Sneak Peeks, Coming Attractions, Works-In-Progress

[berto]

How cool is this? New feature:



Before, this CSME El Argoup scenario was always unduly difficult to play. Is that an Escarpment, or an Embankment, or an ordinary Slope? With the new Display > Map Hints feature, you can know for sure!

This improvement, and so many, many more, to be available in CSME 2.10, due out sometime later next year.

[Big Ivan]

Nice! Super Nice!![:D]

[Andrea G]

ORIGINAL: Big Ivan

Nice! Super Nice!![:D]

Agree [:D]

[mllange]

I would love to see this type of improvement and treatment in an update to the Civil War titles.

[Jason Petho]

Campaign Series Middle East: Scripting

As you know, we've been working hard on HAL's (our AI) performance for Vietnam. As Middle East is a living game, we will be incorporating these updates to that game in the future. This means that the scenarios will need to be scripted for play against HAL. One of the first scenarios I chose to attempt is the "Black September Intruders" scenario that deals with the Syrian invasion of Jordan in 1970. The main reason I chose this one is to test how the well the new scripting works with armoured engagements and what needs to be improved, modified, added. Here's a quick sketch of the battlefield with the primary units I'll be using for the Syrian assault. The idea will be to make this challenging for the Jordanian player.

[benpark]

I haven't done any scenario design for these games (played it lots)- is there a "draw" function in the Editor, over the basic map that would allow a designer to keep track of the concept stuff visually (as with Berto's example drawn above)? So that when they get to the practical stuff they can see it, on-screen (an overlay, I suppose)?

[Jason Petho]

Unfortunately, no, there isn't an overlay available in the editors.

Although, you could get creative with the labelling in the map editor.

[Para87]

Great to see AI improvements filtering through to Campaign Series Middle East.

[Jason Petho]

Absolutely, Para! Middle East will be receiving an UPDATE after Vietnam to incorporate all these goodies!

[Crossroads]

Middle East 3.0 officially now at works for me, at least! Warming up with latest and greatest the Lua based Campaign Series Event Engine (CSEE) has to offer, with the 15 Ode to October War scenarios by Alan Arvold, at Mods folder.

My intention among other things is to introduce the original boardgames based victory conditions to these situations, previously not possible.

[berto]

Looking forward to seeing these AA scenarios being AI scripted!

[Crossroads]

Looking forward to seeing these AA scenarios being AI scripted!

Should be fun!

[Crossroads]

Middle East 3.0 officially now at works for me, at least! Warming up with latest and greatest the Lua based Campaign Series Event Engine (CSEE) has to offer, with the 15 Ode to October War scenarios by Alan Arvold, at Mods folder.

My intention among other things is to introduce the original boardgames based victory conditions to these situations, previously not possible.

Situation #1 briefings, victory conditions, all original per the OW situation card!

ow_situation1.jpg (243.78 KiB) Viewed 1227 times

[Crossroads]

Never mind the oddly colored dialogs, by the way, we'll sort them in due time.

[Zovs]

So the ode to AA scenarios for version 3.0 are not yet available?

[Crossroads]

So the ode to AA scenarios for version 3.0 are not yet available?

I am at work providing the various Ode to * scenarios by Alan Arvold their Lua files for e.g. new victory conditions like in the Ode to OW sample above. I do not expect to make much changes to actual scenarios themselves, apart from adjusting the victory levels to accomodate the new Event Points in Lua files.

Otherwise, the scenarios that are there now continue to be there in 3.0, once the UPDATE ships, at the end of this year, hopefully.

If this is what you meant?

[Zovs]

Yes sort of. New to the series and know not much about the patch nor the ode to AA scenarios

[Crossroads]

Yes sort of. New to the series and know not much about the patch nor the ode to AA scenarios

Ah, OK. The scenarios I am talking about are not "stock scenarios" but in the Mods folder, where you can activate them with JSGME. Alan Arvold build three sets of community scenarios: Ode to Arab-Israeli War boardgame, Ode to October War boardgame, and Ode to Divided Ground, which are the "Divided Ground" computer game scenarios, a game now owned by Matrix Games, but not available any more (it was a rushed release by Take Two before they had to fold in).

In the current Middle East 2.0 game they are available as well, but without any Lua event engine code available. Should be played as a boardgame, against a live opponent.

[Zovs]

Oh thank you, that explains a lot I did not know.

So there will be a 3.0 version by end of year?

[Crossroads]

Yes, that’s the plan. Lots of Lua programming ahead before we are there though!