xerxes

No city fighting in CM? Flamerthrowers are worthless. Pleeese. Play "To the last man" (at the scenario depot) and then tell me flamethrowers are useless. Don't confuse the entirety of CM with QBs. -marc

That sounds like a GREAT rumble idea.

Just a point on euro's being behind the curve. When it comes to cellular, euro's are significantly more advanced then ami's. - more cellular customers per capita - much, much, (several orders of magnitude) greater use of text messaging (through cellular) per capita -marc

I want a .50 caliber vickers! Was there really such a thing? -marc

Re-using the same randomly generated map/forces is cheezy IF your opponent doesn't know this. I'm a little stunned that other people are doing this. Deadly-88 seems like a decent enough sort, it's probably best to chalk it up as a misjudgement and move along. -marc

Counter battery fire generally has to be from your FOs since your onboard mortars have to have LOS (or LOS though their commander). Well placed mortar parks won't be reachable by onboard mortars. The german and ami mortars have a small ammo loadout so they aren't good targets for counterbattery fire.

Front of the slit!!! OMG no! Take the pillbox from the side or rear. It might take a turn or two but your squad will automatically target and get the box. -marc Front of slit, sheesh, that's where the GUNS are. (just kidding, until you perform your first pillboxectomy it really isn't clear how this all works)

Against the brit 3" deployed as a mortar "park" (3+ mortars under one commander) counter battery fire is a very good choice (105s are good for this, but even 81mm will do the trick in a pinch). If you let the 3"'s play their game you will pay. The german and american onboard mortars don't really have enough of an ammo load to make counterbattery fire worthwhile. -marc

and if the spotting round makes a big hole the adroit and immediate use of the "withdraw" command will be appreciated by your virtual troops. -marc

I'd like to have seen the PzIII in CM, it would have been a good german light tank. I;m sure it'll be in CMII which is cool. -marc

I can certainly understand why people like QBs, in truth I've had some great QB games. But, my most exciting and challenging games have been scenarios. The biggest difference in scenarios (double-blind of course) is that the uncertainty makes every move much more of a gamble. In a ME QB, you can calculate for the opening move exactly where your opponent can be. In a historical scenario, the enemy may very well appear out of the blue. Contrary to some opinions, you can play historical scenarios on the ladders, I certainly do. I trust my opponents not to peek at the map. I'm 100% certain none of them ever have. As for setup, I've spent as much time "walking the field" in a defensive scenario as in any QB. Initial placement is key to a good defense. From what I've seen scenario designers do a reasonable placement of troops, but I'll always rearrange them. - marc

Taking over 1/4 of the way through sounds truely challenging. I'll give it a go. - marc vmclz@swbell.net

Having played a number of QBs and just started playing historical scenarios I've come to a resolution. No more QBs for me. Why QBs are a travesty: 1. Gamey force selections 2. Rules to prevent gamey force selections 3. The less cost effective units are never used 4. QBs are sooo predictable 5. Maps are way too similar I've played (am playing) Sword, Fear in the Fog, Vossenack, Walhaussen, Ham&Jam. They are all great fun, tense and very challenging. I've come to the conclusion that CM was meant to be played as scenarios and that's were the game really shines. -marc

It's illegal to charge credit cards in advance (more than 30 days) for products that will ship. Given BTS is squishy on when they will ship, I can understand their hesitation to take pre-orders. Anyone pre-ordering is going to buy anyways so it really doesn't gain BTS anything but some potential headaches. I assume BTS cashflow is doing fine. Does anyone know about how many copies of CM1 were sold? -marc

You attempts at deception Tom (aka Pilgrim) will fail. I know you have a boatload of minefields and wire and I have merely engaged your frontal distraction forces. -marc

I would heartily agree that a fire-based attritionist approach can be very successful in CM. Attacking a town is probably the ideal situation. Infantry in heavy buildings with mg support correctly deployed are extraordinarily difficult to deal with. Direct fire HE is essential. Given that, let me relate an attack with a quite different story. A probe in farmlands, heavy woods, the attacking force is SS, defender is british paras. Approximate forces: Attacker (myself): 1 co of motorized inf 1 co of regular inf 1 wespe 2 Stuh 1 105 FO Defender: 2+ brit para cos 3 vickers minefields, wire Terrain: A difficult map, heavily woods with a huge set of woods in the middle of the defense. A ridge provided additional cover to his middle defense and allowed the Brits unlimited movement from the left to the right. The left flank had heavy woods a bit back. The right flank had a couple houses, more scattered woods and a church on the edge of the center woods. All the VLs are in woods, the left side VLs are exposed to direct HE fire. The center VLs are invulnerable to direct HE due to being in deep woods. This was perfect anti-tank piat terrain. Battle Plan: Analysis: A frontal attack: This would place me at point blank range to entrenched paras without being able to support the attack with HE or MGs. Only indirect fire from the 105 FO would be available. Additionally, the defender could shift his flanks in to support the center without being interdicted. An attritionist approach appeared to be suicide to me. Left flank: More VLs but good defensive terrain. Right flank: No VLs, but weaker defensive terrain. First turn reveals that wire is deployed on the left and center. Strategy: Fake left, go right, roll up his flank and move towards the center through the woods with overwhelming infantry engaging and defeating his forces in detail. I deployed a holding/distracting force on the left flank of 1 stuh, a platoon of motorized, all the mg42s and on-board mortars. This force would make it’s presence known immediately in an attempt to draw mobile defenders to my left. Center: Light screening force, mg42s, these would attemp to hinder movement between his center and left and then move to support my left flank. Right: Schwerpunk [i just like that word] maneuver force, Stuh, Wespe, 2 platoons motorized, 1 co german ’44 inf. Phase 1: Left flank scouts and engages at range. Center sets up as best it can to interdict. Phase 2: Smoking the church, 2 motorized platoons and 1 ’44 platoon assault the church capturing a para platoon. The remaining 2 ’44 platoons sweep the far right supported by the stuh. Light resistance causes higher than expected casualties but the right flank is cleared in good order. The attack is on schedule. Phase 3: Moving as quickly as possible the Schwerpunk enters the heavy woods from the right. An understrength para platoon is encountered at the totally wooded first VL. A pitched close range infantry battle rages and even though the British are finally routed, very high SS losses are incurred and many of my platoons are running low on ammo. Phase 4: Continuing my Schwerpunk advance from the right to the center through the woods appears ill-advised. The British can easily reinforce center. I might take the next VL but my infantry would be exhausted in doing so. Instead of the direct approach I wheel almost my entire Schwerpunk all the way behind the woods (all the way to the back map edge) and engage the left flank and center from the rear. At the same time my weak left engages, catching the defenders in a crossfire. Phase 5: Time is running out, I make a too hasty assault but manage to take most of the VLs. The British are hamstrung because they can no longer maneuver, reinforce or retreat. I would argue I’ve conducted a maneuver strategy here (avoid enemy strength, move fast to keep the enemy off-balance and finally place him in an untenable position). I also think an attrition strategy would have failed due to the very poor LOS conditions created by the terrain. The defender did not cluster his infantry to allow my artillery to be effective, they were spread out but had mutually supporting fire lanes. -marc

Just to bring things down to earth. Translated into CM terms, what would the maneuverist vs attritionist doctrines be? For a meeting engagement? For an attack? For a defence? Just wondering. -marc

Hunt does a couple of things. 1. moves very slowly 2. afv has the highest ability to identify targets/threats while on the move 3. if enemy afv is seen your tank will stop in a hull down position if possible and fire. Note: while moving your afvs are very poor at spotting enemy infantry in cover which can make for nasty surprises. -marc

44 as of dec 7. Just trying to raise the average. My first wargame was Blitzkrieg (aka Sitzkreig), I loved it anyways. - marc sullivan

I don't like TDs or any other dedicated anti-armor assets that aren't effective against infantry. Dual role units are more expensive but they won't leave you with stranded points that lack targets (if your opponent goes heavy infantry and arty). But then again I dislike player pick QBs because force selection gambits are too much of the game. -marc

One danger in making firebases out of 3 or 4 mortars is that it creates a juicy target for counter battery fire. This is a particular danger to the brit 3" mortars because they have an excellent ammo load. One turn of 81mm mortar counterbattery fire will put a serious hurt on your firebase. Just a thought. -marc

I've installed building mods but I get a really weird effect. Sometimes one of the walls of my small building are changed to be a flag, these walls also "reflect" explosions. Very odd. Should I just reinstall or is there some conflict I've created? Anyone have similar problems? -marc

Glad to hear that rarity and computer pick are working well together. In my experience CMI normally does a very good and realistic job picking troops. Every now and then something oddball comes up but rarity would greatly reduce that issue. But to fully appreciate the new rarity system I would need to do some extensive testing. Could you send me a beta test copy of CMII? I'll report extensively on my "blatant attempt to be a gamey force selection wank" testing results. deal? -marc

Rarity by availability makes great sense, even more so if you attach a probability to the number of units of a particular type being available. But...fundamentally, player picked forces are going to be problematic no matter HOW you design it. Any unit selection system can (and will) be gamed. As flexibility in unit selection increases gaming the system becomes more and more advantageous. Any attempt to reduce unit selection gaming has to reduce purchasing flexibility. Obviously computer pick has 0 flexibility and 0 gameability. The current CM system is quite high on gameability due to the very large number of unit choices. Rarity will reduce gameability somewhat by make some units simply "too expensive". Limiting the # of any specific unit (or a sliding cost scale based on the # you pick) would significantly reduce the gameability of force selection. No more 15 HMCs. Personally I think there are really only three options for non-gamey forces, computer pick, 3rd party pick, and pre-made scenarios. -marc

You need LOS for speed and accuracy. Your opponents are probably adjusting rather than replotting a whole new strike. -marc