PLM2 Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 Very happy with the game so far. I was actually coming back to this site to download a vista patch for CMAK or CMBB and was cautiously delighted to see this game. I had pre ordered CMSF and was completely repulsed by it, played it for a few days and never touched it again (still use the CMSF mousepad though). But the big thing getting me in this new game is in the campaign map design. The one making the bridge crossing, the AI had absurd amounts of artillery. I was ready for this and advanced in split squads very dispersed. What I wasnt ready for was the incessant pounding of my rear. My five shermans showed up and within a few seconds of each other 2 of them were knocked out with top penetrations from a mere 3 shells. There was literally no safe place and my rear was randomly and heavily shelled. If you wanna make a map like that... thats fine. Just at least give me some safe rear area not under enemy observation constantly weather i have to do some extra moving to front or not. The 2nd day of the bridge attack a random burst of shells landed and wiped out my battalion commander and an observer who I figured would be safe completely in my rear behind a building in their silly little jeeps. Now I'm on razorback ridge... my reinforcements are showing up in my tiny safe zone and now its convienantly getting heavily shelled right after they arrive.... seriously? I can take the shelling... but not on freshly arrived troops adjacent to the map edge... Its really obnoxious and terrible design to let this happen. I can only imagine playing an of these with 2 players the kind of lame tactics that would prove useful. Please take it into consideration in future campaigns. I can see deserving it if I actually packed my guys into a ****ing parade field formation, under enemy observation...But i'm not. This is killing the immersion of an otherwise great game.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackcat Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 Just which campaign are we talking about here? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLM2 Posted May 26, 2011 Author Share Posted May 26, 2011 Courage and Fortitude. A couple of the missions have been fine. But the ones surrounding the bridgehead and now on a ridge are bad with it. Just 100 meters more of map with somewhere unobserved or with somewhere to at least spread my guys out would help a lot. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 What I wasnt ready for was the incessant pounding of my rear. Sorry to go off topic here, but man...that's gotta be the best sentence I've read on these forums in weeks... Mord. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toxic.zen Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 is anybody ever really ready for that? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 My five shermans showed up and within a few seconds of each other 2 of them were knocked out with top penetrations from a mere 3 shells. There was literally no safe place and my rear was randomly and heavily shelled. The Sherm's in that battle arrive outside enemy view, this sounds like you had some magnificently bad luck by a stray barrage hitting the location just as they arrived! C'est la guerre, I suppose... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLM2 Posted May 26, 2011 Author Share Posted May 26, 2011 Apparently I do. I didn't take any screenies... but I hadn't even moved them from the road.. behind the tree covered part of the road. I actually saw spotter rounds landing around... And I was ordering my shermans to scatter left and right when it happened, but the 2 lead tanks that got blown up didnt have much of a chance to move. The barrage lasted precisely 3 rounds after the spotter rounds. I was pissed but I didn't reload anyway. I definitely had the feeling I was under observation. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 Artillery doesn't act so quickly that even if the enemy had seen your tanks it could have targetted them in that time. The German spotter must have tried to target some of your other units near the farmhouse and road, but the barrage just happened to coincide with the arrival of reinforcements plus it fell too long. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLM2 Posted May 26, 2011 Author Share Posted May 26, 2011 I don't really care if its on purpose or not I just need some room to maneuver. I just had an enemy round land at the corner of a map and make a direct hit on a deuce and a half full of reinforcements... Ok it was probably a spotter round. That doesn't really make a difference that my reinforcements are getting blasted away. Somebody else has to be having these problems than just me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MajorJerkov Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97393&highlight=courage+fortitude http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97091&highlight=courage+fortitude These are a couple good threads on the subject matter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVulture Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 I never had the rear-most areas shelled in that mission, certainly not the out of LoS ones such as where the shermans arrive. As has been suggested, it sounds like a case of a German artillery mission that missed its target (FO couldn't see the spotting rounds) that just happened to land in a really unfortunate place for you. But you do have to keep your support troops moving quite regularly to avoid getting shelled. Sitting your troops on the ridge might not help either. In my experience with CMSF, if the spotter doens't see the spotting rounds, after 3-4 rounds fire for effect will be called and the barrage will fall on the position of the last spotting round, more or less. If you have units just on the ridge where they can be spotted, a mission will be plotted against them. If the spotting rounds fall short, then fair enough they get corrected on to the right target. If they fall long - namely in your 'safe' area out of LoS, then that is where the barrage will mistakenly land. Which in this case can be very bad for you. Try keeping your units completely out of LoS, or far enough foward that there is no real danger of long spotting rounds being out of line of sight behind the ridge. That way the artillery will always be accurately placed on your men on the fowards slope, much to your pleasure At risk of being gamey, give the enemy FO a few decent value targets - a full infantry squad or an HMG team - quite a ways forwards and move them every few minutes. The AI will happily waste the majority of its artillery blowing up hedgerows and fields that you have recently moved out of then. Those guys will pay a price in terms of drawing MG and rifle fire as moving targets in the open, which is no fun for them, but better than the alternatives. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.Jones Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 I never had the rear-most areas shelled in that mission, certainly not the out of LoS ones such as where the shermans arrive. As has been suggested, it sounds like a case of a German artillery mission that missed its target (FO couldn't see the spotting rounds) that just happened to land in a really unfortunate place for you. The best of the CM Murphy Law at work br. Dr.Jones 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLM2 Posted May 26, 2011 Author Share Posted May 26, 2011 Vulture I think that's whats happening. I wish I could have taken a video with the shermans on the bridge crossing scenerio, it was murphy's law on crack. The safe area I'm spawning in on razorback ridge is so small though.... IThe result is just one stray round back 100m can have a devastating effect on my reinforcements waiting to move. I have been trying to keep those most forward troops up and firing for that very reason. And they've been getting pummeled on their own. It takes quite a bit for me to advance just beyond the first 2 hedges as its downward sloping and you're under observation from HMGs and ATGs across a stream.. You seem to always have to wipe out those crews to the last man with mortars or else the last guy wants an iron cross real bad. Small arms fire seems to have little effect and there's limited areas you can try to put fire on them which also results in incoming mortars. You may see a thread on this mission later as I searched the forums and didn't find any mention of it at all. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVulture Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 Vulture I think that's whats happening. I wish I could have taken a video with the shermans on the bridge crossing scenerio, it was murphy's law on crack. The safe area I'm spawning in on razorback ridge is so small though.... IThe result is just one stray round back 100m can have a devastating effect on my reinforcements waiting to move. I have been trying to keep those most forward troops up and firing for that very reason. And they've been getting pummeled on their own. It takes quite a bit for me to advance just beyond the first 2 hedges as its downward sloping and you're under observation from HMGs and ATGs across a stream.. You seem to always have to wipe out those crews to the last man with mortars or else the last guy wants an iron cross real bad. Small arms fire seems to have little effect and there's limited areas you can try to put fire on them which also results in incoming mortars. You may see a thread on this mission later as I searched the forums and didn't find any mention of it at all. I'm on that same mission at the moment. It's hell, of an entirely different sort to the bridge scenario. In fact I messed it up very badly first time around and have restarted. Not that it is going that much better this time around either. Half way through the allotted time and I've not yet got to the end of the first mission. But my tank destroyers have turned up, prompting me to look around the map and try and figure out if it is even possible to move them anywhere - looks like a wall of solid bocage and impassable obstacles to me. Do I have to resort to dropping artillery and dozens of tank rounds to try and breach the damned hedges? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLM2 Posted May 26, 2011 Author Share Posted May 26, 2011 You get pioneers in trucks at some point. It seems that everything favors the defense. I wouldn't waste arty on that. Some serious constructive criticism for this map is time... 50 minutes is not nearly enough, even if the distance isn't very far. You'd have to be a genius to finish this map the first time through. After running short and making it precisely nowhere the first time, I tried a ceasefire, assuming it would give me another shot but it doesn't. It honestly almost feels like this map was never playtested. Because nobody in their right mind can make it through in 50 minutes on their first try. I think you have to break all rules of being cut off and use your platoon in their rear in a very meticulous flanking maneuver... which basically also requires extreme skill and luck/reloading as I already tried that. I REALLY don't like reloading... but it seems like an absolute must on this map. I'm going to give it another shot today but I don't anticipate actually winning considering I only almost managed to secure the first objective after going into the red a full 10 minutes. I didn't lose any of my m10s but I did have one get imobilized by the mud apparently... just off the road. The ATGs fire at anything just about so I am very careful to draw out AT stuff. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kat Johnston Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 Razorback Ridge ended my first playthrough of that campaign and for that reason; the areas where my troops entered were being constantly hit with arty and there was nowhere (safe) to move them to. As happened with the bridge mission, I went from "oh crap, one of my squads got hit" to "argh, what the heck, why do they keep appearing on the map directly under a barrage, are they stupid, why are so many men crowding into such little space when it's under heavy fire?" to "oh, alright then, die, see if I care." As I don't reload or restart missions on first playthrough, that was the end of that. It's not even as if I particularly *wanted* to have all those extra guys turn up, the ones already in place were doing alright. Don't get me wrong - I liked the map, just think it could do with being a wee bit bigger. Fingers crossed for the first patch 'cause some of the CM:SF maps grew a little bit over time! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PLM2 Posted May 26, 2011 Author Share Posted May 26, 2011 Exactly. You'd think reinforcements would stop entering the map at some point after you failed to remove any of them from the entrance. Not saying I don't want them, but this is a serious problem on this map. Thats why I get the stupid idea that this map wasn't playtested much at all because its about impossible to make use of those guys in that timeframe 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russkly Posted May 26, 2011 Share Posted May 26, 2011 Sorry to go off topic here, but man...that's gotta be the best sentence I've read on these forums in weeks... Mord. Mord, mate, you made me laugh for the first time in a while! Thank you. Quality. R 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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