TheBlackHand

Yes, I also was surprised to see that there was no numerical advantage for the attacker in this scenario. I would be surprised if even the best CM players were able to achieve a victory in this battle on the first try . . . and save enough infantry for the next. I tried my replay from a previous save. I didn't start over from scratch. I'm not too interested in replaying a battle three or four times because by that time I do know where all of the opposition is coming from and it just feels like too much of a cheat. I'm giving up on this campaign and just moving on to the next. One thing about this one though, I don't ever recall having so much artillery to work with or such a long time to use it. I think this had a lot to do with why I've failed so miserably. I'm used to having to be very stingy and precise with where I use my limited arty assets as well as having to push an attack forward at a pretty fast clip. If I were to do this battle all over again I would let that artillery fall broad and fast. Problem is, there's really nowhere to hide your (too few) troops during this exchange of artillery since they seem to have nearly as much as you do. I don't hug map edges in PBEM battles and I don't like to do that in AI battles either because it is gamey. Seems the only way to win this one is to do exactly that. Not my cup of tea.

Three hours later . . . I made it another hundred yards or so before seeing my guys chopped in half. Halfway up the map. No strength to go any further. I give up. Is this one of those keyhole battles where there's only one way to win it and all other approaches are built to fail? Seems like an impossible task. Not enough infantry. No armor. Three flimsy HT's. How in the heck does anybody save any infantry for the next battle? Sitting around waiting for artillery to drop (and be dropped on myself) isn't much fun.

Well, thanks for that tip. I almost didn't read it but I figured I've already cheated enough by playing this battle twice, so what the heck. It won't help me in this battle. I'll have to do my best to slog it hey diddle diddle (again). I thought about climbing that hill on the right but it looked like I couldn't get over it at the top. I probably should've sent my FO up there . . . but he's actually doing fine from where he's at. It's my infantry that is suffering. Just going to assume that I'll either lose or break even on this one. Oh, and the briefing tells me I'm supposed to exit this battle with enough troops to fight the next one. HAH! As if. O'well. Can't win 'em all.

Trying to replay it again tonight. Still not faring so well. The Germans have a ridiculous amount of artillery and I seem to have very few troops to move up that hill. Especially when wherever they go, the Kraut arty is sure to follow. I've now lost one entire platoon to artillery and I haven't even moved a couple hundred yards up the hill. I thought I might move this platoon over to the little gully on the far left side. They made it OK, but I couldn't move them too far up the gully and I couldn't move them out of the gully until the supporting HT's arrive. Well, the HT's don't arrive in time, giving the Germans plenty of time to annihilate this platoon with arty. My remaining two platoons are both at about 75%. Now the HT's have arrived . . . but jeez, I don't know . . . This is certainly no beginners battle.

Why is there no mortar ammo in these resupply trucks . . . or is there? I don't seem to have any luck resupplying my mortar teams.

Holy . . . is the second mission indicative of the rest of the campaign? I lost 3/4 of my infantry to artillery very early on in the battle. Just about the same time that my artillery was falling, so was theirs. My guys weren't all bunched up . . . but there wasn't a lot of room to spread out either. I quit before getting past that first line of defenses. Just after the HT's arrived. At that point I didn't have the infantry (or the morale) to go any further. After seeing what I was up against, well, not sure I see much point in giving it a second shot.

Quite frankly, the mods are what keeps me buying the CM games. This is not to say that I wouldn't buy them if they were less mod-able, but mods keep things fresh. Every time I put a new one in or on, it feels like a new game. I appreciate the fact that the game designers have designed their game with this in mind. I appreciate the work that all of the modders have put in on their free time. Aris' mods are something I would gladly pay for and I am thankful that he enjoys putting these fine works of art together for free. In a way, we all pay modders like Aris' who clearly enjoy having a game to mod . . . by purchasing these games from BF, which keeps Aris in business, so to speak. (The same theory applies to flight sims. I played European Air War for years beyond it's freshness date because of the work that modders put in. Same goes for Red Baron 3D and CFS. I've actually paid for expansions to those sims that began as free mods but became free-standing games. Full Canvas Jacket and Over Flanders Fields.)

Just finished this one. Gotta say it was one of the best battles that I've played so far. Very well constructed. It was TOUGH and very challenging. It certainly felt like I was playing a human opponent at times. At least with the way the defenses were put together. I eeked out a Total Victory on Elite setting. The situation was fully in doubt all the way up until about the last five turns. Even with a "Total Victory", the truth is, I took a severe beating. 74 KIA's. I managed to keep three tanks alive and they were essential to winning the map. Especially that 105 Sherman. My infantry was a shambles by the end of the battle. Of course, the German's fared much worse, with only 9 men left to my 70+.

More flexible? I suppose astrophysics is pretty flexible too . . .

Threads like this are useful and entertaining. They're useful because they provide the game designers with insight as to what may or may not need fixing as well as informing the players of the processes involved in a fix. They are entertaining because you get to see the fanboys and the frustrated go at each other tooth and nail.

I absolutely HATE the unit selection process in CMX:2. I don't play QB's because it is so tiresome. Buying entire outfits and then having to delete down to get the units you want. What a PITA. Of the few QB's I've played, I ended up with a bunch of units that I DID NOT WANT . . . and I'm not sure how I got. This, after spending a long time trying to pick and choose, choose and delete . . . and more clicking and deleting. Ponderous. It makes me feel grumpy and old. The way it worked in CMX:1 was great. Easy to use. Informative. No hassles. All I needed was a calculator so that I could total up my spending. What is better about the new system? Somebody tell me. I can't figure it out. Harumph.

I'd like to see shells tossed out of the ejection ports & open hatches on certain tanks.

Anyway, I would play a Korean War Combat Mission. I'm not a big fan of fantasy scenarios. If you want WW2 era Soviet & US equipment to face off . . . set it in Korea. That actually happened.

noob, no offense, but your initial response kind of lives up to your name. I realize that the programmers are aware of this problem and that they must've tried some kind of workaround that hasn't worked yet. I'm looking forward to the day when it does. Until then, I'm going to put Snowbart's good advice to work. It's micro-management, but it sounds like a feasible plan. I actually enjoy the micro-manageability that this game allows. However, my non-programmer's brain seems to think that shutting off the shooting switch while on the move shouldn't be that big of a problem. To answer one of noob's questions, no, I don't want my tanks shooting AT ALL while they're moving. Sure, in RL, any WW2 tank COULD fire while moving, some more accurately than others, but the fact is . . . REALITY dictated that it was a stupid and futile gesture. For the sake of historical accuracy, hard coded inability to shoot on the move is a trade-off I'd be willing to make . . . and I'll be the majority of long-time players would too. I'm confident that when there's a workable solution, BF will implement it.

Why does this still happen? Is it really that difficult to fix? I just played a scenario where three Jagdpanzers go up against a whole passel of Churchills. The Jagds were firing on the move all the time and WASTING their AP ammo. Why? I've read elsewhere that tanks will fire on the move to suppress. OK. That is most certainly not what was happening here. I don't have too many complaints about this game, but this is one of them. It's not a game killer, but it does shoot a pretty big hole in the "historically accurate" claim. After years and years . . . is there a good reason why this still happens?

Thanks! I'll give it a try. I DID lose those two tanks, although I know the crews survived. Lost one of them to a long shot from a 57mm. It happens. Don't feel guilty over that one. The other one I lost simply because I'm an idiot. Ran him up on a group of allied infantry that I thought would surrender. Well, they didn't. BTW, your scenarios are top notch. Thanks for the good work.

I just applied the patch but I still have no vehicles to make a decision with. Is there something I need to know? I dropped the file into my campaign folder, overwriting the old one. When I loaded the saved game which gave me the decision turn . . . no change. What am I doing wrong?

Just found the patch. Hope it works! http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=2257

So, this is actually a bug & not caused because of a lack of tanks? I would really like to finish this campaign since I've put a lot of effort into it. (I usually play very well with my tanks . . . until the end of the battle, when I get really careless and stupid. I've had pretty good luck locating and taking out the AT guns with mortars and tanks. I've just had really bad luck rushing my tanks forward into places that I thought had been cleared of infantry.)

Just happened to me too. I had four tanks immobilized and one still running when the last battle ended (lost three tanks destroyed in that battle . . . because I'm an idiot).

". . . there's no reason why they couldn't fire on the move" Provided that wasting ammo isn't considered a problem. From what I've read, and I've read a lot . . . this firing on the move thing is a real problem. Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD.

All I know is that when my guys are running across a street under fire, they're quite likely to stop running and start shooting, if only for a few seconds (long enough to die). This is certainly not what I was trained to do . . . and it is most certainly not what I WOULD do. So, it actually just occurred to me that in the GAME, what I probably need to do is give a QUICK order up to where I want my guys to RUN across an open space without stopping. Therefore, I should give a FAST order from one side of the street to the other (or whatever stretch of ground I don't want them stopping in the middle of). WW2 era tanks firing on the move? Well, how about it, Science?

. . . tanks firing on the move. Bad. Troops stopping in the middle of fire-swept streets, devoid of cover, to take pot shots at a fortified enemy. Bad, bad. Other than that. Pretty good.

I haven't had a chance to get back to the battle we were planning (the unit selection process and it's constant crashing really killed my interest) . . . but I noticed the same thing. That map looks like it gives the Germans a distinct advantage. When I opened it the first thing I thought was "hey, I've seen this before". I didn't realize the maps weren't randomly generated. The next thing I thought was, "hey, this looks like an Allied assault", then I thought, "well, that's going to be tough for the Allies since I have roughly the same number of troops as he does and he's gotta climb that hill!" Why weren't the QB maps set up to be randomly generated the way they were in CMX1? I assume there is a good reason, like maybe the game design is too complicated or something.

Well, another problem has revealed itself. I initially attempted to do the unit purchase the other night before leaving for Iowa. The game crashed twice during this process, so I quit. Tonight I gave the selection process three tries before I threw in the towel. The selection process is unwieldy to begin with. Adding an entire battalion for a small battle and then subtracting piece by piece until you get to where you need to be. WTF is that all about? What a PITA. Certainly NOT an improvement on the way the CMX1 games worked. Nevertheless, I put a good ten minutes into each attempted setup only to be rewarded with the spinning circle in the middle of my screen which tells me that yes, the game has frozen and is about to crash again. I wasted a lot of time on this tonight. Three attempts. Three crashes. Not too motivated to try again (and again and again?).