Single player campaigns suggestions

One interesting perspective (if we could get voice actors) would be to have the story from a point of view of a civillian witnessing the battles and combat.

that would be intresting

Otto 213
I am a beginner. But i will try. Good hard campaign on the Eastern front will be great thing.
If i am capable to well study campaigh modding ... when i will be capable.

Lord wrote:
I'm fascinated that u always think of the same campaign ideas like all other strategy games had already used.
I'm also fascinated that u think of 1941 campaigns when u know all the Ostheer stuff xD

Lord Rommel, There is a fascination with the early campaigns on the eastern front and it is not incompatible with EF. I suspect the vast majority of players are fascinated with the blitz. I also believe that many fewer players share the passion, (obsession?), that you and I have for History. I like to view each game as an allegory for the entire conflict. You start with nothing, One side takes the initiative, see saw back and forth. Decision point, turning point, on to victory. I think the choice of game pieces helps with that too; conscript to strelky to elite guards, P3<T34<P5 etc. Yes I cringed when I saw the Wrecked Panthers on the Moscow Map too: but if you suspend your disbelief a little the the game does have historical relevance.

Lord wrote:
So; My first point is a possible setting from 1942 till 1944. 3 years of war where u can search for an nice campaign story.

Basing on this frame i would think of a campaign around a special soldier or a special unit or a special battle event.

I think your notion of a 1942-1944 campaign dealing with the northern front is not only excellent but could be used for a dual  Ostheer campaign featuring a Carius like figure could narrate. The campaign would highlight OKW mobile defense tactics, A Narva map could be used twice. 6-7 scenarios. The Soviet  campaign would cover the same period Starting with a break_out_From_Leningrad urban battle scenario, Advance to Narva , Stalmate ... on to the Citadel. Similar narrative structure (sorry I have no access to Soviet soldier memoirs or I would suggest a model perhaps a colonel  with the equivalent Soviet honors to Knights Cross with Oak Leaves. point of view would be Soviet offensive doctrinal progression. 7-8 scenarios. Perhaps 9 -10 Maps would be required. a couple of rewards units, (Tiger and ATG/76mm at least). That's my contribution to your idea.

I think a similar dual campaign could be developed based on Geographical basis. IE Smolensk-Moscow-Smolensk 6 scenarios for either side 7 maps (?). Since we are not talking about a hero narrator The Basic EF_OSteer order of battle could be used  without needing Rewards units. Narration would be more like a sit-rep briefing (as in Panzer Leader I).

Otto 213
Possible art of the first EF campaign.

1. Boarder of the country.
Concept - In the first months of the war, there are many things that interfere the command radio link to the frontline units moving, marshes, combat maneuvering, counterattack directions. Sometime, more then a half of their sabotages are successful. Nazi recon teams & sec ops units are sabotage the tails of the front.
First mission must be very difficalt. Difficalt with the officers logic & determination. (When the mission is continued, there are many reports, that confusing & can stabilise the situation.)
When first battles is burned, situation incandescence by confusion reports, hard frontline situation ...
Mission, if that possible, must consist of 2 phases.
2. Frontline is stabilised. ... but, wermaht is near the Moscow. whole phront under hard pressure.
Phase 1
Hard bloody battle of the Panphilovs defence line. Orginising defence, to face off the head on panzer corp division.
Phase 2
Late rendesvous with the Tank battalion ends with begin of the full scale counterattack.
3. Leningrad. Tragedy, blood & heroism of 2nd strike army, that get surrounded near the Meat Forest. Difficalt battle with wermaht panzer, motorised & infantry divisions, that attacked from all around.
4. Stalingrad.
Various city battles with infantry & tank nazi units. City center, Pavlovs house, Tractors factory. Massive battles with various perpose.
5. Kursk.
Phase 1. Holding the defence line from the hard panzer attack on the south flank.
Phase 2. Head on attack on the north flank.
Phase 3. 2th & 48th tank corps of the SS break the 1st & 2nd defence lines. 1st tank army already attack from the north. You must stabilise the situation & stop the concentrate strike of 2 panzer groups with the flank attack with your 1st tank corps.
Phase 4. You command the 5th guard tank army. Ahead of you is Prohorovka. You must engage the enemy from the long road marsh. Main task is still saved - destroy as many panzers as you can, & save your armour units.
5. Bagration. You are commanding officer of the 5th guard tank army, of the 3rd Belorussian front. Ahead of you Borisov, Minsk, Belostok ... & Army group center.
6. Berlin. You commanding 1st Guard tank army of the 1st Belorussian front.
Phase 1. Breakthrough the 2 defence lines. 1st near Zelov, 2nd near Munheberd.
Phase 2. Impetuosity attack suburbs & outskirts of the Berlin.
Phase 3. Attack the political center of the nazi Germany.

German conseption of the campaign - similar missions, but from the other side of the front.

ANOTHER consept of the Soviet Campaign - Battle operations of the 1st Guard Tank Brigade (4th tank brigade 1941-1942).
Commanding officer - Katukov Michail Efremovich
There are 180 tank - 25 KV, near 80 light tanks, and other is T-34 tanks.
Battle operations continious from the boarder regions, to the Berlin offense operation.

Main (not all) battle operations.
1. Mcensk-Orel
2. Moscow-Volokolamsk
3. Moscow-Lipetsk
4. Tula-Kalinin
5. Oboyang-Belgorod-Harkov
6. Obertyn-Dubno
7. Yaroslav-Samdomir
8. Varshava-Posnang
9. Gdynya
10. Berlin
High intensive, maneuverable battles, ussually makes a head on attacks & ambushes, counterattacks & infantry support operations.

What do you think?

I can collect the vital information & make the detailed consept of campaing missions, brifings, maps, (if i find it) battle orders.

What is more interesting?

There are many nazi tank ace concepts been realised, Soviet tank aces & talent commanders is not so famous ... with a regret...

Last edited April 20, 2011 at 3:31 PM by Sturmovik

well, frankly speaking, campaign which will cover years 1941-1945 will suck. Just because there's too many things which ppl want to inculde, and campaign can't be 20 missions long. I'd rather see campaign focusing about one offensive, or operation, like Stalingrad, Kursk battle, Bargration or Berlin.

Agreed with Cephalos. Having a narrower focus allows for more focus. Like the British taking Caen and the Panzer Elite in Operation Market Garden.


Personally, I would go for Operation Barbarossa up to the start of the Battle of Stalingrad for the Wehrmacht (ending in a somber, foreboding narration), and either the Battle of Berlin or the Seelow Heights for the Soviets.

The only interesting campaign in the entire CoH is the first one. The rest of 'em are absolutely annoying and kind o' "soap opera"-like. Too much irrelevant crap, too little action, too many scripted stuff - BORING!
So, whatever period the dev team is gonna chose for any of their campaigns, IMO, the first american one should be taken as an example.
Soviet campaign should start with battle of Moscow - the first really big and decisive battle on the eastern front, and, in terms of numbers, the biggest one of the WW2 at the moment of its happening.

Yeah, i agree with IJoe that the Invasion Of Normandy is the best campaign, so the Eastern Front campaigns should be modeled after that more than the others, and should ESPECIALLY have none of this direct-fire bullshit.

Last edited April 20, 2011 at 6:38 PM by pariah

pariah wrote:
Yeah, i agree with IJoe that the Invasion Of Normady is the best campaign, so the Eastern Front campaigns should be modeled after that more than the others, and should ESPECIALLY have none of this direct-fire bullshit.

Don't know, depends of the implementation, Direct Fire will shine. I think Tiger Ace hit the nail with that, however Causeway and Falaise Pocket didn't need that.

[Just realized i misspelled 'Normandy'. :-[ So much for relying on the spell-checker. ::)]

Admittedly, the Tiger Ace campaign isn't too bad, but it's still very annoying having to use direct-fire in some parts. It's just not Company Of Heroes gameplay. :'(

I have played a few games in the past that try to combine real-time strategy with first/third-person shooting, and it NEVER works. Natural Selection 2 looks good though, but that's because it's about teamwork, and you can choose your role, but that's getting off topic...

Last edited April 20, 2011 at 9:45 PM by pariah

in the tiger ace campaign, people should be able control more than a super human tank, like on that mission where there is all that infantry dropped off by halftracks! >:(

Mattdamon07 wrote:
in the tiger ace campaign, people should be able control more than a super human tank, like on that mission where there is all that infantry dropped off by halftracks! >:(

Exactly! (Well, except for that "super human tank" part, since tanks aren't exactly humans...)

IJoe wrote:
The only interesting campaign in the entire CoH is the first one. The rest of 'em are absolutely annoying and kind o' "soap opera"-like. Too much irrelevant crap, too little action, too many scripted stuff - BORING!

Yeah, because the American campaign wasn´t a soap opera.

"WHAT, NEVER SEEN DEAD BODIES"

FLYING ANGEL JESUS CAPTAIN

EVIL OFFICER THAT WAS SO EVIL, HIS EVIL TIGER WAS PAINTED "EVIL BLACK"



You probably liked the American campaign more simply because it was longer. Admitedly, the British and PE campaigns had some pretty damn cheesy lines too ("told the general to reinforce the hill!" and "what are we fighting for now my family´s home has been bombed?" stand out in my mind right now), but they also had pretty cool lines and scenes (like the one with the artwork of the dead radio officer in hill 112, and the "you got a brain, USE IT!" which was deliciously anti-macho and very smart... and came from a GERMAN officer).

cephalos wrote:
well, frankly speaking, campaign which will cover years 1941-1945 will suck. Just because there's too many things which ppl want to inculde, and campaign can't be 20 missions long. I'd rather see campaign focusing about one offensive, or operation, like Stalingrad, Kursk battle, Bargration or Berlin.

No no. Not 20 missions. 10, or 5.
I wrote about 2 consepts.
First about historical battles consept.
Second, about historical battles of the 1st guard tank battalion.
Whats more interesting?

And ... If campaing will divide in historical years, or battles, it's make more detail possibility in missions. Player will await more campaigns about other battles or war years.
... and, campaigns must content new unusual events. Few things, more often include in every war soviet campaigns in every games. It to set smb's teeth on edge. Looks like western historicals does not biusy with that things.

Look at soviet equipment. What we have: t-34/76/85, Is-2, Su-85/100, Isu-52, T-90, T-70. Those are tanks produced since 1943 ( t-34 since 1940), we don't have BT series, T-26, KV-1, etc. Looks like current soviet equipment is designed to fit years 1943-1945. IF devs want to make 1941 and up campaign they need to make new units. Maybe as rewards, it's up to them. What I want to say is that if campaign will be stretched along those 4 years, we may get a feeling that it's going far too fast.

@Sturmovik - you are totally wrong, if you make campaign divide in years, those battles won't get especially detailed.
Good campaign mission takes about 50 minutes. How did you guys expect to make one battle, let's say Kursk, to fit in 50 minutes, while in RL this battle took a lot more time?

Taking example from 1st vCoH campaign in Normandy - we have 12 (? not sure) misions, including most spectacular battles ( D-Day, Carentan, St-Lo), some missions are surprising ( V2 bunker infiltration), however none of them is 100% historical pure. That's why campaign can't be 100% historical accurate, because it will be boring or just hardly playable ( talking about Pershing here ;) ). All Normandy campaign takes 12 missions and focuses 2 months of fighting. Who will say that this campaign was boring? I finished it twice, because it was this awesome.

Let's think about making similiar campaign for Soviets. For example Kursk battle. 10 missions, some of them being historical batlles, like Prokhorovka, some of them being totally unrealistic but fun though, like Partisan infiltrating mission to blow bridges and railroads to slow down German advance whitout alarming strong enemy patrols. Sounds fun and challenging? And who said it's 100% historical?

To sum up:
Campaign can't be stretched in time and can't be 100% historical accurate. Just because it won't be fun to play it.

Cheers

@Cephalos
...To cut it short, I think, you're partially wrong about... pretty much everything you've listed:
1) In 1941 soviets already had T-34/76 ZiS2, PPSh, etc.
And conscripts don't fit 1942-44 as well.
2) Campaign can be stretched in time, since it's a campaign, not some free play, meaning a lot is done by scripts (i.e. some weapons, doctrines, etc. can be a bit different from MP/inaccessible at some point/in some particular mission.
3) Missions can get just as accurate as they can, so say, some "Carentan" mission in the US campaign, doesn't really mirror the exact events, nor should it. And yeah - there are scripts, if there's some need for them!

Is it possible to implement a armoured train in coh? Model and animation of course but code wise?

There were armoured trains in use by both sides. On german side to secure the railways and fight partisans.

In a mission for soviets a german train could be captured and used to repell a german counterattack.

Kolberg 1945 - German armoured train in action

Of course, game adaptation in most positions is unavoidable.
One of my concept is 1 big famous strategic battle. Like Kursk or Bagration.
I am not write about that, but i still thinking. Concept must be interesting to most players ... This is not a "frontline order", it's playing interest.

@Ijoe - conscripts will fit everywhere. They are just soliders who were recently forced to join army. This 4 rifles and men could be fixed with some scripts. or renaming them.
Ok, some of my points were partially wrong, but overall idea is the same: most of soviet units doesn't fit 1941-1942. To make gameplay in this years we would need units that EF don't have. Talking about BT series for instance here - no script can fix it for now.

Fun>historical accuracy

cephalos wrote:
@Ijoe - conscripts will fit everywhere. They are just soliders who were recently forced to join army. This 4 rifles and men could be fixed with some scripts. or renaming them.

4 rifles to 8 men is:
A) a myth;
B) would look strange, when the war (with major offensive and defensive operations performed by both sides) stepped into 1942 (actually, it's autemn-winter 1941)

cephalos wrote:
Fun>historical accuracy

To some extent, but not to make it marasmatically stupid, IMO

QuoteIn a mission for soviets a german train could be captured and used to repell a german counterattack.

From faces of war? That mission is lame.

Just as a point not all missions should be the whole HQ counter defend objective scenarios one should be soley based on a partisan movement giving a different experience like the Vierville airdrop mission in vanilla CoH where you are somewhat limited in your units and must use the full range of their abilities, to me one of the best missions in all the franchises campaigns.

Raider217 wrote:
Just as a point not all missions should be the whole HQ counter defend objective scenarios one should be soley based on a partisan movement giving a different experience like the Vierville airdrop mission in vanilla CoH where you are somewhat limited in your units and must use the full range of their abilities, to me one of the best missions in all the franchises campaigns.

+1

i think the easternfront missions should be all massive full scale battles so lots of units and strategies, with about a quarter of the missions with team AI in it

Agree, full scale, massive ... but if that is possible - minimising the buildable units. Only the basick infantry.
That will give to the game an element of a commander care about battle technics.
Every mission can take an element or a platoon of tanks. Element of heavy, & element of a light tanks. (For example.)
Campaign maps must be a large.

Last edited April 22, 2011 at 5:58 PM by blackbishop

Mattdamon07 wrote:
i think the easternfront missions should be all massive full scale battles so lots of units and strategies, with about a quarter of the missions with team AI in it

no, for christ sake! How many big battles do you want!? The whole phenomon of CoH is the fact that even small skirmishes look good. How many big battle do you have in vCoH campaign? After 4th "this big battle" I'd get bored with campaign like this - Make a lot of tanks and blitz those bitches...
and AI sucks.

EDIT: Talk to the devs if you don't like 4 rifles/8 men.

Last edited April 22, 2011 at 5:59 PM by blackbishop

Why is hard to grasp the idea that this is a computer game??

Basic conscripts will always have 4 rifles/8 men and has nothing to do with political stuff.

Remember this is a topic to suggest ideas for campaigns, not for arguing about communism.

If you want to post an article you found on internet, you should post the link, otherwise we are going to have tons of walls of meaningless text... or at least put them in Code tags.

Also, if you are going to post something, please be sure it's in english, afaik the official language on EF forum is english.

So, please go back to the topic or I'll close this.

P.S. Oh, i removed some unnecessary comments.

If we are choose a single player campaing like a single battle operation ... a suggest to ADAPT units & in game military services to the campaign time period. Weapons, completion & other ...

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blackbishop wrote:
Basic conscripts will always have 4 rifles/8 men and has nothing to do with political stuff.

But its looks like political anti-east ww2 historical propaganda.

Last edited April 24, 2011 at 6:04 AM by Sturmovik

Sturmovik wrote:
If we are choose a single player campaing like a single battle operation ... a suggest to ADAPT units & in game military services to the campaign time period. Weapons, completion & other .

It is a good Idea to start with a 43 to 44 campaign start, if any kind of historical relevance is considered vis a vis EF_1.3.1 Units. Earlier campaigns could be considered if rewards units were developed to change out anachronisms. Start building the models for those one or two must have units 38T for PE HT_at, BT7M for Sov T90, etc.

Four to seven scenarios is more than enough work for a campaign. Lord Rommel's Northern front Campaign suggestion, '42 to '44 (April 19), could be done with 4 scenarios as version 1. two or three more scenarios could be added to flesh out the campaign in v2. Playable factions would need a Tiger I and AT₇₆ for realism. Both units could be added via rewards units.

as far as i know you don't have to add units via reward system to use them in the campaign. if you want early missions like in 41-42 you can simply give the necessary units to the player. in vCoH the doctrines and unit build options are different from the multiplayer as well.

Ghost wrote:
as far as i know you don't have to add units via reward system to use them in the campaign. if you want early missions like in 41-42 you can simply give the necessary units to the player. in vCoH the doctrines and unit build options are different from the multiplayer as well.

Although it would be nice to be able to use the early war units in MP as well.

Bigger part of all units in EF are take me to thoughts:
1. We can not cut units from the campaign.
2. We can allow all units to take a part in the campaign.
3. Campaign will be a 1943-1944 year battles & operations.
4. Other units is phigures in some episodes.

What all of you says on that?