Oddball_E8

I'm not talking about human waves or stuff like that, and I think most of you know that. I'm talking about the obvious numerical superiority that the russians had. If there was a near 10 to 1 ratio of troops on most fronts, why are most of the battles on a near 1 to 1 ratio of what it was in CMBN? Let's take an armour example just for fun: Total number of T-34's produced (all variants) during the war was around 84.000 units. Total number of PzIII, PzIV, Panther, Tiger and Tiger 2 produced during the war was around 21.000 units combined. Yes, I know that more T-34's were knocked out than panthers, tigers and whatnot, but still it points to a severe numerical advantage. And let's not go into infantry numbers... The point I'm trying to make here is that the russians severely outnumbered the germans in most situations and yet that doesn't shine through in most scenarios I've played so far.

I have to relog every time I visit too. I wouldn't mind being able to preview the photos after I have selected the mod (as it stands you can only do that while still in the list view). More sorting options would be nice too. But even if you kept it just the way it is, I'd be happy

Oh I used recon... And they all died without seeing the enemy (except for one very lucky T-70 that I put up a video of in the screenshot thread). Most of my recon infantry was mowed down before they could even see the enemy (while on hunt in the forests). All of my recon tanks (which, after the loss of the 4 T-70's, consisted of T-34/85's) died without spotting the enemy before doing so. The only time I had any success was when I actually tried to steamroll the enemy with all my available tanks at the time, and even then I have to call losing all my tanks but taking out most of theirs "success". Honestly, I believe the main flaw with this scenario is that it is billed as a meeting engagement, but plays out as an attack. So what we have here is a scenario where there is a clear defender and a clear attacker (which is not the case in meeting engagements), but the defender has almost the same strength of units as the attacker (some might even argue that he has more since the Panther vastly outperforms the T-34/85 at any distance over 600m). Anyway, this thread has gone into specifics about one scenario. I was talking about the overall feel of the scenarios in the game. And I still feel like the scenario designers have tried to balance the fights too much. There is no sense of the "russian horde" in most scenarios. It feels alot like CMBN but with different tanks... I can't describe it very well, but it just doesn't feel like the ostfront most of the time. I don't know if it's because the scenario designers felt that they had to be conservative so that the scenarios could be played H2H or what, but something is lackin. Of course, that is just my opinion.

When I say "down the center" I don't mean along the main road (I rarely travel along the actual roads with anything other than trucks, and even then not very often). I mean along the open area that snakes its way down the center.

Hahaha when I opened the thread I could only see the vanilla picture and didn't read the text. So I was sitting there thinking "but... isn't that how it looks normally? What did he change?" for quite a while I'm really tired now, I should go to bed. Great work tho!

I made some normalmaps for your impact decals... well, the ones I use anyway.

You know what I find somewhat amusing with this post? You say it's all a matter of comitting to one side or the other. But if you read the briefing and consider it the way it is written (germans on the run, a few spread out stragglers that might try to form a defense, but mostly a mopping up action), why on earth would anyone pick any strategy other than going straight down the middle? I mean, sure, we all know that there's bound to be troops hidden in the woods and flanks, but to a commander that was given that briefing, I doubt any of them would say "ok, let's not drive our tanks down the open areas to make quick progress, instead we'll move our tanks through the woods and avoid all the open areas when we chase down the fleeing enemy with all haste." Does that sound right to you?

Well, that escalated quickly...

Very nice! Been looking for a good horizon mod! (also, that glitch is nothing you notice when playing the game Aris, it's just modders like you that'll get annoyed by it )

Since we are on this scenario specifically (even though I was only using it as an example of an overall trend), I'll post my thoughts on it. Throughout the briefing this was made to sound like an attack scenario. It even plays out as an attack scenario (considering the setup zones of the germans covering 70-80% of the map) and not a Meeting Engagement as it is advertised as by the designer here. If this was indeed a Meeting Engagement and the setups were designed as a meeting engagement, the number of tanks on the german side would still feel a bit over the top considering the length of the map and the distances of engagement in most places. The Panther is effectively a heavy tank compared to the T-34/85 at any longer distances. Now, I feel that the main problem with it is indeed the number of german tanks that are severely difficult to kill with the russian T-34's from any distance greater than 600 meters (assuming the AI doesn't turn it's side, which is how I took out three of the panthers. I dread to imagine how it would have played out if those panthers had stayed facing their front to me). In my view, what we have here is an attack or even assault scenario with a severely undersized attack force. Either that or a direct lie in the briefing that states that you are to push through these rear-guard elements that are blocking your path. EDIT: Sidenote about the panther. I keep seeing it in almost every scenario. And it feels wierd since, while they were supposedly the main tank of the german army, the Pz IV still outnumbered it and those rarely show up except as a "one-off" here and there. Granted, I still haven't played through all the scenarios, but that's the feeling I'm getting. I know there is a fascination with the Panther (and the Tiger) so a bias for that with scenario designers is to be expected, but still... it strikes me as odd.

I'm just going to bring up one of the more obvious examples of this (while trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible) Now, the briefing states something to the effect of "you are chasing down the fleeing germans. There may be slight resistance consisting of rag-tag rearguards but they should be no problem for you. Advance as fast as possible." Now. Looking at the stats here, the defending germans has the following: 215 men 6 Panthers 2 PzIV H 2 Hetzer 1 Möbelwagen 1 Pak 40 75mm AT-gun. 3 platoons of infantry with support (3lmg, 2hmg, flamethrowers and Anti-Tank teams). The russians have: 326 men 14 T-34/85's 4 T-70 light tanks 8 platoons of mixed infantry with support (MMG's and PTRD's) On-Map artillery consisting of 4 81mm mortars with very little ammo (30 rounds each). Now... I know this is supposed to be one of those "oh my, you ran into more resistance than you thougt" scenarios. But, unless you play it as one of those from the start, you will struggle to meet the victory conditions. Especially since most engagements between tanks on this map will take place at 600-2k (unless you drive your tanks through woods or other movement patterns that don't really make sense for the scenario). Add to that, the fact that the map is so long that you can't really move your infantry on foot all the way and you have to clear a bunch of areas along the way. Now, This would probably be a good scenario (IMHO) if it had either noted in the briefing that it seems the resistance seems harder than usual OR if the defender had fewer tanks at their disposal (or the attacker got more reinforcements). The only thing that might redeem this scenario is that it is listed as a Meeting Engagement and not an assault or attack. HOWEVER, the briefing certainly does not paint it out as a meeting engagement so it is very easy to miss that. (which I obviously did since I treated it as an attack.)

Well that's true, but many of the scenarios are designed to be played from only one side. There doesn't have to be that careful balance then. Speak for yourself. I prefer missions where I am outnumbered and where it's a real struggle to survive despite the odds when playing on the defensive. I can tell you this much, the scenario I'm currently playing would be a complete cakewalk if I was playing as the defender. Even against a human opponent, I don't see how it would have been anything but a huge struggle for the attacker. (Won't name the scenario, but the russians have about 2x the tanks from what I can gather, but they're all T-34/85's and the germans have Panthers at relatively long ranges and with good flanking positions. Add to that some of the newly nigh-unspottable AT guns and the attacker is in for an extremely rough time)

See? I told you they were a great bunch!

In some scenarios (I won't name them) you get the idea in the briefing that the germans are trying to stall you with a small group of rear guard units or something like that. And then when you play the scenario, it turns out the germans have almost as many tanks as you do (often panther or tiger tanks) which just strikes me as odd. At this time the germans had far fewer tanks than the russians and the norm would be that the russians would outnumber them by quite alot (which is fine if you fight at long ranges since the germans tend to dominate then anyway). But when you start getting missions where the germans are only outnumbered by a factor of say 1.5 to 1 it starts feeling odd. maby I've just got this preconcieved notion that the russians tended to attack with large numbers of tanks while the germans were largely outnumbered, but it just feels wrong to me. Don't get me wrong, this isn't because I'm some sort of russophile, far from it (although I do tend to like the look of the russian tanks over the germans). I love playing missions as the underdog germans trying to fight off a hord of russians. But in some scenarios in the game it just feels like a 1 on 1 fight almost. And in those cases, it just feels off to have the russians attack with a force comprised of almost equal numbers of tanks. Or rather, it feels odd that the germans would leave such a large number of panthers or tigers as a rearguard unit. Meh... maby it's just me.

You might want to consider releasing a soundmod Alot of people seem to like the sounds (me included!) and most soundmodders are very lenient on using their sounds in your mod. And if anyone opposes you, I'm sure me and jorge can have a chat with them to make them realize that it's good for them to help other modders

I wish I could Unemployed without benefits isn't much of a basis for donating anything to anyone However, I happen to know that the CM community is a great bunch of people and I'm sure someone will donate more than you need to keep this great service running

I like it all

Addition to 3: You won't know yourself tho. The AA doesn't get a "kill" for the aircraft after the battle.

Could you change the map so that you don't use landmarks to annotate the terrains but objectives instead? Objectives have white text Much easier to see (or in my case, possible to see since I just can't read the red ones)

I thought it was a game where you built your own dioramas to look at and take pictures of

Any chance of you ever making a german tank with the ambush camo? Like this: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_XKSEIruWqI/UUIcsiVw2OI/AAAAAAAAASE/Z2H9sltJ7A0/s1600/DSCF6386.JPG

From the sound of it, I'd say one of JorgeMC's mods or possibly Bodkins' mod. Definately not mine or Waclaws.

IIRC the maximum time limit is 3 hours with an added 1 hour maximum added time. So if you can't complete a CM scenario in 3 hours, that's kinda bad man...

Heh, yeah, my first thought on the video was that I have never been able to pull of an assault like that in a CMx2 game. I wonder how he did it. Massive artillery bombardment before the assault or during? Several MG's on supressive fire? I want to know