Bahger

If Shane is kind enough to fill a large hole in the scenario database support currently offered by BF's own web site, then he is performing a valuable service. I do not regard his attempts to popularize this service as spam and I intend to support it fully.

If Shane is kind enough to fill a large hole in the scenario database support currently offered by BF's own web site, then he is performing a valuable service. I do not regard his attempts to popularize this service as spam and I intend to support it fully.

I'm very impressed and wanted to say thank you to Battlefront.  The tin container for the DVD -- I will probably never need to use the disk but am glad to have it -- is attractive, distinctive, military in appearance without being over-the-top and turns CMBS into a collectible item.  The two manuals are of a high quality in printing, materials and binding.  They are exactly the right size for both portability and legibility and this kind of spiral-binding is the perfect choice for ease of use.
 
I could, but won't, immediately name three specialised milsims which charge more for lower quality supplemental materials, both manuals and DVDs/custom cases.  Although so many of us are digital consumers, what BF has done here is make the game collectible.  Well done, guys.

Such an interesting question; I started a similar thread about this.
 
I am tempted to fight the perfect battle, to make all the right calls, to preserve my own forces while achieving all tactical goals and eliminating the enemy's ability to resist my genius as a commander.  The problem is that if you accomplish this by reloading turns (i.e. taking "mulligans") it becomes a Pyrrhic victory and you're gaming the game.  It is much more satisfying to take your lumps and, as other people have suggested, settle for a tactical victory; after all, what real-life commander would not settle for that rather than a loss?
 
I played the first mission in the US campaign and made many mistakes that resulted in far too many losses and a mere tactical victory.  I realised that, because the game is essentially glitch-free as far as AI behavior is concerned, I had nobody to blame for a too-high friendly casualty rate but myself.  My terrain analysis was not good enough so I wasn't reading the cover properly and above all I was too determined to push forward when the prudent thing would have been a much cannier combination of force preservation and carefully controlled aggression.  So, I decided to restart the campaign and replay the mission, determined this time to win a major victory.  All the time, I wondered what I would do if I made a regrettable mistake; would I take that mulligan and replay the turn with corrected orders?  Deep down I knew that I would not take any real pride in a victory won this way but I saved every turn just in case I felt unable to live with a particularly boneheaded decision.  However, I resolved to be as un-boneheaded as possible and to be patient and prudent in my command decisions; I had my arty and helos pound away with good spotter LOS  where applicable, I placed my tanks where I could leverage their range and above all I was patient; I decided never to cross open ground without cover from intersecting lines of fire and never to move into ground that had not been fully spotted by UAVs.  The trade-off was time; what if, by making force preservation a priority, I failed to accomplish all mission goals in the allotted time?  But here is a big secret about CMBS; you don't have to take the ground if the enemy surrenders.  If you advance patiently, stay in cover wherever possible and only move units forward with adequate fire support and if, through doing this, you spend forty five minutes killing six enemy units for every one you lose, you will probably force a surrender and achieve a total victory, as I did, without making a number of hail Mary moves on objectives.
 
So what I learned from this is: you tend to use mulligans when you have been impulsive.  The alternative is to resist such behavior and try to behave like a real-life commander in the field.  If your priority is truly to preserve your forces then even when you lose a vehicle to a lucky arty round or you misjudge a maneuver, resulting in an infantry unit taking effective fire from an unexpected direction and retreating, you won't be tempted to replay the turn with new orders because the loss was the result of effective AI maneuver (and a little luck) rather than your own deficiencies of command.  Much to my surprise, with half an hour left of that first US campaign mission, the enemy surrendered even though I only had boots on the ground on one objective because I had decided to see how tactically effective I could be by concentrating on force preservation.  I wound up with only two vehicle losses (one was a Humvee) and a total victory as I had managed to whittle the enemy's combat effectiveness down to virtually nothing.  It's a delicate balance between force preservation and territorial aggression.  And, somewhat to my amazement, I never felt the need to replay a turn once, because I was determined, no matter how long it took to plot all my turns, to "own" every decision I made.  It was by far my best experience in CM.

I did well in the first US campaign mission on Veteran (see here) and although I am no CM ninja, 16 friendly KIA and WIA vs 156 enemy KIA and WIA is a good result.  This is what I learned:
 
- Take it slowly.  Be cautious and methodical with your recon.  Do not look for a fight but position your units for the best possible LOS with the least possible exposure.
 
-  Move purposefully.  Do not move units unless they have decent cover as they maneuver and/or overwatch from other units with good LOS.  If you must cross open ground with inadequate cover, use "Fast" move orders so that your unit does not stop to engage superior forces.
 
-  When you deploy UAVs, keep them fairly close to your forward units.  If you send them too far forward they can get shot down and you have no eyes on where the shot came from, nor any capacity to spot and prosecute the responsible entity.  The best way to leverage both UAVs and indirect fires is to minimize speculative use and to coordinate these assets with direct fire and maneuver.
 
-  Place units with long-range weapon systems on uncontested high ground if possible but only after recon has been there first to spot threats.
 
-  Exploit long-range weapon systems by placing tanks and ATGM-equipped vehicles in defilade from where they can command LOS from one end of the map to the other, using intersecting lines of fire.  It's amazing how effective these systems can be in taking out enemy vehicles before they can position themselves as a threat to your main effort.
 
-  Always get down in the weeds to assess LOS and use the predictive LOS tool to assess LOS from a forward plotted waypont before committing to that route.
 
-  Never push your IFVs so far into combat that they might get shwacked before you dismount the infantry.
 
-  Do not move your vehicles across long distances without overwatch or cover provided by either elevation or terrain obscuration.
 
-   Plan carefully for where you place snipers, FOs and JTACs and give them target arc limits so that they do not pick fights when they should be spotting.  More through luck than judgement, I managed to get a vehicle-mounted spotter into such a good position in the first mission of the US campaign that he was able to direct precision artillery fire onto three enemy tanks, obliterating them all.
 
-  Do not use supporting fires speculatively but time it so that you can coordinate indirect fire with direct fire and maneuver on identified targets.
 
-  If you see an enemy tank with LOS on your axis of advance, do not walk your forces into its kill zone.  Put them nto cover, suspend your advance and use precision artillery, long-range direct fires or CAS to deplete the threat before you move up.
 
-  If you have to advance through woods or towns, dismount infantry and cover their advance with LOS from vehicles.
 
-  Set up intersecting lines of fire.
 
-  Above all, be patient.  OPTEMPO is an interesting concept.  It is much better to play out a couple of turns if you feel that the enemy might reveal itself to your forces by maneuvering into their LOS envelope than pressing into unknown territory because you think there is some benefit in racing to your objectives when your situational awareness is incomplete.  It is much better to wear the enemy down via good fire and maneuver tactics than rushing headlong for objectives.  Maneuver to take the primary objectives and dig in rather than over-extend yourself.  You will still be credited with a Major Victory through overwhelming attrition of the enemy regardless of ground gained (apart from the primary objectives).
 
None of this will come as any surprise to experienced players but it may be of some use to intermediate strivers like me.

In a small attack QB (armor) I've been fighting as Blue, my vehicles are assaulting downhill through fairly densely-forested farmland.  My Bradley has spotted a Russian T-90 (I think...can anyone confirm?) but I did not want the M3 to chase him down the reverse slope so I left him in defilade with area-fire orders, hoping to push the tank back.  There was no way I could advance my forces down the road (by far the best available axis) without finding and killing that tank and there was no available spotter LOS for a precision round, so I had to risk a short-range tank vs tank encounter.  I sent my M1 down the road with hunt orders but made sure I gave him a target arc ninety degrees to the left of his direction of travel before he got to the opening between the buildings.  As my little video establishes, the M1's turret swivel in anticipation of finding the tank was what gave him the first shot and may have saved his life, as the T-90 had heard him come down the lane and was in the process of adjusting fast from his orientation on the Bradley.  I reckon he was about half a second from getting a shot off of his own.  A minor skirmish, I know, but really quite satisfying, as I have two victory zones out of three and with at least two Red tanks gone, I have to feel I have the tactical edge...as long as I do not do anything stupid or impulsive.  
 
What a great game this is, an evolutionary leap-frog over SF, in my opinion.
 

In a small attack QB (armor) I've been fighting as Blue, my vehicles are assaulting downhill through fairly densely-forested farmland.  My Bradley has spotted a Russian T-90 (I think...can anyone confirm?) but I did not want the M3 to chase him down the reverse slope so I left him in defilade with area-fire orders, hoping to push the tank back.  There was no way I could advance my forces down the road (by far the best available axis) without finding and killing that tank and there was no available spotter LOS for a precision round, so I had to risk a short-range tank vs tank encounter.  I sent my M1 down the road with hunt orders but made sure I gave him a target arc ninety degrees to the left of his direction of travel before he got to the opening between the buildings.  As my little video establishes, the M1's turret swivel in anticipation of finding the tank was what gave him the first shot and may have saved his life, as the T-90 had heard him come down the lane and was in the process of adjusting fast from his orientation on the Bradley.  I reckon he was about half a second from getting a shot off of his own.  A minor skirmish, I know, but really quite satisfying, as I have two victory zones out of three and with at least two Red tanks gone, I have to feel I have the tactical edge...as long as I do not do anything stupid or impulsive.  
 
What a great game this is, an evolutionary leap-frog over SF, in my opinion.
 

Most war games, including the average-to-good ones, enable the player to rationalise his losses even -- or in fact especially -- when he wins, because it is often possible to blame some or most of them on "game" issues such as faulty LOS mechanics or "cheating" AI.  The very rare truly exceptional war game does not allow this because player losses can only be attributed to player error such as flawed tactics, impatience or bad judgement.  Without a doubt, IMO, Black Sea falls into the latter category.
 
In my last QB, leading a group of Blue armour (mainly M3s with a single M1A2 SEP) in the attack against a Red group defending with mainly T-90s, I won a convincing Total Victory on Veteran with ten minutes to spare, having killed all nine enemy tanks and the single "tank killing" vehicle.  In almost any other game I would have been gleeful at this result, especially if relatively inexperienced at playing it.  However, in this battle, because I was unable to lay off the blame for a single loss of mine (four Bradleys, too many) on iffy game mechanics, I felt the way a r/l commander would, i.e. I experienced a painful sense of responsibility that made the victory less sweet.  This is a huge tribute to the game.  I lost two vehicles to very high quality enemy AI and the other two purely to player error on my part.  In my own mental AAR, therefore, I blamed myself for at least two of these losses and IRL I would have found it particularly difficult to write letters to those next of kin.  I felt determined not to let this happen again, and not just to win next time but to do so with at least 25% less attrition.
 
I have never felt this way, including in previous CM titles.  Even in Steel Beasts, a very good sim, I have "rewound" the game when I've been sure that a tank in my platoon or company got killed because bad AI pathfinding led it somewhere I hadn't directed it to go, or an AI TC did not see the attacking unit first when he had the superior relative position on the battlefield.  In the eight or so hours I've played in CMBS, I have never yet been able to rationalise failure as the result of being "gamed".  Considering how many complex calculations a game like this has to make in order to be consistently realistic, this, I think is the ultimate tribute I can pay to the developers of a superb title.  It's why I abandoned CMSF in the first, difficult months of its release and why I will continue to play CMBS for several years to come.  ChrisND and his team deserve tremendous kudos.

Most war games, including the average-to-good ones, enable the player to rationalise his losses even -- or in fact especially -- when he wins, because it is often possible to blame some or most of them on "game" issues such as faulty LOS mechanics or "cheating" AI.  The very rare truly exceptional war game does not allow this because player losses can only be attributed to player error such as flawed tactics, impatience or bad judgement.  Without a doubt, IMO, Black Sea falls into the latter category.
 
In my last QB, leading a group of Blue armour (mainly M3s with a single M1A2 SEP) in the attack against a Red group defending with mainly T-90s, I won a convincing Total Victory on Veteran with ten minutes to spare, having killed all nine enemy tanks and the single "tank killing" vehicle.  In almost any other game I would have been gleeful at this result, especially if relatively inexperienced at playing it.  However, in this battle, because I was unable to lay off the blame for a single loss of mine (four Bradleys, too many) on iffy game mechanics, I felt the way a r/l commander would, i.e. I experienced a painful sense of responsibility that made the victory less sweet.  This is a huge tribute to the game.  I lost two vehicles to very high quality enemy AI and the other two purely to player error on my part.  In my own mental AAR, therefore, I blamed myself for at least two of these losses and IRL I would have found it particularly difficult to write letters to those next of kin.  I felt determined not to let this happen again, and not just to win next time but to do so with at least 25% less attrition.
 
I have never felt this way, including in previous CM titles.  Even in Steel Beasts, a very good sim, I have "rewound" the game when I've been sure that a tank in my platoon or company got killed because bad AI pathfinding led it somewhere I hadn't directed it to go, or an AI TC did not see the attacking unit first when he had the superior relative position on the battlefield.  In the eight or so hours I've played in CMBS, I have never yet been able to rationalise failure as the result of being "gamed".  Considering how many complex calculations a game like this has to make in order to be consistently realistic, this, I think is the ultimate tribute I can pay to the developers of a superb title.  It's why I abandoned CMSF in the first, difficult months of its release and why I will continue to play CMBS for several years to come.  ChrisND and his team deserve tremendous kudos.

Best of the series. Can't get this game play anywhere else.

Hey, give him a break, he did not know. But if you are going to grumble. Throw a little BF's way. They opened it up way too soon for everyone.

The server was bad with just the pre-order folks, add everyone else all on the same day and they made a mess of it.

If we hit February with no game yet (I'd put it at 50/50, inclining towards 60/40) the humor around here will turn a little darker.  Still, we know they are a small team, doing their very best, that the game is in an infinitely more mature state than SF was on release and that there are real grounds for optimism, whatever the slippage.  I would not have considered buying it, let alone pre-purchasing another CM title after SF, if I had not been so impressed by Chris's videos, and some of them were from weeks ago.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?