Sarge Saunders

Pure gamey cheatery trying to get the forum to help you defeat me! ;-) Agreed that we wouldn't want the weather to be predictable for player #2 on a simultaneous turn. There have been a couple of times in our match where your little Nipponese have had clear weather and I didn't...for 2 consecutive cycles. And vice versa. It almost made a difference. Had it gone for 3 or 4 turns it would have. But so far, it has evened out. Since we have been editing our way through these campaigns I think we should just turn the % down if we find it has a poor effect on the game. The same non-simultaneous weather would still happen...just less often.

I got mine from CMMods. I think 0.8. But we have made several edits for our private PBEM. One of the complaints about that campaign was it was too easy to knock Russia out of the game. We created fall-back capitals for Russia and made Egypt a little stronger. Among other things, including adjusting tac bombers, it is more balance IMO.

I've been playing the Thrawn European Theater on SC2 WaW 1.02 via PBEM. We have played several times through and switched sides. We've been using the editor and making tweaks for balance and recently brought Tac Bombers down by 1 point on hard attack, soft attack, and air attack. This seems about right so far. Hard and soft attack get upgraded with AT capability so eventually gets respectable (at a cost). And now they can't be used to readily destroy every fighter unit on the ground. Otherwise, the Tac Bombers...especially German units which draw on all the Poland/France experience are total killers. The only defense is AA and even then, as stated in another thread, AA needs to be level 2 or 3 just to adequately defend against level 1 tac bombers. $0.02

Special forces have de-entrenchment 2 as do artillery. Without these, the WaW feels much more like regular SC2. I personally don't like taking these out. Though I would like to have garrison troops. I'd even go for a few free SS corps for garrison if it meant keeping Spec Forces. $0.02

Ditto this. I'm looking forward to a Honch map for WaW. Mainly to kick Stormbringer around in... And let me take the opportunity to ask for Garrison units in the (potentially) next Honch map for WaW. It is expensive for Germany to garrision with Corps on the Western Front.

I've had similar issues. Re-boot fixed it for me every time.

Yes, we've taken the equal command approach. Although I tend to micro-manage things a bit more so that adds strength to our team play. My team-mate is invaluable having played numerous PBEM battles with me and our opponents in Spain. No matter what the manuevering, we always look for ways to put our forces together for added power in the final showdown. I've even made the occasional screenshot and draw lines on it to coordinate planning. as far as housekeeping, save all the files under unique naming conventions. The question of who has the latest files in Team Battles has come up many times....

I've been doing some team games for almost a year now. It is not always the fastest moving game due to slightly longer turn delays. The other 3 players also play each other and myself, so that creates a regular communication between players anyway. As long as all players understand PBEM procedure and who needs to move when....when a move file is done, the first player the play it saves their moves in a save-game file. Then they send the save-game file to their team partner to add their moves and process. I find it easiest to cc: all PBEM TXT files (but not savegames) to all other 3 players so they know how the game is progressing and observer the usual PBEM banter. .. Thats the low-down on procedures. Also, we have used custom maps (usually larger ones) and a 3000 point attack/defend QB setting. Teams differ in their approaches. My team splits the points into 2 groups and we command sectors or specific units/companies. Other possibilities include teams splitting up the armor and infantry commands. It can be huge fun, a little slower than normal PBEMs, and more of a realistic challenge to coordinate commands. Good luck! -Sarge

Aaargh! That tricky Shift key.

Lemme bump this. Pud has a couple nice maps and Admiral Keth has some new one's at Scenario Depot.

Always bring a mortar FO...in every battle. Then you will have some smoke and you can mass for an assault even over really open ground. Its not pretty, but it is better than feeding your infantry to the grinder piecemeal.

Let me add a couple more points. First, I am not saying crap like "I Rulez at Castle Wolfenstein so I'm ready for the SAS!" We are talking about CM which requires tactical skill to win against opponents who have some tactical skill. In this way, it breeds just the sort of thinking needed to plan a winning battle. Second, if this were only a game my statements would be ridiculous. But of course it isn't just a game. The enlightened among us here know that CM is a_way_of_life .

I said battalion S3 staff. Not the actual S3. Not the battalion command. Not commanding anything at all. The S3 staff often has non-comms even. Though the S3 is an officer. According to this: http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/ETO-OB/ETOOB-TOC.htm There where 50+ USA divisions in Europe 1945. How many battalions?? How many are battalions are staffed by officers from West Point?? The history of the US Army is ripe with instances of good and bad US officers (even Generals) who did not come from West Point. No offense. You suggest that the "civie" is vastly underqualified compared to the long-trained WW-II staff officer. I suggest that the length of the war plus the large numbers of divisions fielded meant in practice that the difference between "civie" and officer was about 3 months training. BTW, please stop with the rollie-eyes. My daughter drives me nuts with this.... :eek: You assume too much. Nobody mentioned Stephen Ambrose here. What I have read has been PRIMARILY written by officers and footsoldiers in their own words. German, Russian, American. Personally, I think the entire thing is a fun and interesting hypothetical. But some guys don't like to give any lee-way for this kind of "what-if". -Sarge

Do you have any idea how little training the average USA officer got in battle tactics before being pushed into the WW-II fray?? Hell, we are talking about citizen soldiers for the most part. At least Germany had a Staff College that it sent select officers too. I'm not sure of the USA equivelant but really...do you think most USA LTs knew their way around a battlefield at first?? Maybe I assign too much value to CM experience. But you assign to much value to the draftee/volunteer experience when it comes to tactical knowledge.

I mean tactics at the Regimental, Battalion, and possibly Company level. What books I've read indicate that most main attacks used only a reinforced battalion at the vanguard (notably German and USA OoBs). Even Division attacks seem to have been planned with the lead battalion as its primary cutting edge. CM-sized maps and scenarios lend themselves very well to this size engagement. Th battalion commander could say: A and B company advance in echelon west-to-east in approaching the objective. C company will advance while securing the A and B company's left flank. D companies heavy weapons will be deployed forward with A company. Battalion reserve will be elements of B company's 2nd platoon along with the battalion HQ element. 2 platoons of tanks will arrive as reinforcements. THEN....play it out in CM...maybe it will work...maybe not. But seeing this in CM action would exactly teach the company commander's their role in the battle plan. It might teach what quantity and type of planned reinforcements will be needed to follow up the attack. It might also teach the we need another company to protect the right flank!! [ May 21, 2004, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

This is really a good point. CM is no substitute for real battle planning experience. It might also be said to come down to styles of playing. The best players do actually consider casualties and don't play with units as though they are expendable...even so real life military tactics often plan on losing numerous casualties: delaying actions, rear-gaurd, wave assaults, etc. Real life doesn't have a nice neat scoring system at the end of the battle. So the real test of how good a "lab" CM is might be how well CM-honed tactics would work in real life WW-II as a hypothetical.

Michael seems to be picking over the meaning of "simulation" but I get the main point. However, if your perspective is completely right then why does the modern (and historical) army wargame at all!!?? See: http://www.nps.navy.mil/or/or-courses/WargamingDS.htm A quote from above: How is this different from what I describe?? I'm talking BATTLE-PLANNING here. Clearly, the oft-discussed "borg spotting" in CM does not simulate real-world WW-II battle outcomes. But analyzing the outcome of wargaming in the military has been critical to real life battlefield success....I'd venture to say it would be a decisive advantage on the WW-II battlefield given roughly equal opposing forces.

I doubt that Its still only a game, not even close to real life issues. </font>

Ditto this. But it did not take me long. The CMBO demo scenario "Valley of Trouble" convinced me that suddenly here was a game where real world tactical decisions have real world results. While these results were bad for me at first....it occured to me that frontal assault on a pillbox is not a smart real world decision...I soon tried less suicidal tactics. By the way, how many other game's scenarios or missions would include a pillbox that you are NOT supposed to attack from the front?? Anyway, CM raises the level by turning your computer into a WW-II battlefield tactical laboratory (WoBTaL). It may sound presumptive, but a winning CM player could possibly serve with distinction on a Regimental or Battalion Operations Staff of the time....give time-travel to 1944. -Sarge

*sigh* *grumble* *profane* Why does "Hitler" or "Nazi" always have to be inserted into the "I don't like Americans anymore..." posts? Wait! Don't answer that. (It is rhetorical) G'night mates. -Sarge

You know what they say: Brevity is the soul of.... Nevermind, we'll get into a slogan war quick with this. Newbies are baptized by fire around here. I got mine...ah how I miss Fionn.

LOL! "Fix bayonets" is not something an infantryman wants to hear! I'm sorry about some of the posts against Volkov. He seems new and not aware of the hardcore "back-it-up-with-facts-or-you-do-not-know-squat" attitude so prevelant around here. *sigh* I get a little tired of it....Ah well it ain't no Democracy on this forum. Personally, I'd like to see more veterans posting and not run off to the hills. I don't even mind the vibes of a crazy Marine! $.02 -Sarge

Geez,, the Boy Scouts of America put US reservists in thier shadow all the time.....The only differnce in the Boy Scout and the US Army Reserve is that the Scouts don't have tanks! </font>

Didn't this also just happen to our team PBEM? Hrmmmm...is the PIBKAC Stormbrought or BTS? BTS fix or do somfink! -Sarge

LOL! Some funny replies here. On defense I try to avoud having that unsupported platoon way out in front/side to act as a speedbump to the onslaught of the assaulter. But sometimes the terrain or setup makes that a must. Against careful attackers it will slow them down; againts carless attackers it will kill some bad guys. Best place those guys where they are not expected but they will die. And anyone who tries to help them will die also. It is a tough mission to draw but hey lose a platoon is better than losing a battalion as someone earlier said.