Paulverisor64

I really want to give this game a fair try but it does not appear possible to glue the legs of the units that are under your control to the ground. I thought that the Halt command would surely do the trick but it only pauses the troops for a short while. I WANT THIS GAME TO BE PLAYABLE! It just has so many other good things going for it. The graphics are good, the interface is good, the attention to realism is great, the entire way the game plays is great, the subject of the game is great. Is the uncontrollable AI the one reason that sales for this game have not taken off? Perhaps this wouldn't be a huge issue if the AI on the opposite side didn't pick off my team with such deadly effect. Am I missing something or is this an unfixable flaw?

Yesterday I bought the TOW2 game. Prior to buying the game I thought that I could be battling the game interface, poor AI for my army and the enemy. After playing the 2 tutorial missions I must say I am very pleasantly pleased with the game interface. Some of the things that I at 1st did not like at all can be changed in the options menu. I do appreciate that you also can hotkey groups within the game which will make things much more manageable. I did very poor on the tactical tutorial. The 1st time around I just moved my soldiers as one group and ended up being completely wiped out when the enemy tank took my captured tank out. After that trial I tried the mission again using a lot of caution. Everytime I've tried this I have discovered that my units do whatever they please; which to a certain extent ends up with them getting butchered. I tell my one group to stay down behind a couple trees and they are looking over the buildings. After the movement has been done half of the group decides on it's own to sneak into the closest building. Meanwhile the other group which I gave a final position on the other side of a stone wall starts drifting to the other side of the wall which puts them in a position to get gunned down. I am hoping that someone who has been able to manage his units effectively would lend a hand in suggesting how I could keep my units from drifting yet me able to fire from the fireline that I set up for them? This game could be absolutely awesome if it were easier to keep the troops from taking their own courses of action.

Thanks for clearing up the licensing issue I had. I installed this on my laptop and my home computer. My new home computer replaced out almost every single component I once had, so the license very likely is dead with this unless I was to uninstall this from the laptop. None of this however is a big issue because I bought the CD as well as the download. (I did this because ahead of time I feared exactly what did happen) I believe this does help me to place a little faith in buying TOW2 as a download only. (which will save money) I know now how to keep the license from getting revoked. Thanks for your help! Now once I figure out how to play out the demo mission I may be ready for a purchase. I've read (in the forum) negatives about the game especially in terms of the infantry but it appears this game would be a good study for TOW2 Kursk. I'm reading backwards through the forums to see if there is some guide for how you should set up for Sidi Bou Zid.

I apologize I didn't realize that there were differing deals depending on the bundle that was looked at. I was looking at the TOW2 with Centaro bundle which shows a savings of $5. I might instead opt for the TOW2 and game guide which would save $15. Before I buy I would like to check into 2 things; 1) The download expiration after 365 days; I have the Combat Mission BB which was downloaded and after changing my computer even though I have the game saved on disk I have not been able to use the installation code. I am worried that TOW 2 would be unplayable after 1 year. 2) Just fully playing through the tutorial. The tutorial itself was quite easy to go through but the 1 mission which is included with the game doesn't seem to make sense to me. I am supposed to move my force to a Sidi Bou Zid which I don't see on the map. (Even in the tutorial the move orders seemed a bit vague) I believe I am in a setup mode but it doesn't appear I can move my units around. I would like to feel better about the 2 above issues prior to making my decision about buying TOW2. I will search the forum some more, but perhaps someone might be able to shed some light on my questions.

I have been considering getting Theater of War 2 Africa as a warm up for Theater of War 2 Kursk. Since the new game will be releasing soon I was wondering whether there would be any impending discounts for the original TOW 2 game? I have to be careful with my money, but I would be interested in giving this game a good try. I do see a $5 off discount but perhaps the price will be dropping lower than that with the new game coming out.

Thank you, the free look option does help considerably. I still find that it is hard to select units and give them orders. Sometimes I think I've selected a unit to pick up something, move somewhere or attack something and the action doesn't appear to carry out. I'm sure a lot of it is just my unfamiliarity with the way interactions are carried out in the game, yet I still feel this could be improved on. All in all I would have to say I really like the scale and approach of the game; so I see no reason to back away from purchasing TOW II Kursk. The demo has a realistic feel to it when I am able to convey orders correctly.

I am hoping that the TOW II Kursk user interface will be user friendly. I downloaded the TOW II demo this weekend and the controls did not feel intuitive at all. It doesn't appear that you can rotate your view by screen edges, and the scroll button zoom seems backwards to me. I looked in the options but didn't see where those could be changed. I am hoping that it will be easy to select units and give orders as well as the units which are given orders will follow these correctly. (Understanding of course that rattled or out of commands units might not follow orders predictably) In reading the previous TOW II forum it does appear that there is a glitch where units have difficulty in facing the correct direction. I plan to buy this game regardless, but if a lot of things are done right I will absolutely tell all my friends from the gaming group I belong to.

I agree with you in regards to timing. The timing for me unfortunately wasn't driven by a game I wanted to play, it was so I could do computer simulation work at home over the weekends instead of wasting hours on the road. Of course the fringe benefit is that my PC is very good for gaming. In my last PC upgrade I traded my 19 inch monitor for a 32 inch HDTV. Since the new game will support widescreen I would think this PC upgrade alone would be beneficial for the extra FOV.

Per your suggestion I did upgrade to ATI driver 9.12. As you can see the strange boxes occupy the same location on the screen. If I rotate the screen the boxes do not move. Through your link it does appear that I am not the only one to inherit this ATI driver related issue. I did notice prior to my driver upgrade that there was text in the boxes, but it was clipped and I couldn't read the contents. I didn't notice the text this time around but I'll try some stuff to see if it does show up.

I guess I'm not opposed to the RTS system as long as measures are taken in the game which puts the emphasis more on strategy rather than micro-management.

Schrulllenhaft: I am using 2 ATI 5850 graphics cards with crossfire enabled. My driver level is 9.11. Oh my goodness, I just solved it! As I was writing this update "I unchecked the crossfire" and wouldn't you know the main problem now has gone away. This obviously won't be a solution for when I want to play other games but for now life is good. I just happened to recall that when I had nvidia and SLI enabled in another game Silent Hunter III a while back that this was the culprit. It isn't perfect but I am happy. The one problem I am seeing now is the odd shaped boxes which I talked about a post back. I'll attach a picture to show what I mean. You also asked what my native TV resolution is. That would be 1920 by 1080. The game has been showing 1600 by 1200, but when I originally set up it absolutely put me at 1400 by 1050. I don't know if this is linked somehow but that is what my picture imports into paint. Thanks for not giving up on my problem!

Perhaps I should try the Combat Mission 1.04 Demo. Does anyone know if there would be any install conflicts I should be aware of?

I was just lamenting my computer issues in regards to Combat Mission 2. One of the downsides of upgrading a computer is that it makes older games obsolete. I am very much hoping this game will transition in seamlessly. There are many RTS type games on the market to choose from, but scant few take great pains to deliver a game with top notch realism. Being developed by teams such as IC and Battlefront the future looks quite promising. There isn't a whole lot of information available about this game yet. I'm assuming this game will work well with ATI cards. Does anyone know whether this game will impliment into widescreen formats? Looking forward to hearing more about this game.

Still attempting to figure out the graphics issue. In googling I see that one thing done to prevent blank screen and lockup is to turn off Anti Aliasing or leave it as application default. My settings in ATI Catalyst Center is application default. It is very confusing what I see and hear when I open up Combat Mission because so much is not right. I will give a better description of what I have noticed. 1) As soon as opening up game sound plays but screen is blank 2) Moving cursor around uncovers missing icons tab by tab, but moving cursor also makes the icons disappear. 3) When I get the start tab and click it the original screen does not go away. Sometimes left mouse clicking reveals something else sometimes moving the cursor. 4) Getting to the game is very tricky, when I get the quick scenario listing some of the time the games appear, sometimes they don't. 5) Clicking in the screen location of a specific scenario will get it to set up the configuration menu. 6) I can not see the configuration settings. I have found that sometimes hitting printscreen and pasting it in paint I can see the display that I should see which helps me left mouse click a certain area of the screen. 7) When I get into a game there are odd shaped boxes near the top of the screen which flicker strangely. I have tried figuring something out but it appears it is beyond me and the resources available to fix the problem. It could be that I'm the only one even experiencing this problem. I do believe the mismatch is between ATI and Combat Mission. I have a similar glitch with ATI and my CAD application where the screen display prior to exiting a part does not go away. Will Battlefront ever make a modernized version of Combat Mission 2? I would buy it in a heartbeat, for now it looks like the end of the road.

Schrullenhaft: Thank you for your well thought out answer. Unfortunately I haven't shaken the graphics errors. At 1st I tried the 2 options which you suggested. These did not fix the issue. The ATI fix file even made the list of available maps blank out. I went ahead and reformatted my computer to hopefully get a fresh take at the install and if not a improved situation at least something showing up different. Things did show up a little different. This time my 1st graphic setting given was 1400 by 1050 which would be a vast improvement over 800 by 600. The strange thing is that the actual in game screen showed up as 1600 by 1200 and my computer only supports 1920 by 1080. The opening screens looked no different than before. I have attached a couple variations of the opening screen which show how the screen display fluctuates with mouse placement. Sorry my pictures are so small, even at that size however you can see the problem I'm having. Please let me know if you can think of any more ideas to try.

It is good to know that some people have had good luck with their CMBB install with Windows 7. Perhaps this is an ATI thing? I do have the 64 bit version of Windows 7 installed. I did install and uninstall this game a couple weeks ago. The uninstall did not even appear in the uninstall program listing. My disk has version 1.02 on it and I have patched up to 1.03. I did purchase the game download as well as the disk. I tried installing the download version 1st yesterday but it appears I could not because my licensing expired a couple weeks ago. The download was patched to 1.03. I am thinking that if I run out of all options I might reformat my computer in a week or 2 and try again. This is frustrating because I thought that the Windows compatability mode would help me out.

Today I installed Combat Mission on my new computer. I uncovered a strange graphics issue where depending on my cursor placement I can or can't see the menu. When I click on Start Game the display of the games is very random depending on how lucky I get as I pan my mouse cursor. When I do pick a game it is very difficult to even get to the place of having the game displayed because the scenario options do not display. The game screen itself seems legitimate. When I exit the scenario the screen sticks on the exit screen. Upon getting out of the window and getting back into the window I was able to scroll around on my screen until the Exit game option showed up. Thinking this may be the Vista issue which patch 1.04 was released I tried compatability mode on XP Service pack 2. This did not work and it introduced another issue as the game wanted me to select a resolution out of one at a time choices. The best option that was allowed was a 800 by 600 option. Getting back into the game there was no improvement in XP SP2 compatability. Since the time I played Combat Mission successfully I have made several computer changes. -Windows XP to Windows 7 -Nvidia 8800 to ATI 5850 -19 inch monitor to 32 inch widescreen TV. (Yes the game screen images are stretched considerably, but this I could deal with). I would really like to get a finer resolution, and absolutely need to get around the strange display issues. I have read several forum threads in regards to the Vista patch but haven't found anything specific to my situation.

Jason: Thank you very much for your great advice. You definitely know the in's and out's of this game. It appears that nothing is 100% in this game, (such as ending up with a blown track) but playing the percentages at the right time will lead to much better results. I've received excellent help which goes above and beyond the manual. I know I can always come back to this thread if I get in a bind with a specific issue.

That is good to know. The only other command that effectively moves the units forward is Sneak, and that is only good until the MG draws a bead on them. This is a situation that requires a quick action or you are a sitting duck. I noticed one more movement called Human Wave; would that have the same effect as Advance? Another question that I've run into is in regards to armor strength vs. gun killing power. Is there a way in a glance that you can determine which guns penetrate specific armor?

I'm enjoying the tutorials. By keeping things simple (at least in the beginning) it makes it much easier to see what each unit does and how effective different tactics work in different situations. Last evening I tried the 1st Infantry tutorial. I didn't know where to expect the enemy so I spread my forces out on the map, even splitting every squad. When I 1st contacted the enemy I thought to myself; is that it? Then I learned the strength of the foxholed MGer. I got beat up quite badly. Troops were fleeing, even my HQ unit was panicked through the game. Fortunately one unit was able to Sneak close enough to take out the MG nest, and I won the round. Knowing I really didn't grasp the lesson; I tried again. Knowing where my opponent would be I split into 3 groups. 2 squads on the far left. 2 squads on the far right. With the HQ unit in the center. The game was a complete disaster. The troops on the right received fire a lot sooner than I expected, and even though this was at a sizeable range my one unit panicked and fled off the map. As I had the MG squad surrounded I thought I could Advance the units not under fire and Sneak the units under fire until one of the units could apply the knockout blow. What actually happened is unit after unit panicked and fled. I thought I had a safe approach for my HQ unit but was wrong, and it was eliminated. I couldn't understand why my units never had the Advance command. I had to quit the round because all my units were routed and I had zero control over what was left. This morning I finally put it together. I discovered that the Advance command was attached to units being under control of the HQ unit. Even though I lost the advantage of surrounding the enemy I moved my Platoon up the middle of the map in the widest spacing that HQ control would allow. This also speeded up the march accross the map because all units quickly got their orders. When I contacted the enemy it was fairly tough to win against the superior firepower, but I advanced all my troops and at least 2 or 3 units at a time were not effected by the MQ fire and fulfilled their orders. Similar to the armored scenario; when I flanked the unit at point blank range it ended up breaking. By discounting the advantage of surrounding the enemy from a distance to gain the advantage of HQ control made a huge difference. The role of the infantry changed completely in this lesson from the last Armor lesson. In the last lesson the infantry was just bait. It was not used to seize an objective. Good job with the tutorials! I do believe you are correct as far as the previous tutorial and the immobile tank. It kind of sucked to have this happen during a critical manuever.

Finally!!! I used my infantry to draw fire as in previous trys. When the Axis tank locked on I took 2 of the T34s down the shadow line of the building by the flag. My tank to the right did a shoot and scoot which got the German tank's attention. As soon as the German tank rotated to take the far tank out I set one tank to go around the left building and one to the right. The tank to the right made a sacrifice for the country but that was my only loss. I got to the Axis tank's back side and took him out with 2 shots. With this accomplished I routed the small force that was remaining. This was a great lesson, and a morale builder!

Getting closer: Knowing approximately how far I could move my tanks without being spotted I moved them up. I moved my infantry up on a broad front using Contact. At the point of Contact I Advanced my troops in a direction to draw fire. My initial attack would be my right tank which I had on Move Fast. I picked a line which the Axis tank was moving centered with the building by the flag and used Move Fast to approach the building. The last tank I attempted to move left of the building to give 2 spread out targets for the Axis tank. I got several shots off with my tank on the right side, but the German tank revolved to remove it before I got very far. I have no clue what happened to the tank which was supposed to stretch the field to the other side, perhaps the infantry anti tank gun took it out but I was surprised to see that it was immobile. My last tank actually made it all the way to the building without being sighted. It took out one of the infantry units which was surprised around the building. I never lost my last tank. I was actually flanking the Axis tank as time ran out. I've learned one more trick, and that is that buildings can be great for cover. I also took advantage of adding several waypoints for the tanks, which worked out well. I haven't done multiple waypoints because I thought it would add a command delay for each point. It appears this only applies for infantry units. You mentioned above that the infantry was sent out to see the direction the tank was facing. There actually is a forward unit which I've never moved which is hidden and I can see the direction the tank is facing on the 1st move. Still trying

Jason: I have tried leading with infantry and completely concealing my armor. In concept I believe I achieved what I was after, in execution I failed. I split the squads accross a broad front using the move to contact command. It was very interesting where the squads ended up (the LOS was quite staggered accross the map). In the middle of the map one of my split squads drew the Axis armor forward and broadside. I knew this must be my golden opportunity so I threw the 2 tanks on the ends accross the map in a Fast Move. I held my center tank back because I determined that I did not want it to be the focus of the Axis armor. My far right tank got off several shots. My far left tank was also letting loose, until the Axis tank lined up a knock out punch. The turn ended with the Axis tank already starting to rotate to face it's next target. In desperation I threw the center tank up the center of the map. Very shortly thereafter my far right tank became crippled with an easily placed shot. The beginning of the next turn ended the life of my last tank. I actually did better when I played an entire round of cat and mouse, but I still haven't knocked out the superior Axis tank. I could play this round over and over and get a draw by not being aggresive with the armor but I would never get a win. What I was not able to execute was getting my tanks at point blank range. My armor spacing is quite wide to begin the game. The center tank is near the small forest close to the spawn zone. I did have a slight delay in the fast move with the 1st phase of the movement used to rotate a couple of the tanks to line up with the direction I was sending them. I'm not really sure I am succeeding with setting the one tank up with the shadow of the building. What I am assuming here is that you are talking about the protection of the building and not a literal shadow. I was able to get this tank deeper than I have been in past rounds. I actually took the tank to the left of the building to try flanking the Axis tank. Perhaps I'm not too far from achieving success. I do agree that knowing how to pull off tactics such as this will be quite valuable in playing against a superior strength opponent. Thanks for helping me along, I hope to master the concept in this battle soon.

It appears that there can be different interpretations of the armor diagram for armored vehicles. As suggested above this really doesn't come into play a whole lot in the game. The strongest armor obviously is in front so that is what you would want facing the enemy. Today I am playing tutorial 102. As you suggested Jason I seperated my troops from their armored rides. In my 1st try I moved all 3 tanks forward. The tank on the left by the trees I started on turn 1, the others on turn 2. Several turns later all 3 tanks were a trash heap. I still thought I could sneak a tank through on the far left (thinking it wouldn't be seen). In same fashion I moved the middle tank to the trees and the right tank to the edge. Again a disaster. The 3rd try I took the far left tank and thought I'd find cover in a depression. My infantry advanced to the center trees and a split squad towards the right edge. Within 3 turns my left tank was knocked out from long distance. I was glad to get some shots in with the other 2 tanks but nothing penetrated the tank. I was quite happy with the results of doing a Shoot and Scoot with the tank on the far right, taking advantage of a steppe between tanks. My center tank used cover from the small forest. There were several turns of cat and mouse, and in that time the main force of my infantry found cover behind the building by the flag as you suggested. I got a draw this time around. I however am very happy with the fact that I didn't lose all my tanks and I was able to advance my troops quite well. From what I see, I might be able to pull off a victory if I can hold backall of my own tanks and stage some diversions to get the Axis tank turned in the direction I want it to be. Then I can A) Get in some Shoot and Scoots or Advance my far left tank. I'm having fun seeing how changing up ways of doing things can yield better results. I'm also starting to see the terrain better.

I appreciate the help you have given me. Jason: Thank you for explaining some of the Rock, Paper and Scissors of this game. This will help me a lot in determining how to set up properly. I also appreciate your clarification of how different levels of HQ's work in this game. One question in this regard; is it a safe assessment to say that only units which connect the various HQ's with red lines are under that HQ's control? another question I have is; can a unit be re-attached to a different HQ due to logistical problems? (severing ties to the original HQ). I have played a couple of your Russian Tutorials. I am taking my time to try to grasp things better. On the 2nd tutorial I believe one of the lessons is in how to gather intel and scouting information from the infantry units attached to the tanks. What is the proper way of getting this information. Do the infantry units stay on the tanks? There doesn't appear a way to get the infantry into a true scouting position without delaying the 3 tanks movement, and moving the infantry to the building by the flag, or the small patch of forest. The way I've played this is to split the 3 tanks up into Left, Center and Right with the infantry onboard. The tank to the right gets into the fight 1st. This shakes up the infantry which is tagging along. The center tank loses it's rider in the clump of forest. The left tank later loses it's unit as I have him take over the building near the flag. This appears to "work" every time, but I can't help but believe there must be a more purposeful and effective way of doing this. How do I set up or how can I tell the units are set up in position for spotting? Der Alte Fritz: Thank you very much for the resources of how each side typically would set up for battle. I can see that there is so much to be learned. One thing I have noticed is the mention of setting up forces using a specific amount of point values. I haven't run into anything like this before; would this be a prerequisite for setting up in the game scenarios that list a specific value of points, or is this specific to a game generating editor? There is a lot of emphasis on how to build combined arm forces with these available points. There is a lot of good information on how each side would historically set up to get the best advantage. I have a couple more questions that I'm hoping someone might be able to help me with. 1) I know that Jason gave some examples of the range certain units are better engaging, but is there any information which you can determine the most effective range of battle engagement for each unit? 2) This is a really simple question. I know the book gives a description of how you read the armor from the picture of the armored unit. However I am confused at what each colored band refers to. Looking at the picture of the tank how would you read the Armor effectiveness? Obviously the front 3 bands would refer to the front. Does this go Front Right, Front Middle, and Front Left? (and not high to low) Do the upper bands refer to the upper turret armor? Do the lower bands refer to the area encompassing the tracks on each side? Do the rear 3 bands refer to Rear Right, Rear Middle, and Rear Left? Thank you so much for your valuable information!