Ubercats 2nd Newbie thread

[Ubercat]

I got distracted by other games for a while but I've been seriously playing CMBN 2.01 for a couple of weeks and now I have a few more questions. (Having a blast by the way.)

I just finished the second mission of the KG Engel campaign. The briefing says that my forces will be brought back to full strength periodically, including the third mission, but my troops do not appear to have been replenished. I reached the setup phase of mission three and my PG are still missing a lot of soldiers.

I only lost one tank, a Lynx in mission one, but the loss of infantry is close to critical. Assaulting the town in mission two was especially costly. I doubt I'll be able to hold off the overwhelming American assault which I can expect in this one. I may have to restart the campaign and babysit every turn with save file reloading, etc. to try for zero losses! :eek:

Now, a more generic question. Is it possible for scouts, FO's, or anyone else to crawl to the crest of a hill and spy out the far side without then getting up to a crouching or standing position and immediately getting shot to hell?

How often in real wars would troops creep carefully into a position to spy on the enemy? It's hard to believe that we don't have this option. A hide order after sneaking just has the troops hug the dirt, without looking, right?

A similar quandary involves 'zook or 'shrek armed troops behind a bocage or in some trees, trying to ambush enemy armor. If they hide, they can't see the tank (because peeking isn't allowed). If they don't hide, they get spotted and blasted. Am I overlooking something?

Anti-tank guns. What's the deal with positioning these guys? I had an ATG and HT for mission one and two. In mission one I had the HT haul the ATG down to the middle of the road and unlimber it. Then I told the crew to face it up the road as a defensive measure. These yokels spent the game dragging it around in circles!

I tried facing it, I tried giving it a covered arc, nothing worked. They gave me a lot of laughs, dragging it around in circles like the Keystone cops. It was especially amusing that they did it all while laying on their bellies. Who'd have thought they were strong enough to manhandle a gun like that laying on the ground. Anyway, the gun was essentially useless and I didn't even bother moving it in mission two.

Great game. I love it and will post more questions later.

[mjkerner]

For FO's and ambushes, SLOW Command (crawling) into the last Action Spot, coupled with a small Cover Arc does the trick for me. On HIDE, btw, they will pop up now and then to take a reading on things...I don't know if that occurs more for HQs and FOs as opposed to regular troops, or not.

[c3k]

A similar quandary involves 'zook or 'shrek armed troops behind a bocage or in some trees, trying to ambush enemy armor. If they hide, they can't see the tank (because peeking isn't allowed). If they don't hide, they get spotted and blasted. Am I overlooking something?

In addition to HIDE, give them a COVER ARMOR ARC command. Their spotting ability will be reduced; that's a byproduct of the HIDE command. However, when they DO see a tank, if it's in the purple arc, they'll try to engage...

Anti-tank guns. What's the deal with positioning these guys? I had an ATG and HT for mission one and two. In mission one I had the HT haul the ATG down to the middle of the road and unlimber it. Then I told the crew to face it up the road as a defensive measure. These yokels spent the game dragging it around in circles!

I tried facing it, I tried giving it a covered arc, nothing worked. They gave me a lot of laughs, dragging it around in circles like the Keystone cops. It was especially amusing that they did it all while laying on their bellies. Who'd have thought they were strong enough to manhandle a gun like that laying on the ground. Anyway, the gun was essentially useless and I didn't even bother moving it in mission two.

Do you have a savegame showing this ATG behavior?

Ken

[Ubercat]

Do you have a savegame showing this ATG behavior?

Ken

Not any more. It looks like I'm starting the campaign over though, unless somebody has some good news about where my replacements are for mission 3, so I'll get a save file in the near future.

[YankeeDog]

Sneaking and ambushing is one of the trickier aspects of the game. My general SOP is to SLOW the last action spot or two to the observation/ambush point, and then HIDE for the remainder of that turn, followed by an UNHIDE at the beginning of the next turn, accompanied by a short cover arc if I don't want the unit to open fire. This usually works pretty well -- only rarely do my units get spotted when I do this, and when they do, the enemy is usually quite close so I guess I can't excuse that.

Wrt vegetation like wooded terrain, bushes, etc., remember that what's *between* you unit and any observer as much as what kind of terrain your unit is *in*. So it's usually best not not sneak all the way up to the last action spot of bushes or woods if you want to stay unspotted -- try to keep 2 or even 3 action spots of LOS-degrading terrain between you and likely enemy. Units can usually see through at least a couple of action spots worth of trees or bushes, so being a little ways inside the cover patch won't totally destroy your units' ability to see out but will give you much better concealment.

IME any defile, even incomplete defile, is very helpful in staying concealed. Nothing blocks LOS and incoming fire better than Mother Earth... 3 action spots into the woods is good concealment. 3 action spots into the woods in a small depression that hides the lower half of the soldiers' bodies is much better.

But despite my best efforts, sometimes one of my units gets spotted at a longer range than I expected. Only occasionally, though, so I generally just chalk this down to random chance and bad luck -- one of my men stuck his rifle muzzle out a bit too far where it could be seen, or enemy caught a reflective glint off of a binocular lens er sumfink.

If I think the enemy is really close, and/or the cover is poor, I do sometimes HIDE w/ Cover Arc, but this is tricky. Units do have some awareness on HIDE, but it's pretty limited.

Wrt FOs in particular, I think it's also good to remember that one guy in the FO team has a WWII-era radio on his back, which is about size and weight of a small filing cabinet. So the radioman is probably not the stealthiest guy on the battlefield. I don't know if the game explicitly models this, but I have always assumed so. Therefore I'm a more conservative about where I try to hide FOs and other radio-equipped teams (like HQs) -- I try to keep them a little further away, and/or in better cover.

[ChrisND]

Not any more. It looks like I'm starting the campaign over though, unless somebody has some good news about where my replacements are for mission 3, so I'll get a save file in the near future.

You get the replacements between mission 3 and 4. Just hang in there and survive, and you'll be replenished.

[Brindlewolf]

I played through the Engel campaign the other week and i can say i had the same issues with the AT gun setting up.Mgs and mortars are all fine now.Still a bug or two there with ATs possibly.After the first scenario,i never bothered with it for the rest of the campaign unless it was already set-up.Mind you,with the fire power you have later it isn't needed.