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Ranger33

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Posts posted by Ranger33

  1. I don't get the stubborn position of "Firing from inside buildings was not ideal, therefore units should NEVER be allowed to fire from inside buildings." It's a rather arbitrary stance in a game where so many things are abstracted as a compromise for real life vs realistic development goals. It makes the game less fun and less balanced, without making it more realistic, which is poor design IMO.

    The urban combat in CMSF is a blast (pun intended) and "feels" much more realistic, the side which uses the best tactics will usually prevail. Sending infantry ahead with armor in support is the only way to avoid certain losses to RPGs. I realize modern RPGs aren't exactly the same thing as WW2 stuff, but it's been demonstrated in this thread and others that it was done, just not always the best idea.

    I hope we see some improvements in urban combat before Berlin, Stalingrad, etc. Otherwise I don't see myself getting those titles/modules.

  2. CMSF (with all the modules) is second only to CMBB in my mind. The original US Army campaign is nothing near as interesting as the later stuff and community created campaigns.

    On topic:

    CMEF: My love of CM started with BB, plus it's something totally different from what we have

    CMSF2: I'm sure it will be great, but I'm a bit concerned at the total lack of info, besides theater. Besides the new UI and stuff, what will be different?

    Market Garden and Gustav Line: Will certainly get at some point, but no rush

  3. The x2 TacAI is definately better.

    The x2 StratAI isn't as reactive as x1, but it can be made to do things the CMx1 StratAI would never in a million years have come up with.

    I'm strictly talking about the StratAI in QBs, particularly on the offensive. Of course, the AI overall is a huge step up from CMx1.

  4. I disagree about it being better than in CMx1. Sure, that system wasn't perfect either, but at least the AI recognized that objectives had changed hands. In the current system the AI on the attack just blindly charges ahead, either into your kill zone or to some unimportant part of the map, where they will patiently wait for you to get around to killing them. This is especially bad when the force mix doesn't match the axis of attack (infantry across open fields, tanks into the middle of town).

  5. ...and of course be able to shoot schrecks, zooks and fausts from inside.

    This is the biggest thing. There has to be some kind of compromise made. I know there was a thread where someone posted hard data from the US Army post-WW2 showing that the whole concept of blow-back killing/injuring people indoors was exaggerated. I think everyone would be fine with having something like a chance of troops going to "yellow" if in the same room as a zook being fired. Or even a semi-random "deployment" time representing troops opening doors/windows and finding a suitable firing spot. The balance is very, very far in favor of tanks right now:

    1)They spot as well, or better than, infantry in urban terrain IME.

    2) To get a shot off the soldier must run out in the middle of the street, spot, aim, fire, stand there reloading like a loon, then make a run for it (assuming you timed your movement order correctly, since there is no shoot-and-scoot type of option).

    3) Tanks have no restriction on gun elevation, which has been explained as being borderline impossible to implement, and I'm fine with that, but if we are bending reality lets go ahead and make things more fair.

    I've been sour on the whole thing ever since a PBEM game where I was facing a Sherman in wrecked town square. I threw down smoke, concealing the whole area, ran a schrek team out into a crater on the tank's flank, as the smoke cleared they sat there staring, unable to see a tank 30m away for almost a minute. Then, of course, the Sherman calmly swung it's turret around and riddled them with bullets.

  6. Great shots. Question on uniforms and seasons:

    With winter and snow will the soldiers be wearing heavier coats, gloves, etc?

    Steve said in some post that they have put in a really cool system allowing for seasonal skins (vehicles and infantry) and even appropriate unit markings (I think?) and such via a "tagging" system. So no more swapping out mod folders to get scenario specific uniforms. So like you get a scenario and the correct mods for it and the game will automatically detect and load the correct ones.

    I don't think the actual 3D model will change though.

  7. ^^^

    * Exception to the above: at NIGHT friendly units can misidentify other friendlies and create fratricide accidents. In that case, friendly small arms will cause casualties.

    Ken

    Really? I've never seen that happen. Makes things more interesting for sure.

    Will they directly target a friendly (misidentified) unit, or do you just mean going into the line of fire (like a building under target light) is more dangerous?

  8. Explosives are always a danger (except breaching charges it seems) but bullets will only cause friendly casualties above a certain caliber. I don't remember exactly what it is at the moment though :D. Definitely heavier than anything you will find in a rifle squad.

  9. Please name a publisher that puts this kind of guarantee in writing and don't say steam or any other digital distribution service because they are a totally different animal.

    Matrix Games? They are in pretty much the same type of business as BFC, albeit a bit bigger. I much prefer how they do things overall to be honest. (Heresy!) Plus their DRM is so much nicer to the paying customer.

  10. Agreed, it's an excellent game, I found it a few months ago. The amount and variety of content is very impressive and like you said the gameplay is much deeper than it first appears, especially as your units level up and get special attacks and abilities. And there are SO MANY different units, and most have multiple attacks and special traits, and then often have branching paths for leveling up.

    My only gripe with the game is that all but the easiest campaigns are balanced in such a way that losing too many units early on will doom you to failure within a few scenarios, since you won't have enough leveled up units to survive.

  11. I know the point has already been made, but I just had to show off the force chosen for me by the AI just now :D

    I thought I would have a little fun by throwing two sets of "Armor Only" Italian forces at each other. My force consists of 4 Semoventes (nice), 3 R-35's (fun!), a Carro Comando (makes sense), and not one, not two, not eight, but ELEVEN forward observers. Oh, and zero artillery for them to call in :P

    ue8l0zX.jpg

    **I think this is actually due to there not being enough rarity points available to field more than a few tanks, so the AI uses up the rest of the points on the only unit it can, which is FO's. Still, some mortars for them to call in would be nice.

  12. The gameplay/content is changing with each module/patch sufficiently that it would affect the scenarios and campaigns already played, and I don't enjoy replaying scenarios/campaigns just to get the "full-function" effect.

    Same here. I'm too busy right now to play much anyway, so I just stick to QBs so that I can save the scenarios and campaigns for when the game is more fully featured. The recent changes to MGs and suppression sound like they really change the experience, for example.

  13. BFC in 2002:

    The simple fact of the matter is that no matter what system is employed, QB gamers *will* figure out a way to pervert the system. This was true in CMBO and is true in CMBB and will be true in whatever game we make in the future. Well, unless we remove certain player choices like the ability to Cherry Pick ones own forces. Removing that and a few other variables would absolutely "fix" the problem. But me thinks people would complain far more loudly about that!

    Steve

    This notion is great, it's just that their implementation of this idea in CMSF was piss-poor. The forces were essentially picked at random by the AI, with no regard to the terrain, objectives, or opposing forces. 4 out of 5 times the forces were completely mismatched. Tank companies vs recon battalions, FO's with no artillery, 20 HUMVEEs w/ TOW missiles vs some insurgents in technicals, and so on. Plus the fact that having automatic and human selection of units in the same game would have been simple to implement and left everyone much happier.

    I understand that they don't want to waste time endlessly balancing the point value of things, but changing the value of US rockets, when people have been asking for it from day one, would not take that much effort. I think it's just like their refusing to add a "Delete" button to the saved games page for 5-6 years. They do it (or not) because they like to watch us squirm :D

  14. I think the big difference in opinion here is whether you play the game as a game or as more of a simulation. When I play I want to see a plausible scenario play out, since all of the units are based as much in reality as possible. That's the whole point of buying a CM title as opposed to Company of Heroes or Starcraft or whatever (both fine games in their own way). With CM you can take realistic forces and duke it out with realistic tactics (more or less). It's more about the experience than the destination. Although winning is always a bit more fun :D

    "Playing to win" with tactics like loading up on rocket artillery or Tigers just defeats the whole purpose of buying a CM game in the first place, in my opinion. There's a reason you don't see very many grossly ahistorical scenarios in the repository, that sort of thing isn't really the draw here for most (I would think).

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