Demo first Impressions

[sztartur2]

I tried the demo myself.

I love CMX1. I like a lot of games from Matrix.

I find the platoon concept a good one.

BUT.

How can it be that a 82mm mortar barrage take out several PZIII? To add suppression some damage maybe some internal injury it is OK but taking out 1-2 panzers / barrage on regular basis? I played Steel Panthers, CM series, and many othersit never happened like this with mortar fore of this calibre, this is very unrtealistic IMHO. It went off my HD within a minute...

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: sztartur

I tried the demo myself.

I love CMX1. I like a lot of games from Matrix.

I find the platoon concept a good one.

BUT.

How can it be that a 82mm mortar barrage take out several PZIII? To add suppression some damage maybe some internal injury it is OK but taking out 1-2 panzers / barrage on regular basis? I played Steel Panthers, CM series, and many othersit never happened like this with mortar fore of this calibre, this is very unrtealistic IMHO. It went off my HD within a minute...

Are you sure it was 82mm mortars and not the 45mm ATGs that were hidden in the woods?

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: sztartur

I tried the demo myself.

I love CMX1. I like a lot of games from Matrix.

I find the platoon concept a good one.

BUT.

How can it be that a 82mm mortar barrage take out several PZIII? To add suppression some damage maybe some internal injury it is OK but taking out 1-2 panzers / barrage on regular basis? I played Steel Panthers, CM series, and many othersit never happened like this with mortar fore of this calibre, this is very unrtealistic IMHO. It went off my HD within a minute...

According to Otto Carius in his book "Tigers in the Mud" one of the main forms of damage to the Tigers were mortars. They would land on the back deck or along side them and take out a Tiger. Something a T-34/76 couldn't do.

But the tutorial has other Russian weapons I would suspect of being the ones that knocked out your PzIII's.

Taking it off your HD in minutes didn't let you have the game long enough to tell what was going on. PCO has a very deep tank combat model. Much deeper than a 2 minute play through.

Good Hunting.

MR

[diablo1]

ORIGINAL: sztartur

I tried the demo myself.

I love CMX1. I like a lot of games from Matrix.

I find the platoon concept a good one.

BUT.

How can it be that a 82mm mortar barrage take out several PZIII? To add suppression some damage maybe some internal injury it is OK but taking out 1-2 panzers / barrage on regular basis? I played Steel Panthers, CM series, and many othersit never happened like this with mortar fore of this calibre, this is very unrtealistic IMHO. It went off my HD within a minute...

One may ask that same question about Sgt. York who took out a whole "company" by himself. Sometimes extrodinary things just happen. I'd give it another go or two and see if it happens again. It was just uncommon luck really. So the computer ai rolled a couple of three #1's. I've seen it happen in board wargames before. [:)]

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: sztartur
How can it be that a 82mm mortar barrage take out several PZIII? To add suppression some damage maybe some internal injury it is OK but taking out 1-2 panzers / barrage on regular basis? I played Steel Panthers, CM series, and many othersit never happened like this with mortar fore of this calibre, this is very unrtealistic IMHO. It went off my HD within a minute...

That's not actually typical, though I suppose it's theoretically possible (were they unbuttoned too?). The early war tanks did not have heavy top armor, but that would still be very unlucky. I encourage you to give it another try, I think you just had some very unlucky "dice".

Regards,

- Erik

[sztartur2]

Gents,

I have given it several runs.

The 45mms did not take them out. I took them out in my first try  because I advanced slow. I checked the messgae log. 82mm round firing logged. Next message PZ III out.

In the first try I won the battle but a 82mm mortar round took out a PZIII. I thought it was plain very bad luck.
In the next try the mortar barrage took out 2 PZIII 1 Halftrack one infantry squad in the first two turns.
After experiencing that I took it off the HD within a minute.

[Erik Rutins]

Ok, I haven't lost a Panzer III to mortars in that scenario in a long time, but we may just play it differently. We take your feedback seriously and we'll take a look at that and see if we need to balance it a bit better. Did you try the second scenario at all?

Regards,

- Erik

[JMass]

I played it three times and I lost only one or two SPW, never a Pz III... [&:]

[diablo1]

ORIGINAL: sztartur

Gents,

I have given it several runs.

The 45mms did not take them out. I took them out in my first try  because I advanced slow. I checked the messgae log. 82mm round firing logged. Next message PZ III out.

In the first try I won the battle but a 82mm mortar round took out a PZIII. I thought it was plain very bad luck.
In the next try the mortar barrage took out 2 PZIII 1 Halftrack one infantry squad in the first two turns.
After experiencing that I took it off the HD within a minute.

Did you leave them in the "default setup area"? I immediately moved all my units to the woods and to the far right, tanks as far forward and to the right as they would go. I didn't lose anything the whole game to 82mm mortar fire though I did get several supressions I commented about to Erik and team. If you give up that easily you must hate losing? I'd never give up just because I lost several units in a "few" games. Now maybe I dunno Erik and team had it in for you and if the computer ai found out your name was Sztartur and they programmed it to key on your units just for funzzies knowing you would log online and complain about it so they could get a good laugh well yeah I guess I'd remove it also from my HD but I don't think that happened. [:)]

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: sztartur
In the first try I won the battle but a 82mm mortar round took out a PZIII. I thought it was plain very bad luck.

That probably was just plain bad luck. The mortar is rated as penetrating 1.5cm while the turret top of a PZIII is also rated as a 1.5cm. The engine covers and hull top is rated as 2.5cm. (This is higher than the actual armor because its expected to be impacting at an angle.)
If you look at actual data of armor penetration / armor buckling from HE shells in the table from Aberdeen you will see that a mortar penetrates less than shells of comparable diameter. (In the game it is sometimes possible to penetrate more than just the listed maximum.)

[Erik Rutins]

FYI:

Did you leave them in the "default setup area"? I immediately moved all my units to the woods and to the far right, tanks as far forward and to the right as they would go. I didn't lose anything the whole game to 82mm mortar fire though I did get several supressions I commented about to Erik and team.

This part of your post was constructive and good.

If you give up that easily you must hate losing? I'd never give up just because I lost several units in a "few" games. Now maybe I dunno Erik and team had it in for you and if the computer ai found out your name was Sztartur and they programmed it to key on your units just for funzzies knowing you would log online and complain about it so they could get a good laugh well yeah I guess I'd remove it also from my HD but I don't think that happened. [:)]

This part, not so much.

Customers should feel free to post both negative and positive impressions here without others making guesses about their motivations and personalities.

Regards,

- Erik

[diablo1]

Customers should feel free to post both negative and positive impressions here

This part of your post was good.

[sztartur2]

Gents

I do not mind losing If I know I made mistakes and that cost me the game. It has happened before and will happen later on. Of course I hate losing in such a way I described above.

Diablo: good joke eh

[diablo1]

Diablo: good joke eh

Yeah but Erik didn't get it. But when it comes to ME he never does he thinks I love slamming people all the time for some reason or other. I like to make light of things most of the time just to ease the discomfort of others. [:)]

[Mad Russian]

You keep that up Diablo and we'll make YOU a Matrix Customer Service Rep too!!! [&o]

Good Hunting.

MR

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: sztartur

Gents

I do not mind losing If I know I made mistakes and that cost me the game. It has happened before and will happen later on. Of course I hate losing in such a way I described above.

Diablo: good joke eh

sztartur,

I may have played the Demo more than most of the folks here. And I've also lost Pz III's to the Mortars. it doesn't happen all the time, but it happens.

thanks
rick

[sztartur2]

OKAY I put it back on. Played it again now the PZ III survided a direct mortar hit.

Played the other scenario was quite fun.

Some questions:
Can the buildings be destroyed? (Like in CMx1.)
How big can the largest map be? (In CMBB it was 3kmX3km in CMAK it was 4kmX5km)
What is the unit number limit?

In the second scenario the flamethower fired at least six/eight times on two tanks not scored any kills. Is that also normal?

[sztartur2]

I also edited the demo XML file so the squad shows 10 men. That is very nice. I very much apreciate the openness of the system. Within some time the game will mature/gets its errors fixed and the modders will make the maximum out of the engine possibilities. I am not a modder just appreciate their excellent work. I am a scenario designer, those who know me in Steel Panthers I became notorius because of my HUGE scenarios [:D] .

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: sztartur

OKAY I put it back on. Played it again now the PZ III survided a direct mortar hit.

Played the other scenario was quite fun.

Some questions:
Can the buildings be destroyed? (Like in CMx1.)
How big can the largest map be? (In CMBB it was 3kmX3km in CMAK it was 4kmX5km)
What is the unit number limit?

In the second scenario the flamethower fired at least six/eight times on two tanks not scored any kills. Is that also normal?

I think you must be using loaded dice! no, not normal for tank to survive that many FT attacks, I recall surviving a couple I think, but not that many.

Buildings can't be destroyed in this game. We are looking at that for the next game in the series.

The largest map size is 2km x 2km.

I don't know that there is a program limit to the number of units, but there is a performance hit as you add more and more units. There is a 5000 point limit (for each sie) when you use the scenario editor, but even that can be worked around.

Thanks I hope you give it a chance. The Novy scenario is a good scenario to see how the over all game plays.

Thanks
rick

[Mad Russian]

Maps are available in:

500 meters
750 meters
1km
1.5km
2km

lengths per side.

With the way PCO plays a 2km map feels larger than a 3km map in CM. At least to me it does. We'll see how some of you feel about it after you play on them for awhile.


OOB size is determined by points. You can have 5000 points per side.
Good Hunting.

MR