MOS was 71331

Things I'd like to see: 1. A road movement command where waypoints are (a) place of entry onto road if not already on road, ( junctions where road selections are possible, © stopping point or place of exit from road if not staying on road. 2. A follow command (possibly with close up or spread out options) for vehicle movement. [select v2 - select follow - select v1] It shouldn't take multiple waypoint selections with attendant command delays to get v2 to proceed down the same path as v1. And, obviously, v3 can follow v2, ... [if v3 is ordered to follow v1, cancel v2's command to follow v1.] 3. Don't generate new paths with multiple waypoints when one vehicle encounters a friendly vehicle on a road. If they're going in the same direction, let the following vehicle continue after the leading vehicle gets x meters ahead. If they're going in opposite directions with sufficient room to pass, have them each steer appropriately to continue. (I don't mind if they stop for a time varying with their unit quality, but I don't want them to go berserk -- as they do now.) If there isn't sufficient room to pass, have them stop and cancel their movement orders. 4. Topographic terrain with the lowest point at 0 meters, and 5-10-or-20 meter bands above that. (It doesn't always have to be visible. I'd be happy to be able to turn it on and off.) 5. A select ammo command -- so I can get my guys to use their satchel charges or their tungsten rounds or their panzerfausts/shreks.

I'm always up for PBEM action. I haven't used CMBO in a while, but it's still on my Mac. I can only run 2.5 turns a week, though, as our temporary rental has no internet connectivity. I'll have to take incoming files home from work and send my response files back from the office the next day. With each turn requiring two file exchanges, that's 2.5 turns every five working days.

I largely agree with PLM's post above. While I admit that units under fire may be unable or unwilling to carry out fairly simple orders, I get frustrated when a jeep not being fired on won't move down a road past a stationary friendly tank on the side of the road and moves instead back forth through scattered trees next to the road. The straight line I plotted somehow turns into a jagged path with twenty waypoints, and I only see the waypoints remaining after the minute ends. I can only guess how many waypoints got executed in the minute after the movement started -- actually less than a minute because there was an eleven second command delay. It shouldn't be all that hard to implement a command for a vehicle to move from one point on a road to another point on the same road -- and just wait for blocking traffic to clear rather than driving randomly into scattered trees or brush. (I say "randomly," because there's no logic apparent in all the two and three meter movements between the AI's waypoints.

I largely agree with PLM's post above. While I admit that units under fire may be unable or unwilling to carry out fairly simple orders, I get frustrated when a jeep not being fired on won't move down a road past a stationary friendly tank on the side of the road and moves instead back forth through scattered trees next to the road. The straight line I plotted somehow turns into a jagged path with twenty waypoints, and I only see the waypoints remaining after the minute ends. I can only guess how many waypoints got executed in the minute after the movement started -- actually less than a minute because there was an eleven second command delay. It shouldn't be all that hard to implement a command for a vehicle to move from one point on a road to another point on the same road -- and just wait for blocking traffic to clear rather than driving randomly into scattered trees or brush. (I say "randomly," because there's no logic apparent in all the two and three meter movements between the AI's waypoints.

Nothing forces either side to spend its full force budget. If you want Axis 1712 v Allied 817, agree between yourselves to buy within those limits -- even though CM will let one of you buy more.

As I recall my 1960s training on the 106mm recoilless rifle, that AT weapon had a .50 caliber sighting scheme. You fired a .50 cal tracer and, after the tracer hit the target, you fired the main gun. (It was strongly recommended not to stand behind the recoilless rifle -- its back blast was lethal.)

Why can't tanks get an "unbalanced load" indicator light? My clothes washer gets them all the time, so the mechanism shouldn't be too expensive.

The trench symbol I position on the map shows a simple thick straight line, but does the symbol accurately depict the trench as it's treated by the game. If my machine gun is positioned along that line and shooting straight down the trench, are the men in that trench completely vulnerable? I don't expect so. I bet the game model of that trench is a lot different from a thick straight line.

I spend a lot of time as I play rotating the map to get it back a N-S or E-W alignment. Whenever I select a unit, the map rotates automatically to align with the unit's view -- which is fine. However, when I want to see the entire map area at once to get an overview of the turn, I have to rotate back to the alignment I want (and I can never get it exact; the bottom edge of the map is never parallel to the bottom of my screen). Is there a shortcut for doing this that I haven't discovered yet?

"Yes" to killing ASL, "No" to killing other board games. I wouldn't go back to individual soldier - squad - platoon - company scale board games, but I haven't yet found a computer based game involving battalions - regiments - divisions that I enjoy as much as, say, AH's board game, "Battle of the Bulge."

Perhaps the AI's purchasing scheme is to allocate its available points equally above and below the chosen quality level. It has, say, 1000 points to spend on units of medium quality so it puts 500 points into regulars and 250 points each into veterans and greens. Green units cost less than vets, so it will be buying more green units than vet units if it allocates the same number of points to each group. That might explain an apparent bias toward lower quality units.

Don't expect too much from your flamethrower teams. In one PBEM action, I had a team hidden adjacent to a light building. When an enemy squad entered the building from the opposite side without spotting my team, I was expecting to eliminate the entire squad during the next turn. I was really disappointed when TWO bursts from the flamethrower inflicted only four casualties and routed the survivors. As my other nearby units had already been weakened, they inflicted no additional casualties on the fleeing troops.

Fire rockets early, while your guys are well away from the plotted impact points. Those things spread too much to be used when the opposing forces are near each other.

Matt -- when I plotted the movement for the jeep, there seemed to be plenty of room between the stationery tank and the stationery jeep, and I was using the "realistic" scale setting. You seem to be suggesting I should use a higher magnification scale when plotting movement to guarantee the moving driver doesn't replot the movement to avoid a collision. Is CM putting a "zone of collision" around vehicles so that two x foot wide jeeps can't move side by side down a road that's more than three x feet wide?

I didn't use a spoiler alert, because my Brits ran into a different German set up each time I played. You know there are going to be Krauts in the HQ compound; you just don't know where they're going to be. And, given the goal of killing Rommel, you always want to kill as many of the Krauts as you can in the ten minutes available. Almost every time I put my assault force on the Med side, there was a trench or barbed wire (or both) right in front of them. If I concentrated my units inland from the Med, the fixed defenses appeared there. That's why I wondered if the AI was positioning the defenses in light of the Brit set up -- hardly realistic for a surprise assault. My most successful assault occurred from the Med side through the front "gate" when the AI had placed neither a trench nor barbed wire in the way. I got a good force into a building with no casualties on turn one, but the greenies upstairs shot the hell out of it on turn two. I've tried sneaking up to the walls on turn one with an assault over a shorter distance on turn two, but my Brits don't sneak very well. The sneakers just take casualties without inflicting many. (And sometimes the guys who sneak next to the wall refused to stop there and instead moved over the wall into another Kraut kill zone.) If you can handle the frustration, this situation can be played over and over. One of the replies did explain a major annoyance I'd had: why I couldn't see trenches and barbed wire before positioning my units. I'd forgotten that such "fixed" defenses are among the forces to be positioned by my opponent. Another CM change to consider might be to allow a scenario designer to specify either simultaneous or sequential (defender then attacker) set up.

Does the AI set up the German defense in the "Raid on Rommel" scenario after seeing where the Brit units were placed? I've tried this situation about twenty times, and every time but one the German troops were so placed that the Brits couldn't move into a building without first crossing a trench or some other obstacle that wasn't visible during the set up phase. (Even that one time was a Brit failure: two Brit squads and their platoon leader got into a building on the ground floor without casualties, but in the next turn the green Kraut squad on the second floor routed one of the Brit squads and inflicted heavy losses on the other squad and the platoon leader.) Can the Brits win this one? I've been so discouraged after the results of the first fire exchange, that I've just surrendered and tried again rather than continuing from a hopeless position. The BEST result I've seen had the Brits only receive twice the casualties they inflicted on the Krauts; the worst had over 30 Brits killed or wounded and one German injured. I can only imagine what would happen when the German reinforcements from the nearby town arrive. I may try firing the mortar at the German HQ and then shooting up the townies when they arrive, but the stated goal is to kill Rommel so that approach is definitely gamey.

I emailed you two files. The first file shows the orders, the second file shows the results. I can't understand why the jeep should leave the road and move randomly through the scattered trees. It's particularly frustrating when the next turn starts with totally new vehicle movement plots with multiple short segments mixing random forward and reverse motions, all of which must be cancelled before I can restore the movement orders I originally wanted. One suggestion on this thread never occurred to me: sequence convoy vehicles in order of driver quality, crack drivers at the front and conscript drivers at the rear. I tried a 10 second pause for vehicle 2, 20 seconds for vehicle 3, and so on, and I still got a mill around. HP (MOS was 71331)

I don't understand why jeeps not under fire and having no enemy units in sight ignore their plotted movement down a STRAIGHT road and instead drive off the road into trees, reverse (still in the trees), stop, restart, generally mill around, and end the turn with remaining plotted movement that doesn't resemble the movement I originally plotted. I'm willing to accept that units might disobey my orders to charge an enemy position, but why would a jeep not obey my order to drive down a road and instead drive into scattered trees?

Without the Irish, we wouldn't have a police force. Or the need for one.

No, I wasn't born in Colorado. My USAF father was assigned to Ent AFB in Colorado Springs after his 3-year tour in London. I liked the area and stayed.

In the CMAK tutorial scenario, some of the Brit vehicles are shown as having smoke mortars. Are these mortars only controlled by the AI? I can't find a command for these vehicles enabling me to place smoke anywhere. I'm guessing these smoke mortars are like squad Panzerfausts in CMBO. All you can do is place the smoke mortar equipped vehicle in a position where you believe its smoke would be useful and hope the vehicle takes the hint. I've been disappointed many times in CMBO when I've had a Kraut squad within 10-20 meters of an allied AFV and it wouldn't take the easy shot. [ December 10, 2003, 02:07 PM: Message edited by: MOS was 71331 ]

A possible enhancement of the contour lines enhancement: make it like tree coverage or unit scale. Contour lines start OFF, then go to every 10 meters, then go to every 5 meters, then go to every meter, then go back to OFF.

I too would like a follow road command. It's absurd to have to set multiple way points to move a vehicle along a road with twists and turns. I'd prefer a way point where the vehicle is to get on the road and another way point where the vehicle is to leave the road. The screen would show the whole path to the player, who could move the end way point to where he felt the computer's route became unacceptable and start a new follow road command from there. I really like the suggested contour lines toggle. I know the CM games are 3D, but I'm finding it difficult to see where I should move my units to accomplish my goals. I want to move an FO to where he can just see over some obstructing terrain. Perhaps countour lines would solve this problem. I use the FO's present LOS to guess where he should go, and his end position turns out either to be in the open or to have no view of the area I wanted. (In real life, I think the FO would be ordered to "get some fire on those Krauts up ahead," and the FO'd move to an appropriate position.) [The notes for the CMAK tutorial say to position a vehicle near a crest where its occupants can see ... I've tried over and over, but I can't find such a position without leaving the vehicle visible to the entire enemy garrison.] A play aid I'd appreciate is to make the AI set up available to the player. The AI could place the player's forces on the map, and the player could then change the AI's positions as he wishes. It can take me hours to set up a defense from my units lined up along the map edge, while the AI needs only a few seconds to do a decent job. I'd appreciate having the AI give me a first approximation which I can then tweak. I read somewhere that killing the FO no longer kills artillery fire the FO has started. I hope this is true. I've been annoyed repeatedly in CMBO at having a rocket barrage end after four or five impacts because the FO calling it in got hit. That just doesn't strike me as realistic.

Wasn't the Brit CO during the East Africa campaign Lieutenant General Cunningham, the Brit army brother of Brit Admiral Cunningham?

Wasn't the Brit CO during the East Africa campaign Lieutenant General Cunningham, the Brit army brother of Brit Admiral Cunningham?