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Now I know there are a lot of campaign lovers out there. There have also been many asking loudly for branching campaigns instead of linear ones (Branching is where you get to play on even if you don't do well)

But since the release of 4.0, I have not seen a word about the two campaigns that came with the game.

Has anyone tried them? How are you doing? Are they too difficult? Too easy? Have you had problems? I'd be interested in knowing how the new system works and if you like/dislike it. Any updates?

Wild Bill

Apparently you didn't notice my previous messages (in "Long campaign advice needed" thread):

"Thanks Wild Bill,

I started the "Preparing the Way". I bought the troops, including 2 FOs and 2 FO Jeeps, and set the artillery targets already in deployment phase. Everything worked fine... I got a total victory, even though I had not
anticipated all those German Stukas. I had no AA units at all!

It was a lot of fun... those odd French tanks were nice to blast away. One question remains:

What if I had lost that fight? Would the campaign have ended or what?

P.S. Don't delete this message! "

And:

"I won the second battle as well, a decisive victory again. The third battle is apparently in Sicily. I have paratroops, wow. This is something that Combat Mission can't do...

Some minor bugs: After the second battle, it said that I have played only one battle, and only one decisive victory."

Now HOW did I miss that! Sorry Fuerte. And they took my delete button away from me till I get a little older . Thanks for being understanding about that boo boo!

Nice! Thanks. Yes, the campaigns are full of surprises. And the US is not the only one with paras .

Only a major defeat (unlikely) would have kicked you out of the game. A minor defeat would have taken you to an alternate scenario which you, by your prowess have avoided. It was kind of cool, the evacuation of the beach at Morocco under heavy attack.

But your warring skills avoided that one.

Keep me posted, my friend. I appreciate the update.

Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Another question for you, Fuerte. I went back and read the entire post. Are you still having problems with the scoring? We thought we had that fixed. Is it showing the proper of amount of victories and the right type?

Let me know, please...WB

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Thanks Wild Bill,

so this campaign is a linked one. Great! Sad though, that I missed that another branch...

Perhaps the battles are too easy, because I am not that good. In the first battle I won after about 10 turns (max 20), when I was holding all victory points. When examining the map after it had finished, I noticed that there were several German tanks which didn't take part of fighting at all, probably because they were reinforcements and didn't have enough time.

The second battle finished before the time limit as well. There were again some unused enemy reinforcement tanks in the end.

The third battle is still going on... most of the paratroops were suppressed after landing, some even retreating. But I have most of them moving now.

I guess that there might not be many battles after this one, if I get a decisive victory again... perhaps I should have made the battles more difficult when starting the campaign (is it possible?).

After the second battle it said that I had fought only one, and got only one decisive victory. I'll tell you more when I finish the third battle.

Wild Bill: I think I'll toy with my WWII campaign a bit more first, though come Colombus Day (I'm off) I'll probably dive into it for a spell.

I have made an attempt at both campaigns, but two things discourage me. First the lesser, and that is that I believe the campaigns state in the case of the Ruskies, that you are supporting a mechanical brigade or something. This made me think I needed very little or no armor. To my surprise after picking the core, it was followed by a support selection. Huh? You see, when you tell me I'm "supporting" tanks, I'm thinking I'm picking the support for the tanks. Obviously, when what you thought was support, in picking your core, isn't, you get wise to what's going on, and then deployment after picking the real support becomes apparent when there are no other units to support.

Another thing, I was somewhat discouraged by the lack of a core. I believe it started out with 1100 points, right? Well it doesn't compare to the 3200 I'm now getting in '39. I'm sure I'll get around to it, but for the moment I'm feeling around with the game, and hoping that I won't want to restart the current campaign for adjustments (like cutting the Polish infantry down to 10 men in the editor) that I'm currently on.

The terrain on the first mission was pretty weird and it was something my eye wasn't very trained for (the green Russian units didn't help this any, being more of a grey Gerry man), but the white splotches on the map, from afar, looked like.......... .... (my white Siberian Husky, that's it)

I just read some of Fuerte's stuff. Hmmm, makes me drool a bit. I'd love nothing more than cutting down a few airborne platoons (actually dropped behind his lines I suppose). I don't ever have to man my rear victory hexes in campaigns, though your deal would change this. Hey, do we get to upgrade as we go?

I'm playing Heroes of the Motherland right now. Got through 3 scenarios with decisive victories so far. These victories have revolved around the use of 45mm AT guns, and KV-1's. My T-34's so far have been not up to the task yet. But my T-34 count is going up and in the second scenario their mass with the additional purchase of an entire KV-1 platoon with 152mm arty battallion allowed me to cause HEINOUS damage to the northern enemy attack group. The support points in the second scenario were at 1000. Is that right? That let me purchase that 900 point KV platoon. In the third scenario it was a little more hectic. The reduced visual range made things a little more difficult. But I had ba-20's and 45mm AT guns in a screen up front that chewed up the oncoming forces that then had to deal with SMG troops, T-34's and KV-1's. Having fewer support points made this scenario less certain for me. I've just barely started the fourth so cant say anything about it yet.

My initial core force purchases consisted of a company of t-26's, platoon of t34m41, sec of KV-1m41, platoon of zis-30, company of SMG, platoon of desantniki, platoon of 12.7mm HMG, 2 platoons of ATR, sec 85mm AA, platoon of GAZ trucks.

The T-26's are slowly becoming T-34's and KV's.

I like the campaign so far... I would bet that the first scenario is pretty challenging and the second one not so challenging, but I've played so much of this damn steel panthers game that I'm not good at determining difficulty level of a scenario.

Tomo

Wild Bill... I have the same problem with the score. When I finsh the seconf battle of a campaign, it list it as just 1 completed. When I finished the third, it said two. Seems that the first is listed once. The points are only correct after the first also.

I played the russian campaign and found it very easy, I'm on the forth battle now. In the begining I took 3 platoons of 76mm at guns with inf. They just slaughtered the German advance (that and the low cost of Arty). The in later scenarios I upgrade to KV-1s.

will more campaigns be comming out?
Wish list:
3rd Canadian Div. Juno - end of war
German campaign #1 Poland - Mid 1941
(including more in Yugoslavia in Greece)
German Campaign # 2 Mid 1941 - End of War (more ops in Italy and south of france)

How about an Italian campaign or Invasion of Southern France. Greece ect...The battles that seem to be left out of the long campaigns.

Great game
3rd Recon
Semper Fi

Another thing Bill, I would like to critique your introduction concerning the Motherland campaign. Firstly, you don't have enough communist zeal. Secondly you need to speak with a Russian accent (I suspect you have none, but neither do I). Also, I think more authenticity would have come across, if you had played the Russian National Anthem in the background. Perhaps you should have had some guy named Vladimir doing the intro.

If you get around to doing a Gerry campaign the same suggestions are in order. You know, Gerry accent with the German National Anthem in the background and maybe even a bad Hitler impersonation. Barring a possible lack of a Gerry accent, I'm sure some of the Matrix staff can supply one, or at least a third of the current members of this forum could (nyuk, nyuk, nyuk)

[This message has been edited by Charles22 (edited September 14, 2000).]

Thanks very much, guys. This is the kind of feedback I need for future efforts. I'm surprised you are getting decisives with such ease, but then that speaks well of your gaming abilities (and not of mine )

A lot of success depends upon the choice of units. In most cases a mixed bag is best, some infantry some armor. Artillery seems unreliable and so far, air support, unless included (in some cases it is) is not available at all. At least it wasn't the last time I looked.

Charles, as to the intro to Heroes, here is the text as it appears in the campaign:

"Welcome to Moscow, Colonel. Please, remain seated. Finish your vodka! Be at ease. Your forces with which you are about to engage a hated enemy should be primarily a tank battalion. Support points will allow you to pick artillery and whatever kind of support you feel necessary to supplement your armor. In this, your first battle, you are to take up defensive positions near Karpovo, east of Orel. The Germans are headed straight for Moscow. They must be stopped in their tracks."

Read it carefully. It tells you your forces should be "primarily a tank battalion..."

I should have made it clearer.

Russian accent. I worked on it, but it sounded too weird I'll find to find someone with the German accent when we get to that one

As to the suggestions from 3rd Recon on campaigns, good ones, and ones that I have in mind. The Polish one should be very good.
And look for the new scenario on Juno Beach and the Canadian 3rd landings there in the next week or so.

Good stuff from all of you. Again, my thanks.
Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

[This message has been edited by Wild Bill (edited September 14, 2000).]

Wild Bill: Yeah, I'm pretty decent with making voices and a dab of accent, particularly British and a smantering of German, but I haven't seen enough episodes of any Vladimir's Heroes to attain the slightest notion of where to start with Russian.

Yeah, I misheard, the vodka got to me. Also, when you say "support your armor" I must have thought it was "support the armor" as though it was given to me to support. It's hard to make what you said clearer. I think the meshing of something that sounded like a real greeting, with the game, must've blown my imagination enough that I couldn't picture the ability to draw up a tank force out of thin air, as the game allows. Besides, the last time I heard anything from the computer by a CO, was from the East Front II game, where incidentally you don't pick your individual units.

Well, some of us have played WAY too much SP series games. Their AI is in our blood. So we instinctively know what to do. One of the more difficult things to manage is when you're kind in the midst of a losing skirmish and know what you need to clear it up. In the first Heroes scenario my AT guns weren't all that useful in the north where the LOS wasn't quite as good as in the south. It had to be an ugly close quarters fight. I used lame T-26's in mass to clear it up. I lost almost 10 of them. But it made it so that those stray tanks that we're heading for the objective got mopped up by molotov cocktails. The scenario where infantry came in first was a lot scarier. (#3 I think, the one with the vis 5 or 6)

Tomo

I finished the third battle, again a decisive victory. It said that I have played two battles and two decisives, so maybe it just doesn't count the game which just ended.

The third scenario (Sicily) had those nice paratroops, but I didn't like the German reinforcement points in the middle of the map. This feels quite unrealistic, when those troops just appear out of nothing. And they were no airborne troops.

Now I am in the fourth battle, where there are some fishing villages, and I am doing a landing to the beach.

Perhaps we get too much points in the beginning, and the campaign is too easy because of that?

Those German reinforcements were placed there to simply indicate oncoming reinforcements. It works better with the closer to the battle site than at the edge of the map. Yep, you've done all right. Very good, Fuerte.

There was a last minute change in unit values which threw campaigns out of whack for play. The new values were too high so I increased the core values awarded. It might indeed be too high, or you are just too good

WB

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Charles, if you can put those voices over for me, I may call upon you in the future. You can do them ...only need a microphone and some good background sounds to blend with them.

I used the sound recorder with Win98.

Anyway, as the time approaches, I may give you a holler. Thanks for the offer. You are a good man.

Oh, those white splotches, they are supposed to be signs of early winter but they could be Condor Poop (Fw 200 Condors, that is...I know, they were out hunting for convoys - )

Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

Yikes. I started the US long campaign of yours WB and I was getting my tail kicked. My inability to see or kill french squads and the Luftwaffe strikes were doing me in. Not to mention those AT bunkers. I had to rush out part way through and I just exited the game. I'm gonna try it again though. After reading Fuerte posts I'll have to do better next time.

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McGib
Ready Aye Ready

Wild Bill: Actually I made an offer of opinion, but I didn't offer to lend voice, that was just a description of my talent in that area. You can go ahead and give me a try if you like, but I can't say one way or another how I will respond. I'm tending more to decline as it stands now. I could do a pretty mean British as I say, but any Gerry on my part is probably more fantasy then it sounding like much of anything (but still better than any Russian). I also have the inability, possibly, other than if I want to do it or not, in the fact that I'm not really sure I'm very adequate with military phrases. Actually, the military phrases I might be able to come up with, might be better on the Gerry side. So there you have it, my Brit accent is pretty good, but Brit military authenticity is crucially lacking, while the Gerry side is the reverse.

In any case, I might throw a few military phrases and accents around as I play SPWAW this weekend and see if I think it's anything passable, should I be interested in complying, should you request. It's one thing to pose accents when it means nothing, to people who wouldn't touch accents, but for wargamers who've seen a few, and it's supposed to be enhancing the game, it's quite another. In any case, a good accent and military phrases always help the spirit of the game. Thanks.

It was a very good suggestion, Charles. I appreciate it. We'll see what happens with it. I'll keep you posted.

Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games