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Flavious

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Everything posted by Flavious

  1. The patch works great -- no more CTDs, easier and faster saving/loading of games, and MUCH smoother video performance during battles. Great job! I still haven't tested yet whether the tank obstacles in the Sbeitla scenario can now be placed on setup without crashing the game, as happened before.
  2. I think I'll just start my campaign over again. The campaigns are short, anyway, and the patched game will be more fun to play from the beginning.
  3. Good tips, Sneaksie! I think I had trouble on this battle as US because of the units I purchased. But also, if the patch now allows us to place the tank obstacles at setup without a crash, that will help restore the balance of play -- and let the US player channel the German attacks into specific "kill zones."
  4. I've just purchased CMAK and DL'ed the 1.03 patch. Now, I'm simply overwhelmed by the number and variety of mods out there... Can someone suggest a few of what you consider the "must-have" mods and tweaks to this game? I'm more interested in things that make the game more realistic or make it play better, than in zillions of more skins, oddball vehicles, etc.
  5. Got it! Looks good and seems to run fine.
  6. Is there still a CMAK demo somewhere that I can DL and try to see if I can get it to run properly before buying the game? I was thinking that since it hates Vista and Nvidia cards, I could try it on my laptop: Dell Vostro 1400 CPU: Intel Core duo 1.40 Ghz Memory: 2 GB RAM Video: Mobile Intel 965 Express chipset family DirectX* Version: 9.0 Physical Memory: 2037 MB Minimum Graphics Memory: 8 MB Maximum Graphics Memory: 384 MB Graphics Memory in Use: 9 MB Processor: x86 family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13 Processor Speed: 1396 MHZ
  7. I used to get all my scouts and snipers killed a lot in the demo, too, when I first started playing TOW2. Here's what can help: Set them to "crawl" movement mode and use the "sneak/scout" movement command when moving them. Also, creep them in short bursts and let them hold still for a while (reduces their visibility). Use the camera at ground level in the scout's POV to take full advantage of dead ground, reverse slopes, rocks, bushes, etc. Two places you can scout from: On the left, a single sniper can successfully creep up from the small village to the oasis overlooking the objective town. On the right, a two- or three-man recon team (be sure to include an officer or NCO with high vision ratings) can creep from the valley behind the big ridge, along the reverse side of the ridge, and stop on the right "shoulder" of the ridge just at the point where they can peek over it at the objective town. If either team takes fire, pop smoke grenades and fall back to cover!
  8. Yes, and even in this Tunisian theatre, mods or patches could be done to create the authentic green hills, fields, and cactus patches to make it look more like February 1943 in the rainy season. That would also give the infantry more cover to hide in.
  9. Just to say something positive: I very much like the health and morale systems, and the way soldiers can be wounded in different places of the body, affecting the way they move or fight. Although medics aren't in the game, we can assume they're abstracted and are treating/evacuating the casualties after the scenario is over. The morale system helps to keep soldiers from acting too superhuman, and it rightly penalizes players who treat them like cannon-fodder.
  10. If you really like all the loot and capturing enemy stuff business, play Men of War. The criticisms are right -- this is totally unrealistic, and should not be hard to correct in a patch. We're not asking for some outlandish new feature...just set some tighter limits to help TOW2 realize its full potential as a real wargame. Otherwise, we might as well have these soldiers wearing rocket belts and riding to war on skateboards.
  11. Don't get me wrong -- I'm ENJOYING the extreme difficulty of this battle with settings on "veteran." But after trying a number of options for the US deployment, I'm coming to the conclusion that the town itself is indefensible (especially until the game is patched to allow us to move and place the anti tank obstacles as intended). The trench lines are quickly and easily outflanked. And hunkering down with all US forces inside the town doesn't work, either. So, two other options seem to be worth exploring... 1. Make the US force a mobile force with all AFVs and infantry mounted in halftracks, and start with the 105s hitched to the halftracks. Deploy behind the US bivouac, as far away from the town as possible. When the scenario starts, RUN south as fast as possible to reach the road by the river, where the cliffs will screen and protect from the German spearheads approaching the town. Get some separation and safety, then look for a spot (but where?) to regroup and organize a counterattack once the reinforcements arrive. 2. Organize the mobile force, as in #1, but instead of running, send everything to attack the northern German spearhead that threatens the radio post (taking care to protect the vulnerable halftracks and 105s). It may not be possible to defeat this German force, but... a.) This concentrates all the US forces in one sector, so they can support each other, and, b.) The hilltop post is compact, has cover, fewer avenues of approach, and it may be the only real defensible position on the map (if the US can reach and occupy it before Rommel does). Your thoughts, generals?
  12. Aha, I see. That's probably the reason the ruins survived World War II in the area.
  13. Good review, and a very fair summary, IMHO. Yes, a real campaign would have made this the Holy Grail of WWII wargames. But even without that, I've found the experience of the actual combat to be very absorbing. Tank battles are the best feature, and while infantry combat is OK, the troops' behavior start to act a lot more like circus clowns once they get to close quarters with enemy infantry (GI's throwing grenades into the middle of their own men, etc.) Maybe the community will grow around this game, patches will follow, and we'll see some even better stuff evolve. I hope so! For anyone on the fence about this game, it's really worth a try.
  14. Sbeitla is world-famous for its well-preserved Roman temples, and a colisseum that seats 30,000 people. It sure would be cool to see the ruins on the game map -- not to mention the additional cover they could give to troops.
  15. I'm getting fairly stable play, except in two situations: 1.) Crashes to desktop - whenever I select any of the "dragon's teeth" tank obstacles in the Sbeitla battle setup screen for the U.S. campaign, and... 2.) The game hangs about 250% of the time on an attempt to save or load. My system: Vista 32, AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core processor 6000+, 3.00 GHz, 2GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS 512MB
  16. I think Sicily would be the natural follow-up to these campaigns, since it's where Patton's and Monty's armies went next after Tunisia. And it was some very tough fighting.
  17. Yes, me too -- I like to play the battles slowly. And there's a great moment of stillness right after the chaos and carnage of a vicious firefight when both sides seem to reel back to rest and regroup...It's exciting to zoom in to grunt's-eye view and look out at the sunbaked, dustblown horizon of smoking tank wrecks, shattered buildings, the sporadic rattle of distant small-arms fire...you can almost hear the troops catching their breath, maybe gulping down a Hershey bar and sneaking a last quick look at that snapshot of their girl back home before the sergeant says "fall in!"
  18. Yes, but here's an example of my problem: I'm in the first American battle of the campaign (Beyond Faid Pass). It's late in the day, I've pretty much stalemated the German advance -- they have most of the town, but I have some of the Western edge -- and my forces are mostly dead/panicked. Nothing is really happening on either side. I manage to rally a squad's worth of stragglers, and I sneak them back into the town on a mission to creep up on and destroy the two German tanks in the town. But as soon as my soldiers get even close to the enemy positions or hear a shot fired, they start to panic until every last one of them melts away and flees for the rear. I've done this four or five times now, with different soldiers, all with the same result. My only other soldiers on the battlefield are permanently panicked and cowering inside houses, so I can't even issue orders to them. So, the battle won't end, yet I can't really do anything. The Germans seem too decimated/exhausted to attack or advance, either -- the scattered infantry in the town just takes potshots at my GIs from cover, but doesn't seem willing to attack. Of the two or three German tanks in the town, I all are still capable of shooting but I suspect two of the three are damaged enough that they can't move. I've got no air support left, no reinforcements, just a bunch of scared GIs. Suggestions?
  19. How do you end a battle in a campaign, short of fighting until the last man dies or the game ends the battle for you?
  20. Question on this -- I was offered air support during a battle, and the icon said "Fighters" instead of "Bombers." I designated a target for the air strike (some German tanks) and waited for the mayhem to begin. But the fighters just did a couple of high-altitude flyovers and bugged out -- no strafing, no rockets, not even a bomb. Now I'm thinking: Maybe fighter support is there only to chase away an enemy bomber strike? Or is there a bug? Or did my fighters just fail to see the enemy target (which happened a lot IRL).
  21. Yes, the infantry grunts can panic, recover, retreat back to a rally point, and, given enough time (and a leader's influence) calm down and organize to go back in for a counterattack.
  22. Maybe a modder will be able to make a terrain patch that just changes the grass in TOW2 to make it a little greener and vegetation a little more prevalent. That would probably cause a greater burden on video cards, but it would also give infantry a little more ability to hide themselves.
  23. Yes, the best done arty in ANY game so far. You can hear that ripping sound the shells make as they streak overhead, hear the distant boom, see the column of smoke and debris at impact. Something about it seems more like reality, whereas other games seem more like the simulations in movies. But why did they add those stupid soldier sounds, like the GI who's constantly humming "Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair" to himself even at the most hellish moments of combat, and even in an ambush position where silence would be paramount? Those weren't in the demo. I might have to turn off the voices entirely just to get rid of that immersion-killer.
  24. To have that unit ID feature for individual soldiers would have been very good. And it bugs me (just a little) that the soldiers are labeled by their first names rather than last names (how unmilitary! "Justin, go take out that MG! "Where is sniper Dennis?") But this really is a great game. One thing that helps with unit integrity is to make full use of the numbered unit groups function. So, even if clicking on a soldier won't tell yu what unit he's in, you can click on a numbered group and see if that soldier gets highlighted as a member of it.
  25. Can tanks tow artillery pieces?
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