MorgTzu

There is a lot of DISAPPOINTMENT no matter how hard I try to "abstract" it. 1. It seems the AI is almost always tracking you as if they had radar. Just watch your own rotating and out of control units and you know whats going on with the AI. The enemy's accuracy in the midst of confusing battle with smoke, incoming, and all the other "stresses" is super human and breaks all suspension of disbelief. 2. Many being spoiled by the "abstracting" of CC and CM are flustered (including me). Either the engine needs to be tweaked to match the "abstraction" as is supposed will be in the patch or remove cover and concealment as it just doesn't work. 3. The AI flips between being super "cool under fire" laser guided killing machines or utterly stupid lemmings...revealing the experience shattering SCRIPTING which has ruined the gaming experience as a whole. 4. I registered right after this forum started and had high optimistic hopes for this engine..all my posts have been constructive and positive, but I just can't take this anymore..I am not going to play a game any more where tactics and cunning are slapped in the face by "bots" and "scripts" and there is almost always only one or two methods or sweet spots on the map to survive the onslought. I am not into "PUZZLE" games. That has gotten so old. I'm so sorry to pull the comparison cliche, but Im one of those oldies that cut my teeth on panzer leader - the board game, ardennes offensive, then CC, CM, etc. If we can't do better than Close Combat for an abstraction of reality, then Ill stick with the new mods for Invasion Normandy. Maybe ill check back much later. Still love you Moon.

Issues aside...if the community has anything to do with it, this is the video winner. Good job DeLAVega. Can you make a link for a download so I could watch on my windows player?

That is an awesome pic. I know that valley o so well (as many do by now). I don't have screen shots, but back there in the "backdoor gap", my three tanks took out 17 enemy tanks (this after I blocked the bridge). When it was all said and done, 24 enemy tanks died. A little overwhelming to say the least. Then the mass suicide infantry charge by the russians across the bridge, dying to the last man...left me a little disapointed that it all seems so scripted and unrealistic...oh well, back to looking at screen shots.

Just can't help it...no...sto-pppp, don't type that fingersssss!!! S-Q-U-A-D A-S-S-A-U-L-T No...really...it had so much potential. But TOW and others did profit from lessons learned (albeit indirectly) from that illustrious game's shortcomings. If you can find it for $10 or less, it's worth it to check it out.

I think I may have to upgrade my vid card after all. Looking forward to the map editor most of all!

Great to see this and other mods starting to come out. Since we don't have a dedicated place to discuss modding (yet) (we will soon im sure)...perhaps we could discuss this and some other xml modding aspects. First, this mod has too many units for me also or there is a glitch somewhere, but it is a great effort. I am working on a mod of training mission 4 using just an xml editor. I am simply going to add some infantry on both sides (carefully so as not to place men in buildings, etc.) and then reduce the sleeper russian tank to something much lighter to make it more of a challenge. The idea is to give the player 2 squads and task him with clearing the area in front of a larger advance. I am not planning on messing with the triggers at this point as it is really not needed. The only catch will be what the code does with the extra men I assign when the village ambush trigger calls. Im looking into that. Is there anything else that needs to be coded when I add units to a group? I don't fully understand placeholders. Any input appreciated. Some future thoughts...is it possible to place just equipment on the ground by itself (like a cache)? What would happen if a man was placed inside a building, would he shoot through it?

excellent...asked for this in another post.

Same here. I'm running a p4 2.0 1gig ram with fx5200 with 128 ram and can play fine on low with some performance tweaks. I was really expecting not being able to enjoy it, but it runs ok.

By the way...here is the link to the first mod posted (demo mission 3) outside the forum. http://www.cmmods.com/ It would be nice to break out a thread or at least a sticky for modders to start discussing things. HINT. HINT. Added: you have to register and login to download.

As in game mods...havn't posted here since last year (whew a lot of old names are gone), but have been having fun checking out what I can do with the xml in the mission files(without using the game editor). QUESTION: I see where one mod for demo3 has been posted, but is there going to be a new thread where we can discuss modding? Feel free to move this where it needs to be. Liking the game so far...lots of potential.

It's almost time to go home after a long week, but i'm trying to decide wether this thread is depressing or smacking of idiocy disguised as twisted hillarity..is it real language by sane adults or just more spamlets dropped by adolescents from a culture far, far away... I'm going to take a break from my lurking for a few weeks...it's hurting me 'ol eyes. See yall after the demo.

GETS MY VOTE FOR POST(S) OF THE WEEK: From MANX (in Tanks and Vehicles topic): "Camouflaging tanks & guns would be great, but as yet i haven't seen much in the way of terrain elements for them to camouflage into, and mask themselves against. A few scattered trees here and there, or single rows of trees lining roads/fields doesn't look as if it is going to provide much in the way of cover or concealment. Add this to un-enterable buildings, and i fear we are going to be fighting in the "open" most of the time. This is my only major gripe about TOW from what i have seen so far." "Since a very high proportion of would-be buyers will probably be coming to TOW from CM, i guess it's natural, but not necessarily right, to want to compare the two. In CM, terrain plays such a key role in everything you do and the decisions you make during a battle: I need to hold the ground around that farmhouse. Is it empty though? Should i send a recon squad over to find out? Perhaps i could go through that small copse over there to give them some cover. Hold on! What if there's a mg nest dug in there!? I need smoke, but it will take at least five minutes for my mortars to get into firing position and i need that ground now!! No, maybe i'd better bring up my assault gun and give the farmhouse a few rounds first, and just hope that there isn't a hidden AT gun trained on my positions. Not expecting TOW to be the next CM, but in a tactical wargame, i want to have to make decisions like these." (in my opinion) THAT about sums up 95% of the serious posts in the entire forum and probably the sentiments of the majority of CC/CM style players. I know the dev-dreaded word "COMPARISON" is in there...but that is the reality of making a tac-tac real time sim thingy or somefink...

But on a more silly note... Can Moon or Megakill give the word that Arty smoke is at least one of those features being considered for the fuuuuture? I may be biased because I have seen first hand it's importance..but I was remembering an account I read in the 3ID History (one has a lot of time on their hands inprocessing into a division) of a WW1 battle which emphasized the use of smoke on the attack while charging trench lines. If I remember it right, the implication was that the correct use of smoke as a screen saved a lot of lives in that particular battle. Perhaps it was not as common especially in the early WW2 years, but it seems like it was mentioned in several accounts I have read of The Winter War and the Eastern Front.

Thanks Megakill, that part 'bout more infantry missions in the demo (and hopefully game) restores my faith a bit.

I thought this was resolved. Sammy, why are you trying to beat a dead horse over debatable features that very likely will never be in this game for many reasons. This is titled wishlist, but as can be seen from the context, it's a wishlist with somewhat realistic expectations. Maybe we need a stickied "(a)historical boxing room"..or at least Sammy could start another topic...and some people are starting to get excited 'nuff to start misspelling and stuff. Hofbauer.. We moved to Ledward, I think sometime in 94. I'm prety sure it was 7th cav over there, but it's from memory. Yep, went to some crazy parties at Askren Manor (that was the main housing outside of Ledward, right?) where those ..um unfaithful spouses hang around preying on young soldiers.

GI Jas said: "Moreover, I am looking forward to TOW but I hope in the future that these genre's are mixed and executed to form one immersive WWII game." I couldn't have put it better...as more of a hobbyist than a game player, I want a big experience that I might play once a week with buddies, lasting years...TOW might have that potential, but then again...we'll see.

Well..that seems like thats a good resolution..not to mention good entertainment. Hofbauer, I was in 10th ENG BN at Schweinfurt (sp?), conn barracks '93-'95..12B in support of 3/15 INF and sometimes 1/64.. I also was assigned to 3/7 CAV for a time when I made it on the Gold Team for the Boeslaeger Cup (kinda of a militery olympics thing with NATO), did the Macedonia/Serbian border thing and of course the Graf./Hoenfels silliness. Coming from the 82nd and OP "Just Cuz" amongst other stuff, it was kind of like going in reverse, but overall it was fun..just never got a taste for the hefeveisen (sp?). Back to the wishlist> MAY I suggest that the OP (original poster) edit his first thread with a updated list of all the summarized wishes/requests from the community. We realy need more COHERANCE (misspelt on purpoise) on the forum (that doesn't mean seriousness and silly neurotic grog firefights all though those are fun to watch from a distance. A STICKY..A STICKY, my kingdom for a sticky. Newcomers to this forum will get the impression this whole things a joke or stumble through a dozen topics trying to find out whats going on before they actually start a new thread on somefink already discusses ed nauseum.

"I have it from reliable sources that it's going to be a bumper car simulator." Mit cowbells and free vodka during the Il2 minigame. The only thing lacking is in-game signs on the battlefield: "Smoke has been deemed hazardous to your health by OSHA and the International Building Code Authority, especially in second or third hand situations" And on the houses: "The greater TOW Homeowner's Association has deemed combat troops in interior spaces unsightly" At the (invisible) battlefield edge: "Due to a permanent strike over poor forum recognition, the united mortarmen union (pronounced uooo-mooo) have declared a walk-out and will not be available anywhere in the battle area" [ August 31, 2006, 06:06 AM: Message edited by: MorgTzu ]

I mentioned it in another thread, but another model to at least consider is "Armed Assault", it's the next evolution of the Operation Flashpoint engine...400 km x 400 km open map, destructable environment..basically a total simulation involving all arms, and other than having maps in the same way a commander would have maps, the strategic and the tactical are all involved in the same space...it would seem that the IL2 engine would be ideal for this. Anyone?

RMC and Hofbauer, you guys make this forum so much more lively.. I look forward to reading your posts almost as much as anticipating any demo.. But seriously, no smoke...at least from mortars or arty, yet we have strategic and tactical air assets at our beck and call. Even the most die-hard fan should cry foul so that some of these imbalances are eventually worked out. Is TOW going to be a tactical simulation or a representation of somefink else? :->

Probably some of the most interesting posts since day one of the TOW forum...my experience is limited to the 82nd Airborne of the 80's and 3rd ID of the early 90's but my historic passion since childhood has been the desert campaigns and the Ardennes battles both for family historical reasons and an admiration for the leaders on both sides. I think I have read almost everything that has been published on Rommel, I'm not going to quote or be banal, but many of you buffs see it pretty straight in your posts, from what I have read, radio was a strategic desire (or a luxury) for almost every Army except the Americans and later the British and a few allies...who saw the radio early on as a tactical neccesity. The biography "Soldat" also confirms this. Even as late as '45, the Germans heavily depended on field telephones, even more so in every theatre after Ultra was realized. It seems that some of the items being asked for or mentioned in the wishlist/other topics are out of scale for company(-)size battles anyway (please, in the name of decent gaming, make airstrikes an option). I have more i'd like to say, but I've already been longwinded.. A radical Idea/wish.... that TOW would eventually morph, become the WW2 equivalent of "Armed Assault" (the next step of Op Flashpoint)... 400km x 400km battle area, just google it, looks intriguing.

I checked out what there is on "Clash of Nations". If it does not slip even further into the vaporware abyss, I wouldn't have much interest in a codename panzer type battle...but, like TOW is a further morphing of CC and what EYSA could have been, it is encouraging that the idea that games should be conducted at simultaneous levels and not just "cross genre" is catching on. TOW would be an excellent base for such an idea.

I'm glad someone else started a "wishlist" topic again, I started one on day one of this forum, but maybe now the time is better as we draw closer to 0-hour...it would actually be nice to start having a few STICKIES and not quite so many banal spam threads, but hey..a few topics have been pretty damn funny, most just a waste of byte space and the balance have been the chosen few making sure that everyone knows that even though this is a new game (for Battlefront) with a new forum, everyone not a vet with a battlefront post count in the 100's or higher is probably 18 and under and needs to be taught not to secretly play codename panzers whilst sucking their thumb and using l33t speak (all in good humor). + I hope the trench systems become more realistic over time / in future versions. Early war and very open terrain may have seen trench systems as presented but even then were often tied into the terrain, even if it was just dead space or reverse slopes. More bunkers, either tied into such systems or (yep, again) built into surrounding structures and features. More 2 man fighting positions. + I for one want air strikes at this tactical level to be very infrequent or gone...just takes me right out of immersion if that happens every battle sans logic. Henkels and no integral mortars...come on, this will continue to be brought up by many ad nauseum after the demo release until it's fixed. + Dynamic campaign, do we realy want some twitch game to be the first to try and do a WW2 game in the style of RTW, TOW begs to at least end up having the justice of a Close Combat abstracted grand campaign. I will withhold judgement on the linear objective pop-ups until I see them in demo. Still, I say that TOW couldn't have ended up in better hands than Battlefront and 1c. Lookin' forward to it. Now back to my lurking OP...

Yes and yes, the more dynamic and involved the campaign (muti and single) the longer life for the game... this has been a special interest for me since Shogun came out...I got into playtesting NTW for MTW, then modding RTW. Though I agree with the RTW concept not working the same for modern warfare..it's only true in a general sense that tactical cannot affect the strategic, but I'm not debating because, again, in general, sgt kelly is right. But I disagree with his opening statement "can't"...this is simply not true...and anyone who has been following the morphing of the CC "niche" genre over the years knows that more involved campaigns (even with their many abstractions de jeur is not only greatly desired but is going to happen. Why wouldn't we one day see a game that would involve several different scales, perhaps with each scale being controlled by different people in multiplayer representing Generals all the way down to Captains and privates representing individuals in FPS mode...all tied together in a sort of MMOG grand server. This may be stretching what can be visualized now... but when I played "Fields of Glory" in 1993, I darn sure coudn't imagine the massive strategic and tactical play of RTW. And none of this is directed at you, sgt kelly in particular, I just know that with TOW, not only are we going to have an enjoyable game(and especially because no "big mass market" companies are involved), but we are seeing the next step in a developement process that began many years ago and does not have to adhere to preconceived limitations or genre stigmas. There is no reason in the world why three years from now TOW couldn't have a strategic or at least operational layer that would rival any dedicated turn based grog game out there.

Awe-inspiring, dark, insightful prose like that makes forum lurking worth the time, well..almost. I have attempted in my lurking career to not waste byte space on silliness, but just have to say that the OP's self proclaimed title of "Professional Grog Troll Killer" is nonsensical and evokes feelings of pity and nausea all at the same time in a monty python sort of way. I am thinking about a new signature... "if as much time was devoted to our loved ones as to spamming, our families and in turn our nations would be happier and healthier".