CCIP
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Posts posted by CCIP
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Thanks folks! TSD3 has been down today, it seems - as soon as it's back up, I'll hopefully be able to upload the map there.
And yes indeed - I checked the Google Maps too and it's interesting to see how it's changed but is still pretty recognizable. Peat bog is still there, too.
I actually started out by searching through interesting map data and imagery I could find - and playing with Google Earth to overlay various imagery layers. One was a map of Soviet fixed defences inside Moscow that were set up in late 1941 - it really got my imagination going, especially when I found matching Luftwaffe aerial photos... but I decided to try something smaller for my first try
Maybe I'll tackle this next when I get a bit of time.
But first - gotta figure out a good scenario setup for this. I might just start out with a QB template as those seem to be a little easier to make!
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Thanks for the kind words, folks! Glad you like it
5 hours ago, IanL said:Nicely looking map @CCIP. Have you considered posting it to the scenario depot? They have a section for maps.
Yep, I've just submitted a request to register at TSD3 - just waiting for it to get approved. Been using it for years myself!
2 hours ago, RepsolCBR said:I don't know if you are not aware of the LABELS option within the map editor of if you have chosen to not include any labels on this map...or perhaps have toggled them of ?
Hmm, I think it's the latter! I did add labels (village names and routes) as on the map I posted (I did the labels by hand since the red ones were hard to see in a forum post). I didn't realize the game saved my label state - if so, Alt+L should turn them right back on.
Thanks for pointing it out though, I'll have to make sure they're re-enabled when I put it on TSD! -
Greetings!
This is my first real attempt with the editor - which started out from this real-world Luftwaffe aerial shot I came across for the village of Golynki, west of Smolensk...
...which I stretched to fit more neatly into a CM-friendly grid, and came out with this map:
It is a 2000m x 1792m map, covering a few types of terrain: a peat bog in the northern half, a wooded area and the near-pristine village of Tregubovka to the southeast, and the larger village of Golynki to the soutwest, which has been largely demolished and abandoned under the German occupation. The map is divided in half by drainage ditch running north-south (both it and a secondary ditch on the northeast side are passable 'shallow ford' throughout), and has a major rail line running east-west in the bottom quarter of the map.
At the moment, I have no data on any actions that took place here - all I learned is that this area was recaptured by the Soviets in October 1943 (I originally thought it was part of the CMRT timeline in 1944, but it is not so).
It's a very detailed, handcrafted map - it may still need a bit of optimization as I went very heavy on the flavour objects (so the frame rate might drag down in certain areas, depending on your system). On the upside, it's very pretty in places
I'm trying to figure out what to do with it in terms of scenario - and since I have absolutely 0 experience with scenario building and AI programming at the moment, any help or advice would be appreciated! What would you like to see on this map?
At the moment, there is no AI and all the parameters, objectives, etc. are placeholders only. It's only really usable in the editor right now.
You may download my current WIP version of it here:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hA9cr80cdMmHkGK8mhhbNgZz_LAefsyH
...or in the forum attachment.
If you have anything that you'd like to create on this map yourself, or use it or any part of it for your own scenarios - you're very welcome to do so (with credit for map given).
Thanks for checking it out! -
Sounds good, and the work is very appreciated, Steve! It may not be much, but as I'd said elsewhere, there's at least one sale you'll have for CMFI+GL as soon as it's back up :-)
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20 hours ago, akd said:
This is a joke, right?
I think you missed the "perceived" part, and highlighted just one part as though that's the whole point of the sentence. Germans were absolutely motivated by both the real and perceived treatment of POWs and German civilians by Soviet troops. Some of it was based on actual fact. Some of it was happily picked up and amplified by Nazi propaganda. But in the last phases of war, there's no doubt that the German soldiers on all fronts were motivated by fear, then dread of the Soviet invasion of Germany - whether it was to fight harder on the Eastern front to protect their own country from what was expected to be a harsh Soviet revenge, or on the Western front/in Italy because hey, at least you're not on the Eastern front, right? Plus the continued illusion that somehow the Nazis could put themselves into a position of strength in the West, make a separate peace with the Allies, then convince them to fight against the "greater communist enemy" together.
Anyway, drifting way off topic here!
But yes - in terms of motivation, I think there's no doubt that despite the massive losses in the war, the Nazi state was able to keep the German military together both at a high level and low level, until very very late indeed. Italian morale was shaky to begin with, but by early 1943 it was ready to disintegrate. By the time Mussolini was removed from leadership, the Italian public and military had thoroughly understood that the Fascist regime was a farce. There was nothing left to be enthusiastic about or motivated by. Nor was there the level of hatred or fear of the actual enemy facing them that the Germans might've had. The Fascists themselves are partly responsible for that, since before the war they convinced themselves and the public that their Mediterranean empire would be tolerated and accepted by Britain and the US, because the Italians could always reach a deal with them somehow. So the Italian troops in the field and their commanders really just didn't have the motivation to fight too hard for any of this. I don't think that makes them in any way cowardly, just smart. But it's certainly not a mindset you go to war with, let alone a war as brutal as WWII.
As for Germany, for better or worse their narrative of "why we fight" stuck to the very end. There's little doubt that not many Germans (except for the hardcore Nazis) actually believed they were in any way "winning" the war even in 1943, let alone 44 or 45 - but they kept up convincing reasons for why fighting was better than not fighting. Ironically, one of the reasons for the difference was that the Italians believed (not unreasonably) that they would ultimately be "forgiven" by the Allies, while the Germans knew they would not be. Even for those in the German military opposed to Nazis, it was pretty clear that the Allies had not just overwhelming firepower but also an intense hatred for them, which I don't think the Italians (and indeed many other German allies) didn't see. So, the Germans didn't see any option except to fight, while the Italians saw fighting as maybe the 2nd worst of several options. -
Well, I'd even go a little farther and mention that as of late August, there was already an understanding reached that Italy would surrender the moment a full-scale invasion of the mainland went ahead, and they had indeed done so. Since Mussolini's overthrow, ending the war was the agenda for the Badoglio government, which had no illusions that the only way to do so was by surrendering. After Sicily, they weren't worried about the Allied invasion because that was a foregone conclusion, and were much more concerned about the inevitable German response. Though framed as an armistice, Italy's agreement with the Allies was effectively an unconditional surrender. And even before all that, perhaps since the collapse in North Africa and certainly once the Allies started strategic bombing of Italian cities, the leadership, even the Fascists (arguably including Mussolini) knew that they already lost the war against the Allies and were looking for a clean exit, with damage control being the order of the day. Same for the forces on the ground - though it's very hard making a clean exit or preventing collapse when you're in the middle of the whole mess and facing overwhelming Allied firepower, in person!
Anyway, we got a bit off topic
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Yep, looks like this is about as concrete as it got:
Which is okay by me, and rumours aside, I'm pretty sure there won't be a sudden module surprise - considering how drastic an action it is to pull a product key from sale for over a month, I think BFC is just busy dealing with the engine 4.0 issues, not just for CMFI but the other titles as well (which apparently only happen to a small number of players, but still). Hopefully it's sorted soon - me, I just want to buy and play the darn thing
I guess to an extent maintaining 5 "families" concurrently is tough, when realistically there's only enough manpower to focus on one project at a time. It would be easier to deal with the update issues like this if the entire thing was one program and everything else was just content modules, but I understand why the engine is separated like that - basically to specialize and optimize features in development, so that functions are plugged into each game "family" only when they're needed, and you don't have to worry about changing some of the code for UAVs in CMBS and somehow accidentally breaking Bazookas in CMFI as a result, etc.! Or, more basically, the separate families just help shorten the development cycle for each individual title, which is also kind of a big deal for a small-sized developer... But I guess the support gets tricky when you have to go back and plug the same updates into each individual program.
Anyway, the wait continues! -
Ahhh, I see, thanks for the explanation! I do remember now buying the 2.0 for CMBN upgrade when it came out together with the CMFI release, I didn't realize that the first CMFI release was numbered 1.0. They really should standardize the CMx2 version numbering
It gets confusing enough with the original release CMBN technically being a different engine version than CMSF was.
Anyway, I'll continue to twiddle my thumbs here and wait The irony is that I have the full CMFI download available on the file list for my account and can get the actual files on my system - but no way to buy a license key to unlock it at the moment...
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1 hour ago, Michael Emrys said:
I believe that the upgrade pack at the moment only brings FI up to v3 (if you already have a copy of FI-GL). When BFC has completed the necessary design changes on FI, a new upgrade will be released or unlocked, however BFC manages it. And the FI then being offered for sale will automatically be upgraded to v4.
Michael
Oh, I meant I got the $25 4.0 pack for all the CMx2 titles - I have other titles in the series that it applies to, and it does list FI as one of the titles. However BFC manage the upgrades (i.e. whether they have the 4.0 update cumulative, or whether I'd have to also get 3.0 separately), I'll be game! It's the actual FI/GL that I don't have, seeing that they're not currently on sale (and have not been since 4.0 went up for the other titles).
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Not to be that guy who nags, but I was just wondering if there's any ETA on when CMFI will go back up for sale?
I've been a CM player for 15 years, but since I wasn't too familiar with Italy as a theater this one sort of passed me by... but I got really interested in the theater since doing some reading about it over the holidays, and eagerly came here to get CMFI, only to discover that, well!
Anyway, if nothing else, just putting this out as a vote of confidence that you'll have a sale on CMFI and GL as soon as they're back up - I already have the 4.0 upgrade pack, too. -
That's not unique to the Garand - rifles in general are not going to hit anything very often, especially if it's in cover.
While this CMRT thread doesn't cover the Garand, you can see that rifles in general aren't going to be very accurate at range:Even in those test conditions, both the German and the Soviet 7.62 rifles averaged about 34 shots for 1 casualty at 120m distance. I don't expect the Garand would be much different (although it should fire quicker). It's also worth factoring troop experience into this, which isn't in the favour of American troops.
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I think it's decently effective, I see a lot of kills from HEAT weapons on infantry in houses in general, though it doesn't really have a "clearing" effect, just creates some casualties. I think the difference is that the game doesn't consider houses to be small enclosed spaces in the same way as bunkers, so a PIAT hit just creates a small-sized blast when it hits. But I do find it pretty effective against troops - I notice that it's more commonly fired on buildings when you give it a target/area target order as opposed to just letting troops fire them on their own.
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A couple of those screenshots are, yes! A couple are from another mission iirc.
And here is some wanton destruction:
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LOL,that's how I feel when it's game over!
On 4/27/2016 at 5:43 PM, Heinrich505 said:CCIP,
Nice composition and the action shot is really good.
Heinrich505
Thank you, much obliged
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I think the only thing you can really do with the bunkers is use smoke, distract them with constant fire from all along the line, and try to sneak in a few teams with bazookas on the far right flank to take them out from behind. I got that far - but didn't manage to muster enough men to beat other surviving troops around the bunkers.
Otherwise, I think I've made good progress these last few days. I still end up running into trouble after clearing the first enemy line and moving on to the second, but by now I can at least discount game mechanics and blame my own decisions... Thanks again for advice!
This is how I set up my moves where I expect there might be danger now - in this case, it worked very well, resulting in only a single casualty and my troops routing the enemy. Of course, the suppression and the troops I kept back as cover also helped!
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Again, lots of great advice which I put to action right away! I actually decided to try different approaches in the same scenario, and quick + pause on short legs vs. assault on longer legs seemed to produce much better results. I guess I'll try assault with short legs next and see if that works - though I guess splitting teams has more or less the same effect. It seemed like offsetting my legs in slight zig-zags relative to the enemy line of fire also helped throw off their aim. And I am definitely starting to see how the pauses are helpful at mitigating my spotting problems - it seems like a team that's paused for a few seconds has a better chance of detecting an enemy than one that's continuously walking slowly. So I'll keep at it! Had a really good run today, although it was with unusually high-quality troops.
And yeah, as far as the troop quality vs. casualties discussion, I am also a very conservative player - in fact I almost always preferred playing defense in CM, which is why this is a bit of a learning process for me. I think a lot of the "pushing despite unrealistic casualties" has to do with scenario design and very narrow goals for success. Good scenarios and especially good campaigns give reasons to avoid that all-or-nothing mindset when it comes to attacking. That's also kind of why I miss the old "operations" from CMx1, since those forced me to think ahead a little and not push past what my troops could realistically sustain. -
17 hours ago, [MyIS] Buffpuff said:
I agree with the move speed. I think the only time I use that command is bringing up the reserve forces to previously spots of cover (usually 200-300m behind my main force). 85 percent of the time it's quick movements between 50-200m with multiple 5 or 10 second pauses (except for the BAR squads/Platoon leader that I normally give a 15 sec pause unless speed is of essence). 5 percent fast dashes from cover to cover when going into known combat. 5 percent hunt for when I'm doing a move to contact phase. 4 percent for slow that's usually at the end of a quick move just to get into a nice covered position while trying not to draw attention to my units (again unless speed is of essence). And the 1 percent for the moving up the reserve or the important HQ's (regiment, company).
This ratio is actually about what I used to follow myself (even more true in CMSF, which I have had more experience in than CMBN etc.) - just that I've been finding it a bit ineffective lately, but I'll definitely have to look into using multiple legs, splitting into teams, and using pause orders to spoof enemy gunnery. I have to admit I'm still really wary of using "quick" now, because at least it feels like it comes with much heavier spotting penalties than it used to, and if I don't know where the enemy is and/or when they might fire, that usually means I first find out when half of a squad gets mowed down by an MG42 (or heck, even an MP40!). I've been taking it more slowly over my past few missions, and so far it's saved my some pain (or at least the shame of saving-reloading the game to get through a scenario!). -
Yep, that's what I was saying earlier in the other thread - one thing I'm noticing is that while actually pretty effective for moving and spotting, the animation for the "move" command is a bit silly since the soldiers are so relaxed. Does look a fair bit more like the current "hunt", though!
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Again, thanks for the advice all
Your experience is much appreciated!
And yes, the "Hell in the Hedgerows" mission was definitely a wake-up call for me, although I felt like I could've won it - if I knew what I was up against better from the start, used my artillery correctly, saved mortar ammunition, laid down smoke and dealt with bunkers better. I actually managed to edge a few men into the enemy rear on the far right side, but too few to be able to overpower the remaining infantry that was outside the bunkers (and their morale was too broken to fight properly by then). I ended up taking a tactical defeat with a ceasefire, but I thought it was at least doable.
My one main discovery tonight has been to keep my finger off the "i" button and use "move" for virtually all movements regardless of where I am, and actually it's paid off so far. I think I was often avoiding it because the "move" animation for infantry is a bit silly and relaxed-looking. The one big difference I'm starting to realize is the scale of the spotting/spotted penalty on troops that are running - probably also something that's been tweaked in patches. Running troops seem to be practically deaf and blind now, and unless the enemy is heavily suppressed (i.e. has been fired on in the past minute or less), they will always be fired on first.
You're very right about running while firing, Buffpuff - I meant more along the lines of walking/advancing while firing. I think the old CMx1 games had the "Advance" command which worked roughly like that and was my go-to for moving in the open. It was my impression that this was one of the tactics that ended up getting adopted against the Germans in the bocage, because they were trained to wait until the Americans stopped firing, started running, or ducked down in the open, at which point they would open up with everything they had. If the Americans didn't stop firing, they would stay in cover and would often end up getting overrun. That said, it might be more of a troop quality issue for me. I noticed that when playing scenarios with higher-quality troops like Airborne or Rangers, I had much better chances of overrunning German positions. -
One thing I wish I had the option to do was order my troops to fire while advancing - it seems a bit tricky to do since the infantry won't really do that consistently enough to suppress anything. So it seems like you have to really make sure you have solidly suppressed any possible positions before you move, and keep suppressing them while your assault troops move.
I haven't actually had a lot of trouble with approaching the first lines of defense - usually numbers end up being on my side, and I drive them out of the first line of hedge/trenches without too much trouble. It's after that when things usually start getting ugly for me, when I have to move my troops through that first line. Going slowly or going quickly, whether into the open or into close quarters with the enemy, it's usually at this point that something starts going wrong and my infantry get caught with their pants down somewhere in the open, while things like mortars, MGs, or other support is still lagging behind.
1 hour ago, [MyIS] Buffpuff said:Since you sound like you're rusty I'm interested to hear what you're struggling with on an infantry level. I've finally plunged into scenario making and have rough drafted a mini campaign based on infantry tactics as the basis for the campaign. I'm working on a scenario with a frontal attack using infantry only (no tanks, heavy weapons, artillery) but batting ideas around my head for what other infantry only tactics could use some "love".
Well, I think I'm rusty especially on the US infantry side - my previous run of playing CMBN was mainly as Germans in H2H combined arms scenarios, whereas lately I've been playing against AI as US, mainly infantry (e.g. I just finished the Road to Montebourg campaign not too long ago). Besides the stuff I mentioned, too, is of course the issue of troop quality. Even when you're not doing anything wrong as far as commands, it can be really hard to push up infantry into good firing/cover positions, because they will get pinned down or break easily, often in very bad positions. There were a whole bunch of scenarios where I would've/should've called a ceasefire, because there was just no way to move my troops far enough to support an advance. -
Thank you for the advice!
Yes, I was just doing some reading on infantry fighting in Normandy, and then it dawned on me that things I was finding frustrating in game were exactly what was frustrating actual Allied commanders in the field. For example, the fact that I had to either deal with troops running out in the open and getting cut down by machineguns, OR getting pinned down in the worst possible spot until mortars started falling - apparently that was exactly what kept happening with American troops, especially inexperienced ones, with German tactics deliberately playing on that tendency.
I guess the other side is that I noticed that some of the older scenarios were probably built and tested before MG effectiveness was beefed up, so I do bump into some real deathtraps every once in a while.
But I guess I need to learn a bit more patience, and find where I can get more smoke to cover my advances! -
Advancing through the hedgerows...
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I have been getting back into CMBN after a bit more than a year away - and in the process, discovering that either I've gotten very rusty, or the game balance has changed a bit. In truth it's probably a bit of both - I'd heard that MG effectiveness has increased a fair bit in the last few patches for example, and that certainly feels that way. Anything out of cover and without armor seems as good as dead now while advancing. That doesn't bode well for the Americans!
I noticed that my main problem lately is movement under fire/through areas where I am likely to take fire. From what I recall, I always used to go at "quick" to quickly clear dangerous stretches, but this simply doesn't work anymore - my troops get slaughtered. "Fast" never works except when running away (but not while trying to move forward or clear a dangerous area). "Hunt" prevents me from getting too many of my troops killed when I get contact, but isn't suitable to crossing dangerous areas. "Move" just switches to "quick" when under fire and seems to expose my troops even more. I've noticed somewhat better results with "Assault", but given how slow it is and how arbitrary the switches between move and cover are, it often results in half my squad ducking down exactly where they shouldn't. I also noticed that in some situations, "slow" makes for good stealth, but at the cost of virtually no speed and a lot of fatigue. And overall, I've noticed that speed seems to have an even more pronounced effect on spotting of troops - "quick" seems to alert the enemy very, very quickly. This hurts especially in areas where I don't know whether I might make contact with a hidden enemy or not.
So, anything you have in your SOP as far as moving through dangerous areas? Do you have any good combinations of movement/firing/spotting orders that prevent your troops from getting wiped out? Are there formations, spacing of units, or waypoint orders you prefer? Do you have suggestions on spotting in these situations, or any tips to get the most of the TacAI during those long turns? Any advice much appreciated! -
I know this particular book is pretty controversial among WWII historians - I'm certainly not one to speak of it, but there's plenty of feathers that were riled by it.
One thing that's not in doubt is that yeah, every side in the war did some very nasty things to the civilians. The use of artillery and air power in Normandy was not only indiscriminant, but deliberately targeted and destroyed a great number of civilian areas. Looting was pretty much constant. There were also widespread rumours of French women acting as snipers for the Germans, and although this was never demonstrated to be true, a number of women were summarily killed for it. French civilians found with weapons in combat areas were often treated not as likely resistance fighters (or just keeping a weapon to protect themselves), but as probable enemies. And the record as far as executions of POWs was also pretty horrid, among virtually every type of unit in Normandy.
At the same time, the casualty rates were devastating, many units came in lacking either experience or proper supply for some time, and leadership had a high turnover rate, with commanders under pressure for results above all else. And then of course the German side, which acted no better on average towards either civilians or GIs, and dramatically worse in case of the SS - where leadership was active in ordering reprisals against civilians, and committed atrocities systematically. And then there were the issues between French civilians themselves, including the very nasty mutual reprisals between Petainist, communist, Gaullist, and other sorts of camps within France.
So yeah, it was certainly a mess and there were lots of war crimes, but I don't think singling out the American GI is necessarily productive. All Allied troops, including the Free French, had their share in some very seedy business there.
Maybe I'll tackle this next when I get a bit of time. 
Golynki - 2x2 km, villages/marshes (map done/scenario WIP, v0.1)
in CM Red Thunder Maps and Mods
Posted
I like this train idea
And thanks for the good words, folks! Just playing around with possible scenario ideas for the moment - nothing concrete as yet, and a bit of a learning curve with the editor for me to go still.
Sorry about the delay with uploading to TSD3 - I seem to be having some issues with WordPress on my end, probably a browser thing, so I will get it up there as soon as I get the storted!