Nicdain

I would be quite happy to see in the briefing a topographic map of the battle area, since I suppose an officer should have one. Nevertheless I understand the difficulty of automatically "translating" CM maps to topographic maps, so maybe a top down view of the CM map (like you can have in CMx1 with the view "7" or "8") could work, or at least, a sketch map showing the main features of the battle area (roads, rivers, hills, towns, supposed enemy positions, etc.). It would be cool should this map be printable, since you could have it on paper to write down lines of advance, of defence, boundaries of areas of tactical responsibility of each unit and so on.

Deforming terrain will mean real 3D trenches and foxholes?

"Advanced Combat Mission..."

I'd say more: terraforming should be closely affected by underlying geology, so the terrain editor in CMX2 should have firstly a "stratigraphic sequence builder" and secondly a "water/wind selective erosion module" in order to generate a geologically correct landscape!

Please don't change: 1) WEGO system 2) PBEM 3) realism 4) editing capability 5) XX century warfare (pls stick to I, II WW or at least modern warfare, but no space lobsters!) Change 1) SOP 2) mobile cover (infantry behind vehicles) 3) no more terrain tiles 4) I would like to have the possibility in the scenario briefing to see and print the order of battle (i.e. organized in an hierarchical tree shaped way) in order to always know which are the forces at my disposal 5) Another request in the briefing phase would be a printable map of the area, possibly with a topographic appearance (contour lines, roads, buildings, rivers, etc.). Thanks Niccolò

My PSW 231 has been behind the factory wall for a couple of turns before the BT tank came. I was able to see it because infantry in the factory had clear LOS to the tank. But the PSW never moved from its position so it never came into clear LOS of the BT. I tend to consider this as the cause of what happened but it still seems odd to me that no clear LOS was achieved between the PSW and the Soviet tank, however they could target each other. Anyway.... I will follow Pirx advice: keep tanks far from buildings corners! Thank you all for the replies

oops! Made a mistake: LOS is black (NO LOS)!

Factory window? I thought that openings in buildings were modeled in an abstract way in CM...

when targeting the BT, the LOS is blue and the LOF allows me to target the enemy tank. BTW, the outcome is that the PSW took at first advantage of this "see-through" ability, but later was eliminated for the same reason!

I would like to show some screenshots but I don't know how to add images to the post. For the moment I will describe the fact: I have a German PSW 231 behind a factory. The PSW has NO clear LOS to a Soviet BT tank in open terrain (the LOS line undoubtedly crosses through the wall of the factory), but it is able to target it and destroy it. Is it a bug? Has anybody experienced something similar? If someone can explain how to add images to the post I can also provide the screenshots Thanks!

I agree with Steve when he says that the new concept for CMX2 - games expanded with modules - will be better both for them and for us. Anyway I would like to add my 2cents on the subject. CMX1 gave us the possibility to re-create virtually any battle among almost all the nations involved in WWII on three main theatres. This is, imho, a very attractive feature. It is true that 90% of the time battles will be between US and Germans or Russians and Germans, but for some WWII buff it could be of interest to recreate a battle between say Belgians and Germans in 1940. So, my opinion about modules concerning WWII is that, one after the other, they should cover all the armies involved in the conflict, not a limited number. So if the first main game is about Americans vs Germans in 1944, it could be interesting to have a certain number of modules, coming out every x months which, together with the main game cover all WWII in terms of armies and theatres. Or I am asking too much? :confused: Anyway, I can't wait to see what CMX2 will be like. I believe Battlefront will astonish us like they did with CMX1

I agree with Steve when he says that the new concept for CMX2 - games expanded with modules - will be better both for them and for us. Anyway I would like to add my 2cents on the subject. CMX1 gave us the possibility to re-create virtually any battle among almost all the nations involved in WWII on three main theatres. This is, imho, a very attractive feature. It is true that 90% of the time battles will be between US and Germans or Russians and Germans, but for some WWII buff it could be of interest to recreate a battle between say Belgians and Germans in 1940. So, my opinion about modules concerning WWII is that, one after the other, they should cover all the armies involved in the conflict, not a limited number. So if the first main game is about Americans vs Germans in 1944, it could be interesting to have a certain number of modules, coming out every x months which, together with the main game cover all WWII in terms of armies and theatres. Or I am asking too much? :confused: Anyway, I can't wait to see what CMX2 will be like. I believe Battlefront will astonish us like they did with CMX1

The wreck of an Opel Blitz

After I almost lost a fight with my King Tigers against Soviet IS2s, I was curious to investigate about reloading time. I almost lost because in a pure tank fighting the winner is who reloads the gun faster. Sometimes I was faster, but sometimes not. Anyway, after that battle, I set up a test scenario, where I have two King Tigers on one side and two IS2 on the other. The landscape is farmland with a straight road across and gentle hills. I made three experiments with green, regular and elite crews for the King Tigers. IS2 crews were always regulars, but they worked only as targets. Green crews reloaded in 12 to 15 seconds Regular crews in 10 to 13 sec Elite crews in 7 to 8 sec What is clear (and it was almost obvious) is that reloading time is inversely related to experience. Higher experience = less time. There is indeed not so much difference between a green and a regular crew, but I have to say that I used only 20 reloading intervals as samples for this experiments. The more samples are used, the more accurates would be the statistics. And I suspect that reloading time is not simply related to experience, so I am curious to know if there are other factors and which ones: number of crew members, morale, combat situation, perhaps? For example, a tank facing infantry will reload HE shells in the same time it reloads AP shells when facing another tank? (I mean, in the second case the crew fights for its life). I hope this topic can be of general interest, I couldn't find anything similar in the forum, apart one on artillery. Cheers Nicdain

Happy Xmas to all of you at Battlefront Forums and staff! Let's hope that 2005 will bring peace and health to everybody!

Please no RTS! The WeGo is excellent. For the theatre, maybe it would be a good idea to set it in the first stages of war, 1939-40 Blitzkrieg, which was not depicted in the CM series. Then, probably, if the engine is working fine, it shouldn't be a huge effort to add frequently new modules based on different WWII theatres: East Front, Pacific, Ardennes, Italy again, Africa...

Dear Combat Mission fans, I would like to submit you a consideration I was wondering about today. I must put forward that long ago I have been a board wargame player (Squad Leader, Firepower, Ambush!...) but since it has always been difficult to find opponents, my attention has focused mainly on studying the rules of wargames, with their combat result and terrain effects tables and re-create in solitaire some tactic situations. Since the first appearance of computer wargaming, I have experimented lots of games, finding in Combat Mission the ultimate experience of wargaming. OK this is just to say that even if I cannot be considered a "Grognard", I made my experiences on this subject. Now I come to the point: who played boardgames knows that in order to play you have to study pages and pages of rules (this cannot necessarily be bad...) and in the end what is the result? You master completely the mechanisms of the game. You know the function of each variable, the meaning of each parameter. What I found on the other hand in computer wargaming (Combat Mission included), is that this mechanism is in a certain sense "hidden" in the algorithms that enable the computer to play and let you play. You say: "well but this is what we have dreamt for years! Something (or someone) who relieves us from the pain of rules". OK that's true, but what I mean is that there are some pros and some cons to this fact. The pros are evident. The cons are that if you are not obliged to learn the mechanisms of the game (you could do it, since almost always you are allowed to know how the game mechanism works, but rarely you do) because you know that there is a computer which makes everything work, you could tend to play the game more superficially. This happens to me (what about you?) in the sense that I tend to play without putting too much attention at all the game variables and paramters. Also because I am anxious of seeing the action develop, so I play fast but superficial. In a board game you are not allowed to play fast. Each move, each action must be planned carefully looking at tables and rules. I am sure this can be done also in computer wargaming, but, as I said, the fact that the "engine" of the game is hidden and the parameters of game are not always readily available (for example as good ol' paper sheets) sometimes can prevent the player from throughly mastering the wargame. I don't know if these my considerations are clear enough, but I would like to know your opinions on the subject. Thanks Nick P.S. If the things I wrote don't make sense to you, consider that I usually don't assume alcohol in the morning

I was playing a scenario against AI on US side, where two Rangers companies had to slow the advance of german armored troops. With my big surprise I noticed that rangers squads had some sort of antitank weapon which is able to take out even Pz IV. But what is this weapon? Rifle grenades? Satchel charges? The weapon window didn't show other kind of weapon besides those mentioned and M1, BAR or carbines. Could anybody solve this "mystery"? :confused: Thanks

One example of assault: I was playing Italians vs Russians. I sent an half squad as scout for reconnaissance. As my men crossed a ridge, they came under fire from infantry in fox hole 20 m away on the other slope. The scouts suffered losses but located the enemy. At that point I used a platoon I had positioned a hundred meters behind and MOVED it a little beneath the ridgeline. Then I ASSAULTED the foxhole on the other slope. Enemy infantry was eliminated after a couple of turns of firefight (due to foxhole protection I suppose). My men had some losses, too, but acceptable.

I can't believe it! What a surprise!! I live in Italy and I found it today in the mailbox!! It's already installed. But I have to wait till tomorrow to start playing, I have some urgent work to do...

For CMBB I had no choice and bought from CDV, but I didn't like at all the changes they made: "waffengranadier", no svastica and SS symbols. After more than 50 years still those fears. Anyway... For CMAK, I pre-ordered from BTS. I will have wait until shipping day (let's hope it's 5th december!), but I think it will be worth it.

Since yesterday I had no problems in running CMBB, CMBO, CMAK demo. I have a Radeon 9000 and I run the games under Win 98. Yesterday, loading one of the Stalingrad pack scenarios "the library", just after graphics were loaded a message has appeared saying that DDhelp.exe had caused an error and after that CMBB crashed. :confused: It was not possible to run again CMBB,nor CMAK, nor CMBO without booting again the computer. The strange thing is that I started CMAK demo and everything went right. I was wondering if it is because "the library" has fog and Ati cards don't support it... Any help is welcome! Thanks

Yes, I forgot it! Now I'm trying to develop a sort of Access database to input all my units and then print a report, but I am wondering if it's worth. In the end it's more the time spent in listing units than in playing!

I was wondering if this is an issue also for others: in CMBB as well as in CMBO, specially for large scenarios, the most difficult thing to do is to keep track of your units. This means: who are my men and which are their characteristics? Cycling through them with + and - is good, but what I really miss is a detailed list of all the units under my command which gives me a synoptic view of my forces. And I mean a written list, so that I can check the units at any time. I find this useful when you have to choose somebody to assign a special mission, i.e. reconnaissance, and you want the best fitting unit (in terms of experience, for example). I've searched on line for some tool to print or export in text file the unit list in each scenario, but I didn't find anything. So just created an excel table with the following heading: unit leader rank, unit leader name, unit id, unit type, unit experience, unit headcount (these are the characteristics that can be considered intrinsic of the unit). Below this heading a list of blank cells to fill by hand, checking each unit with + and - at the beginning of a scenario. OK, I didn't want to be boring, just to explain how I solved this issue and to ask you hardcore gamers if 1) you find this issue to be relevant and 2) how did you solve it. Thanks