radcliffe

Wow, what a mine of great suggestions! Thanks a lot, everyone. My problem is that I travel a lot and don't have many opportunities to set up a head-to-head against a human opponent, so anything that muscles up the computer AI makes a huge difference to me. One thing I've found is that if you set up a battle with flat (or nearly flat) terrain and moderate to heavy tree cover, it takes your ability to set up decimating fire lanes at the start of the game out of play, and makes you a lot more susceptible to the "mass rush" of enemy assault forces when the AI finally gets them deployed. A follow-up question: Does anyone know why rivers and bridges were left out of the Quick Battle setup options for CMBB? I would love to simulate a battle (like that at Arnhem) where the victory positions were on both sides of a humungous bridge, with each side present in force at one end, and an impassible river (with a couple of other available crossings upstream or downstream) in between.

I have wanted for some time to ask for advice about how to get the most out of playing one-on-one against the computer AI in CMBB. My problem is that I consistently beat the computer when playing as the defender (with the computer attacking or assaulting), or in meeting engagements, even when I give the opposing army experience points and a +25 handicap. To be more specific, in the former case all I have to do is dig in on the high ground (or occupy the top floors of buildings) with machine guns to bring attacking squads to a crawl. In the latter case, I pile my troops into trucks or halftracks and race to the victory locations at top speed, with plenty of time to take key positions for fire support, while the computer opponent advances slowly up the road taking his own sweet time. It would be great if there were a way to jack up the computer's aggressiveness so that it rammed home its attacks with a sense of urgency. Does anyone else see this problem in the game? And if so, are there any ways to go about playing the game to work around it? :confused:

I have probably already made a fool of myself on the issue of new features for Combat Mission. However, I must say that using the Quick Battle generator is the greatest kick for me in the game, and it would be terrific to be able to dial up more interesting kinds of terrain options -- with rivers, fortifications, and bridges -- using a radically beefed-up version of this screen in CM2. ------------------ Nathan Wilbur 39 Federal Street Newburyport, MA 01950

I voted in a 10 today, and added a plug for the game entitled "Combat Mission: 5 out of 5!" Given how starved Mac users are for great games, there's just no excuse for anyone using that hardware not getting this one!

My most compulsive dream wish for CM2 is... A BEEFED-UP QUICK BATTLE SIMULATOR! Imagine how cool it would be if you could, with just a few mouseclicks, dial up a new game with: (a) a river ( a river with a small bridge © a river with a big bridge (d) ruined buildings -- with the strength on defense that occupying rubble would give to defenders (e) entrenchments (f) mountain passes (available only in situations where you had the largest hills, or a new category of mountains, to model mountain fighting) (g) swamps (h) churches with tall spires (that could be manned with sharpshooters) (i) old walls -- as in the old medieval sections of old European cities, or walled cities like Avignon or Carcassonne -- or old buildings, like abbeys To me there's nothing better than settling in for a happy hour or two of battle on a landscape I've never seen before, and have to carefully analyze for terrain characteristics for defense and attack. To me the Quick Battle generator is the genie in the bottle for this game, the locus of its peculiar genius.

I haven't gotten through all of the responses in this thread so if I repeat a point made elsewhere, I apologize. My biggest wish for CM2 would be a beefed-up Quick Battle generator that supports: -- bridges (large and small) -- rivers -- optimized landscapes (such as fortified zones or defenses, mountain passes, ruined cities a la Stalingrad, castles, and thick forests)

Hey to JD Morse: Good to see another CM'er who's 49! I'm an executive marketing manager for a Boston publishing company, married, with a 9-year old son and a fawn-colored pug named BABS. I'm a devoted reader of Civil War histories and an occasional Union Army reenactor. I also love garden design and the Japanese tea ceremony when I'm not incinerating computer-controlled attackers in CM, which is hands-down the finest war game I've ever played.

Gents: Does anyone have any advice to give concerning the best way to install new sound mods for CM on Macs? I've downloaded the Mac Mod Manager tools and have happily loaded graphics mods into CM on my Mac, but I'm wondering how to do the same with sound files like Ncrawler's. Any suggestions?

I'd just like to say on behalf of devoted Mac players of CM that Madmatt's support for posting of Mac mod conversion tools so that we could put all that neat artwork into the game was way beyond the call of duty, and tremendously cool. It's great when a company truly "gets" the idea of: -- supporting their products; -- giving a damn about their customers; and: -- recognizing the great work done by others on their behalf. As a career marketing guy in the book publishing industry, I salute Big Time for its smart new hires, Madmatt for caring and delivering the goods to the starved and wretched Mac gaming masses, and CM as a real gaming gem.

Help! I'm playing version 1.05 of CM on a Macintosh and I'm wondering how to install sound mods like yours. I have Stuffit Expander 5.5 which can handle .sit files, so I can download PC mods and then expand them back to their original .WAV files. What do I do with these .WAV files once I've got them (any clues...)? I appreciate any help or advice you can provide. Thanks! Nathan Wilbur nlwilbur@greennet.net

Great comment from Dean on "simultaneous, coordinated movement"! This really gets at a core issue and would go a long way towards tuning the computer AI to commit whole mixed GROUPS of infrantry, armor, vehicles and artillery to action at the same moment in time. Of course, this cohesion would all go to hell in a handbasket as soon as heavy contact (say, to more than one unit in the group) was established, but chaos sets in anyway in actuall battles, so why not here as well? Anyway, Dean's comment sounds good to me!

Gentlemen: your responses are enlightening, especially the one regarding BTS's needing 6 months to achieve even a marginal improvement of the AI. I submit my opinions for what they are worth, but I admit I am chastened by this fact. Maybe my suggestions in Point 2 would be strengthened if CM offered an option in the set-up game to put a computer attacker in "all-out attack" or mode, with supplemental support, say, from fighter-bombers or artillery, so that you really had a tough time deploying your troops, moving your tanks (on defense), or holding your carefully set-up defensive positions. When I play defense in CM (especially playing the Germans), it's just too much fun NOT to select a pillbox with 88 mm cannon and work it into a defense with interlocking zones of fire, with "hull down" Panzers ready to pop up and smoke the opposition's armor into next week! When the computer's on the attack in a single-player game, it needs some way to overcome the fanatical care that demented players like me put into designed defenses. And it would be great if, on defense, the computer could spring at least limited counterattacks, or (failing that) would spring nasty tricks like blowing up whole houses if you were stupid enough to put more than one or two squads in there at a time. Just a thought... As for Point 3, I like the idea of being put in the position of surrendering some of the control of playing AGAINST the computer TO the computer. Everyone has read about battles and campaigns where the commander had a terrific battle plan but was let down by one or more of his lieutenants. If this idea were implemented in CM, you might have the option in the pre-battle or setup phase of selecting 1, 2, 3 (or no) subordinate company commanders to carry out your orders, and then assigning each company commander the forces from your total force to command. In the setup phase, you could also select a specific level of ability for each company commander, or let the computer assign these levels at random. Then, once the battle is begun, you would simply click on the company commanders -- who would be identified on the field with little flags -- and then click on the flag(s) of the objective(s) they were detailed to capture. If the company commanders were knocked out, the forces under theitr command would be substantially slowed (say, by at least 50%), with a big hit also in battle force, morale, and efficiency. Anyway, that's what I meant by this idea. It may be great or lousy as an idea for the game. What do you guys think?

CM is, without a doubt, the finest wargame I've ever played. My own taste in gaming runs to strategy games like Sid Meier's fantastic Alpha Centauri and Civilization games. That said, it's wonderful to experience a game like CM that truly lets you think through your moves, and then experience the chaos of action in real time. OK -- enough of the kudos. Here, in my humble opionion, are a few thoughts on what could put the next iteration of this game in another league. (1) Beef up the Quick Battle random battle generator. The ability to dial up a battle with a few keystrokes is one of the masterpiece functionalities built into this game, one that practically guarantees near unlimited playability. What I would love to see added to the options supported on the game setup screen are: -- inclusion of rivers in the landscape; -- inclusion of bridges (large or small) in the landscape; -- optimized landscapes. The idea here is to enable players who aren't skilled enough to use the scenario editor to nevertheless generate more complex game situations than they can currently generate with the tools available. For instance, wouldn't it be great if you could select "high ground for defender" if you were setting up an attack or assault Quick Battle, with the computer playing on defense so that you had a real challenge to overcome CM's good but not great computer AI? An alternative to this approach would be to optimize terrain designs for some specific battle situations, such as river crossings, mountain passes, heavily forested areas (like the Ardennes), heavy fortifications, mountain fortresses with big guns (wouldn't you love to try traversing a Greek village to take out the guns of Navarone in this game !?!), castles, and ruined cities (Stalingrad). The more powerful Big Time makes the Quick Battle generator, the more unique and wonderful this game will become for the rookie-to-midrange user, without sacrificing any of the power of the Scenario Editor for the geniuses who have developed the game's terrific scenarios and operations. (2) Improve the AI so that the computer opponent in a single-person game: -- commits troops, vehicles, armor and artillery in attack and assault situations to move QUICKLY, and TOGETHER, to secure objectives. The big problem in the game right now is that squads are committed in driblets, so they are quickly and easily overpowered at the point of attack by a human opponent. This is where the rubber meets the road. To make this game truly great, the human opponent needs to feel more of a sense of urgency from the computer-controlled side. When I'm on the attack, I invariably beat the computer to the punch in deploying troops, either on the ground or conveying them to a spot using vehicles. It wouldn't bother me at all if the computer took a few turns at the beginning of a battle to scout my moves, as long as -- like Longstreet -- it pulls its forces together and launches them in a Sunday punch right in my face, going hell for leather right for the objectives, one after another. The computer AI needs to be relentless, to develop a mystique, like Rommel's in North Africa. Maybe the computer AI's brains and aggressiveness could be scaled as a "degree of dicculty" that the player could select from in the setup phase of the game. But what CM desperately needs right now is a Patton-like, "take no prisoners" mentality on the attack, and a desperate capacity for hanging on and taking punishment on defense. (3) Add intelligent (or not so intelligent) agents to the game. Wouldn't it be terrific if you could select a "strategic" approach to playing the game, in which you shared the command against a computer opponent WITH a really smart, an average, or a really tactically challenged subordinate to whom you could give orders to take specified objectives, but who otherwise acted entirely on their own to accomplish these objectives? Imagine giving yourself the job of laying down suppression fire with half your force, while your "other half," under command of a brave commander, takes on the tough job of crossing a river? Or you doing the river crossing, with a stupid sidekick handling the fire suppression assignment, wondering if the idiot would come through or not? Anyway, it's really a testament to the incredibly fine architecture and foundation that's been built into CM that these ideas have any potential merit at all. What d'you guys think?