Slappy

I'm sure I'll get crucified for this by some of the Modders (to whom we all owe so much), but it's all about the mechanics. The majority of the people who play CM play it because it is the most realistic simulation available. Until this week, I played the game essentially with factory graphics. I'd pay $45, in fact quite a bit more, for CMBB if its graphics were no better than CMBO out of the shrink wrap for the extra commands, features, units and realism. To me, realism is measured in amount of things that work in reality working in the game (and things that don't work not working), not frame rates and pixels per square inch.

A word on early turn infantry movements in QBs. Generally, moving infantry across open ground for 1 turn at a clip in the first 3-4 turns of a QB is fairly safe. Few human opponents will place their armor in a position within LOS to more than a small sliver of the map in the setup phase. Same for infantry with the exception of smaller units (sharpshooters) which will be hiding. The idea, and reality, of the situation is that taking a couple shots at some unidentified infantry at 500m is probably not worth giving away your position. Better to note that you saw infantry of platoon strength heading in that direction and reposition behind the scenes. As talked about eloquently in the Armor v. Infantry thread, there tends to be a unit food chain. Bringing out an AFV to do infantry sniping on turn 2 will bring more risk to the AFV than it could possibly do in damage to the infantry (in general). The most common exception to this is an Axis player with a platoon of Uber-Cats. If you really have the points for 4-5 Tigers, you might want to park them on the biggest hill in the county and play come and get me. This is what smoke is for. Also, this is a lesson that the AI has not learned. Most human players will hide any units that it they don't have a really specific reason to have unhidden. This prevents them from opening up at 300m, wasting ammo and giving away their position. The AI does not hide units in these situations and telegraphs positions much more as a result. Oddly enough, this running infantry across open ground early business is one of the few tactics which is more dangerous v. the AI than a human. I hope that helps.

What's making this very tough to answer is that it is almost impossible to answer this sort of question without bringing into play what are an amazing number of other variables in the situation. You want to know what to do when crossing open ground which you know is raked by an enemy machine gun. Some really key things that should factor into the plan are: How wide is the exposed area? How far away is the MG? What kind of MG? How wide is the exposed area? Have you scouted the other side? Do you have units which cannot run that you need to cross? Do you have smoke (DF, Arty) avialable? Do you have a tank available? Do you need to cross, or just want to? Let's say you have 20m to cross, raked by a M1919 300m away. You have no non-runable units, it's July. You can probably run across w/ at most 1 casualty and an alerted morale on the unit in question. If you have a 60m gap, entirely covered by a .50 at less than 100m, you're heading to woods you haven't scouted and you have some heave weapons you need to move across the gap, you're pretty hosed. No way to get across without some serious damage. My favorite answer to most cases of this problem is 'Do you really need to run that way?'. Could you go around? If there is that much risk, could some 81mm smoke make your life much easier? What about taking out the MG. If you have the area nailed down enough to know that is all you have to worry about, just park a tank in the gap. It will more than suppress the MG long enough for everyone to get across. This is a pretty long winded post to say that without more information, it's hard to say.

2. Redwolf accurately points out that time of year has a great effect on things like number of leaves and therefore visibility through woods. Whether you can or cannot see through that amount of woods depends on the time of year. As for the orders, RUN or WITHDRAW away from the tank. That simple. 3. Same answer as 2. Squad v. Platoon has no effect on how far back in woods you have to be to not be seen. I'm really not sure what you're looking for here in general. LOS through woods is pretty mechanical in general, so is how much fire you take in open ground. I generally have a half squad sprint across any ground that could be MG covered. The order looks like RUN there and see if someone shoots you. I sneak in trees, run in the open. Further, some testing will probably answer most of your questions. Build a scenario with nothing but your platoon and said MG. Play around, see what happens. Look at the LOS through different types of woods tiles. See how much of a platoon gets broken or killed rusing a MG42 across 50m of open ground.

On the way. If you're playing head to head, I'll send a tournament saved version. Let me know if you want an openable. As I said above, I don't claim it's perfect, and I would love feedback. Particularly, I think it may be too long at 55min. In two playtests v. the AI, things were more or less over in 45min, but humans may spend a lot more time sneaking around.

Chime in if you would like to test this. It is my first public scenario and has been in development for some time. As the name suggests, it is an adaptation of Chance Encounter with: Larger Map Longer Duration North-South axis of play Larger Forces (~3000pts) Some terrain tweaks In all, it should be nostaligc without being stale. It is probably best balanced for Head to Head but should be amusing against the AI with the usual adjustments. You're welcome to it, but you have to give feedback, especially bad feedback.

I've spent the last day or so doing some overdue home office (home CM) work like installing a router between a Mac and a PC and upgrading said PC's graphics card. This is essentially in preparation for CMBB so that I can go full OSX with the Mac. The point is, I install the nVidia card and it's fine, except for exactly the problem in the 'nVidia graphics hassle!' thread. I read the thread, I get the drivers, in 5 min I am completely fixed. Thanks to all who make this place so damned helpful.

I usually allocate 1 team per platoon or 2-3 per company for each lane of advance. I've never had any success surveying every meter of ground (long time limit urban scenarios being the exception where I see a zook behind every door). This, combined with 1-4 sharpshooters in the gaps looking to camp out with broad LOS is the best compromise I've found. I tend to scout more in the 'Ambush Prevention' camp than the 'Trace the full MLR and find the gaps' school.

A nit on Tank command delays in CMBB. Will Tanks be considered 'In Command' if near enough to Company or Battallion HQs? I agree that Platoon HQs should probably be out of the question for this, but I don't see why a Battallion HQ couldn't 'pick up' a tank for a couple of turns if within command radius. It seems that a tank could get orders and direction from a superior HQ on the ground as effectively as it could from another tank using flags. Example: T-34 has platoon mates shot away and retreats to the rear (AI or Human commands). It ends up 10m from the Battallion command post (runners, radiomen, a couple of political officers with SMGs). It seems reasonable to me that orders/info could be given to the tank within the limits of normal 'In Command' delays. 'Head up that hill and engage the enemy Comrade!' or 'Panzers coming down that road at 250m, move to flank them!' seem to be both communicable and no more complicated than orders from a higer up Tank. Any thoughts on either the realism or mechanics of this (feature)?

I'll use them to ambush on defense if I get them. I generally find them WAY too slow on attack. They also attract immense amounts of fire. I've had limited success with the flame vehicles. If you're interested in playing around, there's a scenario called 'Burn' at the Depot which features an amazing number of flame vehicles.

Can you try to split up and outflank them? That's all I got.

I'm on a mac and have had corruption problems, but not empty file problems. I had a hell of a time getting my first PBEM up. It turns out that hotmail was corrupting the file. It took me a great deal of sending files back and forth between hotmail, work mail and home mail with varying types of jiggering, to figure that out. The zipped files work fine. I downloaded ZipIt.app from the apple site (shareware) and I've had no problems since.

I usually plot moves for faster vehicles further over the crest. This gives them the same exposure time, and the fast US vehicles generally have fast turrets as well, meaning that target acquisition isn't a problem, even if moving. It's not great, but it does give you the time you need to get a shot off. I'm not sure that a 15sec pause for a vehicle like a Hellcat would really be any better.

I am personally for a 'tree on/off button. I generally have them off to plot moves, and then on during the movie for visual effect. I haven't found any appreciable performance differences for different levels of trees (the manual claims that this is the reason for the feature). I also feel that this should not be implemented if it means that I get CMBB even 30 seconds later. That said, a word on having trees on for LOS plotting: Tree representations have nothing to do with visibility from trees. They are there only for 'color'. Only the type of ground, and the distance through it that a LOS has to trace effect visibility. Having trees on/off cannot possibly help or hurt your targeting. Actually, I find that it hurts my targeting 'calculations' to have to look at units through a bunch of opaque tree representations that do not effect game play.

If you've played a few scenarios, then my biggest advice is: Play with what you are comfortable with. What did you do well with in the AI scenarios? What did you not figure out how to deploy efficiently? I would let this guide you initially. Second, go for balance. I have no idea what the point value you are talking about is, but I would recommend starting with a healthy infantry force. You can hold and take ground, and they are fairly resistant to enemy fire. Get some artillery, more than you think you need. Don't go for 1 or 2 really monster tanks, better to have 3-4 medium tanks. Again, this gives you better resistance to freak accidents and more operational flexibility. More info on Attack/Defend by nationality would probably help too.

Embarking / disembarking in general, particularly with a longer term goal in mind, is a weak area for the AI. It is really nasty for squad cohesion. Once embarked, the vehicle AI optimizes for the vehicle, not the troops on board. If you want a convoy scenario, I recommend mounting the troops as defaut, possibly padlocking onto the trucks and defining an exit zone if possible. This combination should cajole the AI into something like the behavior you are looking for.

I have one. I do think that markers as described, or other triggers could make scenario design much more flexible and rewarding. As it is, you can do this to some extent with placement of VLs and setup zones. You can use setup zones to force the AI into a layered defence rather than a one line or set them up to attack from different angles by placing setup zones closer to the defending lines and in less of a line than traditional. You can also 'encourage' certain lines of attack by placing intermediate VLs and then adjusting the victory percents to 'erase' any extra points given to the AI from holding those points. The balance is tough, but you can do it. The problem is that all of these are essentially what has been refered to in this post as 'cheating'. They make a solo scenario much more playable and exciting, but you have still 'told' the AI how to execute the attack. Example- a non WWII Example, forgive me: You want to have the AI play the CSA on Day 2 of the Battle of Gettysburg. The action on this day in reality was all around Little Big Top. The Confederates realized that if they could take this hill and get artillery on top, they could make the entire Union position untennable. You set up the battle, and the AI just keeps slamming into the front lines taking the shortest path to the VLs. Essentially, they play day 3 of the battle (Pickett's Charge) on day 2. In order to correct this, you put a big VL on top of Little Roundtop. The AI now sends units out that way to try to take that hill and things go a bit more like you wanted them to. The problem is that the AI didn't do anything different, didn't 'figure it out'. It still has no concept of taking that ground in order to rain fire down on an adjacent valley, it's just taking a VL. In other situations, QBs come to mind, the AI will always fail to take the flank or the hill, or whatever unless a human puts a VL on the hill. What you have is better scenario design, not better AI. Better scenarios are always a great outcome. I especially like a well designed v. the AI scenario given that I rarely have the time to commit to playing a human, but I don't confuse a good scenario with a better AI which should be able to handle a much wider variety of map and setup types creatively and flexibly.

Fred's assessment of the largest AI failings are dead on. In fact, I was ready to post somthing much like it until I got down there. There is only one real addition that I have: Yery bold Spotter Use. In my opinion, the AI puts too high a premium on direct LOS for artillery. This puts the Spotters in the front lines and generally means that only 50% of AI rounds are used. As for AI improvements, they are really tough. Even correcting these things requires more work than you think. Example: Platoon cohesion. You introduce a factor for this, or up an existing factor to make the AI place higher value on keeping units in command. (I have no idea what the AI algorithim does, but my guess is that it tries to optomize some value that approximates victory points). Sounds easy, but there are many times that you want units to be out of command, at least for short periods of time (withdrawls, spread out defence, splittng to scout terrain). Terrain, HQ bonuses and troop quality can have a huge impact on the distance for 'in command'. This becomes, in association with an 'in turn' AI very difficult to calculate. What if a platoon loses cohesion due to enemy fire. How should it get back in range? Should some of the squads re-cross the ground under fire? Which ones? Can it form up somewhere else forward or to the rear? What delay in advance should be acceptable to this? As it turns out, weighting cohesion more highly can acually exascerbate the 'not committing all units to the battle' problem. Moving into contact increases the risks of loss of cohesion and therefore makes staying in one place a relatively better option. Contrary to popular belief, there is no way to really 'program' complex behaviors into the AI. You have to set up goal weightings to this and watch the AI to see what happens and then tweak the result, sometimes with unintended consequences.

This is how it was supposed to work. If the HQ can observe fire (LOS to target) and call corrections to the mortar (mortar in command), why not? You only lose the TRP benifits by moving. Once in a new position, the mortar will have to re-sight elevation and bearing all over again (impossible to do w/ no LOS or observer).

For what it's worth, here is my opinion on the 'moving a company forward to throw the attacker off balance theory'. The answer is, as always, it depends. 1. I would be much more likely to use this tactic if I had a company of high quality, SMG heavy infantry. For the short length of engagement we're talking about (this force needs to shoot and scoot) they're going to do the most damage in the time they are in contact (1-3 turns). They are also going to be the most able to scoot. If you try to throw a quick jab and pull back with regular or worse troops, many of them will be left behind to be eaten up when the main body pulls out. 2. It also depends on your assessment of game length v. ground to cover. One of the primary advantages of this maneuver is that it causes the attacker to pause, redeploy and then scout much more carefully and in greater force, generally committing some of what should be maneuver or reaction forces to the new stronger recon efforts. This is going to take a couple of turns. You have to decide what the value of a 5 turn delay is to you. How pressed are you in the space v. time tradeoff? That said, if you're going to do this, here is my recommendation: 1. Prepare your company as a strongpoint described above. Set up the foxholes, even secondary ones, as if you were going to fight from that position. Just space the holes out a little more. Chances are that not every one of those holes will be filled when you do get around to fighting there. Turn 1, move out. Do any rejoining you need to and get set up to bound forward. Put one platoon up front, split to scout, wiht an extra HQ for cohesion if you can. Close behind (closer than you would on an attack, we need to get out into no-man's land quickly) bring the other two platoons. Only bring a shrek or two and maybe a LMG or two along. Nothing that can't RUN get's to come on this mission. Leave the heavy stuff at home in case you need cover on the way back. Behind the main body, pretty far back, trail a FO, preferably 81mm, and an HQ if you need one. 2. Get out in front. You're looking for the enemy, and he's going to be on the move when you find him. The goal is to get local supperiority on some recon elements and chew them up. Find them with your recon platoon, and bring the main body up FAST. Pound for 1-2 turns, but don't over pursue. Best to do the jump in some heavy woods if you can. This will minimize the effects of AFVs (which you cannot really defend against) and give you some space to retreat. 3. Knowing when to leave is the hard part. Here are some signs: Spotting rounds, no-one left to kill around you, you are evenly matched with what's in front of you. Don't stick around too long. He gets to give orders at the same time you do. If you decide to stay, and he orders in the cavalry, you're in big trouble. 4. The pull back. This is where the FO comes in. When you decide to bail out (continually pre-target in front of your force just to make sure) have him drop either HE on your position (which you will soon be leaving) or smoke behind your position (which you will soon be running through). If you need to (or even think you need to) withdraw run out. If you need to, leave a depleted platoon or a couple of LMGs to cover your escape. 5. The next requirement is that you break contact. You need to escape without letting him know where your prepared position is. This lets you get a fresh crack at a new set of scouting assets and prevents artillery from raining down on your parade. 6. Form up in your foxholes and proceed as usual. If this goes well, you will have eliminated, broken or mauled 1-2 platoons of attackers and cost him 5 minutes at the cost of 1 platoon of friendlies.

I have no idea how the game engine works, but here is my suggestion for modeling variable armor quality for the Soviet tanks without having hundreds of models. The capacity to have random unit attributes already exists in the game, specifically for ammo, special equipment (PFs) and command bounsus. This system can be used in the same way for armor quality. Whenever a 'variable quality' vehicle is purchased, assign a quality measure randomly in 5pt increments between 75% (or whatever) and 100%. Put this in as an addition to that unit info table and display it in the scenario creation page. This makes it random for QBs and editable by scenario designers. You then just make a reference to the table for armor hits and multiply the armor thickness by the percentage. This allows the formula access to a quality number without hard coding the number. If you wanted to get even trickier, you could have 2 numbers assigned differently, and pull one or the other into the equation depending on what type of shell hit (You could even have one quality greater than 1). This gets past the different quality implications for different rounds thing. I freely admit that I am not a developer, but convincing developers that they can do things that they tell me they cannot based on other things they tell me is a big part of my job.

I very much enjoyed one called 'utreschweg?', a great city operation. I think it was 7-8 fairly short (10-15 turn) battles.

Artillery and DFHE are the only ways to destroy a bridge in CM. You could always give them artillery to do the job. Of course, there is no way to assign VPs for destroying a bridge, and you would have to specify in the briefing that they were only to call in fire if they had a direct LOS to the bridge. It would have to be an 'honor system' scenario, but that dosen't mean it coulden't be interesting.

I have to second the Greyhound 37mm comment. By far the best bang for the buck. I have also found that the Daimler gun is in the same league. It is far less flexible due to a miserable HE loadout, but the AP will kill in the same general range.

I haven't tested since reading this post, but in my experience, the editor dosen't 'remember' jack. I have in fact lost a great deal of work this way.