)

T+15 (hehe you just discovered the deep entrenchments and hidden reserve hard points you need these now to defeat them)

T+25 (here comes the armored counter attack better have these AT units and move them up fast)

I know whenever I get armor or AT reinforcements I scour the map for the armored counter attack that I (now) know is coming

I was doing a recon scenario in CMSF the other day when 20 mins in I suddenly get AT assets?? All I had found was entrenched infantry up until then

Two mins later T55's are rolling toward me...but its ok I got the AT now...