Joachim

They changed the auto-resolve? I thought the most important change was that sieges are not lifted when loading a game. Guess in CMC vs the AI we will see likely lopsided sideshows getting auto-resolved while the stack of death will be human-controlled. Which reminds me of sumthing.... can the Operational AI handle human stacks. It will be tough to stop a stack of death in H2H, but I fear the AI will fail miserably. Gruß Joachim

IIRC... You can only continue a game that was saved in the AAR screen. So if you don't play till the end, you need a ceasefire or surrender first. The latter removes the troops of the surrendering side, of course. The start a new QB and load the save as the map, saying "Yes" when asked to import the troops. You can buy additional units for both sides. I think you can't load the save into the editor. Gruß Joachim

In an op, off-board arty is moved forward or to the rear between battles - just as the front moves. Of course you can include a few howitzers or anything resembling rear area troops in an op. Even in a scen - if it resembles the situation after a breakthru. Gruß Joachim

Depends if you have the time limit on or off. Without a limit, sieges are pretty easy. Even with a time limit, it is usually better to be patient to force your way in. And never fight on walls. Head towards the city square, cut off the defenders on the walls and have some archers ready to rush in on the walls once the defenders leave the walls to aid the city center. Back on topic: A skilled human would take some long range shots at the Shermans, likely kill 2 or 3 and then retreat off battle. Auto resolve should resemble this. Gruß Joachim

Have fun. Maybe I'll wear my Myrtle Beach Hard Rock Cafe T-Shirt to celebrate the event. Gruß Joachim

Hey... these are IT projects. Average factor of time needed to time planned is 2.8 Firts plan is based on optimism and enthusiasm. Then you have to spend attention to all those details... and test... program... test. Gruß Joachim

Treebursts reappearance reminds me to continue work on a certain map. I'm still on the project... but the weather is too good and there is too much work... Gruß Joachim

What is best depends on your intentions. If you want to delay the enemy in that area, you might fire at range to force him to deploy while you shift reserves into his axis of attack. Then the reserves are your intended killers. If you want to kill where you are - low ranges. Radius of covered arcs depend on terrain, your weapons and the enemy's weapons. Squads with 2 LMGs are effective at 100m and will still kill parts of the the routing enemy at 150m while "SMG only" inf prefer 40m - the enemy usually won't find time to rout towards 70m where SMG fp starts to fade. Gruß Joachim

Du auch. Wie war die Feier für Platz 1-3? Gruß Joachim

The "TacAI" of TW series is worse than CM - just think of all those phalanx units leaving the line when engaging a maneuvering enemy. CM has no cohesion between units, but TW is absolute crap when it comes to that. I regularly lose less than 5% of my force when autoresolve would get it wiped out. Autoresolve will hopefully depend on players skill. Gruß Joachim

Shipping and handling will add 5$ or more for a printed version - plus some tax for several countries. So you either get 5$ for sending an email (convenient) or 5$ plus cost of printing plus S&H plus tax plus some time handling these issues. Guess you'll see more legal buyers at 5$ than with 15$. There are pirates, of course - but they can as well get their hands on a scanned version of your work. IMHO piracy is best fought if you offer real bang for the buck. Just look at the guys here. I'd even spend money on getting a replacement CD for CM - but I dunno when I bought the last music CD (at 15€ = 18$). (Nope, don't pirate music either - I just don't buy something that I have to copy so it does run in my car CD player if I am not allowed to copy it) Gruß Joachim

Operatinal arty might hit stacks harder. Depends on CMC arty rules, not CM arty. Yes. Depends on the overall force advantage. With 3:1 you can just move forward across the whole frontage anyway. Sometimes inflicting losses trua a Pak Front can be decisive. It depends on the force structures. E.g. an Axis attack in '41 or '42 should be easy to hurt with a rather cheap Pak Front. If the stack of death is massive, the Pak Front will die. In a speedy attack many tanks will die. In a slow attack, many forces will escape. That's where operational recce is needed. A massive stack should give some hints for the enemy... And there should be some traffic jams if it moves thus it should be slower than a single ME Your batteries are behind your stack or count as onboard guns. Don't guard your rear and they might die. Don't guard your comm lines ant they might not be available to your stack. Not attacking in every field. If you have some operational intelligence, you can select a few points for your attack. One btn sized ME vs a screening company will achieve about the same as the massive stack of death. Yes. With most of your force in one fist you might devastate each sector you attack. But what happens if you only find a weak company in each sector? You destroy one company per turn. Somebody else attacks 3 sectors defended by companies with 3 btn sized MEs. He destroys 3 companies. Yes - especially with a certain type of players you will see high casualty rates. Winning the battle is more important than winning the war. But I doubt that one side is enough to force high casualty rates. I can't see how the defender can force high casualty rates on the attacker if the attacker stops his attack. Or how to inflict casualties on a defender that just moves off-map in turn 1. If you are the attacker and the enemy is so weak he can't attack at all and there is no time pressure, this will do. But this would make for a very boring CMC op. In all other cases, it will be hard to avoid other fights vs a skilled opponent. Plus as stated above, hitting thin air cause the opponent moves away will just give you ground, which is not that valuable. It all depends on the ruleset of CMC - and the field commanders which must obey orders to withdraw. Gruß Joachim

The arty should do the trick - if operational recce is present or you can shell an area after it was taken. Favorite parameters for lots of players: "ME, little arty, open ground, lots of turns". Gruß Joachim

The big question is whether there are strategies to beat what Jason outlined. What can the game designers do? a) Rules for withdrawal of forces from a battle Replacement of equipment when crews survive c) Enough possibilites for operational recce so there is some info about what hits a CM battle before the battle starts d) Rules for supply/support e) Operational rules that value strategic ground. How could players take advantage of these rules? a)+ CM players would need to put up listening posts and actually withdraw if they stand no chance. Proper recce in a battle would allow for withdrawal of the main body - with a question about some slow units like guns, HMGs or wire FOs. These can't abandon their equipment. -> You'd need commanders for CM battles that will accept they won't play much that game. No "stand an die" or "hold at all costs". c) Would allow the operational commanders to assign commanders for withdrawals that can play these types of battles - delay, inflict casualties but get their troops out. d) Would create problems supplying these moving stacks of death. If there is only one supply route and the enemy is allowed to shell it to interdict traffic, more casualties of the attacker should count as "dead" as they don't get back to the field hospitals in time - and the most important thing: No ammo and fuel gets forward. -> Tanks without fuel need to be "dug-in" in battles or just abandoned and could not move with the stack. -> Dominant hills with LOS to supply routes should be OPs to destroy supplies or shell movement. As a result, operational commanders would need to consider flank security. This would force them to divert troops. e) If there is one huge stack and little forces elsewhere plus the knowledge about that stack due to operational recce, it might pay to withdraw from that stack and attack elsewhere with "economical" forces that are just enough to win some importanmt ground and head towards likely supply chokepoints. It is then up to CMC map designers to have maps that allow for e) Gruß Joachim

Not sure... but ammo loadout may be a function of two (or more) random numbers with a fixed sum. This could result in a weird distribution when checking only for one variable. They might have a distribution for each round with given percentages. First round: p1% for HE, p2% for AP, p3% for HEAT, p4% for T with p1%+p2%+p3%+p4% = 100% = 1 The probability for having n HEAT rounds is then given by some formula including p3% and (1-p3%). IIRC for p2%=0 and p4%=0 this should result in a distribution with two peaks. But I'm too tired and some Glenfiddich Havana Reserve accompanying a Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No.1 took its toll on my brain. Gruß Joachim

a) Shooting thru woods reduces hit probability. Suppression reduces hit prob. c) Flat flank shots are best for zooks - if you want penetrations from your hits So be patient and button the tanks with MG fire or something. Keep them occupied with something else far away from the zooks. Overlapping covered arcs work best. The covered arc of the feint is 10m further down the road than that of the zooks. Dependingon your opponent's skill, your tactics should be more complex. Gruß Joachim

Guess I have to add a few lines to my post above: If one unit does spot the enemy, a nearby unit will not necessarily have instant knowledge about the enemy - but the intel will spread out over time. Intel can be spread via radio, via handsigns, via observing other units firing in the direction of the enemy or sumfink else. Word about heavy wpns should spread quicker than about low value targets. Is that borg spotting or modelling of RL? The penalty models the time it takes till intel is shared. In the orders phase, borg spotting is instant on for all. One unit spotting the enemy in second 59 will mean it is spotted by all for the next turn. There is some borg spotting in the go phase as it seems a unit becomes a generic unti marker (aka drops from sight) only after all units loose LOS. Gruß Joachim

Plt HQs in command range will alway overrule Co or Btn HQ. Only if a squad is out of range of its designated plt HQ the higher HQs can take over. For weapons teams the nearest HQ (in command range) will usually assume command. Gruß Joachim

To fire accurately they had to be properly deployed. They could fire from the chassis. I had an advance op where the position of an 88 became off-map between battles. The gun was gone then. There were 2 SdKfz7s which enabled me to "move" the 88s. Interestingly the 88s always received pre-planned arty on turn 0 - no matter where I placed them embarked on the SdKfz7. And there were positions out of enemy LOS. Gruß Joachim

Aim low - win high. Do not plan for total victory from the start. Time pressure will lead to mistakes and unnecessary early losses. Early losses mean points for the enemy - and can't kill, thus will not score for you. It is very important to have a realistic plan with an achievable goal. Guess how far you can advance, how many losses you will inflict and how many flags you will take. This is your realistic score. If you try to outperform, you'll more likely perform lower than that. In a current game I take a small gamble to capture 40% of the flag points - but I'm pretty sure I'll capture the other 60% and have already inflicted much more losses than I suffered. Guestimated result is 75:25. You'd be glad if you had a score like this in American football or basketball. Why do you need 90:10 in CM? Gruß Joachim

Just guessing: A night attack thru thinly manned lines means you will find a weak spot somewhere and penetrate into the rear areas. Heavy wpns can replace bayonet strenght in good visibility. But in low viz, you need men to hold the ground. German defense was based on heavy wpns. Attack strategically, defend tactically. A German theorem in WW2. Hit a weak spot, send your tanks thru, cut off forward lines and force the defender to attack the attacker to avoid getting cut off. Plus it is much easier to field your ATGs on the defense. All of your units have cover and concealment thus first shots while the enemy must come to you. If you attack into an assembling enemy, you might still run into some overwatch units. If you run into a Pak front and then the Germans counterattack from their assemly area, they might cut off your bridgehead. If you know they will attack, you might try to play this trick on them. I'd happily give the initiative of attacking to the Germans as the surprise is still with me - so actually I still have the initiative. The one who attacks is not alway the one with the initiative.... just look at Cannae or operation "Backhand Blow" Gruß Joachim

Seems snowy fields become gras tiles after the snow melts away in the parameters, too.

After you hit "GO" there is a black rectangle in the center of the screen. A light green bar indicates progress of the calcs of the "StratAI" - aka the AI plots commands for its units. Then there starts a small blue bar in the center of the command panel. It indicates the progress of the calcs of the TacAI. IMHO the TacAI works like this: For each "time-unit" (must be less than seconds) the TacAI checks each unit - for LOS to its targets, - scans LOS for enemy units - check whether enemy unit counts as spotted - check whether enemy is a threat and react accordingly overriding the command sequence and initiating evasive or attack action. - check for collisions - check for LOS to target - check for suppression/incoming - no or only a "realistic" broadcast of "enemy over there"-message. This is based on a) observation of progress of blue bar and how I would design it Dunno if it is really as I think it is - but keeping these actions in mind helps me planning my moves. Even if your inf squad 10m ahead of the tank spots an ATG, the tank does not necessarily spot it during the turn. To delete a command in the middle of the command sequence, select the white or red waypoint indicating the end of that move (not of the sequence) and press delete. Sometimes it works. Gruß Joachim [ June 24, 2006, 01:20 PM: Message edited by: Joachim ]

Borg spotting only works in the Command phase. During the Go-Phase, Borg Spotting does not work as units seem to be calculated individually with the TacAI. In the green bar phase the AI issues its command. In the blue bar phase the TacAI is calculated. I use this knowledge to time my moves. Closing hatches in the first seconds of a turn, then hunting up into shooting positions with an additional reverse command issued. Next turn I delete the hunt command and have a zero-delay reverse command before my tank becomes the target of anything with LOS. Gruß Joachim

Nope. No replay available. No tool for battles vs the AI. IIRC there is one that plays all the movie files of PBEM battles, but I forgot the name. Gruß Joachim