jep

How much control player should have over invidual squads? Reduce ammo consumption -function sounds sensible but decision to use it should be made by (improved)TacAI squad leader.

I have done some research with CMBB artillery. If you are playing no rarity games, buy some soviet constript 210 mm arty spotters. I dont remenber actual killing radius, but killing radius for 305 mm artyshell should have 40-50 meters. You should expect that 305 mm artyspotter's killing area is 110 (length) * 60 (width) meters. How arty kills: 1) Enemy unit either dies of flees when artyrounds hits nearby. 2) Fleeing enemy dies very easily. You may alse consider to buy some 300 mm rocket spotters. Unfornately rocket strike is too fast that enemy units had time to flee and die. You should be able to target (with 210 mm spotters) the most important places where your opponents AT -guns (or infanry) migth be hiding. I recommend that you prelan your arty barrage so that it takes about 15-20 turns from the start to the end of your artybarrage (a single spotter shoots about 5 minutes). Do not start shooting at the first round! You should also use seemigly random pattern so that it becomes harder for your opponent to move his reservers to resist yor attac. Also, artyshells should be triking as near of your advancing troops as possible thus you want to meet enemy infanry supressed and hopefully routing. In this way your barrage also hit troops your opponent has move to resist your attac.

I hope following: 1) It should be easier to find opponent and play multiplayer battle. I would vote a internet server allowing to play instantly. 2) I sincerely hope there will be option to play a campaign game. Actually it doesnt need to be a realistic one. Something like close combat 5, should be good enougth. Iam frustrated with totalwar serie as it begins to be bored to play single battles. Furthermore: Combatmission series models invidual weapons excellently but until decent campaign game, game can't be realistic. If it were, allied had never be able to win the war.

We played about 10 turns without moving single unit, it worked well. As soon as we actually started to move units game crashed. 1Sascha defined my problem well enought. Except every quick batle (huge map, 1500 points ) game has always crashed before the fight start. I were suprised if it took more than 3 rounds to crash. >>Are you on the BFC or CDV version of CMAK? >>What about your opponent? CDV version 1.0, english. >>Can you reliably replicate the problem even >>with different battles? Yes. >>What happens when your opponent hosts the >>game, or vice versa? Crash.

TCP/IP LAN game crash when I click GO button (a network error message). - Windows XP Home Edition, service pack 1, Athlon 1.2 GHZ, 768 mt RAM

Unfortunately defender won't be able to buy enougth tanks (except perhaps light tanks) to deal with attacker. And there are always danger axis player buys 10 or more fighters (actually they usually end to attact same abandonet/immobilized tanks so I think 5 fighters would be better). I think it is very risky to buy tanks when defending. Perhaps 1 or 2 tanks as JasonC wrote. Perhaps it is usefull to invest largely to antitank mines? Perhaps improvised reverse slope tactics to make sure he have to risk his heavy tanks to utilize them? Even thougth assaulting axis can deploy some 2500 points (1500 points game), he is able to get "only" 4 or 5 Tigers (considering he buys also infanry). Not expecially much if you think the amount of antitank mines there are waiting. I usually push agressively forward (with snipers or tankhunter teams) to recon where enemy is attacking. If my opponent keeps his forces close together the rest of batlemap is for me to manouver. Also I try to purchase mg carrier per zis at-gun (dammit, only 1500 points). Recons should be able to find enemy quite easily thus giving time to debloy my quality antitank assets. Also zis crew should be crack to make sure they debloy 1 min (crack zis AT-gun is rather costly, some 90 points). For static defense I think that ligth AA -guns (they are very cheap) are better for platoon AT defense than AT-rifles. If nothing else they provide protect against enemy aircrafts. I have to try to buy heavy artillery spotters when defending. Home-ever, I think 210 mm artyspotters (conscript costs 93, ammo 12) are better than 203 mm (constript costs 160, ammo 20). Perhaps I missed something? If attacker keeps his infanry relatively close together, it would also be extremely interesting to set a target reference points to somewhere midle of map and utilize a sniper to spot advansing enemy for two (or perhaps three) 300 mm rocket spotters (Unfortunately it requires least 5 rocket spotters to effectively destroy targetarea). Actually, rockets efective area is huge enougth to kill axis soldiers even if they are not deployed very close together. Rockets may not be effective against tanks but without supporting infanry even superior Tigers cannot do much to occupy victoryflags.

My opponent usually takes about 1 infanry batallion and some too much Tigers and keeps them closely together (easily destroing anything they are able to see). This tactic really doesn't take too much skill to use, but is very efective because defending soviet player is limited how much he can invest. Is there any realistic ways to defeat assaulting axis player? I have feeling that game balance sucks in quick-batles. German forces are totally superior (even infanry)when compared to soviet forces. Thus making it likely that axis player usually wins considering both axis and soviet players are equally experienced. Still, soviet player doesnt get any extra poist compared to axis (althoug this too is realistic).