Heirloom_Tomato

In all my years playing CM games and talking about them with other players here on the forum and with friends at home, one of the subjects which comes up fairly often is the ability of the player to have a "God" like view of the battlefield. As the player, we have far more information available to us than a typical battlefield commander would ever hope to have. This thread will be all about several steps taken to reduce the amount of information you the player have and how that reduction of information plays out in a real battle against a human opponent. @RockinHarry has made several mods to the game and we are going to showcase them here. I hope he will read this first post only and then go away as I will be talking about my side of our battle here and we hopefully have many more turns still to play. RH's mods we will be using in this battle are: Invisible enemy floating icons, Invisible sky triangles, Invisible casualty cross, invisible enemy tracers and several animation changes to lower the stance of troops while performing certain tasks. We will however be playing with friendly icons on. Having played several battles with all icons off, it is no fun losing your men in thick cover and breaking fog of war just to find your men back. While I like the game to be hard, I still want it to be fun. For our battle we chose a medium meeting engagement between Armoured Infantry, RH as the Germans and me as the Canadians. The only rules we agreed to were: must take at least two companies of infantry and all vehicles chosen must have at least two rubber wheels. Single vehicles, specialist teams and any artillery could be used so long as it was available under the Armoured Infantry tab. I am just finished my lunch at work now, I will post more tonight!

Ha Ha look what I found! Check your dropbox folder shortly!

Your men should have a serious advantage in fire superiority once contact is made, hopefully this will help to counter the effects of poor LOS. The battle is just for fun and if the trees on takes away the fun factor, feel free to turn them off. I only suggest playing with them on so you can get a true understanding of what your men are actually seeing in battle. I would believe this is correct. AFAIK the only way to get Begleitsgrenadiere in game is through the armoured formations.

When you select the unit calling the in the fire, what colour is the dot in the artillery panel? If it is any colour other than green, it indicates a poor line of communication between the spotter and the artillery. The colours are light green, dark green, yellow, orange and red. Light green has the best communications and red the worst. Obviously, the worse the communications, the poorer the results you will see in game.

Hopefully we will see the inclusion of the Buffalo amphibious vehicle in the Commonwealth Bundle for CMFB since they were in integral part of the Battle of the Scheldt. If they make an appearance, it may be possible we would see the Schwimmwagen,for @kohlenklau, make its way into CMRT. All we need then is for someone with sweet modding skills to make one look like an assault boat.

Sorry for the delay in getting this battle posted, real life was interfering with game time. This battle is one for CMFB, yes @Bulletpoint I was thinking of you! It is meant to be played from the Axis side only vs the AI. It features an Axis platoon with some support against an unknown Allied force. Battle conditions are similar to the weather I was seeing out my window here in Southern Ontario while creating the scenario. It can be found from the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k5v42gds4y7e2so/AADyXv9MCabs64EVeJJFv0jua?dl=0 The previous week's battle had some issues with scoring for spotting objectives. The game only awards points to you if you spot ALL the members of a unit, seeing just the AT gun or MG is not enough. You need to see the third ammo bearer as well to receive the points. Well as one can guess, in this game, by the time you have spotted all the members of a unit, odds are they have either killed all your men or you have taken them out. This was not my intention for this battle. I am going to try to come up with a new scoring arrangement for Challenge battle #1 and will update this thread when I am done. Challenge Battle #2 follows a more traditional scoring method. You will be required to seize objectives, destroy the enemy and above all, keep your casualties low. I hope you enjoy the battle.

I just downloaded the file from the link so I had the same one you all did. Just to make sure there was nothing different on my machine than yours. When I loaded the file in the editor the parameters are still exactly as they should be. MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW HIGHLIGHT THE TEXT TO REVEAL: This scenario is set to score the three AT guns and two MG's as spot objectives. They are each worth 80 points for a total of 400 points, so I would assume you should have scored higher than half those points based on your statement of success. Would you happen to have a final screen picture of the breakdown of points on the targets section? You kept casualties to less than 15% so you scored the full 500 points available for success there. The remaining 100 points is awarded for causing greater than 15% casualties to the enemy. Again, based on your posted results, 11 K/WIA out of 39 or 28%, you should have scored the full 100 points. Something seems off to me. I would think you should have been awarded 600 points plus far greater than half the spotting points giving you a total of at least 900 out of 1000 points and more than enough for a major victory. The Enemy AI scores points based on self casualties below 50% of 500 points and a further 500 points for destroying your units. Since you kept your losses very low, they should have scored minimal points but since their loses of 28% were below the 50%, they claimed the full 500 points. What would you change about the described scoring or the briefing to better reflect the results you were expecting?

Based on your results, I would have expected a different outcome. I have sent you a PM to see what may have occurred.

I see your point, it is a flaw I overlooked while thinking of this idea. Thanks for your honest feedback.

There was some discussion about a daily challenge and it was suggested to try a weekend challenge instead. So here is the first weekend challenge battle. It is for CMBN, will require the Commonwealth module and the Vehicle pack. The battle is to be played as the Allies against the AI. This battle features a recon element scouting out a potential route for a major assault. It requires the player to be very conscious of their own casualties. It is 40 minutes in length and features a Canadian Recce Troop. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k5v42gds4y7e2so/AADyXv9MCabs64EVeJJFv0jua?dl=0 The goal will be for players to have 72 hours to post a screen shot of their results, so 9 pm EST Monday, Feb 4th is the deadline. For your results to count, the battle must be played WEGO and in Iron mode. If there is a active participation of these challenges, the player with the highest combined score at the end of February will receive a package of heirloom tomato seeds (subject to international agricultural export rules). Good Luck!

This system will indeed run the games and allow you to enjoy many hours of armchair generalship. I am sure there will be others who come along and offer up some suggestions on how to get the best out of your graphics setup.

You Sir have saved a bunch of time and hassles. Well done!

Pm sent.

These are EXACTLY what I have been looking for! I have been waiting for exams to end before asking my oldest to use her photoshop skills to do this same idea. Do you by chance have them the other nations/ WW2 titles?

Just uploaded them there now.

I will second the friendly icons only option request. It takes away so much information from you the player, yet changes nothing in how any units react in battle. In my opinion, icons off adds the much sought after command delays many seem to be after. With the option to have friendly icons only on, it will help the player not to lose his forces in deep woods or urban settings.

CM Sandbox. I would love to be able to have ALL the units, buildings, flavor objects, terrain tiles, bridges, you name it, available in one title. The possibilities for letting your imagination run wild would be awesome. Russians vs Italians in bocage country. Modern US and British forces vs modern German forces fight it out over the Nijmegen bridge. Realistically, I would like to see as much content as possible for the WW2 titles, from the invasion of Poland in '39 to the wonder/super weapons of '45.

My vote would be for CMFI+GL bundle as it will allow you to do Monte Cassino and winter battles. The only thing it is missing off your list is Russians. The upcoming Rome to Victory module will add the Free French troops and many others, extend the timeline of the game from July 43 to May 45, the longest timeline of any CM game. There are so many unique vehicles and units in CMFI, it is my favourite game in the series. I would wait to buy Red Thunder until the new module for it comes out. This bundle will give you the winter battles on the East Front you are after.

It sure did not take long for this thread to get way off track. Has anyone attempted to play the scenarios I posted? Any further feedback on the idea?

The main source of my farming activities is raising pigs to satisfy all your ham and bacon cravings. We also grow corn, soybeans and wheat to feed all those hungry pigs. My wife and I also grow a large garden every year to feed our brood of kids. All the extra produce we have gets sold at our local farmers market. If you have ever eaten an heirloom tomato you will know why we only grow them.

Best picture I could find of me on Google Images

I have a shotgun and he has heard all about my shooting skills. So far the rumors have been enough to keep him in line. And my mustache scares him so no need to jump to straight to the guns.

I don't make him play in iron mode or with trees fixed on. When I am trying to teach the game to someone new, we always start off the first battle in scenario author mode so they can see what is all happening and how the AI reacts to their forces. From there, I go to Iron mode so they get a very good idea of what C2 looks like and what their units are experiencing on the battlefield. That was the point of playing these battles in Iron mode for you as well, a gentle reminder of how C2 works in the game. When you have a very small number of units and they get out of contact with each other, they can become rather fragile quickly if under fire. Iron mode shows this better than any other mode of play as units out of contact disappear when you select one part of your force.

You are right, my post was not clear on specifics. I was thinking to start the daily battles on February 1st and posted these ones up as a teaser for what the battles could look like. I was hoping for feedback on the idea, the length and size of the battle, the scoring parameters and the timeframe given for players to complete the challenges. Given the first responses are already suggesting a week timeframe instead of daily, perhaps that is the route these should go. As for which battle to play first, it doesn't really matter. I posted them for feedback purposes only and to hopefully spark some interest in the community. My plan is to try to make battles using some of the lesser used units and vehicles. The CMBN battle I am working on features units included with the vehicle pack. If there is interest in the idea, I would post up a new battle on February 1st, it will be a CMBN battle, and players would have a week to post their results. A note about the battles posted already, the AI has multiple setup options for each battle. If you play through once and get a poor result, don't expect the enemy to be in the exact same location the next time.

My daughter has been playing a few battles with me from time to time and I think is starting to get the hang of how things work. Her boyfriend tried to play the CMBN demo against me over Christmas and very quickly got frustrated by the number of units he needed to figure out how to manoeuvre. To make the process a little easier, I built a couple of very small quick battles for them to try to fight the AI, with a very small force. I wanted to teach them how to properly fight with a small force, so hopefully a bigger one would be more manageable, a lesson I need to relearn all the time if you ask anyone of my PBEM opponents! This got me wondering if anyone here is interested in these battles, and if introducing them as a daily challenge would hold any appeal? I would post a new small scenario every day and you would have until I post the next scenario to add a screen shot of your results. Highest score with the lowest losses wins the day. My plan would be to create some battles for each of the 4 WW2 titles, one title for each week. Before getting too carried away with this idea, I have 3 battles for CMFI+GL ready to go. You can find them here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rcse7lwjhh7evk3/AAAaaP3xFpX856IasIER4Dzia?dl=0 The rules are quite simple: Play as the Allies, Trees turned on, and in Iron mode. Post a screenshot of your results. Please give them a try and let me know what you think of the idea.