Bulletpoint

I would never underestimate anyone short and scrawny. But I wonder if this account has ever been independently verified, or if we just have to trust the US army. All sides pumped out lots of propaganda during the war, and i don't think they ever stopped since..

The CM engine can do this too, as we see each time a shell makes a crater. I don't know why they don't use this feature to make trenches. You could have the landscape looking normal until the trench is spotted, then it could dig down the trench instantly. Realistic trench, plus Fog of War problems solved.

Let's not over-complicate this. A lot of things are hard to do, but get done anyway. Also by small independent game developers. Of course nobody expect a magic campaign generator that can produce quality campaigns like KG Peiper at the push of a button, but a basic map generator would not be that hard to code, and a simple system to assign types of missions, plonk down some deployment zones and objectives could definitely be done. It's all about scoping the project right. In the end, it depends more on priorities than on whether it's too hard to do. The reason we don't have a campaign generator right now is that Steve clearly thinks other stuff would be a better use of the time. Which is fine with me. But the idea of a random campaign generator is good. It's one of the things I would get excited about in a new release. Having pixeltroops speaking with Australian accent isn't - no offense to the Aussies

Wow, just wow. You are a patient and tolerant guy. Is that the guy who wrote those long rants on Gamesquad?

It's an interesting idea. I think it would basically mean a much more difficult game for the attacker. He would either advance too slowly, or he would have to be really clever about pre-programming long sets of elaborate move paths with pauses etc. A variable turn length setting would be nice. Manually having to start up the game, load the savegame, click the red button, then wait till dropbox uploads it, then wait for the opponent to do the same, etc five times in a row sounds pretty darn boring though

I always wondered if the whole story was either made up or hugely inflated for propaganda purposes.

That's because there is no AI I'm talking scenarios and PBEMs. Those are a challenge.

It's a really hard game, but don't be intimidated, and don't be afraid to fail. When you lose or do poorly, think critically about why and how you can fix your mistakes next time. Also, the biggest single advice I can give you is to never save and reload to correct your mistakes. If your most important tank gets blown up or gets stuck in the mud because you made a mistake, continue playing till the end and see how well you can do without it.

Yes, many times. It mostly seems to happen in forest. Around 20m I think. I think the game engine does not allow grenades/satchels to be thrown into buildings (even when adjacent), only out of them. They are not elite close combat troops, but they are very useful. Especially since if you breach into a floor, the demo charge stuns and even sometimes kills the enemies inside, often letting your engineers storm in and finish the job without taking casualties. You need to find a building with a side without windows though. They are also pretty good tank hunters in a pinch.

Yes, satchel charges are sometimes thrown against tanks and infantry. No, German grenade bundles are not specifically modelled. But they are implied, since infantry can close assault tanks. Justs regular hand grenades are seen thrown, but they are assumed to represent grenade bundles, molotov cocktails, etc.

One thing that helps me estimate LOS is using the zoom key (x) to zoom in a bit, around 5x. I find that makes it easier to "walk through" the landscape and judge LOS to/from various places.

That's because you can't actually get the camera down to eye level. I think it goes down to eye level of a standing man, but troops are usually kneeling or prone.

They escaped death by... dying?

Thanks for this level-headed comment.

I don't think so. In a recent game. I had 3 LMG42 teams firing at an enemy team completely exposed on golf-lawn grass at 200-300m. My LMG teams were prone, so should get good bipod stabilisation. They really struggled to hit anything. Bursts massively to the right and left of the target. By the way: I think it might be a good idea to do tests in the most recent version; 4.02. I have a slight hunch that things might have changed recently.

It was me who brought up tank MG accuracy, and I just want to say I actually don't know if they are too accurate. All I can say is that I notice them being more accurate than infantry MGs, so when debating relative power between tanks/infantry, that should be part of the discussion. I read somewhere on these boards that tanks only have one "accuracy value", which they use for both the cannon and for the MGs. I don't know if it's true. All I can say is that if I flank a hedgerow with a tank, it zaps infantry quite fast with its MG at 200m range, whereas LMGs take a long time to hit anything. Maybe that is realistic, I honestly don't know.

Well, it's Normandy But from what I gather from your posts, go with CMFB or CMFI. Or CMRT. There's very little difference between those games, apart from theater and available forces.

Try Otto Carius: Tigers in the Mud. I believe there's a part where he leaves his Tiger to recon on foot, then the Russians attack overrun his position, and it's only blind luck that he doesn't get shot. Haven't read the whole book, but I remember somebody posting that part of it on this forum years ago.

Obviously it slows down to an appropriate speed to navigate the difficult terrain (the foxholes) - just like in Combat Mission when a heavy tank has to go through a plank fence, it also slows to a crawl

Thanks, very interesting. Much of it reminds me of situations I've seen play out in Combat Mission. From the part where they manage to cross the road under fire, to especially the bit about the two-man "scout team" that was maybe sent out only to draw fire and make the enemy reveal themselves. Thanking my lucky stars I grew up in peacetime.

Yes, that's why I added:

I noticed I see a lot of "stair stepping" on maps. It's caused by the way the map editor models the terrain between two manually set elevation levels. If you don't put in a lot of control points, you tend to get jagged hills that offer a lot of dead ground in between. The observer "|" gets dead ground at "x": ___ \xx____ \__________|__ This is of course a terrain feature that is also found in real life. I just think it occurs much more often in this game, due to the way the terrain gets generated.

If we get a coronary, it's because we are getting old, not because it's a bad idea I don't think anybody said tanks are too accurate with their main gun. The question was about their machineguns. I don't think anybody said that either. We're discussing tanks killing AT-guns they haven't spotted and haven't got a clue are even there. I think most people here agree that it's one of the best things about Combat Mission that "borg spotting" was removed. It just still lingers a bit.

But which house is it coming from? What part of the forest? If the tank sees enough tracers to pinpoint the approximate location of the enemy, that is what the game represents by giving the tank a contact marker at that location. And then it would be perfectly fine to start area fire. The game already has such a cool system for keeping track of which units know what, and how that information is passed along and spreads through the chain of command. It would be really great if that system would be used more actively to restrict the player a bit. Then he would have to send a runner to the tank to tell it about the enemy - I actually did that in a recent game, and it was a really fun thing to do, too. Very immersive

The good news is that you can quite easily find a laptop that gives you a decent framerate. I think a GTX950M would do the trick just fine. Even low-end modern laptops graphics cards are massively more powerful now than back when the CM engine was developed. The bad news is that you probably won't find any laptop that gives you significantly better performance. There seem to be some bottlenecks in the game engine that holds it back. So don't go overboard. At least not if CM is the main game you want to play on the go. Also, CM can't really use multiple cores, so go for the CPU with the max clock speed - that will often be the one with the fewest cores.