slysniper

BOY DO I SECOND THAT. Just made a mistake the other day, sent a 6 man tean running across the street to try and get a faust shot on the rear of a tank. Hoping not to move into any enemy fire since that side of the road had not been scouted. needed to be fast so that a enemy tank covering the road did not get a shot on them. Low and behold, a man pops up at a building window across the street and fires away , getting all 6 men since they were in a perfect line running towards him.Yes, bad decision, but multiplied since the unit does not move in any military fashion.

The title of the thread ??? Kampfgruppe Engel. It came in the CW Module:)

You have to be a little careful, I tested the firefly to its front armor and was able to get kills against the front armor at a pretty good distance, I would have to find the thread I started on that to remember what I found. But they are not Virtually indestructable, but still the best thing going around.

I had sent both PZ IV's up and the panther to help retrieve the King Tiger. For the withdrawl, I had the panther on the right side road and moved the King tiger to the left side road, reversed them all the way back. stopped at locations, let them give cover fire and take out enemy units. They both are pretty safe as long as you dont let the enemy get any units onto their flank. I retreated the Pz IV through blown holes through the Bocages by the pioneers. They are so Brittle, I did not want them taking any rounds if I could avoid it. With this method I destroyed 16 enemy tanks, almost managed to get all my tanks off the board. I will admit the Panther was pretty chewed up. Its tracks were in very bad shape and it was just barely moving. All part of the fun.

"Spoilers" from the start I recently finished this mission in the campaign and decided to go pack and play it a second time. Something I rarely do, but I just had to here. The mission I am refering to is the one where you are to go retreive a king tiger that has been left in now what is behind the enemy lines. As I played the Mission, I was aggressive because I wanted to get the Tiger tank back and into play. I found I was a hair short as to adcheiving that. I was so close but the tank was under enemy fire that I could not clear and a enemy tank was already trying to destroy it. I still gave it a try. managed to get my tank crew to within 5 meters and then watched them get gunned down. The rest of the mission is a great challenge as to how to tactically withdrawl off the map, but also destroy the enemy which is in pursuit and also trying to push the map, they outnumber you by a major amount. I just had to do this a second time for a few reasons, I had yet to play a scenario where I have had the King Tiger, Second I really wanted to see how it would help with the challenging objective of this battle. So I found a file that was just at the start of the mission, I did not change anything, but this time I really played with the same task force I had before at a high risk aggressive nature, they were Hell bent on retrieving the Tiger. It appears that is about the only way you can get there in time before reinforcements make the task too difficult. With the King Tiger in hand, I was able to use it to cover the withdrawl on one flank as I used my trusty Panther on the other. The mission is still a very challenging one, but I cut my losses by a good sum. As for destroying the enemy, It was about the same. In my first battle the Panther was the Hero, but he was also the only tank to leave the map. This time, I managed to get three tanks off the map but still lost the Linx and one Pz IV, which was sad since he was making the last turn to the exit point when he was spotted and killed. It still was a loss on the victory level and I will go back and play on with my original outcome, but Just wanted to say "Thanks" to a job well down to the man that designed that Scenario.

The point of the post was to point out it is not our call as to how much coding time it would take, no one knows for sure, even BF. We make suggestions and they decide if they think it is worth their efforts. As for the minute complaint, it has ben around since the game has been around. So providing options would be a nice feature. As for what players want, I could see many get into using the 30 second feature. The 15 second would be a good minimun. (Think about it, you need to run that blue bar for every allotted time chosen, make it any shorter and you are seeing the machine compute more than you are seeing any change in the Action. Like I said before, personnally, I think a minute is fine. If I want control, I play RT and that is fun against the AI also. but suggesting some time options is not a issue or something that needs debated as to if it is worth programming time. None of that relates to the original request.

Well sometimes something like that is the mortars have to be in range. I have seen that,Where I have line of sight but cannot call arty, then it finially dawned on me I had to move the on map mortars closer to be in range. The game has details that can be a real chore to keep on top of.

How do you know how much coding it would take to add this. ???? Personnally I see nothing wrong with the present minute. But I think it would not be a hard thing to give the player options, where he could select the time wanted. Like maybe a choice of 15,30 and or 60 seconds. But I also agree with, dont bother to PBEM with me unless it is the minute turn. Games already take a very long time for most of us. But no harm in adding the feature for those that could use it.

I have a enemy AT gun that is placed right out in the middle of a open field that is approx. 1200 meters away that can see ALMOST EVERY WHERE that is causing me great pains. I have had a dozen tanks that have been in view of it. But I cannot get a line of sight to it. My arty observers cannot spot it, there is no local features that I can target. So here is a gun that for all intents and puposes has been firing at will and I cannot get anything to even area fire back at it because of the present spotting setup in the game. As for using smoke, my tanks can only fire it out a few 100 meters away from their locations. it has been a real challenge to not let that gun just have a turkey shoot on my units. So it has been a great challenge and has totally stalled my attack. I have finially moved a spotter close enough that he has been able to set a arty strike on the area. So that should hopefully resolve the problem, likely he is close to running out of ammo since he has HAD FREE REIN ON FIRING AWAY. The spotting program in the game can give weird results at times, that is for sure. For awhile, this gun would not show up, so it made great sence as to me getting nailed from a gun I could not spot. But then units did start spotting it, but have not been able to fire on it. Let's guess that is the tank commander can see it, but the gunner cannot plus cannot even area fire. So in the present game, with how it works. depending on levels terrain and all the little factors present. A AT gun can be a shear nightmare or a easy target to waste. I like that to some extent. But the inconsistancy can be very frusatrating, since it seems to be much more luck than skill as to how well a unit functions as to where a player might select where to place it.

That is a good one, I could use it right now. playing a scenario where I had at least 40 tanks. But I also have a total of about 2 halftracks. So should I use the halftrack for that purpose, I just might.

This thread is driving me crazy, first why should anyone defend how the game presently functions in this area is just stupid. Even though I love the efforts to provide a game with such a feature, there is no question it has a way to go before it protrays things correctly as to how it would be in R.L. Plenty of examples here, I could add a dozen more, but that is not the point. As for the original request. Also a waste, really there is no clue as to if that would fix the problem. But the problem he has pointed out is very real, as to how to correct it. only BF would know. But as others have pointed out. Large items like 35 Ton Tanks should not take long to spot for most units, weather 30 meters away in the woods or turning onto a road 200 meters away from your front facing as you look down the road. But the game does not do that. Somehow these easy things to spot do not get spotted. whereas the game also lets button tanks spot infantry crawing behind a bocage at 150 meters somehow get spotted. There is improvements that could be done to how the game spots, if you do not think so, fine, that is your opinion. But as far as I am concerned, any suggestion to improve the game programming so that big noisy firing tanks are seen pretty easy and hiding infantry in concealment stays hidden is a good request. And you do not need Tons of testing to know that them aspects of the game are off at the moment. But defend the present functioning of the game at times, like get REAL!!!:eek:

I find smaller mortars are a great way to try for immobilizing enemy tanks now. They cannot kill them, but if a immobilized enemy tank will take care of your needs, it is worth using the ammo to try and get the results. Not that bad of odds. As for that scenario, I played it twice, same guy, he thought he had a better battle plan and wanted a second go at it on the Allied side. Personnally, I do not think it is very balenced. The German side has the advantage, even with him playing against me a second time, knowing what I had and where it was basically located, it was still pretty easy to take control of what the scenario seems to require as for victory conditions for the German. So if he is able to make a real fight of it for control of the town, I give him praise for what he is adcheiving.

I have learned this the hard way too often. One lucky grenade and you have lost more men than you will ever want to. But I also like to risk my pixel mens lives. All fine and good as long as you have them to lose. But if you are playing a tournament and only have a platoon of men to start with. Very bad habit that made me look very foolish.

bump I just wanted to let George McEwan get a little praise for his work, doubt he has seen this since I would expect him to have commented.

I wonder why it would be any harder to model than a arty shell explosion. I find it interesting now to watch them. Sometimes men can be lucky and survive a near hit. Other times, men will drop when they are at the fridge of the shrapnal range. It is a very random event as to where the shrapnal goes. Anyway, it seems it would take the same type of logic , however they are doing it.

There is the difference, you are done with the scenarios in a flash, I on the other hand will never run out of fresh ones to play. I am just getting to the point where CMBN was getting a little hard to find new ones. I generally save what sounds like good ones for H to H play, play maybe a few against the AI and play the campaigns. Since CW came out. I have played 2 scenarios vs the AI. Playing 2 HtoH at the moment, starting a 3rd shortly. But they can take a couple of months. I find other times setting up my own little battles to do what ifs, or maybe run some test. I am in no rush to not enjoy the expearence or have the time to waste sitting down and trying to run through everything we have as quickly as possible. I finished that battle about a month ago. that was only the second email game we have done against each other in the new system. Maybe part of the reason I was able to get away with as much as I did against him. Anyway thanks for the suggestion, I like his work. As for balence and scoring. Some times I am not so pleased there. but that aspect of a game is sooooo Hard to get right. Normally seeing actual game results is the only way to see what is needed to get that about right. thus revised versions of releases. Sometimes it is good to be slow.

I will not expose his name, we play often. We are into our next battle, maybe he will get a little revenge in this one. He is doing well so far. as for this battle, it was not his best moment. But in general, he uses good tactics. It comes down to at times we just make choices that do not aid us. In the CMX2 engine, I think the aspect of the fog of war is much more real. This battle was ther perfect example of it. I was able to keep much of my troop movement unrevealed to him. many times he did not even know where I had struck from as to unit locations.

I just had to give some praise to this battle, over the many years of war gaming, there is just some battles and scenario's that stick out and are very memorable. This battle is one of them on my list. Not likely for my opponant. But the design is fantastic. to a well done map. To the early portion of the battle that is a scouting and securing a path for your main forces, to the major battle. I just enjoyed how the battle flowed from one aspect to the next. below the photo's I will dicuss or brag about how my battle went. First: as you look at the stats, it is very one sided, This is not the likely norm for this battle. I would atticipate the Allied side normally taking a heavy beating. So I must admit it is likely one of the best battles that I have crafted such a one sided win. spoilers below. In the early battle playing as the American, I found not only was I to get units to the enemy side of the map and scout it, but that he was doing the same to my side of the map. Armed with M8's and stewarts I found I was up against some nasty Puma's . But with the fotunes of battle I managed to get the jump on most of his units and somewhat secured my side of the map, losing only one Stewart. My forward units were jeeps that I had sent to find paths to the enemy rear. I managed to roll them on both flanks to the enemy rear. They became valuable assets once they debarked the jeeps and were my eyes for what main forces the enemy had entering the map and battle areas. When my main forces arrived I started a main probe up the left flank since the right was hard to access plus it was appearing the enemy might be stronger than me on that flank and I had not secured that side so there was a chance he was moving into my rear on that half of the area. I soon spotted he had Stugs and Panthers as the backbone of his force, where as of course I was strapped with Shermans with a few with the 76's that might be able to do damage to the enemy front armor. But the task of crossing the bridges was becoming a very ugly concept to have to take on. So I became very interested very quickly if there was one of the paths that might not be guarded well. My left flank had my M8 and stewarts ready to go, so I started a agressive probe on the side to see what might happen. What happened was I was finding roads generally covered with enemy halftrack filled with troops heading for the river. Needless to say, it was turning into gurrilla warfare with my light armor poping around corners or intersections, taking out some light transport and then getting the heck out of there before he could get something there that would put a hurt on me. I fould that even with the amount of troops available, there was just to many areas for him to try and cover. My objective turned away from the game location goals and became one of shear find and destroy the enemy and force him to commit forces to secure his right and rear flank in that area. As this started to develope I continued to shift main forces to that side of the map, now having Shermans ready to try and assault the town from that direction. But I started to find that the infantry was doing a better job of leading there. They would become the threat to his stugs not my Armor. He had 6 Stugs, most located on his right flank, the area I was trying to take. If memory serves me right He only lost one to one of my 76's, he was peaking through a bocage to my side of the river and lost him. One other was lost to a 75 Sherman because of exposing his flank to my sherman on my side of the river as he became focused on my attack from the left flank. The rest was lost to Bazook'a's as I recall. As the battle progressed it was becoming a issue for him in that he was not able to stop me from infiltrating his areas and that he could not shift forces. He did try at some point to shift a Panther from his right to left flank, with my eyes in his rear, it was a known move . I pulled a 75 Sherman into a ambush location and was able to bag a Panther moving down the road to give aid. The main town, no question had German defenders, but in game terms, the one thing that is not fare, is that the Americans have a boat load of Arty. You can actually shell the town from the early part of the game to the end, which I did. Not very fun, for the enemy, just shear frustration. If I was to tweek the game, some of the arty just needs to go. Too much power for the allies there. But I know the designer likes his scenarios to be historically accurate, so this is not a complaint. As the battle went to the ending stages. It was time to focus on taking the town. By this point I had bagged 6 Stugs and one Panther and still had not lost a single main battle tank. I stormed the town with Armor, something I generally do not do. But what great fun when you have such a firepower advantage. To keep his left flank Panthers from spotting and nailing me. I had fired some smoke at the edge of town to block his viw. You see the screen shot as i have 6 or 7 tanks withyin town and supporting infantry also. I did slip within the last few minutes and forgot to redo my smoke screen and finially lost a Sherman to a Panther, It saddened me since I had hopes of winning this battle with somehow not losing one main Battle Tank. Just one I had to share, it is so rare to have one play out thus.

Well, there is a clear answer to that question. I think I have been lucky in that I have normally been firing first and either getting kills or backing up if any return fire has come my way. But the return fire has missed, so was not sure if I have been spotted or if they were area firing.

Maybe true, not sure, I cannot remember losing one in which I have played this way. But that could be because of who gets visual sight first, with the advantage of course being to the tank behind the Bocage.

No, I have never seen the AI do it on its own. But a scenario designer could get it to work

I think some of this problem must be the machine being used or something. All I know is, my night time misions are not that hard to see, things show up fine. But I have seen screen shots from others who look like they are in a game that graphically is not really visually playable. So let the tech grogs figure that one out.

Maybe they have alllowed a 3rd party to work on the Eastern front version of the game. Now that would be something Big It would make my day, anyway But I can hear it now, Many saying "No, dont do that, we want 4 more years of engine tweeks by BF (to the perfect game engine- which by way will never happen) so that the game will be much better for the Eastern front."

Well, it is not just shermans, I know I have done it with churchhills, stugs and Panthers also. So I am not sure you are correct in saying it is just a allied advantage. I agree with the fact that tanks can move up to bacage's and see through them at times, not always. And in general, I have not seen the enemy able to spot them. But like I said , I just had a stug do the same thing in a game to two enemy shermans. I had to try three times until I found the spot that gave me a view, but it works.

This problem has been there since the game was released. it has been the topic for threads before now. You guys are going down the path that has been done before, I would suggest you look at the old threads. But I do not recall if BF ever made any input to the way units presently act or if they are looking into changing anything. And most important, did anyone ever do enough testing to see what the game is really doing and how often it happens. I know it happens, but in general, I find my units engaging correctly, when they do not. It generally takes shifting them so that the correct person in the team sees the target so that they engage it. if this is the problem, I doubt that a fix in coding is coming anytime soon.