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First Impressions (CM:BN Full Release)


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Been playing this morning. Handling your troops is quite a bit more difficult then in CMBO (and CMSF I think). Played a battle in which the US has green troops - they kept running at the first shot, never getting a good location fix on the enemy. Relative spotting and WW2 style C2 is quite a challenge!

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I played a quick battle to kick things off. It gave me a sprawling village to assault. I tried to pick my forces but soon learned I had no idea what to take so after a couple clicks of the suggestion button, I had a force I was reasonably happy with.

The AI began by shelling a road that I had bypassed completely, diving right into the woods just outside town. A couple skirmishes in, I lost one Sherman, never looked to see what killed it, AT gun or team, and then a StuG appeared, panicking a MG team with one shot. I detached a bazooka team and after a few shots and a close call as it began rotating towards them, the crew bailed.

On the other side of the village, I had set up my mortar crew and hq spotter since I had no where else to put them, and no one could call in arty from them since the only units with radios were my dedicated FOs. After a few turns of them sitting there, they came under attack from some random German squads and a second StuG. Panicking, I put a point target on the StuG and set it to maximum length, hoping for a direct hit.

As usual, nothing goes as planned, the hq took a casualty and the other member fled, while still retaining the arty target. I attempted to flank with another Sherman, and promptly lost another Sherman, and the StuG backed out of sight. Turns go by, the rounds fall way the hell off target since no one can see the damn thing anymore, and eventually, after a failed bazooka attempt (which was thrilling to watch as they crept out of cover to find it was staring right at them, they got off one shot, partial penetration, but it was not enough, and another casualty was had) I got a Sherman to come around the other side and rip it apart from behind.

Anyway, the whole point of this rambling tale of my haphazard tactics, was that after I won (losing the other StuG pushed the AI over into surrender), and I was looking over the map, I noticed that my horrible artillery attempt, which dropped shell after shell nowhere near the tank, managed to blindly take out another AT gun completely, crew and all. If it wasn't for that bit of random luck, my final victory blow may have been stopped dead in its tracks.

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... I noticed that my horrible artillery attempt, which dropped shell after shell nowhere near the tank, managed to blindly take out another AT gun completely, crew and all. If it wasn't for that bit of random luck, my final victory blow may have been stopped dead in its tracks.

FACT: luck never played a key role during WWII, or any other war for that matter. Hence the game is fundamentally flawed.

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Played a couple more battles. I am in the game!!!

On the German side......

As a -2 leader :(.

More to the point: I had a AT gun and a light MG deployed near each other. During a turn some infantry and a light tank came into view. The AT gun turned towards the infantry, the MG kept hammering away at the tank. It ended badly... So, first I second the "target armor only" command for the AT guns. Second: I am wondering if WW2 MG's really opened up on each tank they saw as soon as they saw them, even in preference to infantry targets. They can't hurt the tank, but can hurt the infantry. The tank without the infantry is more crippled then an MG can ever hurt it directly. And getting the attention of the tankcrew, by plinging on their hull, does not seem healthy...

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FACT: luck never played a key role during WWII, or any other war for that matter. Hence the game is fundamentally flawed.

You know, I think you may be right. At the time I had dismissed it, but there was a psychic attached to that platoon. I kept him near the mortar team, thinking he could keep moral up by performing parlor tricks, but now, in retrospect, it was he who guided those rounds. This game is even deeper than I initially thought.

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But someone pointed out that you can hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse (move camera) or the right mouse button and move the mouse (rotate camera)

This is the secret to happiness in the game and its not too hard to get used to, the scroll wheel on the mouse can do up and down on the camera as well. Just use the mouse and you should be fine. :)

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My play time is limited at the moment so first off i wanted to try out a small 45min company-sized QB on a generated village map. I went with a suggested force for both sides and played as the US on the attack in RT. Force selection was great and i got what i would expect. That was easy! But it was shortly after i left the setup screen that things started to go badly wrong.:)

No AAR here, so let's just say that i got it handed back to me, several, painful times. Lesson learn't: keep moving and lay down suppressive mortar fire, if you get caught and pinned down expect to be pummeled by arty in short order. Superb!

This is a 5 * game if ever there was one.

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Can BFC post the sales figures after, say, a week of release? Kinda curious to see how popular this game is in general.
They never do, as they are not a public listed company and it's nobody else's business, quite frankly. However, Steve will probably give some very general comments how CMBN fared compared to other BFC releases. Since Battlefront know their market relatively well, I doubt they will be surprised, unpleasantly so. ;)

Of course we are all interested in Battlefront's financial well-being. They serve our hobby, and they serve it well.

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CMx1 did not have variable speed settings. It's occasionally requested, but it would be a mess. Sound effects would either sound like an old record player at the wrong speed or the 1/2 the action would be going on without the sounds. I don't think it would be very enjoyable.

The best way to replay, IMHO, is to pick one portion of the battle and watch that and only that. Then move to a different portion of the battle and watch that and only that.

Steve

This is exactly what I do and it works fine.

Of course, I always hear big explosions from the other battles on screen and wonder what is going on!!

Great game though!!!

Thx

jonpfl

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They never do, as they are not a public listed company and it's nobody else's business, quite frankly. However, Steve will probably give some very general comments how CMBN fared compared to other BFC releases. Since Battlefront know their market relatively well, I doubt they will be surprised, unpleasantly so. ;)

Of course we are all interested in Battlefront's financial well-being. They serve our hobby, and they serve it well.

Steve's very general comment:

John-W-Henry-007.jpg

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This game is awesome. I haven't been so impressed since the release of...well...CMBO. LOL. I gave BFC an "A+"! I do have couple small bugs I'd like to report.

1. On my rig the game does not exit gracefully. It hangs after hitting END and the whole screen goes black. To completely exit I have to terminate the process in task manager. I'm running an ATI 4850 video card and an AMD quad cord. Window 7 64 Home. I can provide more detailed specs on request.

2. More of a general improvement suggestion : Sometimes units look like ants trying get around an object specially when fast moving. I think the pathing algorithms need more work. I also know this is a very difficult programming problem since I'm a programmer. But maybe in Charles' "spare" time .... :-)

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1. On my rig the game does not exit gracefully. It hangs after hitting END and the whole screen goes black. To completely exit I have to terminate the process in task manager. I'm running an ATI 4850 video card and an AMD quad cord. Window 7 64 Home. I can provide more detailed specs on request.

A common issue w/ ATI cards and W7 64 bit. To fix upgrade your drivers to 11.5.

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