Screenshot of the day...

[budd]

So i get a new computer and i'm pretty jazzed to play some new games and run my current games at a higher resolution. The new CM games i have been itching to try. So i have the Red Thunder demo installed, been installed for a few weeks. I open it up and looked around, made a few moves, looks good.I'm sure i'll get into it at some point, maybe i just dont want to learn a new system right now, dont know, but when i play it i just want to go play PCO some more.

Only turn 4 of my current battle. Lost a couple of tanks, couple damaged, my infantry is withdrawing. I'm just to impatient with advancing my infantry, had no arty smoke available to drop so i used some tnaks and APC's to lay down some fire as the infantry advanced, well that didnt work. My 88's have been banging away from about 1000m out with some success, there in a good spot. Got a nice hull down position for my panzers on the left with what sounds like tanks approaching thru the tree's somewhere. I'm rushing my light tanks down a hill to get into a swell/gully.




My light tanks headed for the gully. Upper left some stuarts and valentines appear.



View from my 88's


Question: does being buttoned up affect sighting and fire accuracy for the AI?

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: :Budd
Question: does being buttoned up affect sighting and fire accuracy for the AI?

Sighting yes, accuracy no. But you can't hit what you can see.

[Mobius]

Well I made some changes in the railroad ballast because I thought it looked better.
And vehicles can cross it more realistically.
But real railroads down't waste a lot of gravel making it wide and smooth.

[Firebri]

It would be nice to see more.

[budd]

A PCO random battle, 1944 meeting engagement. VP's were in the trees so looks like everything will be close range.

A few turns in my recon gets taken out bya bombing run.



2 on 1 Tiger style, had to hurt.



My second tiger gets taken out. My infantry flank protection routs back and they get a flank shot...bummer.



38 turns, a minor loss. Had the VP's but lost too much material. My lone remaining panzer, a IVH had 15 kills.Fun battle with lots of ebbs and flows.

[rickier65]

Hye Badd, that's a nice set of screen shots. Thanks!

Rick

[budd]

My poor Panther

[budd]

2nd battle random 43 campaign,defend a couple river crossings. Plane comes in, 3 core panzers knocked out, 2 in flames one abandoned. Not recoverable after battle ...OUCH



Payback...they really wanted to cross that bridge. A little arty and a cross fire from my units.


Only units i lost were to planes. Think i got 8 panzers, 2 halftracks and 6 squads of infantry left, only mission 3....mission now is just to survive until reinforcements arrive. the planes have been killing me.

side note this message keeps showing up in the message box. Doesn't seem to effect gameplay that i noticed, must refer to enemy units, my units weren't moving at the time.

[rickier65]

How battles do you have in this campaign? That's pretty bad luck losing 3 panzers to tactical air.

I've also seen that msg about "...corner paths...", I'm sure it's being triggered by the path finding routines, but I'm not sure if it's anything that we need to be concerned with.

I started looking into the error msg you received about an invalid unit, but haven't sorted it out yet. Taking me a little time to refresh myself on the Random Generators.

Thanks
Rick

[budd]

I think it's 19 battles but ill double check tomorrow. Do planes ever miss they haven't yet, most of my losses are from planes. I'm in August I think I get reinforcements this month, ill have to read the description again. I do have a question, while the turn is running units in the UI unit box light up, what's does that mean, there firing or being fired at?

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: **budd**

I think it's 19 battles but ill double check tomorrow. Do planes ever miss they haven't yet, most of my losses are from planes. I'm in August I think I get reinforcements this month, ill have to read the description again.

I hope you get reinforcements, and points to replace your losses.

ORIGINAL: **budd**
I do have a question, while the turn is running units in the UI unit box light up, what's does that mean, there firing or being fired at?

I'll have to check on that myself. i thought that units that are selected are bolded in the msg box. and red msgs denote units that suffer hits, but I'll have to check.

Thanks
Rick

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: **budd**
Only units i lost were to planes. Think i got 8 panzers, 2 halftracks and 6 squads of infantry left, only mission 3....mission now is just to survive until reinforcements arrive. the planes have been killing me.

Aircraft attack is something Stridor changed without anyone else's input. And it is almost impossible to test so I haven't looked at it. I just reduced the number of planes available in my scenarios as they are unpredictable.

[budd]

I'm up to battle 5, attrition is slowly sapping my force pool. Got a legendary and a decisive in my last 2 battles but still lost a couple units. I'm down to 7 panzers, 1 half track and 1 pioneer squad left in my core. It's the first panzer random short campaign runs from Aug 43 till Aug 44, 12 key battles, 36 possible[X(] I'm in Jan 44 for battle 5. I see where theres a button to get replacements but i dont have any points to spend, not sure how that works. you would think i'd get points for the legendary and decisive victories. I'm defending again in battle 5 after advancing in battle 4. The planes actually missed on there last 2 runs so i guess they don't always hit.

These are from battle 3
i couldn't keep them from crossing the bridge






i did screw up when i didnt noticed 2 parts of the river were frozen over so crossing was allowed. i keyed my defense on the bridge, had to do a bit of shifting to cover those other crossings. In battle 4 I had my first AI human wave attack, a bunch of screaming and running at me from 2 directions. They got mowed down at range. On to battle 5, intel says expect heavy attacks with lots of arty.

[budd]

here's the map from battle 5 with point values on the flags and the forces i have available. I have a 50mm mortar on map and 81mm mortar off map and 105's. That center flag is a non starter for me, too far forward and open which means splitting my forces for the other 2 VP's. Discounting the 50mm mortars i have 5 squads of infantry, i'm also at 60% ammo for all forces. Any thoughts or advice for me[:D]. Havent placed anything yet.

[budd]

Settled on this setup.


put my panthers in the center to use that long range. With panzerIVH on the right the panzers can support each other, both have good LOS to the center.

The AI attacked with infantry only on the left, thru the trees toward the village. Once i saw them coming i dropped some 81mm on them. Once they breached the trees i pulled my infantry back toward the village and dropped more 81mm on them,bad luck was my halftrack was a little to close and got hit by friendly 81mm fire knocking it out.The AI brought all there armor and a ton of infantry in an attack on the center, T-60 and BT's. My Panthers went to work.


Once i saw all the infantry in the center i hit them with 81mm and 50mm mortars, not to mention my panzers all had good sight lines to the center, they even rolled up some 76mm infantry guns.


once i didnt see any armor for a couple of turns i counter attacked in the center retaking the center VP.

End game shot


Results


Next battle briefing

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: **budd**

I'm up to battle 5, attrition is slowly sapping my force pool. Got a legendary and a decisive in my last 2 battles but still lost a couple units. I'm down to 7 panzers, 1 half track and 1 pioneer squad left in my core. It's the first panzer random short campaign runs from Aug 43 till Aug 44, 12 key battles, 36 possible[X(] I'm in Jan 44 for battle 5. I see where theres a button to get replacements but i dont have any points to spend, not sure how that works. you would think i'd get points for the legendary and decisive victories. ....

I will try and check on that. I seem to recall a long formula for how many points you receive, but I also recall thinking that it is very hard to replenish your core force on campaigns, particular in the late war years when equipment costs get pretty high.

Thanks
Rick

[rickier65]

how is your core force now? If i recall, you have to be able to buy all of the units within a squad in order to do replacements? ie, if your Pz platoon has 5 Pz and your lose 3, you have to have enough points for all 3, rather than being able to replace just 1? Is that what you're seeing?

Thanks
Rick

[budd]

Had some repairs, no replacements. The damaged units that are salvaged get repaired and I get some support units added to my core before each battle.most of my lost units haven't been able to be salvaged,looks like surviving the whole campaign might be a victory. Also I haven't seen anything about points earned or anything about points at all.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: **budd**

Had some repairs, no replacements. The damaged units that are salvaged get repaired and I get some support units added to my core before each battle.most of my lost units haven't been able to be salvaged,looks like surviving the whole campaign might be a victory. Also I haven't seen anything about points earned or anything about points at all.

OK, thanks. And yes, I think just keeping your core force alive does get pretty difficult.

Thanks
Rick

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Rick

ORIGINAL: **budd**

Had some repairs, no replacements. The damaged units that are salvaged get repaired and I get some support units added to my core before each battle.most of my lost units haven't been able to be salvaged,looks like surviving the whole campaign might be a victory. Also I haven't seen anything about points earned or anything about points at all.

OK, thanks. And yes, I think just keeping your core force alive does get pretty difficult.

Thanks
Rick

You get points during setup for each battle. but the number of points you get may not be enough to cover the cost of your core force. In which case it will show 0 points. I wonder if we need to increase the number of points in the battles.

Thanks
Rick