mrpwase

I've been waiting to find an interface mod that works properly for ages. I'll go try it out. Thanks, Tarkus.

And I thought I was the only one. :S I had a look at your site: it's pretty impressive. At least you've actually got somewhere with the rules. Is that map on big Combat Mission map, or a series of interconnected ones? On the subject of my 'strat map' (must think up a new name...), at some point I'll make a 'map pack' with all the pictures you'll need to make your own strat map. All you need is Excel in some form, and you basically then make the cells a certain size and resize the pictures so they fit, then put the pictures in the cells in a certain order and voila! Instant strat map. ...I need to get a website for this.

Sadly, yes. One of the few things trucks are good for. On the other hand, 88mm flaks rarely seem to have time to fire at aircraft - they're too tank-busting orientated, it seems. On a mostly unrelated topic, 88mm flaks seem to be the most versatile AA gun. They're good at taking down large, slow aircraft, they can scare lighter aircraft away, they can take out the most heavily armoured tanks easily, and they're also useful as artillery - just replace the flak shells with HE shells and you have an 88mm artillery piece.

I love it when I see a field of dead soldiers. Ok, I hate it when I see a field of dead soldiers, like any normal person, but on CMBB, having set up barbed wire and mines and fields of fire etc., and seeing a field of enemies on their backs, it's extremely gratifying. Still disturbing, of course. I've been desensitised to violence too much... Anyway...I used to use barbed wire directly in front of my trenches, but I found that doesn't work as well as it should, because enemies can rarely find the time to amble right up to my trench (unless I keep hidden). All it does there is slow down enemies which happen to be stupid enough to move into it. It's much better used blocking cover quite a way out from your line of defense, as pictured above, so the enemy has nowhere to take cover but where they started from.

One thing I find useful about CAS (despite the obvious benefit of FF :S) is that if you don't know where the enemy's AFVs are, but then one of your planes flies over and rocket attacks a seemingly empty location in/near the enemy's setup zone, you know that there's an enemy something there that's big and obvious enough to provoke an air attack. It's useful for finding out the vague location of the enemy vehicles, and you can even predict the enemy's plan of attack - unless the enemy vehicle is destroyed. You win either way.

Hmm...I think I know what you mean. Roads which reach the edge of a map correspond to the next map, and the overall strategic map is a tile system. Roads, ports and airports are all marked on the map (airports are needed to field aircraft, and ports can create naval artillery to be used in battles, but there are roads other than those marked on the map - small local roads, or those connecting cities. But terrain doesn't exactly match from one map to another. Generally towns and forests are placed in the centre of maps to avoid confusion. The rules are pretty simple, and the main gameplay is (obviously) in the battles themselves, but there are other things to consider, like positioning of artillery and reserves. Only two friendly 'units' (usually a battalion of troops or a company of vehicles) can occupy a tile at once, but you can have four on a tile - the front line could be set in a tile rather than on the edges, if you know what I mean. Setup zones are used to designate territory, so you can setup anywhere in your territory. There are 'turns' (dawn, midday, dusk, night) and days. Reinforcements arrive daily, if you can afford them - reinforcement revenue is based on the number of tiles you own. Mechanised units and panzers move faster than infantry. Supply is initiated at dawn and arrives at midday (handy, that). A unit that is cut off gradually becomes weakened and then unfit, but cannot die of hunger (to simplify things). That's just the basics, I may add more rules as I think of them. I'm going to play a quick campaign using the rules first, to check they work alright, then I'll open it up to the public...I was just wondering whether anyone would be interested in playing a strategic game rather than just a mostly incoherent series of scenarios. Thanks, mrpwase

M17 MGMC Halftrack...meant to be AA but (un)surprisingly good against infantry. But I digress...at the start of my post...? :S Um...I agree with Alistair, the PzIV is my favourite tank. Undoubtedly not the best tank, but my favourite all the same. I find it quite versatile - even in an operation I made in Jan 1945, a platoon of PzIVF2s still managed to take out two platoons of T-34/85 M44s and two ISU-152s which appeared on a crest overlooking the cemetary the Panzers were defending.

When I first started playing CM, I was disppointed to find that you couldn't play a large, strategic campaign, in which you can command divisions and whole army groups on a large strategic map, then play individual battles as they pop up. So recently, I started making a set of rules (based, strangely enough, on Advance Wars 2 for the Game Boy Advance) to simulate a war, rather than a series of scenarios and operations, which is essentially what CM is. Would anyone be interested, at some point in the future (rules aren't made in a day, and I have a LOT of maps to make - something close to 200), in playtesting these rules? The campaigns are playable as either 2 player (each player commands a nationality) up to - well, a lot of players, each commanding a different unit, about a battalion in size. It would be about a month or so before I finish the maps, and then there's the bookkeeping rules to lay out and Excel spreadsheets to design and the like, and I have to go back to school next week anyway (as a sixth former, I'm not that young) - but I thought I'd warn you in advance. Anybody interested? Reply here or email me - mrpwase@gmail.com or mrpwase@aol.com (or both).

While the AI certainly is very good (relative to other wargames), the 'niggles' stand out a lot more. For example: in CMAK I was defending against the Amis, and was bewildered when 2 Stuarts appeared on my right flank, moving along a hedge - making them easy, slow prey for my AT guns. Yes, the hedge probably provides a tiny bit more cover than open ground - but it also slows the Stuarts down to the speed of a HMG team, so they were both dead within seconds. Whereas if they'd have been moving along the nearby road, they could have reached cover before I even got them in my sights. But that's just whineing on my part - the AI is good in most places.

I have a CM screenshots website at http://www.angelfire.com/games5/cmscreens (sorry it's on Angelfire, I'll be getting a domain soon) but it's kinda messed up at the moment. If you have a 1600x1200 monitor and don't mind ads being stuck behind pictures of PanzerIVs, go ahead and look. Otherwise...:'(

The graphics are bad enough as it is (not saying they're not good in places) - we don't want worse textures...or do we? That could be an idea. Cut back on the graphics (which I doubt anyone cares about anyway) and include more actual game features.

I've got the flaming torches at the ready, as always. What's going on? I play Planetside (an MMOFPS, massively multiplayer online first person shooter) quite a lot, and I'm also a fan of Call of Duty (despite the blow-up-a-Tiger-with-a-stolen-Panzerfaust-by-shooting-at-it's-tracks episodes).

Wow, I didn't know this thread was going to have so many posts...thanks for all your help. I was being too whiny in the first place - I was just thinking of buildings as cover rather than offices or houses - of course they don't have doors between them. However, it would be nice to see mouseholes - and also some way to join building tiles together to make one big building (i.e. a mansion). Maybe in the rewrite. Thanks for all your help.

Ok, thanks. I guess I'll have to use light buildings instead.

I've noticed during a few battles I've made that infantry cannot move from one adjacent heavy building to the other without exiting the building they are in and then entering the other building. This may just be realism at work, but surely there should be doors between the buildings, or at least an (unmodelled) alley between them...? In its current state, I feel that CM can't properly simulate urban battles. Can anyone verify that this is just my computer/game? Please?

You'd have a bit of trouble giving pioneers grenade bundles, since grenade bundles count as 'normal' satchel charges given to non-pioneer infantry - both count as 'explosives'. An idea for CM2 perhaps.

Maybe the Rocky Horror Show, but with the Wehrmacht?

I wonder if anyone else finds CM and playing thrash metal a good mix? Probably not. Anyway...Call of Duty, while extremely unrealistic in terms of armour (Tigers do not brew up in a massive explosion when hit on the tracks by a Panzerfaust), is also very fun - and funny in places ('Private Kovalenko..' etc.). I also like playing The Sims (please don't boo me) - it has me in an inexplicable grip, and I can't stop playing it. Other than that, CM all the way...for the past week.

Yes. Since I don't have much experience playing against other humans (yet - I only got the game last Thursday), I can't really explain that side of using SPWs...but since most units have a different role (especially armour), it seems to be that HTs are simply for use against positions where you are sure there is no AT capability beyond grenades - and even then, the infantry trying to knock out the HT will be machine-gunned anyway. So if all the enemy's tanks and AT weaponry are concentrated elsewhere, use your HTs. Elsewhere, don't. Simple.

Help is on the way - I just ordered fifteen lorryloads of SANITY - Now available anally! ... ..sorry.

...anything with 'T3 chick' and 'pig poo' in the same thread is definitely bad...news.

I missed the point again. Are we talking about graphics or Shermans mating?

Does MP44 count, or is that an early assault rifle rather than an SMG? See, I do know something about guns.

I'm confused. Someone enlighten me...and no talk of tires...?

Hmm...the M3s weren't that hard to kill on my demo. I just put all my P-IIIs in hulldown positions on the 'ridge' to take out any enemy armour, and sneak my infantry through the brush in the centre and down the right flank. It usually works.