Broadsword

Do you think an 8800 GT video card with 512 MB on it would run Kursk? TOWII ran just fine, but got a little slow-mo at times.

The Darkest Hour mod for Red Orchestra is about as good as it gets for real-time tactical combat on individual-squad-platoon level. But it's MP only. Still, the experience of playing it within a realism clan on Steam (i.e. the 29th ID) is worlds beyond any other gaming experience. It's the only WWII shooter I'm playing anymore.

One other thing I noticed: The trenches on the maps provided with the game don't protect infantry all that well because they're not deep enough. Entrenched soldiers' heads are still pretty vulnerable. On the El Guettar map I made (you can download and try it), I put a row of sandbags on top of foxholes, and they seem to give the troops a bit more protection and staying power.

How are the maps? Different? More interesting?

Is that a soldier or a Viagra ad (LOL)?

Question about custom battles and campaigns in TOW2: Now that I've created and uploaded the a.m. scenario for El Guettar, I'm curious about how I might link it to an afternoon scenario (the German second-wave attack). I realize that one can link two separate battles in a campaign, and have losses/experience carry over from one to the next. But.. is there any way in the current game to have the first battle end, then let the player go to the Reserves screen to regroup/reorganize, then return to the same battlefield map (with all the the bodies and flaming wrecks from the first fight still in place)? For example, instead of two linked battles, maybe one could set up the afternoon fight as the second half of the first battle, and just have some reinforcements set up to arrive at a certain point, etc. But I think in that case, it might quickly run up against the limits on the number of units in the game. My idea is to have it work this way: In the a.m. scenario, a German win ends the whole thing (decisive German victory) and in that case there is no afternoon fight. The two other possibilities would be: A U.S. win in the morning leads to an afternoon battle, and the US gets good reinforcements. An a.m. stalemate (neither side's win/fail trigger is reached), so a timer goes off and the player has to prepare for the afternoon fight at with fewer reinforcements.

A note about victory conditions: I'm not a whiz at coding win/fail triggers, but I arrived at something that seemed to work to my satisfaction. If the Germans succeed in "exiting" a certain number of units from the map (you'll see the units disappear when they reach the exit zone), they win right then -- period. That's a decisive German vistory, representing an outcome similar to the US disaster at Kasserine Pass. For the US to win, you not only have to prevent the German units from exiting, but you also have to inflict a certain level of casualties and not lose too many men yourself. That's a decisive US victory. But in a certain number of battles, you'll see an in-between situation: The Germans haven't exited enough units to win outright, yet the US has lost so many troops that while they may have prevented disaster, they're too depleted/exhausted to trigger a win. Consider this a marginal US victory (despite heavy losses you achieved the objective of stopping the morning attack, buying time for the US to rally/reinforce/prepare for the second German effort in the late afternoon). If this stalemate gets too boring, just quit the battle and claim your marginal victory. Or, if you have good coding skills, create a "timer" and a marginal victory message, and share that trigger with the rest if us!

Another tip: The small foxholes are designed to hold two men. When you deploy soldiers into the foxholes, be sure to set their starting body position to "kneel." That way, they will get good cover and still be able to shoot. Unfortunately, the individual soldier AI makes them stand up to shoot, instead of remaining crouched. But the cover still helps. Because the foxholes and trenches on the El Guettar map are topped with sandbags, they offer pretty good cover and the infantry can survive a lot longer under fire. But just as in real life, a dug-in soldier who's isolated and/or under a hail of fire will quickly get suppressed, panic, etc.

Oh, and please be sure to download the improved/updated El Guettar map from the repository before you play this scenario. It has more accurate terrain in the NW corner, more foxholes/fighting positions, and a few more statics for eye candy.

I hope you all enjoy this scenario and find it challenging. In the actual battle, the US tank destroyers that start on the map were not M-10 Wolverines (they were actually much inferior M3 halftrack mounted tank destroyers). But, since M-10s are all we have in the game, I used M-10s and then made adjustments during playtesting to keep the battle in balance. You will not find a lot of variety in the way the German AI attacks. This was intentional, to reproduce the tactics the Germans actually used in this battle (direct frontal assaults by a massive force of tanks and armored infantry). And, just like in history, the US player will defeat this tactic most of the time with a smart and stubborn defense. But even so, I found it took everything I had to stop the German juggernaut -- it gets pretty wild when the Stukas are swarming, the smoke is swirling, the AT rounds are flying, and you're down to your last tank destroyer or bazooka team. Remember one thing: tank destroyers are not tanks! Use "shoot and scoot" tactics (how I wish we had a single "shoot and scoot" order for this), keep a reserve, and you may live to hear Eisenhower's words of commendation.

That's OK Knokke, and I shouldn't have slighted the original maps -- having made only one map myself, I'm no expert, and I certainly appreciate how much hard work goes into making one.

>>Sure the North Africa setting was probably accurate to what the armies had to >>endure, but it does get dull looking at all that damn sand... Nokturnal, just so you know -- the maps provided with TOW2 are not an accurate representation of the actual terrain in Tunisia. Yes some areas in the south of the country are sandy desert (the Sahara), but there are two other distinctly different terrain/climate zones: A central "steppe" region of grassy scrublands, which is arid but not desert, and is surprisingly green in the winter rainy season (try my El Guettar map on the Repository to see this). The northern zone is not sandy, and is like a Mediterranean coastal countryside (image link: http://www.en-route.co.za/AfricaAdventure/photos/tunisia/tun14.jpg ).

I did it that way because I thought someone on this thread said the "attach" and "detach" commands didn't actually work in triggers. Also, I changed the "defend" command for the artillery to "attack_ground," so maybe that will make them more aggressive.

Thanks everyone -- now I've got my two halftracks arriving with limbered guns, the "sleepy" gun crews wake up and board the vehicles, then they move with the german armor to an unlimber point. The gun crews dismount, and then (this is the trick) the original halftracks, with limbered guns disappear (using the ReinforcementDestroy trigger), to be instantly replaced with two identical halftracks and unlimbered guns that wake up and "land" in the same spot. The gun crews man their guns, look for visible targets, and fire away. Initially I had the unlimbered guns go into a "defend' order, but then they never shot at anything. So I did a "CreateRectByObject" trigger loop for them that has them target any visible enemy unit.

But maybe a linked campaign of adjacent 2x2 km maps could simulate the "hunting and scouting" activities being mentioned here? For example, you find the enemy in one battle, fix 'em in the second, then try to flank 'em in the third.