spcwrnglr

First off, thanks everyone for the feedback in regards to my initial thread "Thinking of returning to the CM series." It sounds like everyone still has the love of the game, here. I've been doing more forum browsing the past couple of days, and I'm wondering, what is everyone playing, these days? When I was playing CM1, my favorite was PBEM double-blind scenarios. Are people still PBEMing? I ask because the Opponent Finder forum is totally blank! If I am a double-blind PBEMer, will I be able to find a game?

Hey everyone, I was one of the "early adopters" of the CM franchise back in 2000 and have taken a break since about 2004, primarily when I couldn't run CM anymore on my computers because OS X wasn't supported. Well, times have changed and I'm thinking about jumping back in. I tried the demo last night. Would everyone agree that it is more or less an accurate representation of the game? I ask because the demo is version 1.10 and I know the game is now in Version 2. Any significant changes I should be aware of? (Honestly, the demo didn't really impress me, I had a tough time moving the camera around effectively and it seemed the graphics were too heavy for my 1 GB Video card - does this sound right?) Also, if I was to purchase the game, what would I need to purchase? Would I be able to PBEM people if I just purchased CMBN, or do I need the expansion packs as well? Thanks in advance, gents.

Germans carry Panzerfausts, Americans carry Rifle Grenades. Will someone please tell me what a Rifle Grenade does? Does it just shoot a little farther than a hand thrown grenade? Does it have any affect whatsoever against tanks?

My first time playing Elsdorf that reinforcement placement was deadly for me (I was the Americans). I had an entire rifle platoon, complete with machine gun and bazooka support, along with a mortar half track, an armored car, and a light tank. I was preparing a flank-assault on the town that would coordinate with my frontal assault. Well, they were hunkered down and setting up the fire base when the four tigers showed up behind them. It took 2 turns to totally wipe out my entire platoon and support units. I did take out all 4 tigers very quickly, however, it took me two turns to get 3 Pershings into position, I had been using them earlier to try and overwhelm the right flank.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt: Its fog of war, you only see the flags as YOU perceive them not as how your enemy does. Madmatt <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Very true. I once walked right into an amush that was hiding underneath a british flag. I didn't use cover fire because I assumed that because the flag was british that there must be nobody hiding under it. Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong My boys were wiped out.

Wait. Didn't the Germans lose? Its like reading a book on chess strategy by a guy that stinks at chess. Hey hey, read all about our army tactics, that DIDN'T WORK, the allies still made it to Berlin!

Could it be that the Tiger tank is, in a sense, elevated in this case? The Sherman looks like its shooting up at the Tiger, maybe in this case, the ridge is an advantage to both sides. I would be intereseted to see what would happen if the shermans were on a ridge ABOVE said Tigers.

I was wondering, it seems the average battle length on CM is about 30 turns, give or take a few. Obviously, that represents only 30 minutes of combat, but so much happens in those 30 minutes. I've read quite a bit of war history, and although I can't quote any evidence, I was always under the impression that battles lasted the better part of a day, if not longer. 30 minutes seems awfully quick for a village to be taken, or a combined armed assault to either be victorious or vanquished. This is just my impression, does anyone know if individual battles in WW2 were really decided in such a short time span?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ACTOR: Pucker - I use the hide order until I am ready to use the spotter to call down fire on my enemy. Seems to work well.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Don't forget to use the most commonly forgotten about command "sneak." I run my spotters to the general vicinity of wherever they need to be (while they're out of LOS of enemy of course) and "sneak" them into the top floor of houses on hills. I haven't had fire drawn on them yet. 2 minutes later, God (my artillery), strikes down the enemy with a vengeance.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Toad: Please post what e-mail program you're using (be sure to include the version number) and post what your e-mail attachment settings are. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey man, I'm using Eudora Pro 3.1.3 on a PowerMac G4, system 9.0.4. I have my encoding settings to "uuencode" or whatever it is (its the setting endorsed by the manual). Furthermore, my opp and I were not using email to send files, we were using ICQ. (When ICQ crapped out on us, we tried email, but it did not help us out any).

Hey thanks everyone who responded. I just had a brainstorm over lunch. Could it be perhaps that he didn't allocate enough memory to the Combat Mission application? I know that on my Mac, I can tell the computer to give the application more memory to prevent it from screwing up if I want to. Can you do this on PCs, and if so, would this be a viable solution to a file being too big to process? [This message has been edited by spcwrnglr (edited 08-24-2000).]

Howdy everyone, I know, I know, there are more PBEM file questions that anything on here, but I've scoured the most recent 5 pages of posts and couldn't find a problem that my opponent and I had last night. We were playing a simple attack/defend 1000 pt scenario. The first 15 moves went very smoothly, no problems whatsoever. Once I started calling in the heavy artillery, the PBEM files jumped from 80K, on average, up to about 300K. That's when we had our first snag. I sent my opp a PBEM file that his computer would not read. So, no biggie, I re-did my moves, and re-sent a new PBEM file, no problem it worked. THEN, on turn 19, the **** really hit the fan. It was my "turn" although it was one of those turns where you don't make any moves, you just receive the PBEM, watch the movie, and then give orders. Well, I watched the movie, sent the PBEM, and once again, he couldn't read it. Fine, re-loaded his file, replayed the movie, sent it back to him, still no go. So, he re-did his moves, re-sent ME the file, I redid the movie AGAIN and sent in back to HIM, still no dice (on his computer, my computer never had any problems up to this point - I was on a Mac by the way, him on a PC). Now, the only thing different about this PBEM that was different from the others is that this PBEM was quite large (about 370 K or so). It couldn't of been compatability issues, because turns 1-18 worked fine. Why was the file corrupting over and over again, even after we re-did BOTH parts of the turn? Well, maybe the file wasn't corrupted but something was wrong! Just don't know what it was. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hypothetical situation: Mass scale battle. Allies assault a german position with heavy armor, lots of men, etc. After 30 turns or so, it becomes apparent the Americans have lost this one. The germans are holding strong, American armor is quickly dissappearing, moral is low. At this point, would it be to the allies advantage to try and stage a succesful withdrawal, or just throw up the white flag? What brings more points, if any? [This message has been edited by spcwrnglr (edited 08-23-2000).]

Any krauts out there who feel like PBEMing, drop me a line at jrose75@mindspring.com I only play allies, but I will play ANY scenario, made up or standard. Any arms, any weather conditions, I don't care. I'm looking to see it all. I am up for starting quite a few PBEMs at once, so bring it on, boys.

I was under the impression that "fanatic" was a current state of mind, or state of readiness. Meaning you don't have "fanatic" troops like you have regular, veteran, or elite troops, but more along the lines of a squad that might have seen their buddies just get mauled by a machine gun and suddenly become "fanatic," taking it upon themselves to charge the position in vengeance. This would be a temporary status, it woudln't carry over to another battle.

In every war game I have ever played, I have always been the allies and therefore have always been on the offensive. However, CM now has the ability for the Germans to attack, forcing me into having to learn some good defensive tactics. Well, I know the basics, set ambushes when possible, keep men hidden as long as possible so that they can get a good kill ratio when the enemy closes within range, using foxholes, buildings, and elevation to your advantage, etc. However, my one main problem is that I am having trouble figuring out when to stand and when to run. When I say "time to run" I mean leaving early enough so that you have enough men to fall back and setup a new, effective defensive position (as opposed to waiting until my men have been so chewed up that they fall back...and keep running away). At the same time, I don't want to leave TOO EARLY. No point in leaving an effective defensive position if you don't need to. I guess I have a tough time figuring out if my guys are holding well, or whether they are on the verge of breaking and fleeing. Just trying to find the "perfect" time to withdraw and re-setup.

Units with "special weapson" ie, mortar teams, can have the actual mortar destroyed leaving them standing around in a very impotent manner.

I was trying to setup my first PBEM the other day and found myself wondering how to make it "fair." Furthermore, if someone starts a PBEM and sends it to ME, is there any way I can make sure he didn't give himself 5000 points and me only 1000? By and large, I love a challenge and am up for anyone sending me any PBEM file, any weather, any units, etc. but I think getting overrun by a force 3 times your size time and time again might get old in a hurry... PS - What's the difference between "combined arms" and "mechanized." PPSS - I'm technically a "newbie" as I haven't played any PBEMs yet. I will only play as allies (its a personal thing). So if any German commanders out there fancy themselves as the next Rommell send your setup file to jrose75@mindspring.com, I'll take you on. [This message has been edited by spcwrnglr (edited 08-22-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by *Captain Foobar*: Ski, I guarantee that you werent hiding in the center of the building. You were probably at the building edge, which is much more likely to get you spotted<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think the reason Ski was keeping his men near the edge of the building is so that they could pop up and start shooting at the enemy when needed. Can you spot and shoot the enemy from the center of a building? My first instinct is "no" but I've never really tried it... Anyone?

I personally like to use tanks on mop up duty. In the beginning of a battle, I keep them back, taking long range shots from the rear over the heads of my infantry which is advancing slowly, but fast enough to slowly increase the pressure on the entrenched enemy. Once those krauts start running, in come the tanks from the flanks to mop everything up. A great way to make sure any men you don't kill don't feel like fighting anymore. Its a big game of leapfrog. With bullets.

In regards to Matt's post about how CM2 will have a better engine with more "coolness" factor to it. That's great, but I would hate to see what happened to the Close Combat series happen to the CM series. The Close Combat series got more and more advanced, and more and more fun, but the original theatre, which I enjoyed the most, was left with the comparatively shoddy game engine. If a newer, better, "cooler" game engine is made, would it be possible to retro-fit it to the Beyond Overlord campaign (for us Western Front buffs?) Otherwise we are left with our favorite theatre in the most outdated game engine.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maastrictian: T I vastly prefer playing the Allies... want to figure out a way to do this type of thing for each side and combine the results? --Chris<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Good call, Chris. I'm a huge allies fan myself. You know what would be really interesting is if you had a role playing type deal (similar to the meta-campaign that is going on on CMHQ) but have it with "Generals" who would be in charge of plotting units' movements on a board game type deal, you know the overall picture. Every time units clash, a battle gets assigned to the corresponding "field commanders" who do a PBEM. The PBEM setup is decided by the "Generals who end up assigning all the men, equipment, and the field commanders simply execute. The battles' results determine the outcome of the "master battle." I know, it would be complex, but it would be something else!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by patboivin: This is a night scenario, I am developing a theory about that (squads at night don't know what's going on, so they might do anything.) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, I was playing a night scenario the other day. I had a machine gun perched on the top floor of a building over looking a field. I then had a mortar unit cross the far side of the field (about 200 meters from the machine gun) and my machine gun started to shoot at him on his own. My only guess was that he though the mortar team was German, which is understandable considering my forces were in dissary and 3/4 of my Lt.s had been eliminated.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by patboivin: This is a night scenario, I am developing a theory about that (squads at night don't know what's going on, so they might do anything.) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, I was playing a night scenario the other day. I had a machine gun perched on the top floor of a building over looking a field. I then had a mortar unit cross the far side of the field (about 200 meters from the machine gun) and my machine gun started to shoot at him on his own. My only guess was that he though the mortar team was German, which is understandable considering my forces were in dissary and 3/4 of my Lt.s had been eliminated.

Disclaimer: CM is a great game as is, these are simply suggestions that would make it much better! From simplest to most complex: 1) Tanks need a "hull down" command. Instead of "Move & Hide" for tanks it should be "Move & Hull Down." What if its not on the upside of a hill, or out in the open? Then the command becomes invalid. Simple. Trying to eyeball the perfect place to hulldown your tank is tough, I always end up using about 3 turns up just trying to dial the tank in to the right spot. 2) This has already been suggested, but the entire battle should be able to be replayed at once, once the battle is over. Perhaps a patch can be coded that could export the battle scenes as quicktime movies that can subsequently be linked? I don't know enough about programming and quicktime to say "yea" or "nay" to this. 3) This is a longshot, but hey....Not only should the entire battle be made one long movie, but there should be a "director" mode available. This way, the player can take the battle, set up camera angles where he wants them, when he wants them, focus in on certain units at crucial times, etc. This could give the player a chance to direct "Saving Private Ryan" - Part II....Part III, Part IV.....you get the idea. Hey, if that sounds like too much trouble, to direct, I mean, then there could simply be a "random camera " option which jumps around certain units at random times, and you can watch the battle happen all over the place. This would be a very , very neat feature Battles take so long to plan that I think taking away something to show for it would be nice. I look forward to seeing this improvement in the future!