Warts 'n' all

One problem that you may find after this, is it that you will have very few men in the later missions. I only lost about half the infantry that you did, (mainly because I settled for a minor defeat when I got hammered around "Bill"), but even with fewer casualties in Mission 4 I still had far too few troops when it came to the Aalst mission further on in the campaign.

I concur with this totally. As I said in an earlier post. CM has always been, for me at least, about the "moment" of action for the men at the sharp end. I think digging in has to be treated in much same way as the game treats things such as:- Heavy Bombers, Preparatory Arty, The march up to the start line, Evacuation of the wounded to a Field Hospital etc. These things are taken as read, and therefore are outside of the games remit. I know that it is never fun when you reach an objective and your men get stonked by the enemies mortars. But, organised counter-attacks by the AI are pretty rare. Things of course, could be different in H2H depending upon your opponents victory points situation.

That kind of behaviour could possibly be replicated in the game at the campaign level as I said before. For example, if someone could string the four "In the Shadow of the Hill" battles into a campaign and somehow design it so that the British could begin missions 2, 3 and 4 in foxholes. Although for me I find it awkward enough getting my HMG's into decent LOF positions amongst the hedgerows as it is. I certainly wouldn't want them to sink 1 or 2 feet into the ground just because they'd remained in one spot for a certain length of time.

Jon, I certainly agree with you that it does always seem to be portrayed, whether in movies, or in books, in a negative fashion. And, also, to my mind having a drink mid-battle does also seem to get viewed differently depending upon the nation being referred to. U.S. troops have a "hot, strong coffee" and get straight back into the fight. Whilst the Limey's "stop for tea" in some terribly English fashion. Almost as if they were laying out scones and cream. It would have been a world apart from how the average "Tommy" had his tea. I just think in the example that I cited at Villers-Bocage, they stopped in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy just happening to turn up.

Thanks for sharing that with us. Those Churchills took some punishment.

A lot of fun to watch. Very bloody. It looked the Germans were positioned further back than I remember when I tackled that mission. As I'm currently working my way through the single battles chronologically, it will be quite a while before I start playing the Campaigns again. I'll have to save your video on youtube and give it another look when I go a'campaigning again. I'd still be tempted to re-jig things to reflect what the German commander on the ground, Major Kerutt said about not being able to position his guns where he wanted to. Although whether my computer skills are up to it is very much in doubt. And I'd probably still get my arse kicked by the A.I.. Haha.

Don't worry I would never confuse Hollywood's A Bridge Too Far with history. That is why I cited the example of the British stopping for tea on the road out of Villers-Bocage. Just before Wittmann gave them a hand with their "Brewing up".

I certainly agree with postfux123 about being able to merge squads. When you are down to 3 or 4 men having them still split into 3 teams is a real pain. It would be especially helpful in campaigns when squads are badly depleted. It could either done "manually" via a "Merge" command in much the same as we split teams. Although that would take a redesign of the UI. Failing that it could be performed by the AI automatically between missions at Squad, Platoon and Company level. I suppose the other option is for me to get better at the game, so that I don't lose so many PBI.

I agree that there are plenty of references in books about Normandy to British troops "digging-in" fairly quickly. But, there are also loads of references to them "stopping for tea", most notably, just up the road from Villiers-Bocage. So perhaps we ought to be careful about what we wish for. Yes, the Germans were very adept at counter-attacking quickly. But CM has always been about the "battle" going on at the moment, whether it be 15, 30, 45 minutes, or a couple of hours. So any counter-attack would be in another battle. I think that we have to take it as read that troops "dig-in" after they have reached the objectives set in a particular battle. Of course, if at some time in the future BFC reintroduce the original style of "Operations" then the ability to prepare field fortifications during each and every set-up phase would make sense.

I would like to have all the equipment that was available in Beyond Overlord, and I think most of it has already been mentioned in this thread. But, what I'd like most are the old style "Operations" that can be played as Axis or Allies geared up to the new game engine. I loved those.

Although I feel your pain. Lots of aspects do have to be taken into account. How long will it take to dig slit trenches... How deep will they be... How much protection will they give.... How many AS do they take up... How do they affect LOS/LOF.... How long will the unit digging take to react to approaching enemy vehicles or infantry. I'm sure it could be made to work. But, I suspect it might be v.5... 6.... or 7 before we see it, if at all. In the meantime hit that "Hide" command and pray.

You are probably right. But I don't see how it could be managed without a total redesign of the game. It would need a "dig in" command on the UI and some way to edit the map in-game. I suppose it would have to work in much the same way as building destruction does at present.

I think I might have to try targeting in front, it can't work any worse than my current method i.e. yelling at my screen.. "You blind bastards, surely you can see that!"

Peter, if you do get around to doing the voice-over for Mission 3 I'd certainly like to see it. In my opinion, I think that the designer was a bit kind to the Germans. Although that could be sour grapes on my part given how tough I found it.

I think that is actually the 2nd mission from the Third US campaign "Courage and Fortitude". The mission called School of Hard Knocks? If so, then I got my arse/ass (delete as applicable) kicked playing that one. I wouldn't mind knowing how to get through it too. I've seen a clip from this on youtube but, I haven't found an AAR of the whole mission.

Are you ever going to post a video of Mission 3 from the Nijmegen Campaign? I'd like to see how you handle it.

Zenith... Another thing that you might like to keep in mind. All the threads that have ever been posted about the game are still available to view, so any problems that you have either technical, or tactical, should have been discussed on here previously. Also, if you play in turn-based mode. Use the replay facility as often as you like. If you are taking casualties, and can't work out why at first viewing, just watch it again and again, changing the camera's elevation or rotation, and you should find the answer.

Ah, the cowering gunner. I've had quite a few of them in my ranks too. Haha.

Great comment Peter. At least you make entertaining and informative videos.

I agree that it can be very annoying when you have LOS only to find out that you don't have LOF. I'm losing count of the amount of times I've turned the air blue screaming at an MG team for not opening fire. I'll have to try keeping Womble's explanation in the back of my head. Also, I agree that it did seem to be less of a problem in the original game. I suppose it is just something we will have to work around for the time being.

Zenith As well as the Armchair General videos, which are very informative. There are also, plenty of what you could call "home-made" Combat Mission videos on youtube. A number of which feature the very first tutorial mission. A good place to start.

Haha... Being from Limeyland I don't know anything about New Zealand beers. Are there any worth drinking?

I don't see how my original comment was in any way "attempting to advocate a change in the game". I quite clearly used the words "can't be replicated in the game". NOT "I want to see it replicated in the game". Perhaps being from Venus you have trouble understanding English. To be honest I do think that this matter should be closed for the benefit of other forum members as I suggested in my last posting.

No one is at "citation needed". This isn't a court of law. People are free to make up their own minds about my comment about the reuse of captured weaponry. And, the enemies likely reaction to it. As I said it was an old memory, which I may, or may not have mis-remembered. My copy of "Overlord" is dog-eared, and the pages are brown and crinkled. You either have a photographic memory or an electronic version of it. If I didn't read it there then I read somewhere else a LONG time ago. As for a picture being "posed" and therefore being untrue. Recreations were posed for the camera, it doesn't prevent what was being recreated from having actually happened. "Stalingrad" "Torgau" etc etc Also, what you call a "very strong assertion", is known where I come from, as an "off the cuff remark made after an evening on the ale". I'd leave it at that.