PLANNING IMPROVEMENT

[Capt Proton]

I find it a little difficult to plan my moves on the offence, and the placment of weapon systems on the defence, as it is hard to get a sense of the terrain. You have to zoom right in and move around, and it's not a good way to conduct planning. What would really help would be contour lines that could be invoked, perhaps only in the set up phase, or perhaps a separate screen that can be pulled down, to simulate looking at a map. Even if you could see a rendition of the map as it appears when building a scenario. This would be very realistic, as a map study is the first step in conducting any combat estimate.

[-E]

There is a set of grid lines terrain available. They may be noticable enough for you to use during setup and perhaps light enough for you to ignore during play.

[MG-42]

Hi Capt. Proton,

Yeah it can be tricky to get a hang of the terrain. One thing that has helped me and thousands others is Captain Wacky's awesome gridded terrain mod. When you use this mod it's a lot clearer as to how the terrain lies. Get a hold of it HERE . Search for "Captain Wacky" and the afore mentioned mods (there are more then 1 covering all relevant terrain types) will pop up before your very eyes.

Hope that Helps

MG-42

[MikeyD]

Last night I simply tried lining up my forces and marching them into town. Pretty soon the line starts flowing like water - seeking the path of least resistance. The ones on the left funneled into the small arms 'shadow' behind the big church. The ones on the right ended up leap-frogging from small building to small building in the built-up section. CM did most of my work for me and I didn't pay much of a penalty in casualties for my laziness, either (distant mgs would drive troops to ground in certain areas but rarely kiled anybody).

[thewood]

MikeyD,

It's interesting you said that. Back in one of the threads from the day, Steve was railing on someone that their problem with the movement systme was that thyey were micromanaging movement. I decided to use his approach of setting general orders and let the AI fix the details. While not always perfect, I have found this a most useful philosophy, as well as much less stressful.

Now before someone blows a gasket, there are areas where you need to get involved, but overall, especially before contact, the AI does a lot of the work for you.

Now back to the thread.

[Capt Proton]

Thanks for the tips. I can't find Capt Whacky at the link provided. AI can't place weapons systems or fire bases. Contour lines required.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Capt Proton:

Thanks for the tips. I can't find Capt Whacky at the link provided. AI can't place weapons systems or fire bases. Contour lines required.

Hi Proton

I have requested contour (evelvation) lines on the map (like a REAL topographic map) from WAY back. I think I asked way back when CMBO was in the Gold Demo state.

At that time it was clear from their response that the game engine that CMBB and CMBO is based on would NEVER support elevation contour lines.

BUT there is an opportunity here to lobby for an OPTION of contour lines in the New Engine Rewrite (does it have a working name?) game engine. Idealy the contour lines would be toggle-able, to keep everyone happy.

Are contour/elevation lines (toggle on/off on the map) on "The List" for the rewrite???? :confused:

-tom w

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Capt Proton:

Thanks for the tips. I can't find Capt Whacky at the link provided.

Wacky, not whacky! It is there.

[Sardaukar]

Originally posted by thewood:

MikeyD,

It's interesting you said that. Back in one of the threads from the day, Steve was railing on someone that their problem with the movement systme was that thyey were micromanaging movement. I decided to use his approach of setting general orders and let the AI fix the details. While not always perfect, I have found this a most useful philosophy, as well as much less stressful.

Now before someone blows a gasket, there are areas where you need to get involved, but overall, especially before contact, the AI does a lot of the work for you.

Now back to the thread.

I agree totally. It's actually more realistic to make a plan, then plot the movement and interfere only when needed. That's how commander would do it in real life too. And it's lot less pain in butt, especially in larger battles.

Cheers,

M.S.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by thewood:

MikeyD,

It's interesting you said that. Back in one of the threads from the day, Steve was railing on someone that their problem with the movement systme was that thyey were micromanaging movement. I decided to use his approach of setting general orders and let the AI fix the details. While not always perfect, I have found this a most useful philosophy, as well as much less stressful.

Now before someone blows a gasket, there are areas where you need to get involved, but overall, especially before contact, the AI does a lot of the work for you.

Now back to the thread.

I agree too

"I decided to use his approach of setting general orders and let the AI fix the details. While not always perfect, I have found this a most useful philosophy, as well as much less stressful."

do you mean Box Banding (Band Boxing :confused: ) Everybody off the start line and asking them all to "Move to Contact" straight ahead for the most part?

Then tweaking move orders later after contact.

Is that what you are talking about?

-tom w

[SFJaykey]

Captain Wacky's gridded terrain is at www.cmmods.com. But if you are not in too big of a hurry, I think it is going to be available imminently in a CMMOS compatible version, which will greatly ease installation.

Contour lines might be a nice feature, but this is _almost_ like giving the player the ability to check LOS from anywhere on the map. This is undesireable, IMO: the player's god-like perspective on the map is already quite unrealistic. I doubt WWII East Front combatants on _either_ side had anything approaching the quality of topo maps that are so familiar to us today, except for major cities.

If you really want to see something like contours, you can open the map via the scenario editor and look at the height values for each tile.

I just zip around the map at level 1.