First Impressions

[George MC]

Hello

A funny thing happened in a upper floor building also!

I was the Germans and attacked a large 2 story next to the command post, I sent my 7 man team into the building's second floor because there was 1 lonely GI armed with a whimpy M1 carbine looking out the windows with binaculars, my team enters the first floor and charges up the stairsbusting up to the second floor, they get there and bump around, looking a bit confused, they stop and start looking out windows, 2 of my guys even stop to look out the same window the GI was at, but no killing takes place, so im thinking what the hell! At last they notice the GI after about a minute and kill him, but it was funny to watch!

I think I read somwhere that there will be no SS troops in CM:BN and no snow with the editor! Now that sucks! BAD! Also just by looking at the manual, I assume no Fallschirmjagers! That also sucks! BAD!

I fell in love with CM because not only can you make historical battles but you could make any battle you wished to fight, but O well!

Overall looks to be a great game!

Thanks Battlefront

CQB in buidlings is abstarcted a little bit i.e. individual rooms are not modelled so you do get some odd visuals such as you describe. Juts think they guy is standing behind a door or crouching behind a cupboard!

No SS or FJ in this module but they are planned for the next one (British Module) after CMBN is relased. Snow will appear in the Battle of the Bulge module which comes after the Brits. The it's the Eastern Front - deep joy

[Mord]

I think I read somwhere that there will be no SS troops in CM:BN and no snow with the editor! Now that sucks! BAD! Also just by looking at the manual, I assume no Fallschirmjagers! That also sucks! BAD!

I fell in love with CM because not only can you make historical battles but you could make any battle you wished to fight, but O well!

Check this out, this is what you WILL get with the main title, pretty good amount;

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=276&Itemid=460

But like George said, it's not like their won't be any SS and the like they just come in later modules...by the time Normandy and it's three modules are produced we should have everything we had in CMBO and possibly more for the time period represented...Then the Bulge, another modern setting, East Front...there's a ton ahead for all of us. CM's future is VERY bright.

Mord.

[vbfg]

I could not be happier. It's beautiful and plays extremely well.

[Sixxkiller]

Yeah I agree though I really am hoping folks will ignore you. You really do waste too much of everyone's time on every forum you log into. Don't get it, but if this is how you get off...

You might want to consider dating... no I mean girls.

And yes it was expected you would hate it.

LOL 3am and this made me chuckle,

[Mike Churchmoor]

Finally got myself a new gaming rig and maybe a little free time to actually play it. I tried the demo on weekend and I liked it thank you very much BFC. That didn't come to me as a suprise as I already liked & played CMSF but I have to say WW2 tastes really, really good.

[Lt Belenko]

BFC: Home of Superior Wargames.

BTW that saying is missing from the home page. Please replace it soon.

[MengJiao]

As far as i remember the pak in the tutorial mission is a 75 mm one. the accuracy seems also pretty historical accurate. the battlefield in the tutorial mission isnt that big. i have found a very interesting llink reffering to the tiger I and also his accuracy at training and battlefield conditions at least for expirienced gunners (look under the accuracy section). it clearly indicates that the accuracy for distances up to 1000 m is almost 100 %. I do not think that this differs very much for a pak 75mm. so i think the situation you have experienced is pretty much historical accurate.

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1.htm

Great game. I loved CMSF and CMBN is 100 times better.

Impressions:

1) I liked the fact that eventually I had to give orders from a high perspective (so that the map is very map-like)

2) but I could come down from a map view and see all the action up close

3) I liked the fact that the first 2-3 runs of the tutorial were a massacre for the US

4) and once I figured out where to put the mortars and the spotters, it was a massacre for the Ost Georgian Germans

[McAuliffe]

I had to play the demo on my old trusty Dell Latitude D420 (Genuine Intel CPU U2500 @ ...1.20 GHz , 1.5 GB RAM and a Mobile Intel 945 GM Express Chipset.) and guess what? I was able to play it! Okay, I had to be with my nose on top of the action to see what was happening or to appreciate the graphics, but in top view mode it ran rather smooth.

The Combat Mission series are probably best you can find in turn based 3D WWII gaming, basically -and correct me if am wrong -because its the only 3D WWII turn based game around. Actually, I should rather say it was, because CMBfN is clearly developed for playing RT.

I give example: In the bocage fighting, it is advised that your tanks spray opposite hedge over it's whole length with area fire and put some smoke in the corners. Can anyone explain me how to do this in WeGo and 1 minute turns without wasting half of your ammo in one spot?

Same is valid for MG covering fire or mortar fire. You might waste half of your 60 mm mortar ammo in one minute mission on that pesky MG position with one survivor that is clinging to the trigger.

So what I am trying to say is, that if you play RT, the game is rather playable, although with some shortcomings (no rewind, no overview of fire patterns or targets for each element. No info on fire missions when in process etc...) but when playing WeGo several commands are missing to allow you to develop same tactics as in RT. What happened to the shoot and scoot command? Why can't you define area fire? How to hide and trigger ambush, etc..

Some other remarks:

I am still a bit confused by the floating icons and seem to gamble always on the wrong one to click. I prefer colour bases that are permanently hi-lited. but maybe I need some better hardware to perfection this skill.

the 'gridsticking' of the target lines or mov lines works rather distracting as well. Cannot remember this was happening in CM1 series? (and that was a larger grid).

Fire missions. Yes, I know that calling fire mission is complex. Guess what, I was a forward observer myself. but why do I have to click all these options in the game? If I want to have an arty FO simulation game, I will buy one. Let the guy at the battery deal with how many tubes and what ammo he has to use or in this particular case the computer. As in real life, in my experience, the FO just indicates type of target and battery will decide what goodies they will drop.

Would rather prefer to see in one click, where the units are that are under control of the HQ. Just like in CM1, you should be able to click HQ and to see through connecting red lines or by hi-liting the bases ,the units that are under his command and are in communication range.

Fog of war or simulating chaos of the battlefield is all fine, but don't let me pay for it by working harder in front of my screen and do time consuming manipulations of the keyboard. Just punish me with a time penalty or delay of the execution the orders like in CM 1, that was fair enough.

Played so far 'road to Berlin' an 'busting the bocage', hence did not see any German hardware yet.

I will definitely buy this game, but 11 years after CMBO, I was expecting some more enhancement than just a graphical improvement. Play wise, I mean -interface and commands -I don't know if there is actually an enhancement. That's my first impression .

[Topo]

For your first question, make a wp with some pause and area fire command, then another close wp with aonther area fire (or smoke) command in a different area with some pause and so on.

Using of multiple wp with a little pause and different orders (area fire, cover arc ecc..) is useful.

(sorry for my english)

[StellarRat]

So why are some people complaining about no TCP/IP play? I see a join network game on the start up screen. When I click I see an IP address and port number to connect to. Am I missing something? Is that just a fake that doesn't work?

[Boche]

Well since you are controlling every single unit in the game I dont see why you shouldnt imagine you are controlling the arty boys aswell...just imagine you are them while you make the choices

[siffo998]

I give example: In the bocage fighting, it is advised that your tanks spray opposite hedge over it's whole length with area fire and put some smoke in the corners. Can anyone explain me how to do this in WeGo and 1 minute turns without wasting half of your ammo in one spot?

Same is valid for MG covering fire or mortar fire. You might waste half of your 60 mm mortar ammo in one minute mission on that pesky MG position with one survivor that is clinging to the trigger.

i only play wego and havent experienced any shortcomings during my play. in case of mortar fire you should use linear firemission to fire one a whole hedge area. in case of mg covering fire i mostly use area fire on audio contacs so the mg wont concentrate on one position but fires on an whole area. same for tank fire. also i cant imagine that it might be useful to use your mg to shoot for example on a 200 m long hedge all at the same time because the supression effect would be similar to zero.

[YankeeDog]

I give example: In the bocage fighting, it is advised that your tanks spray opposite hedge over it's whole length with area fire and put some smoke in the corners. Can anyone explain me how to do this in WeGo and 1 minute turns without wasting half of your ammo in one spot?

There are some good threads in the CMSF Tips & Tricks forum about how to do this. They should be ported over once we have a CMBN tips & tricks.

Basically, give the tanks a bunch of very short movement orders (you can just have it jockey forward and back 5m or so). At each waypoint, you can give it a new area target order. You can add pauses at each waypoint, too, to regulate how much fire you want directed at each point.

Also, keep in mind that area fire is intentionally spread out a bit. So you don't need to hit every 8m action spot to hose down a row of bocage; you only need to do an area target every 30m or so.

Ideally, it would be great if we could get rid of the little "area target dance" that vehicles have to do in order to execute multiple area fire orders in one WEGO turn. But it works well.

Same is valid for MG covering fire or mortar fire. You might waste half of your 60 mm mortar ammo in one minute mission on that pesky MG position with one survivor that is clinging to the trigger.

MGs are trickier... you can do the same thing as with tanks (note that MG teams don't have to re-deploy move only a short distance), but its usually less desirable to have your MG team jockeying back and forth between two action spots.

With mortars now, though, you can designate the mission length. So you can designate a "short" mission, which is only 2-4 shells, IIRC.

Edit to add: With Infantry squads (rather than MG teams), you can spread out area fire by splitting into teams. 1 squad split into three teams can cover a pretty good area. It's really HMG teams (which, unfortunately, are often the unit you most want to do Area Fire with), that are still kind of the "proud nail" as far as Area Fire goes.

[sfhand]

A personal, off topic, rant...

How can it be RT if there is replay(not implimented but referenced above) or pauses? I live in RT and would have used those features on more than a few occasions if they were available.

[Viking]

Check this out, this is what you WILL get with the main title, pretty good amount;

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=276&Itemid=460

But like George said, it's not like their won't be any SS and the like they just come in later modules...by the time Normandy and it's three modules are produced we should have everything we had in CMBO and possibly more for the time period represented...Then the Bulge, another modern setting, East Front...there's a ton ahead for all of us. CM's future is VERY bright.

Mord.

Ah I see, Thanks for the info!

I just dont understand why SS wont be in this, or Fallschirmjagers for that matter, both my favorites!

The SS and Fallschrimjager's were there fighting the Americans in the first 3 months after D-Day, so I just think and wish they were in this game!

Also should the MP44 not be STG44? Not a big deal but!

I did forget to put in my first post that small weapons and voice sounds are a bit cheesy to me!

My last gripe would be no replay of the action, it was great to be able to rewind and watch something that just took place in the action, sometimes over and over...... Did I miss this somewhere?

More to love than hate though

Thanks again

[Mord]

You are welcome, Viking.

YES! there's replay...you have to choose single player turn based as an option, when starting the game. I am a WEGO player and I'd die if they took that feature out. As for the SS and stuff not being in...there's been plenty of discussions about it and why they weren't put in this release...try a search of SS and falschirmjager and you'll probably find it. Patience my friend, they'll be here before you know it.

Mord.

P.S. The voices won't stay that way long...

[Erik Springelkamp]

I just dont understand why SS wont be in this, or Fallschirmjagers for that matter, both my favorites!

You should be careful about the context in which you speak such sentences.

Anyway, as has been explained on many places by Battlefront, just creating the regular army for the Germans was quite enough work for this first entry in the new game family.

And the new revenue model implies that you will not get the whole shebang in one cheap game, but the content will be spread over a few modules, each of which will help to keep BF in business.

[Glukx Ouglouk]

So why are some people complaining about no TCP/IP play? I see a join network game on the start up screen. When I click I see an IP address and port number to connect to. Am I missing something? Is that just a fake that doesn't work?

It's real-time only. People have complained about the lack of wego TCP/IP play.

the 'gridsticking' of the target lines or mov lines works rather distracting as well. Cannot remember this was happening in CM1 series? (and that was a larger grid).

Fire missions. Yes, I know that calling fire mission is complex. Guess what, I was a forward observer myself. but why do I have to click all these options in the game? If I want to have an arty FO simulation game, I will buy one. Let the guy at the battery deal with how many tubes and what ammo he has to use or in this particular case the computer. As in real life, in my experience, the FO just indicates type of target and battery will decide what goodies they will drop.

Would rather prefer to see in one click, where the units are that are under control of the HQ. Just like in CM1, you should be able to click HQ and to see through connecting red lines or by hi-liting the bases ,the units that are under his command and are in communication range.

About "grid-sticking": my understanding is that it's made necessary by the 1:1 simulation. In CMx1, squads and other infantry units were point target, and putting a point wherever you want on the map is easy. Now, an infantry unit is made up of up to a dozen individual soldiers, so you have to tell them to take position in an area rather than on a point - hence the squares.

About fire mission: it take a bit of time to get the hang of it, but I don't think there's a lot that could be simplified without removing useful options. There are only three target types (personnel, general, armor), and the rest is quite useful to actually hit what you want (with the point/line/area targets) and to avoid wasting ammo (with fire mission length). That being said, there may be more options than really necessary for the rate of fire (you usually either want to destroy the target as quickly as possible or pin it down for a long time...), and I never really understood the point of having a separate setting for the number of tubes (since you can't fire at different targets with different tubes from the same battery).

About units and HQ: seeing which units depend from a given platoon HQ is easy (their icons get highlighted) but seeing which are in command takes a bit more work than in CMx1. But keep in mind that units aren't just in or out of command range like in CMx1: the game distinguishes between visual contact (and short or long distance at that), voice contact and radio contact, so there are a lot more different status to report than in CMx1...

[Boche]

Well I also have the Waffen SS and Falschrimjaeger units as my favourites (not that im a total expert on WW2 divisions especially compared to people on the forum), doesnt mean im a nazi.

[Erik Springelkamp]

Well I also have the Waffen SS and Falschrimjaeger units as my favourites (not that im a total expert on WW2 divisions especially compared to people on the forum), doesnt mean im a nazi.

That is not what I implied.

I think the formulation was quite careful.

[Glukx Ouglouk]

Also should the MP44 not be STG44? Not a big deal but!

AFAIK, the names MP43 and MP44 were used during the development of the rifle, and the production version should, in fact, be called StG44 - but I might be wrong.

[Sergei]

AFAIK, the names MP43 and MP44 were used during the development of the rifle, but the production version should, in fact, be called StG44 - but I might be wrong.

First it was called MP43, but then Hitler decided that it should be MP44, Göring knows why. Then, after Hitler tried it himself and fell in love with it, he renamed it as Sturmgewehr 44. For Normandy timeframe at least, I think MP44 is as good as it goes...

ah, here's a quote with some dates:

"In April 1944 the designation of all MP-43s was changed to MP-44, with no actual changes made to the design. At this time there were plenty of glowing reports from the German troops fighting with MP-43s and MP-44s at the Eastern front. Seeing these reports, Hitler finally approved the mass production and issue of the new “wunderwaffe”, and in December 1944 officially christened it the Sturmgewehr, or Assault Rifle, 1944 (StG.44)"

[StellarRat]

It's real-time only. People have complained about the lack of wego TCP/IP play.

That's it? All complaining about that...LOL. RT is much better because a "real" commander doesn't get a pause button. Mistakes happen when you have to think on your feet. That's the way real life is.

[YankeeDog]

AFAIK, the names MP43 and MP44 were used during the development of the rifle, and the production version should, in fact, be called StG44 - but I might be wrong.

IIRC, the re-naming of the MP44 to the StG44 (at Hitler's direction) didn't happen until July or August '44. So, for most of CMBN's time period, the relatively few in service indeed have been referred to as an MP44; the first production runs were done under this moniker.

[Boche]

That is not what I implied.

I think the formulation was quite careful.

pardon me sir