Great game

[BodyBag]

Hi all,

Just bought the game and I am having a blast. The ToW series is like a fine wine, it's getting better with age and Kursk is the most refined and evolved of them yet.

I love the new points system and that you can name your units. You gotta admire the amount of research that has gotten into this game, and the little details like correct GD cuffbands on the uniforms. The units are small works of art and a pleasure to watch in action, and you really do care when you lose one in battle.

I can play with all the bells and whistles on in 1920 x 1200 on my 26" LCD monitor and get a framerate between 10-20 when the battle is most intense with dive-bombers, artillery-barrage and everybody shooting at each other. You dont need high fps in this kind of game, so I would rather have 15 fps and the SSAO on, than 25 fps and SSAO off.

Anyway, I wish there was a replay-function in the game because there is so much going on, and you can only micro-manage a couple of units at the time. In this game you get punished for your mistakes (love that!) and I would really like to study my errors in order to play a more perfect game.

I cant wait for the next ToW 2 game, maybe some intense house to house fighting in a bloody Stalingrad campaign? That would give the developers an opportunity to optimize the infantry behavior, wich is a little weak now.

Finally, a question: I had a Pz V that lost its tracks and gun near a Russian trench. When the crew bailed out, they were mowed down by infantry, but the icon over the tank was still there and the motor was running. When I later on tried to recover the tank for repairs until next mission, every man I sent inside the tank jumped out again, and I lost the tank. I thought that as long as the icon still was there and you could enter the tank, it was salvable?

Anyway, great game that is pretty unik in the marketplace (Kharkov '43?), keep up the good work.

Cheers,

[Sneaksie]

Thanks! Crew should stay inside of a disabled vehicle if there are no visible enemies, otherwise they'll bail out. Another possibility is panic. Panicking crewmen may bail out of 100% functioning vehicle, or on the other hand, stay inside a burning one long enough to die.

In the upcoming patch this is corrected - non-panicking crewmen would stay inside if any visible enemies are farther than 200m away.

[BodyBag]

Well, that was not the question, I fully understand the crew bailing out. But why could I not re-crew the tank afterwards for repair to the next mission? In the manual it says:

"If your tank has been damaged but not destroyed during a battle and its crew has escaped (or has been killed) and you would like to have this tank available in future battles, make sure that a soldier gets inside to “capture” the vehicle before the mission ends. This vehicle will then be completely repaired after the battle, and its ammo and crew replenished"

But every time I sent a man inside the tank, he came out again after 5 seconds, why? There was no Russians left on the map, I had won the mission and I was just waiting for the game to run out the clock.

Cheers,

[Knokke]

BodyBag,

If at the end of the mission, noone is in the tank, you loose it. it's probably what happened, if the men you're sending in the tank bail out after 5 seconds. Crews won't stay in tanks even when no ennemies are visible if ammo is depleted, or almost depleted (I had a case where there was only one APC shell remaining and no ammo for the machineguns, and the crew didn't want to stay inside - probably because they started panicking seeing they had no means of defense anymore)

[lehua768]

Crew should stay inside of a disabled vehicle if there are no visible enemies, otherwise they'll bail out. Another possibility is panic. Panicking crewmen may bail out of 100% functioning vehicle, or on the other hand, stay inside a burning one long enough to die.

[BodyBag]

lehua768: Why do you repeat what Sneaksie wrote?

Knokke: It was early in the mission, so there must have been plenty of ammo. But maybe both the gun AND the MG was knocked out, so no one wants to stay inside. A little silly, cause there were no Russians on the map and there was only friendly troops around.

Cheers,

[Knokke]

That was the same thing in my case: the tank was out of sight of the ennemy, and with plenty of friendlies around.

[Sneaksie]

lehua768 is a spam bot, look at its signature.

[BodyBag]

Sneaksie: Oh, I see.

Anyway, found som smaller bugs in the game. It seems that the switch "Commanders influence" does not work - no ring.

And in the manual:

"During a battle, crew members will take their places automatically

according to their skills."

No they wont. Every time you have a new crewmember, you have to check the whole crews positions in the "Staff" menu, because they switch places. And on the battlefield it is sometimes impossible to have them change places.

I had one machinegunner in a tank who was impossible to remove from the cmdr. position although he had 0 Scout skills and a lower rank than the former cmdr., that was now the machinegunner. Every time I bailed the crew out and switched positions, they reverted to the former wrong positions!

I guess you already know about the chopping sound and the blinking icons.

Looking forward to a patch

Cheers,