Sgt Schultz

+1 to BFC. 2 QB PBEMs and the rest of the time since release with my head buried in the editor, and I couldn't be happier with this product. Well ... I will be happier when my Sturmmoser comes along...

I have it happen as well, but take it in stride as non-robo behaviour. The more surprised the shooting unit is by its target, the longer they freak out and keep firing it seems. Proximity and perceived danger level also seem to impact this. I would think the sniper team should be more disciplined, but the code is probably universal to all infantry. Plus that was a close-range pop-up target.

My first design attempt had casualty points. I did away with it for my second scenario, for reasons stated above and my desire for folks to press hard. Worrying about losing that one man/vehicle that will cost you hundreds of points is not a wonderful gaming experience imho. Occupy, Touch and Destroy are my prime point movers now.

Quick and Dirty pillbox and connecting trenches. All grey/blue from all points of trench or inside pillbox.

Aye, the front of that bunker is a damaged 3 story MB. The best work-around I have found so far is to bury just a single tile pillbox as shown and surround it with trees. there is only one way in or out, but there is also no LOS for mortars/FO unless one is staring the occupants in the face. Connecting sunken trenches are easy to connect with doors available on any side. This opens up LOS to the danger zone a bit. Then add more pillboxes than mortars to service them. Take away most/all Ami 60s, limit the on-map 81s and reduce ammo counts on off-map assets. The attacker now has a wonderfully complex tactical situation. Can kill a few pillboxes.... but which ones? Once they're rubbled, they STILL provide cover/concealment. If you are dealing with a historically accurate arty count, then the best we can hope for is improved pillboxes in a future Module. EDIT - To avoid/reduce near-miss casulaties to the front, it is advised to FACE the opposite direction as soon as incoming is detected. OR, make the pillbox one level deeper(2 stories) and send the boys into the basement until the arty passes.

Would more permanent bunkers help? Modular buildings have a decent amount of structural integrity.

Aye, the on-map mortars can be hurtful. Map choice becomes more important in QBs. Adequate concealment and enough room to possibly flank into the enemy mortar positions is a plus. From a scenario design perspective, I strip most/all of the 60s from Ami troops. I have found that the large-bore German guns(75,88,150) cannot exist long in an environment populated by these little bundles-o-doom. The 50s are small enough that a little range can suffice to keep them hidden. 81s are more reasonable from a fun/playabilty perspective imo. They are slower, more expensive and are a bit easier to spot. I don't have enough QBs under my belt as yet to make an informed decision, but I am leaning towards giving Germans a points bonus in a non-Attacker situation to try and offset the Ami mortar superiority.

Castle Wolfenstein 1.0 - This is my test-bed castle. Note the high stone wall wrapping the strongest modular buildings. I use this to prototype castle features to see what works and what doesn't. Still working on an entrance. Many options for castle proper inside the walls. Interior partitions have me in sort of a moral quandry. Do I leave them open and make it easy... Or do I make you folks run around like hamsters in a Habi-trail?

I don't want to hijack LLF's thread with pics that are nothing more that examples of technique, but he got me thinking. This thread is dedicated to those who work in the editor with buildings... and those who want to. ALL input is requested. If you have a protip ... share it. This isn't top-secret tactical battle strategies we're talkin' about here. Saw Erwin's lament about no stuff around buildings. Within reason... there is a fix for that my friend. taa daa .... It requires that the building be set in such a way that the wall/hedge aligns with the structure walls. Like so.... One cannot completely surround a structure unless it is a Modular multi-part structure.. or the largest single Modular there is at 1-4. Next? --- EDIT --- yeah yeah I know ... if I have this cool idea why isn't in my scenarios... 'cause I just thunk it up tonight. It is goin' in VotS ver2.0 this weekend.

Great work LLF! Thanks for the excellent reference tool. Too many times I have loaded a map with 3 choices side by side, and then try to find just the right one. ----- My personal best imo so far is a warehouse/small factory type building. Not really historical so much a tactical design. Medium multi-story Modular for strength, but windows galore. Only way to fix the double chimney issue was to damage one roof. Fixed. From the back. Chimney still there on single story structure, even with damage. Bummer. Making all the interior partitions work was an adventure.

The beauty of my scenarios(for me) is that they are all set in '45 in Germany. So, once we have all the Modules all I have to do is upgrade TO&E and any map stuff we get. Then they will all be combined into a campaign. Expect most battles from me to be 2nd Armored vs Panzer Lehr. It's Panzer Lehr's turn to attack in next one.

If I recall my CM1, 88s could be towed and deployed. They could NOT be hooked up again once deployed. One could expect the same here once the appropriate module appears.

Ye gods the MBT has become rather inbred over the years hasn't it? Now while it is understood that not everyone has the constitution to withstand the rigors of coherent thought needed to hold their own in the Cesspool, one would think there would be more than the TWO SSNs I found. And one of those is inferred from Gonzo's post. If there are more, well then they reside too deep in the necroposts, and digging through that much sewage is a bit much for a CMBN battle. GonzoAttacker, consider yourself challenged. I am sure that most here already consider you challenged in one form or another. Send a setup to the email attached to my profile, if that would not be too much of an intellectual feat for a Californicator. If that is too hard, then a simple surfer grunt("doood") here in the MBT will suffice to start the process. -

Must a SSN dig through the muck of previous threads to discover who may be challenged without bringing down the wrath of the all-powerless High Lords of the Cesspool? I am aware that it must be another SSN, but there seems to be no way to discover just WHO those 'people'(and I use that term loosely in this setting) may be. It is not exactly a badge of honor one wears proudly in public. Since I traded in the last of my self-respect for a bottle of cheap wine, I feel that I am now ready to join your ranks. Send a challenge if you can remember how. Send a file if you are a SSN, and can manage the difficulties of setting up a QB. The more time one spends here in the MBT, the less the smell seems to offend.

I have had both Germans and Americans surrender to each other in a firefight. At the same time. No one got hurt by any following fire, and they just stared at each other until my follow-on forces came by to take the Germans prisoner and shame the Company HQ back into action. It seems that surrendering troops are not vulnerable to artillery, but stray tracked direct fire weapon rounds can intersect the soldier model, causing death.

There is no persistant damage in campaigns. So every structure destroyed in one battle would be resurrected for the next. Every shell hole and stripped tree. It's an immersion killer. So, if you want a Static Op(feels good just type that phrase) you may want to confine it to light infantry with no large artillery support... and forests/fields.

durr yes the aircobra.. my bad. Reisling and groggery do not mix.

The Americans DID come up with a fairly decent tank killer in the P-40 Tomahawk. Single 37mm in the prop hub, facilitated by the mid-engine design. Many design issues led to it being given to the Russians, who used it until the Sturmovich Il2 came along. The twin 37mm variant of the Stuka also had success in the tank killer role on the Eastern Front. Even better gun than the Ami 37mm. The issue with the 20mm used by Allied air forces in WW2 is that the version used was a low velocity, short barrel type. It was not the AA 20mm you may think of. The mass and recoil issues made the high velocity variant a non-starter for prop planes. Don't expect tank kills from aircraft. Celebrate if it happens. - http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675060186_B-25-Mitchell-bomber-planes_5th-Air-Force_7th-Air-Force_Japanese-targets_B-25-fire-canon Edit ... the above link, at around 1:38 shows what you would call REAL CAS(although these weren't used for cas). -

I was thinking more along the lines of delays for out of C2 units only. Once the red light goes on, 5+ seconds for every order, movement or otherwise(deploy weap etc).

Input? Anyone? Buehler? Buehler? ---

NO rules?!? Then we can act with respect towards each other and bring unicorns and flowers into the MBT. Challenge whoever we want. Keep this lax behaviour up, and you folk will have every carebear in the forum dipping their lily-white fingers into the cesspool. Imagine the horror.

To the OP. As RH stated above, uber mega variables could be affecting your outcome. Save all pre-calculation files, and run 'em again for testing purposes when something wonky this way comes. ------------- I was considering options as well, but one should also consider UI space and complexity. The UI is already daunting for a good many non-veterans. My choices would be ... INF, ARMR, BOTH - obvious. Then you go with either Strict - Holds hull position, ignores out of arc fire that is no danger(ie small arms against tank). Loose - Returns all out of arc fire, and rotates hull towards largest perceived threat. ---- With our LOS/LOF code, I think some hull rotations are taking things out of LOS/LOF jusssst long enough to blow the shot. Tank is buttoned and sees target. Rotates hull and loses target. Re-acquires, then process starts anew.

Tread, if you have the calculation turn before the uberpanzer movie, you may want to go back and do as Yankee suggests. See if it happens again and again. Go back one more turn and take the zooks off hide, if they were hiding. See if that alters things. I have done countless scenario author tests of zooks and schreks in many different conditions against all sorts of targets. Not for empirical testing, just making scenarios. I have seen some strange things, and what you describe is quite possible. But, there are many variables. Any AT asset that cannot find targets from at least 50% of max range may want to find a new place to hide. And DON'T use actual Hide. Hide is for when you have already seen the unit coming towards you, and you want the enemy to ride on by in ignorance for a turn. Coming off Hide takes time, you will not get insta-spotting. The boys stretch and yawn, and then look around, and then report up the chain. Covered arc speeds this up a bit for anything inside the arc. Hope some of this helps.

Bridges are the worst examples, but there are other areas where one needs to be careful of movement order point placement and selection. womble has it right... you have to watch when crossing any 'tough' terrain that is near any 'easy' terrain. A road can be a vortex of TacAI pathing. It can suck in all nearby paths and say, "let's take a stroll down this nice easy road... you don't want to crawl through those nasty bushes, or jump that hedge. Your master said hurry." Move, Hunt(and Slow for vehicles) keeps a lot of this to a minimum as well. If you are not in a hurry, the TacAI will act accordingly. Move through the obstacle, and then Quick once clear has helped me before. -

Oh what I wouldn't give for copy and paste from one map to another. We could make uber-mecha Voltron-like combinations of our favorites, as well as making design a lot easier in later stages. Yeah sburke, I tried to match the pics in the download as far as the trail is concerned. Maybe use light forest and three 'B' trees in the trail area instead of 'E' evergreens and heavy forest. I would keep in either hedge or bocage tiles with the small gates here and there. Popping them in in random places allows LOS breaks without making super dense forests. I throw a triple bush tile in forests every now and then instead of a tree tile as well. As far as scaling and battle maps- You have already put in some serious time. Maybe take what you have and chop that into a few QB maps, then make a series of 1-to-1 maps for the real campaign with the design knowledge gained. Either way I am playing it. -