What do you want to see this year? (Patreon)

Having been racking my brains about where to go next once the current content batch is sorted, I thought that- seen as though you guys are the ones who are going to watch it- it would be smart to find out what you all want to see. So this is going to be me thinking with a keyboard and allowing you to vote on it. There is a lot of stuff flying towards a wall here to see if it sticks.

The current cycle of AAR-Basics-AAR-Unit Guide-AAR-War Room seems to work pretty well and is varied enough to avoid getting stale at my end, but there's definitely room for other elements in the mix.

More PVP

Keeping basic to start with though- I really want to do more PVP this year. The advantage of playing against the AI is that it's much faster to get through a battle, the disadvantage is that the AI is pretty limited. I think it's pretty obvious from the Rattenkrieg series that I've been playing against the AI all year- playing PVP really is a perishable skill and I need to build it up again.

The longer production time for PVP and my reluctance to play more than one game at once (I swear everytime I play two games simultaneously I lose them both!) means that an AAR every other week wouldn't be that practical, hence developing some other content options would slot in nicely.

Additionally, I really enjoyed trying out Youtube Premieres again- putting a little trailer together and sitting down to watch it 'live' with Youtube viewers and have a bit of a chat- if I'm going to be churning AAR's out at a reduced rate, I think giving them a bit of extra hype with a Premiere is a good way to turn them into more of an event.

Less CM Specific Videos

This is about widening the channel's audience. Combat Mission is obviously a really niche topic, but it relates to or models a lot of real-world topics with much wider appeal. So I think transitioning from Basics and Unit Guides with a specific CM focus to videos that use CM to examine other things is a good move.

In terms of Basics videos that means focusing more on the tactical side- I'm aiming to make the next one about forward and reverse slopes, for example- and getting more numbers (ew) into the Unit Guides. Talking about the top speed of a vehicle in KPH is going to be more useful and interesting to people than talking about how far it can go in one CM turn.

That is going to shift the focus a little and there are pitfalls to using CM for this because it does get things wrong, but I think using CM as a visualisation tool can sidestep most of them.

Upping the Graphical Quality

Obviously there's not much I can do on the CM side for this, but while the graphical overlays I use to show planning etc are perfectly functional, they could look a lot better and they could be more in line with actual symbology rather than whatever I think makes the most sense at the time.

I think animated map arrows, shadows, NATO symbols where appropriate, stuff like that, would lend a bit of extra polish, especially to the War Room episodes. Other Youtube channels like Battle Order and the Operations Room are pretty snazzy on this front.

'Tactical' Shooter Design Content

This goes back to my long-standing backburner project to make a video about why I don't play Squad, but is really a kind of what-I-think about how to put the 'tactical' in 'tactical shooter' and keep the gameplay interesting. They are not necessarily the same thing!

So this would be much more "IMHO" content poking at a new audience whilst hopefully still appealing to the CM tactics grogs out there. I've got some Squad and Hell Let Loose footage hanging around that I think would be interesting to analyse and I want to use them to make at least a trial video, but of course I've said that many times in the past and never gotten round to it.

Combat Mission Editor Campaign Production Walkthrough

I fancy making my own CM campaign so... why not share the production process? I've done barely any editor content and there's not only a lot that goes into the actual mechanic map editing, forces, objectives, AI plans etc, but there can be loads of interesting research that goes hand in hand with it.

I think that's got some potential as longer-form 'watch me while I work' content. And of course, it would spit a campaign out for people to play at the end!

Other Games

I could also play some other games. People are always calling on me to try Graviteam Tactics, and while I don't think that's ever going to happen, Combat Mission is not the only game I play and people might be interested to see me play through other things.

Some likely candidates for this are Red Orchestra 2 and Rising Storm 2, TIE Fighter (from 1995! Literally the best game ever made), Door Kickers could be fun, I've had a blast playing Darktide, Cold Waters is good for a bit, as is War on the Sea etc.

There's also the opportunity for more sideways content here- emphasising tactical, strategic and historical elements as they fit. The first TIE Fighter campaign, for example, is classic counter-insurgency stuff: you literally man a space checkpoint and check transports for illicit goods.

Some of this has the advantage of being much easier to produce than the more detailed CM AAR content.

Non-Historical Content

Obviously the channel at the moment is very much at the historical realism side of the spectrum: even Battlefront's hypothetical wars have a distressing ability to manifest in the real world.

Diverging slightly and giving the War Room or Unit Guide treatment to non-historical stuff could be good, interesting fun. Looking at something like the 40k Leman Russ, or the Battle of Hoth from Empire Strikes Back wouldn't just be entertaining diversions on my side, but would be tapping into expansive audiences where I'm confident there's a lot of crossover with military history etc.

Of course, this would have to be very obviously different from the historical-realist stuff. As entertaining as it would be to see people wondering in the comments why they've never heard of Istvaan III, some clear demarcation between real and imaginary is common sense.

Tabletop Content

Finally, I am starting to poke tabletop games with a stick. I seem to be accumulating a distressing number of rulebooks and searching Youtube for videos about games like Bolt Action, Hail Caesar or anything that Games Workshop makes inevitably brings up battle reports.

A CM AAR is just a fancy battle report (all those White Dwarfs finally paid off!) so I don't think there's a great stretch there. How interesting they would be, I have no idea. A big component of tabletop wargaming is obviously the models and I don't really have the money, space or painting competence to really go for this... I could double down on the tactical side and focus on maps, narrative and history, showcasing highlights through some judiciously cropped CM or Rome Total War or whatever.

This is definitely an outlier and it would come with some significant challenges, but like I say: there is some common ground with my existing content.

Wrapping Up

So, that's what I think going into this year (what do you mean it's February next week? What do you guys think? Is there anything not on this list you'd like to see?