Lt. Badger

Thanks for the advice, y'all. My concern with MTC was that they could just stop out in the open when encountering enemy units. With Advance, they will often continue their plotted path to cover. Using MTC with Hide sounds like a good idea for advance scouts. JasonC, thanks for the info on fatigue rates, that will help a lot. Lt. Badger

What movement rate do you use for your infantry when they are not under fire but might encounter enemy units at any moment? I thought that Advance was the correct rate for this situation, as it is supposed to simulate careful movement and readiness. Just now I was reading the manual (actually the CMBB manual, since I bought the combo pack) and it says that Advance should be saved for fast movement under fire, such as charging into trenches (when I would tend to use Assault instead). I know that Move does not tire the men as much as Advance does, but I thought that it assumed movement in a relatively safe zone, and might leave the men unready to respond to a sudden attack. Even with leapfrogging and similar movement plans that let each squad rest for all or part of a turn before they get up and move again, I find that they do get pretty tired with Advance, and then I have to let them rest for two or three minutes to get back to ready or rested condition. Is it safe to use Move when you might come under attack? Lt. Badger

Screenshots aren't working. Check your html - you used absolute addresses rather than relative addresses in your img src links. The links appear to be to files on your hard drive, so may appear properly for you, but not for anyone else. Lt. Badger edit: went back to look again - appears your images are there in your directory at earthlink, sae directory as your index.html, so to fix the links just delete the directory reference and just use the filename, such as src=dune%28s%291.jpg [ December 30, 2003, 11:11 PM: Message edited by: Lt. Badger ]

CMMODS.COM has two sets of gridded terrain mods for CMAK. One comes in a single 50 MB zip, the other comes in 4 zips averaging about 4 MB each. I downloaded both sets, and I like the 4-pack (by Limey) better because the grid lines are sharper. The reason for the size difference is that the single zip has gridded BMPs for all kinds of terrain, but Limey's 4-pack replaces only the desert terrain. That works fine for me because it was mostly the desert terrain giving me trouble with seeing the contours. I've been told that the remaining terrain types all use the same identical BMP files as in CMBB, so a grid mod for CMBB can also be used to replace these types in CMAK. There is apparently a grid mod done by Captain Wacky for CMBB that is highly recommended, but I haven't tried it yet. There have been a couple of threads on this topic here in this forum in the past month - search on 'grid' in the subject line. Lt. Badger

I chose the bundle pack for two reasons: 1) I thought that I would probably want CMBB eventually, so I saved $17 by ordering the bundle (bundle cost = $60 + $7 = $67; cost for both individually = $35 + $7 + $35 + $7 = $84). 2) With the bundle, I got the printed manual for CMBB, which also covers most of what is in CMAK (which has only a PDF manual). Can't address your question re infantry behavior, as so far I have been playing only CMAK, not CMBB. Lt. Badger

OK, I'll give that a try. Thanks. Lt. Badger

I think this may have happened to me in Mountain Retreat, too. I went for the monastery first and had a good fight taking it, but I think the AI may have taken all of its defenders out of the town in its attempt to dislodge me from the monastery, because when I got to the town there was hardly anybody there and they promptly surrendered. I think next time I will give the Germans a force bonus, at least 25%, maybe more. Lt. Badger

Is there any switch for turning off the daylight effects? Lighting conditions are listed with weather in the manual, but the shift-W switch does not have any effect on the lighting. I just started to play one of the included scenarios that was set at dusk, and had to quit partway through the Setup phase because I was having such a hard time seeing my units. I even increased size to +4, but their camo was just too good in that lighting, and it didn't help any that the scenario designer had designated brown (rather than the usual red or blue or other bright color) for my unit bases. I had to squint so much to see the units during setup, I knew I had a guaranteed headache coming if I tried to play it out. So, any way to change the dusk lighting to daylight (or even dawn, I've played dawn scnarios and not had nearly this much trouble seeing)? Lt. Badger

Wow, that CM Surrender_AI really makes some complex calculations! I wonder if it also figures in when they had their last letter from home, and whether it was good news or bad? Lt. Badger

Whatever it is that has changed the surrender determinations, it leads to some weird results sometimes. I played Mountain Retreat last night (great scenario, BTW) and had some infantry moving through a wheatfield when they were attacked by an entrenched AT gun and a bunker MG. They managed to take out the gun, and the crew suddenly surrendered - even though he was in a trench, only about 30 meters away from his own bunker, while my guys were about 60-70 meters away in the middle of a wheatfield! Lt. Badger

Turns out that there are at least some times when one side can see the warning signs for the other side's minefields without having a mine blow up or even entering the minefield. In "On the Edge" I played Germans and could see warning signs for Allied minefields. I never went near them. :confused: So, is there some setting that allows this? Does FOW make any difference? I'm playing at full FOW, not extreme, but in other scnearios (such as "Line of Defense" and "Mountain Retreat") I have not been able to see enemy minefield warning signs until I either hit a mine or completed the scenario and went back from the AAR to look at the map. Idea: super-cheap minefields with no actual mines in them, just warning signs visible to the enemy to act as a deterrant! Lt. Badger

They will quite happily keep firing until they are completely out of ammo. They will also keep on with an area fire mission long after whatever was in the area has moved away. You need to keep an eye on the mortars from turn to turn to make sure they are not wasting ammo. Lt. Badger

Can anyone advise on best means of handling prisoners in CMAK? I played On the Edge last night and managed to completely overwhelm the defenders of the AA emplacements and nearby trenches. Finally the last few units in that area all surrendered - several half-strength HQ units, a couple of partial squads, and a 1-man remnant of a Bren team. However, I still had about 12 turns to go in the scenario, and wanted to get as many of my troops as were still in good condition over to where they could support the fight at the crossroads. I left the guys who were really low on ammo to guard the prisoners. 1) The prisoners were very disobedient, considering that they were (presumably) disarmed and surrounded by guys who still had at least enough ammo to kill them all. I wanted to move all of the prisoners into one area for easier guarding, and they would take MOVE orders alright, they just wouldn't move. Well, some of them moved, and some didn't. Some moved a little ways, then sat down and refused to budge. 2) How many men does it take to guard them and keep them from rebelling? I had more guards than there were prisoners, because of the number of squads I had with low ammo after the fight. 3) What happens if you don't guard them? Do they mysteriously acquire weapons and return to the fight, or do they just wander off into the wilderness, or what? Lt. Badger

It's good to have a well-mannered installer that does what it is told. Just this morning I needed to fix something on my son's Hulk game and found the C:\Games\Hulk directory (where I had told it to install) was empty. Checked around a bit and found the game in a C:\Program Files\Universal\Hulk directory instead. So apparently it just created the new folder where I told it to install, then ignored that and installed in its default location anyway! What cheek, eh? Lt. Badger

Don't worry, I didn't forget - just had lots to do past few days with kids, visiting relatives, etc. Just posted review at Depot. One thing about the numbers - since it was a scale of 0-10 I was taking 5 as an average score and working from there, but in looking at reviews on some other scenarios after I posted the review on yours, it seems that there is a bit of inflation and I hardly see anything below 7s. My numerical ratings averaged out a bit over 7, which I intended to reflect that I liked it a lot. If possible, I would re-do my numbers to rate yours higher to account for this inflation effect, give you about an 8 overall. Anyway, I think my text says what I meant to say, so I hope that will count more than the numbers. Lt. Badger

Well, that's what I thought, but it seemed to me that dugfromearth was implying something different in his post above, re warning signs. Lt. Badger

If you want to be able to take more than one screenshot without alt-tabbing to paste and save each one, try googling for Hypersnap. There is a free program that leaves a logo/reminder on each of your snaps, or you can pay for the program and have a clean snap. I believe the paid program also allows more functions, such as capturing mini-videos of screen action, but I'm not sure as I just use the free one. Lt. Badger

Is there some option to set whether the signs are visible to the enemy or not? I'm thinking of the Line of Defense scenario - when I was German I could see where the minefields were, but when I was American they did not show up until one of my tanks was immobilized by them - and only the minefield that the tank was in showed up, I still did not know the location of the other one. Lt. Badger

Ah-HA! :eek: :mad: As a CM newbie I have suspected something like this, but figured that it must just be my lousy tactics. Now that it is confirmed by a veteran player, I feel much better. Lt. Badger

Well, tonight I was very happy that those blasted Crack Jeeps had limited ammo, as I played Germans and they gave me a very good fight. I can't say how it would go for a veteran player, but for this CM newbie your Rat Patrol scenario has provided three fun and challenging games. I decided to play it straight as the Germans, giving my orders to follow the mission plan as if I did not know that the convoy would be attacked. My main problem in the first two turns was getting my trucks and halftracks to move up the road in an orderly fashion without bumping bumpers. On turn two I spotted some dust rising in the distance and decided that merited investigation, so on turn three dispatched one of the armored cars to have a look. Shortly after that the shooting started all around, but I'd gotten most of my troops to the first objective and managed to get them into cover in buildings and rough areas. After that it was a mix of my armed vehicles out hunting down jeeps while trying to keep from being hunted themselves, while the infantry dug in and made sure nobody would be able to budge us out of place. I ended up with a minor victory - would have done a lot better but for the last round of reinforcements, theirs trumped mine by far. Here is some spoiler space for those who haven't played this scenario: * * * * * * * * * * * It seemed that nothing I had could even dent those blasted Stuarts! I still had 3 armored cars left when they showed up, plus one halftrack with a 37mm gun, plus those two vehicles that came in as my final reinforcements - and the Stuarts shrugged off every shot and killed almost everything that came into their LOS. I suppose if I had been patient they might have come in close enough for my infantry to kill them, but they seemed inclined to loiter around the far objective flag lobbing HE from a distance, and I had hopes that if I could knock them out I would still have time to race a truckload of infantry down the road to grab that flag. I even managed to maneuver the halftrack with the 37mm into position for a close-range flank shot on one of the Stuarts, but as soon as they got into LOS my driver screamed, "Mein Gott, a TANK!" and slammed that baby into reverse without firing a shot. Three games in a row on this one scenario is probably enough for awhile, but I will try and write a nice review for the Depot, and look to see if you have any other scenarios that I can try out. Thanks again, Lt. Badger

Just played it again as Allies, trying out tactics more like what they would have done in the TV show - racing down the German column blasting away with MGs, relying on the speed of the jeeps to make themselves difficult targets (at least I think that is the way they would have done it - I don't remember the show real well, I think I was maybe 6 or 7 years old when it was on). This tactic didn't work near as well as I had hoped - for one thing, the jeeps didn't follow their orders to keep moving, but would stop in one place and make themselves easy targets for the German armored cars. Most of the jeeps ended up in flames, although they took out a pretty good number of halftracks and armored cars in the process. Still, I think I would have lost if it weren't for the reinforcements arriving in time to take position around the nearest flag and hold it. I'm going to try it at least one more time, as Germans this time, then will go to Depot and leave comments. BTW, once it became clear that my men would hold, I sent a halftrack with a squad of infantry racing down the road to the far flag, just to test it, and it converted when they arrived. Is that the standard amount of ammo for the Jeep MGs? That was one frustration both times, running out of ammo for the jeeps (although this time some of them got blown up before using all of their ammo, last time I just had a bunch of toothless jeeps that had to withdraw when they could no longer fight). I don't know anything about scenario making, but is there a way to set the flag values so that the German needs to take at least one of them to win, but the American just needs to keep the German from getting them? Since the briefing set our mission as stopping the German column, there didn't seem to be any real reason for the Americans to need to hold those flag locations - except that without the flag points I would have had a much narrower margin of victory, probably a draw in fact. I'll try it as Germans tomorrow night probably. Lt Badger

OK, I'm not sure how to do that but will go back to the Depot and see what to do. I think I'll play it again first so I can comment on trying different things - not sure what else to say but maybe an AAR kind of thing? Or would that be considered too much for a review, maybe would spoil it for others? Lt. Badger PS: Any idea on why that flag wouldn't convert? There were no Germans anywhere nearby, I even went back and looked after the game was over.

I tried your scenario and found it a lot of fun. I may try it again as Germans to see if I can get beyond the top of the hill. Or maybe play Allies again and try something different, racing down to strafe the convoy rather than setting up and killing them all as they come over the hilltop. I wonder what is necessary to capture the flag at the far end of the map (away from where the Germans enter). I sent four jeeps down there (ones that had run out of ammo) and the flag still showed as uncaptured. Thanks for sharing your scenario. Lt. Badger

Bnej, I think maybe you were just unlucky on your mortaring of the AA gun. I got wiped out on my first try at this scenario because I was reluctant to separate the HQ from the infantry squads, so I had no one to spot for the mortar and had to get it into LOS of its targets, which resulted in the mortar team getting shot up and suppressed pretty quickly. Then I brought my scout cars over the ridge at regular Move speed and they got shot up before they could even get to the palms, leaving the surviving infantry crawling around on open ground. My second go I used the HQ to spot for the mortar and started off with 3 minutes of mortar fire on the AA gun position while the rest of the troops had a leisurely time getting all set up for their charge. Simultaneous with the charge I had the mortar re-target to suppress one of the MG positions. For the charge, I had one squad and the MG carrier move up to the top of the ridge to provide cover fire, then all of the scout cars with their half-squads raced over the ridge and directly to the front of the building at Fast speed. Not wanting to trust that my mortar had killed the AA gun, I had the cars come in at an angle that used the radio building to block the AA gun's LOS. I think I got a bit lucky with the cars' MG fire during the charge, because by the time I got my troops into the building everyone there was already dead. I then was in the nice position of using the building as my own base to take out the rest of the Italian units. Give it another go, it really is a fun scenario. Lt. Badger

I'll leave to those much groggier than myself the debate over how much (if any) control the ground forces ought to have over CAS, and the realism of CM's portrayal of CAS. My objection is the magnitude of CAS intervention as a random factor in the game. Maybe it =is= realistic, but realism in CM can be trumped by gameplay - as in the off-board artillery, which as I understand should be available in much greater quantity for the Allies in most situations, but has been toned down for a more balanced game. Yeah, sure, there are random factors in the game as in (for example) whether or not a vehicle bogs down. First, the player can have some influence over this by where the vehicle is directed to move. Second, and more important as a gameplay issue, is the magnitude of the effect - unless there is a random factor to suddenly bog down half your vehicles in one go, this simply does not compare to the damage that can be done by a few bombs in the right/wrong place. I'm not asking for CAS to be removed or even really changed in effect in any way - all I want is a switch to opt out of CAS when playing scenarios for my own enjoyment. Bottom line is that if I had been working hard to get my forces to capture an enemy position and the CAS bombed it and wiped out the enemy just before my big move, I would feel robbed of my victory just as much as if the bomb had killed my own forces. Either way it is a huge intrusion into the fight. For those who portray this wish as "weak" - well, I think you're getting way over the line to tell me the right or wrong way to play this GAME for FUN. I'm not trying to ruin the way you play, I'm only asking for the option - and it seems that a number of veteran players have posted in this thread in agreement. Anyway, it looks like I'll be editing my own versions of some of these fine scenarios, just to take out CAS - for my own enjoyment of the game. I'm sorry if that offends anyone - not! Lt. Badger