[Pbem]

I'll take you on, as long as the scenario doesn't involve more than a company or so of troops on the side I'm assigned.

You can email me the starting situation at cm1fan@me.com.

[Seriously Disappointed]

I have become very disappointed in CMBN.

I love this game but IMHO it is not nearly as good as CM1. ... More than anything it is disappointed expectations. I expected everything that was good in CM1 and lots of great additions. Instead there are some great new features and graphics, etc., but many, many missing features from the original series.

I, too, am a long time fan of CM1. Of the "missing features from" CM1, the one I miss most is automatic scenario generation for quick battles. When I and my email (or AI) opponent wished, CM1 would give us a new map with objectives and its selection of forces to work with or against (or a budget allowing me or us to tailor our forces).

The biggest frustration of CM2 is the micro management needed to make my WeGo forces do what I want them to do. What I want to do is give my units paths to take (or positions to occupy), facings, and conduct to follow as the turn plays out. By "conduct" I mean, for example, "fire to suppress" (mostly when attacking or counterattacking), "fire at what you can see", "fire at what you suspect is there", "fire primarily to defend yourself" (when scouting or adjusting artillery fire), "fire when an opposing unit reaches a position where it seems most vulnerable to the fire" (when ambushing). [However much it may annoy me when it happens, I don't object to CM2 "realism" causing men to fire early or not to fire at all or to change their positions or paths.]

Perhaps the simplest user interface for selecting this conduct would be a list of buttons such as "suppress", "self defense", "ambush soft", "ambush armor". There might be other useful choices for possible conducts, but these come to mind right now. [i'd call the choices "Force posture", but I don't want a lot of jokes about standing up straight.]