Courage & Fortitude - opinions? (spoilers)

[womble]

So ... you don't believe the accurate and helpful briefing. Fair enough, I suppose, but realise that it is therefore impossible to write a briefing which you would find acceptable.

Oh leave it out. When the other briefings in the campaign have been inaccurate and misleading, you expect me to take the last one at face value? The one that says I have all 6 Battalion mortars, of which 4 never show up? Your logic is so weak it's non-existent.

[JonS]

What about the other briefings has been misleading? Specifically, misleading.

As for the mortars ... *shrug* They should have been there. If they weren't it's your own fault. Either you used up all their ammo, or you managed to win purple hearts for them. The designers can't completely save you from yourself.

[phil stanbridge]

Jon I've experienced the same thing as Womble - and I've tried my best to save the damn ammunition! I've also been told I would expect a number of 105 assets only for them to appear empty or severely depleted. There is a general lack of clarity in the briefings in my opinion. You should be told directly if you will receive replacements, replenished ammunition etc, even if it is for the next mission. It makes it very difficult when you have to guess, on top of an already difficult game. I've gone from one mission to the next trying to work out exactly what I will receive next, and whether or not I can use it - for example, in one mission I saved a lot of my 105mm HE thinking I would be able to use it later, only to not have the assets available again down the line. It just adds to my list of frustrations. If you are commanding a battalion for example, why can't you have access to those batallion fixed artillery assets on a perm basis throughout the campaign?

[JonS]

Probably because battalions don't have fixed artillery assets.

[phil stanbridge]

But you get the point I am trying to make. At the end of the day it'd purely down to scenario design and choice - and for some reason they are making it as difficult as possible on every level.

[JonS]

It sounds to me like you want to know, ahead of time, exactly what battles you're going to be fighting, what you're going to be fighting them with, and exactly what's going to happen between battles. Is that about right?

[stikkypixie]

It sounds to me like you want to know, ahead of time, exactly what battles you're going to be fighting, what you're going to be fighting them with, and exactly what's going to happen between battles. Is that about right?

It would be nice to know what assets carry over or what the general supply situation is, so you can at least get a feel of how frugal/generous you can be when calling down artillery.

[phil stanbridge]

It sounds to me like you want to know, ahead of time, exactly what battles you're going to be fighting, what you're going to be fighting them with, and exactly what's going to happen between battles. Is that about right?

Not quite no - I like the semi-dynamic nature of the battles, and the non linear tree, but I would definitely like a more definitive approach to which assets I will have available to me.

[womble]

What about the other briefings has been misleading? Specifically, misleading.

Lots of things. I'm writing a critique of the whole campaign. The 'Plan' in many cases has been designed to send you through the strongest point of the enemy. A specific example in the briefing for "University" is that it says the defenders have abandoned the positions nearest the bridge, which simply isn't true. If you set up assuming that to be the case you will be taking fire on your lead elements from a dug in platoon on minute one. The biggest one, though, is neglecting to mention the complete lack of any resupply between Razorback Ridge and La Haye. It specifically mentions no replacement troops, but not that your only resupply after the start of RR is the trucks and other transport that you get on-map. Crossroads, it says any troops in the village are 'not your concern' then gves 100 points for killing them.

As for the mortars ... *shrug* They should have been there. If they weren't it's your own fault. Either you used up all their ammo, or you managed to win purple hearts for them. The designers can't completely save you from yourself.

Bull. ****. I've seen what happens when you use up your ammo. The assets show up, sans ammo. I've experienced it with on-map 60s and off-map 81s. And my on-board 81mm only showed up in School (and University, which I didn't play through in the run that I took to all the way to La Haye) and they took not a single casualty.

Edit, oh yes, I fired the 81s on-map dry in School. But that was over a week ago.

[Mad Mike]

It sounds to me like you want to know, ahead of time, exactly what battles you're going to be fighting, what you're going to be fighting them with, and exactly what's going to happen between battles. Is that about right?

I think what people are asking for is an improved narrative of the campaign, including some explanations why ressources are constrained and what led to this particluar battle situation. This is certainly there, sometimes more so and sometimes less. Especially with shared artillery assets, it is often not there (and in real life, in most cases information would have to be available to the commander to make an informed decision - what is usually called military planning).

I can provide one example from the "Road to Montebourg" campaign:

*** Slight spoilers ahead ***

Second battle (Ecoqueneauville), you are given access to a section of 105 howitzers and the battalion 81mm mortars. It doesn't say anything else then that their ammo is limited (welcome to the real world, I guess .. otherwise it's redundant information).

Next and third battle (La Grand Hameau), a different company has access to the same section of 105s as in the second battle, and now the briefing informs you that the section may already have exhausted its ammo because it is a shared asset.

Why would this information not be available at the start of battle 2? The two battles (and the following one, Le Hamelet) are meant to depict the assault on one objective on the Georgian ridge. By not clearly bringing this point across (for example, explaining in advance that assets will be shared), the designer is actually not using his creation to its full potential, i.e. providing a coherent narrative or explanation that will make people feel more involved or give them something to think about beyond the very close horizon of the current battle.

Which is a shame sometimes, IMHO.

[LemuelG]

I only played the first scenario so far, I felt kinda burned... there's so many guys, and so little reason for them to all be there at once - couldn't they have been at least pre-deployed in some manner? I probably spent ten times as long in setup as I did fighting the battle, which amounted to driving a couple of Honeys up the road with a rifle platoon in support, mortaring the treeline along the way.

It would have been fun with less troops, as it was it grated on me when I realized I'd spent a great deal of time (I'm compulsive like that - just gimme guys and I'll set 'em up like so many plastic figurines) arranging and planning and 80% of them didn't fire a shot in anger. Since we are leveling criticism, might as well add time-burglary to rap-sheet.

Conspiracy bonus: It's almost as if you're given a surfeit of forces on a wee-little map in the hope you'll screw it up and they'll all die so you suffer later on (it's not like you need them to win)

[phil stanbridge]

I absolutely adore the scale of the campaign, although at 7 missions it is short. I want to see larger campaigns myself and I enjoy the micro-management aspect. It does feel more realistic that way. That's one positive for this campaign in my opinion.

[TheBlackHand]

I finally made it to La Haye after playing and replaying (and replaying). I've spent about four days trying to figure out how to get past the minefields with no engineers. (Well, I was actually given one. One.)

Previously, I bitched about what people are calling "puzzle scenarios". I spent a lot of time saving and restarting. Despite the frustration, I had fun trying to get it right.

Now, I'm to the point where I just don't care. It's not fun anymore. It feels contrived.

This is the first campaign that I chose to play. Is it just my bad luck that I chose the most difficult and frustrating campaign, or are they all this way?

I really bought this game to play PBEM. Maybe it's time to leave the canned, Rubiks Cube scenarios behind and focus on finding a few human opponents.

[LemuelG]

This is the first campaign that I chose to play. Is it just my bad luck that I chose the most difficult and frustrating campaign, or are they all this way?

I didn't progress past the first mission and started Montbourg, no regrets - it was a blast.

I'm thinking of starting this lot again; fortunately I have a horrific short-term memory, so all the spoilers go in one ear and out the other, err kinda.

[womble]

I finally made it to La Haye after playing and replaying (and replaying). I've spent about four days trying to figure out how to get past the minefields with no engineers. (Well, I was actually given one. One.)

Ignore the briefing that says you've got to get started right away. You should get a good splodge of new, fresh engineers that haven't been involved before, so won't be mostly wiped out like your A&P platoon seem to be. It does take some waiting around. If you use Slow and keep your troops spread out, you'll probably make it through the mine belts where you can't be fired at in decent order, and then your right hook can have a solid left hinge in the Outskirts. Why the designers feel it's fun to spend the first half hour waiting for the necessary tools to be assembled, I do not know.

[JonS]

I've spent about four days trying to figure out how to get past the minefields with no engineers.

Have you tried going around them? They are marked on your map, after all.

[JonS]

Ignore the briefing that says you've got to get started right away.

You know, womble, it's clear you feel personally insulted or something, but making stuff up to reinforce your dislike is really kind of silly. The briefing says no such thing.

The 'plan' section of lHdP advises:

After initial bombardment of village outskirts use the pioneers and engineers to breach hedgerows. Advance rapidly over open ground under cover of smoke to secure a foothold in the village, then clear it from west to east.

There is nothing about getting started straight away. There is some good advice about using engineers to go cross country, and elsewhere you're told they'll be arriving within 30 minutes. There is some advice about using smoke to cover movement across open ground, and the need to move quickly across open ground. And there's some standard advice about using artillery as part of an integrated plan involving fire and movement. Paper AND scissors AND rock, rather than paper THEN scissors THEN rock. There is also a suggested approach - east to west - but there's is no terrain on the map that infantry can't get through, so you can tackle this nut many many different ways. The whole plan is, after all, a suggestion. You are the one playing, so you're the one that has to come up with an actual plan. You've been given a mission, resources, a timeframe, and a suggested approach, but the actual execution is your problem to solve. Which is all very consistent with mission orders and directive control.

But nowhere does it say you have 'get started right away.'

A particular mindset could cause you to read it that way, I suppose, but that's not what it actually says. Besides, you know all your reinforcements are arriving in the first 30 minutes, at which point you'll have over an hour left to take the town. There is simply no need or reason to 'get started right away.'

[JonS]

I think what people are asking for is an improved narrative of the campaign

It's pretty clear that people don't read the briefings

[womble]

You know, womble, it's clear you feel personally insulted or something, but making stuff up to reinforce your dislike is really kind of silly. The briefing says no such thing.

You are correct. My mistake.

However:

The 'plan' section of lHdP advises:

With what? A couple of 81mm tubes aren't going to have much effect on an area that size with buildings to shelter in. As ever in this campaign, nothing heavier is available for an indeterminate amount of time, and certainly not for prep. bombardment.

A particular mindset could cause you to read it that way, I suppose, but that's not what it actually says. Besides, you know all your reinforcements are arriving in the first 30 minutes, at which point you'll have over an hour left to take the town. There is simply no need or reason to 'get started right away.'

An hour for a town that size doesn't seem like very long. I wrung a total victory surrender out of School with 30 minutes to spare, but La Haye went down to the wire. Any mindset in which I read that briefing was built from the previous briefings in the campaign. But yes, I remembered it wrong earlier today.

[DavidFields]

JonS, I really liked this Campaign. I will just note that I made exactly the same mistake initially on La Hoye: --done know the depth of the minefields--or something like that, I interpreted as those two green areas being only what I could see of the minefields, and that they were connected. I thought the briefing was being nice, and "hinting" at where other mines where.

And just the concept of moving my force over open land in the center, after the beatings from School/University seemed so counter to good tactics, that I just could not make myself do it the first time.

Part of why I started another thread on this Campaign was exactly to head off some of the comments you are seeing on this Thread. By giving some people a little bit more info on the scenarios, those that wish it, it may increase their enjoyment (decrease their frustration) and keep BFC customers.

Otherwise, that Campaign is going to blast a number of people out of CM2, I fear. And it is not because the Campaign is not, in my opinion, excellent.

[JonS]

With what? A couple of 81mm tubes aren't going to have much effect on an area that size with buildings to shelter in. As ever in this campaign, nothing heavier is available for an indeterminate amount of time, and certainly not for prep. bombardment.

'Initial' does not equal 'immediate,' and the timing is not indeterminate. You will get mortars and artillery, within 30 mins. There's also some tanks you can use for direct fire, again arriving within 30 mins.

You are allowed to do some recce with your initial forces, and move your reinforcements into position before your personal H-hour. You don't have to flatten the whole town, you just need to suppress the area you're breaking in to, and screen it from the rest of the map. Smoke plus HE, synchronised with movement to acheive your objective.

You also do not need to take everything and kill everyone within the time available. Some battles you will, some you won't, and expecting to do that every battle will cause you all sorts of heartache. Reading some of your other comments I think that may be partly where you're going off the rails. Take Crossroads, for example; so what if there is 100pts for the German forces on the map? Those points are completely irrelevant to what you're trying to do in that mission. You are in France to kill Germans, so you get points for doing that, but killing them or not makes no difference to the outcome of that battle.

[JonS]

I will just note that I made exactly the same mistake initially on La Hoye: --done know the depth of the minefields--or something like that, I interpreted as those two green areas being only what I could see of the minefields, and that they were connected. I thought the briefing was being nice, and "hinting" at where other mines where.

Hmm, depth is depth, and width is width. The depth is unknown. The briefing was being nice, and presumbaly the hint is that assuming the minefield is only a couple of tiles deep, and only breaching to that depth, would be a bad idea.

The relevant bits of the briefing read

the Germans are relying heavily on obstacles, and extensive mine belts have been identified on both main approaches. ... A 'preserve' objective has been used to identify the forward edge of the enemy minefields. The full depth of these are unknown. There are no points associated with this objective - it is purely to identify the location of the minebelts.

In other words, you've come across the forward edge of a minefield centred on each main route. You know where it starts, but not where it finishes. That is a reasonable amount of information to be given, no? Being cautious about the exact dimensions - including the width - of the fields is certainly prudent, but ignoring the big signposted gaps probably isn't. On the other hand, it's also prudent to assume that the German defence is aware of where the gaps are. They laid them, after all.

[Erwin]

Am on the 2nd battle of this campaign and really enjoying it.

However, I have noticed that my performance in nearly all scenarios (so this is not a criticism of just this campaign) benefits from cautious and slow recon to spot enemy strong points for arty bombardment for most of the scenario while one waits for half to three quarters of the scenario to pass until the almost inevitable heavy stuff arrives b4 doing the inevitable assault.

It takes a much better than average designer to break this repetitive mold, and there are only a few (you know who you are, heh).

Maybe it's because the average size of CMBN maps are much smaller than CM1 (and maybe even CMSF??) but I recall there used to be great scenarios that had little actions going on all over the place rather than just the "big assault" in the last 30 minutes with not much going on in the first 60-90 mins.

It's ironic that we used to have discussions about how recon is unnecessary in the CM series as "recon has all been done and now one just goes in and beat each other up" or words to that effect. My experience in the maybe ten scenarios I have played so far is the exact opposite. Recon can of course be a lot of fun... IF the scenario is designed for it.

[DavidFields]

Hmm, depth is depth, and width is width. The depth is unknown. The briefing was being nice, and presumbaly the hint is that assuming the minefield is only a couple of tiles deep, and only breaching to that depth, would be a bad idea.

The relevant bits of the briefing read

In other words, you've come across the forward edge of a minefield centred on each main route. You know where it starts, but not where it finishes. That is a reasonable amount of information to be given, no? Being cautious about the exact dimensions - including the width - of the fields is certainly prudent, but ignoring the big signposted gaps probably isn't. On the other hand, it's also prudent to assume that the German defence is aware of where the gaps are. They laid them, after all.

Look, two of us, at least, made the exact same error in interpretation. I am not saying the briefing needs to be clear--part of my point is that people have different tolerances for the unknown. But if it was supposed to be clear that the center was unmined, it was not. And even if it was, one would assume the Germans would have the open area TRPed and set for ambush.

Thus, the proposed plan in the brief sounded crazy, and like the previous poster a right hook through the Outskirts, staying in more protected terrain seemed much lower risk. Two of us, neither likely rookies, looked at the briefing and map and came to the same conclusion.

And if I had engineers earlier, and knew how to mark mines better, that is the route I would have gone. As it was, I restarted, tried to center approach, and encountered no artillery (? from dealing out some damage in earlier scenarios).

As it is, you have a final scenario which takes 35+ hours (Wego--can't imagine one could real time this), which the first 7-10 hours is maneuver (except for moving toward Outskirts), and then involves meticulous combat against a very well designed defense (thankfully, I took out 2 of the Stugs in Bumper Cars. Either the AI or the designer is spectacular in placing TDs.) Can't imagine that is everyone's cup of tea. It is sort of a romp, if one follows the plan. [something in the briefing like: "Really, your Superior insists you stick to the plan] The channeling is harsh (impassable terrain to vehicles right and left). Casualties are going to be high (not a problem for CMBB guys, but CMSF types may be disturbed by all the wounded one is going to look at lying on the ground most of the scenario).

As with this whole Campaign, I would mark it with a skull and crossbones, or a black diamond (if that is a generally understood sign from skiing), You Have Been Warned (even at low difficulty levels, there are a lot of units for beginners to work with.)

I am now 75 turns in. Yes, I have learned to have limited expectations. (Forget about the right rear VP areas in University), that I have to pick my "knife" from all of what I was given (AT guns in University--only reason to have them was to realize not to lose them?), deal with the vagueness of the reinforcement information (the soldier/tank/artillery graphics fudge a lot about the actual strength of what you are going to get), but it is a little unnerving not to know if there are different levels of Campaign Victory, and what is involved in obtaining them. Is a Total Victory possible? In what way? It would be silly to push ahead, take a lot of casualties, and then lose, rather than to just stop now and win.

If nothing else, the first time through I tend to like the uncertainty, but is there a way for me to find out post hoc the structure of the Campaign? A "spoiler" sticky on the forum, for example. My guess is that to explain all the nuances of this Campaign would be an enormous document--one enjoyable to read.

[JonS]

Look, two of us, at least, made the exact same error in interpretation.

No, I get that, and my post wasn't meant to be confrontational.

If nothing else, the first time through I tend to like the uncertainty, but is there a way for me to find out post hoc the structure of the Campaign?

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=99092