A Canadian Cat

This is brilliant! A couple of questions. Who is playing the German side? Are you fighting the AI or another group of humans? Did the arty barrage that slowed C Coy - was that in the CMBN game or at a higher level? The com transcripts you have included; are they what you are actually using to communicate orders between the BC and yours selves? I assume via email?

I like the hide suggestion sounds like good idea. Doesn't that conflict with the area fire command though. In other words will they area fire and hide? Wait will the hide command take effect if they are fired upon between way points (and thus will not have a target command) but if they make it all the way to the way point unattacked they will area fire? That would be cool. I'll have to experiment with that.

I noticed this as well. If you deploy the selected forces and then when creating the AI plans give them setup zones (for each group) you see this jump happen. Are you saying that if your orders do not include a setup zone they we will start where they are deployed and then begin any movement orders afterwards?

Yep, agreed.

December scenario of the month is starting over at the blitz: CMBN: Meeting Engagement at Les Charne CMFI: GL - Men with suspicious hats Forum post for signing up

Indeed - this not a billiards table. My experience with Fireflies shooting at Panther is they "don't need no stinking shot trap" they just need to get a hit

Very interesting idea - I don't think we have seen a third party doing an AAR before. That alone is interesting IMHO. Oh yeah for sure. This map is big for sure. The 20 000 point battle that Dungeon Tiger and I are fighting is on a 2km by 2km map and that feels pretty big. The game can handle it for sure.

Oh it could be a bug but one with a workaround - just keep going a couple more times.

Taking a few turns has been my experience as well. Although I have yet cease fire in 2.12 yet.

Very interesting - I don't normally watch these long videos but this time I'm going to. The forces look interesting thanks for doing this. Question for you: what was the delay on the air support? In other words when is it going to arrive?

Keep watching the video:-) Their testers' conclusion was that the MP40 was only marginally better. In a recent case where I lost nearly a whole squad to a bunch of Sten gun wielding paras it was a shooting gallery - fire from two directions against a bunched up squad. The less accurate sten guns might have helped spread the mayhem around the area even more.

Fighting in the woods is brutal! Most of what you are doing is fairly sound - hunting forward trying to find the enemy. One thing you can do is area fire as close to the known enemy location as you can - some of the rounds will travel further and have some effect. Also use movement orders to get closer so that you can target the area you think the enemy is located. What often happens is when your men, hunting through the woods, encounter the enemy there are only a few of them at the pointy end that actually spot the enemy. Once the enemy open fire those few might end up as casualties or run back some. Now no one can see the location the enemy is. At this point you want to move your men forward carefully and just close enough to area fire into the location where the enemy were briefly spotted or suspected. After that you can try again to move a team in for a closer look.

And so is targeting. So, if you targeted the top floor then it would be the one that gets the HE.

Super thanks for the idea - that make sense and will be useful no doubt. I look forward to the day when I can have the tank stand off and hose down the building fronts down the street to support the infantry that are ahead of it. I personally would prefer loosing tanks to good tactics and clever maneuvers by my brilliant opponents rather than my being forced to push further ahead with tanks than I should.

Yeah, I know it is known issue - I ran into it and reported on these forums in my very first PBEM scenario. That is the part that I wondered if Steve could offer any insight into. I think it is worth bringing up again because with all the other recent improvements (such as tank visibility, building protection and infantry AT weapon firing form inside) this is now actually a bigger problem than it used to be. Ditto - over and above the feature requests from my sig line.

I have mentioned this before but now this is even more of a problem. The fact that a workaround has been removed (to fix a bad bug - I know I get it) and now that tanks are not king of the city I am running into this much more often. The problem is that area fire requires that the targeting unit have LOS to the centre of the action square. This of course is very often not an issue in open terrain. And even then it is usually good enough to area fire as close as you can and it has some effect. But in an urban environment this because a real problem and prevents sensible tactics from being employed. Take this example. This is from a current game of Frosty Welcome. Don't worry no real spoilers here you can only see a handful of German units and one block of one street. Plus, my opponent is very well aware of what I am doing on that street - considering he has shredded a platoon and a Pz III already. My infantry are clearing the street. They have a hold of the previous block and would like to start to try to clear the next block. Clearly it is a bad idea to send tanks in first and why would you when they can stay in the previous block and shoot at the buildings ahead of where my troops are doing their entry - oops I cannot. As you can see I am currently clearing the building on the near left. my tank should be able to fire on the house fronts along the street but it cannot. This means that my men have no one covering them as they should while moving in the street. Note I can target, and have been, the second story of the building at the end of the block on the right. And before entry the tank was targeting the building my men are in now. My tank should be able to target any of the building fronts along the left side of the street. Clearly the tank can see those building fronts. But the game will *not* let me target them. Now you might say but just move forward until you can. Sure, but that equals dead tank as witnessed in the picture. That's right that other Pz III is toast because I moved it forward to engage enemy infantry in the second house down - the first one the selected tank should be able to target in the first picture. Now that tanks are vulnerable in urban settings moving them ahead of your infantry is a bad thing. Note: yes I know that against British paras this was always an unsafe thing to do, and yes I knew I was taking a risk doing that but I have to do something to deal with the game limitations :-) Moving forward actually does not really help much any way since that location only gets me the ability to target that first house but none of the rest of the street. Steve, can you comment on what my expectations should be for seeing this resolved? Now that tanks are not the king of the street I would prefer that they not be as neutered as this.

Indeed - and I agree the game keeps getting better and the recent changes really add a good feeling. I am afraid to drive my tanks around in built up areas now. Your are welcome list of excellent advances snipped Yeah, and now that the work around is gone and given that it is now very dangerous to drive tanks around cities I am seeing this issue more and more - I hope it can be resolved at some point.

Question for you. Did the Pz III have a target order given by you? I ask because I have watched in horror a few times when well motivated crew have continued to area fire a building containing suspected enemy infantry when an enemy tank rolls into view. Since they were doing what I told them to do they did not engage the enemy. Thank you for target briefly - I use that a lot now.

Not to mention that moving the cheese around constantly - even if it is arranged in a better way - would generate its own complaints and "discussion" :eek:

Super I am glad you liked it. That is what I was going for - short intense, hope your guys survive it fire fights. The time limit came from the fact that the pathfinders were only 30min ahead of the main force. I figured that probably meant they really had even less time because the beacons and flares really need to be there before the main force not just as the main force arrive. However from a game play point of view you have a valid point. And thank you for commenting. -- SPOILER ALERT -- I would have to do a bit more then just up the time. One of the groups that you can run into is actually very powerful and could probably take out the whole US force. My current AI plan has them heading straight for one of the objectives but not quite able to make it. That would have to re visited.

Awesome - let me know how you like it.

I played it when 2.1 came out so I am sure it works with the patches too. I do need to revisit it because I did not do well on my first go through. Sometimes you can get a situation where the tank commander can see the enemy but the gunner cannot. In that case your tankers will watch the enemy tank but never fire. Use the target line to test things. When you use the target command and select the enemy tank if the line is: light blue -> your men should be able to fire grey -> someone in the tank can see the enemy but the main gun's line of fire is blocked dark blue with pink -> your tank cannot properly see the enemy I have a case in a game right now where my tank has just moved into position and I get the dark blue no LOS target line when I point at the enemy, even though they clearly can see it because the enemy tank model is there when I have my tank selected. I think that means that they saw the tank as they were moving into position but now that they are in cover they just lost sight of it. So, once you have a situation where your tank is not firing and you think it should be use the target command to check the LOS LOF to the enemy tank. Hopefully it will help explain why your tankers are not firing. Well yes and no. If you can see the enemy then there is a chance he can see you but there no *guarantee* that he has actually spotted you. If one party is in the open and the other is hidden in the forest as long as the people in the forest can see out they have a much easier time spotting the person in the open than visa versa. And even two people in the open might not *notice* each other because they are looking somewhere else or otherwise occupied. The game takes all this into account so you can often have two units that have LOS to each other but one notices the other first. Most of the time this is just "one of those things". Sticking with tanks for the moment and since we do not have a specific example I'll make one up. Your buttoned tank is waiting in a defensive position behind a rise in the terrain facing towards where you expect the enemy to be. So your gunner has a pretty good view forward and your commander has a bit more of a range of view. The enemy tank approaches from a direction a bit off where you expected them to becoming and are traveling directly towards where your tank is positioned. If the angle is large enough your gunner, who is facing forward, cannot see where the enemy tank is. That means you now only have one person, the tank commander who could possibly see the enemy approaching. Even though the enemy tank is in the open your tank commander will not automatically see it. Remember he has to look through vision ports in various directions because he does not know where the enemy tanks might come from. He even has to check behind from time to time just to be sure. Now the enemy tank in the above scenario has all five crew looking for threats. All five of them have some reasonable view forward and the commander has more flexibility. As they round the corner and start moving through the field all five of the crew are looking in the direction your tank is relative to them. While is is true that your tank is partially hidden from view they have five people who could potentially spot your tank and you only have one that could spot them. Totally made up and totally fictitious situation to make the point but the game is considering all those variables and probably even more (for example I did not even mention crew experience and motivation). But it illustrates how even though you think you have an advantage, depending on what the enemy does, you may not.

Great Warhamer example BTW. One of the issues with CM is that there are actually two learning curves to cover. One with the UI - just like any new game it has its way of doing things. Then the other UI - you have to use proper tactics. For many of us - even those with war gaming experience those learning curves are happening at the same time. That definitely does not make things easier.

Jibs with what Steve just said - to complex and Michael stopped playing / buying. He did not spend time lobbying a game vender to simplify their flight sim. Although that probably would have been an entertaining thread to read.

Yep, and they do a good job of it. Adding to the UI is easy and there are always voices asking for more stuff. But there is an imbalance there. There are people who ask for new stuff to be added to the UI but the other side are people who get frustrated and confused and give up with UI that is too complex and they never say anything and those that do say something don't articulate the opposite - give me fewer commands. So, you never hear and equal calling to simplify. The development staff have to keep that in mind - because no one else is going to.