finkster

Disappointment. That sums up my feeling regarding BF:SF. The quick battle - source of endless hours of enjoyment and novelty has been transformed into a progressively more boring affair. Not only has the ability to purchase individual units been removed, (we are reduced to specifying small, medium, large, etc. as if we were buying generic laundry detergent) but even more crucially, the 'maps' on which the quick battles are played are highly limited in number. After playing one scenario on the airfield, I know it pretty well. After playing 10, I could draw it in my sleep, knowing every depression, elevation, and trick that it has. This re-use of the terrain 'maps' SEVERLY limits the re-playability of CM:SF. The campaign and battles use the same terrain as well. Consequently, whereas the old CM games were infinitely novel in their terrain configuration, CM:SF is already becoming (gasp!) boring. It seems to me that most of the work was put into the new graphics engine. The graphics are fine - in some cases (mortar bursts) spectacular. But while playing any of the older titles, I never found myself saying "I wish this game had better graphics". In short, the design and creative resources used to build the game were spent fixing a "problem" that wasn't broke, and in doing so, broke a feature (novelty) that was crucial to the game. A bad bargain in my judgement.

This is a most interesting game, and much of its interest comes with it tendency to parallel current events. In a war that is not going very well, you can try out your tactical ideas and get a notion as to how things would work out. The modern weapons set is very deadly, and you must proceed with appropriate meticulously planned advances when close to the enemy. Artillery/Airstrikes are much better modeled than before, and the graphics for a mortar strike are worth the price of admission. Showering fragments on a hidden enemy and hearing his screams of pain is priceless. There are some areas that I have noted need cleaning up. These include: 1. Path/Target lines can be obscured, especially at long distance by blending of colors. Make the colors Bold. 2. No mechanism to see all paths/target lines. This is inexcusable as this capability is most important, and it is a direct copy from CMx1 3. No way to make minor adjustments to path/target lines by nudging a drop point. You have to start from the beginning. This is especially important in commands like “dismount” which are arbitrarily set by the computer. 4. Target arcs are difficult to set, especially on small maps as the arc will try to leave the game area and not set to the horizon. In fact, the default should be that target arcs set to the horizon and can be reduced if desired. Most often, we want to guard a sector, without determining the nuances of line-of-sight etc that would allow an enemy unit to approach to closely. 5. Target arcs require a half-arc key, and perhaps a quarter-arc based on their front. Full 360 degree coverage ought to be the default, i.e. units are on guard all the time all around themselves unless given specific orders otherwise [which implies that some other unit(s) is guarding their back]. 6. I set the target arc on one turn, and it disappears on the next. 7. Often I want to face my units in a different direction, but cannot do so as no “Face” command is available. 8. I prefer a right-click menu system with mnemonic keypresses, e.g. “m” for move instead of “o”. 9. Can’t turn off music – I want to lose the annoying repeating theme. 10. Turn off the automatic replay. Some turns I don’t want or need it and I’d rather turn it on myself when I do. 11. Turn on an autosave at the beginning each turn. 12. A ruler that tells me how many feet/meters I am going to move on each leg of a route. 13. can’t undo a pop-smoke command in the orders phase 14. Can’t undo a “face” command in the orders phase 15. Can’t undo an “Acquire” command. Major pain if the wrong unit picks up something. It can’t get rid of it. 16. No warning when overwriting a save file. 17. “Adjust Mission” command to mortars does nothing 18. Panel does not specify what terrain units are in. Are they in the building? Are they on the 1st or 2nd floor? or Both? 19. Battle of Al Amrah does not end when objectives are fulfilled. It wants to carry on to the bitter end, and make me withdraw. 20. Units get lost even when given highly specific directions and wander around the board into danger without warning. 21. One Stryker and its passenger were lost from my control without any damage. 22. It is exceedingly annoying to find that quick battles of a given size use the exact same “mapboard” time after time. This game will get old fast, unless you give it flexibility.

Issue a clear target command.

>>what would a win look like for you!? Victory would look like Germany and Japan in 1945. Both were highly movitated, determined antagonists with a thousand year history of militarism. Japan, in particular, raised military suicide to a national duty. When we were done with them, we defeated them so decisively that these countries were not the same, nor would they ever be the same. We did something unique in military history - we changed their minds, and altered their societies and mentalities from militaristic to pacifistic. You won't find many volunteers in either Germany or Japan for the next war. >>take the draw A draw, on the other hand, looks exactly what it is - namely, defeat. A draw was precisely what Japan was hoping for after the Battle of the Phillipine Sea, which destroyed every hope of victory. Japan fought on for a year and a half sustaining enormous military and civilian casualties, and inflicting serious casualties on the United States, especially at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It was Japan's vain hope that by continuing the fight even after victory was no longer possible that the prospect of even more American casualties would persuade the United States to accept a "draw". The decision to nuke Japan completely changed the calculus of the war. Japan hoped for a favorable casualty ratio to deter us from our stated goal of unconditional surrender, and what it got for its trouble was a lesson in mathematics, viz, the denominator of the casualty ratio [like any fraction] cannot be zero. We were both capable and willing to wipe out the Japanese genome, suffering zero casualties along the way. So much for their math. If a tiny band of terrorists can extract a draw from the United States [or any other super power] in a military engagment by protracting that enagement and inflicting reletively trivial casualties it will only encourage others to follow suit. The military policy of the United States should be deterrence, i.e. any potential enemy should so fear the consequences of going to war with us that they decide not to.

The generals in the Pentagon ought to play this sim. It clearly demonstrates that the way to decisive and unambiguous victory is to kill as many as possible, as quickly as possible using every asset available, especially air and artillery. Failure to do so results in unsustainable losses. Of course, the use of these winning methods is strictly prohibited for US forces by our Rules of Engagement. These rules, among other failures, call for an investigation by the CID [Criminal Investigation Division] of the invovled branch every time a person is killed in Iraq! Imagine - if a soldier/marine shoots someone in the line of duty, he is subject to a criminal investigation. To the extent that it is well understood that criminal investigators tend to find criminals, it deters our soldiers and marines from doing their job. [After the 2nd battle of Fallujah, the CID was called in because "too many" of the enemy were killed with head shots, which led the JAG lawyers to believe that they were (gasp!) executed. Come to find out that they were hiding, and only exposing their heads and the Marines were good shots.] We may be able to extract a draw using our current "civilized" methods of warfare, but a draw is as good as a loss.

It requires multiple clicks on my mouse to get out of move mode, and other modes that change the cursor. You need to poll both mouse and keyboard more frequently.

When ordering troops/vehicles to move, the line of advance on the screen is displayed using a color so close to the background color it is almost impossible to see. Make the line a high color, bold line as in CM before.

Oops. The same old battles as the old CM - e.g. attack, probe, assault, meeting engagement. Sorely needed, and easy to implement is the delaying action. The weaker side is given greater levels of victory the longer he stays alive. This option would open a new dimension of asymetric battles. Jimf

The real question is why anyone would pay a penny to design and present such a manual. For some reason all the game purveyors think that a dark paged manual with small white letters is useful. This probably arises because they never read the manual.

I spend too much time fiddling with the camera to get the view I want. In particular: 1. when I move the camera up, it should also rotate down a bit to keep the battlefield in view. 2. Likewise when camera is moved down, it should move closer to the objective 3. Camera should not "remember" the view it had when you select individuals, but rather keep the last view initiated. I guess I was spoiled by combat command which has elegant combinations of controls, and no need for a mini-map. Jimf

In the "basic Training" scenario, screen-text says that double-clicking on the officer will issues the next order to both him and his subordinates. This feature does not work.

Hi Guys: I haven't reviewed all the posts on this forum, so bear with me if I am repeating something already thought of. Before battle is joined, there is a period of information gathering by both sides. One of the principal means of gathering this information is the patrol. Patrols are sent out to determine battlefield geography, the location, type, and strength of enemy forces, to capture prisoners, to map for artillery barrages, and to prevent the enemy from patrolling. I have always thought it would be terrific to have patroling integrated into Combat Mission, along with attack, probe, assault, etc. Patroling is probably the most frequently ordered activity on or near tne battlefield, and is (or can be) the context for very interesting small unit infantry actions. I would faint with pleasure if Combat Mission Campaigns had a patroling function, which would integrate into the game such that the higher level commanders could order patrols to seek particular information, and that information from successful patrols could be integrated back into the game. A down side could be the general level of fatigue of a force would rise if patrols were ordered 24x7. Front line outposts, listening posts, etc. could then all be realistically integrated into the game, along with a realistic reason for night combat, something usually shunned by most players for its unpredictability.

I note that in the aircraft specs, the f4u "corsair" is attributed to the manufacturer United Aircraft Corp. Of course, it was really manufactured by Chance-Vaught.

Here's the situation. An excellent Soviet platoon with excellent leadership attacks a german platoon (qualities unknown, numerically inferior to the Soviets) using the ADVANCE command. The Soviets attack the Germans from behind, in the woods, by surprise, with all PPSH's, with a cross fire given by supporting armor. Maximum advance was about 50M. The results - THE SOVIETS WERE WIPED OUT TO A MAN. The Germans turned on a dime and delivered a stupendous fire that killed or disabled everyone. 1. Was this outcome just bad luck? 2. Do I misunderstand the ADVANCE command? It seems to me that I could not have engineered a more skillful attack - The question must be asked - Is it possible to win such an attack? Thanks in advance for your thoughts and answers. Finkster.