I have some concerns that I hope can be answered

[Blah Blah Blah]

As I eagerly await CMAK, I have some concerns that I hope can be answered, and better yet, put to rest!

Let me start with my CM history. After finding out about CMBB, no idea where, I decided to download the demo, this was about 6-9 months ago. Played it a fair bit whilst learning, and decided not to get CMBB. However, by this time I was aware of CMAK and decided to hang around. It was recently that someone mention about how chalk and cheese the CMBO & CMBB demo’s were, and that the CMBB demo was BaD! With nothing to loose, I go and download the CMBO demo, and it’s WOW! Whilst I can see how much better CMBB is to CMBO, the demo’s are worlds apart. Had the CMBB demo been simular to CMBO I would have purchased CMBB.

After playing the CMBO demo with the enemy on +3 experience I have some questions. Here are a few things to get the ball rolling.

It is my take that when I put the enemy on +3 experience two things occur. They do get way better, and my guys get worse. I say this in particular to my Pill Box gun experiences. The enemy could give William Tell a run for his money using their Armour piercing shell to shred the apple on the young lads head at 500+ metres barely putting a hair out of place. They often get a kill the pillbox in the 1st minute of engagement. Yet when it is the other way around, well goodbye Mr Tank.

As a side note to the above, I would have expected a concrete pillbox to be an extremely hard kill for a tank.

It also seems very hard to get into a situation where my tank can have a shot through scrub or slightly behind an abject etc where the pillbox cannot knock me out. There also seems to be a situation where I from my perspective view I see that the turret is above the next rise in front, yet unless my entire tank is above that level it cannot target the enemy.

I also noticed that there often seemed to be the situation where an enemy platoon would get down to 2-3 men and suddenly become almost super human, and impossible to kill.

My men when waiting in a building do seem to cop the rough end of the stick when the enemy come in. I am lucky if two German squads can survive 1 American squad. I would have though that the enemy as they arrived and entered would be well and truly rumbled. But my experience with the demo has been such that I no longer put men in the buildings.

Which leads to the other experience with buildings, they make it easier for my men to get shot. Again I have taken to moving my men into the open rather than get slaughtered when within a building.

It may be the same scenario as above with regard to the +3 experience in that they get way better, and my guys get worse, but I was impressed at how the AI handles being the German’s in the Valley exchange. Short bursts keeping themselves hidden and not giving away their position, oh if only the AI had the same tact when it controls my men. Or is it more the result of the AI magically knowing where my men are?

Cheers,

Blah Blah Blah

[Zebulon Pleasure Beast]

If I remember right, the +3 experience adds 3 experience levels to the AI units while the cost remains the same. So, when the AI buys a regular Tiger, instead it counts as 3 levels more experienced, so he gets an elite Tiger at the same price. Conscripts are veterans, Green troops are crack and so forth.

Oh, and, BFC have stated several times that the AI does not cheat. The superhuman survivors is probably fanaticism kicking in.

[Slappy]

Changing the experience level does not impact your units at all, only the computers and in the way described by oneirogen. Conscript becomes Veteran, Green becomes Crack, etc. This can manifest itself as both higher hit chances and better stealth as you have described. It also leads to far better morale as Veteran troops will hold up far longer under fire than conscripts. It does not however impact armor penitration once a hit has been achieved.

As for the problems with tank LOS, I recommend using the LOS tool. I assure you that if you can see it, it can see you and that the reverse is equally true. Eyeballing it from the viewer is not always accurate, particularly if you have increased the size of your units beyond realistic using Shift-C. This can make the sighting you describe go quite off.

[MikeyD]

Huh! You learn something new every day. I've played all the CM games from the day they've come out, and apparently NEVER knew how that +3 experience thing worked! Nice info to (finally) know.

That's the thing about the CM games, despite all the tables, charts and graphs offered up by grogs on the boards you can still go a looooong way playing by the seat of your pants.

Missed CMBB? Oooooh, you missed out on the mighty SturmTiger. It blowed-up stuff real good!

[Speedy]

doesn't it increase the HQ bonuses as well?

[Pzman]

Originally posted by Blah Blah Blah:

It is my take that when I put the enemy on +3 experience two things occur. They do get way better, and my guys get worse.

From what I have seen from using function it only improves your enemy and leaves your own forces unchanged. That's my understanding from reading the manual and using it in game. I never noticed it improving the enemies shooting beyond that of given experience bonus. I have not noticed it improving the HQ bonus, but it might.

[ November 17, 2003, 07:20 PM: Message edited by: Panzerman ]

[melb_will]

With regard to your LOS problem. Remember that what you can see on the screen is only an abstract of what is really going on. Particulary trees that you can see are only there to make the game look pretty the engine doesn't look at the trees you can see.

Also check what size you have your units on, shift c, i think. If you have them on +1 or +2 which makes finding them a lot easier it might make you think you have LOS when you don't

Will

[Blah Blah Blah]

Thanks for your replies.

oneirogen “The superhuman survivors is probably fanaticism kicking in”

I would not have thought that the American’s or the German’s would have the ‘fanaticism’ that you speak about. However, now matter how ‘fanatic’ you are it does not help you dodge bullets

Slappy, yes I think I have the units on +1. With regard to the line of site tool, besides being overly time consuming & clumsy (and not any more realistic than the easier to use SSI games light and dark tool) it does not work from anywhere other than the unit. So I am unable to see before the unit arrives if he will be visible, and by the time that the turn ends the hole in the side of my tank gives me a strong hint that he may have been seen!

However there does not seem to be anywhere where I can hide behind/in the trees and see through a ‘hole’ and attack the enemy. A small hole at my end would be from 500 metres almost impossible to see.

Anyone got any feed back regarding the ease in which the pillbox's are knocked over, the ease in which my men get killed in a building when the enemy is 100m away in the trees or the reversed results of my men within a building comming out 2nd best to the enemy comming in and with normally 1/2 the men that I have. Most of the above was evident before I up'd the enemy to +3 experience.

Again thanks for the feedback.

Look forward to your responses.

Cheers,

Blah Blah Blah

[MAUS_TD]

Thnx guys for the info on experience.

I normally try it the first time +3 because i tought they where only better in hiding in trenches shoot better and didnt route that easy

but i didnt know they become ubersoldiers.

Thats why when i barrage a trench they arent even

pinned.

Now i've two questions, first are the reinforments

the cpu gets also +3 because this isnt so when you give a force +3

second is if they are already crack or elite do they become even more like super elite

maus_td

[Michael Emrys]

Blah (may I call you Blah?), some of what you are complaining about may fall under the heading of **** Happens, or in other words a statistical outlier. The CM engine permits low-odds events and sometimes those events actually occur. What throws people is that sometimes a string of low odds events occurs and it seems like something is going on that isn't random. However, I have been assured by mathematicians that this too can happen.

It's like when you flip a coin, you don't expect it to come up heads 50 consecutive times, and normally it doesn't. But there's nothing really stopping it from doing so. It could come up heads a hundred or a thousand times, but the odds of it each time you flipped it would still be 50/50.

So in playing CM, every once in a while you are going to see something that strikes you as really odd. Now, it might be due to a flaw in the design or a bug in the code. There have been a few of those. But not many and those which exist are probably pretty well known by now. This game has been gone over with a fine tooth comb by some pretty critical enthusiasts on the subject. Most likely the game is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, and producing a low-odds event, just the same way that life insists on doing.

On the other hand, if you consistently use good tactics—the kind that consistently worked in the real world—you'll get consistently good results in the game. Consistently does not mean every time, but it means often enough to keep your averages up.

Michael

[Other Means]

the guys going into buildings routing your guys inside depends upon the firepower of the troops. if they are assaulting with a SMG squad while you're defending with a rifle squad, their firepower in the 400's while yours is 100-200. therefore they will be able to lay down "the smack" at shorted ranges.

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Blah Blah Blah:

However there does not seem to be anywhere where I can hide behind/in the trees and see through a ‘hole’ and attack the enemy. A small hole at my end would be from 500 metres almost impossible to see.

I believe that the current CM engine models every unit as a point. In other words, it measures that unit's ability to see things from a single point, and its ability to be seen by enemy units from that same point. The net result is that a tank can't poke just its front end around a corner or through some trees, thereby limiting its exposure. If a tank can see an enemy, that enemy can see ALL of the tank.

The one exception is putting a tank hull down. In such a case, the lower portion of the tank cannot be hit, but the tank can still be seen. Even hull down is a yes/no situation - there is no ability to be 10% or 25% hull down.

Perhaps the new engine that is under design will model tanks as 3-D objects rather than just points. Keep your fingers crossed, as this would permit the ability to go turret down, as well as varying shades of hull down, plus minimizing exposure through the use of buildings and trees as you described.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Blah Blah Blah:

Had the CMBB demo been simular to CMBO I would have purchased CMBB.

You know, I do recall a certain debate about this, but, well, those of us who said just that were in the minority, or at least we failed to convince BFC.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Blah Blah Blah:

It is my take that when I put the enemy on +3 experience two things occur. They do get way better, and my guys get worse. I say this in particular to my Pill Box gun experiences. The enemy could give William Tell a run for his money using their Armour piercing shell to shred the apple on the young lads head at 500+ metres barely putting a hair out of place. They often get a kill the pillbox in the 1st minute of engagement. Yet when it is the other way around, well goodbye Mr Tank.

The benefit is not that great. Even cracks don't shoot that precise in CMBB. You can observe the hit probablities by using the LOS tool in the editor.

As a side note to the above, I would have expected a concrete pillbox to be an extremely hard kill for a tank.

Pillbox in CMBO and CMBB = mismodeled: they are better to kill from small guns than from big guns. If you play with pillboxes, don't give the attacker small-gun vehicles and no AT rifles and in particular no small AA gun.

It also seems very hard to get into a situation where my tank can have a shot through scrub or slightly behind an abject etc where the pillbox cannot knock me out. There also seems to be a situation where I from my perspective view I see that the turret is above the next rise in front, yet unless my entire tank is above that level it cannot target the enemy.

The graphical representation is not precise enough here. You can shoot from hull down.

I also noticed that there often seemed to be the situation where an enemy platoon would get down to 2-3 men and suddenly become almost super human, and impossible to kill.

The casulty chance is by men. Identical shots at the same distance to a 10-men group have a better chance to hit somebody. For example, if the base probablity is 10% to hit any men, than you have a 19% probablity to get somebody in a 2-men group and 65% in a 10-men group.

Or in other words, you probablity to hit somebody drops dramatically the less men the target has.

My men when waiting in a building do seem to cop the rough end of the stick when the enemy come in. I am lucky if two German squads can survive 1 American squad. I would have though that the enemy as they arrived and entered would be well and truly rumbled. But my experience with the demo has been such that I no longer put men in the buildings.

Study the exposure percentages for light and heavy buildings. Light buildings are deathtraps.

Also, since you seem to use CMBO, MGs and supression are pretty well broken, and that includes the MGs in squads. You can just storm anybody in CMBO.

[Blah Blah Blah]

Originally posted by Other Means:

the guys going into buildings routing your guys inside depends upon the firepower of the troops. if they are assaulting with a SMG squad while you're defending with a rifle squad, their firepower in the 400's while yours is 100-200. therefore they will be able to lay down "the smack" at shorted ranges.

So how is fire power modeled in the game? I presumed fire power related to the hitting ability of that weapon at that range.

With that as my under standing, inside a building, at 10 metres, a bullet is a bullet. The key at that range is RPM, as well as being able to hit the other guy of course But as the Americans have ran 50-100 meters, missing maybe 1 or 2 men coming through a doorway or window against an enemy that should be well setup and which is able to bring more weapons to bear than the attacker, I should have a 3 to 1 advantage.

The exact situation which has as far as I can recolect has been some what consistant, is that a squad of Americans (not a full squad) on +3 can generally decimate my 2 squads of German troops within a building.

Please note that I am playing the demo for CMBO, and the patched game and the next CMBB may not suffer this issue.

I will set it up so that they can have a free run to the house's and see what happens.

On the house problem again, the machine gun in the top florr suffers so many casualties compared to being in a fox hole.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Blah Blah Blah:

On the house problem again, the machine gun in the top florr suffers so many casualties compared to being in a fox hole.

That makes sense, especially if it is a light structure. A unit on the top floor of a building will in general be visible to more enemy units and fired at by them than one in a foxhole.

Michael

[Blah Blah Blah]

redwolf,

How do you study the exposure percentages for buildings? Or any thing else for that matter?

I take it that the pine, tree and bush areas are only indicated by the releveant item, and that I do not have to park my team under that tree, but simply within the shaded area?

Sirocco,

The CMBB demo contained the most narrow focused and fustrating battles. They allowed for no scope and were excercises in fustration. They also were heavily weighted against one side.

Thanks for the input.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Blah Blah Blah:

The CMBB demo contained the most narrow focused and fustrating battles. They allowed for no scope and were excercises in fustration. They also were heavily weighted against one side.

While BFC have stated that the demo didn't hurt sales, I don't think it maximised them, either, but I respect their decision. I do hope the CMAK demo reverts back to the CMBO model in that regard.

[MikeyD]

The 'problem' with the CMBO demo was that it was TOO MUCH fun! Its downright unnatural for a scenario to be played 50 times over (and CMBO demo scenarios even got converted to CMBB so people could keep playing them!). Its generally agreed the CMBB demo scenarios erred a touch too far in the other direction, you should at least enjoy playing it through once!

Well, Matt's just announced the CMAK demo this morning. Time now to compare-and-contrast 'em with the others.