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Yes, calling in arty reminds me of quantum uncertainty. All I can say is that rounds will land in the game universe. But sometimes you just need to call in a strike if only to feel like an officer. Even direct fire boggles the mind sometimes. I have had main gun rounds go long, and take out an entire squad of my troops which the tank was supposed to be protecting! Friendly fire is very well modeled in this game! A scenario is 30-60 minutes. A spotting road goes way off, and you say start from scratch?!. How many scenarios have 5, 10, 15 minutes of slack to wait for a fire mission?

I missed your question. Sorry. I cannot tell you what can be discerned. I know my eyes are not so great. I have a custom pair of glasses just for these monitors with a focal length of 80 cm. * I like 1080p, it looks great on 32" ... I think a bit larger would probably be okay. You do need to keep in mind two things: (1) Too close or large and things are going to start to look pixelated, since the resolution is locked. (2) If you need corrective lenses (I think progressive is wrong for this, since you will sit and look at only one distance ... also these days most game manuals if they exist are PDF anyway) ... If you need corrective lenses, the distance from your eye to the display center and the display corners could vary considerably causing you to have less than optimum viewing. This issue increases with TV size or viewing closeness. * Frames and lenses are dirt cheap here in Taiwan. Like many Americans are obese; many Taiwanese need vision correction. I do not believe this is genetic, but due to excessive study as children further complicated by cell phones. So, you can get glasses made to any specifications you desire ... you will get hours of free professional optometrist testing and advice. In the USA, there are two major chains with 30 day money back guarantees, but those who do glasses are not nearly skilled and you often exercise the money back option. Those are my thoughts. PS1: I love my NEC 21" 1600X1200 display which can no longer buy. It is sharper and with a 4:3 aspect ratio. When I just want to read news or write posts, I use it. Also, I have some old games that will only do 4:3. So, I have both angled in as you see in that photo for the same focal length. I usually use one or the other. The only game I know which handles two displays well is Command Ops 2 (from Panther Games; Lock and Load Publishing {David Heath's successor to Matrix Games}). If you use two displays, then look into www.ultramon.com; fantastic utility. PS2: Don't compare diagonals directly. It is viewing area which matters (if we remove pixels from the discussion). So, for example, the difference between a 20" and 21" 4:3 1600x1200 display is something like 13-14% increase in viewable area.

There are three trends to be aware of: (1) Instruction/second are no longer following Moore's law for single processor. (1a) This is due to the limits of physics. (1b) As the limits of physics are approached, the cost of manufacturing increases substantially. It's kind of like the faster you push a mass, the ever growing amount of energy required. (2) The number of cores have been increasing significantly. Now, most games fail to use multiple cores (even just 2) effectively. The only example I can site that improves linearly with number of cores is chess engines. Why? They are primarily search engines of the move tree into the future. This work is very easy to divide up between multiple cores. Now, only Magnus Carlson might appreciate this. But where it makes a difference for the rest of human players is in the speed of their game analysis and the ever intuitive nature of that analysis. Early machine analysis was very machine like. Meaning just gave a sequence of better moves you could have made.

Duplicate

What's the best clock speed you can get on Intel these days with no OC? What's the best clock speed you can get on Intel these days with water cooled OC? I am at 4.3GHz (up from 3.5GHz) (OC) on my old i7. CM is okay. I did an analysis about a year ago with CPU-Z, and it showed for a 15% clock speed improvement (max I could get), I would need to spend thousands of USD on a new system. For a stressed game at 10-12 FPS that only equates to +1-2 FPS; not worth the money; easier to just turn down game options. Thanks.

An ATG is given an order to move a gun maybe 30M down road. They are not under fire as their eventual target is obscured by smoke. And yet they cannot just push the gun down the road ... they wobble back and forth ... up one embankment ... down another embankment. Now, perhaps these terrain detours are just abstractions and are not costing any time. But the whole crew looks drunk and hopeless. (50 mm L/50 A1 American). Now, I can understand a squad QUICK or RUN across a field doing this. Zig-zag to make harder shots for the enemy and the ground is irregular. But a gun is not a light (normally towed by a vehicle) weapon. It is far more unwieldy than an HMG. It is hard to imagine why the crew would not want to follow the road and move in a straight line. I guess this crew has also been tagged with the soft factor "death wish" like my men who prefer to position themselves in front of wall to face the enemy. ???

... where angels fear to tread! I have noticed a disturbing tendency among both squad and teams, when positioned near a wall and the enemy is shooting on the other side. Occasionally, 1-2 soldiers will hop over the wall to shoot it out from the other side. And sometimes, they come back, and sometimes they don't. First, in RL, going over a wall is a risky proposition. You increase your target profile. One theory as to why Picket's Charge was such a disaster was there was a log rail fence on the way to The Union lines. Rather than pulling the fence down, soldiers were going over it by scaling, and momentarily becoming very good targets. Second, you lose the cover of the wall if you are on the wrong side. Why do they do this? Is there a soft factor called "death wish"? Thanks.

A number of game systems attempt to offer competent subordinates. I will give you 3 I know of. (1) RDOA/HTTR/COTA/BFTB/CO2 by Panther Games (2) TCM/TCM2/SOW by Mad Minute Games (3) GTOS/GTMF/TWT-43 by Graviteam (only partial) Now, among these PG has been doing so for 20 years, and the AI which can delegate too is quite competent. Also, as humans tend to be better than "game AI" (as Deep Learning AI is now out performing humans in many areas), you need some for order delay/micro-mgmt excess penalty. #1 and #3 have this done reasonably well. --- Yes, as a player, you do have a good deal of control over battle scale; especially when you design your own scenarios or QBs. Although I am interesting map and scenario tools, I just don't have time for that, and prefer those crafted by others. Also, playing own scenarios ... you just have too much knowledge. FOW is half the game. When arrived here, one of my first questions was are QBs vs AI better in X2 than X1? The consensus was yes; and as such there are less scenarios available than what was available at the original Scenario Depot (~6,000). --- --- The CM TACAI does fairly well in a good crafted scenario. It does not tire of minutia in big scenarios ... so, if you find big scenarios tedious as opposed to a labor of love; you are disadvantaging yourself. The serious CM player will follow the same unit handling no matter the scale of the scenario, because it is the right/best way. When a system offers AI agents that play decently and applies a cost to excessive micro-management, it tends to scale better. I do not feel CM scales as well as the above mentioned games. My definition of good scaling is a shallow linear function in regards to work load for the player. PG does that excellently.

So, that answers it. In RL, the stationary tiger is not much of a threat to infantry on the steep sides. I don't think there was TC MG on the top. Although, I still don't think my infantry could have approached within zook range. But I think, the defenders might have been taken out by my squads, and then use a mortar to smoke the tank, allowing zooks and ATG to be ready when it cleared. Thanks for looking it up!

Back in the X1 days, there was a morale hit for splitting. It was done, since in X1 a unit could only engage a single target in a single time slice. Thus, splitting would have proved to have a gamey advantage. How is splitting and morale handled in X2?

They do seem well spread out. Perhaps spacing works better for squads in movement than stationary. I just know that a single tank HE round or canister can do a lot more damage to a squad than three dispersed teams. Also, it seems easier in your above example to get the squad to disperse along a wall as teams than a squad.

Actually, I don't think that is true, because those who fail to invest time in micro-plotting will pay a price across a protracted battle. The game offers no competent AI agents to handle maneuvers, just TACAI behavior. I like smaller battles since I get immersed without finding the system tedious. Larger can be okay, when they actually break down into multiple smaller battles. Although the developers have given us far more tools than CMBO and a more high fidelity model of the battlefield, workload has increased too. At some point, you have to recognize that this is a game, and not a command training tool for officers.

I just found a huge repository of information on the Tiger: https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/nazi_germany/Panzer-VI_Tiger.php But despite many pages, no where does it mention what max/min main gun elevation was. I asked, because I am playing CMFI "To Catch a Tiger". The Tiger (immobilized) sits close to a bridge/river bed. Both flanks are very steep. Now some of the flanks are out of LOS due to the convex curve of the terrain. But even that which is in LOS would require a significant elevation to shoot at from the horizontal. So, in effect, I was asking might I be safe from the main gun even when in LOS? I have learned much more about CM than my question originally intended. Thanks.

I read Bil's blog entirely a few years back. Of course, the CMx1 wisdom was not to split generally as the morale hit exceeded the sum of the mobility advantages. In CMx2, I assume the above is addressed and splitting allows for far more realistic tactics. I appreciate that and think it is great. (I am continuously amazed by what is in the game that I do not know. Example: I followed advice and had a recon squad who spotted German tank run back to a Sherman and mount it. All of a sudden, the Sherman had a partial contact icon in the general location of the German tank.) But ... (I just found out that linguists call "but" a "discourse marker" in English. It let's you know that disagreement is on the way.) Suppose and simplify that my battle has 18 squads. That probably means review and orders for 18 units. Now, suppose I split as advised which is certainly reasonable; that means review and orders for 54 units. The splitting can take an enjoyable game and make it quite tedious. Because in real life, the squad leader gives orders to those teams (not me). This is one of the reasons, I and Bil go back to Panther Games which had its first release published by BTS (pre-BFC) in 2000. It has agents which allowed you to command at any level. Unit growth in CM can rapidly lead to overload (a slow exponential scaling of work load). Unit growth in PG games, led to a very shallow linear growth in work load. So, how are you going to fight medium or huge battles with splitting all squads? (remember for the USA, WWII only took a few years) Thanks.

Good tips! Yeh, I and Bil go back almost 20 years via Panther Games.

I am playing a small scenario and doing my best to keep my squads out of the LOS of one immobilized tank. But a mis-step and one main gun round takes out 75% of a squad. Now, they were already in cover and I am running CM v4 which is suppose avoid bunch ups ... made no difference. The only thing which would have saved lives is three teams that were dispersed. So, what do you think should be done with infantry when there are tanks on the lose? Thanks.

You know how they always say "keep a reserve". Well ...., I always find one well hidden ATG in the last 10 minutes when I spend my arty too liberally.

The only problem with that is if the spotter comes to an untimely death, you lose a lot fire power.

Even if I don't use NATO symbols, Bil? {private joke that goes back 20 years}

Yes, so many games really would be a stretch if not for that. Like for example AGEOD game's (I am a former member of the company), but in general the rollover fonts were just like 1 pixel wide! Prior to the TV all I could do, would be to edit the font file descriptor to up the point size and go bold. But you cannot over do it, since the text gets too big for the graphics. Viewing distance for a 32" TV can be about as close as a PC Monitor, and it easily fits on small desk. No wider than keyboard and mouse.

I have a specific soft target (MG not dug in) and have called in an on map 81mm mortar point strike (quick). As I have eyes on, I am hoping to hit or send the MG to rejoin his mates. This MG besides controlling avenues of approach, I believe is also the enemy's only eyes on various approaches (very elevated position). But what if I fail to get a hit? Can it I extend the fire mission? Can I recall the exact same mission without waiting another 5 minutes for bombardment? (One would figure, both of these should be quick and easy to achieve.) Thanks.

For games, I always play it safe. * NVidia * Intel; fastest single clockspeed CPU and OC * Games are slowly going 64 bit faster than they are going multi-CPU. Depending on what you play, memory will help. For Win10 64, I would 8-16. Certain games will eat quite a bit more memory. * SSD speeds up everything at least loading and like being able to record video in realtime. (If you go NVidia with SSD and Shadowplay, you can capture via with no FPS hit.) * I went MOBO sound on this PC, but I think perhaps it causes some stutters in some TW games. Next PC, I am going back to sound cards. * Display. Get a TV instead of a big monitor. Why? Big monitors have high native resolution and make the UI very small. But 1080p is always 1920x1080 whether 18" or 83". Just the pixel size changes. I use a 32" TV for much of my gaming.

Thank you.

And if so what would be the max elevation of a Tiger's main gun in degrees above the horizontal? Thanks.

Whenever, I get a nice solid contact which deserves later attention and probably isn't moving. I take a screenshot. Is that bad? (It means you can direct fire or mortar a location without a contact.) Now, once you have that contact, like an MG position if you place a MOVE NODE, you determine the gunners LOS (by doing reverse LOS) and save a lot scouting (ie. recon by reverse fire). I will include two screenshots. So, what is the judges' ruling? (single play) Just using the tools The Maker gave us or gamey and I shall never go down as a great battlefield commander?