Centurian52

You may insist on that rule for your own opponents. I, and I expect many others, will never abide by it. 

And you've ended up playing me 😂.  I am reasonably flexible.
On a serious note I think playing other humans is the best way to be challenged.  You may or may not find that with me, but you surely will with others.

One of the reasons I started following CM back in 1999 was I was tired of the rules lawyers in ASL.  This just seems like the same thing, with extra steps.

I think I've mentioned before that I strongly disagree with this one. You can't implement realistic tactics without area fire. Without area target you can't maintain suppression on enemy positions when the enemy takes cover and your own troops lose the spot, you can't conduct recon by fire, you can't use speculative fire on suspected enemy positions, and you can't use fire to deny an area that you think the enemy might want to go. Fire is a tool with a lot of uses. Only one of those uses is aimed destructive fire against clearly identified enemy units. If you disallow realistic tactics then what's even the point of playing the game?

Most of these just seem to be handicaps for the sake of handicaps, with no regard to realism.
1. I agree with no turn 1 arty into a setup zone in meeting engagements, but I disagree with no turn 1 arty at all.
2. I've already expressed my opinion on this one, and it is not favorable.
3. WHY?!?!?
4. ?????????? Why would you disallow a perfectly sensible tactic?????? If you find yourself in a situation where manually using vehicle smoke would make sense, then why wouldn't you use it (especially if you play the Soviets in CMCW, in which the vehicle smoke is not intended for quick getaways like NATO vehicle smoke, but to lay down screens to maneuver behind)? Are we going to just start disallowing any tactic that might have a chance of working until we are left with nothing but unsupported frontal assaults?
5. I do this sometimes when reviewing the action just for the spectacle. But it makes no sense to insist on it as a rule for your opponent. How would you even enforce it? It's impossible to know what visual aids your opponent has on or off.
6. Again, I've installed the no tracer mod on all of my CM games just because I think it improves the visual realism. But it makes absolutely no sense to insist on this as a rule. And again, how would you enforce it? It's impossible to know what mods your opponent has installed.
7. You do know that as a Combat Mission player you are in the shoes of every officer and NCO on the battlefield, not just the overall commander, right? The overall commander may not be able to see all of his units. But each of his units can see themselves. In real life if the overall commander forgets that one of his units exists (which seems rather unlikely (the commander may not have up to date info on where his subordinates are or what they are doing, but it seems doubtful that he'll forget that they exist), but that's the possibility you are modeling by turning icons off) and fails to give it any orders, that unit will still by capable of making its own decisions. If you forget that one of your units in Combat Mission exists, it will just sit there doing nothing. Again, I turn off icons sometimes when reviewing the action for the spectacle, but it makes no sense to insist on this as a rule. And again, how could you ever know if your opponent is abiding by this rule?
8. This only matters for quick battles, which I don't play (in scenarios the experience of your troops is whatever the scenario designer decided it should be). But as I understand it part of the game in quick battles is to decide on the tradeoff between troop quality vs troop cost. Why eliminate that element of the game?

Most of these just seem to be handicaps for the sake of handicaps, with no regard to realism.
1. I agree with no turn 1 arty into a setup zone in meeting engagements, but I disagree with no turn 1 arty at all.
2. I've already expressed my opinion on this one, and it is not favorable.
3. WHY?!?!?
4. ?????????? Why would you disallow a perfectly sensible tactic?????? If you find yourself in a situation where manually using vehicle smoke would make sense, then why wouldn't you use it (especially if you play the Soviets in CMCW, in which the vehicle smoke is not intended for quick getaways like NATO vehicle smoke, but to lay down screens to maneuver behind)? Are we going to just start disallowing any tactic that might have a chance of working until we are left with nothing but unsupported frontal assaults?
5. I do this sometimes when reviewing the action just for the spectacle. But it makes no sense to insist on it as a rule for your opponent. How would you even enforce it? It's impossible to know what visual aids your opponent has on or off.
6. Again, I've installed the no tracer mod on all of my CM games just because I think it improves the visual realism. But it makes absolutely no sense to insist on this as a rule. And again, how would you enforce it? It's impossible to know what mods your opponent has installed.
7. You do know that as a Combat Mission player you are in the shoes of every officer and NCO on the battlefield, not just the overall commander, right? The overall commander may not be able to see all of his units. But each of his units can see themselves. In real life if the overall commander forgets that one of his units exists (which seems rather unlikely (the commander may not have up to date info on where his subordinates are or what they are doing, but it seems doubtful that he'll forget that they exist), but that's the possibility you are modeling by turning icons off) and fails to give it any orders, that unit will still by capable of making its own decisions. If you forget that one of your units in Combat Mission exists, it will just sit there doing nothing. Again, I turn off icons sometimes when reviewing the action for the spectacle, but it makes no sense to insist on this as a rule. And again, how could you ever know if your opponent is abiding by this rule?
8. This only matters for quick battles, which I don't play (in scenarios the experience of your troops is whatever the scenario designer decided it should be). But as I understand it part of the game in quick battles is to decide on the tradeoff between troop quality vs troop cost. Why eliminate that element of the game?

You may insist on that rule for your own opponents. I, and I expect many others, will never abide by it. 

So I think the obvious conclusion at this point is that the rules are whatever you and your opponent agree to beforehand. I don't think it's possible, or even desirable, to have universal community-wide rules for H2H play.

And the less home rules, the less risk of cheating - even unwillingly: "oops, I think I think I just broke rule #12.5..." 🥴

So I think the obvious conclusion at this point is that the rules are whatever you and your opponent agree to beforehand. I don't think it's possible, or even desirable, to have universal community-wide rules for H2H play.

So I think the obvious conclusion at this point is that the rules are whatever you and your opponent agree to beforehand. I don't think it's possible, or even desirable, to have universal community-wide rules for H2H play.

You may insist on that rule for your own opponents. I, and I expect many others, will never abide by it. 

You may insist on that rule for your own opponents. I, and I expect many others, will never abide by it. 

I feel bad that you did that because I would have understood fire outside my setup zones. I appreciate your consideration though. Thanks.

If you like James Holland (I do!) try the WW2 podcast series he co-hosts with Al Murray, "We have ways of making you talk" - they've recently completed an 8-part series called "Cassino'44":
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ww2-pod-we-have-ways-of-making-you-talk/id1457552694
Also available from other podcast aggregators.  Enjoy
 

It's not perfect. But you are overstating the problem (you can only issue orders once a minute in H2H play, and units still need to have a line of fire in order to use the target command), and ever worse problems would be created if you removed it.
To give an example of how much worse it would be without the 'target' command, in one of my battles in which I'm defending hedgerow country I sprung a couple of nasty ambushes against my opponent. I had my pixeltruppen hiding with short target arcs until his scouts were nearly at my end of the field, and then opened fire. Afterwards I repositioned my teams (which I think must have looked like I was abandoning the hedgerow to him), had them resume hiding with short target arcs, and I was able to repeat the ambush on the next group of soldiers to cross. If there was no area target command I would be able to repeat this tactic again and again with complete impunity. There would be absolutely nothing my opponent could do about it. You can't possibly tell me that that would be more realistic than my opponent firing into my hedgerows with everything he's got, spots or no spots (which he has very wisely, and very realistically, started to do)?

If your vehicle sees gunfire coming from a bush, you should be able to shoot at it even if you can't see the gun itself. To assume that vehicles should just stand still and get shot without response is kind of ridiculous. 

Totally agree with Centurian.  (One cannot see a dam thing especially WW2 night actions.)  It is a very normal RL tactic to hose down suspected enemy positions to allow friendlies to advance.
Am also unsure about the "no preplnned fire in Meeting Engagements".  If you know what your enemy is heading for why not bombard?  Also if you know what you are heading for, why not bombard?  
As mentioned earlier, most designers now solve much of this preplanned issue by having arty arrive as a reinforcement

Well, I have to disagree with this and @Artkin. What you describe is *exactly* what I'd do in real life. 
But, hey, make any rules you want in agreement with your opponent.
Taking away that capability, to me, would remove a perfectly valid tactic. I'd do that even without the TOW firing from the woods. Ooh, look, treeline ahead. Blast it with whatever we've got to keep their heads down, while I have maneuver elements close in. Is it really that much different than putting a smoke screen in front of the treeline even if you haven't spotted anything? Pretty much accomplishes the same thing.

Dave

Yep, the same goes for „suspicious“ buildings, dwellings, forests or hedgerows etc.
I usually only rule out first turn fire on „the small set-up square at the end of the map“.

Ehhh, area fire at obvious superb places to put infantry is ok in my book. 
If you put an FO in that church tower that provides great observation to the entire match, don't get upset when I blast the snot out of it as soon as I have a LOS. 
H

I think I've mentioned before that I strongly disagree with this one. You can't implement realistic tactics without area fire. Without area target you can't maintain suppression on enemy positions when the enemy takes cover and your own troops lose the spot, you can't conduct recon by fire, you can't use speculative fire on suspected enemy positions, and you can't use fire to deny an area that you think the enemy might want to go. Fire is a tool with a lot of uses. Only one of those uses is aimed destructive fire against clearly identified enemy units. If you disallow realistic tactics then what's even the point of playing the game?

Hmm, maybe. Especially if you've never played any of the modern or near-modern CM games before, and even more so if this is the era he's specifically trained for. I definitely felt some differences going from modern back to WW2, but I'm told the shock of going from WW2 to modern is much greater.
I'm guessing you're playing as the Soviets (presumably what Dave is "trained for" is fighting as the US)? You'll definitely want to watch out for the American artillery if that's the case. It's much more accurate and comes in much faster than WW2 artillery. And whichever side you're playing as, "effective ranges" are less of a concern than in WW2. Generally speaking if you can see it you can shoot it. That's definitely true of the fully modern titles, in which 1 shot 1 hit is almost a guarantee. In the Cold War you might encounter some distances in which your tanks might have a less than 50/50 chance of a first round hit. But you certainly won't encounter any distances in which the chance of a first round hit isn't dangerously high if you're on the receiving end (certainly won't get as low as a 10% chance of a first round hit).

Thanks for the advice 👍.  I fully expect my good friend Dave to kick some, but I'll give it a go.  You never try, you never learn 😉.

Hmm, maybe. Especially if you've never played any of the modern or near-modern CM games before, and even more so if this is the era he's specifically trained for. I definitely felt some differences going from modern back to WW2, but I'm told the shock of going from WW2 to modern is much greater.
I'm guessing you're playing as the Soviets (presumably what Dave is "trained for" is fighting as the US)? You'll definitely want to watch out for the American artillery if that's the case. It's much more accurate and comes in much faster than WW2 artillery. And whichever side you're playing as, "effective ranges" are less of a concern than in WW2. Generally speaking if you can see it you can shoot it. That's definitely true of the fully modern titles, in which 1 shot 1 hit is almost a guarantee. In the Cold War you might encounter some distances in which your tanks might have a less than 50/50 chance of a first round hit. But you certainly won't encounter any distances in which the chance of a first round hit isn't dangerously high if you're on the receiving end (certainly won't get as low as a 10% chance of a first round hit).