[captoofter]

Hi all,

Just grabbed TLD and am re-living some of the old Close Combat 5 playing I used to do.  Lots of updates here of course.  Had some basic questions that I was having trouble finding answers to when searching.  

While playing, I feel like I've noticed that it's much harder to detect enemy units?  Anyone else getting that impression?  And any tips to try and sus out the enemy given that?  They'll find my guys in cover (I use the feature to outline the soldiers with their cover: red, yellow, green.), as expected I can usually see where the fire is coming from but minutes go by and they'll never be revealed.  Best I can do is try to fire back at the area.  Also seems like it's damn near impossible to pin or suppress the enemy now as well unless you have armor pieces.

Next is a carryover question.  I know that if you hold down spacebar, there's an area of influence for each unit.  I never fully understood if you needed to have units inside the area of influence circle to receive the command unit's benefits, or if unit circles just had to intersect.  The manual has always just eluded to the feature but all the reference images only show intersecting.  I've never found a resource that really describes how best to take advantage of the command circles.

Sorry if stuff like this has already been covered ad nauseum and I'm just not searching correctly.

[mooxe]

1) There's a lot of factors at play. Cover, experience, line of sight.... Soldiers with higher experience will be harder to spot. Don't recycle highly experienced teams into your force pool, keep them until morale gets to low. If you're playing the AI its likely the AI is sneaking most of the time making them hard to spot.

2) The circle represents the extend of their influence. We have to assume intersecting circles do not extend influence.


To best find out how features of Close Combat work, I usually consult a few game manuals. The manuals have been consistently watered down version after version and fail to detail some new features. The internet Way Back Machine is another method to use for dig up old forum posts from Tournament House, CSO... and a couple others that I have just forgot the name of...

[Jatke]

Im (re)playing the Meuse'40/TLD mod and had similar thoughts on the kinds of AI 'buffs' TheBlood! may have coded.

AI units at med/long range do seem to cloak easily and stay cloaked after a ostensibly being observed and shot at. But trying to put a red or orange fire dot on a target isnt always the best firing solution. First off, direct 'dot' targeting instantly makes the firing unit a priority AI target. I like to think my teams firing at red dots are a higher AI priority than my orange dot teams wasting their lead on the landscape.

Leaving teams on Defend, and trusting them to take the highest probability shots, seems to work best. My faith is rewarded when seeing them fire at unseen targets. Especially when a death cue is heard and it's another enemy sprite that bites the dust.

Sometimes you want to 'encourage' a team to engage a particular target they dont consider good enough, by dropping them a red dot. For a couple of rounds only tho before putting them back on Defend. After which they'll sometimes continue engaging.

Ambush isnt always cover's best friend. If an ambushing team is spotted, as can happen from duration of proximity alone, the ambushing team is at a disadvantage when the AI spotter and friends open fire. Unknown what value ambush adds to cover, so trying to hide in some rubbled bldg, while already under los/lof, is low reward for the risk. Better to withdraw (sneak vs fast is another post entirely) to cover out of AI los/lof, go to Ambush in the direction of the AI. When AI fire ceases, go to Defend for a bit, then sneak back to a firing position.

Attached pic shows cmd circles have to encompass another team for effect. Team icons and outlines are both set to show command. AT gun forward has been boosted from red to yelo status by the supporting yelo-circle rifle team. Which itself has been boosted from yelo to green status by the cmd team to the rear. But no green cmd benefit from the cmd tm to the AT gun even though their circles intersect.

Because you can find mismatches on the map where a gun's cover icon will be lower than its cover outline, set team icons + outlines to cover, while evaluating deployment. A green icon + green outline = good to go.

[mooxe]

I rarely play with any outlines on.... but I just did a test.

By holding the space bar down and moving a command teams circle directly over another team and back, the outline changed colours. captoofter, that's the way to conclusively show how exactly it works. Just like what Jatke was illustrating in the still image.