klapton

I guess you already found an opponent

I guess CMBB will go to retail sometime after CMAK is released. But it will be more than 5 weeks from now.

Yes, you can. Go to play scenario, and select your saved game, as if it were a game vs AI. Next screen will ask you to select a play mode: TCP, e-mail or hotseat (it doesn't let you continue the game against the AI). Select the appropiate mode and it will ask for your password. Then, you are in your saved game.

Send me a file: klapton@navegalia.com With move and run orders, squads are less likely to open fire. [ September 04, 2003, 05:48 AM: Message edited by: klapton ]

Road-railroad crosses could be made already in CMBO. Just join the road and the railroad at a tile corner. I would like to see railroad bridges. Are they in CMBB?

You can hide the troops, so they will fire only to near targets.

Admiral, when will you add an Overall rating? I am not reviewing scenarios anymore, because I had to tweak a bit the scores on Briefing and Replayability to get a result that reflects my feelings.

The AI does not play well, and after you have learned the basics of the game, you will probably beat it each and every time. Try to play with a handicap, giving AI an increase in forces or morale. Or better, play against a human. There is no way to resupply in the middle of a battle, but you do resupply between battles in an Operation. Try to conserve ammo. Don't fire at long distances; it is a waste and is unlikely that you will kill anything. Keep a reserve during the battle, and when your vanguard runs out of ammo, bring in the fresh troops. However, even if infantry has low ammo, they can still fire occasionally.

For the engine, vehicles are just non-dimensional points. LOS are traced from, and to, a point in the middle of the vehicle. If anything, LOS are restrictive. Many times a building has blocked my LOS, despite the rear part of the vehicle was clearly visible. Your report is very strange, do you have any pictures of that situation?

Excellent work!!

No esta mal, pero creo que podrias haber usado los siguientes terminos: Para el blindaje, Frontal, Lateral y Trasero, en vez de Delante, Lado, Atras Lo de la ametralladora "en arco", no se entiende muy bien. "Bow" en este contexto significa "frontal". Para la municion AP, creo que los terminos correctos serian "Perforante" o "Anti-blindaje".

Stick to this game. There is no other similar out there (apart from CMBB). You will learn little by playing the real-time ones, and in fact some of us had to get rid of bad habits acquired with those games. If you come fresh here, in some way you have an advantage.

Which ones have you played so far?

PBEM

Don't panick. Just play scenarios or quick battles against the AI, test the new weaponry you get and see the results. It is practice that will give you the most sound knowledge about the game. You will become confident with the game much sooner than you seem to believe.

Suggest playing at a later date, when naval arty is not available. Give him his own medicine; germans also have nice arty assets. Try the rockets. If he buys such expensive guns, then he will have less infantry or tanks. Try to spread your forces, avoiding obvious locations (victory flags, buildings, large forests). You don't need to be physically there to control them; often it is enough to have lines of fire to deny access. Keep a mobile reserve that can strike when it is needed, but that would be difficult to target with arty. And, if the opportunity arises counterattack to close in with his forces.

Thanks, Lee, but bear in mind that it is still in playtesting, and you may find it terribly unbalanced. I await your comments on it.

I don't see how a game on ancient warfare might fit onto the CM engine. Most battles of that era were decided with few orders and movements, and with little opportunity to recover from a mistake. If you take a battle as complex (for the era standard) as Zama, you see that the commanders indeed issued just three or four orders. If things like maneuver before battle, scouts and supply are included, then the picture gets more interesting, but they are currently out of the scope of the engine. There are already games based on ancient warfare, the best being those made by I-Magic, based on GMT board games. They are good, interesting and well-researched. But the designers, despite claiming inspiration from Delbruck's work, took the wrong approach and, by allowing management of small units, provided the player with too much flexibility.

The best I remember is L´Elle River Crossing. The German arty will sure wreck your nerve.

I have a P200, 128Mb, and Voodoo4 with 32 mb, and cmbo just runs fine. In extremely large maps things go sluggish, but for most battles it is ok. So, I guess you don't need to upgrade your system to get the best of it. If you plan to get cmbb, that's another story however.

Hi, Lee. So, you have abandoned us for CMBB (sigh). For sure it is a great game, but my current system (P200) cannot handle it properly, so I didn't get CMBB yet, only the demo. When I upgrade my system I will get it and try to design scenarios, but then all of you would have turned to CMAK (sigh).

CMBO scenario "Town of Hell" is ready for playtesting. If anyone wants to playtest it, please download it from klapton's Combat Mission site: http://members.fortunecity.com/klapton/cm/cm.htm Feedback would be appreciated

MG42 can kill allied halftracks

Thanks for playing and reviewing my scenario "Break-through" at the Scenario Depot. I'm glad you liked it.

There must be a night in between battles for the vehicles to be repaired.