Der Kuenstler

Never mind - I think I know what happened. The hetzer was gun damaged and the other one wasn't close enough.

I just finished a quick battle in which my opponent wasted my infantry with large bore artillery. I did win the AFV war though - took out his tanks and had 4 Hetzers to spare. I pulled the hetzers up within 50-80 meters of the front flags, thinking I could at least neutralize them since I had no infantry left to clear the woods. But when the game ended - all flags were counted as his - giving him 900 points. Why did this happen?

Since in a meeting engaement you are both supposed to be going somewhere it might be good to have a map with no flags and double exit zones - you have to get past each other and exit on opposite sides. But back to the style of play; I'm thinking if one got really good at using artillery, that would be the best style, since there is no longer a need to rush. In a race you have to hope for ideal terrain to run through. With artillery you don't need as much luck. The game is more in your hands. You can take the time to set up the base of fire properly, and set up your FOs. I think I'm going to expirement with that style more as I have had my men seriously messed up by artillery the last couple of games. I've had a guy use two 82mm Russian FOs together on my men and a guy using US 150+ mm and they both reduced my men to quivering babies within 2-3 minutes. In that condition they can be easily nudged off the flag. Also, I'm pretty sure that panicking men exert no control over a flag - correct me if wrong. [ September 13, 2005, 04:58 AM: Message edited by: Der Kuenstler ]

Wow - thanks for the expirement and comments - turns out I was basically firing at the front 1/4 of the building - I wasn't aware that CM models sections of larger buildings - I thought that whatever hit one part of the building affected all the building. Interesting - I'll have to be more vigilant with my target lines in the future. Extreme FOW is much harder, too. Once I entered a church with a full platoon and sat for a couple of minutes with nothing happening. I then sent them out the back and was fired on from behind by an enemy squad that was in the church upstairs the whole time.

It seems to me from playing humans in MEs that there are two main groups: there are the flag racers who rush to get to the flags first, and then there are the methodical (artillery) guys who wait and then try to seriously mess the guy up and move in later. Which style do you feel is more effective?

Yeah I didn't want to use up that much ammo bringing down a possibly empty building - should have sent a 1/2 squad in there to look.

Oops I meant platoon - there was a platoon in there. All up and firing. I wanted to go in for the same reasons he was in there - a heavy building near a victory objective.

I'm playing a scenario on extreme FOW. I approach a church by a victory flag - I'm almost positive there are Russians in there. So I hit the church with a full minute of HE from 3 Pumas and also fire at it a full minute with a flamethrower vehicle. No sign of life at all. Next turn I start to "advance" my platoon into the church from some nearby woods and they all get chewed up by a healthy Russian squad inside - everyone up and firing - no one even pinned. I thought everyone was supposed to break and run from flames. What went wrong?

Ok thanks guys...

Say you are in a position where you have to target blind a small clump of trees. Your target line is on the trees. You observe the shells coming down 150 meters short. If you adjust your target line 150 meters beyond the trees, will it hit the trees then?

Let's say I have a HQ unit observing from a patch of woods and don't want him to fire and give away his position. I put a 20m cover arc on him. Question: Does he still spot with the same efficiency or is he looking mainly at the ground 20m in front of him?

In the book "Stalingrad" by Zukov, the head of the German sniper school is shot while underneath a piece of tin after shooting through a helmet held up by a stick. The Russians then found him dead after waiting all day. He certainly wouldn't have strolled out in the open like the movie showed.

Does anyone have any insight as to when the AI decides the variable ending game ends? Like if you are still playing on turn 34 of a 30 turn game, why does it keep going? Because there is still firing going on? Because a flag is still neutral? I've been in games where we were both spent and wanted it to end but it kept on going and neither of us were sure why. It can go 25% of the game length or +10 turns, whichever is less. So a 40 turn game can go up to 50 turns.

OK thanks....

I'm playing a senario now where I have several universal carriers that say "smoke mortar" in the info screen. However, I can't seem to target anything with them for smoke. Does anyone know how they are to be used?

[/QB]

In the CMBB manual on P.190 it says "make sure you position your camera over the enemy once in a while - you can get invaluable information (...sounds from enemy units if not seen, etc.)" Does anyone know what this is talking about? The tests I've done show that you don't hear a tank until you see it, unless you already have a "sound contact" icon out there, and in that case, why bother putting the camera over there to listen?

Yeah he pretty much stayed where he was - my initial (prep) incindiary rocket attacks messed him up pretty bad - killed one wolverine and immobilized another - destroyed almost all of his mortars and FOs. He probably figured he should keep the healthy ones with the immobilized one.

OK the battle is over - ended in a major victory for me. The open topped wolverines were no match for the brumbars - I just kept them slowly creeping forward, blasting away. Two brumbars ended up immobile but none destroyed. But I wouldn't want to try that force mix again!

45 turns? I'd say there's NO WAY either of you can hold out that long on defense. With all the HE the russians can field? I'm predicting two Allied major victories. I'm thinking 20+ turns would be fair for an assault. Add more for bad weather.

Is there any way to specifically choose ground conditions for a quick battle such as "mud" and "deep mud"? The only choice I see is rain, fog, etc. Do you just pick "rain" and the ground condition severity is randomly picked?

Good point - I hadn't observed that. Shortening the time limit would help balance it for sure. A longer narrower map would also help - the attacker couldn't flank well and it would take him longer to get there. But then you'd have to have a custom map.

I've been reading up on these three types of quick battles. It appears to me as if the probe is the best QB to be the defender in as the attacker gets 40% more equipment but the probe defender gets access to all of the fortifications available in attack and assault QBs. In an attack, the only difference appears to be that the defender starts out in foxholes, but the attacker gets 50% more equipment. According to the manual, trenches are more effective than foxholes anyway. In an assault, it appears that the only defensive advantage is placing extra fallback foxholes. I think it's very hard to fallback effectively so I see these as not very useful. The attacker gets 72% more equipment in these battles. In attacks and assaults I also observed that the defender gets progressively more flags to defend. In a sample 2000 point probe there were 2 flags to defend. In a 2000 point attack there were 5 flags to defend. In a 2000 point assault there were 8 flags to defend. I hardly see this as an advantage to the defender - it spreads your forces out defending more flags. I think in an assault you should just defend one flag - that would allow force concentration. Any comments on this? Why would assaulting someone be harder than an attack? I think it would be easier with all the extra equipment. In a 2000 point assault you get 3440 points worth of equipment. How could you lose? I think the defender should get cheaper fortifications to buy in an assault than in a probe - something to balance it better.

Cool - thanks!

Thanks guys - I've got three T-34's behind a hill with a Panther under observation by a LMG. He's not facing me. I'm going to barely crest unbuttoned.