SnakeTheFox

Repeating the same things a half dozen times is only the illusion of a considerable argument, you've made maybe less than half of what I'd consider one, thus far. Hard to argue against someone who can't argue, admittedly.

I said there was a myriad of reasons why they would be implemented, I'm confused how you've managed to go so far out of context with that statement. Management of prisoners of war has plenty of relevance to the "interplay of combat units on a tactical battlemap", for reasons I've already covered and have no inclination to repeat. Also, movies as a method of "immersion", hoh hoh. That analogy has no merit, on the basis that buckets of gore have no bearing on the game and merely serve as aesthetic design choices, management of surrendering forces is something that has a bearing both in the immediate sense (whether or not to dedicate forces to their withdrawel behind the lines), but in the long-term in campaigns as well (becoming infamous for not taking prisoners may make future engagements less prone to surrendering or less considerate to your forces), though in the former case that's well outside of what I would like modeled in a tactical-level wargame myself. Sorry, Grandpa, I wasn't aware I had to spell out the nature of my post, I was expecting a considerate and casual discussion on the topic manner and wasn't prepared to disarm an alarmingly hostile and highly analytical forum beast with winking smilies, my apologies. Also, yet again, you're misreading what I'm saying: my post was an inquisition. Inquisition, as in: "the act of inquiring; inquiry; research." Which, for reasons already covered, I disagree over. Are you intending to keep bludgeoning me with your "I DISAGREE STOP THINKING DIFFERENT THAN I DO" approach, or can we just agree to hold differing opinions on the subject? That is not their policy, and again your argument would make sense if treatment of prisoners was not a frequently encountered issue at the tactical level, which it in-fact was. Of course they are, in part, about martial prowess, my claim was that this wasn't all they are about, which is also true. You're just arguing over nothing, now. And, as I have committed this opinion earlier, treatment of prisoners is, in my opinion, a decision that has to be made in real conflict, frequently at the tactical level, for rationale thrice covered. I wont contest that, but considering many of CM's campaigns could make use of such a tactical-level feature (treatment of surrendering opponents) to make variables in future mission structure at a higher level. I really have no investment in this being included in CM, it was intended as a semi-serious casual discussion on what could be modeled in CM, but if you want to make a considerable argument out of it, I can do that too, regardless of my honest investment in it being included.

I dunno, authenticity, immersion, any other of a myriad of reasons. If it hurts your tender sensibilities regarding how close to "real" you want the game to be, then I apologize. I don't know if I'd call it a missing function, I'm just curious whether this was or is ever intended to be implemented. Semi-tongue in cheek, yes; I'm not terribly concerned whether it's implemented or not, but it makes me curious nonetheless, as many things in CM do for us on occasion. Here, I'll make the lack of gravity to this inquisition more obvious for you, if you'd prefer it this way: It's my understanding that CM represents one of, if not the most comprehensive tactical level war game out there. Treatment of prisoners of war, whether good or bad, generous or reprehensible, is a feature often overlooked or heavily simplified in a gaming context, simply to appease those with tender sensibilities who don't like to face the fact that war wasn't all about gung-ho martial prowess and had its more despicable sides as well, all the way down to the tactical level. Actually, that's the only level where I'd appreciate its modeling, anything higher and it's just random numbers, far removed from the actual situation. In a tactical level wargame that question is raised to the commander of the battle, as it is raised in real-life situations at the same level: dedicate troops to escorting surrendered prisoners of war from an active combat zone, or the eponymous "take no prisoners" approach that may make enemy forces fight more bitterly in future engagements. Yeah, a non-berating, considerate and mature discussion on an admittedly not terribly relevant game feature? What were we thinking!

So you're saying you can actually kill prisoners? Aside from the test I mentioned in the OP, I've also seen prisoners survive crazy situations elsewhere and just assumed them invulnerable. I recall one instance in particular where a couple 105mm artillery shells landed not meters away from a surrendered German in the middle of a road (and about a dozen flaming halftracks :cool:), and he was good to go, still chilling with his hands in the air like he really just did not care.

I was playing a mission against the AI earlier today, I had a pretty easy going time and few casualties, and was wrapping up loose ends by scavenging for hiding infantry squad remnants near the map borders. Moving one of my squads up, they began hunting a forested area for Germans. It seems a lone German machine gunner, with his MG42 in hand, was hiding right near the border of the map. He opens up on my squad before they see him, no more than 5m away, and kills the squad leader in one quick burst. He then... throws his hands up in surrender no more than a second later. Now, at the risk of sounding like I get all my knowledge of World War II from Saving Private Ryan, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume the surviving squad wouldn't... uh... you know, let that slide and put a bullet between his eyes the moment he dropped his gun? To test this, as I like to roleplay a little with squads at least in small unit engagements like this one, I put a fire order on the surrendered Kraut, and not too surprisingly, the bullets just whizzed past him. I know a lot of the "surrender" mechanic is abstracted in this game, and that just because you see a soldier with his hands in the air on the map isn't really meant to imply he's really just sitting there, whistling to himself with his hands high, but it still tickles my curiosity: is there, or will there ever be, a model for "war crimes" such as the one my squad (in my opinion) would likely have committed there? Should there be a time limit where, within x many seconds of surrendering, if the opposing troops are enraged enough and lack the necessary discipline, they opt to mow down the surrendering foes? Or does that cross the line of what you think should be modeled in a video game. Keep in mind I'm not advocating death marches or anything like that in game, just the immediate few seconds post-surrender where the other force might not like the idea of taking prisoners.

God, 2.5ghz dual cores and 1gig GPU's are meager nowadays? I'm really falling behind. And I built this PC at med-high spec only a few years ago.

This anal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_retentiveness Not the "other" kind, don't worry.

JP actually had the same hull armor as on the Panther at no alteration of thickness or slope (80mm at 55 degrees). Not trying to be anal or anything, just wanted to mention. Anyhow, on topic, the early model Jagdpanzers (with the short L/48 gun) had 60mm armor at 50 degrees, which is respectable. Later V models with the L/70 gun (not featured in-game IIRC) had 80mm armor at 50 degrees, which is nearly identical to the Jagdpanther. The fact that they had almost identical armor is forgotten in most games, as the Jagdpanther just has that "cool" factor going for it, aesthetically. As far as gun performance is concerned, the L/70 75mm, while definitely not as strong as the long 88, was definitely enough to tackle any allied tank of the war at combat ranges with the exception of a few such as the Soviet IS-2 (and maybe the Sherman Jumbo at longer ranges). The main drawback of the long 75 vs the long 88 is the long 75 has a pretty poor HE shell (comparable to the poor HE shells in other high-velocity guns of a similar caliber like the 76.2mm M1 or 17 pounder) and so makes a worse infantry support tank. But like I said, the L/70 Jagdpanzer isn't in the game anyway. And how much of this is actually modeled in-game? I have no idea. Hopefully a good amount, though.

I recall one time I had engaged a Pak 40 behind a hedgerow some 400m away from a column of Shermans. He knocked out 1 of the Shermans and I had the rest use it as cover to barrage the area (didn't have direct spot with the tanks, only my infantry) with some 30+ HE shells between them. At least 10 of the hits were within 2-3m of the AT gun. Didn't do it. So I shelled the area with 60mm mortar fire, about 20 rounds and about a third of which again landed within 3m of the gun. Didn't cut it either. So at this point I just decided to dump the remainder of my off-map 105's into it, about 10 rounds later and it was finally destroyed. In certain situations AT guns are nigh on impregnable without heavy artillery support. But that's a good balancing factor I suppose, tends to keep thoughtless tank rush success rates low. But it's still frustrating to always have to wait for a fire mission to move forces up whenever some puny Pak lifts its head up.

I noticed this yesterday but was too thankful to complain about it. I accidentally had a 17lber that was in the middle of a duel with 3 Panther's at long range limber itself to move. I was about ready to file it under a loss but decided to have them try to redeploy anyway, and they did so instantaneously and proceeded to knock out the remaining 3 Panthers.

I want to preface this statement by saying that I don't fully understand the real-life workings of artillery and specifically the kinds you can find on-map (self propelled howitzers like the M7), however: At the sizes of most maps (e.g. 1km or so), would it even be possible for an M7 to indirectly fire at anything? I understand it's a howitzer, but it's still not a mortar; it likely requires targets to be a bit farther away to elevate its gun sufficiently to achieve "indirect" fire via the shell falling over terrain features and such. And so, all targets that you could engage on-map are probably so close that the M7's howitzer must be pretty much in-line with the target to fire on it anyway, and so it has to be a "direct" shot. That's my theory, though I'm probably wrong.

I generally get a disproportionate amount of tank to tank kills with my Tiger(s), but I have noticed an awfully large occurance of guns being knocked out. Probably half or more of the Tigers I've commanded have been removed from battle first by losing their guns, and then whatever else comes to finally put them out of their misery later.

I forgot to mention this in the OP, but they actually did spot the Stuart initially some 80~ odd meters away (they're about 30~ meters or so away in this pic IIRC), they spotted the Stuart and fired 2 'shrek shots which both neatly impacted a tree about halfway in-between themselves and the Stuart. That was when I (regrettably, in hindsight) decided to move them up closer to a better and less obstructed firing position and they lost not only visual contact but any sign at all that something should be there.

I know the general rule of thumb in this game is "anything can happen once", but in what world can this happen? A little backstory: I'm playing Tiger's Day, some strangely amusing mission from the repository where the Americans are pushing on a small but well entrenched German garrison, with seemingly Soviet doctrine such as massed human (and tank) waves and crazy amounts of artillery being employed against the Germans. Blah blah, blam blam, lots of casualties each side and I reluctantly pull my Tiger back after it loses its optics and main gun and so becomes a (very well armored) machine gun. After pulling it to the rear of the town, a M5A1 Stuart starts railing it with 37mm AP until, doing nothing but knocking out the tracks. As it's continuing to constantly barrage this helpless Tiger, I move a 'shrek crew to try and take it out for no reason other than a few ****s+giggles. Then this happens: I'm moving these two in and out of this forest and they just can't spot this stuart to (quite literally) save their lives. Keep in mind this Stuart is constantly firing its main gun. I never bothered to make a save during all this (surely, I thought, this wasn't going to persist) but after constantly moving these two closer and closer to the Stuart (and eventually moving it within the 'shreks minimum arming radius of 20m or so IIRC) until the tank crew spots them and mows them down with .30 cal. As they're being chewed up, they still didn't spot it. Were these Germans not issued working eyes, or what's going on? Edit: Before anyone asks, Vein's Germans, Aris textures.

Just curious, did a search around the forum and didn't find anything: is there a "master file" for all your skins? As in, all of them in one convenient download? Looking around the repository, there's dozens of skins and I imagine it'd take nigh on forever to click through to the download page of every individual vehicle skin. So does a compilation exist? I know it'd be a chore to update it every time you want to throw in a new skin but maybe consider making one every 5-10 skins or so? It'd make downloading them a ton easier, I don't know anyone that would prefer to cherry pick from such an amazing assortment of skins, if you ever got in a battle with default skins and yours in the same area the disparity would be atrocious.

I was actually going to ask about that next. The manual describes in a bit of detail the uses of each skill. Is it worthwhile to auto-allocate points, or is it truly necessary for me to get my hands dirty and toy with each individual soldier? It's the same game with the some code and thus the same issues, regardless if it's a Battlefront download or a Steam download. And like I said, Steam and 1C forums don't get any traffic for this game. I've never heard of someone using a different download location to gripe. I mean really, get with it. Edit: oh wait you're Australian. Sorry I wasn't aware of your condition.

The noticeable lack of infantry in this mission (only 2 units max, both in the village) was my reasoning for choosing the Achilles vs the Churchills (which have much reduced anti-tank capability by comparison). I would've compromised and chosen Fireflies but they aren't in this mission. I did manage to complete the mission, again with a ludicrous amount of save/reload cheating if things went sour, with only the complete loss of 1 Achilles, with a further one significantly damaged (turret/gun and both tracks) and two more losing a track each. That at the cost of 15~ enemy tanks. Some things still confuse me. Like when I have a unit selected sometimes it is a red crosshair (to me indicating an ability to fire), yet the unit cannot engage. Conversely with the grayed crosshair with an X through it (to me indicating a lack of an ability to fire) I've been able to engage tanks effectively. I'm not sure what this is to imply.

I managed to clear the first 5 or so anti-tank guns with only a single Churchill casualty, and with great difficulty and much save/reload cheating. It seems to me 88's are particularly resistant to artillery. I noticed I had little problem clearing out Pak nests but 88's seemed to soak up artillery damage like it was nothing, took around 15 near-hits (>30m area) on one to clear the final crewmember out. My unit composition is a little different than suggested (I'm just reading your post now, played the game earlier), 4 Churchills and 8 Achilles and 4 25lb'ers not mortars. The Achilles to me performs the same role as the Stuart/Cromwell in that it's fast (48km/h vs the Churchills 52km/h IIRC) but also has one of the best tank guns in the game. I will take to note your suggestion about mortars however. But I'm stuck again. Glitch, balance, doesn't matter at this point. There are 2 Panzer III's (one could be a Panzer IV I didn't check) that come out of a large animal barn and for some reason as soon as they exit they begin firing with impunity at my tanks, and yet no act of willpower on my part can make my tanks fire back. I've tried using the "attack" command and the "attack ground" command on the tanks; they simply wont shoot at them when they clearly have a shot (or at least as much of one as the Panzer III's do). I have an infantryman near them (who was real useful the first time around but it seems now every time I reload he dies immediately) to spot. Artillery has issues hitting this area and the effectiveness of it on tanks is likely nil. My tactic is to let the agro'd Churchills soak damage (which they normally do effectively enough), while I move up 1-2 Achilles to the left flank. Yet as I move them up they are consistently shot by the Panzer III's before the Achilles can even fully spot them. I'm stuck again, and I have no real idea what to do. http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/1853/bugsbugsbugs2.png It seems now the Germans have invented X-ray lenses for their tank periscopes, because they can see through this thick brush and fire accurately yet I can't.

I'm not exaggerating at all, and I've attached screen-shots of the most critical issues to prove it. I honestly wish very deeply I was exaggerating but I'm really not, this game feels entirely broken to me. Possibly, but considering like you've admitted the manual is deeply unsatisfying there wasn't much I could do about that. The manual describes the act of orienting a turret in a specific direction as "spotting", and I quote. Notice I put "spotting" in quotation marks for that reason. The manual describes the gun sight as having a long range but a small LOS and tells the player to orient the turret in the direction of possible enemies to "spot" them at a longer range than either the drivers hatch or commanders periscope. I've done exactly that multiple times and had the gun continue to fire after dozens of hits all around it. I read around the forums exactly what you're saying; that artillery should be quite effective. So far this hasn't been the case for me. Next time this happens I'll take a screenshot. I understand this, but it's happened to me in situations it shouldn't. I've had anti-tank guns absolutely surrounded by infantry on all sides, many less than 20m away with zero obstruction ordered to attack the gun and they simply don't comply. This is at the beginning of the mission so they're certainly not out of ammo. See the screenshots posted. Well considering it's the first mission of the campaign there isn't much that can be done about that. And this is the problem I'm having with the game. It's purportedly very "realistic" and yet it seems to be begging me to play completely unrealistically. I don't see how I'm supposed to beat this first mission if I can't use infantry, because without them how am I supposed to spot these AT guns? When moving my tanks up one time without infantry they were literally parked on top of the AT guns yet could not spot them at any orientation. The screenshots are of normal games that have become so unreal for me in their sillyness that I was forced to screenshot them for posterity. None of the screenshots were in an attempt that I used arty heavily on, specifically the one I mentioned where I had 4 25 pounders empty their stores of ammo on one single target, which is where I get the "Loony Toons-style outlines" claim from. Have you see the maps in this game? There is absolutely zero effective cover, it's giant open fields and tree lines. How is an infantry spearhead a "WWI tactic"? What should I be doing with them, cowering them a half a kilometer behind the entirely blind Churchills while they all die? I've only made it past that initial AT gun barrier with more than 30% of my forces once; and that was with an infantry spearhead followed shorty behind by tanks. Putting tanks in the front always results in at least half of them being mobility kills in the dozen or so times I've tried this map. Other than this, your post was very informative and I appreciate it. I'll try the attack/move suggestions over the next few days and see if that helps any. Although if the artillery bombardment doesn't pull through like it hasn't been, I might still be in need of a solution to this AT position that doesn't involve arty or 50%+ casualty rates.

What version? Is there more than one version of Theatre of War 2: Battle for Caen? Unless you're referring to whether I downloaded it from Battlefront or Steam which I don't think makes any difference. I'm posting here (and on the Steam forums) because they seem to get a lot more traffic than 1C's own forum. Edit: I wake up every morning wanting to give this game a better try but I just can't seem to enjoy it, between the bugs and the game balance it's like it's begging me to not enjoy it. http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/7237/bugsbugsbugs.png How am I supposed to beat the Nazis and be home by Christmas if they've successfully found a way to bend light and develop cloaking anti-tank emplacements? I also tried moving an officer with high scout skill up in "Sneak" mode and at about 1km out he got 1-shot sniped by an 88.

I recently picked ToW2 along with Caen on Steam, and the game is currently entirely unplayable for me. I've completed the tutorial, and read the entire PDF manual through nearly twice. I can't complete the first British mission, it's impossible in all ways I've tried. And not just that, but it's impossible at the very beginning, not near the very end. From the start no matter where you spawn your troops you're almost immediately under fire by a bunch of permanently invisible anti-tank guns in a treeline. I've tried using the whole map and there is absolutely no way to outflank them. Okay, so you're supposed to just attack them the game must be saying to me. But by attacking it is literally impossible for me to survive with anything but 30% of my starting forces; and this is only the first 1/10th or so of the level. Things I've tried: Tank rush. Gets decimated before it spots a single gun. I've tried the "spotting" mechanism by clicking the gun and then using defend and it still wont spot them period, not even when it's 1 meter away. Tank/infantry advance. Tanks get mowed down the same as the tank rush, even Churchills. 90%~ mobility kills before I spot the first gun. Infantry advance. Infantry is decimated by HE before spotting the first gun, can't spot the guns any better than tanks. (screenshot: http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6181/spotting.png) I've tried these tactics mixed with artillery bombardment; there can be a Loony Toons-style outline of craters around the "suspected" firing position of the gun and yet it still continuing mowing down my troops. I honestly ordered four 25 pounders to "attack ground" near the suspected position of one single gun and set the time to x2 and walked away to grab some food. When I came back the guns were out of ammo, and bumrushing a bunch of units at that gun I found that even with craters less than half a foot away from the gun it was still completely undamaged and firing. So what the hell am I supposed to be doing? I'm a veteran of games like Close Combat, Men of War, Blitzkrieg, Sudden Strike etc. I'm used to this sort of brutality; but in those games it's possible for infantry to spot anti-tank guns firing away a hairs breath away from them, so that's different. Also, assorted buggy occurances: When ordering tanks to attack another tank they seem to enjoy charging ahead full steam until they're grinding glacis against one another, even if there is a perfect line of sight to the tank from where they were. The tank is set to attack whatever is visible (hull or turret), and isn't to my knowledge in "assault" mode: As far as I'm aware, right clicking an enemy tank with your tank when the little red crosshair shows up is a simple "attack" order, not a "bumrush him and skewer him with your gun" order. When ordered to attack it's very frequent units simply wont comply with the order, even if their crosshair is red showing them they have a line of sight to the target. I've had 3 Achilles near a Panzer III, on an open field, all maybe within 50 meters of one another and ordering the Achilles to attack either caused them to race towards the tank, stop, and turn their turrets away from it, or do nothing. Part of this issue; units can't seem to spot anything even at ranges where my half-blind grandfather could see them, and yet my units are always visible to the enemy. Currently this game is entirely unplayable for me, I've exhausted all known sources of information for how to manage this game, and I'm near the point of just uninstalling it and wishing I hadn't spent the 30 bucks.