Hello again everyone, I hope you all enjoyed my first map "frost" and perhaps use the source files. Although it took long to make, it was an interesting experience. I started mapping last summer because I had an idea for a map, however, I didn't know how to make a map. After looking up countless tutorials and practicing using radiant, I've decided to start my first map. And there started the long and unforgiving map-making process of figuring out how to overcome errors and compile issues. This just shows that anyone can learn and make his/her own custom multiplayer or singleplayer map. If you have an idea for a map, I encourage you to through yourself in radiant, watch tutorials, ask for help, and eventually you'll have yourself a finished map! As stated in the beginning of this wall of text, I hope you all enjoyed playing my first map and I hope you all look forward to my next project: "Battle for Stonne."

For my next project I wanted to focus on a typically overlooked campaign of the second World War, the Battle of France in 1940. I have a huge interest in this theater of the war as it contained many unique French tanks and ferocious battles in an effort to stop the unstoppable German blitzkrieg. So what is Stonne you may ask? Well it's time for a history lesson.

After the successful breakthrough in the Ardennes, the bulk of the German forces advanced west to encircle the French/British/Belgian armies. However, a portion of its forces were tasked to move south to secure the Sedan bridgehead and prevent any counterattacks from threatening their lines. So the German 10th Panzer Division and Großdeutschland Regiment were tasked with seizing the village Stonne as it sat on top of a steep incline that could be used as an artillery post to rain bombs on the German forces below.
Thus the German attack on the village started May 15 and saw some of the most fiercest combat in all of the campaign. The French saw the significance of the village and ordered the 3rd Armoured Division to counterattack and seize the village as well. What came next was a long three-day battle of the village which bled out both combatants. Throughout those three days the village changed hands seventeen times, with the Germans finally securing it May 17. The battle saw some of the first tank versus tank battles in World War 2 with the French Char B1 bis heavy tank withstanding shots from Panzer IIs and IVs.

For more information about the battle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sedan
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_de_Stonne (This is in French)
https://forum.axishistory.com//viewtopic.php?t=45336

As you can see I know a lot about this subject.

About my project: I've decided to showcase two situations of the battle, one from the German perspective, and the other from the French (they'll be represented by the British).
Both maps have the respective names stonne1 and stonne2.

stonne1
The first map will focus on the first skirmish in the village on May 15. The player will be German and will be tasked to capture the whole village with his fellow soldiers. The enemy will have AT guns and gun emplacements to slow down your progress. A simple map: capture the village.


stonne2
For the second map you play as Captain Billotte, a French tank commander ordered to retake the village. Since there are no Char B1 tanks in CoD2, you'll be in a crusader. The mission will feel like 88 ridge in the original game. This map is based on the famous "Eure's rampage" where Billotte and his tank crew destroyed thirteen enemy tanks in the village.


Thanks again for everyone tuning in and helping me map. These next two maps are slightly more complex and advanced than the typical lone-wolf mission such as my previous map. Hopefully I'll be successful in recreating this historical battle!

Another thing to note, I've been making sure that the map is as accurate as possible to the actual village as shown here:

My map versus the actual village.



Another thing I need to say is that unfortunately I won't have any time to work on this map right now as I'm going back to school on Monday which will eat up most of my time. I wanted to show you all my next project before I get consumed in schoolwork so you can see what I'm up to. Hopefully I'll manage to find some freetime to work on this!

Thanks for reading and until next time.

Sounds interesting, I'll be keeping an eye out for this one. :)

Hello everyone, long time no see! Sorry for the current lack of news right now; I've just went back to school and can't continue working on this while doing schoolwork. Thankfully I've found some time this weekend to make some progress.

Since this past month has drained me from most of my free time I've only been able to make small updates to the map. Some of these updates includes making prefabs such as the church and watertower in the two pictures I've attached.

Hopefully I can significantly progress this map in the next two days. I would say the terrain is around maybe above 50% done; just need to add more forests and rubble and other details and then the easy part is done. The challenging bit will be scripting the map, especially since unlike "Frost" this map will require more complex scripts to immerse the player in the battle.

Another small update I forgot to write above: I've made the German solders friendly and British enemies in preparation for the map thanks to Mch2207cz and his Back2Fronts aitypes! You can see them in action here: http://www.moddb.com/members/rr016/videos

Small update part 2: I've also made some loading screens for the maps (and some for possible future maps) so check them out here: http://www.moddb.com/members/rr016/images/cod2-french-campaign-loadscreens%23imagebox
I hope you like them, I was inspired by Battlefield 2's mod "Forgotten Hope 2" and their loadscreens. Tell me what you think: do you like them or should I stick to ingame shots like the "Frost" loadscreen?

That is all for today (and probably the only news of this month :P) Thank you for tuning in and I hope to further progress this project! As always, until next time...

Well it has been almost two months without any news so I should probably explain myself. I've been more focused on my schoolwork than my hobbies this current semester. I'm taking more difficult courses that require more studying and better understanding of the material. And with little free time that I did have, I was just not interested in working on this project.

HOWEVER, since the semester is coming to an end in mid-December I've started slowly working on the project again. The terrain is almost complete and next will come the scripting/how I want the map to play out. I've only got about a handful of tests left to take before I'm free to put all my time and effort in this project (maybe even to finish in by February? - fat chance). Hopefully everything goes well...

Now I wasn't going to make an update without any pictures, especially after ~2 months. So what I have today to show is a reskin texture for the Panzer II tank to give a bit more immersion to the battle. I've also placed another image to compare what the new texture is based off of. Most German tanks in 1940 were painted in standard grey (panzergrau). Many thanks to Mch2207cz for making this new texture, I've made some small tweaks to his retexture.

Hopefully this satisfies your need for any updates for a while since the next one will probably be in December after my exams. Until next time, take care everyone and thank you for tuning in!

Excellent!
Good luck!

Hello everyone and merry Christmas to you all! Thankfully my exams are over now and I can continue working on the map. I'm happy to say that the terrain is complete and I've moved on to scripting. The pictures I've attached here show how the village and its surroundings look - it's in the countryside of France so expect a lot of agriculture and forests.

About the scripting: man this is a nightmare; I'll be honest, if it wasn't for SPi helping me script the entire intro to the level I'd probably be showing you nothing today. However, because of SPi, I have made a little present for you all to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXPYNXLyGFI

This is the opening sequence of the level and man oh man it feels good to see that it works. There were so many errors and interruptions trying to get this to work just right, and here it is. There are no recorded voices at the moment (we can worry about that at the end of the project) so text is all I can do for now. Also I decided to use some of Company of Heroes 2 ardennes assault's fantastic official soundtrack for my map.

I hope you enjoyed today's little present and hopefully the next update isn't far. But man do I dislike scripting. Have a merry Christmas and until next time!

Glad I helped. Hope we get over the rest of the problems! Merry Christmas all!

Excellent progress! I wish you Merry Christmass time and Happy New Year!

Hello everyone welcome to the first map update of the new year! I hope you all had a good winter holiday and are ready for another update. Thanks to tremendous help provided by SPi and Mch2207Cz , I've finally got the flak cannons and their objectives to work! This breakthrough has accelerated progress of the project causing me to almost finish all the objectives! Indeed, the hardest part of the map seemed to be getting the tank sequence to work properly, everything else is falling into place like a puzzle.

So for today I have to show you some screenshots of the working flak shooting at the tanks, an armoured car blowing up (pertend it's a Panhard), and how dug in the enemy will be inside the church (a later objective). These are a little peak of what the enemy will bring to defend the town and to keep the player on his heels.

Despite objectives being almost done, there is a lot of scripting that I have yet to do including dismount of the tank, making AIs regroup, making certain AI invincible (like Cpt. Price), and making AI follow the player through the whole fight. Hopefully these tasks won't be too hard to accomplish and the map's deadline gets brought closer.

I thank you all for tuning in for the first 2018 map update, I hope to release this map later this year maybe even earlier if things go smooth. Anyways, thank you and until next time!