securityguard

Sometimes them 'throwing' a grenade is an abstraction of them actually doing something with it, such as running up to the tank and putting it in an elaborate spot. The churchhill incident doesn't seem wacky - the 'engine cut off' noise is a generic sound used for when you immobilize a tank. They probably felt vulnerable after that and bailed. I've seen it happen with tons of immobilized tanks that get over whelmed. The Tiger incident isn't too weird, either. A KO is extremely rare, but I remember when .50 caliber guns from planes KO'ing them caused quite a ruckus on these forums during the demo era. From what I remember, all tanks have some sort of extremely vulnerable area that can be exploited. Is it rare and risky for an infantry to try it? Yeah, but it can happen. I recently played an CMBB game where a crack tank hunter team was running full steam at a Stug with the run command, then threw his RPG out around 40 meters (while running) and landed the round so good the Stug exploded. Tank hunter was under fire from all angles, as well. Probability of that happening is nearly 0 percent, but it did happen!

Are these guys modeled in CM? I want to slide them down steep contours.

Whoa

Not really, it's just as easy to make a battle as gamey as CMBO is. Even CMBO had 'rules' made up by the players to create balanced battles, since the game wasn't inherently balanced. However it is true that CMBO is far more a 'game' than it is a 'simulation'. Thus making a balanced battle in CMBB and CMAK a little harder, since there are more variables for disaster than success. I suppose that makes it a simulation since you don't have many options many times, even in a perfectly matched up battle. I've been playing CM series for years now and while I agree CMBO is easier to play, I guess I don't find easier = more fun. Totally different strokes for different folks.

PBEM takes weeks to complete, from what I've seen. Even with fast opponents. Something always comes up. I'm not totally innocent, I've abandoned PBEM's before, but I have yet to successfully complete an entire game over e-mail. TCP/IP only takes around one hour for a single battle. It keeps you focused the entire time. Almost no one uses the 'turn clock'. No, you are not pressured in any way to do turns. Some of my bigger battles take several minutes per turn - this is why there is a 'save' function so you can return to these huge battles. TCP/IP is the way to play and I'm not quite sure why people defend PBEM so much (It's probably not being included in CM2, thus the complaints). I realize a lot of people don't have time on their hands, but there are people that do and saving games then returning to them is no problem. I'd rather split up a TCP/IP game over 3 days than play a PBEM over a month.

I can micromanage about a half battallion before I lose focus. Micromanaging in this game is never a waste, unless it hinders your movement vs time.

I also think ground affects smoke shells as well. Opponent of mine shot a 75mm smoke shell through snow and strong wind (no idea why) and smoke didn't even appear. However on dry, windy conditions I saw a 81mm mortar smoke last a little while. It also seems like it takes multiple shots to get an effect. If you fire one small caliber smoke round it usually doesn't have any effect.

I hate to bump a year old thread, but I have some questions: 1. Is it possible to have two battles a month? It assigned me the same month twice, and it clearly knows its the next battle... If not, is it okay to change month? or will that screw up the spreadsheet? 2. How do promotions work? You get a certain promotion count, then it automaticly promotes you?

ME: 25-30+ turns Attack: 45+ turns

What sort of terrain are you in? Most likely you will beat the crap out of him if you have a fair LOS across a fair distance. Like everyone else said, level EVERYTHING. Don't leave an inch uncratered! Make sure those Brummbars have 0 HE by the end of the battle (but don't needlessly waste it, put it in estimated positions)

It's not a game breaking bug but man does it hurt the eyes. The tree colors clash against the bright snow like gladiators, it makes me squint.

All I know is, on medium sized assaults a barbwire & mine defense is almost crucial. Last assault I played all of my enemies tanks - except one - were mined. Wet condition assaults are especially easy to barb and mine, because the enemy is way more likely to take easier routes due to time or bogging. It is A LOT harder to barbwire and mine a map thats fairly open or large, but on a map where you know the enemy will have to move through you can stop them before they even start. QB Assaults are especially hard... you do not get many forces, just defenses which are worthless without the forces using those defenses. I'll echo the bunker statement - they are fairly useless except at abnormal ranges where 88mm bunkers can put up a fight (they are ranged in like TRP's, so at range they will hit by the first or second shot).

They definitely require rules, but if you're playing someone you trust then I'm sure they will agree with rules as well. Some ops are just initially broken, especially ones with bridges or islands. You gain more than you actually pushed, causing deployment weirdness. No written rules as of yet, but I may write them down sometime if I can get a consistant enough playability. No proposed point setup. I usually buy a few companies and tanks to 'fill' the map and get a good idea how large the point setup should be, then I round off how much I bought. I setup reinforcements every other battle (battle 2 has major reinforcements, 3 has none, 4 has some, 5 has some, 6 has none, etc.). Use best judgement according to strength of particular countries units are. Allies buy first, then the file is sent to Axis player (because of the way purchase screen is setup). After each side buys they tell each other what final pt total is. If one side is 50 points down or more, he can buy an extra support. Then you just load the map and play (no need to put them in deployment zones in editor, you can do that on first battle setup). This works majority of time but I'm still practicing how to fix reinforcements. If both sides are really slugging it out, the battle is balanced. If one side gets and edge at any time, that edge turns into a blade fast since the other player cannot catch up through reinforcements. I think adding a major divisional reinforcement would help balance.

It's a rough way of balance, plus there are lots of factors that might unbalance the op, but heres how I do it in a pinch: I first get the points for each side by going into a real QB with an estimated point size and recording how the QB balances it. So for a 3000pt combined arms battle you'll have 1450 infantry, 300 support, 100 veh, 900 armor, 150 artillery. Lets say you want more tanks in the op, so we replace 250 infantry pts with 300 extra tank points. Thats around 3050pts. I found in my ops that both sides won't have exact same point totals, but it doesn't matter as long as you're within 100pts of each other. I base reinforcements roughly on how good each sides equipment is and the terrain. American vs German late battle, americans would get more tank pts for reinforcements each battle, as an example. Anyways, how branching works: lets say on the first battle I see that germans get nice big rocket artillery but not enough points to buy them. They are 700pts, and obviously powerful. For first battle points, I give the option to the player to take away some points to add points to another section. For a 700pt spotter, I'd let them take away 250 infantry and 600 armor to add around 650pts to artillery. The artillery is probably worth more than that infantry and armor combined, especially if the op is long and resupply is large. These point numbers are defined by me and not the player, so he can't take away from other areas, just those. This is a really rough example, way more thought goes into balancing it but thats the jist of it. So far all the QB's I've played using this method have been extremely balanced, almost to a point where it's impossible to predict what exactly will happen or what the person might be carrying in his next reinforcement. It never gets gamey or too unrealistic, either. When designing the op you just have to think ahead, but a little effort goes a long way for a very satisfying experience.

I create ops on a QB scale (static ops). I set a number of points for each side, buy my units then send it to a friend so he can buy his units. On an honor system it works near perfectly, but one side tends to dominate the other because I haven't quite got the reinforcement balance down correctly. When the battles are 50/50 though they are intense and it creates a sense of worth. Having the same, persistant units fight out for 8 battles is fun and gives you lots of options since time isn't against you (and you get resupply). I'd wager to say it's a million times more realistic than a QB especially if you set up the points to 'branch off' giving each side to buy extra artillery in expense of infantry / armor, etc. It's a lot less predictable and 1:1 meeting engagementy.

With 120pts to blow I'd go with #4. Mortar fire be damned, it won't just route the infantry but completely decimate them. Also, for 120pts you could probably get a vet / crack 150mm, but I'm not sure of the points total. It's a gamble the proceeding turns, but it will work the turn you do use it. If you HAVE to tow it then it's probably not a great idea. So #4 and #2 are risky since you have to tow them and they can easily get intercepted. #1 wouldn't be effective, you'd get hit by something assaulting. #3 and #5 are fair choices but might not work like you'd want. #5 would have more effect than the three 82mm mortars in my opinion. If you're trying to cross that 300m gap, you'd have to hit both machine guns and the platoon. Three 82mm mortars could only hit three potential targets. 105mm could hit everyone! It really depends on how spread out they are. There are a lot of factors. [ May 11, 2005, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: securityguard ]

Download some desert maps off scenario depot and play at night. There is one specific map I downloaded called Border Patrol which worked great for a night time QB (completly open terrain, too), it was an extremely interesting battle filled with flanking and squad managment.

Also don't be fooled into thinking the 300mm rockets and 300mm incendiary are the same when you purchase rockets because they are not! Incendiary is much less powerful with the trade off of possibly causing fire. Personally incendiary is very disapointing, the fire effect is wholely undermodeled (or possibly isn't - I haven't found any information on these rockets in real life). 300mm rockets are good against trenches but any other type of artillery, including weaker rockets, have trouble. I played an operation not too long ago where the axis force, advancing, had 50% more forces than the defending force with tons of reinforcements. The trade off was the terrain - very flat fields of wheat or brush with sparse tree lines. Anyways, sometimes he would dump lesser rockets (150mm?) along with normal artillery on one trench line. There was some effect but not nearly enough for me to lose the line. I had a platoon and a half of men holding out several battles versus infantry, MG fire and the occasional tank round (most got hit by AT guns before they could do serious damage - direct HE vs trench is very deadly). It really broils down to luck with other types of off-board artillery, even the semi-big stuff!

On attack aggressive recon is key in this game, because the time limit artificially increases the difficulty by a million. I think without the time limit ANY attack could over come a defense unless that defense is incredibly over dug in some way (tons of mines, road blocks, and other traps). What I usually do is give one squad a move to contact ahead of everyone else, then move everyone else behind him. Give him a little zig zag, make him attract fire in some way. When he dies you can use the next squad in the recon platoon. Has anyone here ever been twarted by a defense so rugged? I have through time limit, but given ample time attrition would work in almost any situation.

These are the kind of AAR people need to make. Tons of picture, less words. Keep it up!

That's exactly what I said in my original post, so I agree with you (?) You can kill prisoners in CM. HE will kill them, and I know flame throwers will. As for small arms they don't seem effected via morale by them but I bet you can kill them with enough of it. I also think if they're under enough fire they will attempt to run away.

One thing I have noticed about prisoners is that they have a tendancy to surrender when there is no direct threat. I find this highly realistic because in reality if you know you're out numbered you're not going to take chances. I've seen AT guns give up after firing two rounds and not even getting shot at and a squad put their arms up without firing a round. I rarely see guys surrender when they're under attack, and when they do they usually get wasted. In CMAK I saw a MG42 position raise their hands up then get slapped by a flame thrower team 2 seconds later, probably the most gruesome execution (probably not an execution but rather the FT team firing a little too late). As people stated before CMBB surrenders are rare. I think the most I got was maybe a squad of guys, but its so rare. In CMAK the most I've forced surrendered was around 56 men. It was almost 1/4 the size of my opponents force! I had to put a squad on prisoner duty, I was uneasy keeping them in the rear.

Never mind, I read the stats completely backwards. Penetration at 60' degrees is 61mm, not 91mm. versus curved 70mm armor it had no chance. Or would a tank facing completely forward be considered 0 degrees? You'd be facing the turret completely flat...? [ April 22, 2005, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: securityguard ]

Tiger and T-34 standing off each other face to face, almost directly head on. Tiger has elevation advantage. From the armor statistics of the T-34, the only place on the entire body possible for ricochet would be the turret (70mm curved). At 140m though chances of that are REALLY slim, considering the AP I used penetrates almost 15-25mm more than that. The Tiger was Regular and had shot beforehand and missed (at 140m no less). My third and final shot brewed the tank so badly there were no survivors. Did I just witness an act of god, poor ammunition or some other factor? Both me and my opponent were completely baffled. Tiger VIE vs T-34 Flame Tank ('42? '43?)

Wow, I guess I'm a believer. Truely an amazing turn, I had no idea combat mission could even simulate such at thing. Here is the turn, the password is "303": http://www.the111.com/rockmacrowIII071.txt [ April 18, 2005, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: securityguard ]