dungeontiger

So Super Stuart and crew bought the farm. Before dying they hit that previous Stug twice more. Is it dead? Another Stug came out of no where in front of him and put him down, however. Watch the sad carnage in the video below. Also in the video you can see still artillery shells hitting the Achilles ridge. http://youtu.be/SBsK_y6dhvM I suppose that if I had been smart / clever I would have guessed that he would send something to hunt it. I could have reversed him and perhaps got away before he's Stug would be able to line up on it. Alas, the crew will have to enjoy their brew in another life, if you believe in that kind of thing. At least they will get a posthumous medal, for what that's worth. He sure likes moving mud on that ridge. A serious waste of artillery and quick battle points. In the image below you can see roughly where he is aiming at. I'm going to reverse the one Achilles left there in the hopes that I can get a bead on the Stug(s) way at the edge of the map. I can get a LOS there except the trees may conceal the actual unit. Let's see. I've also decided to move that troop of Churchills around the flank to met up with my recon units. It seems he's holding some stuff in reserve there...not only Stugs but also infantry as my recon found. If I can interdict that it will distract him from attacking the town. Plus it seems like again, he's going to hit the town with arillery so a full on assault is not likely to come for a while. Having a closer look at the town you can see where I think he is dropping more artillery. Its on the opposite side than his assault with infantry and Panthers. On that side, you can see where the scared Panther is, where the Stuart died and where my Churchill nailed an infantry or two running in the orchard like part of the objective. Remember another Panther escaped into the town. I've not seen it anywhere since and I don't like that. I need to find it so I can hunt it. Far on the other side of the map you can see what my 40mm armed armoured car did against a Stug. Like I said, I never learn. My guy did get a couple of penetrating hits on the Stug, but another 75mm half track showed up and got a couple penetrating hits on my guy. Surprisingly I'm not dead but only immobilized. Let's hope he took a Stug with him at least. Here's an image from another angle. You can see a Churchill that I'm sending up to maybe do a little more damage. Like I said, I never learn. I'll be a little more cautious with this guy but let's see what happens. There is another Churchill there but he's been immobilized since forever. The scout squad you see it is not w single lad with a Sten gun and 3 grenades. I'll try to keep him alive since I really need his eyes. - Gibson Out

Well if only all my tanks could be this good and lucky. Watch this video of the Stuart I got behind his Panthers and into his infantry. First he takes a hit to the wheels to no effect, then he avoids a ton of shoots (Shreks?) that hit the trees. Not only does he manage to shred a ton of infantry, he even gets a penetrating hit on a Stug through the trees. BTW, watch near 1:18:18 and you can see one of my armoured cars advancing. http://youtu.be/EeKxZTt8e1g If these guys survive, not only are they getting a medal, they are getting the finest British Ale I can get. But, alas, knowing me they won't survive. :-) I had an armoured car laying in wait on the other side of this infantry. I decided to send them up to join the fun. Sadly, I did not realize how close, like right on top, of his infantry I was sending it. Watch this video as it rolls up and ends up right on top of the infantry squad. Then, the infantry squad lobs a mega-ton of grenades. Ouch. In this case I almost wish they were not a veteran crew. If they weren't maybe they would have backed off when the took fire. Speaking of fire, it did not look to me like they fired that Bren enough. I wonder what happened. http://youtu.be/Micp_YyAz7Q Just ahead of the Stuart in this video you can see one of the Panthers that should have been defending the infantry. :-) One of my Churchills get a side penetrating hit on it and scares it off. Very encouraging. I wish it was immobilized, but it is still encouraging. During the video you can hear the Shreks which he is firing at my Stuart. And right at the end you can see that Stuart get a penetrating hit on his Stug. Also, just before the Panther takes the hit you can see another artillery shell landing near my Achilles on the ridge. http://youtu.be/USC-J-Uksns Not too much happened else where in the turn. Let's see what happens next! - Gibson Out.

Looks like Ian got a reasonable workaround from support. So we should get our game going again soon. Its starting to get interesting!

Thank you. Interesting. My opponent Ian encountered something like that with the original engine a while ago in a different game against me. One of his AT guns crew wandered about 100m away. I had thought that they claimed to have fixed that issue in 2.0 but perhaps they just made it worse. Thanks for the info.

I missed that one. What's the issue?

My opponent Ian has been trying to run different versions of the game side by side. Normally that's fine. This is necessary if you want to play with people who have the original unpatched game and with other people who have lastest version or patch of the game. This time apparently its caused him a problem and the older version thinks he does not have a license to play. He's logged a ticket but who knows how long it will take them to address it. If it looks like a big deal, I will consider upgraded to the latest version and continuing that way. I did not want to do that since I felt it was prudent to stay with what works for a game in progress. We'll see how it goes. -- Gibson Out.

Well this time something worked. I left my Achilles on the ridge where it had only a keyhole view on the objective. I was hoping that he would drive his Panthers through it and die. I was worried that they might speed through it too quickly but no I bagged one. Feels great. Was beginning to feel his Panthers would carry the game but maybe not. Have a look at this shot. There's a lot going on in this image. It shows the edge of the Town objective and 3, yes THREE Panthers coming in. The dead Churchill was there from a couple of turns ago. The Panther on the far right was lucky since an Achilles hit the tree in front of him. He's now out of LOS. I suppose its only far since he (or his buddy) also hit a tree shooting at the Achilles. My opponent, Ian, taught me early on....USE THE TREES! In the top left corner, you can see a Stuart. I zipped that along the flank unopposed and intercepted infantry behind the Panthers. I hoped the infantry would be unprotected in terms of armor and they seem to be. Fun times for all! I see no Shrek teams and I will stay back from the rifle squads to avoid a Faust to the face. I'm also moving up a recon car from the other flank to join the fun. There is a Stug there but it appears to be immobilized. I think I did that a number of turns ago. In the image above you see the Panther getting hit. You can also see that the third Panther on the left disappears into the Town. This is the first confirmed enemy actually in the Town. I have to go hunting. So now that the rain has stopped I am re-positioning units in the Town. I've moved in a troop of two Achilles that were on the far side back in. I've tried to give them both lots of cover and a narrowish target window in front. If he comes down the road (and he will have to in a big Panther) I will see and nail him. I've done the same thing with two Churchills. This is where infantry would help of course. If he gets units into the Town, and in particular, infantry units, I will need something to scout them out and nail them. If he leaves his Panther sitting quietly in the Town somewhere I may never find it. I can only hope that he moves to attack me (dangerous for me) but he will have to if he wants to push me off the objective, although, if he is smart (he is) he will wait for an infantry screen that I hope never makes it in. I guess I will have little choice but to be gamey and use AFV crews to scout the town. Ian and I have to agreed rules about AFV crews. I wonder if next game we agree that once they bail we never issue them orders again except to remount a vehicle if possible. That might take a way a little gameyness and be fairly easy to do. In this image you can see the Achilles on the ridge and the target Panthers. You can also see the recon car that I am sending in to join the infantry slaughter. Sadly, you can also see an artillery shell that I can only hope is a spotting round. I'm going to move off all the Achilles from that ridge to avoid getting rained on. Plus, I don't think he's going to go there any more anyway. I might leave one of the Achilles one more turn in case that Panther that is hiding behind a tree shows up again. In this last image you can see the part of the map that is starting to worry me more and more. All the badness that came out of the Gates of Mordor is not approaching that non-objective village. I don't really have anything to defend here. He's got at least one Panther, other armor and infantry. Clearly he's trying to attack the Railway objective from the flank. I had expected him to drive from the orchard to the left and then down on to the Railway objective but he has not done that. The Railway objective itself is heavily defended however, so I'm not too worried. I have a number of Churchills and about 4 Achilles in there. Maybe next turn I will flee from the village, let him approach the Railway objective and then attack from the rear with my units (Chruchills) that fled. In the orchard I am always tempted to go exploring. Last time I did I paid for it. I can't resist again. I have no contact on anything other than a mortar team and an AFV crew. I know a Stu42 is in there somewhere too but might be immobilized. I'm going to move up my previously retreated recon car and see what I can see. At a minimum I will nail that mortar team. Again this is where infantry would help. I don't regret my choices yet. I still think I'm doing well. The only change I would make is perhaps to add another company of mounted scout detachments. For the record, in reserve I still have the Battalion HQ group which is 3 Churchills and 2 Achilles. I'm not going to commit those until I need to. If I'm lucky I will break through at one point and be able to zip those units toward his Road Crossing objective. But that is for much later... -- Gibson Out

No more artillery falling. Does that mean he is going to attack the Town or should I rush back into position. I think I will wait before moving back in to see where he decides to move in. My recon has paid off as I see he is trying to sneak a Stug around the side. I have nothing to deal with it...time to reverse the White scout cars, but at least I know it is there. Time to position some Achilles and get ready for that Stug to come down the road. - Gibson out.

I figured that. That's why I asked. OK. So the story so far is: - we are screwed in terms of getting an operational layer - we are screwed in terms of getting any sort of API / SDK - you do listen and respond to the community - you will continue to make awesome tactical simulations - you will release a 1984 NATO / Soviet simulation before next Christmas (just kidding!) On the balance this is great. Out of what you have said you are working on, I am most looking forward to the Eastern Front related games. Thanks. Take care and have a great holiday! Stephen.

Yes to Belgian Beer!!! Then I have a question for you...this is a little more extreme, but let me ask anyway. Would it violate your terms of service if the community cracked your file format? If we understood the binary file format of your game files, it would be possible to do more or less what we were suggesting since we could write code to create the binary file. This would require a lot of reverse engineering on our part. That is of course a lot more risky and difficult, but would not involve you guys at all. Not saying I'm going to try that...its a bit beyond what I want to try, but I'm curious if doing this would upset you guys. Stephen.

Ian, I could not agree more. Adding small incremental changes that open things up would help tremendously. I could imagine a set like this: 1. Ability to launch a PBEM game turn from command line 2. Ability to create a new PBEM game from command line 3. Ability to supply a text file which indicates order of battle for both sides when starting a game 4. The game output an after action report in a well described format that listed each unit and what its final state was (ammo, casualties, morale, etc...) At the risk of being the type of customer that drives me nuts - the ones that say "It should be easy to add this small feature" - I'm going to at least say that these changes are isolated and do not impact the core engine in anyway so at least it should be a low risk change. Also, I would imagine that you would need many of these futures for unit testing and automated testing. Do you run automated tests before you release a version? If you give me any of these in order, I can wrap it with something else and do cool things. If, eventually, you give me all of these [simple] features, I can build a simple application in Java, JavaScript, Python or whatever and produce a polished operational layer for the game. I'd even go so far as to say I would put it up on github as an open source project to extend its reach to everyone. Again let me say that this is like a force multipler...Adding these features to the game would allow the community to bring a lot more fun to the game and likely a lot of new players. Anyway, Steve/CM Engineers, like I said, I don't want to sound like my customers. Adding features is always more complicated than you would expect at first. I just want to make sure you understand the scope of what we are talking about, that is, how limited, and how even with this limited scope we, the community, could do awesome things. Stephen.

Steve, Thanks for taking the time to respond [again]. I understand your point of view and am not in a position to say you are wrong. If you do nothing else than continue to improve this outstanding tactical simulation I will continue to buy every release and enjoy it. So keep up the good work. Maybe some day we'll see an operational layer... Speaking of new simulations, when are you going to release a version that simulations the balloon going up in the Fulda Gap '84? That would rock!...just like a million other situations and suggestions the community has...but this is a good problem to have. People love your product. Thanks again. Stephen. (remember....F-U-L-D-A G-A-P 1984....)

I tend to disagree. I'm a software engineer. I beat my head against the computer screen every day! Having said that... I don't think you can measure excitement in terms of number of dead or wounded. Its the game play that counts. If it was an exciting encounter of cat and mouse with lots of fog of war and different objectives instead of just killing people it might be fun. Having said that... Yes a 10 hour game would not be satisfactory. For something like that I would expect to see it split into 10 one hour 'games' or 5 two hour 'games' to have some sense of completion and moving on. Anyway, just my opinion of course. Many people will agree and disagree of course. I just think there would be a lot of value expanding what this game is about. I see it as an awesome core simulation engine that could fit nicely into a much larger system to provide an entirely different gaming experience.

+1 ! Look at the thread I have on my Epic battle. We had to use the scenario editor to create a 20,000 pt game. It was possible, but difficult.

Excellent response. Let me again commend you on the quality of this simulation (combat mission in general). I think it is fair its the best ever made. However, as you point out, it is not without its faults. I've often been frustrated by the gamey nature of some games - and am responsible for many of them since there are not consequences. I truly believe adding an operational layer to the game would address many of these issues. Before you say "we have no intention of doing that" hear me out. I'd propose something like this: Combat Mission itself would stay the same. Games could be played exactly as they are now. So players who enjoy this style of play can continue to do it. Remember, adding an operational layer will make 'games' much longer and to some less interesting. So an operation would have to be an extension. Which brings me to my central point. It would be a tremendous boast to Combat Mission and to the community if more effort was spend 'opening up' Combat Mission to a programmable interface. Many of us on this forum are seasoned software engineers chomping at the bit to extend the game and do new things. Adding an API to the game is like a force multiplier...the effort that the core development team would spend to provide an API would result in much more play ability and much more fun. It might even result in more players or revenue. Heck, I'd be totally happy to pay for an SDK licence to be able to extend the game. Now I know this topic has been brought up before and it seems that the CM team is reluctant to add anything that might affect the integrity of the game engine. I get that. You don't want me changing the rules of the game. That's fine, I can agree with that. But if you let me 'drive' the game from an API I can do a lot and still not affect how the game works. Consider this: If you provided an API that let me start games and set the forces for each side as well as 'see' the results from each game, my 'operational layer' could create the next game taking into account the loses and readiness of the forces from the last battle. This would give commanders an incentive to protect their units better. How many times I have I drove up German half tracks up the line to scout and harass knowing full well they will get smoked? If I do that in an operation, I will have nothing in the next battle to get my troops to the front. This opens up huge possibilities. I'd really like to know a) what the community thinks of this what Combat Mission's plans are in this regard c) what it would take to get it done - petition of people saying they'd pay $100 for SDK? :-) Stephen.

Artillery is still dropping madly on the town. Good thing I did not have tons of infantry holed up in there. They would be hurting! The image below shows some artillery exploses and shows what is going on around the Town objective. In the Stug vs. Chruchill, I take a hit but it does not leave a mark. I think however I nailed the Stug that fired the shot...or at least scared him off. I think another shot came out of that group with the Stug and hit one of my Achilles on overwatch. It hurt but did little damage (went right through?). You can also see elements of the Panther Attack in the upper right corner. The Panther Attack did not go well for me. Will it ever? He took out a Churchill. I ordered the remaining two to reverse and split up. Maybe I can engage the Panther from both sides. Also my Achilles has a tiny keyhole line of sight to this area. Maybe I will get a shot. Also, also, I have ordered a Stuart to go around and into the rear of this attack column. He should make it no problem. If there is any infantry or remaining Stugs he should have a good day. My lads did hit the Panther but of course it seems to have done nothing. I will be happy only disabling that mighty 88mm. I really need to find a way to engage from the side or the rear. Not much happened on the rest of the map. - Gibson Out.

More hits on a Stug near the Rail Crossing Objective. Still no assault from him. I'm tempted to send some recon in and see how many wrecks there are in that orchard but I got turned around last time. Not going to risk it again unless I go in force. Zooming out you can see here that he decided to rain small caliber mortars on my Churchill. It made an impressive display and that's about it. Had some awesome success with tank crews. That is, of course, a cheap move in my opinion, but I want to win! I had one of his squads throw grenades at another of his - directly over mine I think. They sure caused disruption and confusion. Go Limeys! You can see his grenade going off here. This is all taking place near the edge of the Town objective. Notice in this shot I took out another Stug. - Gibson Out.

Ha! I quoted wrong post. Was for the Holy Grain quote. :-)

Fetche La Vache!

Yes I agree. They rock. Plus I love the springy sound the make when fired!

LOL! I love your comments. They're great. It is interesting. I think I am doing well (so far) mostly because I screamed into the objectives and have kept him out SO FAR. If we end up fighting street-to-street I might miss boat loads of Tommies with Tommy Guns but time will tell I suppose. I just can't believe how well the Churchill has performed, how poorly the Stug has performed (I love Stugs when I play the Germans). My only real fears at this point are Shreks and Panthers. And all I need to do is flank the Panthers.... Thanks for watching. Stay tuned!

Op op op op OK, I have no idea why I said any of that but watch these awesome videos of me smoking tanks. Here's the set up. I'm playing against my arch-nemesis (ok, one of them) from CMx1. Its a small urban map and he's being unusually aggressive with his armor, sending them into my rear area to take out a number of MG-42s I set up in buildings. I decided to make him pay for moving tanks down a street with no infantry cover. Here's the first one. I sent two squads into the street. The first, closer to the tank were only armed with grenades. The second squad had a little bit more....Notice at the end how there are a 'few' bullets fired at the terrified bailing crew. http://youtu.be/IdIsXYX3wdc For this tank, I had a squad behind a wall. They could not see the tank but I know it was there pounding on a squad in a building at close range. Watch this one from two perspectives...I've never seen a squad surround a tank like that. It was awesome. http://youtu.be/18yj5WP3Xws http://youtu.be/ibenc_Jkw4o All I can say is for once it was not me in a world of hurt... - Gibson Out.

Not much worth imaging right now so just a quick report. He finally hit a Churchill with his artillery and it went up in smoke. I've adjusted more of my units to avoid the rain. He's moving some around too obviously getting ready to assault but no real contact to speak of. In the other part of the map, he did bombard two Churchills (one is immobilized) with small caliber mortars but that did nothing expect look funny. - Gibson Out

Well the artillery in the town is spooking me. I'm reversing my tanks out of what I think is the area of effect. Once shell made a hole right next to a Churchill. Thankfully it took no damage. Another shell immobilized a different Churchill. Will I regret moving them? I don't know. At the very edge of the town he has another force with Panthers moving up. He smoked a Stuart. I have a troop of Churchills there. I'm backing them up too. I cannot defeat Panthers head to head. I have to flank them. [his Panthers are going to carry the game I think]. In the middle of the map, near that open area I we have been fighting over for a while, the Panthers keep coming. They took out a Churchill. I'm reversing them into cover too. For the Railway objective, there is still no action. Holding the line there.

1:25 - Here comes the rain again.... So its raining on the town. Have a look. He might actually have two barrages going on here. The first set seemed like 4 tubes while this one seemed larger and just a single shell. In any case, I'm not too worried. Its a wide area and unlikely to hurt my Churchills. However, just to be safe, I will move the troop of 2 Achilles out of the town and toward my recon elements on the left. They don't seem to be in the area of effect but I want to be sure. More dueling in that open field area. I got a couple good hits on a Panther and may have disabled its gun. Let's hope. My Churchill kept pounding on that Stug I think I killed last turn. Many more hits and penetrations. The other one escaped and I can see a Panther coming in. I've ordered that Churchill to reverse into the cover of trees. Just going to hang tight for the rest. I still think I have the tactical advantage. - Gibson Out.