Major Defeat in CMAK Tutorial

[Hiram Sedai]

Uh, I like the game alot but I lost during the Tutorial because I think the game cheated. We all know how gamey the AI is.

Three years of playing CM games and I'm still gnat feces on the sidewalk of life. Any tips for the braindead among us?

[Yeknodathon]

Originally posted by Hiram Sedai:

Uh, I like the game alot but I lost during the Tutorial because I think the game cheated. We all know how gamey the AI is.

Three years of playing CM games and I'm still gnat feces on the sidewalk of life. Any tips for the braindead among us?

Play me. We can both lose.

Yeknod

[JasonC]

lol.

Spoiler alert, for those who haven't played the demo scenario.

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Well, if you play it as the Brits, you will find the key is the anti armor portion of the defense. It is limited, and based on only a few items. The only really effective weapon in the whole Italian defense is a lone 20mm AA gun. It is enough to wipe your thin armor force if you let it, but if you avoid it properly you can waltz over the Italian infantry.

The first trick is simply to find it. The main thing is not to lose your entire armor force in the process, by shoving all of it at once within its LOS. When it fires you won't get more than a sound contact, so you can't just overwhelm it with the (frankly, limited) firepower of your light armor. They won't know where to shoot.

The best thing is if you manage to draw its fire with mere infantry. The AI isn't smart enough to hold its fire until it sees several vehicles at once, as a human probably would be. The next best thing is to get only one fast moving vehicle shot at with it. You might lose it or small behind armor effect (for its small rounds) might save you.

Get whatever is being shot at out of LOS. If you are clever you can even use this process to help pinpoint the gun. The trick is to approach the village from angles that e.g. put a building close to a sandbag area or tree patch along the same line. Those buildings have to create dead ground, because there is only one shooter (that matters). You may be able to see where LOS is created or broken, by where you are shot. And from this deduce which sand bag emplacement or patch of trees has the gun - when combined with the sound contact, I mean.

Once you know where the 20mm is, you need to take it out with your 3 inch mortar. That is your heavy hitter. Spot for it and it can stay out of LOS behind the ridgelines. It has decent ammo, so you can put a minute of fire on each of a couple of targets if you aren't sure. If the mortar rounds fall while a vehicle of yours is engaged by the 20mm, you can also check out its "ducking" to see if you have the right spot. If you do, keep plastering with the 3 inch.

Once the 20mm is dead your light armor rules the battlefield. There is also an ATR out there, but it has only a slim chance of actually KOing anything. Use multiple MGs from several cars to hose the nearest enemy seen. Advance with your infantry to draw their fire, hitting the deck when shot at until the light armor works the shooter over. Rout each shooter in turn and resume the infantry advance.

The best approaches head toward the center of the village area using buildings to mask defending emplacements. Once some infantry get to cover, leave a squad in each well protected place to support by fire as you move to the next, and to give you multiple places to spot from and shoot up routed enemies. The light armor does the actual breaking - just stay 50-100m away and the infantry can't hurt you.

It really teaches combined arms, and the spotting problem. In the desert, armor can't advance on its own anywhere near any kind of cover because hidden guns can kill it too easily (it is all thin). But arty and heavy weapons support can take out or blind (with dust from a barrage e.g.) the guns easily - if you know where they are. Vehicles are easy to spot and can be fought with more or better vehicles. But the key to safe advances is for somebody to first find the defending guns. If that is "recon by death", so be it, but it has to be done. Before the main body is risked.

[Salkin]

Anyone up for a game ?

I could REALLY use a victory .

//Salkin