Matias

Hey Combat Mission is good, but its not worth a reprimand or getting fired... Unless your job really sucks that I gues... In any case, a bit of forum reading (during lunch and coffee breaks right?!) is probablly a safer way to slake the addiction! There is help for our problem... Oh wait, that's this forum!! Editing this post 'cause I have a growing suspiscion that I've finally discovered how everyone got so good at these games... No more red herrings for me about sleep being expendable! Seriously tho' its tempatations like this one that are behind my policy of open work spaces and no backs to the wall! Something about the will being weak... [ December 19, 2002, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: Matias Duarte ]

Oooh! Oooh! I want to learn more about *how* to effectively make a fighting withdrawl in CMBB! Actually that's why I came into this thread, but until Fionn's post I haven't been getting much. Here's what I extract (pun intended sorry) from his post. Multiple withdrawls from multiple points of resistence in one battle are common for him, over a distance of 1km (!). His screening / recon force which does most of the withdrawing is about 1/3 of his avalible forces. He's maintaining an even line as he withdraws since he's willing to abandon ambushes before triggered. Now my questions! What kind of forces are suitible for this? Infantry and afv if covered retreat routes are avalible? Do you bring mortars and HMGs in support? How much do you withdraw at one bound? 50? 100m? 200m? I assume it would work best like a travelling overwatch in reverse, move two squads back to covering fire and pull a single one out at the end? How much distance to keep between squads ideally (obvious modified by sight lines)? How do you know you've harried an enemy long enough to withdraw? Number of turns? Number of opponents? It seems once you're taking heavy casualties its too late! Inquiring newbies want to know! Thanks!

ROFL!!!

Eden, I totally see what you are saying. Now that I understand it better my gut tells me that would be even less work to implement than my idea because the UI plot of the second point would be completely unconstrained. I think it'd also be much more flexible / powerful - but it'd be kinda redundant with a cover arc (what would happen if you moved east, seek pointed north, but covered arc south? Obviously one or the other would have to be cancelled - though I guess this is actually the case today) My twist (seek point first, limit second) is more limited and more interface work but possibly less underlying engine work... Course none of these suggestions allows me to seek hull down in reverse... *carefully opens can of worms*. As for my main suggestion : Indicate LOS please! And why would anyone want it? 1) it makes it easier for people who're trying to understand the command. Especially non grogs for whom CMBB is intoducing the hull-down concept. 2) it saves mouse clicks (one step instead of two) 3) it prevents errors ( I check LOS, but then I accidentally place my seek point a few eters further away - no grid you know, I'm just eyballing this - and oops it was already in LOS so my forces wander into the open) Moon?

Ah, I see Eden beat me to it! What do you guys think of just a LOS indicator while the seek point it being plotted? [ December 09, 2002, 10:29 PM: Message edited by: Matias Duarte ]

Moon, Just reading your responses has given me a greater understanding of how this command is meant to be used. Watching this conversation ive become convinced that the command works fine, but many people are confused how to use it beacuse a subtle mistake can lead to big time errors. What do you think of my above suggestion of indicating as you place the seek point wether it is already LOS? Juat a warning with the appropriate note in the manual? I think it would seriously help newbies understand the command. Also please note that my second suggestion differs slightly from Eden's in that the one way point is movement and seek just like now (no extra code or engine load), the second one is just a dynamic limiter (ideally would be constrained to the original path). Just like the cut off you said was tested but dynamically setable. If you were in a rush you could just double click for same as current behaviour!

Thats a good point about inexperienced troops having diffuculty succeding with Hull Down... I could easilly imagine inexperienced troops stoping too far out to be hull down. Though not at the point they're supposed to be shooting at! But since there could be a dip (as opposed to a ridge), you do have to continue even if you have LOS since the interface doesnt let you give any more specific orders... HRMMM ... Here's two thoughts for BTS, one more difficult than the other: 1) Perhaps as an aide to inexperienced players a warning could appear when you place your seek point if you already have LOS to that point. Then the manual could explain, "if you get the Already LOS indicator when placing a seek point, be sure that there is another feature between your unit and the seek point, otherwise the unit will travel all the way to the seek point. Remember the terrain in the interface is an abstraction, etc. " This also saves the experienced from having to make a separate LOS check prior to Seeking. 2) Make Seek a two waypint command like Shoot and Scoot. The first way point determines the vector of advance and also a limit on how far to move, the second waypoint is the target. In this case, the unit would move along the first vector, aming at the second point and stop as soon as it was either hull down to the second point or farther than the first way point. The idea being to abstract the order to "got to the *crest* of that hill and *seek hull down*. Honestly, #1 seems easier and would make me happy because most of my intended usage has been in cresting a ridge, however I threw the second idea in because in Moon's scenario, even if properly understood there might not be a hull down position in that gully, it might be too shallow. A player might still want their tank to keep their distance and not wander into the minefield on the other side say. Not a big deal either way. I entered this thread because as a newbie I couldnt understand how to use the command, which sure made me feel dumb given how I'd read that the motivation for including it was to make tank usage easier for the novice!

Redwolf, You're right! Your example is the same as mine, I got your post confused with KC's while replying... I was just looking to simplify the example he gave into a test case...

I have no real sense on the level transitions (though my gut tells me that Splity is on the right track - certain levels are not dependent on combat experience, but training *and* combat experience) however this disscusion made me realise one interesting twist. You're probably already working this out somehow but one thing that undoubtedly complicates tracking CM system unit experience from battle to battle as part of a campeign system is that the experience is the average of the entire squad. This makes for nasty cases such as a battle causing 75% casualties, the remaining few gain a lot of experience, but they are filled out with green troops for the next battle and may actually preform worse in average as a result. Or say one squad saw very little action in a particular battle, whereas another squad was part of a complicated assualt... Just thinking about all the possibilities makes my head hurt! I think I'll stick to playing...

Redwolf, your instructions seems good and clear, however they seem to conflict with my experience. In playing the second 'tutorial' scenario for CMBB, when I got to the bit where I was supposed to place my assault guns hull down to the town I ended up with them wandering out into the open onto the reverse slope (and incedentally getting popped). For thoose not familliar with the scenario imagine a simple ridge with my AFVs on one side and a town on the other (hidden from their view). I fast moved them halfway up the slope, then placed the seek waypoint in the town. Now I suppose what could have happened is that the terrain model was telling my drivers that they were in LOS with the town although it appeared very different in the interface.... Guess the test to run (I will later this weekend if no one beats me to it) is to start with a tank on the near side of a ridge with a target on the other side (say a pillbox facing the wrong way). Then test LOS to the pill box, and note the point at which the line turns black. Plot seek to the pill box and see if the tank stops right around the area where the LOS check failed (I guess this has to be a sharp ridge or else it would go farther). If thats the case the trick is simply to check you dont already have LOS to the seek point, cause if you do your AFV will go a huntin'... 'Course seems like if it was that simple the interface itself could do the check and warn the user / reject the command (seek hull down waypoint cant be placed in LOS like a move point cant be placed in impassable terrain). Any thoughts folks?

Sweet! Now where do I send my first born child again?

PvK, You bring up a point which I've been wondering about, just what is a "historically acceptable causalty level"? I ask out of complete ignorance. Also does anyone know if this is taken into account by the game in determining victory? Or rather, since your casualties obviously count against you, is the penalty variable depending upon the type of encounter? I imagine it would be more acceptable to lose a lot of men if the encounter were an assault rather than a probe? Maybe I'm wrong... Actually I could also guess that the amount which penalties count against you could be variale depending on country and year of the war. I imagine the Soviets considered much higher casualty counts as acceptable and succesful considering their force pool. Hrm... Seems the Germans might also have considered higher casualties on the defense acceptable regardless of the force pool (or at least one very highly placed German)... Realistic balancing should reflect the economic potential of the countires involved (and their allies) and would effectively rate each battle in how it contributed to the war... Obviously a nightmare of balancing. I think perhaps casualties should always have the same penalty after all!

I've had the same experience so I keep meaning to do a test to figure out exactly how and when to use Seek Hull Down - darn Quick Battles! You're probablly already doing this but I've gotten into the habit of just using Hunt, Cover Arc and Shoot & Scoot. Planned right (cresting hills and pointing the turret in the suspected direction of the enemy) they tend to leave me in hull down position once the fur starts flying. I do find it worrysome though because as I've learned how to use each of the more esoteric commands, Advance, Assault, Shoot & Scoot, etc. I've kept discovering how crucial they are to winning the game! I will be watching this thread with keen interest...

Dumb question here, (but I'm on the bus and can't download it to find out) since its written in java does that mean this program will run on my Mac? I sure hope so, since I was getting ready to start using that other one under VPC!

I can't belive I'm surrounded by so many grogs on this board and no one know the answer to my question! I know you're out there... I can hear you breathing... I don't want to know to win, I just want to know!

Thanks for the "official quote" Duke, Although I must confess it worries me somewhat - now I'm not one to quibble with any aspect of the game's realism or simulation choices (I'm far to ignorant of the topic for the former, and far too well aquainted with the tough tradeoffs involving the latter). Thus when somebody contends or even proves that the trenches in the game cannot be used quite the way they were hoistorically (for example), I have to shrug and say "I know very little of the history upon with to judge and it seems very likely to be an inherent limitation of this game engine - too bad." However, in this quote there is some detail implied into the way in which a particular effect is simulated that doesn't make sense to my rudimentary knowledge of statistics. Namely, its suggested that the chances of one particular vehicle bogging are somehow related to the total number of vehicles moving at one time. Again, I'm no mathematician, but this I don't understand. While it may reward good tactics (bounding overwatch), it seems to me that the odds of any one vehicle bogging should be independent. That is it shouldn't matter wether there are twenty tanks moving across the steppe at the other side of the map, my chances of getting this one heavy tank through these scattered trees should be the same. Perhaps this logic is included to counteract some other unseen factor arising from things like moving faster actually reduces bogging chances because of the shorter time spent in the terrain, and in most cases is a wash when the game is played properly. However if so I would like to see confirmation from BTS and would also respectfully recommend that such a fact be reconsidered or, if that's impracticable due to time and complexity of coding, made explicit to the players in the README. Why? Because to a new player who is trying to "learn by doing" as BTS recommends, this fact is undiscoverable. The first time I played Death Ride of the 424, I lost a third of my tanks to bogging. Given that this is a short scenario with only tanks its easy to see why that might be the case if the odds are indeed based on the number moving. Certainly even if I had know to practice good overwatch tactics I would have been tempted in many cases to just charge ahead because time is so short. As it was I drew no such conclusions, decided instead that the Russian mud was an enemy of equal to Stalin, and decided to try and beat the scenario by keeping my tanks to the roads. I think that's a reasonable conclusion given the popular impressions of the Tiger and the Russian winter! Bounding overwatch? I had no clue that this was the solution to bogging. I guess my point is that I don't feel it is sufficient that the game be realistic when played realistically, but that it should punish you realistically so that you have a chance to learn realistic tactics, OR (more likely given the nature of simulation) should instruct the player explicitly to do or avoid certain things. Please, official comment on wether or not this impression of mine is mistaken? (BTW, this seems like a perfect candidate for a boot camp scenario: Bounding overwatch is a simple concept for advancing into hostile areas ...blah blah blah... its also good practice because due to the limitations of the game engine, etc. )

Ha! For some reason that reminds me of Star Trek II, "He never faced the no win scenario - he reprogramed the computer so that it could be won." (or some such)...

Scott, That is great news! Is there anyway I can contribute or help any of these projects, or should I just sit patiently in line with cash in hand? As I mentioned before I'm more than willing to contribute to such a project - I may not yet be competent to run a battle, but I sure can run the editor. In fact I'm recreating the famous battle site of the confrontation between the People's Republic of Berkely and the National Socialist Dot-Coms (S.F. Branch) at Fisherman's Warf. I'm kinda surprised it wasn't included in the CD actually...

Sign me up for one! Especially if it comes with a CD full of scenarios....

Eden, thanks for the link! There is good stuff there, but it'll take a while to digest - I was hoping for something more structured. Heck I'd be happy to take a class with tests even! (perhaps thats taking it a bit far!! ) In any case, I agree motivation is difficult, hence my willingness to pay "ca$h money" for even a non-BFC produced CD. ASL Vet, I think you misunderstood me. I don't want a "tutorial on how to win" that works in all cases. I want a basic primier on the tactics of WWII and more importantly how to execute them in CM games (do I use Run or Assault to simulate X? In RL this job was performed by Y, in the game you can do the roughly the same thing with Z, etc.). Beyond that I'd love a historically accurate education on the doctrine of various countries - and for sure that is something that can be taught as a set of If A (ex: defending a town against armor), then B (whatever it was for the Soviets), because that's what doctrine *is* after all! C'mon! No takers at all? :confused:

Marcus, where on the CM Mod database is the list? I must be blind but I can't find it! :confused:

Laxx, great AAR. I'm a newbie too and I enjoyed reading your description of a much more successful attack than mine! I also got a (total or maybe major?) victory but it was my second try and it cost me a lot more dearly (I tried to suppress from the left and move a few squads across the wheat since my first attempt at taking the roadblock was dead ended by the AT gun. I was late using my artillery which I figure is my big mistake. Posts like yours really help oepn my eyes to different approaches - thanks!

Here's the deal, I'm playing Death Ride of the 424 as the Axis. Since I gotta stick to the roads to avoid bogging 1/4 of my tanks I'm forced to advance into the 'death traps' formed by the town since I don't have the time to take it slowly. I've developed a technique that's actually pretty successful but I worry that it's 'gamey'. Basically I put smoke in in three places. 1. In front of any flanking 'keyholes' or spaces between buildings where the Soviets could get in a flank shot as I advance. This seems to work pretty well to protect me from flank ambush. 2. At the far end of the roads as I'm about to enter their straightaways (this is the same theory as above, except to protect me from any ambushes set up staright ahead). Interestingly enough this makes the AI advance his tanks out of the carefully prepared cover and into the roads where I can smack them with three tanks advancing abreast. 3. In front of and around my lead tanks as they emerge from cover. This seems to make them unspottable (or less likey to be spotted and hit) while still enableing them to spot the Soviets. I'd like to know two things about each of these smoke laying tactics: 1) Is this even remotely realistic? Especially for numbers 2&3 it seems that I may simply be exploiting a corner case of the game engine and the TacAI. 2) If it is possible in RL, would any of the three above actually have been used by the Germans? Was this accepted practice at the time, or am I innovating successfully but ahistorically? Not that I'll nessecarilly stop but I'm curious, and of course if it is ahistorical I wonder if there is a way to win this scenario using historical tactics? Thanks!

As a newbie come to CM I sure wish there were more instructional scenarios included. While having read a lot about the Second World War, much of the technical and tactical details are new to me, and one of my principal attractions to the game is the historical education / simulation aspect (I'm happy to play to learn, not just to win!). I'd pay good money for a CD of scenarios which could roughly be described as a Boot Camp and a Millitary Academy - and I suspect many other players would too! What do I mean exactly? Well a Boot Camp set of scenarios would include a couple of instructional scenarios on how to execute basic tactics within the context of the game engine. Things like, "In general use your tanks in breadth and have them all 'appear' at the same time - do this by the following combination of Hunt, Shoot & Scoot, etc." the scenarios would focus on then succesfully executing a couple of tactics under ideal conditions w/o a focus on unit and national differences - just fundemental principals of WWII combat and how to pull them off within the game system, and of course focusing on all types of units. I know a few of these (mostly related to tanks), but on uses of other types of units I'm clueless! The Millitary Academies by contrast would focus on specific nationalities and weapons systems. Stuff like, "Soviet doctrine stated that Self Propelled Artillery should be used in X,Y,Z ways - in this scenario use them that way to achive success." Of course alternate tactics may work in the game, but I want to know what would have been tried historically and see if I can succed under those limitations before I start being creative! I realize such a set of scenarios would be a monumental undertaking and would really be only of one time use, but I'll bet many players even veteran ones would find some tactic or more likely bit doctrine that they didn't know. And like I said, I'd be willing to pay for it as a scenario pack to go with the game, so I'd be happy if it was something Battlefront put out! Alternatively I'd be happy to help create such a set of scenarios as a public service in any way I could (obviously not desiging, but I can run the editor, edit briefings, playtest, host, etc.) What do people think? As far as I can tell there is nothing like this out there already.

Ok, I'm a relative CM newbie granted, but I don't understand the descriptions folks posted here of how to eke out even a tactical victory. Tactical help / advice would be much appreciated! SPOILERS on my previous attempts!!!! I've played it twice - the first time was blind, but I'd read it was a tough nut, so I went in slow and tried to suppress everything as I advanced into the woods on the Soviet left. Then I tried to roll up the flank, but found a line of infantry dug in behind wire supported by mortars at the egde of the graveyard! I was completely unable to move up the road since all my support was in the woods out of sight. The guns picked off two of my vehicles, though I did take out the bunker and one gun. My attack stalled. The second time I pretended I didn't know the locations of the bunker and AT guns - but was cautious beyond what the briefing would have led me to expect with my vehicles. I was able to take out the bunker from the woods. And I tried to really suppress everything, lay down some smoke and assualt the Soviet left most trench with two platoons. Same result. I ended up with a toe hold surrounded by hostile fire none of which could be suppressed by my other units down in the woods. I kept all my vehicles, but they didn't really do me any good! I guess its basically a "reverse slope" type defense in depth, once I crest the hill my spearhead is unsupported. I can't flank it cause I'm out of map. So how is everyone here getting their heavy stuff into supporting positions, cause that seem to be the key?