Tarquelne

Should you *always* get info in an Assault game? I'm the attacker in a PBEM Assault now and didn't get any.

My thoughts are along the lines of c3ks. One platoon of HTs helps make it feel like a real Mech. Inf. attack, might help smoke-out any AT assets (use empty HTs), and could still be very good for a quick-attack (full this time) with cover from a Smoke artillery barrage. (Probably pre-planned. TRPs can give nice flexibility... but seem pricey.) Rather than M8s you *could* get M5s. The tank, not the bayonet. You can find them under the "Cavalry Squadron" option, I believe. You lose the .50 cal, but gain a significant amount of armor. Your opponent probably won't be expecting any tanks! Some good on map HE chuckers seem like a really good idea. If not M8s then mortars. One slightly, but not *too* gamy possibility is to try and really concentrate on the armor (ACs, HTs, M8s and M5s), getting just one or two platoons of inf. OR forsake all or almost all armor and concentrate on Infantry. In the first case you might over-tax the AT defenses. In the second case points spent on AT go to waste. A couple of sections of Engineers can help with mines. Though on this map I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about. Tell us about your attack plan. That might help us with the unit selection. And I'm just really curious, too.

No: brandy and cider. They're very important when you have to eat food that isn't preserved well because you used all the apples to make brandy and cider. (And the brandies often use apples of many, many varieties.)

I wonder what CMBN's CPU budget is like. I expect it to be significantly different from most games.

"Serpentine, Shel, serpentine!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN1WxSITwWw

It's not at all unrealistic to expect a bug free game. I buy bug-free games - major titles - all the time. Often for $15 or less. Generally at least a year after they come out. Sometimes it takes a lot longer, for either the price drop or the patches.

I found trusting the map more than CMx1 a big help. WYSIWYG. Especially for LOS. Once you learn a few rules about hedges.... and remember to turn the trees back on... OTOH, that sort of betrayed me in a recent game. What seemed a muddy street was a muddy street with Mud to either side. Not at all what I expected looking at the map... but with hindsight the cues were easy to see. And the match up between doors/windows and firing points at times seems 1:1, and other times it doesn't. (It's only really seemed to matter for barns.) But all in all I do better trusting the map than not.

I have a game where a bazooka team refuses to enter a street, and I can't figure out why. The street is empty except for the Stug and German infantry platoon.

Certainly not a needed or really even "lacking" feature, but the ability to view a completed battle as a whole battle rather than manually loading 1 min. segments would increase my enjoyment of the game a great deal. If BFC wanted the price of a module for just that... well, I might not go that far. But I'd be tempted. As long as I'm wishing: How about the ability to pre-plan multiple missions for 1 arty asset. (Short heavy *here* on turn 1, Quick Medium *here* on turn 5....) Or have the ability to buy arty in QBs with smaller ammo loads. (To split into multiple missions.) Or plan barrages for minutes 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, or 9. (I can see that min. 7 would be of little use and not worth coding.)

Totally unfair. As a WASP civvy I want my own special court. I mean, even more so than the normal ones are now. Is that the book where only war criminals are allowed to vote? Hear hear! We should find non-criminals with habitual problems and put them under a court's jurisdiction in an attempt to make them change. You're welcome. A separate court in indeed bad in principle. But like many things that are bad "in principle" you should look to the specifics, how far it's being taken, and whether or not in the given instance it's really doing more harm than good. Voting is a good example of the sort of thing I'm talking about, or ice cream.

Maybe we should have a Newbie League. You're kicked out after you win two or three times.

If you've done the tutorials I'm sure that's enough. I didn't even do that. (And got a nasty surprise one game - not *too* nasty, though.) Yeah, that seems to be the big problem. I was worried about wasting someone's time. But then it occurred to me that only an extremely hardcore player is likely to be upset by winning too quickly and easily. Maybe it'll get old later, but ATM newbie crushing should at least have novelty value. I don't know about the "best" way, but I just put up an post in the Opponent Finder forum and got more game invitations than I could accept. Later I'm likely to want to join a ladder/club/group/website/whatever, but the forum post did more than enough to get me started. I suspect that's also where you're most likely to find beginners at Human vs. Human play.

They feel under priced to me. But I suspect the larger the map, the longer the battle, the better the player, the less valuable they'll look. As a relative beginner playing short battles on small maps, the seem like the bomb. But better.

The figure for the same 10 week period in 2010 is 122 deaths. This took 11 min. after I found the proper webpage. That's 122 with no data from San Jose for three weeks - it could only go higher with the complete dataset. Can we assume the paper authors chose 8 cities with complete datasets over the periods in question? We should be speculating about a 2% "spike" in mortality, not 35%. The numbers are small and pretty variable. You're going to need to look at several years - not several weeks - worth of data to draw any conclusions.

The fact that file handling in CM*2 is infinitely simpler could explain where there's no utility. Taking you literally, for example, there's infinitely less need. Which isn't much.

What Lunsku said, plus what SteveP said. Two caveats: Watch your ammo. I almost ran out. Assume you're going to get no more than one enemy position taken out by the mortar.

Last couple of times I QB'd I used the "Suggestion" function. A quick glance at the unit type tells me whether or not the AI has made boneheaded purchases without, usually, revealing so much that most surprise is spoiled.

I long for the steppe. No matter how much vodka you drink, Normandy just isn't the same. After I get some more practice with it I'll probably enjoy bocage. ATM it just makes me want to call down 5 min. worth of 155mm on the whole map. Well, my troops will hug one safe edge...

Good point. "No off-map assets" or "Only organic." (right term?) could be a good agreement for MEs. Plenty of death-from-above in other engagement types.

The gunner's elbow is braced on the helmet of the soldier in front of him. One of the better uses for Pomeranian recruits, apparently.

The speed difference between FAST and QUICK seems to disappear in poor terrain. Troops on QUICK will often have time to recover before MOVE-using troops finish the same journey. (I don't know about long-term effects.) I suspect QUICK drains heavily laden teams more quickly, making MOVE look better. I've yet to send a HMG team on a long foot-slog, though, or tested it. Just some QUICK movement down the street or to the next hedgerow.

Isn't a 2-man AT team very close to that in price? There are some disadvantages, but it's far more mobile and has better range... Anyway... Yep. What we're talking about here is a sort of force multiplier, yes? I'd like to know if Broken is judging the points using large QBs. For small ones the err... "capital outlay" may be far too much to justify fortifications. But for large ones, OTOH, where the fortifications will be enhancing far more units, the price might be quite reasonable. (And by their nature fortifications might tend to be things you need a bunch of. A single mine might be fine if you've got a really juice bottleneck. But unless the map is cooperative you'll generally need quite a few.)

I played CMx1, but pretty much just against the AI. This time I'll venture into PBEMland. U.S. EST, I should be good for at least turn/day. I'd prefer smallish battles for now... but what the hey, anything's fine. You can reach me with PM or e-mail. (I'll PM posters of the last few threads.)

Hmm, yeah... It's my guess that for many newcomers CMBN is going to be their first wargame or highly complex strategy game. Back when CMBO came out such games were a major part of the market. But now they're niche products. CM has a pervasive FOW (Not just "Where's the enemy?" but "What's my hit chance?"), complex and unforgiving gameplay, and a scenario may have a LOT of stuff going on at once. I can think of mainstream games that have one or two of those characteristics, but not all three at once. (And rarely even one to CM's extent.)

The game can't be all that hard - otherwise the Peng challenge guys couldn't play it. A game I'm having trouble with makes me happy - I can get a lot of play out of figuring it out. IMO too many games are too easy. And before they un-suppress... a big factor with artillery. But it happens with small arms, too: Your HMG might decide to shift and need to be re-setup, or reload, for example. I played one scenario where a squad actually ran out of ammo... Getting the timing down is much of the difference between knowing the right tactic and actually pulling it off. And experience may be the only way to get it. But erring on the side of caution *is* good, at least when learning the game: Better slow than dead.