Scen Design

[Huib Versloot]

1) Map creation
Hate it. However reproducing the topographical features of the time in the greatest possible detail is vital for a good scenario. It is an area where you can't afford to compromise.

2) OOB creation
Fun in the beginning but often a frustrating journey to find all the info you wished, especially late war German oobs. If you have all the historical oobs at hand it is fun creating them.

3) Scenario file creation. The only part I really like. Both the researching, defining the scope. The latter is often "the first idea" that springs in your mind when you are readin and think: hey this could be a nice CS scenario.

...in preferred order
...realising that subset Scenario file creation would be broken out:

1,2, or 3) Scenario file creation.
a) Victory Conditions and turns; these are the easy parts
b) Conditions; this aint too difficult either, I just follow history, although one should not follow the CS visibility table IMO. Sometimes you see those scns where the designer sets visibility to 25 because it was a sunny day or something. This way various units all over the map will spot for eachother in a weird way. Don't go over a visibility of 10 as a rule of thumb I would say (excluding desert scns).

c) Historical Commentary: I hate this part and it makes me sweat. Although I'm an historian and not a bad writer, anything I had to write always made me sweat in my armpits... The result can be rewarding but often it is not easy to make a summary of the events in a few sentences. Lately I get lazy and ask David Galster to do it or to correct my writings even if I could do it myself and sweat a little more.

In short: I hate most things about scn designing. The end result mostly makes up for the struggle though.