Campaign Series Vietnam

[devoncop]

I agree JH.

It's a great scenario. I am 12 turns in out of the 20 and took the village from the two ends with the French paras and thought all was going well until I read your post ! Now I have 8 turns to get out into the VC infested paddies again and try and track down some supplies and the HQ....my boys wont  be happy. :)

Thanks for posting as it saves me feeling the same way as you in 8 turns time  :)

Edit : Thanks to the tip I JUST managed a major victory...exactly 600 points which was the minimum for a major on the last turn. Managed to take out the HQ,some supplies and some river craft....It is a fine scenario.

[Grim.Reaper]

I haven't gotten deep into the game as I continue to try and find the best way to handle the small text and resolution.  But if this is true that the player doesn't receive clear mission objectives and it includes guessing or puzzle guessing to figure out, not sure I am going to enjoy it.  Agree with jh that having some of it for the enemy is fine, but why wouldn't the player know what they were tasked to do?  Possibly a design decision that will backfire as may result in a lot of frustrated players, including myself.  I have hard enough time winning at these games, last thing I need is to guess what even my orders are:)

[devoncop]

I would say it is absolutely vital to read the SMEAC very carefully and the dynamic missions you are sometimes tasked with during the scenario. At Geong Dinh for example the SMEAC explicitly talks of the need to find and destroy the VC HQ
In the vicinity of the village that has been recruiting in the area as well as supplies. The VP's may be in the village but just taking them would just snip the head off the weed rather than destroying the root  :)

There is a big difference where you used to just look for the VP flags and capture them regardless of the other wider considerations. I like to think of the missions as being given by superior commanders who will lay out your priorities and you have to achieve as many as you can.

I appreciate some may have problems with this less black and white approach but most feedback has been very positive so far.

[Grim.Reaper]

I would say it is absolutely vital to read the SMEAC very carefully and the dynamic missions you are sometimes tasked with

Well, even that is part of my problem with the text and such not the easiest to read with old eyes and larger monitors, without having to manually adjust the screen resolution/scaling before each game:)

Haven't gotten far enough to determine how big of a deal it will be for me, but if the orders aren't clear enough to know your objectives, I do think I will be frustrated by that as I think my orders/tasks should be clear.  I guess we will see.

[devoncop]

I can certainly appreciate it would be frustrating not to be able to read the text clearly so I can feel your pain, I am lucky not to have that issue..

Like you say, the only way to see if the occasional ambiguities in missions spoil it for you is to give a few a go. I suspect it will be much less of a problem than you think.

Of course you can always ignore the " official" victory scores and decide yourself what you would consider a win and just aim for that 🙂

[Crossroads]

This is something we actually focused a lot on our play testing: do the instructions, while maybe not always absolutely clear on all details, at least have enough there that one can pick up the intel from there to successfully finish the scenario.

Some of it sort of becomes second nature after having survived in the jungle for a while: spot an enemy HQ consider it a priority target, look for supply caches, if there's a tunnel send a tunnel rat there, or at least if you have engineers blow it up, and so on.

We understand there is a fine line between challenging and frustrating, this was a challenging theatre of war. There was also not many previous examples in gaming as how to do this, so we are learning as we walk as well.

On my own behalf I can only attest that when we've succeeded in setting the balance properly it can be so immersive. And if not, it can turn towards frustration.

Thank you for you feedback as always. This is a living game, we are listening!

[Grim.Reaper]

This is something we actually focused a lot on our play testing: do the instructions, while maybe not always absolutely clear on all details, at least have enough there that one can pick up the intel from there to successfully finish the scenario.

Some of it sort of becomes second nature after having survived in the jungle for a while: spot an enemy HQ consider it a priority target, look for supply caches, if there's a tunnel send a tunnel rat there, or at least if you have engineers blow it up, and so on.

We understand there is a fine line between challenging and frustrating, this was a challenging theatre of war. There was also not many previous examples in gaming as how to do this, so we are learning as we walk as well.

On my own behalf I can only attest that when we've succeeded in setting the balance properly it can be so immersive. And if not, it can turn towards frustration.

Thank you for you feedback as always. This is a living game, we are listening!

Certainly not trying to change immersion and the "feel".....maybe at the bottom of the briefings (or initially hidden), there is a "spoilers/hint" section where additional notes about the mission objectives could be for those who would want it:)  Again, maybe in the long run a non issue...hope to get some play in this weekend.

[Tripoli]

Here's a question/possible way of looking at the vague victory conditions: Could this be considered "mission analysis"?  In Real Life, mission analysis from the perspective is 2 levels higher.  Therefore, a company commander should be focused on what he needs to do from the perspective of the brigade commander.  So when the mission says to secure an area, the nature of the war in Vietnam (with NVA/VC re-infiltrating an area) means that an implied task is also also destroy supply caches.  While doing this is semi-realistic, it would have to be spelled out early in the game that the player would have to do mission analysis and provide some training (in game) on how to do it.

[Jarhead0331]

This is something we actually focused a lot on our play testing: do the instructions, while maybe not always absolutely clear on all details, at least have enough there that one can pick up the intel from there to successfully finish the scenario.

Some of it sort of becomes second nature after having survived in the jungle for a while: spot an enemy HQ consider it a priority target, look for supply caches, if there's a tunnel send a tunnel rat there, or at least if you have engineers blow it up, and so on.

We understand there is a fine line between challenging and frustrating, this was a challenging theatre of war. There was also not many previous examples in gaming as how to do this, so we are learning as we walk as well.

On my own behalf I can only attest that when we've succeeded in setting the balance properly it can be so immersive. And if not, it can turn towards frustration.

Thank you for you feedback as always. This is a living game, we are listening!

I want to make it clear for the record that I'm not complaining, not in the least. This is a fantastic wargame that fills a large void in the genre in a thoughtful and enjoyable way. You guys have outdone yourselves with everything across the board. In fact, if the game wasn't so good, I wouldn't even be posting my thoughts, which are all intended to be constructive. I hope it is coming across that way.

I agree with Devoncop. You've got to read the briefing and you must do so carefully. I had indeed forgotten over the course of the mission that there was likely an HQ unit and supply cache somewhere in the AO. However, I think this is only partially my fault, as per my prior posts, this aspect of the mission was not emphasized in a meaningful way.

But yes, I appreciate the point that in this war taking ground and holding it is typically not the prime objective. Finding the enemy, pining him and eliminating him together with his leadership and ability to fight may often times be the overriding consideration.

[Crossroads]

All good, your feedback is appreciated, the good, the bad, the ugly, have it coming!  :clap:

[Grim.Reaper]

Although not as good as my usual auto resolution changing tool (allowed changing res, play the game, change it back automatically), found a "hotkey" program that allows you to change resolution by pressing a hotkey, so a lot easier than going through the various Windows steps.  Good enough for now.

[Crossroads]

Although not as good as my usual auto resolution changing tool (allowed changing res, play the game, change it back automatically), found a "hotkey" program that allows you to change resolution by pressing a hotkey, so a lot easier than going through the various Windows steps.  Good enough for now.

That's interesting, I am not familiar with those at all. What tool are you using?

[Grim.Reaper]

Although not as good as my usual auto resolution changing tool (allowed changing res, play the game, change it back automatically), found a "hotkey" program that allows you to change resolution by pressing a hotkey, so a lot easier than going through the various Windows steps.  Good enough for now.

That's interesting, I am not familiar with those at all. What tool are you using?

This is my usual tool (Reso)....you can basically have it create a desktop shortcut that will change the resolution before starting the game, then it plays the game, then when game closes will set back to your default.  Works with all my older games, even the other Tiller games.  But with this one, it doesn't work.  Once in the game it makes the screen go crazy for some reason, which I have never seen before.  If you could make it work, would be a life saver for me:)

https://www.bcheck.net/apps/#reso


This is the one you can assign hot keys, still a little clunky but works
https://funk.eu/hrc/

There are other hotkey versions out there as well, haven't tried them all.

[Crossroads]

^ Thanks, I'll have a look.

[Jason Petho]

Certainly not trying to change immersion and the "feel".....maybe at the bottom of the briefings (or initially hidden), there is a "spoilers/hint" section where additional notes about the mission objectives could be for those who would want it:)  Again, maybe in the long run a non issue...hope to get some play in this weekend.

This is a good idea, something I can add maybe to the manual in time in Section 9. That will take a time to develop though, so maybe for 1.02.