[So, who else is stuck at work today?]

I go in at 6 tonight. The restaurant busniess never sleeps.

[Fantastic!! (and a note on strategic bombing)]

Lets not forget the reason for the heavy air war over Germany during WWII. For a long time, the United States and Great Britan had no front with the Germans. They could afford to build massive bomber fleets during WWII because untill mid 44 there wasn't any land troops to support (no other way to spend there massive "MPP" in direct conflict with Germany). All their efforts to create a second front for Stalin was through the air. If the US and GB had a land border with Germany from 42 on there probably would not have been the massive bomber fleet build up.

[If CMBB is really being released soon...]

Originally posted by zukkov:

well they did place an ad in at least one magazine. i think they will sell more by word of mouth than hyping the game in all the big websites and mags anyway....

I don't know about that. I was, untill about 1.5 years, ago a console gamer. I had debated for 6 months on if I should buy a computer and do my gaming from there. 1000+ price tag is a big investment.

Anyways, I bought a copy of PC Gamer that was their award issue. CMBO won an award for something and had 1/2 page article. It seemed like the game I always wanted, so I had my friend download the demo for me. After playing the demo, it convinced me not only to buy the $45 dollar game but also a computer.

I went to my local computer store and they had never heard of CMBO. I had to go back to the article and find the website to order the game. So without that article, you would be denied my talents as a military genius as well as many others I presume (as well as my $45 dollars).

[Fionn's latest AAR at MODs & MODers:]

posted by Fionn

In the end though I don't think his FSE's main aim was to kill me en masse or delay me

forever. It was to see what I'd do in killing it. Sure he would have liked it to survive but in

war you pay for information with your mens' lives. Warren was prepped to sacrifice them

for intel. In a current game I've just sacrificed 2 platoons for the exact same reason in

much the same manner. The info they have gained is going to enable me to definitely

repulse the enemy at my MLR.

I am suprised he didn't attach some fast response art. elements to his forward screen. Some 120s in an overwatch position of his FSE's would have damaged you more and allowed that plt. to stay in the fight longer. This not only would cause more casualities but also slow the center of your attack.

These 120s also could harrass your forward elements all the way up to the MLR. It would be hard for these "tired" foward elements to rest before hitting the MLR if they had to stay a step in front of that targeting order.

[Fionn's latest AAR at MODs & MODers:]

Thanks for the explanation Ligur.

[Late CMBB Feature Request - Loss Tolerance]

posted by Jason C

If players want "complete control" and to "fight to the last" then use uniform elites with

50% fanaticism, highest loss tolerance setting and if you like a long time limit. But all

players do not want infinite control, because WW II combat without realistic modeling of

morale is not realistic. Let those who want the realistic experience of commanding less

than suicidal troops do so. It interfers with nothing for those who want to play total

control fantasy roleplaying with WW II icons - just set loss tolerance high.

Can't you just play the reverse and play with green and conscript. Those guys bugger out at the first sound of of gunfire. Most green or conscript squads will panic and withdrawn after a couple of casualites.

The one thing I don't like is the fact that when your global moral drops past a certian point your whole force surrenders. I doubt the my 3 hmg teams and 3 81mm on board motor teams would surrender (position near the back of the map) because the 2 companies they were supporting got mangled. They would quietly sneak off.

[Fionn's latest AAR at MODs & MODers:]

Fionn,

So ,as I understand it, you are not using these inf. to engage the MLR. Is your breakthrough dependent upon your artillery and support afvs (in this case M8) to destroy the enemy units in the MLR? Thus allowing you to breakthrough these suppressed/destroyed units with these tired forward inf. units.

[Fionn's latest AAR at MODs & MODers:]

Fionn,

I was watching the movies and I notice all your forward units were tired. You even had some that were weary. Is their lack of combat effectiveness worth the ability to keep pace with your attack?

In my experience tired and weary troops get cut apart as soon as they have any lasting contact with a rested enemy. Your tired and weary (all of them will be weary if you keep this pace up) troops should shatter like glass once encountering the enemy's MLR and before the reveal much info about that MLR. Also, if you give them a rest while your reserves catch up they are prone to be hit by artillery.

I am interested to see what happens in the next 10-15 turns.

[ June 03, 2002, 12:02 PM: Message edited by: Cooper ]

[Under-appreciated Aspect of SC?]

Yet, some of this must be intuitively gleaned. I.E. Britain has AA-Radar, but I don't

believe (?) I can find out what that translates to, unless it is explained in the Final Rules.

IE,

I believe AA-radar improves the damage done by fixed defensives (flak guns that are not seen) to bombers and Air fleets attempting to damage strategic resources. Not for sure though. But I don't believe there is a clear cut "attack number" you improve.

I do agree that the technological advances by one side or the other will greatly influence the choice of action by the players. This adds great benefits to the replay value of this game.

[ June 02, 2002, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Cooper ]

[Attack - whats harder? Defending or attacking?]

posted by fionn

I lose sometimes too. What is important is that you always BELIEVE you'll win. That

belief is, mathematically, unsupportable BUT the belief is important since it sets the tone

for your decision-making cycle.

You will be more daring, more aggressive and more attuned to searching for enemy

weaknesses. Certainly you will sometimes lose ( that's life) BUT you'll lose far less than if

you go into a game believing the other guy can beat you.

I going to have to agree here, the commander's moral is key. Back when I first started playing CM, I can't count the number of games I could have won had I kept a aggresive attitude.

example

game starts, VL are taken by both sides, shot are exchanged, pitched battle begins, damn I am taking a beating (this is before I could estimate size of enemy force by points and realize the damage I am causing him), damn I really am getting my a@# kicked, better hold on to what I got and hope for the best, game over draw.

Then you look at the map after the battle and you see that if your threw those 2 plt. of inf. in reserve into a counter attack (instead of reinforcing the mlr) you could have won the battle.

When you think you are "losing" you make decision based on "Saving your remaining manpower/afvs/support units" instead of "destroying the enemy" I believe that is the key, and if you look at your own games (that you lost) you will find the moment that you decision making changed. I know I do.

ps. BTS needs a spell check in their forums for the non spelling bee champs like me : )

[ May 31, 2002, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: Cooper ]

[Question Regarding Strategic Bombing]

posted by Galatine

But his example begs the question: How much did the Brits spend (in

fighters/bombers and repairs) to do that 100 damage ?

Likely it was several thousand MMPS.

The real issue is: Does investing in strat bombing have a good return for

value?

My answer: Not even close.

Option a: Invest 500 plus MMPs in bombing a city so the enemy temperarily

makes 2-3 less a turn.

OR

Option b: Form two Armies, take over the city permanently, deny the enemy

10 income, increase your income by 10, immediatetly free those armies for

defensive/offensive action

Lets not forget that the UK and US will have a lot of MPPs to spend. From 40-1 on there is no western front and if the Axis player has already turned the Med. into an Axis lake, all those Mpps have to be spent on something. Before D-Day (which I think by 44 will be very hard to pull off) the US and UK should have alot of MPPs to spare. A MPP ratio of 3:2 or even 2:1 for the cost of stragtic bombing will hurt the axis player more than the allied one.

[I Am a Troublemaker]

Don't forget we are talking about the Eastern Front here. While it is the mother of all land wars it was also (probably) the most savage war in history. The accounts of war atrocities seem to never end and the bestiality of these attacks scare you. I really doubt a russian commander had any thoughts of reducing civilian casualities on enemy occupied town (German or Russian). The same thing goes for the Germans.

[Bold Allied Attacks and Play Balance]

Straha

The thing with carriers is that you practically don't need them in the ETO -

unless you really have, as the Germans,"invasion US" in mind!

The only thing is, as stated above, to protect your surface vessels from air attack when your fleet is outside the protection of land based fighters.

For the British, it is a bold gamble. Do you risk your one advantage (Royal Navy) to stop Germany from taking Norway? Are those resources in Norway that important to deny Germany? Or are those surface vessels that would be casualities in that attempt (successful or not) better served to help against the hordes of U-boats that will be attempting to cut-off England.

[Bold Allied Attacks and Play Balance]

Without a HQ (guessing from the importance of the HQ conveyed by Mr. Carter and Super Ted) it doesn't seem your units can do more than garrison. Any attacks made without them better have very limited goals or they will fail. You must not be able to purchase a British HQ untill later or such a strike would seriously unbalance play. That or a large number of german units to begin the game, enough for the attack on Poland and deter an Allied advance through western Germany.

[ May 07, 2002, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: Cooper ]

[Bold Allied Attacks and Play Balance]

I have been following this game with great interest and like what I am seeing but I do have a question.

What will happen to play balance if the Allied player makes very aggresive moves during the beginning of the game?

Most (99%) of Axis players will invade Poland first. This means a sizeable number of German troops will be in poland during the first couple of turns. If the Allied player lands the BEF along with a purchased HQ unit (Monty) + french forces you have a sizable strike force that could thrust deep into Germany. I really don't think most Allied players will allow the Germans to take Poland, Norway, Denmark (and gobble up all those resources) the way Super Ted has and not make Germany defend their western border. Plus, if germany is forced to defend its borders rather than take countries Italy will be less likely to join the fray. Do the british start with little to none ground forces, can they not purchase a HQ until later or is this early stike option open to the allied player. I guess we will have to wait and see untill the demo comes out.

[Time Scale and Income]

so during the winter you can save some serious stuff?

I think he means that if summer turns = 1 week and winter turns = 1 month that your MMPs (the economic unit I think) for your winter turns should be 4 times the summer ammount. This would allow you to stockpile arms, create armies "save serious stuff"

for your spring offensives.

[The Nordic Champ/Wannabee Scenarios Chat]

redwolf

So I caught him off balance and it would have been very interesting to see

when my run hit the wall - maybe he will overact and take further losses from

too hasty moves to stop the Tiger or maybe he just raised his spears and

ended my hopes.

Yea that tiger did catch me off guard. You did have just enough inf. to keep my zooks at bay. You might have been able to work your way down that hill. I did have a 105 how. about 30m from the rightmost sherman your tiger killed that might have been able to kill the tiger had it turn toward the flag to early and shown its rear. My m10 probably could have taken the tiger but not without casulities.

By the way those m10 showed up just in time to stop the first push. They were actually on fast move from their entry to get to a firing position. If they arrive 2 turns later they would have been a rear guard

[Better Late Than Never for a CMBB suggestion]

I have tended to notice that the map size for most of my QB's tend to be too small for my taste. I love to see dashing flanking attacks made by moterized inf. and armour but in CMBO this rarely happened in a QB. For one, QBs, even when set on large map, contains maps that barely fit the forces. This give the attacker usually about 2 options to attack and any advance usually turns into a slugging match.

Here is my suggestion, instead of offering players the choice of small, medium or large maps in the QB set-up, just offer them map size. They can choose from 1km x 2km, or 4km x 3km, ect... to the extent of the map size for CMBB. This would give all of us the chance to attempt flank and rear attacks that rarely occured in CMBO.

One other suggestion, give players the QB option of the number and size of victory flags in the QB set-up

[ February 23, 2002, 10:45 PM: Message edited by: Cooper ]

[Best Axis tank for the buck in CM]

Don't foget the Hetzer it a terrible inf. support weapon. I like to use my armor to gain "armor superiority" on the battlefield. Then after enemy armor has been elminated, roll my surviving tanks into fire positions that enable my inf. to advance and destroy the enemy.

While the Hetzer is great in helping you achieve the superiority thier HE loadout is extremly low and can't blast enemy inf. out of positions as say a stug,panther, ect.

Also, this low HE load also hurt the performance of the hezter if it engages any sort of atg.

[A question on AFV purchasing and CMBB]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> Cooper,

I love 5 or so Hetzers working together. Ask that one guy I play all the time, I

think his name is TREE or BRANCH or some tree-hugger enviroment loving freak

(although he says it he uses it because it is the name of some river of the dead

or somethin ) He loves it when folks use massed Hetzers.

Later <hr></blockquote>

Hey priest,

I am not saying the hetzers are bad, in fact it is the opposite. They are a very cheap tank destroyer with a decent gun and low silhoutte. In almost every QB I played they make an apperance. But the fact is, if you have to purchase a plt. of them to avoid "out of command status" the lack of ability to kill inf. will curtail their use outside of huge battles.

Does command and control just show the ability to communicate with each other? If so, one Hq should be able to control 4 different types of tanks. If it shows the training these units have engaged in together, than you shouldn't be able to mix and match.

One other thing is Hq with radios and AFvs with radios. The command and control for german afvs (some russian afvs lack radios early on)should almost cover the board. They should be able to relay orders just as quickly 20m away or 2000m away as long as the radio works.

[ 01-03-2002: Message edited by: Cooper ]</p>

[A question on AFV purchasing and CMBB]

Without mixed platoons it will really cut down on the variety of vehicles you see in one battle. Maybe we will not have to see a hetzer in every single battle cause who wants a whole plt of those rust buckets.

[A question on AFV purchasing and CMBB]

I was wondering, with the inclusion of plt. hq AFVs, how the purchasing of AFVs will be installed.

In a QB, i am guessing, it will be cheaper to buy 4 mark IVs as a plt then it is to buy 4 seperate mark IVs. This is how it is done with inf. forces now, (cheaper to buy company of inf. then 4 seperate plt.). This plt. of Mark IV will then come with a hq tank.

Here are my questions, in a QB say you only have enough points for 2 or 3 AFVs. Will the computer designate the first AFV purchased as a Hq unit or will you have to pay extra for an Hq?

What if you only have one AFV and it is not a hq unit? Do you have to pay the large "out of command" penelty if the one AFV you own is not a Hq unit?

Also, if your forces consist of 2 panthers, a tiger, and a stug, could one panther Hq command all these units, even if they are all different kinds of vehicles.

[Nordic Wannabee Tournament - Redux]

Cooper spotting confirmed, he was last seen driving west on I-80 dodging Jabos piloted by in-laws.

Sorry about the delay fellas, I just bounced off Mare Ichthys email address <bass-a@attbi.com> did he change it?

[Nordic Wannabee Tournament]

I have just sent out my 3 files to start up the games. I am waiting to receive my last two from my opponets.

One thing I must say is the fact that these scernarios are/could be unbalanced played havok with my setup.

Usually you know roughly what to expect of the enemy force composition just based on the price of your forces and the game (ME, attack, ect). With these scenarios having the ablitiy to be unbalanced I actually read through the briefing for the slightest bit of info on the enemy forces.

I am just setting up, and already I hear the voice in my head saying "oh f^%&, where did those guys come from". Thanks treeburst and all the scenario designers ,jarmo and will bill, out there that worked on these battles.

[Nordic Wannabee Tournament]

frytinghellfish, sundays work great for me. A nice fish fry goes great with football.

I also am in the Central time zone

[ 11-05-2001: Message edited by: Cooper ]</p>