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Well, all that practice on that one scenario made a difference. I got this on a first play through. (My third game played with CMBN.)

Well, I finally figured out the two key things I needed. * Break into as many teams as possible. It is not so much about becoming brittle as being able to shoot from anywhere. He who shoots first, shoots best. * Occupy the little worm holes in the Bocage. When Bocage is like a maze, these are the doors. Always greet people at the door with a gun. Also, by holding the worm holes, if you find yourself on the wrong side of the Bocage because of a large patrol or tank, it easy to jump down the rabbit hole. I think I have finally mastered this fighting in a maze. I am very happy. My last practice run I went from WARRIOR -> ELITE. Actually, the difference seemed quite minimal. Also, in some ways IRON is actually graphically clearer than Warrior.

I have played since 2000 CMBO/CMBB/CMAK. However, I am learning this this new engine. I am playing a the tiny scenario. A meeting engagement between American and German platoons; each with an AFV and HMG. Scenario = It's a New Dawn First, I am very impressed with this new Engine as I have played this scenario numerous times and it does not play out the same. It is not at all spoiled by having played it before. This is what I have learned: I am playing at WARRIOR. * Recon with two man teams. To find the enemy. * It is not necessary to see the enemy. A couple of sound contacts are all you need to know where he is headed. * Recon with HUNT and lots of waypoints/pauses. * Do not recon right on top of the Bocage wall as you are too visible. Be 10-20M back. * As soon as you know where the enemy is going break contact before your recon gets killed. * Quickly (using QUICK) run your squads (rejoin recon) and lay in ambush along the bocage. * Use the small holes in the bocage to take short cuts. I am able to draw first blood and achieve a 20:1 kill ratio. So, where am I having problems? * Once everyone settles into defensive bocage positions, there is a lot of shooting, but little is achieved by either side. * Fights at close range across the bocage are brutal as grenades cause rapid casualties. * It is very hard to move or flank in this situation. He who moves dies. So, I draw first blood, but I don't see how to hunt down and finish off the enemy. You are so incredibly vulnerable to ambushes and coming around corners. Any tips how to manage such a game of hide, seek, and kill? Thanks!

No one has mentioned ground conditions. But now that you guys are talking ecology and not war games ... Well, CM I believe allows just one ground condition per map (other than tile properties). But wouldn't an open field tend to dry out much more quickly than a forest floor? Relevant when considering bogging, I think.

Now, but for other things it might. Like before I started playing this game, I didn't know that an air burst sends a deadly concussion wave rolling along the ground or that when it happens in trees it creates deadly flying debris.

I am almost ready to start serious play. Last night, I bought all the WWII DLC. What I have seen is impressive. GTOS and CM are different games. I only think they mildly overlap. CM is for detailed small unit actions with fine control. GTOS is for larger scope battles on a grander scale. The biggest negative is documentation. This is not to say a non-Russian speaker cannot learn the game. But unlike CM, you will not get 85% from the manual. You will have to dig in 5 different places to really learn it. But this is very much the reality of games these days. Years ago MPS delivered well written classic manuals of hundreds of pages. (one period reference and one game play reference) Now, you are lucky to get a 15 page PDF written by a drunk beta on a Friday night!

Who would have ever thought you need a degree in ecology/botany to design scenarios for CM! (I thought physics/explosives/kinetics was enough.)

Two problems: (1) Some of us have no actually training and don't really know what's best in the real world. (2) Some who have real world experience still cannot fully recognize its abstraction in software. This is why there are things like a LOS tool. In the real world, a shooter should be able to estimate distances by various factors. This is a simulated world. Providing aids to be used for quick judgements is not the same thing as trying to turn your game play into an exercise in statistics and probabilities. BTW, your intuitive knowledge is, in fact, your brain's compilation of empirical knowledge into high speed stereotypical choices. Lastly, this type of experimentation besides aiding player and designers is good for the devs too. Many bug and anomalies have been found by players trying to understand the mechanics of the game (former beta tester of 20 years speaking here).

I think you can get beyond the learning curve, but it will definitely be work.

Well, I have been practicing with the quick battle generator. Mainly open frozen terrain. I have been practicing defending against German attacks: flat open, multiple platoons, organic mortars, dug in trenches, and off map arty. For the first time today, I went on the offensive as the attacker as the Soviets. (The German plan was solid to get to the tree line first and hold the only really defensible feature for kilometers. In fact, most of my casualties was in the initial melee which took place grabbing the trees. The only thing the Germans might have done different is taken the tree line much farther from the set up zone, and then attempted to roll up my flank.) I had a 2:1 advantage on the Germans (I figured I deserved it as the attacker), but did not allow them to dig in. Thus, rushing and holding a tree line swung the battle. The Germans attacked, but mainly lost because I held the tree line. After they had spent themselves, I continued with the attack. Very different from CM. You are not going to give a lot of fine grained orders. The order management system is quite novel, but very effective. * You have order points which regenerate at various rates depending on difficulty. Most things cost order points. So. micromanaging will paralyze your side. You must command carefully and wisely. * Low morale, out of command units, killed commanders, poorly performing units have a much higher order cost. When units are out of command or exceed the order cost; they simply ignore you!

Very interesting. Thank you very much! I really do think that terrain is far less distinct in this game both tool wise and graphically. It is a lot harder to know which way the infantry should go. Now, I can see from aesthetic point of view the terrain shouldn't look so discontinuous. But I believe some accommodations need to be made to players. Like I used grided terrain. (Personally, I think think there should simply be a grid/mesh on off hot key for gamers.)

Womble, If you really want to get into it: The mathematician, Kurt Friedrich Gödel, proved that in any closed system that there are true statements which cannot be proven within the closed system. If one takes a mechanistic view of the universe/existence, it has profound implications for our lives. Fortunately, I think the designers of CM had more mundane things on their mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel

Well, I am just a day or two from being over the learning curve. I will need to find out for myself. Peoples opinions vary. It does have a large steam community and English customer base. I know my gaming tastes are different than many, since there are games I have found to be superb that have remained niche games despite the fact that I thought they would take the market by storm. An some popular games, well I only imagine being forced to play at Gitmo like The Sims.

Ha ha ha ...

You know here is the reason I love war games. I am not former military and I hope that I shall get through life without ever having first hand knowledge of war. But I love war games as strategy games. I love analysis and problem solving. You could make a game about wizards, but how can anyone say that the game behaves logically and accurately models a closed set of rules? Not possible. However, war games (and some other categories) do need to conform to real world behavior. Thus, they are testable for closed and consistent set of behaviors as implemented by computer code. So, I love them, because they are the ultimate mental exercise about which you can reason. As such, exercises to test the behavior of the engine and modeling are not nit picky and gamey, they are one of the best ways there is to validate the quality of the product to model the real world and deliver a rewarding experience.

Yes, guys, I don't play by the numbers. I did not come to this as many of you did from traditional BGs and dice despite being old enough to. I came with the PCs (actually to ground combat much later; 2000). The chart above is not a means to calculate the odds. Rather it was a simple tool to help guide me, the player, to which terrain is best. Rough or scattered wood? Fox hole in woods or heavy building? I am a systems designer by profession. But I don't want to see CM's code or any games code. That is like seeing your spouse and your love as hormones and neurons firing in various lobes on PET scans. Some things should just be enjoyed for what they are; and not analyzed any further. So, I simply want to enjoy the latest generation of CM and be able to read the map well; to play well; to play realistically. The XLS was only a quick reference and CMBO/CMBB/CMAK tiles were far more visually identifiable they these games both: in appearance, using the LOS tool, and finally the UI always showed you the ground upon which a selected unit sat.

Well, I must say that the defensive setups did show some variability for the above scenario and make each attack a unique problem. However, I just played as the defender and the AI's attack was totally uninspired. One of my two man teams accounted for 80% of the enemy causalities. Now, with CMBO/CMBB/CMAK the design notes would have said give the attacker (if AI) a +1/+2 experience bonus and 25% more troops. Why were these type of adjustments left out of this series? Thanks.

Well, you can never beat free! I consider $3 USD free. But I will tell these days, even free is not worth wasting hundreds of hours in time for a game without years of replayability.

Yes, I can see that in earlier games, your unit occupied a point. Now your unit occupies a heterogeneous area. I more or less knew the following for the previous games. The terrain tiles for previous games were pretty clear without seeing any "doodads", but for rough. Now, it would be hard pressed to distinguish: scattered trees, orchard, wood, tall pines, etc...

Well, I meant hundreds of hours learning. I plan to put in thousands of hours into such games playing. I can never understand how one can put 100 hours of learning into a game that only has another 100 hours of game play. It seems a total waste. I play H2H. My priorities when shopping are: * Mature software (patched and no serious issues) * Good game play. * Quality AI opponent. * Either a good dynamic campaign or a prolific community of scenario writers.

Well, I will try the game as I bought it. Of course, the learning curve is a big issue. I hate to put in a few hundred hours into a game which I will eventually shelve. But it has had very good feedback from some serious war gamers.

Speaking of terrain as it came up in another thread ... CMBO/CMBB/CMAK told you exactly what terrain the cursor was on or a unit was on. Additionally, someone had published Excel sheets with the exact impact. Anything analogous for this Engine? Thanks.

I wonder how many scenario designers are mainly just using the new capabilities only to establish predefined random setup zones? (already an improvement from computer setup of the previous games)

Thanks for the opinions. I am still just working on learning it. I just got a new PC and am working on learning a lot of stuff. I've only invested $35 USD on the base game. I won't invest more unless the game engine grabs me. It did have good reviews and seemed worth a try. (also, I have always been a sucker more or less for dynamic campaigns)

Yep, I love WEGO. I just found out if you save the turn in the movie phase, then you can rewatch the movie. I don't understand why they don't have a simple facility to just record the entire battle. I would love be able to watch one from start to finish.