Scenario #3 The Road to El-Arish - Page 3

Imp · #1 November 24th, 2013, 01:37 AM

Mr Blackard keeps time tight on a lot of his scenarios, I have not played any recently but there might be a good case for play testing & increasing the number of turns & putting timed objectives on at around 9-15.
Timed objectives are a very good addition which give you the need to hurry up.

Its up to you what the length is & in most cases adding a turn or 2 is fair enough, its just play balancing. Keep in mind some have become harder & some easier since they were designed due to changes in units etc.

If people do update them another thing to look at is just making some minor adjustments to deployment. A lot deploy the platoon leader to the front so just swap his position with the rear platoon unit. Saves spending the first turn with your platoon leader staying as is or even moving backwards to sort this.

63 is unwinnable its supposed to be, read 64s intro notes.
64 is still nigh on impossible, see if you can do better but what I did was send infantry forward, stick a vehicle over, see what fired & killed it. Then use your infantry to smoke so just engaging one or 2 targets & send the rest up.
Recon by death due to the time constraints.

Imp · #2 November 24th, 2013, 05:11 AM

65 is okay I got a marginal, lost 2 Sherman's & did not risk capturing last 3 victory hexes.
AI has 20 vision so be wary.

jivemi · #3 November 25th, 2013, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Imp

65 is okay I got a marginal, lost 2 Sherman's & did not risk capturing last 3 victory hexes.
AI has 20 vision so be wary.

Thanks for the warning. It's a delay so it should be easier, but I played #62 Kuneitra--a defend for the Israelis--and "only" got a marginal. The Syrians managed to grab a VH west of the trench but there was still enough point differential for the win.

So far out of about 15 scenarios I've only two DV's to show for it: #1 Obong-ni Ridge and #50 Kalilah. Kalilah is Blackard's first AIW scenario and it's an assault, but it seemed heavily weighted in Israel's favor. It may well be historical, since they didn't seem to need their reinforcements (unless the Jordanians overrun the AO who's hanging out on a proverbial limb).

Anyway MBT is really fun, not to mention demanding of the godlike commander's skill, flexibility, and crisis management

.

@gila: No scenarios shouldn't have to be balanced. As you mention many historical battles were mismatches so this may be reflected in the game. Still, it would be nice to know sometimes if you're facing a seriously uphill fight.

Imp · #4 November 24th, 2013, 08:08 AM

I would avoid scenario 73 I gave up after a few turns, facing superior armour & 5 Apaches.
Might try playing from the other side moving just the Apaches reckon you could get all the vehicles easy enough.

DRG · #5 November 24th, 2013, 09:11 AM

The intent of scenarios like that is replay value. You are challenged to try to do better the second time based on what you learned the first time. That said if you are handed your head on a plate there isn't a lot of incentive to have that happen again but so much of that depends on the player, his experience and his "morale". However, there have been a huge number of changes over the years and it doesn't surprise me that some of them may need a tweak to get back to the original intent of the victory conditions. However, that doesn't mean every scenario a players loses needs adjustment but in this case I felt #3 did and it really wasn't much. I've put 73 on the list to investigate

Don

jivemi · #6 December 20th, 2016, 07:59 AM

Update--Finally got back to this venerable chestnut after an interval of 3 years. Still rather tough with 13 turns (3 more than the original) as it took two restarts and a reload on turn 4 in the last iteration after coming back cold from a real-life interruption. Very rewarding though to finally get into the chicken coop after a nerve-wracking desert end-run. Final score 2271:616 despite the loss of 3 tanks, 4 APCs and the usual sacrificial lambs.

Enclosed are some saves for illustration. Cheers and happy holidays!

Pibwl · #7 July 11th, 2020, 02:24 PM

I've found this thread while wondering, if anybody ever won with Israel

I must admit I play not too often and first I obtained rather easy victory for Egypt. After changing sides, despite my efforts, the AI did the same for Egypt...

I gave it another try, and another, with several saves, and finally felt like the "Groundhog Day" - you learn what to do, but would you know it the first time?.. The problem is, that the Archers fire, but you can't see them for several turns, and then you're running out of time. Last time I was fortunate to locate them quite quickly, while sending the halftracks with part of SP artillery to the northern flank. The final result was a draw with some 1020:1500.

As a sidenote, Israeli para sniper has a sound of SMG or something like this - is it correct?

DRG · #8 July 11th, 2020, 03:09 PM

What you found was an error that is bordering on ancient.

The 4 Israeli Para snipers ( U430-U433 ) point the sniper rifle to sound 55 as the unitweapon Sound. Problem is.....there is no sound 55 in MBT and never has been so the game is picking the closest sound based on the weapon data for that rifle. Those units should be pointing to sound 61 like the rest of the Israeli snipers.

Now changed in the master. If you don't play secure PBEM you can change it in your OOB

Felix Nephthys · #9 July 12th, 2020, 04:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DRG

What you found was an error that is bordering on ancient.

The 4 Israeli Para snipers ( U430-U433 ) point the sniper rifle to sound 55 as the unitweapon Sound. Problem is.....there is no sound 55 in MBT and never has been so the game is picking the closest sound based on the weapon data for that rifle. Those units should be pointing to sound 61 like the rest of the Israeli snipers.

Now changed in the master. If you don't play secure PBEM you can change it in your OOB

This actually just reminded me of a funny error in MBT scenario 51 AIW: Bir Gifgafa 11/56. Israeli unit A1 is a jeep but when it moves it makes the sound of a horse. Not really a problem at all, more funny than anything else, but I thought you should know.

DRG · #10 July 12th, 2020, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felix Nephthys

This actually just reminded me of a funny error in MBT scenario 51 AIW: Bir Gifgafa 11/56. Israeli unit A1 is a jeep but when it moves it makes the sound of a horse. Not really a problem at all, more funny than anything else, but I thought you should know.

That's another on bordering on ancient. For whatever reason, the scenario designer decided the Jeep needed to be hobbled and for the speed he picked ( 6 ) the game thinks it's horse-drawn for that unit class.

I have corrected this by increasing the speed to 9. It's an easy fix using the in-game editor.

Thanks for pointing it out