c2yeung

That is exactly what happened. The point men died, the rest behind either scampered away or lay low. Then, I moved another group up to try to pinpoint and area fire, same result. I ended up mobilizing a few squads to the suspected locale from different directions. Sometimes, I did not even get a ? to area fire at let alone mortar fire. Thanks for your advice, I will try to be more patient and approach it very slowly.

I dread fighting in woods and forest, particularly up a slope. My squad got shot up pretty bad and after a few turns .I still cannot pinpoint where the shots come from as most of my guys were cowering. (They are regular troops. When I finally got a ? soldier icon, I tried to target that but no blue nor grey so I cannot put suppressive fire at it. I ordered my guys to "hunt" in that general direction and they refused to act on my order. So I ordered another squad to "run" towards the ? to draw fire to expose them and got mowed down. Finally, I had to order another squad or 2 to circle back to the ?'s rear and side to dislodge the enemy which turns out to be 2 soldiers. Mind you, I was lucky I killed them dead on the spot. In another instance, they ran back up the slope a little and play the hide-and -seek game again at my guy's expense. Have some of you encountered similar situation where the enemy seem to have a clear shot at you but you cannot fire back accurately because you cannot locate the enemy or have LOS/LOF at him? Is it safe to assume that if a soldier has LOS, he has LOF (He can see the target, so he can shoot at it)?

On the same subject, my PzIII has a blue line to a mutli-storey building directly in front with a few soldiers and fired at it. Only the top floor got hit, the bottom floor is intact. Maybe the gunner can only see the top floor and the slight rise between the ATV and the building in front blocks his LOS and/or LOF of the remaining floors.

I would like to see a Pacific War series which may include the fall of Singapore and the Philippines and all the island hopping which has never not been featured in any of CM previous games.

If AI based its surrendering decision on the morale, leadership, quality, strength, ammo and the like of its force, what is it comparing them to? AI doesn't know with any certainty the conditions of my force. Maybe mine is just as bad. Having said that, I have read some historical accounts in WWII that a few infantry men bluffed their way and succeeded in capturing enemy force many times their size. Perhaps, scenario designers have the answers. Aside from capturing objectives, enemy casualties and friendly conditions etc..What perimeters, if any, are used to determined victory condition or surrender the whole battle.

I have played a long MG scenarios, 1 hour+ long but don't remember which one. Allied Versus AI. Allied took control of 3.5 of 5 objectives. I looked at the map after AI surrendered (there is still a lot of time left) and saw a few HQ units, some remnants of a squad scattered plus a full company guarding the last objective which is still a way to get to. Considering the strength of my force, I am confident I can get the rest of the objective within the time remaining. It is not going to be a walk in the park but I just feel that AI has given up the fight too early. Does anyone know how AI determines when to throw in the towel?

I remember reading some statistics in history book that says the majority of the casualties in WWII is caused by artillery fire. Of all the hundreds of CM battles I have played so far, I cannot say I have won more than a handful solely on artillery. In fact, it is not as powerful as I expect it to be. I was playing the Polish in the Messina campaign. I have shelled the mountain top with concentrated 105' and 155 and anything and everything I could throw at it. It did the job of suppressing the enemies so that my troop could advance unharrassed for a while. A turn or 2 after the smoke cleared, the enemy managed to claw back out of cover holes to start harrassing my troop. While it is frustrating, I like the realism of it. For every enemy solder hiding in a crater, it cost me a few soldiers to flush out.

I waited for a Tiger to pass me and sneaked in right behind it and got off 2 shots at its rear at about 300 meters with no apparent effect. I watched with horror the Tiger 's slowly rotating backward toward me. I was hopeful that my next shot will at least unnerve the Tiger so I stayed put instead of retreating, big mistake of course. I never got that 3rd shot.

Martyr: I have installed Vin's updated text mod and it has fixed the problem. However, it needs some getting used to as the units's description is in symbol, not words. They look cool.

Thanks Martyr: I don't think I have installed Vin's older version, so it should not affect the unit information display. Do you know of any other mods that may affect that? Anyway, I will try to install Vin's updated version to see if it remedies the problem.

Thanks Fizou and Kane: If I understand you correctly, the proper procedure is to : 1. Download and save the mods files say on the desktop. 2. unzip(INSTALL) the mods into game directory, I believe USER DATA folder. The Z folder should be empty at that time. 3. After installation, copy and paste the zipped mods files to the Z folder.

I have Mods for Fortress Italy, but not for Gustav Line. I guess they are interchangeably used. How do I go about deleting the mods, I believe I have replaced the originals that come with the game with the mods when I unzipped them? Do you mean the Z folder?

I am playing Gustav line and have been noticing that the unit type is incorrect, both vehicles and soldiers. They simply don't match the unit I clicked. In fact, they seem to be from another game like SF. Sometimes, I saw the word IED, technician, and for art only or something like that. I have searched the forum and have not seen any thread about that. Am I the only one or did I do something wrong?

That is exactly my point. I hope the game engine is sophisticated enough to allow the AI to assess the battle situation and surroundings, communicate with other units and respond accordingly instead of playing static defense. The AI battle plans should be made more fluid both in attacking and defending. By the way, wouldn't it be sweet to have the brain power of the IBM Blue as the computer player? I think it gave the best Russian chess player a good run for his money.

Well said. I guess by design the defenders do have an advantage laying in wait for my guys to expose themselves. Wherever I could,I will from now on hose down a ?? enemy in buildings and wooded area. Another game breaker is the AI in some scenarios being too rigid. When defending, the perfectly rested units controlled by the computer tend to, unless provoked, stay in their assigned spot throughout the game. They don't really maneuver to counter attack or help their buddies who are in danger of being overrun by me. Knowing that they won't give me trouble and, I simply concentrate my force on my objective and bypass them altogether. I should try playing against a human.

It appears to me that even if there is only one lone enemy soldier left in an objective zone I am defending, The AAR says I failed even though I have more units left in that zone. To ensure a successful mission, I have to comb through every inch of the entire objective area to make sure there is no enemy force sneaking in. Which side wins if both the attacking force and the defending force have units occupying that contested objective at the end of the game? My experience tells me the AI has an advantage in fighting in forest/wooded area and house-to-house fighting. Maybe it is my bad tactics, I find it very difficult/frustrating to flush out enemies inside a building and/or forest/wooded area without suffering much heavier casualties than the enemies. I am sure some of you feel the same way losing 4-5 men to storm a building only to find out that there was only 1 or 2 soldiers in there. To add salt to injury, it was a lowly ammo bearer. This ratio of loss is unacceptable.