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I pretty much credit by ability to breeze through that scenario on the experience of playing as Red in CMSF for several years. You think going up against PaK40s and MG42s with Shermans and BARs is hard, try going up against Abrams and Javelins with T-72s and RPG-7s.

I was going to mention that as well, after spending years in the virtual desert (including many on the RED side) where anything can and will kill you in a flash, even from the other side of the map, I find CMBN a breeze: lots of cover; short range, inaccurate weapons; lots of time to react....;)

One issue players may have a problem with is focusing too much on physically occupying terrain. The key to winning a CMx2 battle is gaining fire superiority, which means:

1. recon, recon, recon! find out where the enemy is by sending out scouts, placing them in good observation posts, studying the map for likely defensive positions, minefields, etc. Because of relative spotting, this may take a long time;

2. shoot, shoot, shoot! Once you have determined where the enemy is, move your support assets, AFVs, HMG/LMGs, mortars and artillery into good firing positions and pound the enemy until he is suppressed, killed, routed;

3. rinse and repeat.

Always concentrate on finding good observation and/or firing positions. Your objective should always be to degrade the enemy forces. Any physical objective can be captured by follow up forces.

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If Boo can do it, so can you! (Hmm... have to talk to Steve about licensing that particular remark as part of CM marketing...)

Only if I get a 50% cut, Sparky.

Seriously, if you're new to Battlefront games, or an old hand that skipped the whole modern era set of CMSF, then expect to take your lumps. Very similar games, but the nuances are different. And unlike most anything else out there.

Yep. Never played CMSF. Wasn't into modern warfare and REALLY wasn't into the whole desert thing, so I have no experience with this game engine at all.

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I kinda agree, a bit. Not that it's too hard as such, but that it's Realy daunting to begin with. I meen I load up a map and see a few us troops and a jeep and think 'how on earth am I going to take that city?'. I think when you start the shear amount of stuff is just overwhelming.

It helps for me to break down maps into sections. If it's a map I can divide up, easy. If I can't, hard. I also play as defender alot because I cant advance well. I played cmx1 alot and did ok. I have a good few wins in this game. But I see some maps and think 'what can I do with that?' and quit.

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This is my first Battlefront game and i'm really heavy into realism games and i'm even a member of a realism unit for the mod Darkest Hour. But this game really is a tough one! And its not really noob friendly at some times, not at all. :(

There should be a even more easier difficulty for us... :P

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2. shoot, shoot, shoot! Once you have determined where the enemy is, move your support assets, AFVs, HMG/LMGs, mortars and artillery into good firing positions and pound the enemy until he is suppressed, killed, routed;

^this.

Double the amount of ammo you put down. Tanks and such are great for this, having thousands upon thousands of MG rounds. Unless resupply is an issue in the campaign/scenario, find everywhere you'd be as the enemy and shoot the crap out of it.

Sometimes just "prepare" an area with fire, even just small arms, for several minutes before you attack it. Maybe even 10 minutes of sustained fire if it warrants it. I do tons and tons of area fire and suppression, which usually works out pretty well as the enemy is demoralized and suppressed, sometimes already withdrawn by the time my guys get there.

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Please, please--don't make Elite level (or the game overall) any easier!

If it's a must, lower the easiest level further. For folks having a very hard time, I suggest RT play with very heavy use of the pause button. A lot of bad stuff can happen in a minute and RT with pause allows for better micromanaging.

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I think someone mentioned above that the 'easiest' level often isn't easier because the AI is given the same advantages as you. CM doesn't really have a setting to make the bullets less lethal, enemy shooting less accurate or bombs less deadly like some shooter games do. The best advice is to simply not mind losing during the initial learning phase. And Google old online platoon-size infantry & armor training manuals from the time period. They're a hoot to read and you'll be surprised how well real-word advice applies to the game.

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Since the game is about learning real WW2 tactics and learning to think like tactical leaders did at the time, I would not want to see any sort of tutorials that encouraged unrealistic behavior. A lot of young gamers were brought up on games that only rewarded quick reflexes and tank (or whatever) rushes. That is what passes for "strategy" in the world of the big-box retailers. Our newbies do need a sandbox to play in, but it should be every bit as unforgiving as the battles they play full-on later. I'm all for guided tutorials and video previews, media presentations and dog and pony shows to get the ideas across to those new to this level of simulation. It is also about learning something about history, about why the bocage mattered and how mortars make mincemeat out of the unwary.

I do hope we can collectively put together something like a CM:N wiki with some way to hand-hold the neophytes through the tutorials and maybe some new sample mini-battles. But I don't advise we give them a special "invulnerability cloak" level or anything like that. Let them lose their troops and have to start over. Reward them for finishing a particular lesson with some sort of schtick medal or attaboy. But get them used to the awful lethality that was the era.

And I do like the idea (that someone else here posted) of having a feature in the beginner tutorial where the player enters his name and the squad or platoon leader in the game takes that name. It gives the novice player a personal stake in the game's outcome.

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The fact that you weren't there doesn't change the fact that Normandy was more of a meat grinder than the Somme.

Battle of Normandy lasted 3 months CWGC has a British death toll of 22,000.

Battle of Somme lasted 5.5 months CWGC has over 127,000 dead from the British armies.

The British commited I believe just over 3 times the number of divisions to the battle of the Somme (44 to 13 I believe). So if you modify figures for length of battle and percentage of committed forces you may be able to scrape a higher casualty rate for Normandy but I still think the Somme would exceed it.

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It is not about whether we decided to leave defending your home and go to look after ours second time around, UK numbers are a similar if not worse tale of woe.

WW1 : 6 600 000 Mobilised 885000 Dead 1 600 000 wounded

WW2 : 5 900 000 Mobilised 383000 Dead 284000 wounded

About 15% more served in WW1 than 2 for the UK but more than twice the deaths and nearly 6 times the wounded and in WW1 a far greater percentage of casualties were within the Army as the other forces were not as large or involved as they were in WW2.

Australia had 3 times as many serve in WW2 but incurred less than half the number of deaths and a sixth the number of wounded, same for us as a large number of our casualties were from POW's and RAAF in bomber command.

"Originally Posted by dan/california

In BFC's defense, Haig's tactics didn't work all that well for Haig either. They were positively unpleasant for the people asked to carry them out."

Pretty much sums it up for me

In WW2 the British participated in large scale high intensity warfare in May-July 1940, and from June 1944 to May 1945.

(I would class NA and Italy as Low to Medium scale warfare due to smaller forces committed)

In WW1 the British participated in large scale high intensity warfare from 1915 through to the end of 1918.

Hence the difference in casualty figures.

For similar reasons Australias casualty figures in WW2 are lower than those for WW1.

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Speedy,

I am more than happy to debate my point and anything about WWI. However, such discussions don't belong here and will just get in the way of people who actually want to talk about CMBN. I already feel guilty about putting in a reply to the post mentioning Haig.

So can I suggest that if you want to discuss this point further we take it over to the General Forum.

Cheers.

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You know what would be nice, if someone made a tutorial video, or just one while someone is giving hints or just a example how to do a good battle, that surely is good stuff for a noob like me... :)

I believe there have been some AARs of "Road to Berlin". Not VAARs, but with lots and lots of screenies.

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Someone posted earlier to do a quick battle and purchase both side. This way you can balance the forces and know what your up against.

I go one farther and say set it up as attack/defend and then play both sides in a hotseat wego. Set up your defense. Then dont move anyone again, just observe how the fire of your attackers in suppressing them. Work the attack as carefully as possible with all the ideas from this thread (and there are lots of them here). As you switch back and forth from german to american you can see how your spotting is going and how much you really have spotted. You will also know how the fire is really effecting the enemy and how suppressed they really are.

I'm surprised this hasn't mentioned more often, playing hotseat against yourself is always my recommendation to newbies.

Firstly you can be sure you won't be steamrollered, but mostly you can see the effects of your fire, how well one side spots the other moving and stationary. It also eliminates the fog of war that we all get as players. We imagine that the computer's very calculations are set against us, that there are a million Germans out there and your supression fire is doing nothing to them. In reality an enemy squad may be more torn up than you think and you'll see how best to time your assaults.

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Battle of Normandy lasted 3 months CWGC has a British death toll of 22,000.

Battle of Somme lasted 5.5 months CWGC has over 127,000 dead from the British armies.

The British commited I believe just over 3 times the number of divisions to the battle of the Somme (44 to 13 I believe). So if you modify figures for length of battle and percentage of committed forces you may be able to scrape a higher casualty rate for Normandy but I still think the Somme would exceed it.

The Somme's horrific place in history is a combination of the casualty figures, certainly awful by themselves, and its perceived futility. There was virtually no strategic gain at all, other than attrition on the other side.

Normandy was certainly expensive in terms of casualties, but chasing the Germans completely out of France, while they suffered massive losses during the retreat, is regarded as a great victory.

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Please, please--don't make Elite level (or the game overall) any easier!

Agreed. I don't think anybody would profit by the game being dumbed down and I don't believe for a minute that BFC would even contemplate such a move. IMHO all that is really needed is a bit more of a step-by-step tutorial to bring the noobs along. I really don't think the old hands who designed and tested the game and scenarios—fine job though they did—really appreciate how daunting it is to first timers.

Michael

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I really don't think the old hands who designed and tested the game and scenarios—fine job though they did—really appreciate how daunting it is to first timers.

Hmm, yeah... It's my guess that for many newcomers CMBN is going to be their first wargame or highly complex strategy game. Back when CMBO came out such games were a major part of the market. But now they're niche products.

CM has a pervasive FOW (Not just "Where's the enemy?" but "What's my hit chance?"), complex and unforgiving gameplay, and a scenario may have a LOT of stuff going on at once. I can think of mainstream games that have one or two of those characteristics, but not all three at once. (And rarely even one to CM's extent.)

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I'm surprised this hasn't mentioned more often, playing hotseat against yourself is always my recommendation to newbies.

I've played a lot of CMSF and learned the editor and I'm apparently an eternal noobie, so...I recommend learning the editor and working on

problems in scenarios you build yourself. For example, I wondered how well the US 3-inch AT gun would work and I deployed it in a medium-sized scenario and had the AI attack while I ran the AT-guns.

You can work on any problem in the game that way and often surprise yourself too.

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I do a few things to make CM:BN easier for myself. I trade flexibility for convenience. This is assuming playing as US, an attacking mission, and not much enemy armour:

1) Before the mission starts I use almost all the indirect fire assets available, including all the "on-map" stuff. Every mortar, every cannon. If there is a village or town where enemy might be, I use very large area circles on "harass" for maximum duration. If there are suspicious hedges in front of me, I use linear bombardments slightly behind them on "harass" for maximum duration.

The advantage of doing this is that the bombardments are usually accurate, harassing fire lasts a long time and I don't have to think about what to do with all those ****ing mortar sections. :)

2) I only advance with "ordinary" infantry platoons, ones with three "ordinary" squads in them. As much as possible I ignore the other assets in the platoon - bazookas, MG sections - until they're actually needed. Generally I keep one platoon per field; one squad on the left, one in the centre, one on the right, command squad slightly behind the centre.

I ignore the "complicated" weapons platoons and try to keep them safely out of the way until needed, unless I can spot good places to set up MGs.

The advantage of this is that I don't have to think about what to do with all those ****ing MG and bazooka sections until I have to. :)

3) If the advance hits anything hard, I bring up the MGs and bazookas. I point MG teams at anywhere bad guys have been seen and tell them to shoot. A lot. I try to move tanks up behind the infantry. I try to make sure that my tank can see (and be seen by) ONLY a) friendlies and B) the place I want it to be shooting at, and to make sure that the tank is shooting at that place as soon as it comes in sight.

The advantage of this is that I don't have to worry so much about moving my tanks independently and about all the many many things that make them dead because they always have a line of good solid bodies in front of their thin thin armour. ;)

I usually beat the AI with small loss - not claiming any special skill as I don't play HTH! - and of course in practice I do more complicated "proper" tactics but I work from pretty basic basics and hopefully they may be useful to someone new to the game as they are to me.

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I do a few things to make CM:BN easier for myself. I trade flexibility for convenience. This is assuming playing as US, an attacking mission, and not much enemy armour:

1) Before the mission starts I use almost all the indirect fire assets available, including all the "on-map" stuff. Every mortar, every cannon. If there is a village or town where enemy might be, I use very large area circles on "harass" for maximum duration. If there are suspicious hedges in front of me, I use linear bombardments slightly behind them on "harass" for maximum duration.

The advantage of doing this is that the bombardments are usually accurate, harassing fire lasts a long time and I don't have to think about what to do with all those ****ing mortar sections. :)

2) I only advance with "ordinary" infantry platoons, ones with three "ordinary" squads in them. As much as possible I ignore the other assets in the platoon - bazookas, MG sections - until they're actually needed. Generally I keep one platoon per field; one squad on the left, one in the centre, one on the right, command squad slightly behind the centre.

I ignore the "complicated" weapons platoons and try to keep them safely out of the way until needed, unless I can spot good places to set up MGs.

The advantage of this is that I don't have to think about what to do with all those ****ing MG and bazooka sections until I have to. :)

3) If the advance hits anything hard, I bring up the MGs and bazookas. I point MG teams at anywhere bad guys have been seen and tell them to shoot. A lot. I try to move tanks up behind the infantry. I try to make sure that my tank can see (and be seen by) ONLY a) friendlies and B) the place I want it to be shooting at, and to make sure that the tank is shooting at that place as soon as it comes in sight.

The advantage of this is that I don't have to worry so much about moving my tanks independently and about all the many many things that make them dead because they always have a line of good solid bodies in front of their thin thin armour. ;)

I usually beat the AI with small loss - not claiming any special skill as I don't play HTH! - and of course in practice I do more complicated "proper" tactics but I work from pretty basic basics and hopefully they may be useful to someone new to the game as they are to me.

Crude, but I like it, for CMBN.

Because........

pre-planned artillery is so powerful.

Hitting behind hedgrows, where the enemy is, is so tough during the actual play, due to difficulty spotting and seeing the spotting rounds. (not an issue with pre-planned artillery)

And the abundance of infantry AT--though I always like to keep infantry ahead of my armor, in all instances.

I have taken a lot of MG squad casualties by moving my MGs up too soon. Keeping them back, and spraying enemy positions heavily is probably the best idea.

I think my understanding of ammo loads comes from early war CM1. I find the tank and ammo loads generally very ample in WW2 American units--losing ammo due to death of troops seems to be to me more of a problems than losing it to firing it--again with 44 American units.

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New players who haven't played any of the titles before will be surprised when soon, on their commutes to work, they find themselves mentally spotting likely AT gun emplacements and noting good hull down positions. And noticing the layouts of local buidings. Hmmm, 2 story red brick building with south facing side lacking windows, four windows on upper west face, high brick wall to the rear. ;)

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Well, it doesn't help that arranged alphabetically, the first mission is "A Delaying Action"; toughest standalone mission on the CD, imo.

Perhaps, but the size of each scenario is also denoted. In general smaller is ... while not necessarily 'easier' smaller is generally 'simpler'. Fewer moving parts, smaller map, that sort of thing.

If you're still struggling, after all the suggestions in this thread, I'd suggest going for the small or tiny scens.

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1) Before the mission starts I use almost all the indirect fire assets available, including all the "on-map" stuff. Every mortar, every cannon. If there is a village or town where enemy might be, I use very large area circles on "harass" for maximum duration. If there are suspicious hedges in front of me, I use linear bombardments slightly behind them on "harass" for maximum duration.

The advantage of doing this is that the bombardments are usually accurate, harassing fire lasts a long time and I don't have to think about what to do with all those ****ing mortar sections. :)

I think you are in error; I'm all for blowing your heavy stuff at the start of a battle, but (almost) never the platoon's 60mm mortar sections; if you aren't 100% certain you'll be dropping them right on someone's head they are utterly wasted. I'd also add that careful timing is key for pre-planned barrages, maximum value is achieved when your troops arrive at the position right on the heels of the barrage to take full advantage of the suppression effect on the enemy. A fool-proof method is to set it at 'maximum' length, and cancel it when you are ready (i.e. when your vanguard is in grave danger of eating shell-splinters).

Artillery is not a substitute for boots on the ground, and close-range bullets in the enemy's black hearts - but if the player doesn't learn to leverage it properly they'll get whipped, particularly against a human (the AI is incapable of responding on-the-fly to player tactics; will not reinforce, reposition, withdraw or counter, and in my experience quite inept at using it's own artillery assets).

Light mortars are one (to avoid unnecessary argument :)) of the most influential infantry weapons on the field, and people new to tactical gaming should think about that, and examine their play-style with it in mind. Being hassled by an ATG? Light mortars. Pesky HMG holding up the advance? Light mortars. Targets in the open? Light mortars. Tanks to fight and no AT assets? Light mortars, why not? Might disable or damage it somehow. A few well-aimed mortar rounds can turn the tide of battle, and their use should be one of the player's primary concerns.

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It's heretical perversity to say that CM should be Nerfed; where are this generation's Inquisitors!!

More tutorials and maybe some ratings are not a bad idea though. Or maybe an option to enable a grisley platoon or company seargent barking commands and criticisms with sound files.

Here's a radical idea. Love CM, struggling with Normandy- go train in the desert with Shock Force. Anybody else think that most of the tactics are working in Normandy but with more casualties?

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