arprince31

Hi all. I've posted previously that I have performance issues running CW on my laptop. This is despite switching off any unnecessary processes and upping the Priority, which has improved things, but running the game via Steam there are significant overheads that come with Steam, like having to run the steam webhelper that mean typical RAM usage is up at about 8Gb against the laptop's 16Gb and FPS can stutter down around 1-15 FPS dependent on what's going on and the size of the game, which makes the graphics aren't optimum and even running the game is pretty stop-go, even in Wego 🙂
However, there is a workaround I've discovered last night in that I have a separate VR gaming desktop machine that I use for my flight sim stuff on Il-2, which is a lot more beefy and runs CM smoothly (60FPS), however that machine is tucked away in a spare room and can't easily be moved, it's on a wheeled trolley, but has something like 20 labelled cables connected to it. This means that when playing on that system requires a conscious decision to set aside specific time to do so, which is fine for something like a flight sim.
One of the things I like about CM is the way that it lends itself to being a game that you can dip in and out of, rather than needing to set aside a few hours for it, especially using Wego. This means I can be playing CM and doing other things pretty concurrently and, indeed, it can help to walk away from the game for a while to ponder a particular move.
So, I have pluses and minuses with my two computers, each with their own pros and cons: laptop - sociable but slow; desktop - unsociable but fast.
So, to the workaround which others may already be aware of: Connect and Stream.
It appears that, as long as you have two computers with Steam on them, on the same network (I haven't tested separate networks yet) you can connect via Wi-Fi between the two computers and then stream from one to the other. This means that I can run CM on my desktop and stream it to my  laptop (thin client/server architecture if anyone remembers that kind of thing). I don't actually know the speed of the Wi-Fi between the two devices, but I can confirm things like Hedgerow Hell still look good on the laptop when streamed and the performance of the actual gameplay is a dream, on a par with Usually Hapless that I've drooled over on YouTube.
I'm interested in the forthcoming Engine 5 performance improvements, but this may help some others until it comes out.
Looking forward to Afrika Korps being released on Steam, so that I can reproduce both the desert and also the original Blitzkrieg of 1940.
This game gives me back the fun and games I got from wargaming back 30 odd years ago with mates and a 12 foot by 8 foot war board in the attic of my first house, it was my first house improvement and hot as hell in the summer.
Thanks to everyone 

This is also more generally true. Not always, but often. Emphasis, though, on the "O" (Observation). Any unit you are going to put in a place that can see a broad view is also potentially visible from many locations. And visible means targetable! And the most visible thing your troops ever do is shoot. So you don't want your Observation Post shooting at any old thing it spots, because that will (at least partially) negate the (generally pretty significant) concealment of the building they're in. This means that you should apply a small "Target Arc" (TA, also referred to as Covered Arc - CA) orders to your scouting and observation units so that they restrain their impulse to kill the enemy.

Giving your observers and scouts short segments of TA at their terminal waypoint also allows you to make sure they're looking out of the correct side of the building... At setup time it's probably a good idea to give them a 50-60m circular "self-defense" TA just in case.

The second most visible thing your guys do is move. For this reason, I try and always have my observers (little 'o' - they're not necessarily artillery-callin' Forward Observers) Slow into position. Most of the time you can Quick into the ground floor of a building, but if you go up the stairs at "Quick", I find you quickly get spotted and killed, so any vertical movement is done "Slow". I tend to give the last waypoint before the Slow a short circular TA, just big enough to cover the building.

Hi all. I've posted previously that I have performance issues running CW on my laptop. This is despite switching off any unnecessary processes and upping the Priority, which has improved things, but running the game via Steam there are significant overheads that come with Steam, like having to run the steam webhelper that mean typical RAM usage is up at about 8Gb against the laptop's 16Gb and FPS can stutter down around 1-15 FPS dependent on what's going on and the size of the game, which makes the graphics aren't optimum and even running the game is pretty stop-go, even in Wego 🙂
However, there is a workaround I've discovered last night in that I have a separate VR gaming desktop machine that I use for my flight sim stuff on Il-2, which is a lot more beefy and runs CM smoothly (60FPS), however that machine is tucked away in a spare room and can't easily be moved, it's on a wheeled trolley, but has something like 20 labelled cables connected to it. This means that when playing on that system requires a conscious decision to set aside specific time to do so, which is fine for something like a flight sim.
One of the things I like about CM is the way that it lends itself to being a game that you can dip in and out of, rather than needing to set aside a few hours for it, especially using Wego. This means I can be playing CM and doing other things pretty concurrently and, indeed, it can help to walk away from the game for a while to ponder a particular move.
So, I have pluses and minuses with my two computers, each with their own pros and cons: laptop - sociable but slow; desktop - unsociable but fast.
So, to the workaround which others may already be aware of: Connect and Stream.
It appears that, as long as you have two computers with Steam on them, on the same network (I haven't tested separate networks yet) you can connect via Wi-Fi between the two computers and then stream from one to the other. This means that I can run CM on my desktop and stream it to my  laptop (thin client/server architecture if anyone remembers that kind of thing). I don't actually know the speed of the Wi-Fi between the two devices, but I can confirm things like Hedgerow Hell still look good on the laptop when streamed and the performance of the actual gameplay is a dream, on a par with Usually Hapless that I've drooled over on YouTube.
I'm interested in the forthcoming Engine 5 performance improvements, but this may help some others until it comes out.
Looking forward to Afrika Korps being released on Steam, so that I can reproduce both the desert and also the original Blitzkrieg of 1940.
This game gives me back the fun and games I got from wargaming back 30 odd years ago with mates and a 12 foot by 8 foot war board in the attic of my first house, it was my first house improvement and hot as hell in the summer.
Thanks to everyone 

Right, well the thing is that the Recon AC's are just getting taken out by the hidden ATG's without even 'seeing' where they're firing from. I can obviously do some omniscient work of my own looking at the where they hot hit and the rough direction the shot came from, but when one has three out of five AC's burning after just two minutes, can't help but take a step and wonder if either I'm missing something or just need steep education in how to properly recon with such units.

I think I can attest to that particular law 😅😅!
That's some very good rules of thumb; although there really sin't any 'slowly' move using Hunt. Vehicles seem to move on that command at the same speed as Quick, which was something I commented on in the beginning. In Hunt, they really should be moving at speeds more akin to slow or certainly no faster than Move!

The recovery discussion reminded me of something from one of my very first wargames books almost 50 years ago, you could probably set this up as a scenario:
Donald Featherstone - Battles with Model Tanks:
CHAPTER 16: TANK RECOVERY, WESTERN DESERT, 1942
The table-top terrain consists of a topographically featureless but undulating area of sand-coloured plastic or cloth draped over polystyrene or wood slabs, or even books laid in such a manner as to provide some hull-down positions for the tanks of both sides, plus the shallow bowl in which the stranded Grants lie.
Scraped together from whatever is immediately to hand, the small recovery force that moves forward consists of a very mixed bag - 2 Crusaders (cruiser tanks Mark VI); 3 M3A1 Stuart Mark IV light tanks; 1 25 pdr gun howitzer and towing vehicle; B Company, Northumberland Fusiliers, with jeep-towed 6 pdr anti-tank gun, 2 mortars and 3 Bren guns; and two Scammell tank-transporters plus crews and a detachment of Royal Engineers.
Guided by the crews who have abandoned the Grants on the previous day (travelling in two 15 cwt trucks) the party moves forward until they find the immobile tanks. The 25 pdr and the anti-tank guns are unlimbering prior to being set up in suitable positions and the infantry moving forward to act as a screen when, from literally out of the blue, a German heavy armoured car SdKfz 231 surges over the top of the ridge to their front, its eight wheels sending up showers of sand as it skids to a standstill on sighting the British party.
The wargamer may take the action on from there. Does the German heavy armoured car get away and bring back reinforcements, or is there a German force in the vicinity who will hasten over to the sound of firing? In any event there is nothing that can reach the area for at least three game-moves, and then it may only be a force strong enough to delay rather than overcome the recovery party. In all, the Germans probably cannot mass in the area more than a couple of PzKw IV tanks, a 50 mm anti-tank gun and towing half-track, plus three SdKfz 11 type HK16 half-tracks 3T and half a dozen trucks, part of a convoy bringing up reinforcements capable of carrying two companies of infantry.
This action can be embellished by progressive attempts to start the engines of the two stranded Grants - first attempt, the two dice for each Grant and a total of 11 or 12 must be scored. If successful, the Grant then becomes operational and can take part in the action, probably with decisive effect. On the other hand if one Grant can be made to move, then it can be utilised to tow its stricken comrade from the field, thus achieving the objective of the wargame which is the recovery of two stranded tanks not the destruction of a small German force!
Featherstone, Donald; Robinson, Keith. Donald Featherstone’s and Keith Robinson's Battles with Model Tanks: Wargaming 1914-1975 (pp. 116-117). History of Wargaming Project. Kindle Edition. 
Apologies for any copyright issues, I bought the kindle version of this book in the last couple of years for practical reasons, plus a physical copy for nostalgia.
 

We had M561 Gama Goats for our artillery prime movers. People would swear you can't get one stuck, 6x6, super low gear, articulated, swimmable. 
We proved them wrong. 🤣  Getting that one unstuck would have greatly exceeded the time limit of a CM game.
Not to say one couldn't be done in the time frame of a game, but in most cases, a lot of your units on the map are under observation/fire. It would be a dicey situation. 
Dave
PS - mostly Goats were pretty awesome, that double low range 6x6 drive could handle almost anything. Almost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gama_Goat
We need them in whatever CW module covers having Abn troops 🙂  Just because they are weird.
 

Apologies, I'm coming to this wish list late, I don't know if it's already been covered in the 38 pages of wishes (Santa has it easy!), or if it's something that can already be done and I haven't seen it. It's really great that there are pretty much 360 degrees of view movement, turn/move left/right, elevate/descend, look up/down etc.
But I find it a bit too freeform and fiddly at times. I find myself sawing forwards beyond and backwards beyond, then sideways each ways beyond the sweet spot I want to view from, especially with the mouse, so a micro move view option as well as the current standard sweeping move views would be handy.
I'd also like to have a view that I'm looking at, say a particular landscape from a particular angle, then to quickly use a hot button to view down on the whole map from immediately above for literally an overview, then a hot button to go back to my previous view of the landscape.
Apologies if this is already available.
I also recognise that Engine 5 is going to be fixes only, but I thought I'd record my idea whilst I have it.

@Mad Mike released ScAnCaDe 2.1 which handles Shock Force. You can find it here:
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/uncategorized/cmx2-scancade-v2-1-by-mad-mike/