more newbie ?'s

[cef71]

1) in the main opening screen, i can choose from any number of different battles/scenarios. my question is, is there a campaign which i can play thru? in the upper right corner it lets me choose 'battles' or 'operations'. what is the difference(i know the 'battles' are single battles and the 'operations' are 3 or 4 or more battles grouped together). so if i choose 'battles' and complete the first one on the list (a battle of minors), is the next on the 2nd battle in one huge campaign?

also, when i have enemies on the run, sometimes a little red and white flag appears...does this mean they are hiding? if so, can i choose 'area fire' and still wipe them out?

thanks

[Bone_Vulture]

Nay, all the battles on the list are separate from each other. There are no true campaigns in CM.

The flag shows where the enemy unit was last seen. As long it isn't spotted again, the flag stays there, while the unit itself can be miles away, out of your sight.

[JasonC]

"is there a campaign?"

Nope. Though some people run ones they make up themselves.

"'battles' or 'operations'. what is the difference"

There is no overlap. None of the fights in the operations correspond to the fights in the battles. The battles are stand alone, one shot deals. The operations are separate linked fights - not links between the fights presented in the "battles".

"sometimes a little red and white flag appears...does this mean they are hiding?"

It means you lost sight of them, and that is the last place you saw them. They may have kept moving and may not be there anymore. The flag marker does not mean there is a unit there but you can't fully ID it, it means there *was* a unit there.

Sometimes you can still use this info to direct area fire. E.g. if you see 4-6 flags pile up in the same forest, and you know you can see all the ways out, then you know there are still 4-6 units in that forest. So you might target it with an artillery fire mission, or tell a mortar to shell those woods using "area fire".

But area fire just at each flag using small arms from your regular infantry squads is a bad idea. Because they may not be there anymore, and small arms fire doesn't do much to people just in the area as opposed to actually seen. (HE is better at that). Also, squads have limited ammo.

Sometimes with a high ammo unit like a heavy machinegun, area fire at a flag with bullets rather than HE can still make sense. E.g. when it is a gun you've lost sight of, and you know it is too slow to move away, and you probably just lost the contact when they stopped firing. You want to keep them pinned, so you target the flag with an MG, "area fire". It probably won't wipe them out, but if they are already scared it may prevent them from rallying.

[Little Pete]

Basically the game is based around battles and operations (an operation being a few battles).There is no 'Grand Campaign' per se where you would work through the historical war.

The best i can advise is to get a variety of scenarios in roughly date order and play through them (hopefully getting the feel of working through the various parts of the war).

As to the flag question,there is a thing called Fog of War.Like in reality, you can't see where the enemy is unless one of your units physically sees them.

What has happened with you is that you have caused the enemy to run out of you sight.The flag represents the last place your men saw the enemy.They MAY still be there (hiding and scared) in which case area fire may further suppress and kill them but they MAY have carried on running or moved a different way.

To find out if the enemy are still there, you must move one of your units close enough to see the point where the flag is.If the enemy are there you should see them, if they've moved on then the flag will disappear.

Hope thats clear.

[nevermind]

Little Pete,

Am i ever going to get that setup? :mad:

[cef71]

thanks for the replies

[MikeyD]

The reason (or one of the reasons) for no campaigns is simply that CM scenarios usually wind up with the bulk of your troops either dead or routed after the first game. Anything beyond the 4-5 battles in a typical operation you'd be fighting with nothing but replacements anyway.

I believe I read the 3rd Armored after Normandy suffered a 600% attrition rate just for their armor! WWII was a meat-grinder.

[cef71]

thanks. i gotta be honest though. this game was much more attractive when i thought it was one large campaign with stats tracked throughout the whole thing. playing single battles just isn't as motivating knowing that once this battle is over, it's over. i would much rather play a game in which your actions in the current battle decide the setup for the second...and third...and so on. much more motivated when i know i am slowly (throughout the course of many battles). just my 2cents:)

[tar]

Operations give you a bit of that.

The real problem with campaigns is that it is hard to provide an historically plausible campaign that works as a two-player game. Typically the same formations did not fight against each other over and over again throughout the war. They tended to face different enemy units, so any campaign would have to be one-sided.

Try operations, though. Where you end one battle determines where you start the next one, and they cover a short enough time period that you really can expect to have the same forces engaged.

[V]

Originally posted by cef71:

thanks. i gotta be honest though. this game was much more attractive when i thought it was one large campaign with stats tracked throughout the whole thing. playing single battles just isn't as motivating knowing that once this battle is over, it's over. i would much rather play a game in which your actions in the current battle decide the setup for the second...and third...and so on. much more motivated when i know i am slowly (throughout the course of many battles). just my 2cents:)

Who gave you that idea?

[V]

Originally posted by Little Pete:

The best i can advise is to get a variety of scenarios in roughly date order and play through them (hopefully getting the feel of working through the various parts of the war).

To take this further, there are a few series of scenario at the depot which can be played in order as a sort of campaign. One that comes to mind is the Vuosalmi Campaign series.