More scenario packs?

[SapperAstro_MatrixForum]

Hello all,

Very much looking forward to the CoTA scenario pack, and i am wondering if any more scenario packs will be flipped out after this?

If yes, any chance of a Far East pack containing Burma battles, Malaya, Singapore, China V Japs, Khalkin Gol and so on?

[wodin]

This has been mentioned before..far east is unlikely I'm afraid..sadly as these things go it's down to sales.

[SapperAstro_MatrixForum]

That would be a shame...

I don't know about you, but the best scenarios I have played in the Panther series, from a gameplay perspective, have been the Conquest of the Aegean scenarios. The Bulge scenarios were fairly pedestrian in comparison, and the Highway scenarios only somewhat better. This isn't a fault of the system, but rather the battles themselves. They just seem a lot more intense and exciting in CotA.

The scenarios I have suggested are great for movement and flanking purposes, not to mention in many cases there was the possibility for either side to gain the edge depending on how they played things out. Again, a shame.

[Phoenix100]

You must have a great long-term view of things, SapperAstro. It seems like a heroic effort - and minimum half a year - to get a patch out to make the present games work better. Plus years to 'flip out' the COTA conversion, which is still not really in sight, it seems. I'm not sure when it will be ready, not sure anyone is sure when it will be ready (that was more or less what Dave said last time he was asked, no?). My bet would be well into next year now, to be honest. And as for the East front game and all the other announced projects, I think we're putting money on (at least) 2014 now. Have to be realistic about part-time programming. This is all, I suppose, a labour of love for the developers - ie; there's not enough money to live on in it, hence it's part time, hence it's all slow. But I suppose you can always ask for anything you like...... For me, I just want that patch......

I'm with you that the COTA scenarios were (are) great though.

[wodin]

I also say COTA had the best scenarios, even the smaller airborne scenarios where great infact some of my fav times playing the game. I like a few days scenario with few units myself..more immersive...and COTA had them.

[Deathtreader]

ORIGINAL: SapperAstro

Hello all,

Very much looking forward to the CoTA scenario pack, and i am wondering if any more scenario packs will be flipped out after this?

If yes, any chance of a Far East pack containing Burma battles, Malaya, Singapore, China V Japs, Khalkin Gol and so on?

Hi,

There's been occasional mention over the past few months from (usually [;)]) reliable sources of something called a "Westwall Expansion pack" but details are very few and far between.

Would those in the know care to step up?? Sharing is a good thing.............[&o]

Rob.

[SapperAstro_MatrixForum]

Yes, the patch is naturally number 1 on the hit list.

And yes, CotA pack next up...

As for Westwall...well, I am not sure what to think of that...sounds very 'Bulgish' in its time frame, which sort of leads me to suspect it may not be the most exciting of packs, unless they are talking about the French Saar offensive in '39[:D]

I am open to persuasion though...

There is the other pack being worked on by some of the boys here, the early war blitzkrieg scenarios, which I am indeed looking forward to. Willing to bet those will be great scenarios to play, which is why I didn't bother asking for them.

Which lead me to suggest other scenarios that would be great in this system, and have that old CotA feeling of intense action mixed with outflanking and decision making. Fewer units, across large enough maps to allow all sorts of different ways to achieve objectives, instead of the brawling of the Bulge scenarios (most of them anyway).

Am I asking a lot? Possibly. Am I trying to plant a seed? Definately. Hopefully, Arjuna and others here will look into these battles and perhaps think 'well...these do indeed have possibilities!'.

See, if scenarios were as easy to make as the ancient battlefront system scenarios, I wouldn't be typing this; I would already have made them. Unfortunately, the new wargames seem to require a huge amount of knowledge and equipment in order to churn out a scenario, knowledge and equipment that the pros have and I don't. If I also had time (young children, job, etc), I could learn the skills that the pros have. I don't.

Ah well, no harm in asking. The worst thing that can happen is someone says 'no' [;)]

[Phoenix100]

You're right about the Bulge, SA. It's all a brawl. Mostly the fights seem like foregone conclusions - the historical conclusions. But they're still nice to fight and experience like that. The HTTR scenarios are, I think, a little more open, and - as you said - the COTA scenarios even more so, I felt. Did you try the non-historical BFTB scenarios? For example, Spearhead v Reich is a great fight, I think, and there's no way of knowing what will happen from the history, because no history. I really enjoyed that.

[SapperAstro_MatrixForum]

I usually love the slightly ahistorical scenarios the most. It really depends on the battle. As you say, the ahistorical scenarios for Bulge were some of the best in there, while in CotA it was a mix of the Historical and Ahistorical that really made me enjoy playing.

I had some delusions of grandeur back when CotA was first released of making a bunch of scenarios outlining a greater Commonwealth committment to the Greek campaign, throwing in extra divisions and even the Free French formations, and creating a counter offensive to the north after a successful defence. Had the whole fantasy downpat as to how this was possible (Soviets attacked while Hitler was looking southwards, etc etc) but the task was daunting and time limited.

In any case, we shall see what happens.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: SapperAstro
Am I asking a lot? Possibly. Am I trying to plant a seed? Definately. Hopefully, Arjuna and others here will look into these battles and perhaps think 'well...these do indeed have possibilities!'.

See, if scenarios were as easy to make as the ancient battlefront system scenarios, I wouldn't be typing this; I would already have made them. Unfortunately, the new wargames seem to require a huge amount of knowledge and equipment in order to churn out a scenario, knowledge and equipment that the pros have and I don't. If I also had time (young children, job, etc), I could learn the skills that the pros have. I don't.

Ah well, no harm in asking. The worst thing that can happen is someone says 'no' [;)]

OK I'm up for it. Are you ready? Here is you answer....No! Now that didn't hurt much, did it? [;)]

The fact is there is no end to the scenario options but there is only so much time available and the resources are limited. I agree that to design an historically accurate scenario takes a lot of time. But to design a non-historical one does not take that much time. You can use an existing map and an existing force list and work up a scenario in relatively short order. You can tweak the force list in the SM, adjusting at start strength and attributes of units, clone units to add a new formation...whatever. That is all pretty straight forward and easy to do. With a few simple secure objectives you can have a basic scenario up and running in a day. You will however, have to test it to see if the objectives need modifying - eg adding another objective to ensure that part of the front is held.

So why then do we not see more third party what if scenarios? I actually love these, because I have no "prior knowledge" of what happened and hence no expectations. I'm not having to critically analyse the outcomes against some historical benchmark. There's something liberating in that. They would be perfect for a tournament. Imagine a tournament, playing head to head, with a series of small "what if" scenarios, each playable in say two to three hours. I reckon that would be great.

Now I know many will say that it's difficult to arrange a head to head match across time zones. I agree it's not easy. What about a solitaire tournament? By this I mean each participant would play each scenario against the AI once from both sides and make a screen dump of their AAR screen. These could then be compared with those from the other participants to determine the winner.

What's to stop someone doctoring the AAR screen in photoshop? What if you had an actual recording of the game you had just played and you had to submit this as well as the AAR screen. The recording could be played back within the game to verify the results. Would that be of interest?

[SapperAstro_MatrixForum]

And here I was thinking you had better taste!

Oh well. Moving on...

In that case, I need an expert map maker, any takers?...but until then, I will take your advice and begin using the maps that are available.

Now, on to your suggestion; I like the idea of the solitaire tournament, especially with the 'ahistorical' scenarios...but any would do since I still get beaten by the AI, and after admitting that I wouldn't bother photoshopping an endscreen...I like the recordings too, it would be great entertainment watching the battles...

Seriously, do you really believe someone would go to the trouble of photoshopping score screens? Would we put a million in the pot or something? [:D]

[hjc]

ORIGINAL: SapperAstro

Seriously, do you really believe someone would go to the trouble of photoshopping score screens? Would we put a million in the pot or something? [:D]

I too like the idea of a tournament, although my lack of time would mean I probably couldn't take part.

On the subject of photoshopping score screens, in other words cheating: as someone that used to play on-line chess a bit, I was disappointed to discover how wide-spread cheating is in gaming. Even when people are anonymous on the net, many feel the need to boost their prestige and sense of self-worth by getting victories - any way they can. There have been wargame community ladders in the past that were torn apart by accusations of cheating. So yeah, I think captures of score screens could be an issue. Even the possibility of people being accused of photoshopping makes it something to be wary of.

Naturally though, we're all gentlemen here so it probably would *not* happen.

cheers

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

What's to stop someone doctoring the AAR screen in photoshop? What if you had an actual recording of the game you had just played and you had to submit this as well as the AAR screen. The recording could be played back within the game to verify the results. Would that be of interest?

Actually, the doctoring will happen sooner or later. It may take a while in smaller game communities, but at some point ppl will be either tempted or willing to push their rank/reputation on a ladder. That's why serious ladders have a report system where both players have to report the scores. If there are discrepancies, an admin will have to jump in, in case a civilized discussion between the 2 players won't happen.

On the dev side, you can actually counter such potential quirks by introducing something I would call an AAR report file function, that creates an encrypted file with the same Checksum for both players at the end of a match. If you then load the AAR report file inside the game, you will be able to see the complete AAR. If then a ladder makes it mandatory to upload that AAR file, an admin could check the AARs (so both files) himself, and false reporting will be useless.

Many ladders demand the creation of demo files (a recording uses to be called "demo" in many game communities since the 90s already, like in the Starsiege:Tribes community, Counterstrike, Quake, GrandPrix and the NeedForSpeed community as well as in many other communites) already, which even enables an admin to skip through all players of a team in some games, in order to see if someone is cheating, for example, or to verify the final score. Ladder rules usually give either the opponent or the admin the right to demand getting a demo, in case accusations had been made. Still, an encrypted AAR file would make it pretty hard to tinker with reports or even AARs. I doubt ppl with the knowledge to re-engineer such files would care for small wargame communities.

If a community is big enough, it will attract hackers, though. For example, with Starsiege:Tribes, released around December 1998, it took until late 2000 until someone finally had come up with a working cheat, and that cheat worked for the chaingun only, because the movements in the game happened across 3 dimensions, means you could walk/run, jump, strafe and fly with a jetpack, and you could "ski" (a glitch that was used by all players using the contours of valleys to ski downhill, then - at the bottom of the valley - they would use the jetpack in order to propel themselfs uphill like on a giant ski ramp or a giant halfpipe. This high speed environment made it very hard for an aimbot to keep up with the enemies' movements. On top of that, all the other weapons were slow velocity projectile or slow build-up energy guns, which made aimbots useless.

With the chaingun, the projectiles were fast enough, so a chaingun aimbot made some sense at least, despite the opportunities for an enemy to escape with highspeed movements or unexpected manoeuvres midair. The aimbot would always target the enemy's left eye, IIRC. Pretty sad. Since the gun wasn't an instant kill weapon, the cheater had to chase, at least. [:D]

In games like CS, Quake, Battlefield 2 and the like, footsoldiers don't have these possibilities (using jetpacks, skiing downhill), so aimbots work on most if not all guns, as the general movement speeds are way lower. An aimbot will then always aim for the head, the cheater just has to pull the trigger and make sure that there's no obstacle blocking the LOF. If you have a sniper rifle or a big calibre gun, each shot will be an instant kill. In more realsitic games like Armored Assault / Operation Flashpoint, every calibre will score an instant kill with a headshot.

With wargames, cheats that remove the fog of war are quite popular. In games where you can also influence supply and resources, cheats will tinker with say fuel or ammunition numbers in favor of the cheater.