Steiner14

Ahem, you are talking about a 88mm gun, don't you. The video you present gives not a good impression. Ofcourse if the ground is dry and dusty, then you will see lots of "smoke" and it could even blind the commander for several seconds (German dug in ATG crews had to make sure, there was no dust from the ground being produced). I have searched a video for you, where you get a better impression, of the smoke of the 88 gun, if you want to compare apples and oranges (signature of the 75mm was less). In this video (@2:55) you can not only see how fast the smoke disappears (at typical engagement distances of 1000m the smoke of even a 88 was gone, before the shot was heard), but also the low density of the smoke: http://youtu.be/PLAI1omJnAo I don't understand why you have problems with simple facts. This fact even shows how tough it was for allied tankers to fight german tanks and it is a proove of bravery of the enemy tank crews. @Chris69 If you know nothing about this topic (which is no surprise to me) i can recommend the book "Unternehmen Patentraub 1945" by Friedrich Georg. But i don't know if it's available in English. As a quick introduction for English readers to this interesting but taboo topic, i can recommend this article: http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/patents.html

Impressive. Any infos about about remnants of crew-members? Says who? A Russian?

Ofcourse they had. The german muzzle-blasts were BY FAR the lowest. One shot with a german gun and you saw almost nothing. One shot from a russian or US gun, and you saw a big cloud... Why do you guess, were the wonderful Alliies so keen on "liberating" the Germans even from the rest of the not destroyed and still functioning german industry, robbed all papers, patents and were even keen on the 3rd generation of engineers?

Indeed. :cool: But then auto-cancel would need a different solution since scouting units would always trigger it. Maybe two different kinds of emergency waypoints would do the trick? a) Absolute EWP (this is auto cancelled if the unit is moved a certain distance [user definable: after plotting the EWP, a circle around the unit is drawn and the player defines the radius] - best for dug in or defending or ambushing units) Relative EWP (no auto cancelling, but the EWP is moving relative with the unit's position - good for scouting)

What if units could be given a single emergency waypoint? A sleeping movement order that would be activated from the AI, once it decides that it would be better to leave the current spot. Maybe with the ability to choose between two or three threshold levels, when this order will become activated (percentage of losses, morale status, activate for artillery only). Maybe that could also be useful for simulating ambushes & fallbacks? To avoid problems with forgotten emergency orders after the player had moved the unit to another place, this command could be auto-cancelled, if the unit is actively moved a certain distance.

Excellent discussion and i'm glad, that the extremely deadlyness of mortars is also seen by others as problem. Right now, every battle against ATGs is just a question, if a 8cm mortar is available, then the gun is toast - do this a few times and every defense is stripped off it's ATGs, bring in the tanks and win without problems. How incapable was the Wehrmacht at Kursk, to break ATG-defenses with tanks, if they could have used only a few mortars before bringing in the cats for a promenade? The 50mm mortar was abandoned by the Wehrmacht, because it proved ineffective. The 8 cm was effective, but i have my doubts, that it was that Wunderwaffe we see in the game. For example the Gr.W. 34 had a spreading of 65 m @max. distance @perfect weather conditions (i guess the data will be similar for the US mortar). If we assume a deviation proportionally with distance, that would give @600m already a 16,25 m spreading. At 1200m aready a circle with over 30 meters radius. Entrenched units should be quite well protected against shrapnel. Direct hits are what threatens them. If i take into account the target area of reality (equals to a spot fire command in the game!) then i have the impression, that mortars are too precise - but also the effects are too deadly against dug in units. Since fully dug in ATGs are not simulated yet, they are presented like on a tablet. HMGs in foxholes IMO are also not good enough protected against smaller mortar fire. Therefore the backbone of every defense against combined attacks, ATGs + HMGs, can be taken out much too easily with mortars. Spot them, bring up the mortar unit, fire, problem solved. What makes it even worse, is that we have no possibility of the standard procedure of Stellungswechsel (change of position). Normal for HMGs but also for ATGs, before it became too hot. Putting also the AIs unit behaviour into this context and it becomes clear for me why mortars are the Wunderwaffe they are now. IMO mortars should be more effective to force the heads down and not be like a Terminator against dug in units. Only if an attack rolls, then the defenders need to raise their heads and shoot despite of incoming mortar fire - especially if tanks are rolling against ATG positions - and in that sceonds they become vulnerable. For me it would feel about right, if i could waste the whole ammo of a Gr.W. 34 unit against an ATG and still wouldn't really know, if it was knocked out or if they are keeping their heads down.

Thank you. Didn't now that. The only symbol i have paid attention so far was for attack/defend. The symbol for size seems to be used in a highly subjective manner. I nevertheless prefer the sorted list of the battles according to my personal categories.

I think it would be very nice, if the scenario list would show some parameters already. As a workaround i'm renaming all scenarios after checking their description: Players: "2p" or "ge" or "us" or "2ai" or "all" Type: a (attack) - d (defend) - me (meeting eng.) Size: s (< 1 company) - m (1 cp. < 1 bn.) - l (> 1 bn.) - xl (> 1 rgt) Duration in minutes i.e.: us_a_s_70_TITLE for a small 70 minutes attack played as US against AI. That way the whole scenario list becomes automatically sorted after the parameters. If someone prefers a different sorting, just use another sequence of parameters (i.e. size prior to type).

This is already implemented! The modifier key is CTRL.

Select unit by clicking it's movement path. The above function shows it's real beauty with this functionality: Show all paths - should work, when no unit is selected.

To plot a path, it is necessary to select a command. But if a command is selected, then the left-click with the mouse plots the waypoint and camera-movement with the mouse is no longer possible without plotting a waypoint. :mad: Only the fastest movment is possible with the mouse cursor hitting the edges of the screen (wonderful at ground levels and when precise paths are wanted! :mad: :mad: :mad:), or the command must be deselected. But with all the problems afterwards: if i want to add a orientation-order, the last waypoint is no longer active. The orientation-order would be given to the unit's current position. So zooming out, turning around, movement, searching the last waypoint, clicking it, ... Pure UI-HORROR! Solution: A modifier-key, that allows camera-movement with the mouse and denys left clicking to plot waypoints, although an order is selected. I.e. SHIFT. You select the command you want to plot. But you can move the camera with the mouse without plotting when left-clicking: just hit SHIFT and navigate the camera as usual.

Dedicated button for end of replay like in CMx1 to avoid accidentally clicking the RED-button: +1

I find the handling of units in woods quite cumbersome. Lot's of clicks. Right now, we have the option to show the trunks of trees only in close proximity to the camera position, which i find extremely helpful. But what lacks IMO, is a solution for units further away behind trees. My pixeltruppen much more often open fire on units behind trees, i can't see at all, because the graphical represetation of one single tree-texture blocks LOS for the player almost 100%. Simple solution: How about giving every tree texture a transparency-level (maybe user adjustable?), if units are close to them? (IMO this works very well for units in houses already). I can imagine, that way the player will also get a better feedback how deep the visual blocking is: one tree is almost transparent and creates the feeling of quite some exposure, while more trees are needed that the player loses the unit out of sight. A technically much more complicated solution: Instead of a fixed transparency radius of treetops around a unit, the transparency behaviour would be made dependent on camera position (but i don't know, how difficult that would be to program): Every tree between a unit and the camera-position would receive a certain level of fixed transparency (like described above) but instead of transparent (circles around the unit), there would be only a "transparency-corridor" from the unit directly to the player's camera. If the camera moves, the transparency of treetops moves accordingly.

Seems to be a very useful enhancement. Not only for CM-experts, but i think even more for newbies, trying out the game. Often new players are lost (the ego-shooter-culture doesn't make that better over time) and turn away because of the complexity. This suggestion would project lots of infos into a grapical representation and therefore reduce the felt complexity. Could result in a bigger customer base.

Gridded terrain works perfectly and for me is a must have for effective combat. A switchable grid overlay would be very nice.

+1 for Command Lines (optional to switch off for the girls playing CM ) Armor cover arc Simulation of fully dug in and camouflaged ATGs

A solution to the difficulties with indirect fire weapons would be to show a LOF trajectory too, when checking LOS. To my knowledge the indirect fire of HMGs was one of the main reasons for incredible losses of Soviet infantry against very weak german lines. At least for the Germans it was a very important defensive tool. It also allowed to deny the attacker to know how many defenders really are there. Additionally to the ability to simulate camouflaged and fully dug in ATGs, i think these two tactical procedures would increase the realism quite a lot.

+1! (minimum text lenght reached)

Wreck, yes that's correct. Just like artillery. http://youtu.be/zV9rwIvtS14 (1:25) Here you can see a calculation triangle: http://www.mbertram.de/online/MBertram_0006/warenkorb/betrachten_engl.php?artikel=7191 At a shooting distance of 2000m the projectiles had their highest point of more than 30m in the air (combat range 2000-3500 m). The tripod was constructed that way, that it spread the bullets automatically over a wider area without the need of manual adjustment while shooting.

I don't think this is really necessary, since every title offers enough depth and motivation for many months. But to increase the implementation speed of new features would be handy (multithreading, after action replay, co-op-play).

Wreck, that's not true. Using indirect fire ("verdeckte Feuerstellung") with MG34 & MG42s guided by FOs was common practice in the Wehrmacht. It was highly effective, allowed shooting above the heads of the own units and even allowed to combat units taking cover. IMO it would be cool, if CMx2 would simulate HMGs ballistics and allow that (would make most sense on 2+ km maps).

If such unrealistical results are not wanted, then the solution lies in fixing the source of the problem: the rules that define victory. Players should be aware, that the normal settings of battles are action-settings allowing slaughtering the own forces and winning nevertheless. If players want realistical victory conditions, simply the parameters must be set accordingly. Usually scenario designers concentrate on balancing the forces and offer only one version of a battle. But i think it would be interesting, if scenarios would be offered in more than one version: one is the usual "action" version, and another version could offer more realistical victory conditions, i.e. where losses could have a much higher impact but therefore allowing force-wise more unbalanced battles. Ofcourse the unusual, very difficult victory conditions regarding losses must be communicated very clearly in the briefings. I think it would also be very helpful/exciting/more fun, if the game could inform the player, if certain values or thresholds are reached, if the scenario designer wants that. Text-messages defined by scenario designers that pop up, if certain events are triggered ("Our losses are heavy and could become a problem to reach our goal!", "Losses are too heavy!", "This loss will have a negative impact on further success of the operations." "Prepare yourself for a martial court!" )

Broadsword56, good post. It shows what i already tried to explain: the usual defensive setups in CMBN battles are not adequate and are more like rearguarding units on the move, but not dug in units. IMO there should be made much more use of the defensive tools (and new, additional tools would be very nice, too ). Ofcourse that would make attacking more difficult and sometimes the designers would invent real hard nuts, that need a lot of planning, but for those who like realism, i think it would be more challenging and more fun. Why do we have no scenarios, only the best attack players can achieve a minor victory (not because of unit balance, but because of the overall strenght of the defensive position)? Another aspect i would like to see a solution for, is the visibility of hidden ATGs. I mean we do not have the possibility for ATGs to dig them into the ground down to the barrel and put camouflage on them. Very often they could not be spotted by FOs with binocs, but only after they had opened fire and the muzzle flash was spotted. Maybe a stealth and a size-bonus to simulate that kind of entrenched ATGs would be a solution?

Try to use arguments instead fleeing to ad hominem attacks.

No, you judge because of the varying size (and the reduced texture quality), not because of natural field of depth effects. Play with fog and you maybe will understand what i'm talking about. Or look at games that have FoD FX. You could also close one eye and try to analyze what you see, when looking around in real life if you refuse to understand what i'm talking about. Because a monitor is only 2D, the FoD FXs should even be exaggerated to the real ones, to compensate for the 2D projection. I have explained exactly that as the consequences of no field of depth FXs and you come up and praise the workaround... One can only hope, that developers are more critical about their products than the fanbois...