Campaign guide?

[marshallneal]

Is there a guide to walk you through how to create a campaign from scratch?

Thanks!

-Marsh

[Chris Ferrous]

I too would be interested to know what the script looks like, but in all honesty it's probably not worth the effort. It's difficult enough to get the AI to do what you want in a single battle let alone in a series of battles with variable forces dependent on previous outcomes.

My preference would be to make a battle series with a theme rather than sticking to the campaign format as you'll have much more control over each situation. All you'd be losing would be the carry over of the unit with its losses or replacements BUT, apparently, unlike CM1, you cannot import battle damaged maps, so if a battle needed to be repeated according to your campaign it would start off all over again on a pristine map, or at least as pristine as it was when you first made it.

Also, producing a related series allows players to pick which situations interest them the most rather than working through the campaign.

I'd still like to know how battles are linked into a campaign though.

[dieseltaylor]

With V1.01 coming the usefulness of such a guide might be limited.

[JonS]

Marsh and Chris - I have no idea what diesel is yammering about. The change to v1.01 is exceedingly unlikely to affect campaigns under construction in any meaningful way.

For a campaign, generally I think it's a good idea to have only one sides forces - the side that the campaign is intended to be played from - constrained by the CUF. The forces for the other side should be bought afresh for each new battle, unless there's some particular reason you want to carry over all or part of the enemy force from one battle to another.

The reason for this is that generally CM battles are fought on till one side is annihilated. Having both sides constrained by the CUF is likely to see the campaign end prematurely on battle 2 or 3. There are exceptions, of course, but generally they have to do with the earlier battle being one in which it is impractical for the human player to destroy most or even much of the enemy.

The script format is pretty simple. Actually, no it isn't but the example on p.148 and the description that precedes it is pretty good.

I suggest you start with a very simple campaign. Create a scenario that will become the core units file (the CUF) that has all the friendly forces in it, plus the overarching graphics and briefing for the campaign. You don't need to create a map for this one, since this 'scenario' will never be fought. Then create two battle scenarios that have some sort of logical relationship, then write your campaign script file to link them. Compile the scen, and hey-presto, try and figure out what the error message means

If you do get a compile error message, take a careful note of exactly what it says. The number is the line of the campaign script file were something went blammo, and the text is what happened. Often it's because scenario name in the script file doesn't exactly match the name of the scen that's being compiled into the campaign.

Um, I'm not sure what else to say. If you've any specific questions post them here and I'm sure either I or one of the guys that've built campaigns will try to help. But when you ask, try and be specific, and if it's about the script file copy and paste your script into your post so we can see better what's going on.

Cheers

Jon

[dieseltaylor]

Marsh and Chris - I have no idea what diesel is yammering about. The change to v1.01 is exceedingly unlikely to affect campaigns under construction in any meaningful way.

JonS

As for a campaign guide the answer would appear to be No. I assume you are asking as you wish to design/link several scenarios in a campaign.

My concern is that the scenarios to be linked may have play balance problems as currently there are acknowledged problems with tank accuracy and several other game mechanisms some of which are certainly in V1.01 to be cured. If they affect the initial battle severely ..... your campaign may work poorly.

Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, I am not a beta-tester so I am unaware of what changes may be occurring - I know there are 70+ changes. JonS perhaps is a beta-tester and knows more than me on what is in the patch.

[JonS]

My concern is that the scenarios to be linked may have play balance problems as currently there are acknowledged problems with tank accuracy and several other game mechanisms some of which are certainly in V1.01 to be cured. If they affect the initial battle severely ..... your campaign may work poorly.

It takes a long time to create a scen, and even longer to create a campaign. Delaying start because of any changes that may or may not be in v1.01 is very poor use of your time. It's possible you might have to amend the scenarios or elements of it, although that's unlikely based on the kinds of changes that've been discussed, and even if you do that's still better use of your time than doing nothing in the meantime because, realistically, you're going to have to tweak ad adjust scenarios anyway, regardless of what v1.01 brings.

[marshallneal]

Thank you for the replies. Feel free to add to them, for the benefit of all.

So far, I made one two-player scenario and playtested it with a friend. It also works well against the AI from the German side. I used a stock map.

Map making seems nearly impossible if you have any elevations--mine look like the surface of the moon, I need to find a tutorial. :-)