sburke

Before you kill yourself doing this I may have found an alternative. I was playing around trying to figure out which portraits I wanted to use and figured I create another folder to unzip to in order to keep all the originals. What I found is I have an unzip problem depending on where I unzip too. If I just create a folder on my desktop and then use that to pick my files it works fine. If I try to do in in my CM folder I have issues. My suggestion to folks, create a folder on your desktop, right click and select unzip here. Then copy over what ever you want to use to a folder you create in your data/Z folder in CM for the units portraits you want and then rename them there. Assuming this really is an alternative it would depend on folks actually reading your notes to know what they should do.

Note from the manual, this may influence how you percieve injured soldiers are counted and how it affects their being available in future battles in a campaign. There doesn't appear to be anything more specific, but I am still looking. Note: dead (KIA) and severely wounded soldiers (not eligible for buddy aid) are counting as “Casualties”, while lightly wounded and incapacitated soldiers (eligible for buddy aid) are counting against “Condition”

LOL not me. I like the ambiguity and honestly I am really trying to break from the ASL mode of "get my best +3 commander over to that AT gun to increase my die roll". However I can definitely see where in tournament games folks might want exactly that sort of thing. Though from what I understand from the manual, the effect of a commander is pretty much tied to the command structure. You can't just move any leader near a squad and expect they will be able to improve things. Your troops seem much more likely to ask "who the hell is that guy?" For now I am content with my platoon commanders trying to stay in contact with my squads to tell them to get up and fight and knowing I have to watch to see that the platoon stays in contact with the Company, the Company with Bn and so on. Considering my current commanders are all -2 though maybe I should just stick em in the front line. Perhaps watching em get shot would improve the men's morale. Where's Lt Spear when you need him?

I just unzipped and moved to a Mord folder in my Z folder (yeah Mord you get your own folder). I haven't had time to look through the individual options yet, but will proabably before Broadsword and I start posting too much. I want my units to be reflected correctly My first look Mord with just the default - simply amazing. I do worry about your sanity once we hit the eastern front.

yes a jeep will do

Unfortunately my schedule is such that I wouldn't do you much good as a playtester, but am really looking forward to this. I can remember first seeing the board game Panzer Command and becoming fascinated with the battles of the 11th Pz. Thanks for taking this on

In the interests of making sure we are all on the same page (and have actually read the manual) I am going to quote extensively from it on Leadership and C2 issues. HEADQUARTER UNITS AND LEADERSHIP By now you have probably begun to wonder just what the HQ units with flag icons are good for. These units contain your leaders. Usually, every section, platoon, company, and battalion possesses an HQ unit. Leaders fulfill two very important functions: they exert a leadership modifier on their subordinate units, and link units to the Command and Control (C2) network. If you select your platoon leader, you will notice a “+1” next to his name in the unit information panel. This means that he exerts a positive leadership bonus on all units under his command. The details of what this bonus entails are intentionally somewhat murky, but the basic gist is that units under his command will simply perform their jobs better than units under the command of a leader without a bonus. Leaders may have a -2, -1, 0, +1, or +2 leadership bonus; yes, that means that you can even get bad leaders! It seems my Bn in the Hamel AAR is full of Lt Dykes. In order for a leader to exert his influence over his subordinate units, he must have command of them. In the World War 2 setting, radios were relatively rare below the platoon level. In the game, this usually means that a leader must be within visual signaling or shouting distance of the unit he is seeking to influence. This is usually about 50 meters but will vary dramatically with the terrain; the more dense the terrain, the closer your HQ unit must be to have command of his troops. Note that tank platoons usually use radios to stay in command and don’t need to stay within a short distance of each other. What does this mean for you in the current scenario? Keep your HQ unit near your squads as they assault the hill. The leader will confer his leadership bonus to them, and they will most likely need his bonus more than the base of fire units. The Command and Control (C2) network is a complicated topic that will be left for the manual. You can find more information on C2 later in the manual. You experienced some of it in the previous mission when your mortars were linked to the FO through radios. COMMAND & CONTROL (C2) The concept of moving and acting on information is called Command and Control, or “C2” for short. Arguably, C2 is the single most important aspect of a combined arms force operating in the field. Its ability to pass information up and down the Chain of Command largely determines that force’s opportunities and the options available to it. Note: the C2 rules applied in CM:BN vary slightly depending on which Skill level you’re playing. This chapter assumes the Elite, skill, with all the rules in full effect. At Veteran level, some of the restrictions imposed by the C2 rules are lifted or at least are not as strict, while playing at Basic Training level essentially means C2 is not active at all. There are two primary components of C2: communication methods and control procedures. In practical terms, this means a break in communications reduces the ability for the force to function properly, but good communications don’t matter if the commanders can’t leverage the information to achieve an advantage. COMMUNICATION METHODS C2 methods are divided up into different groups and displayed in the Unit Info Panel: The methods, from left to right, are: Visual Contact (units within LOS of each other) Eye Contact - close proximity Eye Contact - distant Audio Contact (units able to hear each other) Voice Contact Radio Contact Like any sort of chain, the Chain of Command is only as strong as its weakest C2 link. Having all three methods available to a unit at the same time allows for the best possible results, while having none at all means a break in the Chain of Command. A break means the higher and lower parts of the chain are no longer connected and therefore unable to communicate with each other. This can have disastrous game results. MAINTAINING C2 LINKS The more types of C2 links units have, the better chance they have of maintaining connections. Just remember that not all C2 methods are of equal quality. Range is quite important because the farther away units are from each other the greater the chance they will experience breaks in communications. The inherent fragility of the method is also important since some are inherently more robust. All units have the opportunity to establish Eye and Voice Contact, but to do so means keeping units fairly close and in plain sight (LOS) of each other. These are the most reliable, robust forms of C2 possible. Unfortunately, from a tactical standpoint, having units bunched up is generally not a good idea, nor is it even necessarily physically possible. Radio Contact is the most basic technological means of overcoming these problems, however, radios are tricky things to operate effectively as distances increase, and good radios are quite expensive. CM:BN includes two major types of radios: small handheld radios (e.g. for the US side this is the SRC- 536 AM Frequency "Handie-Talkie"), and large backpack radios (e.g., for the US side, the SRC-300 FM "Walkie-Talkie"). CONTROL PROCEDURES CM:BN goes beyond just simulating the hardware to maintain contact on the battlefield, but also attempts to realistically track what happens with the information passed up and down the chain. A rifle squad reporting an enemy contact to its platoon HQ will trigger an entirely different response than if it is broadcasting the information through the battalion radio net! That’s because the platoon HQ is set up and has procedures in place guiding it what to do in this situation. For the Battalion HQ, this piece of information is largely useless. What this means in game terms is that units can effectively only trace command- and-control to their immediately-superior HQs. Higher HQs may fulfill this role only to a limited extent. If a squad or team is out of contact with its immediate superior (usually a platoon HQ) then its company or battalion HQ may provide voice and close visual contact, but not radio or distant-visual contact. This simulates that a higher HQ can't babysit a large number of units more than one level lower in the organization, and it means that higher HQs can't be used in a gamey way to make platoon HQs unnecessary, but they can step in and provide command-and-control in a limited radius in emergency situations. INFORMATION SHARING The better organized and connected a force is, the better able it is to communicate critical pieces of information between units. Though it is not obvious to the player that the information itself is moved around, the results of it are. There are three primary benefits of good organization and communication: spotting of enemy units, calling for support, and maintaining discipline. One of the most important aspects of Combat Mission is its system of revealing information about enemy units, such as position, type, and actions. Unlike most other games, CM:BN uses what we call Relative Spotting instead of Absolute Spotting. In an Absolute Spotting system, when an individual friendly unit “senses” something, that information is instantly, and perfectly, available to all units on its side. It doesn’t matter where the other units are or what sorts of communications capabilities they have. Relative Spotting, on the other hand, keeps the unit’s “sensed” information from moving to other units unless there is some way of communicating it to them. In other words, when you click on a unit in CM:BN you get to see what it sees relative to what it knows. If the unit is isolated from the Chain of Command it wouldn’t be able to target something it didn’t spot itself, for example. Good quality C2 between the right units becomes of paramount importance when Air or Artillery Support are required. Not all units are equally capable, or even able, to direct such fire missions. Picture that critical unit, with the ability to possibly change the course of the battle, cut off from the Chain of Command. How can it call in Support if it can’t communicate with anybody? Well, it can’t! Note: On-map mortars can fire indirect even if they are out of command & control and lack a radio, provided that the spotter is within 50m. Lastly, maintaining C2 is important for keeping unit cohesion intact. Units tend to get jumpy when they don’t know what the friendly units around them are up to, or where their superiors are, or what the enemy might be trying to do at that moment. Without C2, the imagination can run a bit wild, so to speak, and the unit may be imagining the worst scenario. Perhaps all its buddies withdrew and forgot to tell it to pull back? Maybe the HQ was wiped out and nobody higher up knows about those tanks coming down the road, and therefore no help is on the way? Well-disciplined units hold up better under these circumstances, of course, but every unit has its breaking point. If it has contact with its fellow forces and feels supported, things are less stressful. LEADERS Every unit has someone in charge of its soldiers, though not necessarily the same type of Leader. Leaders provide units with, what else... leadership. They help maintain internal discipline, direct fire to be more effective, and keep contact with other Leaders. The more Leaders you lose, the harder maintaining C2 becomes. Leadership influence takes the form of a Leadership Modifier represented in the Unit Info Panel. The better the modifier, the more effective the Leader is in keeping things on the straight and narrow. Note that the modifier values are +2, +1, 0, -1, and -2. This means that a Leader can have no special effect on Leadership (0 rating) or even a negative influence (-1 or -2). Anybody that has ever served in the military, or studied it in historical texts, knows that some people should never have been put in charge of anything except washing dishes (and you don’t necessarily want to be the one eating from those dishes). CM dutifully simulates these poor Leaders. There are two types of dedicated Leaders; Unit Leader and Assistant Leader. A Unit Leader is a soldier who has the training and rank to command the unit he is assigned to. The Assistant Leader has similar training and capabilities as the Unit Leader, but is of a junior rank and may not have all the skills necessary to command a unit over the long term. However, an Assistant Leader generally has the same chance of being a good Leader in a tactical fight, which is good because that is exactly what he’ll have to do if the Unit Leader becomes a casualty. Squad-type units usually have a Squad Leader (Unit Leader) in charge of Team A, and an Assistant Squad Leader (Assistant Leader) in charge of Team B. When Squads are split up, like Weapons Squads normally are, this effectively means that the command responsibilities are split up. If one Leader falls to fire, the other one will not take over his responsibilities, because they are assumed to be physically separate units when split off as Teams. When a battle starts, the name and rank displayed are that of the unit’s current senior Leader. Should that Leader fall in battle, the name and rank will change as the replacement assumes command. RADIOS World War Two commanders did not enjoy the luxury of a whole array of powerful communications tools that are available on a modern 21st Century battlefield (when satellite based tracking systems and communications are often available even to small units and formations). Instead, the primary means to communicate over distance (outside of visual and audio ranges) was the radio. But radios were expensive and (compared to today) rare. While the US forces made a deliberate effort to try to provide radios usually at least down to the platoon level, many German formations only possess a radio for the main Company HQ, or have one reserved for specialized Forward Observers. Players will probably learn quickly that paying attention to where the radios are on the Normandy battlefield is going to provide a crucial element on the road to victory. Without a radio nearby, that group of on-map mortars is pretty much limited to only firing at targets within sight. Without a radio, that platoon commander who loses sight of his Company CO is effectively out of the loop with higher ups. Below the company level communications were mostly by voice and sight. Because the effective range is so much less than a radio, Platoon HQs have to remain quite close to their assigned units in order to control them. A Rifle Platoon, for example, would usually advance in a way that most, if not all, of the attached squads and weapons teams could see or hear the Platoon Leader’s commands. Weapons type platoons were often asked to operate over larger distances than infantry type platoons. Since radios were not usually available, the solution was to add intermediate Section HQs between the Platoon HQ and the weapons under its command. Their job was to extend the range of the Platoon HQ by acting as a relay point for communications. A good example of Section HQs can be found in most Medium Mortar Platoons. Often there are two Section HQs, each with two mortars, assigned to a single Platoon. By positioning the Section HQs, and their assigned mortar teams, to the left and right of the Platoon HQ, the Platoon Leader can communicate with each of his Section Leaders, which in turn communicate with each of their Mortar Team Leaders. This allows voice and visual commands to be quickly and efficiently relayed from top to bottom over a much greater area than platoons without Section HQs. The importance of positioning Section HQs becomes apparent when attempting to call for indirect fire support. For defensive reasons, you don’t want your mortars bunched together, yet if you spread out too much you’ll loose contact with them. If that happens, then they usually will be unavailable for indirect fire missions. Section HQs, therefore, are vitally important despite their lack of radios.

Thought about youtube, but honestly I don't know that I want to try getting in to producing videos. What we are likely to do instead is put the entire game (or at least critical turns) up on dropbox so folks can actually see the entire thing. There are some turns where the level of action is so intense that it was almost hard to go to the planning phase of the turn.

I was joking about how when I zoomed out, I saw this big Pete written on the ground. Von Daniken would have us believe it was designed as a message to an alien. Pete you from earth?

That one may be tough to quantify. Are either sides units more bunched up, what is the slope like, is either side moving etc? Having been in a couple close range fights in Bois de Baugin I found them to be difficult battles and hard to assess what would work best. I have been on the winning and losing side of forest fights in that one and there seemed to be a lot of luck involved.

As defined in the briefing, KG Lang is tasked with holding a position astride the main road through this sector. The manor is technically not within the objective area, but is a key to keeping a grip on it. With the way we play we also view the objective as the "intent" of our instructions, not necessarily the letter. There won't be any jeep rushes. There is no "vp" associated per se. The question will be who dominates the position and who's unit is capable of further action. The acceptable casualty percentages help define at the end of the day who is left holding the ground.

Hell we've already inflicted McDonalds, American Idol and reality TV on the world. At least now they'd have a really cool weapon to shoot themselves.

This may be a real dumb ass question, but if you have forced a global surrender do you care about the KIA/WIA anymore? It seems like it sets up, yeah I got a global surrender too, but at 250 points, HA! Perhaps it is a ladder play for ratings or some thing. Honestly I have never done those and have no idea. Just trying to understand why one would care at that point.

I was thinking. (Yeah I know bad idea) A lot of noobs wander in here asking for advice on how to play this game and a lot of us (myself included) offer tons of what we hope is useful advice. Odds are they take that advice and try to apply it, end up still getting their asses handed to them and then wonder "what am I still doing wrong?" or "are those guys just friggin idiots?" or maybe both as you'd definitely be doing something wrong listening to a friggin idiot. The thing is all of us giving the advice are still getting our asses handed to us rather more often than we'd probably like to admit. That doesn't invalidate the advice. It just means we may know what we are supposed to be doing, but still don't apply it well. Most of us learned war gaming off the good ole CRT. What my young friend is a CRT? A Combat Results Table. It is the magical chart that tells us how good a commander we are. Works kind of like this. Hmm, I want to take that town. I have an infantry unit that is pretty strong. Okay let me add this tank unit to the attack, that will give me a combined arms modifier shift of 1 column on the CRT. Okay now I will use my prep fire turn to hit em with artillery until they are disrupted, that'll reduce their defensive strength by half. Okay now I'll add another infantry unit to attack from the opposite side hex, that'll give me another colomn shift. Okay I also have an air unit, Aha! another column shift. Now I'll roll the die (while biting my tongue or lip, or both) aaannnndddd God forasaken piece of S**t dice!!!!! I lose a step and attack is over. JSj asked a question I thought it was a good question for two reasons. First is I don't really know the answer. I do not know what the ratings of my commanders influence nor how much. I should probably read the manual just in case it is in there otherwise I'll look like an illiterate friggin idiot. The second reason I thought it was a good question was combined with the discussion in a few other threads it got me thinking about how I play this game and that good ole CRT. My conclusion? I have a lot of godawful baggage I need to dump from those days. The problem with the CRT is it doesn't teach tactics, it teaches odds. They aren't the same by a long shot. Wargames got better. They got into command and control, attempted to simulate the theory of airland battle and trying to get inside your opponents decision making cycle. Taught us the impact of supply on operational tempo etc etc, but at heart all they taught us about combined arms tactics was how to influence that good ole piece of s**t CRT. CM is different and CMx2 even more so than CMx1. I don't think I would get much push back from BFC if I were to say, they want CM to be a game where you don't think about odds and percentages, you think about tactics. Get rid of that stupid CRT. Adding a tank to your offense does not create a combined arms unit. It simply means you now have a tank. It's how you use it that decides if you can master combined arms. Calling an artillery strike isn't going to give you that column shift disruption that automatically helps your offense. If you can't hit them while they are suppressed, you may simply have wasted good ammo. I remember first seeing the dash option in ASL. I thought isn't that cool. Well you can do that in CM. But it isn't quite so static. An errant artillery round can cause that dashing unit to drop to it's knees in the roadway in plain sight of the MG crew or tank that now has LOTS of time to kill you. There is far more flow to the battle now than any human could have kept track of in the old board game days. I do a lot of things wrong. I don't exercise enough patience, I don't use smoke near as well as I should. I haven't gotten down learning how to accelerate the tempo of an attack to keep my opponent off balance. Hell I pretty much think I suck at attacking in general. Let's face it, it is harder. So my answer JSj, I too would like to know what the ratings affect and some idea what the value of being a +2 is. After all what is the point of sending them over to help on something it turns out they can't help. It is no different than not sending over an ammo bearer unit from another platoon to your AT gun. They may have plenty of ammo, but they won't share it. They'll just stand there like a bunch of friggin idiots. You kind of need to know what they CAN influence to know how to use them. On the other hand I would advise not looking too closely and trying to figure out is that a 1 column shift or a two column shift? Odds are they are just gonna get drilled by a stray round on the way over and you'll have spent 15 minutes trying to decide and now look like a friggin idiot with a noob standing over your shoulder saying " you don't really know how to play this do you?"

Experimental mostly. I expected I would have to fall back (and was prepared to concede the entire left side if necessary. My orders were to hold the area around the manor, I'll post a screenie showing the objective location tonight). With this organization i figured the platoons would be falling back on themselves and in a sense bringing the platoon leaders closer to their now rattled troops hopefully giving them a much needed boost. If instead I'd left one platoon for the others to fall back on they would be spread laterally and likely would get split apart. Not sure it really panned out that way in the chaos of the battle but as we go into it in the AAR I will try to pay attention to that and see if there is anything to the theory. Probably not. I found that I had to really re consider my battle plan. Things I would normally have done were simply not possible with units in this state. Broadsword will have to speak to that, but I do know a rolling barrage was pre planned which would imply the battle plan was put into place before even the first turn. I expect until my sniper opened fire on the advancing engineers the Americans only saw some very empty fields. We also found the wheatfield gives a lot more concealment than expected so even once spotted if the infantry went to ground there, they simply vanished. Right now we are deciding how to proceed. We think we would like this to be more interactive so it looks like we will wait till the battle wraps up to begin. That way Broadsword can answer your question directly.

hmm well it was during Operation Cobra..does that count?

Well for one thing, I want my marksman firing at much longer distances. Harder to identify where the shot came from and the bonus that the MP guy isn't as likely to give away the position. For most players I think the simplest way for this to be resolved is if the sniper was functioning alone (which would either require a ToE change or a depleted unit). It is hard to make best use of them when you have two different weapons that have different functional roles and a team that shouldn't behave in a pattern that isn't your normal, two troopers with guns mode. Within 150 m I am not so sure I don't want my MP guy opening up. That is purely situation driven. But I have found in those instances where I have a lone marksman, he is pretty darn effective. Broadsword and I just had a situation where an American team in an orchard just stood up to move and the moment they did a nearby marksman popped the lead guy. The rest of the unit cowered only to get hit by an Mg team that had just moved in. If I had had the MP guy there though it would have worked even better. The range was pretty short and I expect that MP would have reaked havoc.

I have to say, all credit for placement goes to you. I looked that over for a while and I think you have it set they can't be moved at set up correct? Good thing as I could have only picked a less optimal location. I could see the intent, but wasn't sure how that would play out. It has far exceeded my expectations and taught me a lesson or two. For a number of turns there I was absolutely reeling and looking over my shoulder desperately hoping reinforcements would show up. Now it is a no holds barred knife fight. One of those games where you just want to see what every dang one of your pixel truppen is doing as it is so astoundingly good. Win or lose doesn't matter, I am just enjoying the spectacle. Guess that means we've already won.

We also don't surrender. The TAC AI will only surrender given a very specific situation and not as a group. The overall "We can't possibly win this battle and therefore throw down our weapons" is only going to happen in CM in a game versus the AI where you meet the established VCs. Who among us has ever hit the surrender button other than just to finish a game you don't want to play out as you know it won't be interesting?

or unpleasantly. I think JonS is feeling he just ran into Michael Wittman about now. We have a Tiger on the rampage. I have played exactly one scenario before this with a Tiger (Valley of the Shadow) so wasn't sure entirely what to expect. Right about now there are two things going on. 1.)Sheer awe at how deadly they are and 2) a dangerous tendency to assume they are invincible. Tell me this game doesn't come close to reality omfg!! Georgie you will not be disappointed.

Honestly I do look at this in a general way much like you said. However it might change my behavior to know that +2 means I should move that leader over closer to that rifle team that is currently wavering and threatening to break. On the other hand in my current AAR my leaders are mostly -2. Does that mean I should just toss them into the front line as additional fodder? I tend to role play as I play, I am not about to change my behavior to fit game mechanics. I play as if these are real guys and my pltn leader coming over is gonna help the team feel like they aren't alone. Does it really...nah probably not, but hey it's my $65 and I am gonna play it the way that I enjoy.

I think that statement is simply too broad, just as it would be too broad for me to say, yes I can absolutely always duplicate the behavior I expect. For example about the riflemen opening fire, yeah they will definitely do that, but again depending on circumstance. My crew and ammo bearers did not and still aren't revealing their position because they are too far. The gun is positioned tactically correctly. It is a long range tank killing weapon, I don't want it to have a field of fire that is 100 meters away. If it were, it would be dead now and yeah those riflemen would have given away it's position. (though at that range they wouldn't have needed to, as soon as it fired it would have taken care of that on it's own). In this situation though, they are not firing. The gun as JonS is finding is accomplishing exactly what we think it should be able to based on real world experience. There are plenty of things the game probably is not spot on about. However to say the game has inherently broken issues and therefore you just have to accept you can never do something is patently false and I have a pak that is an absolute terror proving it. It is a complicated game and yes sometimes you do have to concede that there are items that may be really hard to duplicate, but impossible? Not for me so far.

Whew, fixed. Thanks for the heads up. You will now be returned to our regularly scheduled broadcast. Next up - Where the Iron Crosses Grow, the battle begins. Damn I love that bandage on Major Langs head LOL, I couldn't have planned that. I believe I have Mord to thank for that. I'll be loading your portraits tonight. And that's Aris nicely banged up Kublewagen. Take a bow guys, and the rest of you modders. Unfortunately you won't hear the sound files etc.

aaarrgh. Photobucket. It was bothering me with these popups and I paid attention to them instead of their potential impact. Will fix today either by recreating the original folder or restarting the thread. Sorry, we are experiencing technical difficulties. You will be returned to our originally planned broadcast shortly. In the meantime, please enjoy our hold music - Zamfir performs the greatest hits from Titanic on the pan flute.