Surviving Urban Ops #1- long post

[The_Capt]

Based on some comments on the main board I think there may be some people out there who are frustrated with CMSF. Particularly the urban warfare aspect of the game.

I think that this may be a result of the fact that CMSF is closer to a tactical simulator than a traditional wargame. There are abstractions, to be sure, but not only does the player need to use solid tactics but he then has to adapt them to the interface and rules of the game.

This is a steep order, in short CMSF is the deep end of the wargame ocean. So in an effort to help out and perhaps make peoples enjoyment of the game richer...it does help to win now and again. I am going to write up a series of tutorials on urban warfare and CMSF.

My background is military but I am going to tell you a little secret...tactics are the simplest things in the world..in short they are a series of rules designed to keep any idiot alive and deny the same to the other guy. This is not rocket science...if it was the 'ol Capt would have had to find another line of work.

Tactics are actually quite simple..they have to be. Executing them in real combat is the hardest thing one can ever do...well I've never given birth but..well whatever. In combat your brain pretty much starts to shut down. The stress of the noise and confusion means that higher cognitive functions start to seriously degrade. Here is where heart of tactics come into play..drills.

Drills are something you can do in your sleep...I can remember dreaming about getting an order and being half-way out of my hooch to execute before I realized it was the middle of the night and I was suppose to be sleeping.

But before we get into the CMSF "drills" let's start with some fundementals of urban combat, The_Capt Commandments if you will;

#1 Cover is King. I cannot stress this enough, keep your guys under cover at every opportunity. If you don't believe me set up a quick test with a squad in a building and one outside at close range..say no more than 50m. Let them go at it...the outside one will always get cut to pieces.

#2 Firepower is currency. You need to make sure you have the worst exchange rate in the world. The other team hands you a dime..you give em back $20. This is key as a big part of urban warfare is also ensuring your troops and vehicles are placed in positions that will let them fire effectively. In every situation you need to ask yourself "how can I get more guns going at X"

#3 Reckless movement equals dead. In the post on the main board I went on about this at great length. If you are moving troops up through secure lines sprint them til they puke. If you are advancing to contact, Hunt is just about the only movement you should be using. Move is not working as it should just yet so again I say "Hunt". This command will give your troops the best chance to spot an enemy and do something about it. In urban combat the side that is static and under cover will always kill the poor fella moving.

#4 Urban warfare is a deliberate operation. I know the cult of speed is very big in modern militaries and I have even seen some of this on the forum. Let me assure you that urban warfare is a slow and deliberate process. You need to maintain the initative, limit OPFOR mobility wherever possible, but at the tactical level any dream you may have of running through a town like Delta's will quickly be shattered by a determined opponent. Speed and initative are more applicable to the operational level of warfare in this context.

#5 Micromanage. Yup you heard me. Urban combat in CMSF is very complex. You are going to have to manage your troops very closely. The AI is really decent if your guys are not moving or covering a field of fire but when on the move you have to become the big brain of the operation.

Ok lets open with the scenario molotov_billy gave us and work on our first drill ie the Blind Corner.

The Blind Corner should be avoided at all costs. Cut through a building, get some eyes on the corner by moving troops another way..anything. But sometimes you wll be forced to send a squad around a bend that you cannot see around.

In this case I highly recommend the "L".

Ok maybe it isn't exactly an L but make up your own name for it then.

Basically this move allows your squad..plse note is is covered by the Pl HQ in the rear...to move up quickly over the ground you know is safe and then kicks them into Hunt before the reach the sightline of the corner.

The Hunt command is shifted close to the wall and then up to the corner. The reason for this is purely gamey. By hunting toward the wall you only expose your flanking couple of guys to fire.

In the above picture we get the moment of contact. Here you can let your troops try and muddle through on their own but you can probably expect a couple casualties. If you hit the halt button and have them pull back with a hasty quick order you can get them out in one piece. I did it with only one "yellow" section member. So I walk away knowing where the enemy are and can still do something about it.

So what to do now? Well the good news is that Pl HQ has the road covered, so I would recommend a quick flanking manoeuvre.

You've got a couple choices:

Or if you have troops with breaching charges:

The worst case against a human opponent will be the enemy section pulling back to those buildings behind them. The next tutorial will walk you through how to handle that.

For now lets go with the breaching team.

Here you have to keep the Blast-Move endpoint tight to the wall about 3m should do it. If you push it out too far your section will try and go all the way around the wall. This is a bug and Charles is working on it.

Once you have breach behind the enemy section..here AI who will stay put like Hindu Cows. Now don't get pissed out there and start another uproar, we didn't call the AI in CMx1 "Mom" for nothing. She will give you a moderate challenge but in the end she loves you and will let you win.

Against a human it is another story. If your opponent has not been keeping up with The_Capt's tutorial he may leave those poor bastards in place after they have been found. If he is any good he will move em pronto.

No matter from your point of view you have em spotted and more importantly they can only move back to the buildings.

In the case of this scenario the enemy stayed put..bad for them.

And here the beauty of the US infantry section firepower when you can get behind an opponent. End result 2 US casualties and one dead Syrian section.

Ok there you have it. The Blind Corner beaten without you getting a section wiped out. I encourage you to practice until you can get the L just right. It won't be perfect everytime but once you figure it out it will save you much pain.

Next issue we will go through the assault. an absolutely essential tool that will mean the difference between a dead US or Syrian section at the end of the day.

[Mord]

Intersting and well written. Will keep these ideas in mind when playing. One question though, how does it fair in WEGO? Can't use any of the instant commands in WEGO.

Mord.

[rogue187]

Hello Capt, I just posted in the main fourm saying that I don't really understand modren combat tactics. Are you willing to work with people one on one on trying to get the hang of these concepts? Maybe do a couple of play by e-mail or TCP/IP games?

[The_Capt]

Hey Mord,

Well I have to be honest in that I don't really play WEGO much.

Tell you what let me see what I can come up with. The trick with WEGO was always to try and end the turn with your troops in an advantagous position. This would mean timing movement (including command delays) to coincide with the end of turn.

RTs strength is that you can influence troop damn near instantly..no more waiting helplessly for the clock to run out. This to me is why I love CMSF in RT.

You bring up an excellent question..is CMSF better played in RT or WEGO?

rogue,

I am always up to help. PBEM is best for me as TCP eats into RL time.

I can also send some trg problems to play solo. These break down play to a fundemental level where I think most people need a solid foundation.

[metalbrew]

These tactics are contingent on breaking initial contact. The TacAI is way too braindead to survive 60 seconds during WeGo play.

There is no form of movement that will drop or seek cover when needed. Hunt does not do this. Every other form of movement is 100% fatal if you make contact with the enemy while between waypoints.

Troops need to be given waypoints every 10-15m if you want them to move and survive in WeGo play, because troops pause at each waypoint and will return fire while stationary. It's a crutch to do this and I don't particularly like it, but it's better than 100% death while moving during WeGo. Assault is worthless in MOUT because the overwatch team lags 50m behind the lead force and rarely can influence the fight because they don't have the angle. Another useful trick is to do you best to plan movements so you just begin to enter the open area with 5-10 seconds left in the turn, this allows the player to manually break contact on the next orders phase.

So again, the above tactic may work while playing realtime play, but playing WeGo your squad will die 9/10 coming around the corner because you're not able to command them to break contact. If you use lots of waypoints near the corner you're likely to get spot while stationary and return fire (even then you're in a fair fight and who wants a fair fight?). If you time the moment you come around the corner to fall around 50-55 seconds into a turn, you may be able to break contact with your next orders phase.

It would be great if assault behavior changed to 5-10m bounding movements or hunt worked properly. I'd go as far as to say hunt should behave like CMx1 and CM:SF needs a move to contact command added (which is what hunt is currently).

[Plugger]

Goodaye,

Good stuff. More please.

Cheers,

Plugger

[Crinius]

Yeah plz more of that. i love talking Tactics.

[The_Capt]

metalbrew,

I just ran through the same scenario using WEGO and the L-hunt system above, same waypoints et al. My troops spotted the enemy and pulled back to cover getting only one slightly wounded in the process.

By the_capt

End result was actually only one friendly casualty and a wiped out Syrian section.

Tried it a few time and the worst I did was 3 casualties before I could get the squad back.

You do bring up an excellent point though. I think in WEGO you have to keep your bounds very short and use multiple waypoints.

Also that if you are going to use blas-move that you 1) bring the squad close to the wall with quick or move ie within 10m and 2) make sure blast-move end just on the other side of the wall. If you put blast-move too far forward your section may take it into its head to switch the order to quick and go all the way around both side of the wall. In RT you can hit the stop button but in WEGO you are pretty much helpless.

[Chelco]

This is a great thread, The_Capt.

What's your opinion on breaking up the squad into fire teams (or even more into AT team, and assault team on top of that) for this "peek around the corner" task?

Man, this thread made a difference. I made an MOUT AAR a time ago, and I relied too much in the fire support of IFVs. Many said I over-exposed my IFVs and I agree. After reading this and the previous thread, I can clear the street with dismounts only. Well, and just one Javelin!

Thanks and keep posting.

[The_Capt]

Chelco,

Splitting the squad has distinct advantages and disadvantages.

I ran thru this test several time with split squads and I noticed that a split squad does not have the same spotting capability as a full squad...this kinda makes sense as we are talking about 6 eyeballs instead of 18.

The result was usually losing the scouting element to the man. This isn't all bad news as I still had the rest of the squad to go finish the job.

Personally I prefer to keep my squads together in the offence. The defence is another matter, here a 3 man team can act as early warning and still put down a decent amount of fire. Although if you can make it work for you go for it.

Thanks for the feedback.

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

I just ran through the same scenario using WEGO and the L-hunt system above, same waypoints et al. My troops spotted the enemy and pulled back to cover getting only one slightly wounded in the process.

First, I didn't see any link to your scenario or I'd run this drill myself.

Second, while playing WeGo, when your troops rounded the corner how many seconds of gametime elapsed until the end of the turn? I think the amount of autonomous time is critical given the current TacAI, you must minimize the time your troops think (or lack of think) for themselves.

If you contrive an example where the troops round the corner in the first 5 seconds of the turn, and they engage in 55 seconds of fighting before you can pull them back, they will fair much worse. This is main due to a stationary ambusher firing at the moving troops who won't defend themselves until they've made the TacAI decision to stop.

[The_Capt]

metalbrew,

E-mail sent. Ran through it again with a 15 sec pause at the start. Was engaged turn 2 about 10 secs in. Same result..squad pulled back after 1 casualty.

Good point on WEGO though, that is why I prefer RT to be honest.

[Chelco]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

... The trick with WEGO was always to try and end the turn with your troops in an advantagous position. This would mean timing movement (including command delays) to coincide with the end of turn.

One thing that would be great in WEGO games is to have each waypoint labelled with a number indicating the estimated arrival time to that waypoint. Sort like in TacOPS.

[metalbrew]

Corners

I played through this vignette 4 times. Of the 4 times, 2 times played similar to The_Capt's example. The other 2 times the squad was slaughtered to various degrees. I didn't preserve my screencaps from the successes, they pretty much looked like The_Capt's.

Before I get into the slaughters, I have a gripe about the 2 successes I witnessed. When the units break contact while moving under the hunt command, they're not really breaking contact. That is to say, they are not moving away from the enemy with a purpose. What I'm observing is what many people have observed when canceling a movement order, the game assigns a waypoint to the nearest action square. Now, if the nearest action square is behind cover you could call that breaking contact. What it equally likely is that the nearest action square is closer to the enemy and the friendlies will move towards the enemy and (possibly) further into the open. I still do not see the behavior I think any trained squad would try to execute under fire. What I believe I'm seeing is a coinflip or a dice roll, skill and knowledge of the game cannot overcome some of the TacAI weaknesses.

Onto the slaughters. To quote 007, "Strict rules of golf, Goldfinger". I played Elite WeGo and if given the chance at the end of the turn I tried to save my troops by breaking contact behind the wall.

Slaughter 1

The squad is almost through it's first hunt waypoint, no enemy spotted and no fire taken.

Still plugging along, nothing spotted no fire taken.

OK, the action begins. They've taken an RPG hit and RPK fire. Visible is the hunt command has canceled and a quick move waypoint has been created to the nearest action point.

The squad continues to receive fire after failing to react quickly to the enemy. The waypoint has now switched to slow movement, which will result in the crawl of death.

This is the aftermath, 15 seconds left in turn 2. There are 4 casualties and the squad is more or less useless for the next 10 minutes while they recover and regroup. Even after regrouping, losing 4 of 9 member is a huge blow. I don't believe a single enemy was wounded or killed.

[metalbrew]

Slaughter 2

We join the squad after reaching the first hunt waypoint, they're nearing the corner. This one turns out really bad.

Maybe they're safe after all, 3 squad members moving under the hunt command have eyeballs around the corner no enemy to be seen. This is why they joined up, another easy rout in the desert.

Oh wait, there's the enemy squad, laying in plain view in the dirt. Sheesh, Specialist Johnson, if we live through this you're never going on point again. You are clearly blind. Taking fire, 2 casualties taken and some wounded. Take note of where the quick waypoint is located. It's on the closest action square closer to the enemy and not behind any cover.

Awe crap, we are so screwed. Mom is going to get the telegram. There are 4 casualties and wounded. The waypoint has changed to slow movement and they're on their way toward death assuming the exertion of crawling doesn't kill them first.

On turn 2 the remaining 2 soldiers broke contact. There were 7 casualties and wounded. Although the slow waypoint still directed the survivors towards the enemy, they chose to crawl in the opposite direction. The waypoint doesn't always indicate what direction the squad will travel, especially when shaken. This squad was wiped out.

Aftermath

Sorry for being such a smartass, I got a little carried away as I'm wont to do. I'm disappointed that at many times, the action square aspect of engine results in coinflip or diceroll for survival. Perhaps once the game can be reskinned with a ground mod will be available to highlight the center of action squares, at very least it would help a player judge where their monkeys are going to favor moving when movement commands are canceled. It seems stopping in place just isn't an option, the units persevere to reach these artificial points on the map above all else. Better still would be smarter cover choices based on the tactical environment.

[The_Capt]

Metalbrew,

I got your e-mail and actually ran some more rigourous tests, pretty interesting results.

Same setup as you but I ran ELITE - WEGO and RT 10 times each through the blind corner just for laughs On WEGO I didn't touch the squad (ie give it orders) til turn 3, which was usually about 50 seconds after contact.

WEGO

Trial #1: 2 casualties and a clean break

Trial #2: 2 casualties and a clean break

Trial #3: 3 casualties and a clean break. To my mind 3 casualties appears to be the max that one can sustain and call it a clean get away. You can still flank and kill with 6...5 is a little more problamatic.

Trial #4: Very strange but to support metalbrew, my squad did try to break contact in the wrong direction..it was actually closer to the enemy. But then something very odd happened in Turn 2, they squads actually went at it right there. End result 5 US casualties and all Syrians dead. I am going to call this one a success as the enemy was destroyed and I have a half squad left.

Trial #5: Same wrong direction break in contact. Luckily half the squad was behind the corner. I got away with 4 casualties but I am going to call this one a failure.

Trial #6: Zero friendly casualties, a very clean break.

Trial #7: An almost exact copy of metalbrews second slaughter, 8 squad members wiped out..damn.

Trial #8: 2 US casualties and 4 dead enemy..almost a full blow fire fight but by turn 3 I got them out of there. A success no matter how you slice it.

Trial #9: My god my poor lads didn't stand a chane 8 US casualties.

Trial #10: 3 US casualties and a clean break.

Ok from this I draw the following conclusions. In WEGO those squads can definitely try and break in the wrong direction. I saw it happen 4 times out of the 10 trials. The good news is that your squads firepower may still save the day if you do break forward. I count 7 out 10 trials as success and 3 failures, 2 of which were absolutely abysmal.

So in WEGO maybe Chelco's idea of split squads it the way to go. You would be lookig at 2-3 casualties per trial say 2.5 per. In the trials I ran you risk about 3.5 casualties everytime you try hunting with the full squad.

Either way you do it I still highly recommend the hunt command up to and around blind corners as it gives you the best chance of finding the enemy without getting wiped out.

Now in RT things were a lot different. In RT I watched my squad carefully and the second I saw or heard enemy gunfire or troops I hit halt and then quick-moved them back.

Trial#1: 2 casualties and a cleanbreak

Trial#2: 3 casualties and a cleanbreak

Trials #3-#5: 1 casualty and a clean break

Trial #6: no casualties and a clean break

Trials #7&8: 1 casualty and a cleanbreak

Trial #9: 2 casualties

Trial #10: 3 casualties

This gives about a 100 percent chance of getting a successful clean break and an average casualty rate of 1.5 per encounter.

Bottom line if you are playing RT this is the way to go.

[metalbrew]

I played around even more with the same vignette. Instead of mimicking The_Capt's movements, I tried 3 different things. My goal was to find a way to either outright defeat the ambushers or find a more consistent way to break contact. I tried swinging wider around the corner, moving with assault, and stopping short of the corner. Swinging wide and moving with assault didn't change the outcome much, generally both of these techniques on a 4 game average got more of my units killed. Stopping short of the corner was more successful that the original tactic outlined by The_Capt but 1 out of 4 times it still went really bad for the squad. Just like my previous example, I plotted my waypoints, saved the game, and each time through I played with the exact same waypoints and observed how things 4 different times (each time was different). I played Elite WeGo.

Shortstop

I simply took the exact same waypoints used in Slaughter 1 and 2 and moved the final hunt waypoint back a bit. I felt that this would hopefully still allow the enemy to be spotted but hopefully further from the corner. Units spot better while stationary. This worked the best of what I tried, I still took casualties but 1 really big change happened in all of my tests, when the hunt command canceled the closest action point chosen was always behind the wall. This is what I think really makes the difference, you have to have a way to break initial contact consistently.

Visible is the shorter movement path with the final waypoint being ~8m from the corner.

Still no enemy spotted, but hopefully they units will be stopping soon and won't get mowed down.

Enemy spotted, hunt canceled automatically, and the fast movement order was placed on the nearest action spot but at least it was behind cover.

The beginning of turn 2. I supplemented the fast movement order with a quick movement order and the troops withdrew. This is about the best you can expect when guessing where arbitrary action point logic takes the troops.

It wasn't all peaches and creme. This was taken right at the point of contact with the shorter waypoint chosen. There were 2 instant casualties, just clack-clack-poof and they were gone. Notice how far forward the units had advanced. I wonder how the exact placement of the waypoint matters in regard to where troops will stop. In this example my guys overran the waypoint by a few meters.

Here's 5 guys down. They were savaged despite having conservative orders that worked well the other 75% of the time.

At turn 2, I gave the squad a quick movement order to break contact, instead they canceled the waypoint and laid in the dirt (luckily out of enemy LoS). On turn 3 I issued the same quick movement order and they had regained enough composure to move.

I think stopping short worked better, despite the fatal example. The key point is that by stopping the troops well away from the unsecured open area so I tricked the dubious action square system into picking a more favorable location to rally my squad. If the hunt command didn't incur the penalty of having the arbitrary waypoint assigned to it or if they waypoint given was in cover, this wouldn't be needed. It's not a perfect solution and it's very mission and situation specific. What if the enemy wasn't right at the funnel of the corner? I'm not sure I'd have gotten a spot on them by stopping short. Under game conditions, I guess I take my chances and try to set myself up for breaking towards cover.

Another phenomenon regarding the action square system I'm noticing: All members of a unit (i.e. all soldiers in a squad) only seem to be able to be in 1 action square. If the soldiers in the squad spread out across 2 action squares, I think it's creating really unrealistic LoS conditions because as far as the game is concerned the units are in whatever square the unit icon is in. When the squad is spread across 2 squares, the game initially computes LoS based where ever the unit icon is located. If enemy unit icons have LoS to each other's action squares only then does the game do a calculation to determine what each individual soldier sees. Perhaps sometimes this has favorable results for the player, but I always seem to be crippled by it. In Slaughter 2 there were 3 soldiers ahead of the squad.

I believe these 3 soldiers were in a different action square from the rest of their squadmates (and the unit icon). So even though these units were in a position to see the enemy, the game wouldn't do the LoS calculations until the unit icon was in a square capable of seeing the enemy. I believe this is the true nuts n' bolts behind LoS abstraction as ranted about elsewhere. LoS is abstracted because even though you see 9 pairs of boots, the LoS system is designed around the paradigm that units are only in 1 action square at a time.

How is this game ever going to be viewed as a simulation when 3 pairs of eyes moving cautiously around a corner fail to notice the enemy 10 feet away in the dirt until their unit icon's location catches up to the 3 soldiers? It's so artificial, so contrived, and it ruins the fun and immersion of the game to think about things like invisible action squares.

[The_Capt]

Metalbrew,

I think you have a solution there for WEGO. As to your last comment:

"How is this game ever going to be viewed as a simulation when 3 pairs of eyes moving cautiously around a corner fail to notice the enemy 10 feet away in the dirt until their unit icon's location catches up to the 3 soldiers? It's so artificial, so contrived, and it ruins the fun and immersion of the game to think about things like invisible action squares."

This is what we got into on the other board but all I can say is that even back in CMx1 we had to accept a level of abstraction. I can recall they guys explaining that even on open ground units where given a mathematic representation of cover. This was because open ground is not realy "open". This was all because MGs were neutered in CMBO. And let me tell you MGs are a pretty central piece of modern warfare.

You can see the same thing in CMSF. You have an enemy squad who has a level of cover no doubt broken down into a mathmatical value. This value is checked againt the value of the spotting capability of the friendly squad. Dice are rolled and eventually everyone is spotted. This is an abstraction. Try playing from the other side..soldiers "pop" into existance right in front of your troops.

If you can find a better tactical simulation out there..well show it to me.

CMSF is extremly realistic for a computer game but I think we are going to have to live with abstractions for awhile yet. Troops will do dumb things because AI is never a substitue for the human mind but so long as both sides are having to live with these restrictions the game is balanced and can be a lot of fun to play.

The trick is adding real world tactics to the in game realities..like waypoints, icons etc. Once you do that you come up with in in game doctrine that allows you to have fun and win.

This is exactly what we all had to do in CMx1 but thankfully CMSF is a leap forward.

On the other board, another player looked at the Blind Corner and determined the game was unplayable because everytime he went around one, his squads were killed to the man..."unavoidable" was the term used.

Well you and I just showed how someone in WEGO and RT can have at worst..a 70% chance of success or higher using a few techniques.

For my next trick..the assault

[thewood]

May be the only way to "fix" this is never let the squad members be outside the square "action" points. Basically, its CM1 with 1:1 instaed of 3:10/11/12. Still track each indiviual's weapons, etc. but never leave the square except to split or die.

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

You can see the same thing in CMSF. You have an enemy squad who has a level of cover no doubt broken down into a mathmatical value. This value is checked againt the value of the spotting capability of the friendly squad. Dice are rolled and eventually everyone is spotted.

I really don't think this is an issue of trying to spot and failing. I believe the squad has 0% chance to spot until such time that the unit icon (the blue floating icon about these troops) has entered an action square that can "see" the enemy. That's what I was alluding to above, members of a squad can get ahead of their squadmates but this has no effect on spotting.

Units are represented as individual boots and eyeballs, but the game engine doesn't even roll the dice so-to-speak for LoS unless the preconditions for LoS are met. Once the preconditions are met (the unit icons must be in an action square that can see one another) then the game does an addition check to see if individual SPC Johnson can see any of the enemy units. The units are able to spread out across multiple action squares but the only action square that has any bearing on what they spot is the one their unit icon is floating in.

I hope I'm making that clear enough. Individual soldiers only spot once the whole unit has a chance to see the enemy.

[thewood]

It seems to me like CMSF is stuck half way between CM, with its solid abstracted squad LOS engine and a tactical game like Jagged Alliance, with its individual people represented. It is trying to track the individuals and weapons, but using the center of mass of the squad for LOS. By not keeping the squad together as a whole or letting individual members spot and react, it may be giving the perception of the mismatch in scale everyone is talking about.

Sorry, I barely understand what I wrote.

[Dennis50]

Bingo thewood ...my thoughts exactly.

Regards,

Gunz

P.S. I'm not saying I understand it either ..But it sounds like what I was thinking ..if that makes any sense.

[Huntarr]

Instant Commands have been reported as a bug a while back. That is something on the list to be rectified.

[The_Capt]

Originally posted by thewood:

It seems to me like CMSF is stuck half way between CM, with its solid abstracted squad LOS engine and a tactical game like Jagged Alliance, with its individual people represented. It is trying to track the individuals and weapons, but using the center of mass of the squad for LOS. By not keeping the squad together as a whole or letting individual members spot and react, it may be giving the perception of the mismatch in scale everyone is talking about.

Sorry, I barely understand what I wrote.

Geez that is an outstanding description...not sure who you were channelling there.

I think you hit it on the head. A lot of the complaints are due to perception of what people are seeing. A lot of the abstractions in CMx1 were hidden by the scale. Now with 1:1 we are seeing results as good if not better than CMx1 but the presentation of those results does need work.

I ran a blind corner test in CMAK and got damn near the same results as compared to run or move to contact as I saw in CMSF. In the assault the results were better than CMx1, squads can now shoot at multiple units at the same time..no more laser targeting, area fire is an order of magnitude better, I can actually supress and area.

But when CMSF shows a squad getting mowed down in a way that just looks wrong, even though the result is identical to CMx1 that causes problems.

Now there are bugs and issues but this game for me was as playable as CM, right out of the box. I think I got lucky with my system because it never crashed once. With the patch releases it just keeps getting better.

[thewood]

The only caveat I have to comparing it to CM1 is that I don't remember ever having that last little movement command the AI puts in IMMEDIATELY after coming under fire. You can see it is consistently to the action point thing. No matter what is happening, the AI makes all squad memebers reorganize and move so its center of mass goes to that point. Never saw that in last movement in CM1. That is the biggest flaw in the infantry model and appears to be the base issue in all these similar threads.