Building a Campaign

A few people have asked me how I make large scale dynamic campaigns like Op Ballentine and Op Tuphead. The process, in short, is deceptively simple: think up a vaguely credible scenario, plonk some ALiVE modules and press go. It takes about an hour.

In a little more detail for those who are interested:

Planning

1. Pick a map. Check it works with ALiVE (see ALiVE wiki).

2. Think up a high level scenario and overall missions for both OPFOR and BLUFOR. They don't need a lot of detail e.g."OPFOR are invading because reasons; BLUFOR counter attacking because David Cameron Anthony."

3. Give all factions a starting ORBAT. 3Pl and our attached assets will be subset of the BLUFOR ORBAT. This is lends a lot of flavour and credibility to the campaign without needing mountains of text and also massively helps with tracking campaign progress.

Preparation

1. Download 3Pl Mission Template. Rename file extension to map of choice, load in editor, move/delete/add stuff as desired.

2. Pick an enemy faction that has groups properly defined or map them myself using the guide on the wiki (I like to have 2 or 3 different Inf groups, Motorised, Mech, Armour and Air. Ideally AA, Snipers and other specialists are configed as SF groups so you can control their numbers). Thanks to our hard working modding team we have several options now.

3. Stick down an ALiVE Mil Placement (Mil Obj) and Mil Placement (Civ Obj) with debug on. Preview and screenshot the results - this provides a useful reference for all the Objectives OPCOM will use. If there are any massive gaps in areas where players are likely to go I fill them in with one of the premade Custom Objectives like road blocks, field camps, heli FARPs etc.

4. Define TAOR zones on the map for each faction group. For Op TH, I placed 3 very large rectangles covering East, Centre and West of the map (coloured Orange, Red and Brown for easy reference) and a fourth Blue rectangle covering the start base for BLUFOR.

5. Plonk remaining Mil Placement, OPCOM and Logistics modules, selecting the size/type/mission/supply level and TAOR/Blacklists as per the planned ORBAT for each faction. Run another debug preview and screenshot it - this provides a snapshot of the campaign start state and is helpful for writing Op Orders and INTSUMs.

Mission & Tasks

1. Pick a Mission for A Coy to kick things off - Op TH follows a pretty standard mission cycle of Recce, Attack, Consolidate, Repeat. "Missions" are not the same as "game sessions". It could take several sessions to complete a single Mission.

2. Each Mission has a number of fairly generic patrol tasks for the platoon - listed as Available Taskings in the SITREP threads and/or (with latest ALiVE) as actual Tasks in the game.

3. Boundaries & LOE are very important for controlling the mission (and actually used the same way in real life).

4. Op Orders, SITREPs and INTSUMs pretty much write themselves. For a regular month long campaign you'd only need one and just update Taskings occasionally to move things along. Getting people to write patrol reports also helps (latest ALiVE now has persistent Reporting in game for this, sadly not yet exported to the website but it's coming).

Tweaks

1. As the campaign progressed I made a few tweaks. Mostly this involved reducing the Mil Placement group levels (cos persistence wasn't working properly) and increasing the BLUFOR TAOR to simulate A Coy expanding our zone of control. Updating missions in this way takes all of 5 mins tops.

2. Keeping a record of player gear if you don't want or don't fully trust Persistence to work is easily done on a spreadsheet or forum post (see the LOGSITREP posts). This can also be an good way of limiting some kit for a period of time.

If we did this as a regular campaign, I think it'd be fun to get a couple of people to play an Int Cell. It'd be their job to build up a picture of enemy dispositions and activity from patrol reports, and suggest appropriate Tasks to HQ.