John_d
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Posts posted by John_d
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I used GoogleEarth and Streetmap to get the desired effect. Had to buy an OS map of the area for the contours tho. I even had a stab at what the town would have looked like in the 40s, just to see what would happen if the Germans had ever invaded Britain (my town is just down the road from Sandhurst, so probably would have been the scene of fighting if the Germans had arrived). Didn't get very far with that tho. The only difficulty I've had is that most of the buildings are 2-storey, but not big enough to warrant one of the large buildings on CM, so the town looks a little a huge trailer park. Still good fun to watch high caliber artillery rain down on it tho. Especially when ur house is one of the main objectives
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oh and,
8) Is it generally better attack hard down one route or spread your troops a bit and attack over a wider area?
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Having now given 200 a go, I have a few questions.
1)How the hell do u spot and destroy units in trenches? Especially machine guns. They simply suppress and break anything that comes within spotting range
2) Is there any way of preventing enemy AT guns from spotting your tanks? My T-34s are crippling slow to respond to any kind of threat and the AT guns always get the first (and often second) shot in before my tanks even react. Combined with the fact that the aiming is rubbish on them, even when stationary, any head to head battle between my T-34s and AT guns always ends badly for me. I hate using T-34s generally, btw, and I've never had a good word to say about them
3) Why do my overwatch units never respond fast enough? I have this problem all the time in CMBB, although not in CMBO. Units will happily sit and watch the rest of their platoon get shot to pieces, despite being able to see the shooter. Why?
4)What is the point of the hull-down command? It never works. All that seems to happen is that my tanks just stop at some random point where they can't see anything. And sit there.
5) How do make the best use of shoot and scoot? I can't seem to find a use for it with Russian tanks cos they're so bad at aiming on the run
6) ATR. Why bother?
7) Is there any tried and tested tacic to get enemy units to reliably give away their EXACT positions without me loosing half of my men and/or watching them run in terror in the wrong direction?
Thanks
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OK, I've given up on 110 now after never even coming close to winning. However, 111 and 112 were no problem at all. Unless I'm missing something, I think the point here is that without proper backup and support, individual platoons of low grade infantry are near useless. I'm sure it is possible to win 110, but I would be extremely suprised if anyone managed to do it first time, without prior knowledge of the map and enemy positions (gamey in these circumstances, but not if you have a company at your command as in 111 and 112- you would send recon ahead first to scout the area out a bit). Begining to see the importance of proper spotting and area fire. Getting better as guessing where the enemy might be too.
So far so good! On to 200!
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Things got terrible for me when I recreated my hometown on the map editor of CMBO. Now I can't even go get myself a newspaper from the local shop without imagining German tanks rolling down the High Street or what an awesome ambush position the barber's shop would make
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Has anyone ever created any WW1 style battles using trench systems? I.e two relatively close and heavily fortified front lines (pillboxes, trenches, barbed wire, mines, foxholes etc); high level of damage to terrain; mostly infantry, field guns and off-map artillery in terms of forces; no air cover; lots of mud (or snow).
If so, where can I find one? And if not, could someone who is better at map design than me please, please make one? Maybe would work best as an operation or just one very long battle with plenty of re-enforcements
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Just played through to 110 and its been f***ing hard all the way! :mad: good fun tho and i've learnt alot already
100 ended in disaster most of the time. Just seems to prove how shonky the T34s are when they go head to head with German engineering. Awful ROF and the gunner had obviously left his glasses at home that day cos he couldn't hit anything. Eventually won it with a gun hit, but only after about 12 attempts.
Totally different story when you have a whole platoon of them tho!
The trick seems to be (and I'm sure someone has already mentioned this) to use the SMG platoon to spot, then send one tank up the centre into a good hull down position and the other two flanking fairly wide but keeping their front armour facing the enemy. This way whilst the enemy tanks are busy bouncing shots off the front of the centre tank, they are exposing their flanks to the other two. Works a treat. Same tactic for the StuG, but a wider spread needed on the flanking units to take advantage of the slow turning circle. 110 is one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen committed to CM. I take my hat off to you Jason- its made me weep in anger SSSOOO many times! Still haven't even managed to reach the enemy's lines yet
Can't seem to get within spotting distance, no matter which route I take towards the objective. Even area fire doesn't seem to work, it just gives away my troops positions. I've tried huge banzai charges (probably the least effective method, btw), sneaking up on the them, overwatch tactics, even sent a troupe of can-can girls up the flanks to distract them from the main attack (hmmmm, maybe somebody should work that into a mod. You could even do a winter '41/'42 version with little ear muffs and furry boots). I hope the point of that particular level was just to demonstrate how naff green russian platoons with untrained NCOS are, rather than to demonstrate how recklessly I would normally use my infantry when I have a whole battalion to play with. I can only hope the lessons get a bit easier from here Excellent concept and levels, btw, Jason. I'm already looking at CM battles in a whole different light. I'll send the bill for the damage to my property caused by repeated defeat on level 110 to your home address shall I?
Thanks again, I'll keep you posted on any future developments
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This all re-enforces my desire never to get shot
wasn't previously aware of the degree of trauma caused by gunshot and shrapnel wounds. pretty disturbing stuff -
There should be no reason why Soviet troops don't work well in urban environments. I try to use short, limited objective infantry rushes from one building or block to the other with MGs on overwatch. The trick here is to remain out of sight and in cover for as long as possible, then utilise the Soviets short range advantage. In my experience, there is very little that the Soviet SMG squads can't kill (in terms of infantry), providing u keep them out of harm's way until the last 30m or so. I once had a SMG platoon wipe out the best part of a German rifle company and 2 Panzer IVs and still made it back home ok. That was in a forest where LOS is limited anyway, but the moral of tale still holds for urban combat. Soviet infantry squads tend to suck when under long range enemy fire, so don't let the enemy see your troops until they're virtually on top of them and just swamp the enemy positions.
Failing that, just blow down or burn down anything that looks like trouble.
Perhaps the commnd delays are meant to reflect the fact that Soviet officers were often poorly trained and very young, especially during Operation Barbarossa where most of the experienced members of the officer corps were wiped out in Stalin's purges. Interestingly, I have read commentaries suggesting that the orgy of looting, rape and violence towards the German civilian population in 1945 was largely due to the inability of lower ranking Soviet officers to control their troops.
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Could somebody please explain how the multiplayer works on CMC? From what I understand, it will be possible for teams of players to work together in some kind of command structure. But what, for example, happens if two players on the same team find themselves fighting on the same piece of map? Would one of the groups of soldiers fall under the command of one of the players?
Anyway, if anyone has any idea how this part of the game is meant to work, please enlighten me
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Might a system like was used in Jagged Alliance 2 (ahhh, they were the days...
) help with this? For those of you unfortunate enough not to have played it, the urban areas appear on a different scale to the rural areas on the operational map. So that whereas in open country the were about an hour's walk apart, in the towns the lines were only about 2-5 minutes walk apart. Although the system was not ideal, it still enabled the player to have the front lines running through relatively small towns. Something similar might work for CMC. Mind you, Jagged Alliance was more about guerrilla warfare rather than the epic battles of the CM series. Btw, I thoroughly recommend Jagged Alliance 1 and 2. They look a little dated now, but there's still something about them that appeals to the meglomaniac inside of us all
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That's one of favourite tactics! If you're feeling particularly evil, send a few conscripts into an occupied building first to draw fire away from the windows, then send in the flamers to set the building alight whilst the enemy is dealing with the conscripts you've just sent in. HAHAHAA!
But, seriously, it is a very useful tactic especially when you've got an AT gun keyholed down a street and you don't want it to get outflanked. Or if you want to channel the enemy down one particular street.
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But is it realistic to expect the front line to move by 2km during urban combat? Surely one of the reasons that urban combat is so dangerous is that it 'shrinks down' the area that is being fought over. Whereas over open country, it might be reasonable to take an objective and the surrounding 2kx2k area, this doesn't seem possible in urban combat. There are plenty of examples of the lines being split along a single street or even between the floors of a building (the Reich Chancellery in Berlin is a good example of this). If one or both armies are forced to leave the field after an hour of fighting, the intensity of urban combat will be lacking
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Looking at the screenshots, it looks like the largest settlement available on the map editor is 'Large Town', which I assume is something of smilar size to the 'Large Town' option on the reandom map generator on CMBB. So does this mean that there will be no cities on CMC?
Also, it looks like urban combat would be fairly difficult to pull of successfully, as the lines tend to be too close together for CMC, which seems to require that the armies are 1km apart when not fighting. This would rule out limited objectives such as capturing a prominent building (like Pavlov's House) or securing a main road. It looks like it would be more a case of attempting to drive the enemy out of a substantial area of a city.
Of course, having said this, I might have misunderstood what the CMC engine is capable of. Some clarification would be appreciated
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Russophile,
hate to be pedantic, but what you said about earlier about Paulus surrendering the 91,000 men under his command isn't technically true. Paulus only ever surrendered his HQ on Red Square and left his subordinate commanders to make their own arrangements. Consequently, the fighting in Stalingrad continued for several days after Paulus surrendered, especially in the north of the city
Teutonic efficiency at its best!Interestingly German POWs had a reputation of a much higher quality laborer, than your average Soviet Joe
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Been playing CMBO for ages without mods and then bought CMBB. Recently went back to CMBO and it looks horrible! I've downloaded CMMOS v4.03 but I have no idea how it works or where to get decent mods from. Could anyone explain how CMMOS works and where I can get some nice mods from please?
Also, I've noticed lots of people moaning about the lack of civilians in CM. Has anyone ever made civilian mods for any of the CM series? Just wondering...
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Hofbauer,
I think I have once again made myself unclear (seems to be a bit of a recurring feature on this thread for me!). I was commenting on the kind of approach that would resulting in a player sacrificing, say, a company of men in order to inflict a single casuality on the enemy instead of surrending might be considered 'gamey' behaviour. My point is:
1) Is this actually gamey? (according to historical accounts)
and
2) If it is, will there be anything to prevent it in CMC other than the 'goodwill' of the human players?
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Thought this may be of interest to a few people.
Some pictures of Volgagrad (formerly Stalingrad)taken recently that I found:
Pavlov's House:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/129f2e/
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/163be9/
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/398c8/
Stalingrad Memorial on Mamayev Kurgan:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/163b80/
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/163bd6/
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/163bce/
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/163b96
Pavlov's house has been left as it was after the battle. The memorial is pretty impressive- apparently the tallest free standing stone statue in the world. A fitting memorial to those who died there
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From what I remember (and this is going back a year or so) my team was veteran. Ran across open ground, but for some reason didn't get targetted by the gun. Took a couple of turns to knock the gun out, but didn't take any return fire. Dunno what was going on with that gun crew- must have been green or something. Second gun was positioned so that the team was able to get quite close before they got spotted, so just a short dash from there. Both guns were in foxholes. Probably just pure fluke. The whole battle was fairly weird tho. Lots of things like that happened. Got a halftrack carrying a battalion HQ taken out whilst driving along a road. The halftrack then continued down the road, through my lines, then the enemies and ended up deep behind enemy lines. Must have skidded a good 500m. Odd. Sometimes stuff like that happens in CM I guess
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Interesting stuff. Not much gets discussed on the moral obligations of officers round here normally. Bit of a minefield I suppose. It would be interesting to look into the differences between the Western and Eastern fronts on this matter, although I suppose that in many ways the answer is pretty obvious
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You definitely have a point about it being on the Eastern Front- I dare say many troops would rather take their chances on the battlefield than in Nazi captivity.
I'm afraid I don't have any examples of companies surrendering. How come an army is in a worse position to defend when encircled than a company? I'm assuming its due to its supply lines being cut, but is there any other tactical reason. On reflection, you probably are right about this
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Certainly, I always use mortars against guns if I can. For every time a full on charge at a AT gun works, there must be 10 times when it fails miserably. Even that time I was talking about with my mortar crew, the same gun had driven back a platoon of riflemen a few turns before whilst attemping to pin it. Just luck as to whether it works or not really.
Or cut a deal with the devil, you never know. That's what my mortar guys did, I reckon. After the 2 guns, they were going after a 3rd one, only to come face to face with a company of SS Panzergrenadiers. Then suddenly out of the blue comes an artillery strike, totally off target, and lands right in the middle of the Germans, giving my men enough time to leg it! :eek: Beautiful!
You just can't plan for something like that!
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Much as I hate needlessly wasted troops, this wasn't really my point (and I apologise to anyone offended by my joke about the wives and kids of our brave soldiers)
Like I said before, let's suppose that you have a infantry company, understrength and short on ammo, holding a position that is of little of no strategic value to anyone. Now suppose that they find themselves surrouned, outgunned and outnumbered. There is no chance of a breakout, no re-enforcments on the way and the whole thing is going to end in a bloody, pointless massacre. Let's say for arguments sake that the your force only has extremely limited AT capabilities and the opposing side has enough HE to level your position without even engaging properly.
Now, not being a military expert or anything, in real life, the CO of the company would surrender for humanitarian reasons. Even in a normal game of CMBB, you might be tempted to surrender just to spare ourself the agony (not to mention the frustration) of watching your troops get slaughtered. But if the situation above occurred in CMC, what would be the incentive to surrender? Faced with total defeat, it would be better to at least take a handful of the enemy with you, rather than surrender (of course, eventually auto-surrender would kick in anyway). You will lose the troops either way, so you might as well make the enemy pay for it. As stated above, the only reason for surrender (which would probably be the realistic course of action for the battle) would be to save the lives of your troops. But not even the most 'humane' CM player would consider doing this. There would be absolutely no point. Granted, as has been pointed out by a couple of members here, it is unpleasant for many people to lose their troops, even if they are just pixels. But when was the last time you lost sleep over how many troops you lost in a game of CM? The vast majority of people would order them to stand and fight, even though it was a suicidal order.
Really, what I'm trying to say (in a rather long-winded way) is:
Will there be any advantage to the player to surrendering troops that are lost anyway? Like an overall morale boost amongst your remaining troops, or even better, penalties for sacrificing the lives of troops you should have surrendered.
Or will we get rather unrealistic fights to the death in such situations instead?
Please Program the AI to WIN!
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
AI in CMx1 teaches u really bad habits. I'm in the process of getting my ass kicked by a complete novice who's only been playing a couple of months against human players, whereas I've been playing the AI for about 18 months now. It really embarassing. Please improve the AI for CMx2 and save me this kind of humiliation in future.