CMBB: 18 Scenario Packs Containing about 1,400 Scenarios

[KG_Jag]

No intent to start a small firestorm here. This thread is posted because the scenarios compiled may be a benefit to the every day CM gamer. So here it is:

Following his earlier compilation of CMAK scenarios, grouped by subject matter, philippe_in_exile has turned his attention to CMBB scenarios. He tells us that he has compiled 1,400 scenarios in his 18 just released scenario pack compilations. The first pack deals with the Winter War between Russian and Finland. The last captures battles of the Spanish Civil War and other misc./off-topic battles. The sixteen in between cover the entire war on the eastern front, grouping the scenarios by chronology. You can download the scenario packs at CMMODS.

Once again I am disappointed that the compiler did not give credit to any of the original scenario designers or even very much meaningful information about where they are posted in an authorized manner. He does mention SD I & II. Perhaps much worse, he has taken the liberty to change the titles of at least some of the scenarios. Here is what he says:

"19 November 2007
These zip files are a sort by season of all the finished CMBB scenario files that I could get my hands on easily. I've sorted slightly more than 1400 scenarios, only a few of which are duplicates. This probably means that you can play CMBB every day for three or four years without ever having to play the same scenario twice.

There shouldn't be any recent material from The Proving Grounds, because scenarios from that site, by definition, aren't finished. Also, any files from the Proving Grounds that never graduated to Scenario Depot II probably aren't included (they will only appear if they were included in the Scenario Depot Salvage collection).

There are probably stashes of scenarios for specialty mods at various places around the web. People who use those mods already have better collections of these scenarios than I do. I am not attempting to be encyclopedic, I'm just trying to put large numbers of Eastern Front scenarios in some kind of chronological order so that you can see what is available for Bagration, for Stalingrad, for Kursk.

There will be a few duplications of scenarios because I collected them from different sources, or my hand slipped. If you start deleting duplicates, just make sure that it really is a duplicate, and that you delete the oldest and smallest copy.

As for those who will complain that they were not consulted before these were posted, authors of books are not consulted when their works are put in a library. Think of this as a library whose purpose is to try to preserve a snapshot of the state of the corpus of finished CMBB scenarios as of mid-November, 2007.

The best tool for searching for scenarios that I have yet to see was the old search engine at the original Scenario Depot. The search engine at the Scenario Depot II is very good, but does not include the older material -- it only has about 400 scenarios, and there are a bit over a thousand more. Having said that, if you think you are interested in playing a scenario that might also be at either the Scenario Depot II or at George McEwen's sites, I strongly urge you to download the scenario directly from those sites because it will contain, in many cases, extended program notes and printable battle maps that I couldn't include in a work like this but that are necessary for the full experience of the scenarios. What this gives you is an overview of all the available scenarios that cover certain subjects, because by confining my chronological sort to three month slices you'll almost always find everything connected with a certain set of events in the same time bin.

In all but three or four situations I've imposed editorial discipline on the naming process, and the result is a scenario menu that is much easier to read and use. Someone who loads all the Fall 1942 scenarios probably wants to know what is available if he wants to play a Stalingrad scenario, and is not that interested in the call-signs of now-defunct wargaming clubs. In a few cases I've kept the collections of letters and numbers (e.g. Winter War Vuosalmi campaign scenarios give a richer experience if played in sequence). I probably shouldn't have preserved the Five Years Five Fronts sequence numbers, but left it in case someone came down with a case of prurient biographical curiosity.

Since I'm concerned with the physical appearance of the scenario menu, I couldn't resist including the scenario icon bitmap that I'm currently using. I had a better one that I had made two years ago, but it died in an irretrievable computer crash. The current one is a medley with bits of several people's work, including my own. Feel free to use, modify, or discard at will. But just make sure you back up your original bmp 11240 before you do anything rash.

Philippe
padivine@juno.com "

[Mad Russian]

No intent to start a small firestorm here. This thread is posted because the scenarios compiled may be a benefit to the every day CM gamer. So here it is:

Following his earlier compilation of CMAK scenarios, grouped by subject matter, philippe_in_exile has turned his attention to CMBB scenarios. He tells us that he has compiled 1,400 scenarios in his 18 just released scenario pack compilations. The first pack deals with the Winter War between Russian and Finland. The last captures battles of the Spanish Civil War and other misc./off-topic battles. The sixteen in between cover the entire war on the eastern front, grouping the scenarios by chronology. You can download the scenario packs at CMMODS.

Once again I am disappointed that the compiler did not give credit to any of the original scenario designers or even very much meaningful information about where they are posted in an authorized manner. He does mention SD I & II. Perhaps much worse, he has taken the liberty to change the titles of at least some of the scenarios. Here is what he says:

"19 November 2007
These zip files are a sort by season of all the finished CMBB scenario files that I could get my hands on easily. I've sorted slightly more than 1400 scenarios, only a few of which are duplicates. This probably means that you can play CMBB every day for three or four years without ever having to play the same scenario twice.

There shouldn't be any recent material from The Proving Grounds, because scenarios from that site, by definition, aren't finished. Also, any files from the Proving Grounds that never graduated to Scenario Depot II probably aren't included (they will only appear if they were included in the Scenario Depot Salvage collection).

There are probably stashes of scenarios for specialty mods at various places around the web. People who use those mods already have better collections of these scenarios than I do. I am not attempting to be encyclopedic, I'm just trying to put large numbers of Eastern Front scenarios in some kind of chronological order so that you can see what is available for Bagration, for Stalingrad, for Kursk.

There will be a few duplications of scenarios because I collected them from different sources, or my hand slipped. If you start deleting duplicates, just make sure that it really is a duplicate, and that you delete the oldest and smallest copy.

As for those who will complain that they were not consulted before these were posted, authors of books are not consulted when their works are put in a library. Think of this as a library whose purpose is to try to preserve a snapshot of the state of the corpus of finished CMBB scenarios as of mid-November, 2007.

The best tool for searching for scenarios that I have yet to see was the old search engine at the original Scenario Depot. The search engine at the Scenario Depot II is very good, but does not include the older material -- it only has about 400 scenarios, and there are a bit over a thousand more. Having said that, if you think you are interested in playing a scenario that might also be at either the Scenario Depot II or at George McEwen's sites, I strongly urge you to download the scenario directly from those sites because it will contain, in many cases, extended program notes and printable battle maps that I couldn't include in a work like this but that are necessary for the full experience of the scenarios. What this gives you is an overview of all the available scenarios that cover certain subjects, because by confining my chronological sort to three month slices you'll almost always find everything connected with a certain set of events in the same time bin.

In all but three or four situations I've imposed editorial discipline on the naming process, and the result is a scenario menu that is much easier to read and use. Someone who loads all the Fall 1942 scenarios probably wants to know what is available if he wants to play a Stalingrad scenario, and is not that interested in the call-signs of now-defunct wargaming clubs. In a few cases I've kept the collections of letters and numbers (e.g. Winter War Vuosalmi campaign scenarios give a richer experience if played in sequence). I probably shouldn't have preserved the Five Years Five Fronts sequence numbers, but left it in case someone came down with a case of prurient biographical curiosity.

Since I'm concerned with the physical appearance of the scenario menu, I couldn't resist including the scenario icon bitmap that I'm currently using. I had a better one that I had made two years ago, but it died in an irretrievable computer crash. The current one is a medley with bits of several people's work, including my own. Feel free to use, modify, or discard at will. But just make sure you back up your original bmp 11240 before you do anything rash.

Philippe
padivine@juno.com "

While people do put books in libraries they don't rename the books when they do.

I can see the rationale behind this and have thought of doing the same thing with HSG scenarios in the past.

However, if you want our scenarios, those that we decided were still worth being presented to the community after the crash of the original Scenario Depot, go to the Scenario Depot II and download them. Letting someone else decide how we display our scenarios on your scenario list may not be as good as what we came up with on our own. I think alot of gamers do want a particular club/group/design team's work where they can be easily identified.

I know I do.

As for grouping scenarios by actions such as Bagration, Stalingrad, Battle of the Bulge, Normandy, Knight's Cross Winners, North Africa....etc...etc...etc...we thought of that a few years ago on our own too.

HSG has these categories for our scenarios:




letter designators for CMBB:

AG - The Destruction of Army Group Center

AM - Axix Minor scenarios

B - Operation Barbarossa

BLK - Battles taking place in the Balkans

C - Caucausus

EW - End of the War from 1 January 1945 to the end of the war.

HOSU - scenarios that involve actions where someone won the Hero of the Soviet Union. Unless specifically noted these are Allied vs the AI only.

KC - scenarios that involve actions where someone won the Knight's Cross. Unless specifically noted these are Germans vs the AI only.

KH - Battles around Khar'kov in 1943.

K - Battles around Khar'kov in 1942.

Ksk - Battles around Kursk.

M - Battles around Moscow 1941-1942

S - Battles in and around Stalingrad duing the time that the 6th Army was involved in fighting at Stalingrad.


CMAK:

1940 - battles that take place in 1940.

2DB - actions by the 2nd French Armored Division in Alsace Lorraine.

3AD - scenarios involving the 3rd Armored Division.

B - Battle of the Bulge

EW - End of the War. From 1 January 1945 to the end of the war.

KC - scenarios that involve actions where someone won the Knight's Cross.

MOH - scenarios that involve actions where someone won the Medal of Honor. Unless specifically noted these are Allied vs the AI only.

N - scenarios set during the Normandy Campaign.

NA - scenarios set in North Africa.

RW - scenarios set during the 21st Army Group fighting in the Reichs Wald.

VC - scenarios that involve actions where someone won the Victoria Cross. Unless specifically noted these are Allied vs the AI only.


There are some new series being started. One for battles in Italy and possibly a couple more.

They have been coded so that they all group together in your scenario listing for your games choices.

Hope this helps.

Good Hunting.

MR

[KG_Cloghaun]

I think the Scenario Depot II is a valuable resource to the CM community, second to none. They do an excellent job in presentation & cataloging their inventory of downloads.

The authors of these scenarios, maps, etc. are to be commended. It's no easy task, I've tried it myself so I speak from experience. When you close the book on a project there's a great deal of personal pride these guys feel. It's like that with anything when you create something.

I would'nt want someone putting their paws all over my work, (in some cases changing the title of said work!) all in the name of "getting the scenarios/maps/valauble resources/etc out there in broader circulation." How noble..:rolleyes:

Have a little respect. Have a little common courtesy & ask first. Or if you can't even do that, at least give credit where it's due. Not including authorship, random title changes & incomplete information is completely irresponsible & bad form.

This Phillipe character as well as the administrator of CMmods for allowing this should do well to remove these downloads & reapproach how they might contribute.

-my two cents

[KG_Jag]

I respect that points that have been made. I greatly respect the CM scenario designers and thank them for a great work that has enriched my expereinces as a Cm gamer.

Yet here are some practical problems that perhaps some have not fully considered. Here are at least a handful:

First, many of the scenarios, especially for CMBO and CMBB, are no longer available anywhere on the net. Many were lost when the original SD went down. Over time we have lost other sites that have hosted CM scenarios.

Second, it is virtually impossible to find the creators of many scenarios--especially many of the earlier ones.

Third, contacting all the designers, even to the extent reasonably possible, would prevent a serious compilation of large numbers of scenarios into meaningful categories.

Fourth, the compilations have been assembled for games with an engine that Battlefront has told us is something that they will never use again. As much as many of us love CM x 1 games--they are now legacy software that will never even see another patch.

Fifth, there can be no doubt that this person is a compiler and not claiming to be the author of the hundreds to thousands of scenarios he has packaged together. Any reasonable person who downloads these packages is not going to blame the original creator of the scenario, if he gets other than the latest version.

Sixth, almost all the folks that download these compilations (and then play any of the included battles/ops) would have never seen or played "your" scenarios at all--had they not downloaded the compilation. Because they downloaded the compilation, they might learn about SD II and the scenario authors who post there and elsewhere. I see this as a net, if imperfect, gain for all concerned.

[Mad Russian]

I respect that points that have been made. I greatly respect the CM scenario designers and thank them for a great work that has enriched my expereinces as a Cm gamer.

Yet here are some practical problems that perhaps some have not fully considered. Here are at least a handful:

First, many of the scenarios, especially for CMBO and CMBB, are no longer available anywhere on the net. Many were lost when the original SD went down. Over time we have lost other sites that have hosted CM scenarios.

Second, it is virtually impossible to find the creators of many scenarios--especially many of the earlier ones.

Third, contacting all the designers, even to the extent reasonably possible, would prevent a serious compilation of large numbers of scenarios into meaningful categories.

Fourth, the compilations have been assembled for games with an engine that Battlefront has told us is something that they will never use again. As much as many of us love CM x 1 games--they are now legacy software that will never even see another patch.

Fifth, there can be no doubt that this person is a compiler and not claiming to be the author of the hundreds to thousands of scenarios he has packaged together. Any reasonable person who downloads these packages is not going to blame the original creator of the scenario, if he gets other than the latest version.

Sixth, almost all the folks that download these compilations (and then play any of the included battles/ops) would have never seen or played "your" scenarios at all--had they not downloaded the compilation. Because they downloaded the compilation, they might learn about SD II and the scenario authors who post there and elsewhere. I see this as a net, if imperfect, gain for all concerned.

1) There was a complete listing of the old SD scenarios already put on CMMODs

2) He never tried. Most are still around if they do CMBB or CMAK. The older CMBO designers seem to be mostly gone. As is my game of CMBO.

3) If it's a problem maybe it shouldn't be done. If you can't do it right don't do it at all.

4) When a book goes out of print do the copyright laws stop protecting it? I won't even go into the fact that I'm making 25 new scenarios for your dying game so you will have something else to play in the near future.

5) ROFL!!! You have never had a scenario get a review on a scenario they thought was unbalanced have you? They don't ask what version they just played. They simply assume it's the latest one because you put it on the internet and they got it.

6) Now you're telling me they missed every single CM site on the web but magically found CMMOD's. Well, I'm glad they finally found a CM site of some kind.

I'll just put a disclaimer in my scenarios in the future telling them where to find the updated versions and be done with this debate.

Thanks for making the effort to put the scenarios together to everyones attention.

Good Hunting.

MR

[KG_Cloghaun]

The scenarios in question that SD II doesn't currently have, could've been given to SD II by Phillipe. They could've worked together to properly categorize them. With the great many designers that frequent the SD II, it would've been an advantagous setting to get the "mystery" scenarios credited properly.

You can make an arguement that the ends justify the means, but that doesn't mean anyone has to like it. Nor does it trump the principle of the matter.

Besides, there's no need to hit the panic button in reference to losing scenarios. I've seen the same thing happen in the Close Combat community with regard to maps & mods. There was a time when these works were scattered all over the net, literally thousands of downloads. It was mindboggling trying to find the right puzzle peice to play a particular operation or battle. Finally some ppl got together like the fine folks at the SD II & created a one stop shopping mall for everything. It's still running strong, even several years since CC5 was released.

[KG_Cloghaun]

double post

[Palantir]

A great undertaking however, my 2 gripes are:

1. Not including the designers name- just how idotic can you be to not keep in (if included) & give the authors credit for their designs? That would be like starting a library & blacking out the authors names in the books. If the designers name is listed include it.

2. Renaming scenarios- WHAT??!!! This is as stupid as you can get. Just make a heading, "June '42" or "Stalingrad" and then put in all scenarios with that date/subject. I don't care what the scenario is called, (even Bubblegum) if it's under a heading called "Stalingrad" I think I can figure out it has something to do with Stalingrad.