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Fantastic battle. These AAR threads are more addicting than a good book, I just can't put it down (or perhaps take my eyes off it). This is my second AAR that I've read. The first is the battle you and GaJ are currently fighting. I'm only following GaJ on the new FI battle you guys have going (I only read your side of the battle for this ME). I like to only read the battle from one side so that it is more suspenseful; I know only what is posted from one person's perspective. I hope to see more of these and can't wait to see the rest of the other GL AAR. Thanks for the hours of entertainment.

Excellent posts and pictures GaJ. This is my first time reading an AAR (I never really knew what they were until now), but I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I spent at least an hour reading the whole thread while I should be studying for my final tomorrow, :/ I decided to read your AAR instead of Bil's so that I am kept in suspense as much as you. I must say the tactical situation is quite intriguing. There are a lot of question marks about Bil's position, but I bet there are even more question marks about your position from his perspective. Can't wait to see some more.

Love the character models and the clothing.

The morning May 9th at 10:24 EST. I will have my carcano cleaned and ready for battle. Just preordered the game.

Woah, never thought of medic units but they would be a ton of fun to move around trying to help your wounded. I imagine it would be fairly easy to implement them codewise, but would it be historically accurate to have a medic "unit" on its own on the scale of most CM battles? Would they be detachable or stuck with squads? I'm not sure how they were exactly used in WWII, but I'm sure someone else on here does (you guys surprise me time and time again with how much you know about seemingly everything).

I don't know if your issue is specific to your type of mac, but I have been running CM:FI on my mac with no problems.

Yeah, I am wondering the same.

I'm going with something nice.

I too am having this problem. It sounds like too much content for me to handle :eek:

no strategic map and no soldier by soldier breakdown. After the battle, you can review the map and click on squads or toggle through them with the +/- keys to see squad kills. I would very much like to see a soldier by soldier kill tally included in an after action report. That was one of my favorite parts of CC.

Historically, which Allied force would you say played the biggest role in Italy? I'm not very familiar with WWII Italy, but I do love the game

Very informative post. I couldn't what made TW and CM different into words like that. Urban combat in TW can be infuriating now that you remind me (getting my men stuck behind a wall or on a bridge, arggg). It makes me appreciate CM's graphics that much more when the level of AI needed for each man is taken into consideration.

It has to be compared to a game of a similar type for any fair argument to be made. I would compare it to the Total War series' land battles, and would say it holds its own against them. I would say TW has much less environmental detail, but excels in other areas. The number of units in TW is probably larger on average, but not by too much. I've always thought the game looked amazing for a 3d battle simulator.

I think they are plenty good. Better graphics requires better computer horsepower, which I do not want to worry about. I've never thought the game looked bad at all.

JonS - I never thought of using +/- after the game. Thanks for the tip. I wanted to know my mortar's total kills. lordhedgwich- Based on what JonS said and the campaign map, I'm guessing there are more missions depend on how you perform. I'm sure somebody else would be able to tell you more though.

I bought FI a couple weeks ago and finally completed my first campaign, not counting the advanced training campaign (which was a lot of fun). Of course I wanted to play as the Italians first! I prefer to play smaller scale battles more, but the amount of troops in this campaign was never too overwhelming. I played on veteran skill level since I don't consider myself great at the game or at military tactics in general. The first nighttime probe mission is much more my preferred engagement size. Just a handful of units to maneuver gives much greater control over each one. This mission gave me a first look at the very different types of maps to come. Open terrain with lots of elevation change and of course no bocage! Going from stone wall to stone wall trying to surprise the enemy was a lot of fun. I was able to take both OP buildings with few casualties. I also found the extreme difficulty of maintaining command and control links with no radios. Doable, but hard when your troops are constantly relocating. Major axis victory, and very fun. The second mission was my favorite. Tons of units to control, but since you must manage your troops so you don't run out before the end of the campaign, I kept about half in deep reserves and played with the rest. I put my light tanks and an FO up on the great hill overlooking the entire battlefield. They provided great firepower the entire match and had little AT resistance. The 4 "real" German tanks took the left flank and had little to fear in terms of AT. A platoon of infantry and their light hitting carcano's took the middle forest stone wall. The infantry provided little firepower as they had difficulty spotting enemies across the vast map without binoculars, a recurring problem. I had another platoon of infantry come down the overlook hill with the light tanks to take the first building objectives. They got slaughtered in a tactical error on my part. I learned from this to call artillery on all objectives before sending in the infantry. I used few brixia mortars since I did not know how close to the spotters they had to be for use in indirect fire roles. The enemy was quickly on the run and I rolled my tanks to take the other objectives. Major axis victory. The third mission was by far my least favorite. The briefing said primary objective was to bypass the enemy. That is just what I did. My plan was to use tanks to enter on the right field avoiding the road altogether. Unfortunately the tanks could not spot the AT guns and could not area fire any enemy positions even though they clearing had LOS on the very flat map. My plan was a blunder and my FO could not call artillery because he couldn't register the land targets for the same reason. I moved another HQ unit up to call smoke on the whole road to block the view of the field and I rushed all trucks and Italian tanks to the exit through the field in a very long process. I lost all but three trucks but a lot of infantry was able to make it, even though they were in poor shape. I killed few Americans. Minor Axis defeat. The final mission was very fun. I put some mortars and artillery in the hill behind the house overlooking the American entry. Because of targeting issues my artillery could not spot the enemy tanks but I bombed the enemies and kept the infantry from entering the woods on my left flank. My artillery was soon taken out as the tanks rolled up and without any reliable AT I began a slow retreat, leaving an assault team behind to slow the advancing tanks. Some of my infantry was left on the hill to give me information and keep the hill from enemy FOs. I soon realized my italian mobile artillery guns were no match for the Sherman's and retreated them to the exit, taking one loss and damaging one Sherman. My assault team destroyed a Sherman and fled to the exit. Ceasefire after sixty minutes to get a draw. Very fun mission. Trying to withdraw up their hills was intense as the troops got very tired trying to climb them. Overall I got a tactical victory in a greatly designed campaign Other than the difficult C2 problems, the Italians are fun with good mortars and machine guns and "interesting" tanks. I wonder though, do the missions change based n the outcome of the third battle while trying to exit your troops across the map? I do wish we could track our soldier kills like in the close combat series. Exiting the map gives no chance to view who got kills in a given match.

Wow, love the Lego Battle. Very well done.

No kidding, I was raised just up the river in Sistersville. I still often make my way down to Parkersburg even though I now live in Morgantown. I have been reading the forums for almost a year, but this is the first thread that has inspired me to post. Michael- yeah, I suppose "port" isn't the correct word. Perhaps I should have said "developed for Mac". I have noticed in my time here that Mac and PC releases tend to occur simultaneously for the CM games.

Great story, thanks for sharing. I am so glad Combat Mission series did not sell out to a bigger company that would either ruin it or forget about it. Could you imagine how it would turn out in the hands of EA :mad: I love the independent nature of this company, and who you cater to a smaller group who demand historical and technical realism. This is why I have and will continue support you all. I am a relatively new fan. I did not hear about this combat mission series until about last year, when I stumbled upon it in the Mac store. It was interesting to gain insight into why it is that Mac ports are made for your products. If you didn't make Mac ports, I don't know if I would have ever known of this game.