James Crowley

OK, perhaps I am using the wrong term. My definition of 'global morale' is the CMx1 one, whereby the game stopped automatically when one side took propotionately much higher casualties than the other. The 'global morale' as described by Yankee Dog, is a different animal and does not cause the battle to end, although it obviously does have a detrimental effect to the surviving units morale. What it doesn't do is stop the player (and Steve aludes to this behaviour in his post) from giving orders to broken remnants, such that a game that really should have finished - at least by real world standards - drags on (as other posters have pointed out) until the last man dies. And if those few last men are able to infiltrate into victory zone, they can alter the victory level outcome in a way that is totally dispropotionate to their status and numbers.

To get back to my original point, there does not appear to be any evidence as to the existence of a 'global morale' system. When any unit or force starts to get reduced by casualties it will start to lose cohesion. This applies particularly to an attacker but is germain to defence as well. At some point the effect of mounting casulaties will render the unit or force ineffective as a fighting force, as much through breakdown of C&C as bodycount. CMBN has a fairly sophisticated C2 system but this fails to stop a player from gathering up the broken remnants of squads who, by that time, would be acting mainly as individuals concerned for their own survival, and co-ordinating attacks with them. Throw into the mix crew from abandoned vehicles and you have something which is totally unrealistic and ahistoric. As to the control of victory locations, ponder the following. A single, good order, full strength squad enters a victory zone. The opponent already has two squads in that zone, opens up and shreds the new arrival. There is only 1 wounded soldier left in the attacking squad who promptly takes cover. The game ends. Technically, the zone is deemed to be in dispute, so neither side gets the allocated points. I would suggest that common sense and an appreciation for the reality of the situation would dictate that there is not a 'disputed' zone, at all. The games referred to in these posts would not have generated any controversy over disputed zones if they had automatically ended when the relative casualty levels had reached a cut off point, as per a global morale system. If games can be won, lost or drawn on the basis of the location of one or two soldiers, more often than not broken, rattled and out of command, then, IMO, that renders the complex C2 system in CMBN largely redundant.

But location objectives invite a slugfest, one way and another. The only way to gain mastery of them is to get enough troops into them. I don't really object to fighting good-order troops and one side getting a clear numerical advantage. I really don't like having a few odds and sods wandering in, offering no real-world challenge but, just by being there at games end, denying control to the other player. Both might be 'gamey' but the second one is just totally unrealistic.Especially when they are mostly vehicle crews. In reality these few hangers-on would be quickly rounded up or wiped out - the area would not really be in dispute at all.

+1 to both of those suggestions. Routed units would eventually disappear and play no further part in proceedings. The second idea would limit the gamey rushes as they would be mostly pointless. Crews who have abandoned their vehicles should be out of the players control within a defined time and should become routed after that.

If I remember correctly, CMx1 had a global morale sub-system which measured overall losses and terminated the game if one sides' losses were too high in relation to the other side (it was probably more complex than that). Searching previous threads gives no definitive answer as to whether this feature is present in CMBN or not but, from casual observation over several games, it would seem not. In one game I had three men left, from an infantry company, and an immobilised tank, all on a victory location. I had to manually surrender to end the game. In a recent PBEM, my opponent had 75% of his infantry and 100% of his armour destroyed. With only 36 men left, and over 25% of those crewmen from destroyed vehicles, he was able, in the final turn before mutual ceasefire kicked in, to move a couple of those men into a victory zone and obtain a draw. This despite me having a couple of men and two tank destroyers in the same zone and over 100 men still active. Had he been able to infiltrate another crewman into another victory zone, he woulld have won! Apart from the nonsense of having crewmen serving and being counted as active infantry, it seems that the presence of only a very small number of men, in whatever state of morale, in a victory zone at games end, negates that zone for victory purposes. Even if they are vastly outnumbered and, in reality, have zero chance of survival, the zone is scored as in 'dispute' This leads potentially to terribly gamey and unrealstic tactics which simply destroy any sense of historical reality and ruin a good game. Surely, for a zone to be in dispute, there needs to be some comparison of quantative and qualatative factors of the troops involved. Pulling together, as the 'godlike' player can, a motley bunch of broken remnants and crew from abandoned vehicles to form units which can filter into victory zones in ones and twos and 'steal' a game is just wrong. And, for the record, I have done this as well.

Fully agree on the low bocage/hedge issue. Very difficult to distinguish with any ease and getting the two confused can lead to all sorts of unpleasantness.

Ahhh, thats only because the liddle kitty lost its' teeth........gun hit

Not really a case of mastering, more of playing catch-up with content. Some of the more notable combats v US in this period cannot currently be replicated because of the lack of SS and FJ. This will be put right with the first module. I would also like bit more variety in choosing sides. It will be nice to have battles with Brits and Canadians as well as US. Also the sooner the first module is out the closer is the second and then the third, with captured French tanks. Only then will we be truly able to see the full range of combats that happened in the first three months in Normandy.

Nothing like a good dose of optimism. But if everything that is promised with the first module is delivered, it will be a big one. SS, FJs, British and Canadian troops and specific vehicles (Churchill, Comet, various scout and ACs) and weapons. And, presumably some additional features and scenarios. My guess would be a New Year fixture.

One example is the battle of Caumont, 30 July and enshrined in the Cuneo painting. The 'steeple chase' of the Coldstream Guards. In the words of Sir Mark Millbank, who commanded the No2 Squadron: "The high banks, surmounted with scrub, made a cross country ride remarkably uncomfortable. One climbed slowly up the face of a bank, balanced precariously on the top, then warned the occupants to 'hold tight' as one launched forth down the other side. in several tanks, men were knocked senseless by the battering" Not just a few tanks but a whole Regiment.

I'm enjoying CMBN hugely but one area that I am not entirely comfortable with is the 'nothing, without exception nor under any circumstances, can get through any type of bocage without blasting through'. I fully understand the need to create a claustrophobic battlefield where it is difficult to see and maneouver and where access is very restricted. Which the bocage country in Normandy was. But having what amounts to 'force fields' seems too severe a solution to apply in blanket fashion, IMO. 'Tall' bocage was undoubtedly a formidable obstacle to both tanks and infantry. Sherman tanks, it would seem, found it close to impossible to traverse them, so not allowing them to go through bocage in the game is a reasonable restriction. However British Churchill tanks certainly did clamber over 'tall' bocage on many occaisions and I don't believe that Commonwealth vehicles made use of 'cullin-type' devices at all. So will this allow a change in the first module? Infantry also found them extremely hard going but I think I preferred the CMx1solution which, if memory serves, allowed infantry to go through but hung them up for several minutes, exposing them to fire and not allowing them to fire back. This course allows the player to take a much slower and riskier route but at least to have the option. After all, these were trained soldiers not girl guides on a berry picking outing; they would get through eventually and certainly within the time frame of the game. My biggest gripe though is with so called low bocage. This is given as a 'chest high' obstacle - so, 4 to 5 feet at most. Whilst this may well have been an impediment to tanks, I really cannot see that they would present the 'force field' that they do. Tanks were, after all, designed to traverse such obstacles and, if there was no other way, I believe that they should be able to do so. Like wise, if not more so, with infantry, who were trained to straddle and overcome barbed wire obstacles. There is nothing as silly as having a bunch of infantry totally stuck in a field for thirty minutes because they have no breach team and are surrounded by low bocage or face instant death going through a targeted gate. They would get through one way or another. I know there has been lots of posts on this subject but I am hoping there is perhaps some room for revision.

Has the patch really fixed these for 'small' battles? On the evidence of multiple games I have generated, it would seem not. Selecting 'mixed' often as not gives, for instance, all AFV's or two mortar platoons and a platoon of mixed AFV's (1 Panther, 2 Mk IV and a halftrack) What it almost never gives is an overall force HQ which, given the C2 emphasis of CMBN, is surprising. Self-selection, using a 'recommended' force usually does.

From the sound of another thread, this didn't get fixed in the patch?

Just to confirm what Holien has stated. He sent me file 34. I watched the vid, hit the go button to enter the command phase, then saved - giving file 35. I applied the patch successfully, loaded file 35, gave my orders and hit the go button as normal, which generated file 36. I renamed this 35 to maintain our number sequence and sent it to Holien. That is the file that he cannot open.

I haven't applied the patch yet - still not sure about existing PBEM games being spoilt. I am enjoying the CMBN experience greatly. As you say, the graphics, the 1:1 representaion, the general fidelity of the simulation. Where I find difficulty is in the relative lack of feedback, enabling me to understand what is actually going on. If I start a new turn in a game, very little of what is occuring at that moment is evident. I do not know who is shooting at who, who is targetting who, whether one type of building offers better protection than another, to what degree units not in C&C are being affected, is that a hedge or low bocage and exactly why my artillery is so much off target, to name a few. While these things do not spoil my enjoyment, I do find them frustrating and they involve a lot of work and micro management to resolve - and then not completely. There just seems to be so much going on that I have no knowledge of. I realise that some things need to be kept 'under the hood' and I don't want or need tables and charts but some more in-game feedback would be welcome. For instance, I had no idea that 'partial penetration' could mean bullets richocheting into an open-topped vehicle or that a deflection from a Panther mantlet cound penetrate the hull. This is partially a failure of the manual - where is all the information in regard to terrain, for instance? - but also of the GUI which should be doing so much more. CMBN is far more complex and involved than CMX1 and warrants, IMO, lengthier explanations and more in-game feed back. Having said that, this is my game of choice and I suspect will remain so while there are modules being made available to us and possibly long after -much as with CMBB and CMAK. The learning curve is steep but I am prepared to ride it out.

I'll third that suggestion.

But bailed-out crews cannot really be treated as 'troops' as such. They were not trained to fight as infantry and should not be able to do so, other than in a very limited self preservation situation. Nor should players be able to use them as such, which was the other point of my post. Use of the target arc is not a bad idea but bailed crews (that is trained AFV personnel) are worth more than cannon fodder and should be keeping out of harms way and exiting the battlefield asap, as they did in real life.

Good point - the crew in question did say something like 'enemy tank!' which is what they say when in their own tank.

I believe the patch changes this so that the line emanates from the selected waypoint now. In regard to a) you are correct but surely if your unit, in moving to that point, spots an enemy unit -especially if you use target arcs - it will fire anyway. In regard to again, true, but still gives the player a lot more information than his real-life counterpart would have and seems to me to be against the spirit of limited information inherent in Iron and Elite levels in particular.

In Cmx1, buildings were catergorised as 'light' or 'heavy' which, I always assumed, referenced the level of protection that they afforded the occupants and their ability to absorb damage. Unless I am missing something, I can see no reference to such distinctions in CMBN, either in the manual or on-screen. Is there any difference, in regard to level of protection and/or structural strength, as that would be an important determinant in locating troops? Again, I am assuming a church, for instance, would be better than a single story house but would a two or three storie house be better or worse than a church? Also, it is necessary to zoom into buildings in order to determine on which floor troops are located, which is hard work if there are a lot of builldings involved in a battle. Would it not be possible to include a location indicator somewhere within the GUI?

Back in CMx1 days there were lots of requests for the ability to get LOS from any point on the map. These were always refused, quite rightly IMO, on the basis that if you wanted to get LoS from a given point, you had to have a unit on that point. Am I alone in thinking that the ability to target from waypoints seems to be a move in the polar opposite direction? To my mind, it is an extremely gamey move, especially at Iron and Elite levels, where it is now possible to put a waypoint at or near known or suspected enemy locations, to see what LoS they have. This in addition to selecting the perfect spots to move your own units to. I think the option to do so should not be available at the higher skill levels; possibly not available at all.

Standard British slit trench was 6' x 2' and 3' deep.

In a current PBEM (pre-patch) a crew from a brewed-up Sherman, located on the second floor of a town building, decided to open up on a Panther in the street, one hundred yards away, with their pistols! I'm all for a bit of John Wayne gung-ho heroics, provided it is in context, or even have crews defend themselves against other nearby enemy infantry but this action borders on the insane. At the same time, another of my bailed-out crews went from panicked to merely nervous and it is, thus, within my power to use them as a regular infantry unit to gather intel etc. which is completely unrealistic. I think bailed crews should be treated in a similar fashion to surrendering troops; after a few minutes they should 'disappear'. If there are no enemy units nearby it would be as if they had exited the map. If there are enemy units in close proximity then they are treated as captured.

Basically, yes. At the moment random-select small and tiny QBs are a non-runner if you want a decent force composition.

Playing some nice PBEMs but would like to get some solo QBs going and need the patch to sort out the not-so-good AI random selections. As quick as you please