Karp_K

This is something I've often come across myself when switching between modernity in the series, and I think for once I can actually build off of what the other folks are saying. I primarily play CMSF2, but I enjoy switching it up and playing CMFI and CMRT from time to time. Naturally, we all know that there's a pretty big gap in technology here; we have a lot less fancy stuff to use and play with in the WWII titles such as IR/NVGs, ATGMs, differences in artillery technology at the time and, of course, the somewhat more equal ratio of presence that semiautomatic small-arms weaponry had to automatic small-arms weaponry. As a result, it's only natural to lose considerably more men in any scenario than it would be in the modern titles (that is unless you're playing as the Syrians or Uncons in CMSF2, at which point... good luck). Whilst good play can definitely result in far fewer casualties, there's only so much saving that can be done unless you carefully plot and map each and every point, consider every avenue of attack both for and against you, and so on. This leads me to my next paragraph: There are chess players, and then there are blitz chess players. Two different kinds of creatures unless we're talking about someone like Magnus Carlsen. You can have all the knowledge in Combat Mission as possible akin to good old Charles himself, but you can still get ripped to bits and pieces if you spend exactly one minute planning and plotting out your entire forces' moves as opposed to a theoretical opponent who spends an hour planning and plotting. Long story short, you're going to get better results the more you consider your forces positions and capabilities as opposed to your opponent's forces, move and position them accordingly in order to both learn more about said opponent's forces and gain a more favorable overall position in the theatre, and lastly actually execute any attacks with as much of your forces as you are willing to dedicate to the attack. I'll happily admit that I like playing things quick because I'll lose interest if I have to come back to a game over a period of several days. My usual workflow is reece -> movement to contact -> figuring out what's trying to murder my guys and how best to sling murder towards the enemies' guys -> then actually making a setup to soften up a defensive position with any available effective, practical artillery/CAS (I mean effective as having one or preferably more capabilities of suppressing and/or injuring the enemy as well as arriving in an accurate and timely manner and, in the case of CAS, making sure the enemy can't smack my planes out of the air) before a combined assault with as much of my armor and infantry as possible. If I'm feeling frisky I'll even start sending dudes as early as one or two minutes left on any artillery barrages, depending on how far they're going to have to go. Now, I've already replied to you with a friggin' novella, so I'll try my best to wrap it up. Centurian made a great statement. If you want a non-stock opponent who will both thrill you (sometimes bad, sometimes good) and surprise you (ditto), play against other humans. I pretty much exclusively play against AI because of my aforementioned lack of interest in elongated games. I've found that the AI is decent enough when it is holding defensive positions, but it lacks just about any and all amount of finesse when performing attacks. There is one more plus side to the AI from what I've found, however. Have you made a massive mistake, resulting in ATGMs reducing several of your vehicles into very exciting, very dead one-off fireworks dispensers? Figure out how you biffed it so bad, go back through the replay, and then make a mental note. Then, since it is a game against AI, reload a previous save and get back to figuring out a less lethal plan for your troops. I can confidently say that if you just plain want to learn the game and its mechanics, keep the engine manual handy as well as the manuals relevant to the title you're playing with you and then just chuck yourself against the AI until you have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. The AI, while it will never be like a player, is a great tool for learning the game. Have a pesky line of sight issue and want to scream about it on the forums because you can't get that great, obvious-looking shot on some random ATGM guy sitting out in the desert sun picking his nose? Feel free to reload and reposition your dudes until you get a feel for the LoS with whatever unit you're using-- vehicle or infantry. Anyway, typed up enough. That's my novel. Ask any questions if you have 'em. Hope you find something decent in there that helps. Cheers!

Holy-moly. I know what they say about assumptions, but can I assume that you have not played in a long time? As far as I can tell, I don't believe that there are any buttons like that in the current engine of the game system that allows for contour smoothing/exaggerating. However! You'll definitely have already seen the -HULL DOWN- command in the movement tab. It is a bit finicky as things will be ingame, but it may at least help with finding good firing positions to pop up and down from. Essentially move your vehicle perpendicular to the crest of a hill, and you have two options. Either A: Place the hull down command across and past said crest, targeting wherever you want your vehicle to be hull down from. It will automatically stop once it reaches a point on the hill that is hull down from the actual endpoint of the hull down order marker. Barring this is option B, which allows for greater fine tuning of, er, hulling the vehicle down. Place the command at the top of the crest, and then select the order marker that was just placed. Place a -TARGET- command wherever you want the vehicle to be hull down from, and it will automatically stop when it reaches a point in the movement that it is hull down from the targeted position. If all of this looks like word soup, then I'm confident the engine 4 game manual has a description of the command that is multitudes better at explaining it than my grasp of english. If you have cold war, you likely have the engine manual in the installation files somewhere. You may already know all of this, at which point the only thing I can say is that I'm confident there is no button to make contours more visible. There is, of course, always the time-consuming method of just lowering the camera as far down as possible and inspecting the crests and contours by eye. Hopefully this has helped.

As someone who primarily plays and enjoys SF2, I love the idea of it but I feel like it falls into the same vein of effort & time weighed against profit in BFC's eyes. Granted, if all the assets were already made... Hate to say it, but that's in the realm of whatever is further beyond wishful thinking.

The closest thing I can think of is, without any units selected, click on each revealed enemy unit icon to see which of your units can visibly see the vehicle, squad, or one of their individual infantrymen. Apart from that, I don't believe there's anything close to a counter which tells us precisely how many contacts any of our units are currently under, whether it has currently broken out into gunfire or is just plain full visual contact.

Aloha B2, Coming across Combat Mission was a matter of luck, really. I had been browsing a forum one day where someone compared the iceberg of more mainstream games such as Company of Heroes, the Wargame series, Hearts of Iron, Men of War, etc... until finally at the bottom of the iceberg rested the likes of Command: Modern Operations, the Graviteam Tactics games, Combat Mission, Armored Brigade, and similar heavily strategic and/or tactical wargames with massive amounts of depth. Traditionally speaking, I have little to no experience having played similar boardgames but I have however played very small skirmishes of WH40K before. As for the specific start to end route that put Combat Mission to the forefront of my interest, it went something like playing Company of Heroes in the beginning, getting into Hearts of Iron later on, then playing copious amounts of Wargame: Red Dragon, and then finally thinking in some inane fashion after finding it, "I'd like to (quote) play (unquote) CMO." That was a particularly large dip into the pool of highly addictive drugs that are these kinds of games/simulations. Didn't take me much longer to take the dive on CMSF2, which I have since then racked up over 300 hours in and has led me to get even more CM games. help.

I primarily have experience in quick battles against AI and I've noticed that generally the enemy side surrenders when roughly 70-80% of their total points in units have been destroyed. As far as scenarios go, I believe there can be set conditions by which the enemy forfeits. While I can't give you a full, determinate answer I'm sure one of our more experienced players around here will answer soon.

Lootboxes for additional units in particularly murderous campaigns...

Nam, it's been on more than one occasion I've caught myself using artillery lingo definitely acquired from CM in other games (mostly ARMA) that I play with pals. While this is more about bleeding into other games, ARMA is definitely one where after having played SF2 I find myself playing much, much more strategically minded rather than "Attack this location, eventually die, respawn, repeat." One friend of mine in particular likes doing the latter and I'm pretty sure is becoming increasingly impatient with my constant hunt-speed movements in urban environs.

Aloha. No, not a post about Battlefront's unwittingly prophetic settings, but instead the games themselves just... appearing... in real life. Originally I just intended to lurk around the forums and learn all the neat advice and tips from the pros and ended up having an experience the other day that convinced me I should probably just make an account and get absorbed into the community. Rookie hours compared to many here I imagine, but just recently clocked a total playtime of 150hrs in SF2; many of those hours were in feverishly uninterrupted groups of four or more. Was driving around town a few days ago, completely normal suburban town. At one point I'm making a turn and my eyes glance over a singular tree above a patch of grass and my brain immediately recognizes it as a grass tile with a single tree feature in the action square. Thankfully I stopped my brain right there before I started imagining little digital soldiers lining up prone behind the tree. En lieu of deciding I need help, I've decided I need to read more experiences of people who've played too much of this game for it (or imaginations of it) to start appearing subconsciously in normal everyday non-CM life. Anyone? I don't want to be alone here. Please.