noxnoctum

Naw don't think so I'm 23 and I only play wego. RT you miss out on all the little action moments and your situational awareness suffers. Watching the replay vid was half the fun in CMBB for me. Plus I don't like feeling time pressure at all in a wargame. In RT I usually don't have time to check all the little terrain variations and have to stay zoomed out if I don't want to miss something important (like an enemy mortar spotting round or a side shot from a hidden AT gun) The only downside with WEGO is MOUT but I get around this by splitting squads a lot and using delay timers. I play Starcraft 2 also but that's an entirely different kind of game.

Play Panzer Marsch if you want a challenge. It's not impossible or anything, but you have to conserve forces (and ammo) carefully if you don't want to get squashed in the last couple missions. I found Road to Montebourg too easy.

I'd be up for "real time" WEGO if you're interested. I'm not much for PBEM just because I would rather play one battle for a few hours one day then 10 minutes every day spread out over a 2 months . (by real time I just mean we could take turns playing wego and uploading the file via dropbox, not ideal like tcp-ip wego in CMx1 in that we have to take turns but better than nothing) I don't enjoy RT simply because I can't take the time to zoom in and observe the battle and your situational awareness goes out the window with anything bigger than platoon level combat.

It's happening...: http://rt.com/news/syria-intervention-us-warship-229/

Ya it'd be nice if the second man only fired if fired upon or at short ranges (less than 75 meters say). Same with AT teams too.

Ya some of the stuff on there is really popular thanks to steam (Frozen Synapse, Bastion, Dungeon Defenders, Terraria etc)

Oh ya TacAI could definitely improve, I guess I was thinking as compared to StratAI and compared to a lot of the "TacAI" of many games it's way better. The problem is with those situations you mention I can think of times when I'd want my men to stay up, exposed (rare situation but still possible). But I agree it'd be good if by default pixeltruppen went to ground when being aimed at by a tank or if arty starts landing nearby. I can also think of situations where I'd want my men to move through the killzone, ignoring fire. I guess the best thing would be to allow for different "stances", agressive, passive, neutral etc.: where agressive would have you always be staying up exposed to fight and passive would have you hitting the dirt immediately and neutral woudl be in between. (going to ground if unable to return fire for instance) At the same time that might be too much control allowed. Maybe if it was only an option for veteran and higher troops?

I disagree. Unless we're talking "Manstein" level AI or something (don't think that'll happen anytime soon )... the AI getting better can only be a good thing. Right now you have to balance it with giving the AI more units. The need for this would go away if the AI was on par with a human. (not something in the realm of possibility ATM though some games do have excellent AI... haven't played it much but I've heard good things about Achtung Panzer: Kharkov in particular) Not that there's anything wrong with having the player at a disadvantage (I like that), but I'd rather be playing a "Deep Blue" computer, "Combat Mission edition" so that when I pull off a victory it's truly rewarding. It's very easy to exploit the AI when you know its weaknesses and it has serious problems in an offense role. The biggest problem being the AI's lack of regard for flanks. The map designer can set it up so its flanks are secure but then if you penetrate its defenses the AI will not be able to reposition accordingly. AI plans can be used to pull AI troops back into another position preemptively or on a timer but still it's not truly reactive: in a recent game I played it was clear the designer had intended for the AI to reinforce a position immediately behind the main front line but I got through quickly I guess so the timing was completely off. Result: 6 fully loaded halftracks driving straight into my platoon of panthers, presumably to unload BEHIND where my units had already passed. I haven't played against the AI in QBs but I imagine it's even worse. If the AI ever did become insanely good too I would assume we could have various levels of AI difficulty. The TacAI though on the other hand, is generally great, and I can't think of another game that compares, at least for this level of complexity. (I was only talking about the strategic level, "overmind" AI) Really though all this is kinda irrelevant if you have a multiplayer lobby with good matchmaking options (hint hint )

As long as there's no tcp-ip wego I play mostly SP (since even with several PBEM games going at once it's still usually only a few minutes per turn/email except at set up, and sometimes I want to play more than 10 minutes), and I was wondering if triggers will ever make it in. Just today I was playing the second-to-last mission in the Panzer Marsch campaign, and moved my entire force to the rear of the enemy along one flank. I caught 2 sherman platoons and an M10 platoon facing the other direction and killed them all with 2 panthers. At the end of the match, I see that there was a whole other sherman platoon on top of that that was busy sitting in the woods guarding the main approach down the road on top of a whole company of infantry relatively untouched. If I'd used the main approach I probably would have gotten slaughtered, but of course I didn't. Triggers could give the AI the ability to be reactive. It kinda killed what coulda been a tough challenge since 90% of the enemy force was facing the wrong direction. But with a simple trigger, (that uses a zone like the objective zones), you could have it check for enemy units (or maybe even certain enemy unit types or point value) at certain parts of the map and then have the AI allocate his reserves in a way that makes sense. (since a human player would have seen me killing everything on one side and reinforced that area, but the AI was not able to)

You can print screen + paste to paint ya know rather than taking a picture with a camera

Say I have several empty Opel Blitzes at the end of the scenario, undamaged but their drivers died (because I bailed them out to fight). Do I lose points for the truck if I lose the driver? thanks

I think he meant the affects of being in command aren't as obvious (no heart, star etc.) but looking at some of the tests people did on the effects of command it plays a big role. Also frankly I find units much more unique feeling now since you can actually look down and see all the various small arms being used and there is a noticeable difference between say... a squad with their LMGs and MP40s still and a squad that only has Kar98s left. I find it much more satisfying to see it playing out in front of me than have it be just a number on a screen. Especially since you can see how much of a dramatic effect a squad losing their LMGs has on their firepower output (especially a German one). One of the reasons I much prefer wego since it allows me to actually watch the battles very close up and see all the drama. For me the biggest issues are lack of an armor cover arc, the lack of a "Hunt" order that's not move-to-contact (the latter is very important too though!) and lack of better multiplayer options (lobby + tcp-ip wego or autopause every 30 seconds or both). I know BFC insists that most never touch multiplayer but I think that's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think the game could get much more popular with real MP support. Just as an example look at Men of War which while not really a wargame is much more so than stuff like Company of Heroes and although very clunky (IMO much harder to get into than CMBN) got really big thanks to a lot of MP options. As long as we get it by the time Bagration comes out though I'll be happy. I agree though about LOS being pretty funky sometimes though and confusing. I've had many situations where a vehicle behind some trees could not "see" the terrain on the other side but when something actually appeared on the other side it was able to fire at it. And the reverse situation as well. I also would like it if infantry did not move in a straight line. It seems they don't do this when on a hunt order so maybe this can be remedied at some point to spread them out more on quick, move, fast, etc. Though I usually split squads to get around this. About the tanks they do seem to miss hardly ever. But in CMx1 they seemed to miss a whole lot even at relatively short ranges. I can't really speak about that with any authority though I have no idea what % hit rates they had during WW2 for experienced crews. It does seem like they kinda just ported over the accuracy of CMSF vehicles but t could all just be in my head. I was playing with an AT gun though the other day and it missed several times at only 500 meters or so. It'd be nice if you could grab ammo from just being next to a vehicle but that could be problematic if you're next to multiple vehicles in which case you'd need a sub-menu to distinguish between them. I agree with you about the rubble, right now it doesn't seem to provide much cover or concealment. And seems to be pretty much "flat" regarldess of how huge the building that collapsed was. I haven't spent much time on snipers but I wander what range was that at? It'd be nice of someone tested them out some. Anyways those are my thoughts.

Does that have something to do with the weight maybe?

Unzip it so you have the .cam file in the Campaigns folder. Right click on the file to unzip.

And then Bulge and then Bagration right?

Playing the Panzer Marsch campaign right now, loving it. Great atmosphere. Anyways 3rd mission's the Battle of Bloody gulch and whoever designed this one did a great job. Very intense. The fog, scenery etc. are great. One of my best CM experiences ever. Don't want to spoil it or anything but it got very intense half way through . If you haven't played this one go for it. (first mission's a bit frustrating but just get past that and it's great)

Sweetness!

Ah, thanks, no wonder I didn't guess it would start with "Campaign: ...."

Where can I get this campaign? I don't see it in the repository. Nice aar btw. Fun to read!

Ya I've noticed this in CMSF too but it doesn't always happen so I was never sure if it was a bug or a "feature" But yes it would be nice if scenario designers put walls around blind spots of buildings to avoid this. Yes but "cover-wise" as I said

Well that's good to know. I was under the impression that with each new split the quality of the leadership of the sub-unit was worse. Will definitely change my play-style. I play wego exclusively these days so micro is not an issue .

So they might as well be in the open then cover-wise eh? thanks for the info

So is it because it's a barn or because it's been damaged that they can shoot through it? (it's got that "light damage" texture)

I thought they'd only be able to use the windows on the side of the building (right hand side on second pic), but here it looks like they're shooting through a solid wall. Am I missing something?

As in a morale penalty or anything?