Ardem

I am not sure about CMAK, I have not looked at it from this point of view but the german crews are tweaked in CMBB, take for instance a captured T-34 to a T-34 with both crew exactly the same "say green", if you notice to command time the german crews are faster and more efficent and 9/10 will kill the opposing T-34. I believe there is a lot of programming that adds other values other then the stats which you see on the information screen especially about crews. Its a pity this information is not broadcasted.

Hey NS, wait till you discover Meta Campaigns, where you can mix a bit of educated strategy roleplaying and a constant campaign, then you will find true heaven. There are a few around but I won't promote any.

It comes down to your perception on games, if you like games to simulate real life then you would of course be opposed to the idea as there is no map edges in combat. If you prefer to play a game with a rule set defined by CM and game designers then of course you going to use every possible advantage of that rule set. This argument of games and real life simulation is a never ending forum debate on so many forums.

I just read a good book, called Tigers in the Mud. Its about a Tiger Platoon Leader then Company Leader 502 Tiger Battalion Otto Carius he won the Knight Cross with Oak Leaves, by the end of the war. He joined that in the beginning as the tigers rolled out but I seem to recall most of his unit was in training in Poland till 43. But his section of the 502 mainly fought in the northern sector of russia. As far as respect rating he was as well respected as Guy Meyer at the time by the russians. Although his book is fairly bitter especially to the West and his own nation. And I had a good only laugh at this thought of american tankers. He thought 5 Russian Tankers are better then 30 American tankers. Its a interesting read especially about tiger tanks on the Eastern Front.

Well area fire might actually work better anyway <smile> saves the problem of disappearing and reappearing targets.

The brits were smart, appear to be americans so other americans wouldn't blow you up. American airforce has a nasty habit blowing brits troops up <smile>

I actually think the course of battalions do alter the war. In CM we play the historical important Battalion battles, these battles more or less contribute to the success of the battles around them. What if the important battalion battles took the tank works at stalingrad which affected the other units around them to gain the upper hand. What if the really important battalion battles in the 1942 stages of the war went to the germans side instead of the russians. I think its the combination of every battalion battle that makes up a front, but its the important battalion battles that we play that decide that certain front. Imagine 6 people playing CM right now, one is playing Pegasus Bridge, another is playing OMAHA beach and another is playing I don't know the rangers taking on the sea guns. Imagine if all germans won that battle and all the allies lost, do you think it would alter the war. I would say perhaps.

You know what I would like with the new CMX2 would be a campaign map of a very basic form, so you could include your own maps, play a little armchair general and also then zoom down to a battalion battle and play that. Also instead of random artillery or air available when you choose quick battles, you instead get what has been assigned as a armchair general. Also this campaign also allowed to be turned into a multiplayer campaign, where you can fill in the results of battles manually. This would really open CMX2 up and add a new element of gameplay, rather then CMX2 just becoming some rehashed with better graphics on a different front. Its nice playing historical battles and all but I would like to see what if germany lasted till 46 and what new tanks would been used, what if the allies assault was repulsed in DDay what if german factory tank numbers were not hampered by allied bombers and they were able to keep up production on the russian front. Having a campaign may help shift some balances.

I on the other hand believe it is not a good book on details but on feelings of a scared young soldier. So I can understand how he would of got the details historian argue about, wrong. Sorry the feelings and the humbleness of a common soldier seem very authentic, I believe it as a true account. Well I think you have to make up your own mind but here is a website that may help a little. http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/sajer.htm [ January 05, 2005, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: Ardem ]

I am reading a good book at the moment, called 'the forgotten soldier' by Guy Sajer about a german grunt throughout the eastern campaign. He give all his personal accounts and although atrocities are mentioned about both the germans and russian he doesn't dwell on them. It more about the life as a soldier. Very good

hey mate, How do you incorporate this into a existing spreadsheet. If I copy across the coresheet and the history sheet in value form would this do it?

Actually I don't mind the Australian voice scripts, they remind me those awful voices on those 1950 ads that we get on television every now and then 'As we were in 1950' hahahah. And some of the expressions remind me of things my pop used to say. So my opinion is they got the aussie right for a change.

Thanks for that Rob, I changed the site so Opera would work DAMN MS! I am just working in Word and saving it, too much effort to sit and fiddle with code. Anyway found a solution.<smile> Good idea I will post the additional rules for this campaign, most of it is around the strategic side. I will wait till I got a few more missions up and the rules and all, thanks for all that. It be interesting to get feedback from other people on how they would go about the missions and what units they would of selected. [ December 02, 2004, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: Ardem ]

yes there is links Na I was playing Mission 2 till 2 in the morning it tooks me almost a whole day to complete a battalion to battalion battle, 3 minutes between each AI sorting LOL. Ok I made a extra column on the spread sheet, I at the very end, it says "Did they participate" if OK then i slightly modified your formula in Column 5 to add a new check. Works like a dream. Reducing your troops to 0 is no good, you loose all the XP for it. Difficult modifier when playing around with the auto dice rolls to get the correct enemy points, I noticed under favour I was getting a -31 in difficulty and it wasn't correct so after playing with the rolls a bit it set it to 0. If you want the spreadsheet to see the change I make for column 5 just ask but it nothing super. Also anyone out there feedback you like to see in the AAR's let me know and I will try and do it. I think with your great system and with a bit more flavour added it will create a unique system.

Which is column 5? is column 5 the one where its got Unit OK which is calculated as OK on 100% number of units and equipment OK. If so, your right that would make it easy, and keep my xp so it doesn't disappear if I make 0 in men. I probably used my allocated allotment of questions, but is the enemy force modifer (+10%,+25%) is that taken into account for the difficulty modifier. Anyway I only just started but got a webpage for my AAR don't expect much at the moment, finished off my second mission last night so update that when i get home. Was a battalion size battle ouch it took ages, also if anyone wishes to play in this make believe campaign and post their aar your quite welcome to email me, movements foward on the strategic map is based on wins and completing missions and dice rolls due to robos type of offensives. http://nanosphere.dyndns.org

Hey robo ok this is what I am doing, I will give you a run down how I do it, whether its something you want to incoporate in your rules and spreadsheet its up to you. I first created two minor dice roll table (paper not as wise with excel like you are <smile>) Intel Company 1250 Points Die roll 1 2 Companies 1500 Points 2,3,4 Battalion 2000 Points 5 Oversized Battalion 3000 Points 6 Raid -2 to roll Exploit, Delay -1 to roll Attack +1 Assault +2 Was Intel right roll Die Roll 1 YES Raid, Exploit -1 2 YES Attack, Assault, +1 3 YES Probe +2 4 A 5 B 6 C Enemy A B C Die Roll 1 -25% -50% +50% 2 -10% -50% +50% 3 0 -25% +25% 4 +10% -25% +25% 5 +25% -10% +10% 6 +50% -10% +10% Step process 1/ Roll spreedsheet to determine Battle type 2/ Roll Intel 3/ Choose forces from your battalion to accomplish mission 4/ Roll was intel right roll 5/ Modify spreadsheet under auto to adjust roll figures for force adjustments and over point value on field of play. What would be really helpful for me is in the spreadsheet is a did force participate in battle Y or N Column if N then no experience is calculated to the force, should be easy enough. I believe this give greater scope to the Fog of war in battles <edit> sorry formatting went to hell on this page, I will email it to you.

Hi Robo I got a thought for you and your generator, its to do with Intel, I trying to nut this out so I can play a battalion campaign with maps do give a aar and all on a website. The thing is I want to keep track of my whole battalion, but I want to only fight with two companies at a time or less dependant on the info. So I got around the fact in not calculating experience for those in a battle before the battle I set the infantry to 0 on the left hand side so no exp is calculated in a battle. So I thought this would be good trying to figure it out. Intel Objective is a raid, enemy strength roughly 700 points (the intel could be 100% wrong or 100% right dependant on a roll) So I choose to send in only a company with some support. The real roll comes in checking if the Intel was right first if so it just substitute the figures. If not you could bump it up or down like you do in the combat modifier. I simulate this at the moment by halving my battlaions points and modifing the enemy handicap to extremes all over the place. Only problem is I don't know what coming up a raid or an attack. Anyway is just a thought to create some more atmosphere and unique scenarios, also the favor has to be modified due to bad intel, which is the worst thing at the moment.

I just found this the other day, and I got renewed vigor in playing CMBB again. It is awesome, I can't wait till I come home from work and give my Mechanised Company a workout. Although I feel sometimes the Dice rolls are rigged and both the excel spreadsheet and the AI in CMBB are working together, call me paranoid! LOL Nice work Robo, keep it up.