Silly Senario's

[BigJim]

OK just tried out senario 20, amphib assualt by Iran on Iraq, I am given 14 turns to take 13 objectives and cannot land my GREEN troops anywhere but swamp hexes and guarded hexes, in the swamp they cannot move, in comes the BORG AI arty and they can't move at all. What's the point?? I couldn't take 13 hexes in 14 turns if I had NO opposition in the terrain laid out in the senario. If its a historical battle and you want to GUARANTEE a historical outcome just point me to the reading of it as I have NO interest in playing ANY senario in which I have NO chance to win. BTW the senario sets LOS to 3 but the AI fires from 10 and 12 hexes while my troops are limited to 3????

[Shadowcougar]

I don't believe the Iranians did land very well. I could be wrong. Tried the battle once. Didn't like it and didn't retry it.

[SCAJolly]

I've always hated the time limit in SP. If nothing else, it's often way too little time to do things correctly.

[DRG]

BigJim said:
<snip> BTW the senario sets LOS to 3 but the AI fires from 10 and 12 hexes while my troops are limited to 3????

Becasue the Iraqi vehicles in the scenario have.......

The Iraqi BMP-1 has a vision 10
The Iraqi PT-76B's have vision 15
The Iraqi FUG-70 has a vision 20

So they have IF gear and can see 10-15 hexes in the dark. Toss smoke and they are blind.

Don

[loktarr]

After reading that, I played the scenarion, didn't find it "silly".
My battle ended with a draw in my advantage (100pts more), but could easily have been a minor victory, because I got an incredible "bad luck":
-one of my 120mm did kill an entiere squad of mine: -10 mens
-one of my landing boats got immobilised on a mine: 30 mens into it didn't want to unload because there mines in the hexe: -30 mens that should have taken a value of 421 pts in objective...
-the ennemy arty fire did cost me one more squad decimated by a 80mm mortar shell: 7 KIA, survivor disperse
I precise that some of my squad did reach the last objectives on the road...
So, it's possible to reach a minor victory, but I think I'm not able to do a major one.
finally that a good way to play with guy on which arty is really effective because of their bad morale... Not so bad scenario.

[WBWilder]

Scenarios should be winnable. If they are not, the player should be advised of that fact in the text before he begins.

Let the scenario be historical, but at the same time it should be playable, challenging and WINNABLE.

The whole idea of an historical scenario is to face history and then have the opportunity to change it. If you can't make a scenario that way, you should leave it alone.

Now I have not played this one and probably won't. That's not fair. I'll look at it but if it is as Jim describes, I may just pass on it or fix it so it is winnable. Nice thing about the editor (G)!

Wild Bill

[dita]

One thing I have noticed, whilst playing around with the editor for the first time and creating a few scenarios (novice affairs that they are!), is how just the slightest tweak in the scenario can change how the whole battle plays out. Just repositioning the startup AI units, or placing a platoon behind the ridge line as opposed to on it can make for a very different battle.

All this is good, and just shows me the flexablity of the editor and how the AI plays. And of course allows the player to change something he doesn`t like

[DRG]

OK, here's what the designer had to say...

".........many of my scenarios do not fit well into the draw / minor victory / major victory etc. categories. For my scenarios, I've always considered it a win if you simply have more points than your opponent. And the more points you win by, the bigger the win........"

Now, I realize that this does not fit into the prevailing "sceanrio orthodoxy" where people demand a "victory" blessing from the computer and I also realize that yes.... that should have been included with the text file introduction but as CB wrote to me as well...

"I have thought about mentioning that in the .txt files but I don't recall anyone complaining about it before..."

and truth be told.... neither have I and that sceanrio has been included in the game for two or three years now. I also know that most of the scenarios ARE "winnable" by the traditional SP Minor or Major Victory criteria so it's not like there are dozens and dozens in the game like this one.

So for that scenario, if you get more points than the AI does.. you win and there are lot's of V hexes to take to give you options and nobody, to my knowledge ever has or ever will take them all but you don't have to take them all to win. You just need one point more than the AI and next time you play maybe you get 100 points more and that's a bigger victory and maybe you come back to it in a year and get 250 points more and that's a bigger vistory still

I know this won't make some of you happy but I learned long ago that's impossible. There are people who think we are jerks for abandoning DOS. If this still leaves a few of you unconvinced there is an editor included with the game. Edit away.

Don

[troopie]

Sometimes simply holding on long enough can be a victory. I'm thinking of the Wake Island scenario in SP1, the Calabar or Port Harcourt scenarios in SP2, (I survived the Calabar one merely because the Nigerian MIGs targeted their own tanks, and Port Harcourt only because a sapper unit blew up a tank on a bridge, sacrificing themselves and stopping the enemy from getting across. According to v-hex points I lost all three, but I survived and bled the enemy badly. Try playing the Iraqis in Desert Storm if you want an impossible challenge.

troopie

[WBWilder]

Yes, some scenarios could be designed that way. I would agree that there are cases where the player knows he has won. If the computer tells him something different, he must decide if that is an accuarate assessment or not.

I guess you could call the computer's statement a "second opninion." So let me say it this way. My personal preference when I do a scenario is to figure out a way for one side or the other to win decisively from the computer's point of view.

Wild Bill