Cribtop Gamer

Phil, Did you ever get this resolved? I am having a very similar problem. I get a blue screen of death plus a disk write error message whenever I save a CMBB game. After re-booting, the save game has a "white" name with zero turns. The autosave remains but is also corrupted. I have not had this problem until tonight. Played CMBB religiously for months without difficulty.

I must totally concur with the original post. I love the infantry model and greatly fear that BTS will tone down the realism too much in order to please those who still want to play CMBO. As I said in another thread: 1) Just don't try to cross large stretches of open ground in the fact of an unsuppressed enemy. You will fail. 2) Don't try to close to hand to hand range. Get into grenade range and win the final victory by firepower (remember, your enemy is already suppressed before you get to grenade range, right?).

The real trick is to never get to the point where you are pinned down in the first place. A pinned unit in the open was a dead unit according to everything I have read. Quick tactics: 1) Do NOT try to cross open ground until you have won fire superiority and suppressed the enemy. How do you do this? Use a forward screening element. You should never be in a position where the main body of even one of your platoons is exposed to fire from hidden enemies. It WILL happen sometimes because your enemy will ambush you, but not very often if you play it right. 2) As someone said - do NOT try to finish an enemy by closing to hand to hand combat range. Work yourself into grenade range and open fire with more dudes than he's got. Use whatever cover there is and attack from more than one angle. I am frustrated that BTS may dial down the realism too far to please those who are unsatisfied. This game's infantry model rules. I am just as frustrated as anyone when troops don't go to the nearest cover available, but that is the ONLY thing I would change. Really, unless I am on a totally open steppe, I almost guarantee I can take out an MG 42 with 2 squads of regular Russian infantry. Seriously, do it just like they did in that scene in SPR (except use cover better than they did). You will soon discover why infantry squads were needed to protect MG positions. This wasn't supposed to be a flame or a rant, but really, if you are getting pinned you are moving through the open with too many men and/or trying to make an assault down to hand to hand range. Don't make these mistakes and move more slowly. My only complaint is that often times CMBB scenarios have time limits designed for the over-robust infantry model of CMBO.

My two Tigers are fast moving abreast on a road over the crest of a hill. They come upon a previously brewed up T-34/85 and push it out of the way - only since there are two Tigers they keep pushing the Russkie tank between them and drag it about 500m down the road! Watching from the side at a good distance on a replay, the smoke from the brewed T-34 was streaming out behind my Tigers in the prevailing wind. The whole thing looked like a train. I watched it about 10 times.

Hmmm... As the Germans, are you supposed to be able to "win" this scenario? I moved in good order along the right flank and attacked out of the woods in company strength while the fairly plentiful support elements (gun, MGs, mortars, armored cars) suppressed the trench line. I chewed up the guys in the front trench caught in my crossfire, but I encountered stiff resistance in superior numbers along the treeline, with more Russians coming to assist. Since my orders were to probe, I withdrew in good order and called a cease fire, assuming that was the point of the scenario. It's what I would have done in real life in command of a recon unit, fall back, cut the road and wait for heavy support. The score showed a total defeat for yours truly, entirely because the Soviets still held the flag. Now, I realize that I did a little roleplaying, but I doubt my ability to carry that position with the reinforced company under my command even if I tried (and I'm no newbie). My question, with no sarcasm - How are you supposed to win this one as the Germans? How did you do it if you did?

Aha, thanks! They had to be turret penetrations as I was hull down at the time. I noted in the manual that being hull down now reduces the chance of a hit significantly, meaning that going hull down with a "weak" turret is still a good idea. There was a raging debate on whether this was how it worked in CMBO, IIRC. Some people said that going hull down with, say a PzIV was a bad idea because it meant that any hit would be on the turret, and they weren't sure that being hull down meant a reduced hit chance overall.

In this scenario, my T-34s got smeared by Germans in a 1 platoon on 1 platoon battle at about 400-500 meters. The Germans only bounced one shell off of my supposed super tanks in about 13 tries. I know that penetration values are approximate only, but according to my reading of the charts at this range the 50L42 and 75mm guns of the PZ IIIs and IVs could only penetrate 30mm of armor at 60 degrees slant, while the T-34 has 45mm at 60 degrees. What gives? Do the Germans have some kind of T armor in 06/41? Is the turret of the T34 more vulnerable than the hull? I'm not mad at the game or the model or anything, but I thought I had baited the Germans into an unfair fight in my favor - so I want to know how it turned out I was so wrong.

Same here. My horror when CMBO would not fully install was, well, horrible. Thanks to Matt's real-time e-mail support, I was up and running in two hours from the first problem. You don't get that kind of support anywhere else in the industry. On another note, I also want to praise the game itself. It meets all my expectations and I've played battle after battle. A superb piece of work. I feel like we as a board are being a bit nit-picky about a few minor issues and haven't really properly thanked BFC/BTS for what is an excellent sequel to the greatest computer wargame ever made. Hmm, perhaps I'm becoming a fanboy - but I really appreciate CMBB and all the work that went into it.

Possible "A Warm Place to Sleep" spoilers ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Playing "A Warm Place to Sleep," I had the two tank hunters creep toward the flag in the trees on the West of the map (left side from Axis point of view). I ended up with one on either side of two BT tanks. The tanks killed one of the teams, but in doing so faced away from the other, who destroyed one outright and immobilized the second (which a German tank then finished off). The team then vindictively killed both KO'd tanks' crews. In the same scenario, a regular infantry team near the right side flag engaged the T-34 from a hidden position 14m off the road, immobilizing it with a molotov and KO'ing it with a grenade bundle. I think the infantry worked well in this scenario because of the cover available, the awful weather (blizzard) which led to poor visibility and the fact that the Sov tanks had to worry about German tanks and were often buttoned and distracted.

Dude, several points: 1) Bruce C. is a god; 2) Sara sounds cool to even put up with your uber-geekdom, my wife thought the game was "cool looking" and called to tell me it had arrived, keep such women, they are rare; 3) Don't deny her lovin' until CMBB arrives; and 4) Your post was hilarious.

Title says it all. Loving it. Even the wife thought it looked/sounded cool.

I'm also a South Austinite and I got it today. Ya'll northerners should mob your mailman tomorrow. PS I had install problems but I fixed them thanks to good support from BTS. PPS Then I loaded up the game and it kicked my A$$! This was after I got all haughty 'cause I won all the demo scenarios from both sides. (sigh).

Matt, Thanks for your great service on this issue throughout the day and for the offer of the new CD. All is well, we can end up playing tonight!

Ok, I've now gotten to the point where the game is partially installed and will start (but only if the disk is in the CD-R drive, the game can't detect the CD in the normal CDROM drive), but I have no scenarios. Madmatt, please e-mail the file to me. Thanks!

OK, here's an update on my situation... I tried installing from my CD-R drive instead of the regular cd. I noted immediately that the CMBB installation file used the "colored books" graphic instead of the "windows generic" graphic it came up with in my normal CDROM drive. Install began normally and I cheered. Until it hit file 00090601.wav, when the game began to be unable to read all files. Finally the drive locks up and I get a device error message. I'm closer, but not there yet. I'll try again. I may be one of the sods with the problem described in the other thread. MadMatt please help!!! Thanks.