Opinions of 1.05?

[Guest]

There are plenty of even matches on a tactical level. And really, what's "even" got to do with historical periods?

What's the difference between 5 T72s taking on an M1 and 5 Shermans taking on a Tiger? Or a battalion of Russian conscripts assaulting a German company position versus a few hundred uncons assaulting a holed-up US company?

I had a scenario with a bunch of T72s + infantry holding a village... and the AI managed to incapacitate most of my tanks with Stryker-mounted 40mm grenade launchers and their one MGS through clever use of smoke and maneuver. What's not cool about that?

I think modern matchups are viable and interesting, it's just a question of broadening your horizons a bit.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

I have to wonder why modern battles are dull while ww2 battles would not be, given the same engine and same restricted level of units.

Because the important stuff is chalk and cheese.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

Since at the moment QBs are just scenarios that you don't personally have to build

The problem with scenarios, which was the same with CMx1, is that you're in essence fighting someone else's battle. And it isn't just force selection, it's placement, reinforcement location, etc. Scenarios are a much more "on rails" experience than QB's. One suits one group of people, one another.

[Guest]

I prefer QBs in every game that has them, over set scenarios. For the time being, QBs aren't working optimally in CM:SF.

My method for coping with that and still having fun is building my own scenarios and then playing them as if they're QBs (bizarre force selections, changes of time/date, etc.). The CMMODS suggestion was just a... suggestion.

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

As for WW2 versus modern, I think you might have hit the nail on the head. I'm not sure it's churlish to hold the "modern == dull" opinion, though, anymore than it's churlish to prefer WW2 in Northern Africa to Southern Italy. Some things just fit some people better. Modern is far less evenly matched... people looking for that will need to use some imagination to get there.

Gahh! I knew someone would misconstrue it. That's why I bolded the caveat, but to no avail.

My point was that it would be churlish to claim that the game was flawed because one was more interested in a different era.

Sirroco:

What's important about chalk and cheese, and what do they have to do with a wargame? Seriously, I can see no point in your post - could you explain what you mean?

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

As for WW2 versus modern, I think you might have hit the nail on the head. I'm not sure it's churlish to hold the "modern == dull" opinion, though, anymore than it's churlish to prefer WW2 in Northern Africa to Southern Italy. Some things just fit some people better. Modern is far less evenly matched... people looking for that will need to use some imagination to get there.

Gahh! I knew someone would misconstrue it. That's why I bolded the caveat, but to no avail.

My point was that it would be churlish to claim that the game was flawed because one was more interested in a different era.

Sirroco:

What's important about chalk and cheese, and what do they have to do with a wargame? Seriously, I can see no point in your post - could you explain what you mean? </font>

[flamingknives]

Sirocco:

Not the foggiest fella. I'm lost in a world of vagueness and implication.

"Important stuff" could be anything, taking in a broad arc including:

Technology levels relative between the protagonists, be that tanks, small arms, artillery, communications, anti-tank weaponry, observation equipment, or logistics.

Technology levels relative to the other era, taking in the gamut previously listed.

Tactics of the different eras, due to cultural perceptions and standards, available technology or the colour of the first sergeant's underpants.

So I don't know what you consider the "Important stuff"

"Chalk and cheese" is usually taken to mean that two items are different. Being as I have no idea as to what two items you are talking about, it isn't really helpful. There is always the outside chance that there is a new and wonderful meaning of "chalk and cheese" that I am not aware of. Perhaps to do with a teacher leaving his lunch under a blackboard.

[Guest]

flaming, I got it. Just forgot the mildly conspiratorial smiley face. As to your point, conspiratorial or no, I got exactly that and was responding thereto.

Sirocco, as difficult as it is for me to do so, I have to admit that I too am not exactly certain what you meant.

[Battlefront.com]

I don't know what he means either, though I can take a guess And that is the erroneous (in my opinion) belief that there is something inherently different about the nuts and bolts of combat today compared to WW2. I personally don't see it. There are certainly differences, but they are generally balanced out by other systems. For example...

AT missile/rocket technology was in its infancy in WW2, but it was there. A German Squad armed with Panzerfausts could rain on any Allied tank's parade very easily. Panzerschrecks were even worse. The Allies had their own weapons, but they weren't as good and didn't do as much damage when they did hit.

This is fairly similar in modern terms, but the lethality has gone way up as has range and accuracy. So AT missile/rockets are generally far more likely to hit what they shoot at, destroy it if they hit. But the underlying tactics are pretty much the same, just adjusted for range.

In WW2 as the attacker you have to watch out for crunchies targeting your armor. You do this by moving your own crunchies in first, suppressing anything that shoots at you, etc. In modern times it's identical, but you have to be more cautious with your armor. Fortunately you tend to have more immediate ways of suppressing enemy AT capabilities, such as grenade launchers, more responsive artillery, etc.

In WW2 as the defender you try to suppress the enemy's crunchies and force the armor to be committed on its own or at least with its support forces at an inadequate range to offer proper screening and detecting of your forces. You try to hold back fire until you have a good shot since AT teams (then and now) are quickly taken under fire and generally are made ineffective after one or two shots. If you're lucky the team itself survives and is either driven to ground temporarily or forced to relocate.

Everything else is pretty much like this too. Tank battles, for example, in WW2 had the Germans trying to engage the Allies at the greatest range possible. Modern day it's the Americans which want to do this. The only difference is that the WW2 Allies might have a warning shot across the bow to warn them they are being taken under fire, current day an Abrams rarely misses. But all this does is have the effect of accelerating the results of tactical decisions, not necessarily replacing them with new tactics.

So on and so forth

Steve

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[z1812]

Hi All,

As an observation:

1.05, while an improvement, still leaves obvious LOS and combat resolution problems unresolved.

Regards John

[dynaman200]

The two biggies (bugs and LOS issues) I've run into are the firing something explosive at something 2 inches away and the low wall problem. My infantry went over a low wall, and low and behold a T72 was on the other side, so after sitting around chatting with the driver for awhile they shot it with one of the AT weapons, blew up the tank real good - and them along with it.

Since the low wall bug is already known about I counted it as a real hoot and decided to stay away from built up area fights till 1.06. The game is still much improved from the original releases though.

[Pandur]

steve if you read this, please...

i dont need a full blown explaination but just the "why"!?

two more or less little issues i thought, but since we have 1.05 allready and no sight of any change in that areas i guess this must have reasons.

- Hide&Cover arc working ala CMx1; why´s this not in anymore, it was awsome for WeGo and it would be great for CMSF too in more than just some situations.

- Cover arcs not extendable behond mapedge;

i thought thats easy to fix, but we still cant cover corners or long, streched maps with cover arcs.

its no biggie but its more than annoying as hell.

also remember the ease of "cover arc" + Ctrl button giving a fixed 180° arc and you just needed to set direction and range!?

so, i have to ask, is there any chance to see these things in a future patch maybe!?

[Barleyman]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

There are plenty of even matches on a tactical level. And really, what's "even" got to do with historical periods?

There are no such examples on the included campaign, thought. Just played thru another few scenarios with 1.05 and the main challenge is to administer the various assets at your disposal with reasonable effectiveness. Then you just get a "total victory" out of the blue when the red side throws in the towel after being shelled/bombed/peppered by completely overwhelming force. If you weren't hampered by the crappy UI, even the administration bit would be walk-thru..

Ho-hum. Maybe it's exciting for Amis who can drive around their favourite beer can on wheels but for the rest of us..

It's like playing CMBB with crack panzergrenadier battalion in -41 against understrength conscript company. Every time.

[flamingknives]

It's like playing CMBB with crack panzergrenadier battalion in -41 against understrength conscript company. Every time.

Well, isn't that the historical reality?

If someone were to make a historically accurate campaign for WW2, it would be exactly that. Or you could play as the Germans on the recieving end of operation Bagration. Or the Italian infantry in Lybia. Or any number of grossly one-sided matchups. Would you like to fight as the Germans against the British or Americans with historically accurate amounts of artillery?

It may be more difficult to generate an unrealistic even match than it was in CMX1, due to QB issues, but it should still be possible.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

Well, isn't that the historical reality?

No

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Adam1:

After really working on one particular scenario to remove all the bugs (no more small walls, and also placed buildings carefully and tested over and over to make sure no LOS/LOF situations existed) I am finding 1.05 a huge improvement over 1.04. It just took a lot of fiddling to get it to work. Kudos.

I hope you saved the old scenario with the low walls because you can bet when v1.06 rolls around your first stab at that scenario with low wall will work fine then

IMHO

FWIW

[flamingknives]

Ah, well, I must clearly bow to molotov_billy's insight and outstanding explanation. Such and reasoned presentation of irrefutable evidence is clearly too much for me.

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

Ah, well, I must clearly bow to molotov_billy's insight and outstanding explanation. Such and reasoned presentation of irrefutable evidence is clearly too much for me.

The notion is absurd. I know it, you know it, anybody who reads it knows it - It's not worth a shred of anybody's time to discuss it. Of course you have the right to say ridiculously flippant things if you wish, but to put it out in writing doesn't make it true.

[ December 29, 2007, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: molotov_billy ]

[Sirocco]

Honestly, if you can compare combat between bolt action rifles and modern semi autos for example, well, what's the point in expounding? Modern weapons are much more lethal, but hey, let's ignore that, and the fact the match up in CMSF doesn't actually match up, and all pretend black is white.

[Sirocco]

BTW: I finally got the game to give me a different map once in a while in QB's by importing the user generated map packs. It was an improvement but two things; one, pathing is at times a-freaking-bysmal, especially when units cancel movement orders, for example a reverse, then hunt turns into a hunt, pointed in the wrong direction. And second, as mentioned above, games end out of the blue when you've delivered enough ordnance on the hapless Syrians. No real sense of victory, especially when I'm barely past the start line. If you're having fun with it, great, I'm sure there are many happy customers out there. I'm not knocking your experience. But again, roll on WW2, as long as BFC fix the engine.

[flamingknives]

Worship-figure on a fiery velocipede!

What is this? The university of life? Degrees in It stands to reason? Doctorates in what some bloke down the pub told me?

Can we have some critical throught or are we limited to monosyllabic repetitions of what we saw on the history channel, and woe betide anyone who disagrees?

CM:SF is, by its very definition, all about a Stryker company fighting its way into Syria.

If you took a similar campaign but set in WW2, you could make it just as lopsided while remaining absolutely historically accurate. you could follow a German Halftrack battalion (granted there weren't that many of them) through operation Barborossa, facing hordes of easily destroyed conscript Russians, who bumble around and do enourmously stupid things, whilst being utterly outmatched in terms of equipment and training.

Nonetheless people got plenty of even matchups in CMX1, by carefully picking unusual situations or exploiting game features or that the player was less of a tactical noob than the real life commander.

Honestly, if you can compare combat between bolt action rifles and modern semi autos for example, well, what's the point in expounding? Modern weapons are much more lethal, but hey, let's ignore that, and the fact the match up in CMSF doesn't actually match up, and all pretend black is white.

Well, lets examine that, shall we?

WW2 section small arms consisted of:

Light machine guns, sub machine guns, bolt action rifles and semi-automatic rifles

Modern section small arms consist of:

Light machine guns and select-fire assault rifles filling in the role of rifle and SMG.

Since there is plently of evidence that most casualties are caused by machine guns, which have changed little since then, the lethality of small arms is not that much changed. In fact, modern squad machine guns are somewhat less powerful these days (comparing MG42 to SAW, at least). Where it has changed, the difference is incremental rather than revolutionary.

Certainly where semi-automatic or automatic weapons met bot-action rifles the result was scarcely a rout of one side purely on the basis of the issue weapon. Apart from anything else, towards the end of the war, most nations had a significant, if not generous, mix of automatic weapons.

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

Worship-figure on a fiery velocipede!

What is this? The university of life? Degrees in It stands to reason? Doctorates in what some bloke down the pub told me?

Can we have some critical throught or are we limited to monosyllabic repetitions of what we saw on the history channel, and woe betide anyone who disagrees?

*yawn*

CM:SF is, by its very definition, all about a Stryker company fighting its way into Syria.

If you took a similar campaign but set in WW2, you could make it just as lopsided while remaining absolutely historically accurate.

Now explain why one would do such a thing.

Nonetheless people got plenty of even matchups in CMX1, by carefully picking unusual situations or exploiting game features or that the player was less of a tactical noob than the real life commander.

Point being, WW2 is replete with examples of interesting, evenly matched, *combined arms* engagements where there wouldn't have to be arbitrary, silly restrictions to the player's methods and resources.

No, the entire war was not a case of Russian conscripts VS "elite German halftrack infantry." Methinks that *somebody* is pulling their ideas from the history channel, but it certainly isn't me!

[flamingknives]

Careful, I'll end up in the Peng thread if you keep this level of witty repartee up. Would you really want that on your conscience?

Why make a lopsided campaign? Because people want to win it. If you make a series of equally matched battles, you would get large portions of your force wiped out between battles and there would be very little continuity. I would go so far as to say that a campaign can only be lopsided to be playable when it has the constraints of modern combat.

Point being, WW2 is replete with examples of interesting, evenly matched, *combined arms* engagements where there wouldn't have to be arbitrary, silly restrictions to the player's methods and resources.

Excuse me? I seem to recall many comments on the ahistorical methods required to make a CMX1 battle equal in all but the most specific situations. Things like the limits on allied artillery in CMAK, or CMBB Germans possessing more tanks in a company engagements than they had on the whole front, or early war Russians actually being able to conduct tactical manoeuvre.