Thermopylae

6 points for sergei?!?! My good man you are indeed a proponent of gamey play. We all know that having Sergei on your side will give you completeinformation on all german troop movements, ever, or the first twenty turns of the game. Also, great supplies of gemran chocloate will be funneled into this cunning little double agent. Of course the fact that on turn 21 he is ALWAYS spotted by all german units and gains an exposure rating of 50000% no matter what terrain he is in may make a case for lower point values to avoid inevitable Knock out point victories... I propose therefore, that sergei be treated like airpower...make him expensive and unlikely to appear in a QB...

Actually, you can...remember the AT gun in a building trick? Well duplicate it, but have the barbed wire on a stone wall...i've toyed around with it, but found nothing to use it in yet...

Hmm..i've had HQs kill HTS with nade sbefore...never actual squads tho...

I played chance encounter...was amazed to see all my shiny stugs die, and without killign anything either..fortunately, one of my favorite tactics called "Hiding in the woods and shooting things when they get too close" was born of this...that and an epic struggle lasting five turns on the wooded hill VF...charge and countercharge...and grenades, so many grenades... Then having ordered the gmae, I played 4 scenarios and stopped. Until the TCP/IP beta. Then, literally, a friday night would start with tcp/ip at 4 PM, and end around 5:30, 6 Am the next day..

Between the group of you and several helpful people in CMHQ chat, this battle has all the testing it'll need for the moment. If you were interested, stand by, as I'm in the process of makign another byte battle set in holland, specifically the polder fields. Lots of raised roads, marsh, mud, and fields...

Ok, E-mails are on the way to all of you. Err...except Bad Monkey because he doesn't seem to have a visible adress. [ June 02, 2002, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: Thermopylae ]

Small wintery goodness with the cpapcity for a bit o suspense.

Thanks for the change.

New Page Good. New Forum Colors, well, in addittion to being painful, do seem to imply a much more "we're so frickin WWII cool" theme, as oppossed to the nice intelligent colors....

And food levels and quality! I BTS to model the respective quality of food for every army for every month of the conflict, and the relative agression of troops trying to capture better food from their enemies. And I want to be able to design my own tanks. If I were in charge of Gemrnay, why, they'd have a two turreted 88mm toting uber tank that couldn't be pierced by anything and was still cpable of a brish 15mph! Yeah!

What would be absurdly cool would be a little history of your progress. People remember how Alpha Centauri tracked your progres across the planet and you could watch the rise and fall of empires at the end of the game? Something like that, but better. Have a pre-written paragraph for every " go to war" and "Conquer" possibility with some variables like time frame of conquest, etc, put in, and then align them in chronological order at the end of the game.

Erm, don't you think that 7 years is plenty to conquer Europe or lose it?

The entire game has nasty way of shutting down after a pro-longed conflict in france and Luftflotte IV attacks a border hex...

Just go for Alexandria... or Moscow! (bloody may 16 demo end date...troops..three hexes from moscow..leningrad mine, minsk mine, many southenr things/cities mine...enemy main force sut off from supply, including the HQ...)

Nice name Mozart. I'd lover to, but I'm headed out this summer, so no time I'm afraid.

Join a campaign!

Try targetting. Also, as countless other posts have explained a lot better than I'm about to, they aren't really snipers so much as "semi-regular soldiers how happen to be good with a rifle and hide in the bush and try to shoot people unawares"(somebody's sig) and thus are programmed more along the lines of engaging things like gun crews, tcs, etc. It wasn't considere dliekly for them to be hutning each other...

The Low countries fell in a week, the french by August! Malta lies besieged (I can't figure out how do a direct amphibious landing) and the minor nations flock to my cause! (Yugoslavia suffers a pro-allied coup, but tis a minor detail) The RAF, after a month and a half long air battle, no longer functions. The Home fleet scurries away from the might of the luftwaffe! Two armies and a tank group land in southern England..and...and...the demo ends! Gaaaaaaarrrrghhhhhh..........

Use whatever open space you can to get to the end of the map, and then bring up some infantry to hold the position via halftrack. If anything gets in the way of your open terrain maneveur...use HE, lots of it.

I think HQs tend to seem "tougher" because there seesm tobe some sort of algoriuthm making hits mor eliekly on larger groups of men...in the saem way Machinegunners and hblaf sqauds don't die as fast as you'd think?

err actually, he wa susing the flamethrowers to burn identified target, not radnomly light the village on fire...so a greta gamey arguement has been averetd...

This would complement very nicely what the CMBB bones have hinted at. I.e, the different levels of complexity various troop types can handle. The AI could then program a route suited to the experience level of the troops (poitn A-B for conscripts, multi-axis dashes through cover for elite). Obviously you could change this at your will, but the bones seem to indicate that creating a complex route for the "battle-challeneged" could lead to distasters... I think, however, it would have to be limited to platoon command. Once you start pointing companies towards targets, it, well, becomes fairly non-cm.

Keeping Casualties Low on The Attack: Do not fall into the pattern of "Find enemy position, assualt." Even with a full company versus one entrenched platoon, a hasty assualt meant to win by weight of numbers will leave you badly cut up. Close assualting is the final step, meant to be a mop up, not what wins the battle. 4 minutes of rifle fire by superior forces is enough to, within most reasonable ranges, increase your assualt teams' survival chances greatly. Add support weapons, 4 minutes of fire is enough to make a close assualt a fairly sure run thing, or maybe even enought o drive off the enemy entirely. Also, if you can, attack with a platoon or two that have not been in the firefight. More Firepower, Less supressed troop = more likely to cross the ground = less likely to get buthcered in the open. On the defense: Deep Fires. MGs, Mortars, arty, AT assets are all there to break up the attacker before he finds your MLR. These then attract more assets towards them, and away from your frontline combat troops, all the while sapping the enemy's strength. Also, don't be afraid to give ground or even the odd minor flag. For the attacker to win, he needs to take virtually all of the flags. If you concentrate on defending only 2/3s of the flags, preferably those with good defensive terrain, your force concentration goes up and so do the survival chances of your men. Meanwhile, above mentioned deep fires make advancing up the "Open" avenue towards minor flag a hassle, calling down a greater effort by the enemy would be thought necessary. A pair of MG42s, for instance, can shoot up the recon forces, and slow up the assualt.

Infantry...ye gods, more infantry than you could ever think you could use. This prevents you from losing that crucial point in the line just because a lucky arty routed a platoon. Or it lets you pay in men for needed ground. Either way, you can't go wrong with maxed out infantry. It has perfect historical precedent too. Then AT weapons (be they other tanks, guns, or whatever). Finally, at least one module of artillery, preferably with another one for every 500-800 points over 1000 the game size is. If your a defender, buy TRPs(the more arty, the more trps...for 10 points your arty become s exponentially more effective), and maybe some mines/wire. People don't think minefields do much in CM, but they can be used as point defense systems near a firebase if you only have a few, and can be use din their proper denial role when you have more. The attacker should use these points to buy either extra arty for smoke purposes, or light armored vehicles for hi-speed fire support, enemy light hunting, and recon.

If your defending against lwo quality trops, vets can work wonders IF properly supported by deep fires to break up the oncoming hordes.