Erwin

What's the address of the game store?

Playing Battle 1 in the new Russian Campaign. ********** SPOILERS ********** Completed Mission 1. It's one of those scenarios where if you kill enuff enemy you get a Total Victory even if you don't achieve the objectives. So, while I took the first objective, I never got close to the 2nd, and nowhere near the third. A bit frustrating when that happens. I thought that designers know to have reinforcements come in after the scenario run out of time to prevent early surrender by the AI. Most of the battle took place at long range. AAR showed that the two friendly T-90's killed most of the enemy by far. The BMP's and infantry were almost a liability cannon fodder as they got killed easily by enemy weapons systems one doesn't even spot until a friendly unit gets killed. 3 friendly BMP's killed and maybe a dozen inf. But, even tho' I lost points for too many friendly casualties, I still got a TV. I think I may be playing the system poorly - too much CMSF and CMA. In CMBS spotting is 90% of the tactics. Once an enemy is spotted (by the one drone one is given) one can bring down arty to do the killing, or maneuver the T-90's to do target shooting. With the benefit of hindsight I should have been more patient and just waited for the drone to do its spotting work b4 moving in with my inf and BMP's. However, enemy arty is constantly looking for you. So, you can't stay in one place too long. And the friendly arty takes 7 minutes to arrive using the FO (12+ using an HQ). The RPG teams btw were absolutely useless. Two RPG7 teams were in a good position behind an enemy BMP at about 300m. They shot everything they had - and missed every time. Irritated, I risked sending a T-90 to do the job (which it did in about 2 seconds).

Makes me want to play it too! But aren't we supposed to be holding ourselves ready for some playtesting?? (I'm currently using up time in the first mission in the new CMBS Russian campaign.)

Your mods look good LLF. You are being too hard on yourself. Am intrigued where you are going with this. Looks interesting.

"...players are unable to cancel the pause command at the setup phase." Don't understand what you mean. One can always cancel a PAUSE. You have tried repeating the PAUSE command till it cycles back to 0, yes?

That's a problem with the small CM2 maps. And generally even the big maps seem to be designed for short range firefights. (That's the main reason people can't understand why all units are not equipped with MG's which are overly effective in CM2. One rarely has long LOS that make rifles the weapon of choice.) It's rare to get LOS of over 300m.

The best training for Black Sea is CMSF and/or CMA. Modern weapons are plain nastier than WW2 era.

How do you keep em alive? I find the 60mm die quickly unless in very specific circumstances - eg: keyholed, or vs an enemy that can't see back - ie: direct fire to just adjacent an enemy.

Playing Battle 1 in the new Russian Campaign. ********** SPOILERS ********** It's a recon mission and I am enjoying it.

You too...

It's strange that all the PR shots of these Graviteam games are from the ground level view like it's a CM game or sim - showing off the beautiful graphics. However... every single video demonstrating how to play is always from a high altitude looking down on the whole battlefield and you can't see the lovely graphics of the units. ie: You can't play the game with a ground level view as it's RT and you can't control the units like that. If G. didn't bother with the ground level views and the lovely graphics and kept it at "Company of Heroes" level, the players would not notice the difference.

I understand what you intentions were as well as the concept of reinforcements arriving after the scenario ends to avoid and enemy surrender. I also appreciate that you didn't want the player to capture ground. But, given that I didn't get enuff points for killing the uncons (my only "fail" in the end stats) am suggesting that giving a couple more touch VL's where the remaining uncons were in fact hiding would have probably given me a TV. Currently, there is no reason to mess with any but the three objective buildings. (I did take a couple buildings early on so I could place my FO's and Javelins with xnt field of vision/LOS.) Am simply describing the shortfalls, or perhaps how I broke the system. My plan was quite simple: 1) Advance along ditches in the most direct way, but avoid getting too close to structures that could hide enemy with LOS to the ditch itself. 2) Avoid messing with any buildings that didn't have enemy inside or on the roofs that messed with me. Used a couple of Jav's but didn't really need em. The 81mm and 105mm were the most useful - esp since a couple of FO's were able to get accurate FFE in 2 minutes(!). I still ended up with plenty of spare ammo. Giving air support an area target seemed a waste of time. I don't think they engaged anyone until I gave point targets. Then I got a couple of big bangs out of them, but again didn't really need em, and they ended up with ammo to spare. I did need a few extra charges so was happy I decided to take two engineer teams with charges from the fort. As it turned out, the uncon attack was so puny, it was easily destroyed as soon as it arrived on the map. One could have far less garrisoning the forts and still defeat the uncon assault. Broke a couple squads into AT teams and used those 2-man teams for recon along with the 3-man engineer recon unit. Worked well. Only one team was successfully ambushed resulting in two WIA - those were the only casualties suffered by either of the Assault or Support Gruppes. If you decided to update this, I think that all that needs to be done is add a couple more touch objectives. And maybe toughen up the technical assault. More rugged terrain allowing the uncons to advance close to the forts unseen by the Blue forces would also do it. But, that would require more work I think. Currently, a brilliant first half is spoiled by a boring second half.

I have a wonderful monitor... You need a better screenshot...

Copied from main CMSF forum: Captured final objective with around 30 mins to go. CF'd with 3 WIA and 1 KIA with 3 vehicles KO'd. The three vehicles and one or two of the men were a result of the uncon HE barrages into the base in the first few turns of the scenario.. So, nothing I could have done about that. I was pleased that I only lost 2 guys to a good uncon ambush in the ditches. Got a Major Victory. Seems like I didn't kill enuff uncon to get a Total Victory. The problem is that the player has no incentive to go hunt more uncon down. To "encourage" the player to do more, there either should be more VL's to touch, or the VL's need larger "green" areas that need to be captured rather than just touched. After CF I saw many IED's but apparently I had no problem spotting and killing the triggermen and I don't think any IED's were triggered. The game end stats said that there were something like 80 enemy left ok. But, I only counted about 40 on the map. So maybe more were going to attack later(?). While the first half of the scenario is xnt and a lot of fun, nothing seemed to happen in the 2nd half of the mission. Between 1 hour 10 minutes to go and the end (28 mins to go) when I CF'd I didn't see any enemy and there were no more ambushes - just some desultory and poorly aimed arty spotting shots that never came close to the troops. Blasting into the VL's resulted in more enemy casualties as each building was garrisoned by uncon - but that was easy compared to "Green 9". The other disappointment with the 2nd half of the scenario was the enemy motorized technical attack at the 30 minutes to go mark. They were mostly wiped out by the fort garrisons before I even realized there was an attack going on at the other end of the map! I would recommend this scenario to new players as one has more than enuff force and arty to accomplish the mission even if one takes far more casualties than I did. Also, this scenario seems very replayable due to the large maze-like complex of ditches and many buildings scattered around. New players may not achieve a good victory, but they will have fun and get a chance to experiment with tactics and the interplay of air power and arty.

Captured final objective with around 30 mins to go. CF'd with 3 WIA and 1 KIA with 3 vehicles KO'd. The three vehicles and one or two of the men were a result of the uncon HE barrages into the base in the first few turns of the scenario.. So, nothing I could have done about that. I was pleased that I only lost 2 guys to a good uncon ambush in the ditches. Got a Major Victory. Seems like I didn't kill enuff uncon to get a Total Victory. The problem is that the player has no incentive to go hunt more uncon down. To "encourage" the player to do more, there either should be more VL's to touch, or the VL's need larger "green" areas that need to be captured rather than just touched. After CF I saw many IED's but apparently I had no problem spotting and killing the triggermen and I don't think any IED's were triggered. The game end stats said that there were something like 80 enemy left ok. But, I only counted about 40 on the map. So maybe more were going to attack later(?). While the first half of the scenario is xnt and a lot of fun, nothing seemed to happen in the 2nd half of the mission. Between 1 hour 10 minutes to go and the end (28 mins to go) when I CF'd I didn't see any enemy and there were no more ambushes - just some desultory and poorly aimed arty spotting shots that never came close to the troops. Blasting into the VL's resulted in more enemy casualties as each building was garrisoned by uncon - but that was easy compared to "Green 9". The other disappointment with the 2nd half of the scenario was the enemy motorized technical attack at the 30 minutes to go mark. They were mostly wiped out by the fort garrisons before I even realized there was an attack going on at the other end of the map! I would recommend this scenario to new players as one has more than enuff force and arty to accomplish the mission even if one takes far more casualties than I did. Also, this scenario seems very replayable due to the large maze-like complex of ditches and many buildings scattered around. New players may not achieve a good victory, but they will have fun and get a chance to experiment with tactics and the interplay of air power and arty. Will repost this on the Scenario Forums as well since that is where folks seem to hang out.

"...sounds like the developer isn't going to make any more." Darn - I thought that was supposed to be the way of the future. I liked the role-playing aspects. But, I can see how it would be an expensive game system to develop. The game's lovely full-color bound manual is the best I have ever seen (and looks expensive as well).

I see a black screen with green ovals. (Plus info bar at bottom.)

The increasing problem with user-made scenarios and especially campaigns is that they take so long for dedicated hobbyists to produce that BF will probably release another new CM2 product before they finish... and suddenly all attention shifts to the new "toy" - leaving the hobbyist designers in the dust so to speak. So, am delighted at the trend towards professionally produced product that is designed by a BF-led team and made available in a timely manner.

Exccccelent Steveson...

Only 50 minutes to go and two objectives. A couple of days maybe. I hope I don't have to play getting everyone back to base safely as well. Let's just hope that BF doesn't sabotage all your hard work by doing something like releasing something new to distract everyone - for example a Battlepack for CMBS...

Sorry, my uni degrees are clearly not up to helping me understand the BF naming policies...

Lovely... Bit confusing to d/l as usual. I paid my $10 and got a d/l called CMBS Windows v210 Patch Installer. Is that what the Battle Pack 1 is called?? Tried it, and yes it is. All seems to run fine. Basically we get two new campaigns, six standalone scenarios and 26 maps. PR blurb says "21 new missions", so I assume that (21-6) means there are 15 missions in the two campaigns(?). All very welcome as good quality content is vital, and it's clearly very hard for users to create these kinds of labor and time intensive materials. Looking forward to these professionally produced offerings.

I do not disagree with your logic. I keep suggesting that units while in good defensive positions should receive some sort of temporary morale or motivational boost. Maybe not possible currently, but mention it to BF for the next iteration.

Also note the new camo uniforms worn by the gunners on the right - designed to be darker so that in time it fades to the ones worn by the gunners on the left. Another example of Brit pioneering ingenuity recently stolen by the Yanks (re their new camo schemes).

I recall how the Soviet units were always portrayed as identical characterless units all with exactly the same abilities. The Germans had all sorts of fun counters with different capabilities. So, perhaps it was a bias of the designers to make the Germans "sexy".