Slappy

This can make it tough to represent both dense and hilly urban environments. Unfortunately, both were present together quite frequently in Italy. Fortunately, there are some workarounds. You can get away with 2-3 levels difference if you allow for a break between buildings. This can, once you get good at it, lend a nice terraced effect to towns.

I find that not getting in is the best way. Factories seem to be shockingly porous to enemy fire in CMBB and the interiors offer relatively little cover. It seems that being in scattered trees generally provides better cover and concealment to me. In fact, I think calling them 'aluminum sided empty warehouses' would probably be a more accurate description of how they play. Ok, I'm exagerating a little, but you get the point. With that in mind, I recommend getting the units inside to reveal themselves and then massing fire from the outside. If you're shooting in from decent cover, you should be able to dislodge near defenders and enter the factory. From there, it's a straight up shootout due to the open lanes inside. I entirely agree that rubble is a far better defensive position. The defense will just move into the rubbled portion of the factory and become extremely difficult to dislodge. Try avoiding large artillery and HE.

BB has two sorts of fire, small and big. Small fires don't consume the whole tile and produce less smoke. Big fires set the whole building off (fire through the windows and such) and make a lot of smoke. Being in a building with a big fire is like, well, being in a big fire. Everything is in flames, the celing is on fire, you name it. It's a bad scene. You'll be lucky to get out with only a few casualties. Small fires simulate a local fire in the building. Maybe one room has some stuff on fire in it, or just an external wall is burning. You can hang out in the non flamey area and still fight fairly effectively. I would expect the occasional casualty and a morale hit. The problem, of course, is that small fires have a tendency to turn into big ones. I tend to get the hell out as soon as the fire starts, small or big. If my opponent wants to move in and occupy a burning building, that's fine with me.

Changing the experience level does not impact your units at all, only the computers and in the way described by oneirogen. Conscript becomes Veteran, Green becomes Crack, etc. This can manifest itself as both higher hit chances and better stealth as you have described. It also leads to far better morale as Veteran troops will hold up far longer under fire than conscripts. It does not however impact armor penitration once a hit has been achieved. As for the problems with tank LOS, I recommend using the LOS tool. I assure you that if you can see it, it can see you and that the reverse is equally true. Eyeballing it from the viewer is not always accurate, particularly if you have increased the size of your units beyond realistic using Shift-C. This can make the sighting you describe go quite off.

You can also move to a lower point of view. Clicking the waypoint is much easier at view 1 or 2 where the two appear farther apart. I think the engine also gives priority to the waypoint for the click at this level where it gives it to the unit at higher levels. Resizing vehicles (Ctrl-C) is also a big help.

Great tutorial. Since this is the BO forum, I'll point out a small difference between CMBO and CMBB. In BO you CAN use a hiding HQ to observe fire for an onboard mortar. In BB, you CANNOT. You can however use a cover arc command to prevent your HQ from revealing itself. Thus, in both games the HQ can remain concealed while spotting. I highly recommend this. As for the on v. off board mortar debate in the larger sense, I think both have their uses. Onboards are far better at dropping shells on one specific point. This makes them the best gun and MG killers in the game. At the same time, the low volume and lack of spread makes them poor killers of infantry formations, and poor at suppressing larger areas. You may hit one unit, but the rest of the company can just walk around the area being targeted. The spread of offboard mortars makes using them against single heavy weapons a waste of ammunition, but very effective against larger groupings of infantry. An offboard 81mm spotter may not rack up a ton of kills, but it will pin/panic and seriously disrupt timing. They are also far more useful for laying smoke than their onboard cousins. Use both right, and you've got a very powerful combat arm.

CM will try, but it's not very good at it. There is no way to preset the configuration of reenforcements, other than changing facing by rotating the reenforcement marker (little known gem that). Even if you provide vehicles, you may end up with platoons widely separated and the wrong unit in the wrong vehicle. Better to give the player the reserves 1-2 turns earlier and let them load up to their satisfaction before moving out.

More specifically, they have said that there will be a 'tall hedge' terrain which will, in a pinch simulate bocage (as well as a dedicated vineyard terrain). Actually, there was a rather lengthy thread about this in the CMAK forum. It appears that most of the units needed to passably simulate the post DDay fighting will be available as well. I'm not sure that everyting from CMBO will make it, but I am mostly interested in CMAK for the European fighting rather than the African. My real complaint with CMBB is that the lack of cover makes the games tactically less interesting to me. I worry that the desert will only exascerbate that problem. Without serious revision of coverpanic AI behavior, infantry fighting in much of North Africa will be a joke. I have already IDed a number of CMBO scenarios that I would love to remake for AK, and many more classics that I would love to play.

It depends on the month. In the winter, vineyards are just rows of twigs. Only in the late summer and early fall are they tall enough to provide good concealment to men walking upright. In all seasons, they offer almost no cover. I would go with hedges unless you want 100 year old vines in August. Either way, the problem remains that the rows are 20m apart. I've heard a rumor that CMAK will include a dedicated vineyard terrain so that you can hide among the Sangiovese and Nebbiolo vines.

I generally use a checkerboard pattern for orchards. I think it gives a pretty effect. I also use a lot of walls and hedges sprinkled along, particularly along the sides of roads and to enclose small areas near buildings. I use tall light buildings for barns. It generally works well. I find pastures and such much easier in CMBB with the addition of the wood fence terrain which is more realistic for animal enclosures.

I am quite accustomed to kissing my wife. She loves me for the grumpy bastard I really am. She is also, by the way, a book editor which explains my sometimes unannounced and unpleasant vocabulary and grammar commentaries. You see, we're both sticklers for language and it is one of the reasons that she so graciously allows me to kiss her on a regular basis. To answer the question behind your question however, you are correct. I in fact have no life. This explains why I, like you, lurk this board waiting for the tiniest hints about a CMAK release date. What's your excuse?

Convene your great anticipation for the game? I will neglect the tautological imposibility of convening a singular, and simply ask what all of your anticipations would do once convened? Do they have some sort of meeting?

It will continue to area fire the rubble if there are believed to be survivors in the rubble. If all IDed units exit before collapse, or if they are confirmed killed, the AFV will cease fire. Actually, I find this a pretty good compromise.

The answer to all is no.

My guess is that you direct rather than area targeted the MG. The TacAI then decided that you had no chance of damaging the MG with Smoke and some chance of hurting the infantry with AP. Try area tarketing the smoke round in front of the MG. That should stick.

The problems with the original bocage were not just the special vehicle rules. They had far more to do with infantry behavior w/r/t the bocage. Real bocage is something akin to rough with woods on top. It should provide substantial cover and protection to infantry, but did not in CMBO. In fact, being in the bocage was very exposed and dangerous for infantry. "Well, it's just like a wall, you should be behind it, not in it", critics will say. Fine, but TacAI considers only the terrain units are in when going to cover/panic, not intervening terrain. This made the bocage terrain in CMBO fundamentally unhistorical and unusable without foxholes placed behind it to calm the infantry due to the large swath of open ground on either side. As it stands, you'd be far better off using an elevated string of woods to represent the bocage (good cover and concealment, impassible to vehicles). I am very excited to see this 'large hedge', but if it's simply the CMBB hedge extended up to 2m, it won't work for bocage any better than what we had in CMBO. Unless units in the terrain recieve and recognize cover, or cover panic is seriously toned down, it will continue to be unusable for hasty defense. Another angle on this which would have considerable rewards for other situations as well would be the ability to place terrain like walls and bocage INSIDE other terrain. This would allow you to place a large hedge in a rough or scattered trees tile, thereby simulating the terrain more realisticly. It would also solve the cover panic issue and make the TacAI much more 'comfortable' near the bocage. As a side benefit, it would allow walls and fences running through scattered trees (why not) and make realistic modeling of dense european villages and towns much easier. Anyway, that's my opinion.

I've actually done this. They'll be perfectly safe until they have to move.

When the demo comes out. That's the tradition, and the answer that has been given previously. It's also when there is something to talk about other than the release date.

Thanks and best of luck.

Double Post, sorry. [ September 08, 2003, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: Slappy ]

Hi Mom!

A quick comment on aircraft friendly fire. I agree that, in action as a whole, it was nowhere near as common as we see in CMBB. If it were, I doubt that there would have been as many aircraft deployed in WWII. That said, I think it could well be realistic in terms of friendly fire a the point of engagement during action. I would expect almost no friendly fire on missions designed to take out convoys and such behind the lines or on prep bombardment, but I would think that it would be pretty damn common in a meeting engagement with a fluid frond and parties separated by as little as 100m. In short, I think it is realistic for the games most of us play, but unrealistic for the conflict as a whole.

Thanks cavscout, and the others who reviewed offline. So far, the reports are that the scenarios have been tough, but have created learning and have been pretty replayable. I'm happy to finish these / do some more to illustrate different situations, but am not sure where to put them. I fear that they may be overlooked at the depot as they are not the usual fare. p.s. here you go romulus and rlh1138.

Well, they are alphas after all. Just take the flags man. Axis, EFOW, no bonuses.

Romulus, No offense, but I'm not sending anymore out until I get some reports back. I've sent out 7 copies and gotten one AAR (Thanks Mark). I'd like to get some more feedback on the concept and the particulars before I send out another set.