SG1

Same stuff for me, in the French campaign, but with the last mission. Anyway, picking up the AT weapons and ammo of dead ennemy soldiers may be worthwile and helpful. Thanks, Tom Sims, for the hint. I have been shy about trigger edition but that definitely is the solution.

When the award screen appears you just have to choose the automatic assignment option (look at the bottom left side of the screen), ticking the "all" box as well, and you will not have to go through all your survivors.

Hello, what is the name of the mission ? The first one is similar to what you describe : infantry alone, a village with two AT guns to take and then German tanks (reco armoured vehicles rather, supporting an infantry counter-attack). Anyway, I had no problem manning the captured guns with some success and eventually knocked out the panzers with bazooka shots.

You are right on the whole. Some of your proposed enhancements are being worked on. However, I would like to stress one point that seems to be overlooked usually. People who create/publish/market PC games are interested in their product being bought by as many customers as possible. Besides aspects such as theme and overall difficulty of the game, this includes playability on Mr Average's PC. A good reason for not putting too many troops and static objects in the stock scenarios is that this would, most likely, not go smooth on the said Mr Averag's PC, resulting in Mr Average claiming the game is crap and making bad publicity. Once Mr Average can be satisfied, of course games like TOW will provide a lot of possibilities for hardcore gamers with hardcore rigs to overburden their missions and campaigns. Some of the stuff to be obtained from CMMods tell the tale. There is an analogy with Il-2 that sets a good example. Fans have been claiming that the maps could be both more accurate and nicer. Oleg and team always turned a deaf ear. Finally the game was hacked / cracked and some fans developed illegitimate mods with very beautiful and accurate maps... The problem being that only those with the very most powerful and up-to-date PCs can play them without experiencing strong lagging.

This whole thing is a pity because my experience with the Sudden Strike / Hidden Stroke series leads me to think the German community is a rather productive one and I can not see why very good input would not come from accross the Rhine river (I am French) for TOW as well. I hope you will get the long-awaited patch promptly.

I fully second this view. And yes, computers do not (yet) do miracles. And yes, TOW is tactical. And great. As for the "TOW dead title" stance, never mind. But the very specific focus and relative overall difficulty do not help in making it a hit for the masses. Not to mention the sometimes questionable support : mind the German version of the Uberpatch has not been released, resulting in hardly a message being posted on the German forum nowadays. Sad.

My advice would be to go for it. Provided your system supports the game you should not regret it. I did and enjoy it all the way. A fair amount of the negative comments are based on comparisons with other games by players who are used to something different. The usual complaint therefore goes "I used to do this or that move successfully, it's not the case anymore with TOW, that sucks". Once you have bought it, read the manual and understand the various functions. And most of all : recce and sound use of ground ! And last but not least, NEVER forget this is a EUR 40.-- PC-game and NOT a million-budget full shebang military simulation requiring some industrial or research Cray super-calculator.

Most common place for that is www.cmmods.com. You will need to register though.

There seems to be 3 missions in the Polish campaign : Mokra, Bzura and Sandomierz. And also, if you play with the über-patched version, mind that "veteran" difficulty mode gives AI an advantage in accuracy to balance its relative "stupidity" compared to a human player. The fully balanced mode (player equal to AI) is now the "regular" mode.

Yes, they do.

I think the reinforcements mentioned in the first post "know" where your troops are because at the same time they enter the map a German observation plane starts flying above the place. Unless you can rush to one of the AA to shoot it down, you are in a bad situation indeed if you did not manage to man the Pz IV. In addition, it seems that if you apply the orders strictly, do not go close to the AA position but observe from a distance and call arty strikes to do the job, the said reinforcements do not show up and you can walk in mopping up afterwards quite easily, and of course pick up whatever piece of weaponry may be deemed appropriate (which means AT primarily). Also, while people write they found Kingtigers previously struck by Panzerfaust hits abandoned by their crew, I think it is more a question of the crew members being fatally injured by the blast and thus being dead after a short while (you know, when the individual pictures of your crew / passengers fade out). I never saw one man bailing out of a Panzerfaust / Panzerschreck-stricken tank but saw their icons turn grey a few minutes after my hits. Another observation, the Russian attack planes do not attempt anything against the Kingtigers because they are canon-armed Sturmoviks and do not have enough punch. I understand it is planned to have rockets on such planes in a future development, which should change things. In the meantime, at this stage, Surmoviks and their likes can attack and destroy less armoured targets, such as the half-tracks or the armoured cars. Around the bridge I did not get an infantry counter-attack. I must not have triggered it. I won the battle with four men killed stupidly in the last stage : they got crushed by an amok Kingtiger near the small compound. Other casualties are two wounded. Playing the mission led me to understand the very high value of the "scouting" skill. Sure enough, when playing campaign missions, I will pay utter attention to give priority to increasing such skill for my survivors in the reward phase. Also, while I never got or go into the usual complaint about LoS/LoF, I think the inability of AI to detect by sound diminishes the overall realism : in this very stealth mission, I could spread havoc on a German position with grenades and firearms and still catch the next German position, a few meters away, completely off guard. I reall enjoy the game anyway.

Sorry for your trouble with the Kalypso patch. I am having the same issue for the French Patch : a long lesson in patience. However, since I first bought the Battlefront e-version I am still better-off. I react to your observation re. postage. I have the same feeling when ordering from the US, UK or Germany (I live in Paris). I cannot help find the price requested for postage bloodily excessive, all the more so in the case of low-weight items (CD/DVD, PC games, etc.).

Plus, as far as rocket launchers and other heavy stuff is concerned, such as 150 mm artillery, the really size of the playable maps makes them fully irrelevant.

And a couple of answers : 1)No role for the medics at this stage ; things could evolve with future developments (possible direction : no healing à la Sudden Strike but stabilisation of wounded, combined with morale boost). 2) Officers definitely are a morale boost in so far as they reduce panicking (e.g. if you want to send a small party ahead in some kind of superhero attempt "we and our knives against a full tank company" you will have to include an officer or NCO at least, otherwise everybody will run away quickly). 3) Complete retention of captured assets has been scrapped because testing evidenced that players tended to over-distort historical reality (e.g. you play the US campaign and end up with a company of Tigers). Besides, talking of historical reality, the need for getting spare parts and ammunition together with the request by rear echelon to test and assess enemy weaponry resulted in captured assets not remaining long with front line troops. Sorry, I do not play online. An add-on is planned that will include correction of problems identified and reported by the community (at least some of them). And I also think the game is great.

Hello, And sorry if my question proves thick but does this allow me to go on with a campaign started before the UeberPatch or is all previous progress gone for good and I have to take everything from start again ?

I fully agree with the above. Trained as an infantry platoon leader in the late eighties, French army, I remember that usual engagement distance was 300m at the max, with a preference for 200m, using the Famas 5.56mm assault rifle. Firing at greater distance was left to MGs and snipers - with exceptions similar to those described in the linked article (surprise volley, suppressive fire, etc.).Reasons for avoiding firing above 300m were various : waste of ammo, difficulty to actually see and aim, poor likeliness of hitting against high likeliness of getting spotted (and heavily rewarded for it - "don't forget they have guns aplenty, them Red Army fellows"), und so fort... Emphasis was on surprise and fire discipline : "let them get close and wipe them out through massed firepower". Having said that, I must confess I sometimes use the limitations of IT when playing against the machine, exposing voluntarily and drawing fire at relatively safe distance so that the enemy runs out of ammo with no damage to me. That of course covers guns and tanks also. I know : shame on me for such blatant cheating on the poor computer !

Hi Arengada, I am interested in what got it working - see my addition to the "French campaign - under siege" post. Did you finally discover the few remaining ennemy soldiers you had been searching for ? Was it a question of bringing units - or some specific units - in a determined zone ? Was it a question of time ? Thanks for your light.

Hello to everyone. Same for me. I got stuck and could not obtain the victory message. I was left with a few men, the three 75 guns and most of my tanks and AFV's - some of them partly disabled or low on ammo, though - but could not have the mission end. Of course, this is after all the different attack waves had been thrashed. I combed the map twice and killed a few dismounted German tankers concealed in front of my lines, but to no avail. I looked into the .xml script file but that did not bring me forward a lot - maybe just because I was reluctant to really drown myself in it, with a thorough studying of the trigger manual. But a swift comparison with the same file for other missions of the French campaign showed there is no clear "missionwin" trigger for this one. So, if someone could provide ideas and insight, that would be great. It could be of importance to note that at some stage of the fighting my position got over-run by ennemy infantery. All the German soldiers got mowed down by MG fire, finally, but still : they had reached the top of the hill, and even got beyond. Maybe that flagged a partial (sub-mission) victory for the ennemy that, in its turn, prevents me from ending the mission victoriously. Just some food for thought.