sand digger

Used area fire against a farm house in my last game, one shot and the house blew up. Very satisfying

We all have different perspectives, mine is to get the detail right before anything else. Like lots of others my biggest problem is the historically inaccurate infantry casualty rate, its plainly and grossly excessive, particularly when a single enemy machine gun is involved and there are are plenty of self preservation and retalitary options available to the defenders. None of which appear to be taken advantage of in their favour if their casualty rate is a guide. Having said that its still an intrigueing game, just keep patching it bitches PS: Saying that the game is 'unplayable' is simply nonsense and not likely to get the developers favourable attention.

So you people who can't get the game to play, did you try the demo first? My puter is nothing special and while the demo runs a bit choppy sometimes its otherwise good so on the strength of that I'm buying the game. I just hope it keeps getting patched for a while because basically its great, some really good features, just needs finishing off properly. Which brings me to the infantry. They can dance around as much as they like as long as they don't keep getting killed in unsustainable numbers. Memo to infantry: when fired upon seek cover and then return fire eg if a tree, rock or ground depression is handy use it, on your own initiative. Initial fire can inflict casualties but realistically within a few seconds their exposure should be dramatically reduced, continuing fire mainly acting as supression. Whats this 'memory leak' business? It may help if people with problems explain the situation properly, without reverting to using meaningless phrases. Sorry I can't give helpful advice to anyone, except to try the demo before buying. As I said, nothing special about my general purpose puter, its certainly not a game monster.

Good, as a Commander I have more important things to observe without getting interrupted every time some common soldier gets killed

Brilliant! Thanks Kip and IC, now all IC has to do is get rid of this 'fraternising with the enemy' nonsense that goes on in trenches. And make trees see through

Is there any way to nominate a designated group of infantry as a squad or group that can be controlled as such throughout a game? Without having to direct individual soldiers one by one to do something? The lack of this feature in CMAK et al has always been one of the biggest PITA when trying to use and control infantry, without tedious micro managing every single turn. So, has IC come up with a solution?

But Alan, its that sort of micro managing which makes most players want to give up on the game. Besides, the way you advocate using infantry is historically inaccurate for the most part. Really a variety of movement orders should be sufficient to control infantry, as in real life. Something like eg CMAK has but a bit more developed should do it, if modelled realistically.

Heard of anti tank guns JasonC? In your rewrite of history the German ones apparently don't exist as a threat to American tanks. And if you had the faintest idea of German tactical doctrine pior to the US entering the war you would know that the aim was to entice enemy tanks into range of said AT guns, not to engage in tank -v- tank battle at all. After El Alamein the Germans never recovered in North Africa, their performance generally deteriorated significantly.

The gross overestimation of infantry casualties is quite easily verified, just look at how long your average infantryman lasts in a game and then compare that with actual WW2 infantry casualties over the same time span. As for the 'its because you have not learnt properly' comments, what elitist nonsense.

Anyone who thinks that the infantry was perfect in the CM series is having themself on, my conclusion is the it must be very difficult and time consuming to model infantry in the broad sense realistically. Then you have arguments over what is 'realistic'. For example, there is a widely held belief that an infantry attack with only light organic support over open ground against a similarly equipped enemy is suicidal. My extensive reading of WW2 reports suggests that is not necessarily so, but that is apparently a minority view. In summary, IMHO games in general over estimate infantry casualties and unrealisticly portray infantry behaviour in many scenarios.

The promo video is a bit fanciful and the scenario unrealistic, apparently all aimed at the arcade market. But lets hope its just an example of the video producer getting carried away with his own artistic brilliance and forgetting to represent what the game is actually about. I'm sure there will be more videos that get to the guts of the game, anyway there is always the demo so take heart people

The Matilda was obsolete by then, Valentine and Churchill were the two main British made tanks at that time.

Yeh thats very relevant and of course considers real world information. If game mechanics applied in the real world, infantry casualties would be such that infantry would not be viable, simple as that. There really is no place for infantry fans like myself in games, infantry appears to be considered just part of the scenary, vehicles provide the real action Further to my post above, desert terrain is generally speaking not flat as many apparently imagine it to be. So to add to the odds against a hit only part of an infantryman's body will be visible most times as well because he will be instinctively seeking to reduce his exposure by whatever means is available at a particular time.

Yeh the Resistance were French after all and so would have no idea of the nature of their country, what could the know everything Americans learn from them?

Seems like the French were never consulted either. Its hard to believe that there were no free French, or the Resistance for that matter, who were not familiar with bocage.

Getting back to the 'sniper war' comment, there seems to be some merit in that claim. The chances of hitting a target involve a lot more than the quality of gunsights, consider personal ability, stress, haste, weather conditions such as heat and wind, ground conditions such as dust, heat haze and mirage type waves, gun barrel wear and distortion and so on, many factors all with the potential to contribute to a miss. Then there are the combat studies which show that the amount of ammunition expended for one kill is quite remarkable and that a significant number of small arms shots fired are not aimed at all. Forget the names of the studies but they are out there.

This scenario is based on the exploits of the LRDG, which basically came in all guns blazing, did what they had to do and then got out. Don't try doing that literally in this scenario though, you will run into problems where the game throws extras at you, some quite hard to accept as realistic. First of all you have the decision making delays, where apparently the pros and cons of the next course of action is democratically discussed while under fire. No instant reaction training evident here, no terse instantly obeyed orders from someone in charge, no, take your time, we have all day. Then there is the mystery of the silent White recce vehicles. Come in all guns blazing but once the passengers disembark the guns fall silent, no fire support, the crew of three apparently lose interest or maybe boil up a nice cup of tea. Even if they are parked right next to an occupied enemy foxhole. Next we have the infantry assault process. The first step in that process apparently is simply to stand and fire at the objective while standing in the open, even if its a foxhole a meter or two away. The objective predictably fires back. Then, apparently if all is OK, the actual assault begins ie the infantry actually move towards the objective. And eventually throw a grenade or two. Followed by the AI countermanding my orders to the attacking vehicles, on a couple of occasions, and backing away from the objective. Presumably to give their infantry some sprint training while under fire, he he. To assault the main two story building I drove a carrier right up to the front door, giving the assault order. Carrier arrived intact, didn't back away, no casualties, looking good. Men disembark but otherwise don't move. After a while they are all killed, as will happen if you stand in the open a few meters away from your enemy and hang about. Somehow or other they are fired upon by a MG upstairs, presumably a magical MG which can see and fire through walls and floors. I'm not saying that four men could have realistically taken the ground floor, that may or may not have been possible. But they would have thrown a few grenades in, kicked down the door and had a go. There is more but that will do, I guess it shows just how difficult it is to do a game that enables real infantry combat, particularly that which involves an element of surprise and initiative, both of which are vital to successfully playing out a particular scenario that is not methodical and deliberate by nature, like a game of chess.

Fascinating info, which appears to have been taken into account with CMAK anyway. Although the British tank guns seemed to be no more accurate than the American in that game.

Was that 'Sahara' movie the one where basically the clever Yank shows everyone else the right way to do things? If thats the one you have to laugh at the historical context, the other nationalities had been involved in that particular war for some time and presumably had learnt a thing or two, the Americans were still war babies. Still I guess they had to talk themselves up at the time the movie was made. If its not the movie then ignore

Digging up an old thread, basically to see other's experiences with the Jock Column scenario. It is impossible as the British to clear the board but it does teach a valuable historical lesson - how the hell did the British escape being anniliated every time early in the war? Even if some of the values given to the Germans in the game are sometimes, errr, 'optimistic,' eg wonder weapon and impervious MG's. Anyway, being a sucker for punishment I'm going to have a third go against the AI. Second time I got up the right side to the Point, losing one Honey due to a peek over the top. Bam! first shot and the Honey blew. Did manage to knock out two German armoured cars with crossfiring portees though Realistically the scenario is more an attack than a meeting engagement though, Germans basically lie in wait for you. And realistically if you can knock out a couple of armoured cars and take some prisoners without suffering many losses then as a Jock column you have done as well as can be expected in the situation, there are no supplies etc around waiting to be destroyed.

For the desert grids are essential, the triangulated ones by Rocketman are excellent. Its pointless playing the desert without them particularly as CMAK is unrealistically harsh on advancing infantry without cover that the dips and waves in the terrain may provide. Which the grids show, lost without them.

CMx2 yes please, don't forget North Africa 41-42 though. Plus real infantry behaviour.

LOL at the 'camoflage' net over the gun, I would have copped hell doing something as skimpy as that.

Sounds pretty good, do any defenders surrender or move to fallback positions when under intense attack? Because that was the usual behaviour in real life, not many would fight to the death. NB I can't play the demo at the moment, puter is getting a suitable upgrade though.

The behaviour of infantry when assaulting always seems to be a problem for game makers, my experience with this aspect in CMAK was not good at all. Usually infantry there would go to ground under fire and wriggle around until they were all killed, no matter how much fire support and other aid they had. There also seems to be a constant overestimation by game makers of the casualty rate inflicted on assaulting infantry, compared with what actually happened in the real WW2.. I hope this is not the case with ToW2, please say it isn't so