Tank Hunter

Thanks, I would prefer to pick them up from here as my whole library is here, both CMCW and Fire and Rumble module are currently missing

Thanks for the clarification! What about the engine upgrades, they seem not to exist on Matrix site, are all versions bumped up there automatically?

Hi, I've bought all my games directly through BF over the years which includes all titles except CMCW which I'm now thinking to pick up. I saw Matrix store has a winter discount so I was wondering what the difference is between that version and BF? I'm on PC so If I bought it at Matrix store would I be able to use same key if I download the game directly from BF or are they different? I know the other way around works as you can register CM games in your Matrix profile.

An interesting perspective, in the beginning he brings up the Tank is dead discussion and then moves on to discuss the amount of the videos and the content we're seeing.

This is just astonishing. It's so remarkable that it is borderline unbelievable. How is it possible that there is so much incompetence within the Russian forces? I can't recall a modern war where one side was so incompetent given the resources they had at their hands. Now a lot of European countries are rushing to increase defense budgets but I can't help to ask what for? Russian threat? Really? After this war it will take them 30 years just to get back to pre-war state within the armed forces and how scary is that? The only thing they have are the strategic nuclear forces.

I don't see either how they ever could win this but for purpose of analysis and wargaming if you are Russians what do you do now? The obvious would be to withdraw and call it a day but that seems to be a big no from political perspective so what options do they have? If you're a Russian general and the political layer requires a victory which is as "a netural Ukraine with destroyed and limited army that recognizes Donbas and Luhansk as Independant and Crimea as Russian". For the sake of a hypotetical wargaming perspective let's say that there are no restrictions on how you utilize the armed forces then what would you do? Full mobilization? Using tactical nuclear arsenal to force the Ukrainians into submission? I just don't see how you could win this even if given full millitary freedom. Geograpically pushing towards the east bank of Dniepr and splitting the country into two, digging in and then creating a long frozen conflict possibly hoping to get some sort of Nort/South Korea situation? But that would require that the whole eastern part is supporting you or at least willing to submit which does not seem to be the case, not even with the ethnical Russians leaving in those parts.

No I don't see Russians as OP. What game got wrong is the assumption that Russia would deploy their latest HW on mass in Ukraine. We the gamers would have probably caused a riot in here if Battlefront did provide us originally with old instead of newer Russian HW. People woud have been crying out all ove the place for their T90s, they still did with Armatas yet we still haven't see a single one; not even close to the border. I second the suggestion to include older Russian HW + more modern AT for Ukraine as part of the future expansions.

Damn, that video raises sooo many questions.. What's a lone tank doing out there without any kind of support? What's a lone APC doing out there? What are the chances of a rebel drone catching all that? I'm skeptic, too many odd and crazy things in that video to make it truly believable, a good portion of my brain screams staged.

One way to surprise players with enemy forces is to add probability of appearance. A scenario/campaign maker could deploy all possible forces on a map and then set chance of appearance on group level, some formations would have 100% chance of appearing while others would maybe have only 20% or even less. That would add a form of randomization making scenarios re playable. You could even do this for reinforcements just to add some additional randomness into the chaos. You could even add those two Tigers with 2% chance of appearing... Of course for this to work BF would have to add this to scenario editor as a changeable value on force selection screen.

This is worrying. Personally I always avoid playing urban battles because I think that the current engine does not simulate urban battles in a satisfactory way. Hopefully we can see some changes in how the urban warfare is simulated as we move along on the eastern front with upcoming families. I also hope the map makers get a lot more objects to play with so that urban maps can be more "alive" than they are today.

Is AI using hull down orders?

Great job Worg, looking forward to it.

Man, BF should hire you as a texture consultant. I wish you would redo textures for all the other CMX2 titles. Great job.

Outstanding. Looking forward to the finished package..

I know it's RT but can we have this version of the Armata in the game. https://www.rt.com/news/340142-super-tank-armata-robot/ Autonomous with a built in UAV and a 152mm gun. ☺

Also don't forget the CTRL+1/2/3 command to create groups. You can then use ALT+1/2/3 to jump between the groups quickly.. These are unfortunately not saved if you reload the game so you have to recreate your groups every time. Maybe BF can fix this in upcoming engine upgrades.

Thanks for the tips. I broke through on the left flank and rushed the beaches and few other objectives. Resulted in a major victory for me which I suppose is good enough. Had they had more troops in the back I would have been in deep trouble but it worked out. Mission 3 is a big one, we'll see how it turns out. As for Russia today I usually manage it with care and caution

Being WEGO player for years I recently started playing Real Time due to having much less time to spend in front of the PC. I started playing the Russian campaign and the first mission went fine but I'm struggling with the 2nd, there is only some 35 min left and I'm not even close to the beach objectives. It seems like even if I would run for them it would still be hard to achieve. Do you have any tips for playing RT? How do you manage time and troops? Do you pause a lot? I occasionally pause to evaluate the situation. What I struggle with is not having some kind of notification tool that tells you if your forces are under attack. I might micromanage one flank when coming under attack only to have the other flank slaughtered just because I did not pay enough attention. This often leads that some of the forces are just standing still while I manage whoever is involved in combat at the moment. I would appreciate hearing from some other RT players on how you deal with the time constraint.

Worghern you just sold me the game! Great Job!

Here you have a map editor that is much more intuitive and it's made for FPS. So it doesn't have to be complicated.

I never said that. Please re-read my post, I never claim that these things made the game less playable for me. I have all of CMx2 games and enjoy them very much, I know where they lack and I still think they are good games that give me a lot of enjoyment but that doesn’t mean that they are perfect in every way because they are not. If we are not allowed to criticize in a constructive way then there will never be any improvement. I only reacted to the review which I think is bad since it’s not properly done. In my opinion every review has to break down the game in areas such as Mechanics – how does the game represent mathematically what it is intending to do? Are game objects interacting in a good way? Are you finding results weird or bad? Graphics and Sound – how does the game present the results to the player? By text only or fancy graphics or just sound or everything combined? Are you immersed into the game? Replayability – is this a 20 hour play and throw game or are you challenged in different way every time you play it? Single Player – how much content is in there for single player and how is the AI Multi Player – is there any and how easy is it to find a game online? Are games good or riddled with kids that rage quit as soon as they lose their first tank? All of these above should be judged by comparing to the current leader in that segment with the game you are reviewing. The segment in this case would be strategy games representing individual soldiers and vehicles. The final score should be based on scores in all these segments. Then it is up to the reader to decide if this game is something they want to invest their time and money into. When AG reviewer writes "When soldiers run inside of buildings you can actually see what they see." I wonder what they really mean? I know there is nothing to see since I have the game but what about someone that has never seen the game? They may think that you can see all the objects, soldiers engaging into fierce hand to hand combat etc.. They should have instead written that you can follow the soldiers closely when they operate on the ground and follow the action, then they should also write that some actions like hand to hand and house interiors are abstracted but that abstraction generally works well since the end result seem plausible with real world results. Thant’s the kind of info I’m looking for. As for fire they should notice the lack of it since nobody here can claim that fires don’t break out regularly in an area where heavy fighting is going on. Is it a deal breaker? Probably not but it does remove from the overall immersion. The battlefield looks dull without fire and destruction..

Hmm, I respect armchair but they are generally not good at reviewing games. Their reference is just not that good in gaming departement. Black Sea is a good game with great mechanics but it fails in areas such as graphics, sound, UI etc. When Armchair claims that "the game objects can be targeted and damaged or destroyed". "When soldiers run inside of buildings you can actually see what they see." Game objects can be destroyed? Really, all game objects? Did they notice lack of fire, or that it takes several high caliber projectiles to even notice any change in how the building appears? What can you see when soldiers run inside the buildings? Abstracted rooms? They also claim the game has great graphics? Really?

Here are some screens from Gustav Line and they look roughly the same as the ones shown in Post 1 so I guess nothing major changed there so this is what we can expect.

My initial response was "looks flat" when I saw the screenshots, that's why I raised the question if graphics looked like a step back compared to other CMx 2 releases. I also think that this is mostly due to the winter landscape and the ability of the engine to present it properly. Don't remember how it looked it CMFI but I don't remember reacting too negativily when I saw it for the first time. What makes it so dull are all the distinct borders between the roads, landscape and the houses. Roads can be snow covered, paritly covered, muddy etc. They can also be a mix, in the screenshot the road has one certain texture and snow another and there is a sharp line dividing them, it would be nice if there were some blending effects between them. This applies to all terrain types. Snow is never completely white so there should be some variation. Some volume and ability to leave tracks in the snow would also add to the right feeling.

Is it me or do the graphics look like a step back compared to other CMx2 titles?