Collingwood

I think we've discussed rapeseed here before. One of the prime differences between straight rapeseed oil and canola oil is that rapeseed is bad for humans. Canola was developed in Canada in the 70s primarily through selective breeding, specifically to have lower erucic acid than rapeseed and therefore be safe for human consumption. It is also lower in glucosinolates. I was always told by farmers that the name Canola comes out of: CANada Oil Low Acid We grow a lot of canola where I am.

Michael, I'm not in front of my mac right now, but the game files are stored inside the cmrt app, believe it or not. Find the app, then right click and select "show contents". Now this is the part I don't recall - start searching inside the different folders you will see (such as resources, contents etc) and you will come across things like the data folder, and saved games, scenarios etc.

Steam and Iron is very good for WWI and earlier. The graphics are nothing to write home about, in fact when playing you could be forgiven for thinking you're back in the windows 3.1 days, but it is a long way better than some of the prettier looking games out there. Comes with a good campaign mode update too. You can fight everything from small raider actions to the full Jutland battle. It has very decent AI and is well worth a look.

One way of thinking of the KIA numbers: so many times I read something like "gefreiter schmidt was wounded and evacuated however he later died of his wounds". I agree with other posters about the intensity of our pixel battles - our games are meat grinders. I'm reading the history of a unit on the eastern front at the moment, and if a company lost 2 killed and 7 wounded in a day they felt severely dealt with.

Spoiler alerts for those who haven't played Angriff. I can empathize with you, having played this one. I ended up losing the majority of my armor in this scenario due to "just one more" Soviet tank popping up - more than once. The problem I had was a platoon of assault guns/tank destroyers (can't remember the exact model). 3 of them got knocked out, with one survivor hunkered down amid the burning wrecks. I couldn't see him, but apparently he could see no less than 5 different tanks of mine throughout the game, knocking them out as I used same ideas as Peregrine's advice. I ended up taking him out with a Pz IV no less, sneaking it to the forward edge of a woodline, he managed to score a non penetration which may have shaken the enemy crew, then a few more hits with eventual penetration. The problem is to get a tank to a place where your target can be spotted, without being spotted first. You can execute a sound plan but luck plays a part. Get the camera down to ground level and start scouting for all the locations where your intended victim can be seen from. The trick is to time the arrival of tanks at these spots simultaneously so as to increase your chances. Peregrine's advice (above) is sound. Except I found I needed more than two tanks to get the job done - fortunes of war! ... and of course, without giving too much away, there are other Soviet assets on the field that complicate things. It's a great scenario.

In Jason Mark's latest book 'Into Oblivion' (pages 240-255) there is a good account of the fraught attempt to clear a copse of woods approx 400m x 800m which had earlier been 'swept' but ultimately bypassed during the advance through the Don bend on August 15-18th 1942. 1. and 2. Kompanie of 305. Pionier Bataillon was given the task of mopping up the Soviets occupying the woods. They had a very hard time of it, having to abandon an initial assault due to casualties and strong resistance that left 2. Kompanie leader shaken. "the situation was such that we all wanted to run away, but we didn't". Having mostly faced retreating or disorganised defences so far this forest clearing was these units' first real inkling that the Soviets weren't going to be a pushover. Among POWs eventually taken were Soviet officer cadets, taken out of school to defend the area. Playing CMRT enhances understanding of history - I found myself better able to visualize just how hard and ferocious the fighting would have been because of it.

You don't have to pay anything for user contributed scenarios/campaigns, made for all of us to enjoy - often made by the same people who paid for the game just as you did. There will be plenty of these to download as time goes by, just see the number of scenarios available for CMBN and CMFI. In the mean time you can also play quick battles. The point JonS is making is that you're not restricted to what's included in the game - you can roll your own, of course at the risk of people coming along and criticizing your efforts despite your best intentions. If you don't want to do that and if the precise design and outcomes of the included scenarios don't meet your expectations, I guess that's bad luck. I've already had more than my money's worth, but that's just me.

So, you gave him the quote finger? quote ?

Not sure if it has changed, but the limitation that strikes me most often is that although my FO can see for example the 2nd or 3rd floor of a building, he can't call mortar fire onto it - because he can't see the bottom floor. ("No LOS to target"). Similar with a forest I guess - why it is that fire can be called on the visible forward edge, but not called "30 meters south" (inwards) of that point is odd. It's not gamey to call for support fire from organic assets as happened countless times in real life. One can't afford to buy TRPs for every action square the enemy could be, nor afford to send FOs into the hot zone so they eyeball the doorstep of a building that is clearly visible for a hundred meters or more. This isn't criticism. I know and accept the answer to my question "why" - because of the way the game is coded. It is a limitation though, but I will be very happy if I'm mistaken and this is no longer the case.

Yep YD, there have been times when a scenario required me to advance across a map to take objectives, and the path of advance comes down to two choices (or a mixture of them) because the map has 'islands' of forest throughout. Infantry could at times skirt around the forest patches - and therefore can be within some scarily open lanes. This exposes my infantry to longer ranged fire, as well as any opposition infantry which may not always be deep inside the woods. Furthermore my men are now definitely spotted. Or, I can avoid that exposure by sending them through some woods. Of course as people have been discussing, that can turn into disaster too. Sometimes the 'unknown' of the wooded approach is preferable to the certain death of open firelines outside of the woods. I agree that bypassing wooded infantry is the way to go but it's not always feasible. I've not had any total disasters when striking defended forests - but I'm sure that's only good luck so I'm interested in how to approach the problem 'when it does happen'.

Every now and then I play a scenario where it becomes clear that the designer didn't guess that I would use a (stupid/ingenious) strategy which totally unhinges the AI. Because the designer is restricted (even with triggers) to anticipating what the human will do - it's a pre-planned script. Imagine if boxers had to face each other this way: at 15 seconds I will jab with my left and then uppercut with my right, 'cos he's probably gonna be right in front of my fist at that moment. Oops too bad he kicked me in the nuts, and as I bent over in agony he then kneed me in the face, now I can't see anything for the stars and blood in my eyes. Hey no-one told me this would be a cage fight! You're right about retreating armour, nothing much the designer can do to avoid that except not have orders to go away from the direction of your advance. The AI is a plan, and as they say "no plan survives contact with the enemy". I don't know about this particular campaign battle, but as you know many scenarios have alternate AI plans - perhaps you got unlucky and drew one that didn't play out as you would have preferred. I've also had the alternate experience where I end up not completing the scenario because for example the designer thought it would be cool to hide a heavy tank in an unapproachable position overlooking the map, so it could pick off every single (light) tank I have to advance through the shooting gallery. Yeah very clever, thanks. 'bye. As for briefings - "trust them and die". I do understand the designer is trying to create a realistic experience. For example I just played a certain scenario where the briefing was effectively "this should be a doddle, walk in there and smash them up. Take half a dozen objectives all over the map. Have fun" In fact, I was subjected to half an hour of prolonged death from the sky, ATGs everywhere, companies of infantry everywhere - well maybe platoons but you know how unseen infantry multiply - and more armour than you can shake a stick at. So I couldn't achieve anything with mechanised infantry* until my reinforcements (tanks) arrived, and even then it was a prolonged armour duel at range before I could safely advance softer units. Briefly I thought 'WTF' but then remembered to always expect the worst - this is the kind of nasty, unexpected surprise that would have been all too common in real life. Aside from which there's no point making a scenario where it actually is a walkover. It's when things get hairy that they get challenging and therefore fun. It's a hard balance to achieve and I salute the designers who pull it off. * as Steve pointed out in another thread, HTs are definitely too skittish. I had several inexplicably reverse out of planned moves despite no threat being present, and not having taken a hit, nor any enemy in sight. I had to dismount all infantry to get them anywhere - no big deal, the AI needs every bit of help it can get.

I'm glad someone else pointed this out. Those Soviet goats are tough, or at least they're grenade proof. This is why in CMRT there are no dead goats, only horses and cows.

Ore and metal? Spoiled rotten you were. In my day there was no ore, nor metal to eat ( ? ) We slashed our arteries, bled into buckets then smelted the iron from our very blood into swords.

Every Division should have a drug regiment.

edit - forget that, sounds like it's nothing to do with Iron, but key mapping bug as described below. Ted, it sounds like working as designed spotting restriction of your own units due to "iron" difficulty. From page 29 of the engine manual:

Well. If we are going to have Commisars enhancing Soviet morale, I want a new order: "Carefully target commisars"

I have tried Quicktime for video recording, but I couldn't get it to record the game audio. Can you? I ended up using Screenflow (expensive) instead.

His Stalingrad Trilogy (well the first two since the third is still on its way to me) is thoroughly enjoyable, best of his I have read so far. Thanks for the reminder, I will add the Balkans one to my list. Lucas, I too have thought that until other modules for CMRT come out, one could shoe-horn nearby time period battles in. Especially for infantry only fights you could still get a good approximation (weather permitting, obviously not in the middle of winter).

Macisle, my experience was pretty similar with IFL. And I couldn't stand the single player campaign - seemed I was being constantly yelled at and abused by Major Hochstetter. I saw some pretty decent youtube vids of huge multiplayer skirmishes using IFL, and another WW2 mod of ARMA2. The AI of ARMA2 is admitted by many to be its weak point.

Ah, I had some German air support as part of a scenario I am playing, and it dropped a similar payload. Quite impressive - haven't finished yet and not gotten to that part of the map so I'm not sure if it destroyed anything or simply scared the daylights out of everything nearby. Left a moon sized crater though.

Someone on this forum - I forget who, but thank you - suggested a re-think about squads and platoon usage when playing Soviets. Basically, if you're used to doing a job with e.g. a German squad, use a whole Soviet platoon for the same task. I've not had much experience yet with the Soviets and only against the AI however I'm finding that works pretty well. I keep platoons together pretty much and they do quite OK. I have not split a Soviet squad (yet).

Me too - last night I wondered what it was that must have been hitting a HT of mine because it kept on reversing for no reason. Nothing had been shooting at it though - except I had asked it to drive out from behind cover. I ended up getting the squad it carried to dismount - safely and without casualty they sauntered nonchalantly forward, calling back to the driver "Scaredycat!"

Interesting - I guess the crew bailed because of the initial front hull penetration, not because of the flamethrower? There seemed to be quite a delay from the hit to bailing, but no damage message displayed from the flame thrower. If any of the flamethrower made it into the vents I guess that would encourage the crew to leave

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall Otto Carius mentioning a commander switching from his disabled tank in 'Tigers in the Mud'.

Nah, he's just a stunt horse. He went on to have a nice career in Westerns.