My Impressions

[finkster]

This is a most interesting game, and much of its interest comes with it tendency to parallel current events. In a war that is not going very well, you can try out your tactical ideas and get a notion as to how things would work out.

The modern weapons set is very deadly, and you must proceed with appropriate meticulously planned advances when close to the enemy.

Artillery/Airstrikes are much better modeled than before, and the graphics for a mortar strike are worth the price of admission. Showering fragments on a hidden enemy and hearing his screams of pain is priceless.

There are some areas that I have noted need cleaning up. These include:

1. Path/Target lines can be obscured, especially at long distance by blending of colors. Make the colors Bold.

2. No mechanism to see all paths/target lines. This is inexcusable as this capability is most important, and it is a direct copy from CMx1

3. No way to make minor adjustments to path/target lines by nudging a drop point. You have to start from the beginning. This is especially important in commands like “dismount” which are arbitrarily set by the computer.

4. Target arcs are difficult to set, especially on small maps as the arc will try to leave the game area and not set to the horizon. In fact, the default should be that target arcs set to the horizon and can be reduced if desired. Most often, we want to guard a sector, without determining the nuances of line-of-sight etc that would allow an enemy unit to approach to closely.

5. Target arcs require a half-arc key, and perhaps a quarter-arc based on their front. Full 360 degree coverage ought to be the default, i.e. units are on guard all the time all around themselves unless given specific orders otherwise [which implies that some other unit(s) is guarding their back].

6. I set the target arc on one turn, and it disappears on the next.

7. Often I want to face my units in a different direction, but cannot do so as no “Face” command is available.

8. I prefer a right-click menu system with mnemonic keypresses, e.g. “m” for move instead of “o”.

9. Can’t turn off music – I want to lose the annoying repeating theme.

10. Turn off the automatic replay. Some turns I don’t want or need it and I’d rather turn it on myself when I do.

11. Turn on an autosave at the beginning each turn.

12. A ruler that tells me how many feet/meters I am going to move on each leg of a route.

13. can’t undo a pop-smoke command in the orders phase

14. Can’t undo a “face” command in the orders phase

15. Can’t undo an “Acquire” command. Major pain if the wrong unit picks up something. It can’t get rid of it.

16. No warning when overwriting a save file.

17. “Adjust Mission” command to mortars does nothing

18. Panel does not specify what terrain units are in. Are they in the building? Are they on the 1st or 2nd floor? or Both?

19. Battle of Al Amrah does not end when objectives are fulfilled. It wants to carry on to the bitter end, and make me withdraw.

20. Units get lost even when given highly specific directions and wander around the board into danger without warning.

21. One Stryker and its passenger were lost from my control without any damage.

22. It is exceedingly annoying to find that quick battles of a given size use the exact same “mapboard” time after time. This game will get old fast, unless you give it flexibility.

[Javaslinger]

It seems to me that many of your requests center around nearly complete and total fine control of your units. And this is exactly what is different between the old CM's and this one. Increased fog of war means less control. You can't direct your men from one tree to the next.. you can only give an objective, a rough course and trust them to their training....

Javaslinger

[Stirling]

But the AI can't be trusted to follow given orders, let alone trusted to think on its own.

I assume it will be fixed eventually, though.

And most of his requests are bugs or UI problems.

[thewood]

Actually, I think few of those are fine control. Most are poor UI or information that is needed.

[GreenAsJade]

Originally posted by finkster:

Showering fragments on a hidden enemy and hearing his screams of pain is priceless.

:eek:

I actually find this one of the most offputting things of the whole game.

I _hate_ seeing individual men kark it while playing a wargame. If I want a horror movie, I'll go hire one.

While at a "social conscience" level I can see there might be some argument for this level of depiction being a good thing, I think finkster is a great example of why this is pointless.

For me a wargame is about the skill of applying tactics correctly to achieve an end. It's unfortunate human nature that one of the most fascinating ends is military conquest, but as a matter of enjoyment, I don't really need to be reminded of this strange twist in our psyche!

GaJ

[Behemoth]

*Not trying to hijack your thread, but I have a few questions to ask people who are forming opinions about this title*

I've downloaded and played the demo and I have had trouble with the giving of orders to troops. I don't want to rehash the topic of a broken WEGO system, just merely clarify for my own satisfaction, whether or not units will react to threats dynamically. I know the hunt option works for this but is there a better way, say a stance option which can be set for the unit? I've noticed albeit from the demo that units traveling under movement orders will ignore threats until they come to the end of the path they were ordered on. This doesn't seem very logical, from a game play stand point; As the micromanagement in real time play would be almost overwhelming I should think, and the wego would leave them vulnerable without any orders at all until the end of the turn. If I am correct that this is in fact the way the game is designed, is there any official response as to why or will it be changed? I've read thousands of forum lines about this game, so if this is spoken about somewhere else in detail plz point me there. Thanks for the guidance. I'm guarded yet excited about this title.

-B

[Muldoon]

Originally posted by finkster:

...

7. Often I want to face my units in a different direction, but cannot do so as no “Face” command is available.

...

14. Can’t undo a “face” command in the orders phase

...

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you mean... but those two items seem to conflict each other.

Muldoon

[Capt. Toleran]

The adjust mortars thing also goes for me -- what happened with this? Can anyone else get it to adjust?

[Huntarr]

Adjust fire is bugged

[ToadMan]

Originally posted by GreenAsJade:

:eek:

I actually find this one of the most offputting things of the whole game.

I _hate_ seeing individual men kark it while playing a wargame. If I want a horror movie, I'll go hire one.

While at a "social conscience" level I can see there might be some argument for this level of depiction being a good thing, I think finkster is a great example of why this is pointless.

For me a wargame is about the skill of applying tactics correctly to achieve an end. It's unfortunate human nature that one of the most fascinating ends is military conquest, but as a matter of enjoyment, I don't really need to be reminded of this strange twist in our psyche!

GaJ

CM : SF is not only a wargame :-

"At it's core, Combat Mission: Shock Force is a military simulation"

From the CMSF Overview.

As a simulation, they wanted to abstract as few things as practically possible. Personally I think this is a good thing.

TM.

[SgtMuhammed]

You can clear a pop smoke order. Go to the combat tab and clear target.

[Speedy]

Originally posted by GreenAsJade:

Accept it GreenAsJade, you're a sicko like the rest of us.