ridethe415

Playing Busting the Bocage. I have a ATG gun sitting in a trench. At some point it takes a mortar hit. One crew member dies. Next thing I know, the crew is 75M away from the gun. I click on the gun and both it and the crew are active, green circle. They're just not near each other. A few turns later, the gun has moved / teleported the 75M to where the crew was. And it fully functions. Downside is, the gun is not anywhere near where I need it to be. You can see the crew highlighted in the distance, on the left. And the gun seems to have the infantry icon. Gun still in trench with the KIA gun has joined the crew. Too weird.

Too many items to list. But it's the details I love. Recently played an early morning battle and as arty starts to fall into the town, I watched the light from the explosions reflect off the houses. From a distance it was pretty cool. Small things like that where I just sit back and watch.

Sweeping generalization...complexity and fun are subjective. My "fun" comes from trying to solve a complex equation: Move x men / vehicles over y terrain to accomplish z goal. That is why I play, I hate puzzles, crosswords, sudoku. I love the challenge of applying MY tactics and seeing the results. I don't mind the micro management, it's part of the challenge. I want complexity and CMBN provides it. At the end of a battle / campaign regardless of the outcome (I prefer winning) I had FUN seeing if my tactics worked.

+1. If modeling real life war in a computer game were so easy, then anybody could do it. I don't recall anything in the product description which claims to be able to reproduce real life situations. Look at the alternatives...Achtung Panzer Operation Star gets raves reviews, but to me, the way the little tiny men round around is laughable. Etc. I play the game cuz I like the sound of gunfire and explosions. When I was a kid, I had to make them myself...

Very nice work. This is what I enjoy about CMBN...even a small battle can be fun and challenging

Then my follow up question is how do you determine how each side's units are populated. I realize the TCS system will provide full step half step, etc, but how do you translate that data into 1st platoon, L Co has x men, etc?

Can you elaborate on your method? I imagine you are grouping files by division? I'd love an easy drag and drop method to change things. Thanks

In the same scenario I had a platoon HQ completely KIA, next battle; no platoon HQ.

I just checked the scenario. Even with only the radio operator, the C2 is still functioning. All platoons have a green dot.

Well I must be in the minority...I love Normandy and the Bulge, but think I am played out of Market Garden, maybe even the Bulge. (How many Bulge games have I had over the years? 3-4 in cardboard, at least as many with pixels.) The western front lasted less than a year...there's four years of eastern front battles to draw from. Finnish Front! Sebastapol! With CM2 or better I would love Barbarossa; Summers of 42 / 43 / 44, anytime. Give me the wide open steppes... I didn't find CMBN til late last year. I was still playing TalonSoft's Eastern Front...a game engine well past its prime. But those divisional level battles were awesome...

Learning how to use the "camera" should be your first goal. Then you can settle on the game mechanics. And finally, and probably a life long task, tactics.

Amazing amazing AAR. Well thought out. I also just downloaded and installed Mord's unit patches. This game is awesome! BTW, how long did this take to play by pbem?

That is what I am thinking, even though I doubt the radio operator has leadership training / skills. I was wondering though, the Operations Team, (whatever it is they do) survived, wouldn't they sort of be the replacement unit for the CO Team? Under battle situations, IRL, doesn't the chain of command / next in command take place immediately, ie.; the next highest ranking guy fills in for the KIA. An actual replacement can occur later, but as far as the leadership role, I would think that occurs ASAP, therefore rolling over into the next scenario...

That is an awesome article. So is the rest of the site. Thanks.

I am running v1.10. Just finished the 4th mission in Courage and Fortitude. My battlion CO was KIA. (Freak accident...sitting in his jeep 20 yards in front of a Sherman. Sherman gets knocked out and he gets KIA due to the blast or something...) Of the 3 member Battalion CO team, only the radio operator survives the scenario. In the next scenario, the Battalion CO team consists of only the radio operator. No replacement leader. Per the patch fix list: Does the above only apply to platoon / company level leaders?

Assumption noted. Battle of Waterloo is my assumption. Or Nam.

Due to real life constraints such as budgets / deadlines and overworked programmers no doubt.

+++++ I admire the effort it must have taken to put this together. As well as your detailed writing, very well done. I am looking forward to reading about the actual battle.

Playing Devils Descent, fourth scenario. I place one 57mm ATG behind some sandbags. As the German attack escalates, four of the team members are KIA by infantry fire. The last member of the team, a -2 private by the name of Zimmer, (327 Glider Infantry) does not abandon the gun. I write the gun off as a loss. About 12 minutes later, a Marder III comes into the gun's LOS. Zimmer decides he's tired of being a -2 Rattled Private, opens fire and KIA's the Marder. Best ATG action I've seen. Love this game. Zimmer survived the war and returned to Fresno, CA where he became a car salesman.

I don't have CW, but I did download the patch. I haven't had any problems with any aspect of the game at any time. I did upgrade my iMac to 12Gb of memory which makes larger battles run better.

How much memory are you running? I went form 4 to 12 Gb and the larger battles are easier to run.

I was watching a video about tanks in the Bulge when I see the above scene in the film. I thought this was a pretty well done series, or maybe it just helped pass the time during a slow work night.

I almost always play to the bitter end or the game decides for me. There have been a few times when my plan of action was so bad I just decided to take the loss and move on, this being in campaigns. I kind of know how well I am doing as I progress. If I am playing the Germans, then I adhere to the total war policy. Scary as that is...

I agree, how many commanders, at any level of command, were fired for a "lack of aggressive spirit"? Perhaps one way to work around this is to give a long time frame, but reward those who achieve goals earlier and increase the difficulty for those choose to move slower. (It would be great if one of the rewards was having your senior commander in the campaign get promoted...) One simple way would be to code time related actions. If the attacker does not reach touchzone X by Y time, then the defender receives Z units. This could be detailed in the briefing. So if you move quickly, you fight one battle, move slower, fight a different battle. Which IMHO seems realistic.

You mean there will be Daleks in the EF games!!!