Two questions!

[Das Sheep]

Hey everyone!

I am primary a table top war gamer, but I found this game and it looked to awesome to not try. I have no idea why i have never heard of this series before.

Anyway here are my two questions:

1) Quick Battles: It seems like it does not give me enough points to have an armored force. For instance even with +150% points for the attacker the Panzer Battalion is to expensive to buy, by a lot! Is there a place to set the base points for a battle? The Germans on Huge with +150% points have about 17800 points, and this leaves many units out of reach. I would love to play a battle between tank battalions, but I can't seem to find a way to get the game to allow that.

2) Multiplayer: Is there a guide for setting up multiplayer? I am not the most tech savy but I can read instructions well. I would prefer to play turn based with a friend who is also into this sort of game, but would like to do the turns together, and not play be e-mail.

Thanks.

[womble]

If you want a really big battle, you need to set it up in the Scenario Editor, where points are not tracked (or, for the moment, even displayed). There are some guidelines on how to do this in the BN forum. It generally requires that you trust your opponent, since you both have to edit the "Scenario" to add your chosen units.

I'm not sure what you mean by "do the turns together" other than "Turn-based TCP/IP"... Which you can do if you absolutely have to, but I'd encourage you to look into CM Helper by Green as Jade (there's a thread about it on page 2 of this forum) and Dropbox. Playing direct head-to-head, via TCP/IP, you don't get to rewind and review turns, and will miss out on lots of good stuff. Especially if you're playing with entire Armoured Battalions at once!

[H1nd]

You can use the editor to setup bigger battles but that will require some knowledge of making AI plans (or you can use it to make multiplayer only scenario and you dont need AI). Wich I have heard is not that hard to learn. I just have not yet gotten around to get at it properly.

The QB however will restrict you to smaller scale engagements i'm afraid.

In general the scale of CM scenarios differ greatly from platoon sized actions up to a brigade scale. That is pretty much the max due to the performance issues of bigger scenarios. I for example am in process of building a huge scenario with several tank battalions involved and the editor tools allow you to make some as well!

[Pandur]

yea a battalion without replay, you will have no idea what happens. unfortunately when you play like you want but substitute PBEM for it, because TCPip has no replay, it doubles to triples the time needed to play the scenario like a normal game.

[A Canadian Cat]

I am primary a table top war gamer, but I found this game and it looked to awesome to not try. I have no idea why i have never heard of this series before.

Yeah I am with you on that. If I had heard about these games when CMBO came out I would have been playing them this whole time and not just the last few years.

...The Germans on Huge with +150% points have about 17800 points, and this leaves many units out of reach. I would love to play a battle between tank battalions, but I can't seem to find a way to get the game to allow that.

A friend and I started, and nearly finished a large 20 000 point battle. You can read about it here http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=105660 which includes a document I wrote on how we set the whole thing up.

Note yeah I said nearly finished. My friend has been "too busy" to play any more. I keep hoping he will get his priorities straight but alas he seems more intent on working than having fun. What can I say I am sad too. Good thing I have met other regular players and have lots of people to play. Not sure if any one else is crazy enough to do a battle this big though

Before you take on something big like this make sure you have played plenty of smaller battles first.

2) Multiplayer: Is there a guide for setting up multiplayer? I am not the most tech savy but I can read instructions well. I would prefer to play turn based with a friend who is also into this sort of game, but would like to do the turns together, and not play be e-mail.

You can also play in hot seat mode, where you play with one computer and take turns in front of the screen.

[Lt Belenko]

If you war gaming friend has a computer that he can bring to your home or you have 2 computer machines, you can direct connect the machines with a cross over cable and play against each other in by PBEM mode using a shared folder for file transfer.

Be sure to have few beers and a bag of pretzels on hand. Set the computer machines up near the TV with a good war movie in the background. All the fun a of a board game without worrying the cat might dance on the board.

[AlexUK]

Yeah I am with you on that. If I had heard about these games when CMBO came out I would have been playing them this whole time and not just the last few years.

A friend and I started, and nearly finished a large 20 000 point battle. You can read about it here http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=105660 which includes a document I wrote on how we set the whole thing up.

Note yeah I said nearly finished. My friend has been "too busy" to play any more. I keep hoping he will get his priorities straight but alas he seems more intent on working than having fun. What can I say I am sad too. Good thing I have met other regular players and have lots of people to play. Not sure if any one else is crazy enough to do a battle this big though

Before you take on something big like this make sure you have played plenty of smaller battles first.

You can also play in hot seat mode, where you play with one computer and take turns in front of the screen.

Looking forward to reading more of your AAR when you both have time Ian.

[Cogust]

You can buy an armored force in a Quick Battle, just not an entire battalion. Select a battalion and then delete all companies except one, that should make you able to afford the tanks, if not then you will have to either delete a platoon or a few tanks.

[Pandur]

you can direct connect the machines with a cross over cable and play against each other in by PBEM mode using a shared folder for file transfer.

unfortunately this is quiet bad, i play that way with a friend with dropbox and cmhelper. i got 600+kb/s real up load so turn upload is done in notime, he gets up to 250kb/s so also fast.

BUT and its a big but, every turn you need to load the scenario, that is with a average load time of 2 min for mid to large scenarios, 60 minutes in 30 turns. and on top of that, only one person can make command phase at a time, not both simultaneous.

it takes ages and is only for the most multiplayer horny persons that used to play TCPip wego in the old games and cant stand to not finish a game in max 2 sessions of several houers. like i am

EDIT:

without cmhelper, not manageable in a fun way for us

[mjkerner]

If you war gaming friend has a computer that he can bring to your home or you have 2 computer machines, you can direct connect the machines with a cross over cable and play against each other in by PBEM mode using a shared folder for file transfer.

Be sure to have few beers and a bag of pretzels on hand. Set the computer machines up near the TV with a good war movie in the background. All the fun a of a board game without worrying the cat might dance on the board.

You can Hot Seat it as well. Same loading turn time problem Pandur mentioned, but one less comp to deal with.

[womble]

...Hot Seat...Same loading turn time problem Pandur mentioned...

Not so! You don't have to load the game for every turn, just the once at the beginning, and after any ALT-Q (might not finish in one session) or machine SNAFU. Still can't both be giving orders simultaneously, though. Hot Seat wouldn't be nearly so useful for testing if you had to reload the map (and LOS matrix) between each minute!

[Jock Tamson]

If you war gaming friend has a computer that he can bring to your home or you have 2 computer machines, you can direct connect the machines with a cross over cable and play against each other in by PBEM mode using a shared folder for file transfer.

Or, if he is remote and you know your way round your router, he can VPN in to your home network and you can use a shared folder.

[snarre]

good prosessor and lots of ram drop wery mutch loading time . ram is mayby more important than prosessor in this game.