[mooxe]

I used to run some very detailed stats for this website.

These stats indicated how many downloads each mod recieved. The numbers that you can see on this website are not accurate.

From these stats, and the number of people I would see online, I figured that 99.9% of CC players play vs the AI. Even if I am way off, lets just assume 60% do.

I can't understand the draw to play the AI.

What kept people from playing online even back when firewalls were not a problem?

[schrecken]

The Ai is a good enough challenge, the majority of downloaders and Poll takers proves that.

Even if you have the skill of Rommel you can reconfigure the AI side to challenge you.... it's a great game.

[squadleader_id]

I guess it's just more managable and simpler to play the AI...anytime, anywhere.
You'd have to find a partner to play H2H for long campaigns...then there's a chance that you (or your partner) will get bored halfway through the campaign and quit.
Then there's conflicting schedules, time difference etc...
If there are thriving meeting place servers for single battles (or string of battles) that you can log in, quickly find an opponent, have a quickie game and sign out...maybe more people would play online?

I agree with Schreckie...you can configure the game...so playing the AI can still be fun and challenging.
Even with the poor AI deployment and sometimes daft manouvering choices during battle...attacking is always fun...vs the AI is not just about winning...trying to keep casualties at a minimum is fun too.
If you're in the mood for some defending action...there's always SDK/SOC/SDKDK and BoB with vetmods...Normandy vetmods can be fun too if you don't mind US/UK human wave style attacks  
Heck, I've just posted something similar at the matrix forum  

[Spinlock]

I haven't played cc online for about 6 years.. Here are a few reasons..

1) lazy..
2) don't want to download another lobby client.. (see #1)
3) Too many versions of CC. There is like 10 versions now?  LSA is hot right now and I'm not interested at all, I don't imagine there are many people waiting in the original CC4 lobby.  
4) Burned out by all the bad experiences. Not with other players, but with disconnects, warping units. mismatched patch versions,  mismatched units between opponent and me. (I see a Tiger, he sees a pzII )  
5) I play CCSS    The combat is brutal and fast paced. I can control way more than 15 full sized squads, I don't know ahead of time how many teams the enemy has, and the AI is smart.
6) I don't win very often..


If I knew there were people online during the day or night ready to play, I might jump back into it...

[Superkala]

I played about a weeks worth of stalingrad 1.2 with someone from gamespy, it was pretty fun playing the underdog defenders and the intensity was there

But i havnt played multiplayer before or since. Its just to much effort, to much time, to inconvenient and the game makes you jump through hoops to keep playing

[7A_Woulf]

The AI is a lousy opponent, but it's easy to get a game or two going before doing something else for a while.

If I'm to play online I must be sure to have a special time free, remember to start Messenger to get in contact with my opponent and I have to plan several days ahead (hard with two teenage daughters!)

And finally, I can only quote Spinlock

[Ivan_Zaitzev]

I used to play CC5 with some mods, it was really fun.
Then I changed my connection to a really bad one and it was full of lag so I stopped.
Now I have LSA and a fine connection, but the times I have tried to set a game I have failed.

[platoon_michael]

CC comes with BHQ

There is no place to go to play CC where you can log in and find 100,1000,10,000 people to play.
You log in only to find a few..............maybe

you have to find either Matrix or CCS to find opponents who are most likely not on your time frame.

[Pzt_Kanov]

I cannot play a campaign, I lose interest very quick, I have tried to play TLD H2H with davidsfx but my connection is very bad now and have managed to connect only like 3 times, very frustrating.  I don't know why if it was good enough with CC5.

I mostly played OPs when active with Panzertruppen clan lots of enjoyable OPs, very fun experience doing AAR's and reading the others, because most of us followed the style or tried to imitate Wruff which you know does very impressive and immersive graphic AAR's, but I simply lost interest when they were longer. I haven't bothered to try BHQ, seems like such a hassle for little gain. Hamachi too, though I do have it installed it.

I just which that the CC2/3 style of quick battles where you "buy" troops and assign deployment and change VL's would come back, I think that would single handedly make a lot of H2H players to return, well that together with making all the features displayed in the recent titles available in one single game and not breaking stuff that worked previously. Does the recent titles even have file checking? it is easier now to change things and I'm worried about players using different files.

I mostly like to change things now, and most of my play time is spend testing and seeing those things I change working properly.

[lamurt]

in general cheaters, haxorz and sour losers galore,, so co-op is the only way of serious mp gaming for me.

[Pzt_Rasalom]

my connectionhas been horrible and my military career has eaten up so much of my time

[graves101]

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, play the A.I.

Except for when I'm testing new features or things I've never seen before, like new vehicles, but never to play an actual game. I used to have a hard time against the comp when I was 13, only because that's probably the mindset the A.I. is comparable to.  

Vetmods gave me some entertainment for a short-while, but I don't have much enthusiasm unless the game's at a realistic level with both sides on par with one another, not just substituting the tactical element for troop handicaps.

[US_Brake]

In the early days the amount of disconnections drove many online players away or caused conflicts... "you disco'd on purpose!"

Adding mods and custom maps may seem easy for die hards like us but for many players they didn't ever take that step of dl files and using the config etc. The result would be a player with Regular version coming in to a lobby full of Real Red (for CC3).

Players who were utterly defeated when they played online might make a quick retreat back to playing the AI. There is something about losing at CC that really gets to players unlike any other game. You have to be  tough to loose and learn in h2h CC.

The closing of the MSN Zone was a huge hit for h2h games.

However difficult it has been over the years, nothing compares to playing a real person in any CC game.

[Digs]

One thing that drove me crazy during MP... having to replay a game just to re-capture vl's you lost, due to the game crashing at the very end.

[graves101]

Kinda strange, now that I think about it... I used to deal with the crashing issues oh so often at the start of this year (when I started to play h2h). About 1-in-5 to 1-in-10 games crashing.

But for the past couple months, I don't remember having anything except something like 1 out of 99 games crashing. I can't even specifically remember the last time I've crashed. Sure, there have been other things, such as a few cases of airstrikes freezing the game, but those specific "at the timer's end" crashing, those don't happen anymore.

[Digs]

It happens a lot with CC5: GJS v4.4 with TRSM v0.981.

[Tippi-Simo]

I think that some people just don´t have enough time to find an opponent.
If you have a family or work that can take all your free time and when you have finally an hour or two there is no one online.

When I´m hosting the game crashes perhaps 1 in 100 games.
At the moment I have some good GC´s with couple of polaks and some others.
I bet I will be playing this game ´til I´m on my death bed.