landser

Why is there not a unlimited or custom points amount in quick battles? For a game like this such an option seems like basic requirement, but it doesn't exist.
Me and a friend is making/playing a h2h campaign with CMFB and we use QB to play out the battles. But at times the battle sizes can exceed the QB points. The largest battle we had on our last campaign was with allies having a full tank battalion, full airborne battalion, 11 aircraft and lots of artillery. Axis side (me) had a full heavy panzer battalion, pzgren battalion, volksgren battalion, 3 seperate infantry companies, 1 stug company, 1 marder company and lots of artillery. This resulted in my points exceeding 22000 which is what you get with 150% addition for attacker side. This ment we had to set all this up in scenario editor which is a much longer process and some TO&Es are even different there making it harder to have consistent units. Size of battle seems to be non-issue as we played 3 hours in real time and finished the game with allied surrender.

As far as I can tell, it's not omniscient, it's just challenging as it should be. Tubes are the biggest threat to your men on the field and you'll see real massacres happen if the enemy happens to bring an Artillery Brigade. If they did than I hope you brought lots of airplanes and tanks or both. It's all about match ups you know? Yeah, I could agree that the artillery seems a bit quick on the draw for the AI, (the main issues seems to have been that counter-battery fire was super reliable) but it's not distinctly clear to me, after several months of playing mind you, that it's cheating. If it is, it's cloaked well enough to not be a major bother to me. Like I said, if the Russians show up with 12+ 122mm guns and all you've got are some mortars you had better expect a massacre. 
https://ibb.co/KhPsd2C
From a battle in the North sector of the Berezina... The men on the right are an entire Battalion of Osttruppen who ran into Guards advancing toward the farmstead in middle. The T-34s are mine (German) lifted off the Russians at one point or another during previous fighting. I only had 4 of them and I had been positioning them for an advance elsewhere (just behind them was a road I planned on fast moving them up the left section of the map to reinforce a weakening section of frontline. Instead they majorly assisted the Osttruppen advance the forest in the foreground and I redeployed them later on. Had they not been there the Osttruppen might well have lost (the heart icon means that they are brittle and the stars are their Officers). 
https://ibb.co/gTBFBSq
A photo I just like of an 88mm gun from the same battle. The men along the Berezina have the advantage of occupying a sector that happened to be well covered in anti-aircraft weaponry. Given the scale of the Russian attack I naturally ended up pressing these guns into the battle where I was surprised to see them engage and shoot down attacking IL-2s! This was most fortunate, I might well have lost the battle without them and ended up suffering quite a few casualties to roving IL-2s even with them. 
https://ibb.co/JHPgpJ8
The same gun's field of view. 
https://ibb.co/X7bvXKy
The strategic situation just before the battle. The Russians attacked me with the two Motorized Rifle Battalions and an IL-2 Wing that showed up from outside the picture, the *Disorganized* label was placed over the Russian units after those units botched a previous attack and they could not participate. The flag is an objective for both sides and yes that is a Swastika, not a mod. Eugen has decided to fully depict Axis insignia in the game. 
The boxed RONA is the deploy area for a group of units, and in that spot the Osttruppen RONA detachment can deploy. 
https://ibb.co/YtpT155
The situation in the south near Borissof and Studienka. On the left on top of 5th Panzer Division's deployment area is the Festung Borissof, two Battalions of the 13th. Panzergrenadier Regiment, and it's Regimental HQ.  In the middle of the road are the nearly depleted French SS and the KG Altmark who I was able to send into reserve. On the right facing the Russian advance is my principle line...which I plan on folding up before the Russians attack. On the right is one Panzergrenadier Battalion, a pair of mixed Security Battalions, another Kampgrupper, the 505th Heavy Panzer Brigade, and an Artillery Brigade. Most of the units at the very front are dug-in...which means if the Russians attack the defending units get free access to an assortment of anti-tank gun bunkers, machine gun bunkers, trenches, barbed wire obstacles, and pits for artillery. Seems secure right? Wrong. The Russians facing them have over 260 tanks ready to absolutely smash that part of the line, but since I was playing against the Easy AI the AI decided to go on a silly flanking maneuver to the south which I was able to check with a spare KG and Security Battalion. 
Before the Russians attack I will fold up this line and retreat to just outside of Borissof. Sadly, the game has no city maps and fighting in a considered "urban" environment will be auto-resolved. What a shame. 
 
You'll see tons of that in Steel Division 2. Note, that the game isn't going to do all that much to help you learn how to play, and for some time you may be needing to save-reload scenarios quite a bit before you figure out what you're doing wrong. On easy it's still very challenging, and the workload can be enormous. 
I'm not too crazy about the tactical battles effectively just being the multiplayer skirmishes but against an AI. In the tactical mode the game just uses multiplayer maps and unfortunately this leads to many battles fought in the same exact map. The enormous ToE depth and strategy mode mitigate this a lot though, as no two battles ever play alike on the same map. I also think the user interface gets saturated fast and when battles heat up it starts getting rough to keep track of all the units. I found attacking extremely difficult until I started using the smart-commands and more carefully evaluating the maps. I also didn't realize that the game was factoring in casualties on both sides into the score, so I thought that it was one of those (bad) games that was going to punish me for failing to capture every single flag. It doesn't, but that kind of nuance isn't communicated very well to the player. 
Also I still can't tell what the game's rules are for recovery of men and assets. It seems after battles both sides get a certain amount of men and equipment back based on how well they did but I have found zero reference material to indicate how this is determined. 
 

The game's ability to construct completely natural battles that affect each other over the broad term is really commendable. Ive been playing the Berezina stroke of Barbarossa as the Germans and it opens with a thin German line being held by a mixture of French SS, Security (Sicher) Battalions, and the odd mixed Kampgrupper-Osttruppen. The French SS are very motivated and professional...but not well armed. Only the HQ section has any Panzerfausts. Many of the Security Battalions don't even have MG34s, but the MG08 Spandau's of the Kaiser! The Osttruppen are good for holding rear areas and have no motor transport...in a fight you can only count on them to stand if the local SS Gendarmes are around to keep them from running away and they have absolutely zero anti-tank weapons of any kind. The one benefit of the KG they're in are the 5 or so ready Tiger Tanks....but they won't be able to stop the Russian Tank Corp charging up the road.
Rather than try to compose a continuous frontline I decided that, dug-in or not, holding the map and stopping the Russians cold was impossible. So I set up the French SS and Tiger Tanks into defensive "boxes" that would allow the Tigers to snipe any tanks from  a distance while shielding them from attempts by infantry to push them out of my strongpoints. The Russians generally opened their attacks with the Motorcycle or Recon Brigades of the Tank Corp behind them and if it wasn't for the Tigers the 10 or Valentine Tanks and mixed armored cars they had might well run the French SS off the map...who have nothing to stop them with. This would be devastating since somewhere along the road to the Berezina I needed to make a stand to await 5th Panzer Division's arrival. 
The forests along the northern stretch of the Berezina are held mostly by Sicher Battalions who can count on Flak battalions. In a really crazy tribute the ToE mania of Eugen's games, most of those guys are armed with Czech light machine guns and even a few Polish 7TP tanks. The ominous red outline of the front is approaching the initial positions and im weighing retreating or standing. This is all great stuff. 
I'll start taking screen caps of these battles in the future for better narrative takes. Should be easy since the game records all games for later visual replay. You can really study what was going on.

I've played all TW titles aside from the first Medieval and first Shogun, and Rome 2 and the new Chinese one. Of the rest, Napoleon was my favorite. I feel like gunpowder is a sweetspot, much more tactical than melee.  Shogun 2 was interesting because it was a mix of gunpowder and steel. I really liked Attila too. Great campaign.
But ya know what, despite my affinity for history, and despite my bias, I ended up trying Warhammer. Fantasy TW didn't interest me. Even back in the Med 2 days with the Middle Earth mod, I ignored it despite it's popularity (Stanless Steel mod was the one I played). But now I rate Warhammer 2 as the best TW title. Some dismiss it because it is not historical, but I'm glad I stopped doing that. The 'factionality' as I like to call it is amazing. Each faction is so unique, and that means everything. Tech trees, mechanics, units, special abilities. Replayability is sky high on WH2, and especially combined with WH1 in to one, huge, epic campaign.
Back on topic, Feyr, which Combat Mission title are you looking at here? You asked about turn based and I said it's WEGO, which, if you're not familiar, means both sides execute their turns simultaneously. Orders are issued, and there is a 60-second stage where each side carries them out. It then stops for the next round of orders. After 20 years it's still a brilliant system.
 
 

I've played all TW titles aside from the first Medieval and first Shogun, and Rome 2 and the new Chinese one. Of the rest, Napoleon was my favorite. I feel like gunpowder is a sweetspot, much more tactical than melee.  Shogun 2 was interesting because it was a mix of gunpowder and steel. I really liked Attila too. Great campaign.
But ya know what, despite my affinity for history, and despite my bias, I ended up trying Warhammer. Fantasy TW didn't interest me. Even back in the Med 2 days with the Middle Earth mod, I ignored it despite it's popularity (Stanless Steel mod was the one I played). But now I rate Warhammer 2 as the best TW title. Some dismiss it because it is not historical, but I'm glad I stopped doing that. The 'factionality' as I like to call it is amazing. Each faction is so unique, and that means everything. Tech trees, mechanics, units, special abilities. Replayability is sky high on WH2, and especially combined with WH1 in to one, huge, epic campaign.
Back on topic, Feyr, which Combat Mission title are you looking at here? You asked about turn based and I said it's WEGO, which, if you're not familiar, means both sides execute their turns simultaneously. Orders are issued, and there is a 60-second stage where each side carries them out. It then stops for the next round of orders. After 20 years it's still a brilliant system.
 
 

Warhammer Total War has a free campaign that requires ownership of both WH:TW1 and WH:TW2. This could be the same. Except the free part. No new game needed.

For certain. I recall back in the day playing Electronic Arts' NHL '93 on Sega. I loved that game (and NHL '94 even more).  The main issue I had with NHL '93 was the fact that it did not have any sort of season mode. It was single games only. But I really wanted to play a season, and have stats leaders, standings and playoffs, and a Stanley Cup champion.
So I simulated it. Using the actual season schedule and copies of The Hockey News I simulated each and every game that the team I was playing, the Flyers, were not involved in. And then played out each of the Flyers games. I had notebooks where I would track stats and standings, all by hand. It was a massive project, and took a hell of a lot of time.
But that was a long time ago, back when I had the enthusiasm for such endeavors. I've changed, and the gaming industry has too. Season mode is a staple in games now. Hell, in most you can play endless careers, season after season, while the software tracks the damn stats for me. There's zero chance I would attempt a similar thing now.
It's the same with Combat Mission. I desperately want a new campaign system that introduces the chaos we talked about, that provides compelling replayability. While I admire the attempts creative players make to fill the gaps they find --like folks who use other games to simulate the operational side, and then play the battles out in CM -- this isn't the way forward for me. We will see if Grand Tactician offers up this sort of thing, or in the end, it's a static rock-paper-scissors game dressed up in Civil War period costumes.
And in case anyone wonders, The Penguins won the Stanley Cup and Dougie Gilmour won the scoring title

Blemishes aren't a thing I concern myself with. Matter of fact, the drilled-down level of detail of the series isn't important to me. Things like uniforms and accurate OoBs are cool and all, but I would hardly notice if it weren't so meticulous. That's for other players and for them I am happy they get it from Combat Mission.
As to the question of datedness, I'll go against the grain a bit. On the battlefield, Combat Mission for me is excellent. The finest tactical wargame. Ballistics, command and control, spotting and the WEGO system are yet to be surpassed in my view. This game is a fantastic simulator on the field of battle.
Outside of this I have to say that it is dated. The menus, the installation process, the purchasing transaction, how content is created, battlefield feedback, graphics, animations,  debrief information, campaign system and lack of a proper AI all seem outdated to me. I still enjoy it, because the combat is so compelling and fun. But for me, outside of this Combat Mission is in need of an overhaul.
And the forum. This is great forum software :)

Exactly. It's the chaos, as you put it, that makes the games worth coming back to. With many games, once you have 'worked it out', the challenge is mostly gone. You've worked out the correct way to play to achieve the best outcome. But with games like EU IV, Crusader Kings and the like, there's no perfect path, and that is in large part due to what happens with everything you don't control. So it remains compelling because you always need to be able to read the tea leaves, reacting to and trying to predict what happens.
For example in this Grand Tactician game, if the enemy is always deploying in the same places, with the same forces, sooner or later you'll work out a strategy to defeat it. But if you first find a position heavily defended, and the next time completely unoccupied, then the game takes on an element of unpredictability (chaos? which can be defined as behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions). This is the thing that gives it nearly unlimited replayability. I wouldn't have mentioned my ridiculous time investment in EU IV other than to show that the randomness of it, as opposed to a much more strict adherence to history, leads to it becoming a game you return to again and again, instead of 'beating it' and moving on, since you would just beat it the same way the next time. And that's not engaging long term.
Frankly, I'd love for Combat Mission to have some of this.
 

I tend to agree with that @Erwin: strategic wargaming does require some sort of economic simulation (even Axis and Allies does), and usually is where things get wild. On the AGEOD Civil War II game I remember literally steamrolling the Confederacy in mid 1863 after mobilizing the Union economy in a way that would have made green with envy Roosevelt's advisors. 
Yet
this is mainly the reason I come back to these kind of games. I certainly prefer Paradox organic approach to generate historical chaos, in contrast with half baked economic minigames that you can minmax easily. It is a bit like knowing that I am just punching through a flimsy fame mechanic steals the fun from coming up with a weird, bemusing alt history situation. EU IV is indeed great for that.
 

Not sure Bulletpoint, it's the training scenario in the demo. Terrain was forest/woods. Maybe it's just very hot?
Good post MOS, and I think all of that is pretty clear, my curiosity is more nuanced though. Why did the rifle squad tire in 100m when the scout squad could move in the same manner, through similar terrain over a kilometer without dropping below Ready? Heat, fitness, load, terrain and movement type all play a part we would assume.  My curiosity isn't about what causes fatigue, but more developing a feel for which causes how much of it. I know from experience that if you have a platoon and have one squad draw an extra 1000 rounds of ammo, it will tire before the other two squads. Is it absolute, that 10% more weight equals 10% more fatigue? Or is there more of a threshold sort of mechanic, where under a certain weight it has no/little effect, and over a certain amount there is a noticable effect?
So really, it's not what causes fatigue that I am curious about, but more subtly, which does how much, to whom and when? Are scouts more resistant to it all things being equal for example? Does an additional 500 rounds of ammo carried cause exactly half the additional 'fatigue load' that 1000 rounds would?  Honestly, it's all interwoven and I suspect that attempting to analyze it all is futile. It's a grey thing that isn't so easily distilled to black and white.

Blemishes aren't a thing I concern myself with. Matter of fact, the drilled-down level of detail of the series isn't important to me. Things like uniforms and accurate OoBs are cool and all, but I would hardly notice if it weren't so meticulous. That's for other players and for them I am happy they get it from Combat Mission.
As to the question of datedness, I'll go against the grain a bit. On the battlefield, Combat Mission for me is excellent. The finest tactical wargame. Ballistics, command and control, spotting and the WEGO system are yet to be surpassed in my view. This game is a fantastic simulator on the field of battle.
Outside of this I have to say that it is dated. The menus, the installation process, the purchasing transaction, how content is created, battlefield feedback, graphics, animations,  debrief information, campaign system and lack of a proper AI all seem outdated to me. I still enjoy it, because the combat is so compelling and fun. But for me, outside of this Combat Mission is in need of an overhaul.
And the forum. This is great forum software :)

I used the word outdated, but that's not what I mean to say. Dated is. Outdated connotes that it no longer is relevant or has a purpose or place, which is not what I think.

Blemishes aren't a thing I concern myself with. Matter of fact, the drilled-down level of detail of the series isn't important to me. Things like uniforms and accurate OoBs are cool and all, but I would hardly notice if it weren't so meticulous. That's for other players and for them I am happy they get it from Combat Mission.
As to the question of datedness, I'll go against the grain a bit. On the battlefield, Combat Mission for me is excellent. The finest tactical wargame. Ballistics, command and control, spotting and the WEGO system are yet to be surpassed in my view. This game is a fantastic simulator on the field of battle.
Outside of this I have to say that it is dated. The menus, the installation process, the purchasing transaction, how content is created, battlefield feedback, graphics, animations,  debrief information, campaign system and lack of a proper AI all seem outdated to me. I still enjoy it, because the combat is so compelling and fun. But for me, outside of this Combat Mission is in need of an overhaul.
And the forum. This is great forum software :)

Indeed. Devil's Descent and Kampfgruppe Engle for CMBN are two that come to mind that I really liked. There are plenty more when you consider all of the Combat Mission titles. And frankly, my issue stems more from quantity than quality, which, combined with limited replayability and the fact that not all campaigns appeal to me ( regardless of quality ), leaves me with little to actually play.
Some are simply too big for me, some too urban, some may lack appeal for others reasons, such as weather or night battles, etc etc. These things don't make the campaign bad, but perhaps make it unsuitable for my tastes. As I said, I feel my tastes are fairly broad, but certain things are in my wheelhouse. For example I like what I call reinforced company sized campaigns. A force centered around an infantry company with an appropriate amount of support, perhaps a platoon of tanks, a battery or two of off-map artillery and some heavy weapons teams. I like rural type maps with elevation changes. I like good weather
These aren't requirements per se, but just the sort of stuff that appeals to me the most. If I then filter available campaigns by these type of things, the list grows rather short doesn't it? So instead of playing the sort of things I like, I also play campaigns which are not my style, simply because they exist. I'm thankful for that. I'm grateful that community members take the time to do it, and more than that, make them available for us to play ourselves. But as I plod through another battalion + sized campaign I can only wish for ones that are more suitable or more my style.


I made a post here last year pledging to put my money where my mouth is. I am willing to pay for it. But a handful of eager players doesn't make it profitable necessarily. Paper Tiger spent, if I recall, around 800 hours making Road to Montebourg. This is a good one. But 800 hours is a massive time investment for just a single campaign. So one issue is that the tools don't exist for streamlining the process. What if in 800 hours 10 campaigns could be made? 20? 40? Time is money.
So while I would support such an idea, it misses the mark slightly in my view. Players are still tethered to the supply chain, getting their playable content from others, relying on their productivity, enthusiasm and skill. On one hand I'll take what I can get. Beggars/choosers. On the other, I still feel the way forward is a way for the players to generate it themselves. And I have two axes of advance on this matter....
I'm not a programmer, and as a result cannot know of the technical requirements of the things I propose. And partly I hesitate to write it at all, as by definition it is critical of the fine work done by Battlefront, or maybe more accurately, what they have not done. But this is a wishlist type thread after all, and I want to see the series evolve. And I want more suitable campaigns to play.
The first one is have something akin to the QMB interface that generates something akin to Operations from CMx1. Since the post I made a few days ago about this matter I decided to go back to operations. I bought both CMBB and CMAK, as I built a new PC without the foresight of knowing an optical drive might come in handy, rendering the disks I've held on to all these years impractical
Imagine we could generate these ourselves, by setting each parameter. Number of battles, force type and troop quality, map details, weather, reinforcement probability, resupply and so on. I envision an endless supply of focused suitable content to play. A huge map, persistent forces, dynamic front line.
The second one is more ambitious, and I think like CMC was supposed to be. At it's core, it would be an operational level map not unlike what we had in several of the Close Combat games. The player has a number of battlegroups (selectable scale) as does the enemy. These units are moved on the map. When two forces enter a sector on the same turn a meeting engagement occurs. If occupied for one previous turn, an attack. And if the enemy had been there longer, an assault.  Tactical battles fought in concert with a larger operational goal.
It should include resupply and logistics, reinforcements, a support pool and so on. Lines of communication can be cut.
These ideas aren't new, but it's two possible ways forward. As I said earlier, it would all require a new AI which is another matter entirely. I know it's easy to throw fairy dust and wishes around, and that it would require hard work and time and money, none of which are mine. But it sure would make me happy
 
 

Lots of ideas and I understand everyone has their favorites, or the course they'd like to see Combat Mission take and that's understandable and quite useful even. So I'd like to throw mine in as well.
I'm concerned about the future of this fantastic tactical simulator. In my opinion, while new units, theaters and modules are all welcomed, the thing that the series is in most need of is a way for the player to more easily generate his own content. I've been playing since the CMBO demo so I've been along for the whole ride, as many here have. I'm not a continuous player, I take breaks and then come back to it from time to time. I really do love the gameplay, to me Combat Mission is the best game of it's kind, and I want to see it succeed and evolve.
In my view the biggest problem is the lack of good content. Part of this is the fact that single scenarios leave me cold, so unfortunately this brushes aside much of the quality content that actually does exist. My preference is campaign play. And here the series falls woefully short in my opinion. I'll give you a little insight from my experience as a part-time player, if you'll indulge me.
Around 2015 I got back in to Combat Mission and bought both the CMBN big bundle and Red Thunder. I played (or at least started) every campaign I could find for both titles. It wasn't very many, maybe a dozen or a few more. Some of them I found excellent (Devils Descent, Outlaws, Kampfgruppe Engel and more). Some I found of poor quality (no need to mention which), and some I found far too large for my taste.
I played for about a year and then shelved Combat Mission as I moved on to other stuff. Recently I had the itch to play once more. Excited to see what new content there was for me to play, I forked over the $10 for the engine 4 upgrade for CMBN and went in search of new campaigns to play. What a disappointment. What I found is there are very few new campaigns since two years ago. The Repository doesn't exist anymore correct? So I found what was available on the Scenario Depot and on IanL's site, which are mostly the same ones anyway.
On the Scenario Depot here's what I found for WW2 titles
Battle for Normandy -- 11 campaigns
Fortress Italy -- 2 campaigns
Red Thunder -- 4 campaigns
Final Blitzkreig -- 1 campaign
All of those CMBN and CMRT campaigns I played two years ago. Combing through forum threads reveals a few more, and more recent. But in the end that's a very small number of campaigns, with little new coming out. The nature of Combat Mission's current campaign system leaves me with little motivation to replay campaigns I already have. AI plans only go so far. Essentially you already know what you're up against,  and the best AoAs, even if the AT gun is in a different place. So I'm left with a choice of campaigns to replay with little desire to do so.
And while I am willing to try anything,  I really enjoy campaigns that feature a core force of about reinforced company strength. I really don't enjoy scenarios that are about a battalion or stronger. These aren't necessarily harder or easier, but much more involved. It's personal preference, and I'm glad they exist for the folks who enjoy them Lions of Carpiquet comes to mind. It seems a quality piece of work from a knowledgeable and skilled author, but it's just not my cuppa.
So back to my main point. As a campaign player I am at the mercy of the scenario designers. One might say well then make your own and stop bitchin'. But what fun is it playing a campaign I designed myself? The scripted nature of Combat Mission means I will know every unit, where they are, what time they are reinforced and so you lose the very things that make playing new campaigns so interesting, like uncertainty. If I know the enemy has four AT guns, and I've already taken out four I know there are no AT guns left. That's no good. I have to proceed as if there might be another four still waiting for me.
At the heart of the matter is there is no way to generate my own content. And little new stuff comes out I presume because making campaigns is so difficult. Didn't I once read that Paper Tiger spent 800 hours making Road to Montebourg? 800? If that's true it's no wonder that so little comes out. What I think the series desperately needs is a way for the player to generate his own campaigns. This idea isn't new around here, and clearly isn't on the roadmap (right?) But until something like this exists, folks like me who want to play campaigns of a certain scope will be left out in the cold, reading AARs instead of actually playing the game. I have very specific ideas of the sort of system I'd like to see, but I doubt my ideas haven't already been offered here at one point or another so I won't make a long post way longer by detailing them.
At the time CMBB came out I was happy with the Operations feature. Sure it had it's wrinkles and there were things I wished worked differently or that were changed. But that system was removed and while the episodic system we have now can be fun, and a good story can be told, it's not the answer in the long run. Not only does it appear prohibitively difficult to use, it leaves little replay value in my view. Combat Mission Campaigns was the light at the end of the tunnel, but it failed and nothing has filled the void.
This post is way longer than intended so I'll wrap it up. I fully support new theaters and modules. I am as eager as anyone to see a new engine. But unless there is also a new way for me to enjoy the game then in essence nothing's really changed. I don't need better uniform textures or additional armored cars and trench types. I need a new campaign system that offers flexibility and a way for me to generate endless content that appeals to me. I hope one day this comes to be.

+1
This allows you to keep the shells raining down if that becomes necessary.  It's the most flexible approach and I do the same.

No, you have to start all over again.  I almost always request maximum duration and then cancel when appropriate (or maybe adjust onto a new target).  

+1 and sums up my thoughts succinctly and I've said here before that I would always play Iron if the on-call times were detached from the skill level setting. I hope that CMx3 goes this route. But still, I play on higher levels sometimes because I like how the spotting works. But in the largest scenarios and campaigns I tend to bump it down. A campaign like Devil's Descent though is always played on Iron.
 
Right, these aren't difficulty levels in the traditional sense, and in some ways it's more difficult at the lower settings, especially when you're attacking, because as Bulletpoint said, the enemy can drop his fire missions more quickly, more reactively, and increasing the odds your men get caught in it.
 

I've dabbled in real-time, but it's much more messy, and my brain can't handle it. I watched a video on youtube the other day of a player playing the airfield battle from the Task Force Thunder campaign in real time and I could hardly take it. So inefficient and sloppy, with units forgotten about doing nothing, needless casualties and lack of real co-ordination. And just watching videos of Combat Mission is difficult for me as I am constantly rolling my mouse wheel to change the zoom to no avail since I'm watching a video. Derp derp.
On the other hand, the real-time player can more quickly react to events (though the real time factor means this only happens where you are watching) and can more quickly correct blunders.
No sir, give me WEGO everytime. In real time I miss so much that's going on, which aside from the tactical ramifications, is just undesirable from an enjoyment point of view for me. Actually WEGO is for me the best wargame system ever. As I like to say, going from tactical genius to nervous spectator never gets old. It's a system of action and consequence and frankly it's brilliant.

Very slowly! I wish I had more time lately to play these games. I finally finished the fifth battle. It was quite difficult; the most difficult one yet other than the second one. I lost three Panthers destroyed outright, and another two were immobilized, so I really lost five tanks. Another two after that lost their main guns, and even more lost their commanders or other crew members. That was a nasty fight. The Panthers performed so well in the third battle, but their gunnery was not so good in this one. I tried massing my armor and hitting the enemy with local superiority in numbers, but they would still miss loads of shots and get picked off one by one. The enemy also had some very well placed AT guns in this one. One of the AT guns managed to shoot one of the Panthers right in the backside from like 50m away. I had no idea it was there and the tank drove right past it, just a few feet away. Oh well, luckily they give you so many tanks that it doesn't matter too much if you lose a bunch of them. I'm going into the final battle with a whole other company of Panthers that is pretty much untouched. 
Despite the few setbacks, I still managed to get a total victory and force a Russian surrender with 6 minutes to go on the clock. I had tanks surrounding the final objective and infantry storming into the village when it ended. The enemy lost 22 tanks/assault guns. There were a lot of pretty intense moments in that one, and lots of extreme close quarters fighting in the dark.
I looked over the final battle for a few minutes and it looks crazy. I hope it doesn't crash my computer with how big it is. It's gonna take me ages to play it.
 
I've heard this too and I wonder if this was the case in the CMx1 engine? I thought you had to move tanks slower in that one or else they would bog down. Maybe that's why that belief has carried over into CMx2? Or maybe that's never even been the case at all?

But what if you have six lead tanks, spread over 2 or 3 kilometers of front?  Assuming we watch so many replays in order to game the game or secure some sort of nefarious advantage is missing the mark in my view, and certainly for me. Matter of fact, uncertainty is one of the appealing facets of Combat Mission for me. The 'everything's a Tiger!' sort of vagueness is not something I want to lose through excessive scrutiny.
Like Repsol alluded to, it mainly stems from the fact that Combat Mission lacks a reporting system. I get no indication of a unit coming under fire, or identifying an enemy position unless their icon flashes or a hit text pops up or that's the spot I am watching at the time. So I watch multiple replays to see what each group did and saw during the action phase. And as mentioned, I also watch replays for the cinematic value, I mean it''s fun watching your incoming massed tank fire from the enemy's point of view.
Some time ago I pondered what CM would be like with a radio net. Imagine that each platoon leader reported to higher headquarters what it was doing "Echo 2-1, have reached final waypoint' or contact 'Echo 2-1, contact right, 200m, tank' or casualties 'Echo 2-1, have a man down, pinned by enemy fire from the front'. Of course I can hardly imagine a way to have all of this be manageable for the player in large scenarios, at least audibly (a text system would work). But short of a reporting system, replays are the next best thing to maintain a proper situational awareness on the battlefield.
In some ways I admire the folks that can play Combat Mission in real-time. I'd reckon that real-time is the most difficult way to play the game. On the other hand, real-time with pause is the easiest, as consequence is minimized. WEGO players must live with their choices, tactical re-loads notwithstanding. But at a base level, real-time eschews much of what makes Combat Mission such a wonderful war game for me, the action and consequence of WEGO and the ability to watch the action from any angle as often as I like.

But what if you have six lead tanks, spread over 2 or 3 kilometers of front?  Assuming we watch so many replays in order to game the game or secure some sort of nefarious advantage is missing the mark in my view, and certainly for me. Matter of fact, uncertainty is one of the appealing facets of Combat Mission for me. The 'everything's a Tiger!' sort of vagueness is not something I want to lose through excessive scrutiny.
Like Repsol alluded to, it mainly stems from the fact that Combat Mission lacks a reporting system. I get no indication of a unit coming under fire, or identifying an enemy position unless their icon flashes or a hit text pops up or that's the spot I am watching at the time. So I watch multiple replays to see what each group did and saw during the action phase. And as mentioned, I also watch replays for the cinematic value, I mean it''s fun watching your incoming massed tank fire from the enemy's point of view.
Some time ago I pondered what CM would be like with a radio net. Imagine that each platoon leader reported to higher headquarters what it was doing "Echo 2-1, have reached final waypoint' or contact 'Echo 2-1, contact right, 200m, tank' or casualties 'Echo 2-1, have a man down, pinned by enemy fire from the front'. Of course I can hardly imagine a way to have all of this be manageable for the player in large scenarios, at least audibly (a text system would work). But short of a reporting system, replays are the next best thing to maintain a proper situational awareness on the battlefield.
In some ways I admire the folks that can play Combat Mission in real-time. I'd reckon that real-time is the most difficult way to play the game. On the other hand, real-time with pause is the easiest, as consequence is minimized. WEGO players must live with their choices, tactical re-loads notwithstanding. But at a base level, real-time eschews much of what makes Combat Mission such a wonderful war game for me, the action and consequence of WEGO and the ability to watch the action from any angle as often as I like.

Well sure but that's not what I'm doing when I watch the replay multiple times. I usually watch once from a high level to see how the overall situation evolved and note where I want to watch closer. Then I watch much closer (camera 2 or 3 scrolled down a little) those areas where stuff happened. Then if some thing really cool happens I'll watch that and marvel at it a few times. I very rarely try to figure out precisely where the surprise came from more likely I wallow in dismay watching it a few times
 
Yep!

When playing a battalion sized game i do not considder it 'cheating' to wiew the replay multiple times...
IRL subordinate commanders and even single soldiers can act on their own initiative to a greater degree then what is possible in CM...
They are also far better at sharing information...atleast comparing to playing RT...
In CM you are pretty much on your own imo...😎