[pvt_Grunt]

[pvt_Grunt]

[vonB]

I have found CC worth it since CC2  

[7A_Woulf]

[Tejszd]

Tree cover probably should be increased to be a bit closer to previous CC games... Matrix/S3tT seemed to have accepted/acknowledged it is a bug/problem.

[southern_land]

[ANZAC_Tack]

von was that your voice cues in the game?

i played the NL german battle group last night, LOL sounded like some guy sittin on the bog(toilet) yelling random swearing in dutch lol

my favourite was the panicked cries/tears of some young soldier...scooty? sob sob

i was laughing so hard i felt bad shooting them, till i got over it...

by the way, there voice cues are like 20 to 30% louder then all other voice cues....

[pvt_Grunt]

I guess I'm too busy, but I never notice all those little bugs in the game, or maybe I'm just used to them?

Any way - back to my AAR you thread hijacking bastards  

2/1/ para has captured Arnhem bridge, but SS grens counterattacked and I lost 2 VL's. They are down to 2 squads but the 1sr airlanding has just reinforced them, hope they can hold the bridge

My paras have done a great job of capturing bridges but the XXX Corps is still miles away! It makes me change tactics - eg in Nijmigen the AB have most of both bridges so it's up to the Germans to c/attack. Graebner has some halftracks and A/cars (which are impervious to mortar and B-25 attacks    but I simply hang on, no need to attack. It's hard to be patient Grasshopper, but it's the best strategy.

Here's a quandry in the centre - 2/504 AB holds Grave and 1/501 AB holds Veghel. I really want to move them out and take the German supply depots at Oss, Dinther and Gemert but with only 2 BG's and 3 targets, the risk is that a German BG could appear and take the highway!

So - question - it's 0900 on the 18th. When do the enemy BG's appear? If I have 1 clear turn I can take the German supply depots and clear the highway for 2 Armour BG's to get through. If I keep the AB in place as defensive BG's I can only fit 1 armour BG at a time through the corridor.

I'm beginning to feel sorry for that egotistical prick Montgomery

[vonB]

[schrecken]

[pvt_Grunt]

Back into it after a few days off.. a luxury only us desktop gamers have! The boys on the line in 1944 had no choice!

Nederwetten - I'm still coming to grips with the unit stacking feature. I saw 107 Pz at Helmond so I moved Welsh Guards armour to battle them but I ended up fighting with 130 / 43 infantry!  I guess the unit already on the map fights, and you need to wait a turn to relieve it with the support unit. Anyway, I took 4 PIAT's into the battle and of course they killed ZERO tanks as PIAT's are good for F*** ALL  

Oh for a decent AT gun! My single Sherman V got confused backing up and was killed by one of the enemys 3 Panthers. Still, I held them to 1 VL taken and kept force morale intact.

This is a map I really wanted to take as it is the alternate "HART" route for XXX corps (love that name...   )  but it looks blocked for a few turns at least until I can get rid of the Panthers.

[7A_Woulf]

Maybe it's old news for you, but you can right click on the BG's during movement and  get a order menu; -A 'move' order (or old-school 'click-and-drag') makes the BG 'Reserves' if you already have a BG on that map, but an 'attack' order makes them the active BG (Although it causes more lose of cohesion...)

But I guess all of us old players have the same problem: "Damn! Right click, remember to right click!"  

[pvt_Grunt]

De Geelders  KG 59 I.D  vs  502 PIR

The Germans mount a weak counterattack which gives me time to review another imporatant part of the game - the Maps.

LSA maps are apparently made by the same person who did WAR and TLD. We know who he is... In the interests of positive feedback and respect for the Kiwi who taught me how to make maps I'll start with the good points.

Great - Buildings.  Nice clear textures, no bluring from rotation.
Great - Layout. A playable map is more important than a pretty one. I believe a CC map made by a non-player would suck. These maps have the right balance of cover / open ground / obstacles.
Good - walls, tractors etc. No dead cows like CC5 either .... yet    These objects turn a basic map into a real world image.
Average - The transition between textures can sometimes be too abrupt. There needs to be more blending of textures so it looks less "cartoonish" if you know what I mean.
Average - The water textures. I havent liked the water textures sed in the last few games. It's too greenish for a running stream. This is just personal taste, not that important.
Less than average - Roads. This has bugged me for a few years now. As the horse in Ren and Stimpy would say "No sir, I don't like it"

The texture is too repetitive - there cant be THAT many cracks in ALL the roads?
The pen width doesnt change ever
The roads are too jittery. They could make a straight road in the 1940's
Summary, In photoshop if you hand draw a line with a wide texture it goes exactly where you mose goes. I could never draw a straight line so I ended up with jittery roads like LSA. To fix this you need todraw dirt / mud / snow along the edge of the road to soften the transition from road to field and to straighten the road's edges. See CC4 maps (my favorite) or CC5 stock maps. This step is missing from LSA / TLD maps which detracts from the overall effect of the game.

Summary - great maps, they need a little more time to be perfect. Remember the maps made for RSR and Karelia - these were the best.

[southern_land]

A response

LSA maps are apparently made by the same person who did WAR and TLD. We know who he is... In the interests of positive feedback and respect for the Kiwi who taught me how to make maps I'll start with the good points.

Great - Buildings.  Nice clear textures, no bluring from rotation.

Yeah i created approximately 60-70 new buildings for LSA, then some of those are shrunk to better suit the environment, or annexs are added subtracted to give greater diversity.  Neil created a couple of buildings in lightware

Great - Layout. A playable map is more important than a pretty one. I believe a CC map made by a non-player would suck. These maps have the right balance of cover / open ground / obstacles.

Most maps are made from 1:25000 US army maps of the period, a few are resized and repainted from CC2.  I really wanted to do that to pay homage to the first Cc game I owned.

Good - walls, tractors etc. No dead cows like CC5 either .... yet    These objects turn a basic map into a real world image.

yeah harder than expected to generate "small objects"   In the end I came up with out about 30, spilled bottles, crates, barrels etc.  Actually i think there are a few dead cows .

Average - The transition between textures can sometimes be too abrupt. There needs to be more blending of textures so it looks less "cartoonish" if you know what I mean.

I hear what you're say and possibly the transition is too sharp which equates to too modern.  My previous job i did a bit of aerial photography and the lines can be quite distinct from 500-1000 feet though maybe this is more in line with modern agricultural practices.  For example a pasture plowed will have a distinct line between the new pasture/crops and the older grass.  Possibly it derives from NZ being a new country too without the detritus of 2000 of civilisation.  However there are no "hard lines", all have some degree of feathering.

Average - The water textures. I havent liked the water textures sed in the last few games. It's too greenish for a running stream. This is just personal taste, not that important.

I trialed a couple of other "looks" before reverting to the tried and true.  Everything else i tried looked too vibrant.  My concept was that these are slow moving rivers and canals traveling through flat lands in a 1940s industrial era.  

Less than average - Roads. This has bugged me for a few years now. As the horse in Ren and Stimpy would say "No sir, I don't like it"

The texture is too repetitive - there cant be THAT many cracks in ALL the roads?
The pen width doesnt change ever
The roads are too jittery. They could make a straight road in the 1940's
Summary, In photoshop if you hand draw a line with a wide texture it goes exactly where you mose goes. I could never draw a straight line so I ended up with jittery roads like LSA. To fix this you need todraw dirt / mud / snow along the edge of the road to soften the transition from road to field and to straighten the road's edges. See CC4 maps (my favorite) or CC5 stock maps. This step is missing from LSA / TLD maps which detracts from the overall effect of the game.

Here i have to disagree with you.  The basis of these roads go back hudreds of year.  While straight roads date to the Roman era later establishments were less inclined toward the shortest distance in of thought.  http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/dutch_company_asphalt_heat.php  If you check out the new highway on Wolfheuze map you will see an example of a straight road indicating that it was a product of the 20th century.  The roads widths do change, the sealed roads range from 54 to 65 pixels, the dirt roads set to 25-35 and the dirt tracks locked at 19pixels.  I wanted to go 17 to better suit the sprites but that didn't work.  As regards the cracks, to my mind this was a country just escaping from the ravages of the the depression then plunged into war and 4 years of occupation where road maintenance was one of the lesser concerns of the occupying administration.  Overdone?  Yeah maybe but I think it says something about the state of the country at that time, remember that this is a country that couldn't even adequately feed itself to the following winter.  I considered a more distraught colour pallette while starting the mapping process but the decision was made to keep a more vibrant colour scheme like CC2.

Summary - great maps, they need a little more time to be perfect. Remember the maps made for RSR and Karelia - these were the best.

I still like Karealia but I was reviewing a few RSR maps recently and i think they're showing definite signs of age and lack of ability.  Also these maps were pure imagination; they owed nothing at all to reailty.  However I'm currently negotiating with Sapa to bring something new to the LSA table... That's Sapa, aka Mats... available here http://www.closecombatseries.net/CCS/modules.php?name=Profile&mode=viewprofile&u=75 for cajouling.    

and early OMG transition map

[pvt_Grunt]

Thanks for the measured response  

Re" Roads - I have looked closer at some other maps and I see the transition is smoother than DeGeelders. Here is an example of too sharp a transition between textures. The red outline is road to dirt, I feel dragging some dirt onto the roads would make it look better. Surely that tractor picked up some clods on it's way eh?

The blue circle is some obvious tiling in the crack texture. Personally I liked the lighter tyre track effects on the old CC 4/5.

I still think stock CC4 maps are the best looking. The mud / asphalt / snow textures are all messed up like they would be in real life. These old roads probably could only take 1 car at a time, so to pass you have to drive with 2 wheels in the rough, it's not an autobahn.

Still, back to my original review, the maps are great - well designed and fun to play on.   Thanks for the great work.

[pvt_Grunt]

South Ooosterbeek - 1st Para's vs KG Lippert

A hard fought battle, the Vickers MG team is pretty powerful in this game, a large team that seems to move faster than before. 5 rifles keep firing while the MG sets up.

I have held the town with the buildings so I have a good position to defend from. There is a inf gun in the orchard though, so I cant advance.

[pvt_Grunt]

Nerderwetten  Irish Guards vs 107 Pz group

This time I got the armour to attack, thanks to 7A woulf for the tip.

Thankfully my Firefly came through with the goods in a big way - 2 Panthers, 1 a Command in the first 20 seconds  

It's always a tough decision where to place your best tank. You have to look at the roads, where the enemy's tanks will be, where the crossfire is, and some times it's just a good guess.

Result - total victory - next turn is to advance - ONWARD!!!

[pvt_Grunt]

Nijmegen

I'm getting pissed off with this map for a number of reasons

1) I moved my BG onto the bridge early but I havent supported it so I'm down to 6 units now.
2) When the second German BG moved onto the map I lost control of the entire town! As I said before, the areas around my VL's are mine, but most of the town is no-mans land - but before it was my territory. I dont have enough units to run all over the map and regain ground again!
3) The second German BG must have attacked from the south so I was caught out, yeah I'm pissed of but I think it's a great feature of the new stacking BG function that adds to the game. ie - I held the town south of the river so I assumed I did not need to place any units there. HOWEVER, on the strat map the map to the south was German, so when they attacked form the south I was caught between 2 BG's. Tough stuff.
4) I believe point 2 above is a function of point 3 above, but I dont think it's working properly. If a enemy BG attacks, it should not turn MOST of the map into no-mans land.

Having said that, I'm really enjoying the challenge of holding this bridge map. Each turn gives a different game. This turn I had to capture the north exit VL's with a 30 cal mg unit with a sniper providing covering fire! Dont tell me I'm not flexible -  

[pvt_Grunt]

EDIT - I cant edit the above post so here

Nijmegen 1st BN 508 vs KG Fuestenberg

5) The enemy doesnt fill it's slots. It has points available, it has a backup BG (Grabner) but it wont fill all it's slots. Is this a bug that's been reported?

[7A_Woulf]

For 2) It's a bug, think it will be fixed in patch 2. Had a really bad case of it at St. Oedenrode that almost killed my vs AI GC:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2541867

ATM this little problem makes me hesitating too start a h2h GC...  

And 5) Don't think it's a bug. Read somewhere (in the 'napkin-manual' or over at Matrix) that a less aggressive AI commander (of the BG) saves more of his points, but why don't you select his units yourself? Personally I always look at the AI's units and changes them to the best possible for the job (no 'Schrecks' against a pure infantry opponent and so on.)