c3k

My first play through I split my forces. A small force went left, the rest went right. I did not go on the road past the farm. When one force had the StuG facing it, the other force got the flank shot. Ken

Base Game only (CM:BN, "Beyond Normandy") is very good. CMBN base received a significant upgrade with version 2 of the engine. Personally, I'd think skipping the v2 upgrade would not be the best way of going purchasing the game. However, only you know what your true budget is. Read the list of changes for the v2 upgrade: ("Upgrade" adds new features. "Patch" fixes problems.) V2 new features: =Moveable Waypoints =Ability to assign special uniform types for select units types on a unit by unit basis. =Target Armor Arc Command =Expanded Floating Icon Categories ="Fog of War" Floating Icons =2D Editor Map Overlay =Auto-Assemble Road/Wall/Hedge Tool =Camera Jump to Groups =Target Briefly Command =New Rendering Shaders =Bump and Normal Mapping =Improved Framerates =Pausable Realtime TCP/IP Mode =...and more! The v2.0 Upgrade is not a standalone game. You need to own the base game, Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy, patched to v1.11 in order to play. The 2.0 Upgrade is not a patch. It adds exciting new features to your game. It's available for download, mail order or both starting at just $10 (plus Shipping & Handling if applicable). Upgrading to V2 allows you to apply the V2.01 patch: New 2.01 Feature List * Corrected issues with deploying MGs in buildings. * Soldiers fire weapons faster at short ranges, especially Garand rifles. * Small arms fire causes more suppression than before. * General improvements to MG performance behavior. See note below this list for more information. * Sandbags, wire, foxholes, hedgehogs, and trenches are correctly treated as "lower down" for spotting purposes. * Pistol accuracy slightly reduced. * BAR range increased to 800m. * Shaders optimized for nVidia and ATI. * Moving a mortar even a short distance causes greater loss of target acquisition. * Bunker-mounted MGs are more accurate than before. * SS leaders have correct poncho camouflage pattern. * Corrected an accuracy problem with on-map indirect fire. * Crews bailed out of destroyed vehicles have more jittery morale. * Corrected a vehicle navigation problem on bridges. * Target line for area fire is slightly thicker to differentiate it. * Shooting at bunkers from very short range works better. * Daimler SOD given a mounted Bren LMG. * Fixed a bug causing immobilized MG teams after dismounting from MG bunkers. * Purple "pop smoke" target line goes away when it should. * Better small-arms aiming at unarmored vehicles. * Minor TO&E fixes. * Fixed a bug that occasionally caused weapons crews to move back to an old position when deploying their weapon. * Fixed a bug that caused some Macs to crash while loading scenarios Getting the V2 upgrade (and patching it) is the obvious solution, to me. (Remember, the CMBN v1.00 has to be patched to v1.11 before applying V2. See the instructions.) Ken

LOL! And anything BFC states, no matter how guardedly couched, is taken as a hard promise, akin to a contract. Hence, the lack of "official" updates. I'd think ChrisND has a pretty good idea of what's going on.

My opinion: 1. I'm glad that there is a choice for RT or WeGo. (How many games give this same choice?) 2. Real Time: I don't use it much. Maybe a couple dozen hours of total play. I've found it's only good (for me) for 2 or 3 platoons. Anything more, and it turns into a twitch game which I don't want to play. I get swamped. 3. WeGo: I enjoy very much and play 99% of my time with it. I rewind, replay, zoom around, and catch small vignettes of action in odd corners which I never would have seen had I not been able to rewind. It is those vignettes, which I can do nothing about, which I enjoy. The grenade arcing into my foxhole...and I cannot intervene. WeGo keeps you from overcontrolling the game. All is my opinion... Play 'em both and play what you like. Ken

Grenade down the barrel, one arm blown off, cigar clenched in teeth, turning to wink at his men as fireball engulfs him. Pitt is cliche.

All the above are good. Experience is the best teacher. Play the smaller battles, repeatedly. Sure, you'll know where the enemy is and what he'll do. The goal is to refine YOUR tactics. Keep playing the same 2 or 3 starter battles until your casualties are almost nil. Then try the next battle. How'd you do? If you lost with a lot of casualties, you missed an important lesson. Savegames are your friend... Enjoy. Ken

Slow is only good for one or two action spors...8 or 16m. More than that, without a minute or two to rest, and they're going to be exhausted. Hide keeps their heads down and restricts most fire. Covered arc is a hold fire command. Isolate sections of the defense and focus on them. As in real life, tbis is a tough one.

Well, take your bunker, take your ditch lock, and drop it in a hole. Use trenches, ditch-locked, to enter and leave the bunker. I've seen some pretty good trench-lines/bunker defenses in the game. Some mg's, mortar support, etc., and my guys don't get close. Without tanks.

Try to put anti-tank weapons in position to cover its movement. Then smoke it or HE it out its current position. Your a-t weapons (tank, bazooka, whatever) then ambush it as it moves. Flanks are better.

Agreed. However, with what's available now, there are three different fortifications which correspond with different amounts of time to prepare defenses. 1. Foxholes: Given an hour or two, defenders should be dug in. Good cover against direct fire 2. Trenches: A day or two, and now you've got covered lines, not individual positions. 3. Bunkers: Overhead cover, representing improved positions Couple all three, and you get WWI-like defensive belts. It would be nice if more types of engineer works were added.

Use the ADMIN command and split off some Scout Teams. Check the "soft factors" stats for your squads, as well. Experienced and + leadership squads will be your better ones. The Scouts: move 'em up with 360^ covered arc commands set to about 50m. Their job is to look without being seen. As they approach crest lines, SLOW them to the ridge, with a HIDE at the end. (You want them to stay low.) It'll take them a little bit, but you should start spotting German fortifications and, depending on noise discipline, German units. Use your HQ's to spot for indirect fire assets. (I forget if the Sov's have them in this battle.) Beat up the Germans with mortars. It's fun! Watch for antitank weapons/German vehicles. When it's clear, move your SU-76's up. Their HE shells are effective at hundreds of meters. German MG's, etc., can mess up SU-76's if you get too close. Infantry should be the eyes; armor the jabbing stick. Artillery? Hmm, the clobbering weight? WWII infantry had learned all the lessons of WWI on defense. It's VERY hard to use infantry against infantry if there are open fields of fire (like this battle) and the defenders are dug in (like this battle). Rock, paper, scissors... Read some of Bil Hardenberger's AAR's: notice how he never moves his main force until he's used recce to clear a zone, or found the enemy. Scouts, patience, and High Explosive. If all else fails, a glorious charge is at least fun to watch. Ken

If your men are getting hit by enemy artillery, it is because they are TOO FAR AWAY!! Rush the enemy! Stack your bodies in front of their machinegun nests so the barrels are fouled with bloody entrails of heroes! Storm over the bodies and bayonet the boche! If he dares fire artillery on you, then he will merely kill his own men. Your casualties don't matter. Victory is what matters!! Forward, comrade! For the Motherland!!! Oops. What forum was this again?

Hints?!?! Not one step back! The time to retreat is past! Etc. Have you tried to play it yet?

Trench cover: try ditch lock and lower the trench?

Bah. That annoying buzz you'd heard while you were organizing your men? It was a spotting plane! You should've shot it down or had your own air force chase it off. Sheesh. Yes, very annoying. Playing the AI in QB is a dice roll. I -always- HIDE my men on the first turn. This avoids most of the casualties. FWIW. Ken

I'll vote for sfhand's relaxed approach. I have made him wait 6 or 8 weeks for a turn; not a word of complaint. At least, none that I heard! Ditto on my end as far as being relaxed. Pbem can be very easy going, or you can get a fast paced game if you're both online at the same time. Find some good opponents and the game will become far richer than you can imagine. My attitude is that it is a game. Ir should be enjoyable, not a chore. Take the plunge. Ken

Testing: A single odd instance is worth testing to see if there is something wrong. The tests I run usually involve 50 lanes. EVERY variable has to be taken into account and removed, if possible. I'll run from 5 to 20 iterations. I'll log them in a spreadsheet and run some stats on them. Then I'll change ONE variable. Run that the same number of iterations and compare it to the baseline. That produces solid, actionable, data. Or not. If not, then I had an aberration. Just food for thought. (It takes a week or two to dig into one issue. At least. Sucks when I screw up the baseline and have to start over.)

Nobody fights better from open ground. Hide, sneak, strike, run away, gang up on the weak one, hobble the strong one, cheat... and emerge gloriously victorious.

Tested, stated by BFC, or anecdotal?

Outstanding!

PC Gamer or Computer Gaming World? One of them ran the preview article. I watched. I waited. I bought.

Gangrene takes time to occur. The amputations during the battle were purely due to shattered bone. No limb can be saved when the bone is splintered along its whole length into toothpicks. Modern trauma centers may save one or two limbs thus injured per week. Emphasis on "may".

Crews are worth more points to the enemy.

Often brought up. The neutral steer was hazardous to the German tanks. Gear metal was too weak. Metallurgical discourse to follow. Skid steering is different than radius geared turning. The only way to keep players and the TacAI sane was thw compromise solution of in-game pivot turning.

Brits. They met them first in North Africa.