Peterk

Yes, but CMC was in all likelihood a playable standalone article (ie. an actual game) before the links to CMBB were added. Beta-testers will most definitely have to run lots and lots of CMBB battles in the early stages to make sure the fusion is working, but will the end user/designer? After it's released and determined to be working well? Probably not, if he doesn't want to. The way I see it CMC is 3 big black boxes... 1) The CMC engine in which the campaigns get run/loaded. 2) The combat engine that simulates CMBB results 3) The transfer mechanism between CMC and CMBB If I'm the coder, I'm going to test each of those things damn well individually and write dedicated programs to automate a lot of it for me if possible. I'm pretty sure it's possible to write a routine for #2 that simulates convincingly most of the end results of a CMBB game. Squads will have lost men and some may have broken; some AFV and equipment may have been lost and some flags may have changed hands. Yes, there's lots of combinations, but it's not outlandishly difficult. Will simulated results ring 100% true and look "human". Maybe not, but they don't have to...they just have to be close. These are games which are intended to be played by multiple players over the long term. There is no reaonable way for a single campaign designer to extensively check all (or even most) possibilities with CMBB and still release his creation for us to enjoy during the lifespan of CMBB. I think he will have to trust that black box #2 will do a decent job of simulating the results that can occur in CMBB + black box #3...otherwise we're fried.

That part of the game probably does not have to be tested for each individual campaign. You can test it standalone. And once it's working properly you can start to trust it.

I don't see the campaigns taking that long to playtest because of the auto-resolve feature. Testers will NOT have to go into CMBB and play every battle. They just have to make sure that, in general, the CMBB battle set-up is good and that the data transfer at the end is good. CMC campaigns might even end up being easier to test out and balance than an operation in CM is.

John, just for fun, try bumping up ONE leadership quality 1 click. I have a feeling it turns it into a cakewalk. And that's a lesson in and of itself. It's also quite interesting how that exercise gets used as a building block for lots that follows in the 200 series. It's changed my attacking style 100%. p.

Just did 200. If anyone's is losing 2-3 tanks to the gun on the first turn, you're not spacing them up enough. Keep one T34 in the middle and then other two on each edge. You'll probably lose one of them but the gun will not be able to turn quickly enough for 2 hits before you deal with it. It should die on turn 1 or turn 2. Got a tactical victory without reading the advice. I think my problem was that I kept the tanks way back in the set-up area blasting away at suspects until about turn 20. This lessens the power of the shot and I didn't get many early spots...but I didn't know if there were any more AT guns lurking so it's hard to call it a mistake.

Well the real forum for this sort of thing doesn't look all that inviting these days thanks to bigstu's spamming. I'll play. Drop me an e-mail Kiloton of you're still looking. Only caveat...no quick-battles, only scenarios.

Just a note.... The effects of good leadership on green troops can be seen easily by comparing 110 to 111 and 112. When I did 112 for the first time, I aimed my arty barrage 15 minutes out - on the forest behind the objective. Right location but far too late....by then, those guys had stormed forward to reinforce the trenchline. BUT, nevertheless, my green troops were still able to easily rout everyone and they got the early spot on the machine gun while still behind the road/fence. Ended up being far easier than 111. The only difference between 111 and 112, ignoring the artillery (which didn't play much of a role), was the slightly better leadership. I've been playing CMBB for ages and never saw the effects of leadership so clearly before. Rick, It's probably safer NOT setting up one huge movement plot from the start-line to the shellholes. Do it in phases. Get your guys safely behind the buildings first....then get them safely behind the fence in attack formation, set their covered arcs. And then start doing short 30m advances with only 1 or 2 units at a time. By doing it your way, everyone is moving at the same time and you're going to have trouble getting your spots. You need some guys motionless.

This is the most fun I've ever had with CM. Really good stuff. Now we all have to make a set of German training scenarios to compliment these. I tried 110 4 times with knowledge of the winning technique and got clobbered all 4 times. I can get all my guys in good order and spaced out to right behind the fence. I set the covered arcs. One unit gets an advance. MG fires breaks him. No spot. Repeat for the next 3 turns with different moving squads. Usually ends with the whole platoon routed or panicked. I edited the scenario to see how it plays differently using regulars and a bit better leadership. Night and day! The key is that the regulars can get the accurate spot from right behind the fence! My green troops could never manage to do that. The first moving squad will pin and then the next turn you can suppress with everyone from about 150m away. At that distance the MG won't stay totally down but he's toast anyways. After 1 turn of suppression you can use overwatch with 2 moving and 2 firing to get close. I'm going to try a few more times removing some of the bonuses I gave myself, but 110 is probably a little too hard for a 100 level exercise.

"Hail Mary Full Of Grace...Hail Mary Full Of Grace." Yup. Great scene.

Only improvement I could possibly think of. Instead of placing the units in a straight line like this.... X X X X X X X X Is to make a little company grouping like this X X X X X X X X X X X X Makes it a little easier to grab a full company for transport to wherever on the map you want. Big deal? No. Worth changing code for? Probably not. Big setups are supposed to be a bit of work (and be a pain in the butt).

You sure? I've dismounted to fight many times in this forum with no problems whatsoever.

Last time I tried doing an assault on a prepared position with lots of stukas, the planes constantly attacked my infantry moving up to the attack instead of all the juicy pillboxes and trenches 1000 meters away. I tried starting the scenario 3 times to see if it was just bad luck and it was the same thing each time. Trust me, it will probably be a good thing not to have any planes onboard in the scenario. Simulate the effect in CMC instead.

...and the loudest screams for a campaign system came from people who want to play against the AI. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Playing by e-mail has a problem in that it slows things down a great deal, maybe too much, and playing solo will possibly have a problem unless the AI has been fundamentally altered in the new executable (which I doubt, but who knows). I really hope this works out, but it's going to be a "wait and see what others say first" purchase. The initial thrill has worn off after a bit of reflection. (Civ 4 on the other hand... ).

I just tried a biltong mission ater being away from CMBB for a while that fits this bill. Turned out to be a very uninteresting battle. Just to see why it went so badly, I replayed with the fog of war turned off so I could see how the AI was handling it's units and it became obvious (not letting fatigued/exhausted units rest before attacking, not keeping squads close to HQ's, etc. etc). Pretty basic stuff. Again, I'll be really surprised if CMC is even playable against the AI and it won't really be CMC's fault. Some innovative balancing methods will have to employed to compensate for CMBB's AI.

Actually scoutng for the location of things like fixed strongpoints - trenches, pillboxes, etc. may have to be done in CMBB because they may not become fixed until the defender places them in CMBB.

It also looks like a typical method of balancing games against the AI, by increasing their experience level or by using a force multiplier might also be out the door since it risks messing up the communication between CMC and CMBB at the end of the battle. I'm pretty skeptical that this will allow fun campaigns against the CMBB AI. But...we don't know much about it yet.

Actually CMSF specs hadn't been released yet. It was the casual "waste of time" comment that set him off. Must read the whole thread and not just the 3rd page. A lot of old-timers have been losing their cool lately for various reasons.

My guess is that definitely they will fix heavy fortifications as well as possibly trenches, minefields, barbed wire at both campaign design level and at game play level for stuff built/placed while the game is in progress. But that's only a guess based on what I would try to do. Your suggestion of placing a pillbox inside a building is intriguing but that would be a Combat Mission change and that looks like it almost certainly would not be done. CMBB unfortunately doesn't really have any way of simulating an extra heavily fortified building (other than barbed wire /mines on the outside of it) which has always been bad news for those of us trying to simulate Pavlov's House.

Fortified buildings in Stalingrad were often several stories tall making a pillbox a bad choice for simulation purposes as well as esthetic purposes (sorry, streets full of pillboxes just wouldn't evoke Stalingrad for most players). I'd much rather have the big building than a pillbox as a defender in a city. You can squeeze more guys in; you have LOS in all directions and you can retreat when it's no longer tenable. CMC should probably be able to do both - allow a designer to fix locations, as well as allow user placement. If it doesn't do the latter, people will definitely ask for it.

As mentionned in another thread. Playing the battles sequentially might be more orderly, but playing them in paralell will speed up play greatly assuming that you are playing by PBEM.

TCP/IP might become more popular considering how many battles it will require to finish a campaign. Slow PBEM isn't going to cut it with this, unless CMC allows battles in different sectors being fought in paralell.

Yup that's it. Decide how many objectives the AI "should" get for a draw and then penalize him that amount in the Bonus text field. Let me know how it goes. I'm curious myself.

Another idea. You can try freezing 50% of the AI's stuff so that they only get to move when fired on. That will give you a mix of fighting elements and retreating.

Did you give the AI a negative victory point at start of game for #2? You've got to prod him a little bit to realize he's losing if he does nothing. But...I've never verified that the AI can handle exit for points scenarios properly.

The AI will defend/attack ALL victory hexes on the map. If it loses one, it will tend to counterattack to recpature it rather than accept the loss; even if the loss is not that important. For a fighting withdrawal, all I can think of is...don't give the AI any victory hexes at the beginning and make them work back to them (where they will defend to the death, if they make it). OR don't have any victory hexes at all and make the AI exit the map to score. Give the AI a victory point penalty so he realizes he MUST exit to get points.