First Impressions and thoughts (after 12 scenarios)

[MadSwede]

I got CM in the mail friday, so the weekend plans were canceled. At this point, I feel I have a few thoughts, questions and issues about the game, though let me say first of all that together with Harpoon, this is already my favourite game of all times.

Now then... so far I've only played as the germans, each scenario blind, using default setups, full fog, no saving in midgame, etc etc. No cheats, basically. The scenarios have been for example Chambois, Singling, Last Defense, Riesberg, Aachen. So far, I've only played as the Germans (never been too fond of playing allies) While I'd rate myself as a middling wargamer, in all scenarios except Chambois, I've won major victories, 4 times total ones with all allies surrendering. In Singling, I achieved a kill ratio of 10:1, infantry and vehicles both. (and I wouldn't have lost the second StuG if I had any inkling the amis were about to be reinforced. I was doing an end run, cutting off the ami retreat, and wham, 4 Shermans materialize 300m off my StuG's flank and -nuke- it)

Granted, I realize I've sometimes been lucky. In Riesberg, despite haveing no clue, my armor was perfectly set up to nail the reinforcing hellcats the round they arrived, and did so. But after a dozen scenarios, I'm thinking this can't be just luck. It can't be just skill, for sometimes, especially on defense, I didn't even -do- much. Gave a few orders to the heavy weapons teams, and let the TacAI do the rest. So, I'm wondering.. are the germans stronger in the premade scenarios? Or is the AI just not very good? I realize things will change once I play human opponents, but I'm fond of single player mode. What I don't like is artificially giving the computer advantages (feels like shooting yourself in the foot) but it's beginning to look like that's the way to go.

Moving on, there are a few features that I miss.

1) Being able to check LOS from an arbitrary point. Yes, it's not all that "realistic", but neither is spending ages fiddling with camera angles to try and figure out details in the lay of the land, which I end up doing instead. The 3D views are -great-, but sometimes I find them not quite sufficient.

2) The AAR is a bit.. well... brief. It'd be nice to get screens with details about who killed what, casualty breakdowns, etc. -Without- spending the time hunting about the map and checking units one by one. Call me lazy

3) Why, in gods name is there no "game options" screen? Changing resolution is a pain, and some mother options are rather needed. Different colored bases for germans...grey bases in grey buildings is not good, and a headache in big city maps. Various sound options hardware, software, 3d would have been nice for troubleshooting. (Assuming the game uses hardware 3d sound.. but it sure sounds like it)

Finally, a little bug report. On my dual-boot home machine, CM runs swell on Win98. Under Win2k, there be problems. Specifically:

1) Lockups. Appear random, but I've been playing Win98 mostly, so no extensive testing done.

2) Ghosting in the display..when moving to second briefing screen, the first remains displayed as well, creating an overlaid mess. Same thing if you go back nad forth to the main screen. At first, I thought the main screen was supposed to look like that, since it looked like camouflage.

Relevant system specs:

Win2k SR-1 clean install, all the latest patches and fixes. P3V4X w PIII800, 392MB RAM, Asus 6800 Geforce DDR, 5.33final asus drivers, AGP 4x, FW, SBA. SB Live w Liveware 3.0. IDE RAID0 harddrives and otherwise a fully scsi system running off an adaptec 29160N. Running at 1024x768x32 resolution. I haven't bothered disabling stuff to troubleshoot yet, but I suspect problems with Video and or soundcard.

Ok, time to wrap this long post up. Apart from the above, CM is an amazing game, with the realistic modeling and attention to detail being my chief favourite things, clolesly followed by the 3d system and the ability to watch the action up close and personal from various viewpoints. Kudos to the coding/design team!

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Patrik

[Mr. Clark]

I agree about the options screen... would have been nice. However, BESIDES resolution, you can tweak all your other graphics options instantly with hotkeys.

Game AI will never be as good as a human opponent (at least for many years.) In general, I think the AI in CM is pretty good. However, like any AI, it's a LOT better on defense. Since you are only playing Germans, you are probably playing the defensive role most of the time. Defense is a bit easier to play (in my opinion) and offense is DEFINATELY harder for the game AI to play...

So, these factors are probably what account for your devastating victories.

I highly suggest tweaking the computer opponents stats up a bit if you are finding it too easy... look at it this way, by doing so, you are not so much shooting yourself in the foot as making it "fairer" for the PC, who cannot plot and plan as well.

[kb9sog]

I agree with Mr. Clark on the computer AI. If the AI is to attack and you defend, you should bump up the handicap in favor of the attacker. The AI is a heck of a defender but a rather weak attacker.

Of course, human opponents are best.

The only bug that I found is that my AMIS armor keeps getting knocked out. Oh wait! That's not a bug! It's just my rotten leadership!

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BJ Simpson

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IN HOC SIGNO VINCES

[The CM Borg]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MadSwede:

I got CM in the mail friday, so the weekend plans were canceled. At this point, I feel I have a few thoughts, questions and issues about the game, though let me say first of all that together with Harpoon, this is already my favourite game of all times.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We gladly assimilate the Mad Swede

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Resistance is Futile