Missions too hard?

[Capt. Toleran]

Anyone else think the campaign missions are too hard? I keep hoping someone else will make some new missions already, because the ones in the campaign just kill me. How is a platoon of thin-armored tanks supposed to go up against 8 mutually supported guns, like in St. Lo or Dunkirk?

Could someone post some screenshots showing their strategy? It might help win over some of the naysayers, and teach us (much like how in the CMBO forum, beta testers gave us all lessons in how to win) how to play this game right. I've been playing CMx1 forever, and damned if I can make any traction more than 3 missions into any campaign.

Other than that, I pretty much like the game. Modeling is good, we are just missing smoke (which would be really helpful in the maps mentioned above) and real cover. And yeah, the maps are a little boring It would be nice to be able to put a MG in the 2nd floor of a building instead of the backyard (with no LOS).

[Percopius]

Please, when you talk about difficulty level, you must state the case for EACH difficulty level. Is it too hard on hard? Is it to hard on normal? On easy? If your going to state that you only play on hard, and then complain about how hard it is, I have a lot of problems with that. These mission have tactical solutions that make hard seem simple to beat. I don't want hard level play to be easier, personaly. that's my opinion.

[devildog0514]

Originally posted by Capt. Toleran:

Anyone else think the campaign missions are too hard? I keep hoping someone else will make some new missions already, because the ones in the campaign just kill me. How is a platoon of thin-armored tanks supposed to go up against 8 mutually supported guns, like in St. Lo or Dunkirk?

Could someone post some screenshots showing their strategy? It might help win over some of the naysayers, and teach us (much like how in the CMBO forum, beta testers gave us all lessons in how to win) how to play this game right. I've been playing CMx1 forever, and damned if I can make any traction more than 3 missions into any campaign.

Other than that, I pretty much like the game. Modeling is good, we are just missing smoke (which would be really helpful in the maps mentioned above) and real cover. And yeah, the maps are a little boring It would be nice to be able to put a MG in the 2nd floor of a building instead of the backyard (with no LOS).

Dunkirk was easy for me, You just got to have the right strategy. Sacrifice 2 of your infantry squads to assault the enemy AT guns sitting ontop the hill. Capture 2 of em if you can, turn them on the other AT gun knock it out and use it against the other tanks sitting ontop the hill. Re- Man then when your crew gets killed. I finished the mission without losing a single tank are Hard. I lost most of my infantry.. But hey thats that sacrifice you have to make..

You wanna try a hard mission, try the 6th mission on the soviet campaign.. Strong at Heart I believe...

I cant beat that mission at all..

[Capt. Toleran]

But when you try for the gun at the top of the hill, the supporting tanks wipe out your infantry. If you bring up your tanks to try and help, all 8 guns on the map pound the crap out of them before they make it over the crest of the hill.

[Capt. Toleran]

BTW, I'm talking about hard, because that is where the realism is. My problem with hard isn't that it is hard, but that every hard battle seems to give the defender more materiel than the attacker, which is just wrong. The Germans won the French campaign somehow, I imagine with more concentrated in the same place than the French/English. Why am I attacking with such a small force?

My point is, these missions feel gamey in a way CM missions do not. The whole point of wargames like these is that there is supposed to be more than one way to skin a cat, and more tools in the toolbox to utilize. From what you guys describe, it's basically "Oh, there's the gimmick to winning this map" which is not at all what CMers are about, or what Battlefront games were about. That's why I want to play some user-generated missions -- At least those might be fair, and not gimmicky. I love the engine (for the most part, though we still need smoke, real cover, and building that can be occupied), I hate the campaigns.

[Tha_Field_Marshall]

I would think that what is needed most is on map mortars for taking care of AT guns and MG's. Although I never hear anyone complain about MG's tearing apart infantry like they did in CM. I have only played the demo a little bit so far so I cannot comment on the campaign mission difficulty. Are artillery fire missions rare in ToW or just ineffective?

[theBrit]

I completed Dunkirk on my 3rd attempt with no losses to my tanks. It was difficult and time consuming but dont rush it, think about it.

I destroyed the first line of AT with crawling infantry squads. When they were spotted I would get them to target each of the gunners. It worked but I took heavy losses!!! This released the reinforcements, which along with the first group of Panzers then targeted the distant hill AT guns, the remaing infantry I got to man the French AT guns.

As I say, no Tank losses...though two were immobilized but kept firing.

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

The missions smell of RTS "puzzle" missions, where you have to overcome impossible odds by a very narrow "good" strategy and abuse of AI weaknesses.

They are LY away from real (read "historically plausible") battles as portrayed by CM.

[theBrit]

RTS Puzzles??? Hmmm not sure about that...

But I agree the odds do seem stacked against the player. Even the accuracy of the enemy is far superior. My poor panzers have a real job trying to knock out even the poorest French tank.

[FinnN]

With experience I can now usually do moderately well getting to the first set of objectives without excessive casualties. The problem is as soon the enemy reinforcements arrive it's very easy to get swamped. Now, once you know where they're going to appear from you can preempt that the next time you play the scenario as the enemy always comes from exactly the same location each time. I think that is what Pascal is getting at - each time you play a mission you're developing your ability to respond to that mission - not developing your overall skills to allow you to cope with any situation. Personally, I think most scenarios are unbeatable unless you've already been through them previously as the odds are just too great to employ anything much less than 'perfectly'.

Have fun

Finn

[theBrit]

I suppose when the modding community get going we'll see better balanced battles and campaigns. At the moment the the feedback about the editor is thats its too complicated.

[Bad]

the harder, the better imo,

[FinnN]

Problem is, because the predictability of the way that scenarios play out, once you hit the correct solution the scenarios become fairly easy (easyish anyway, lucky shots aside). If things weren't as tight you could vary things even given the scripted scenarios by trying out different tactics, but as things are you more or less have to do things one way or lose.

Have fun

Finn

[Freeboy]

I may be way off, BUT WHAT CM DID U GUYS BUY? I want to get it, because the 3500 hours or so I spent on all three cm games gave me little to identify with most of the above comments about "realism" or "ai". IMO the ia in cm was non existant. never flanked. basicaly could do one thing, a static defense. I loved the editor so easy, and the smoke and the many othe rcm features, but get real, cm is lame compared to tow for ai behavior.

I do however concure that the standard campiegn missions tend to the really too hard, one plus would be a simple add on to tell us what TRIGGERS! where there. on call morter support might be nice too!