Questions.

[Big Ivan]

"Is the AI more intelligent in ME than it is on the older games, WF,EFII and RS?"

I believe it is. You can adjust the A/I like in JTCS to make it audacious, cautious or shifting(shifts between the two). Good news is my understanding if I read correctly the A/I will be way better in the Vietnam game when it comes out.

"is the battles, any thing like the WWII stuff we/I have been playing."

Early on; 1940's and early '50's yes. But when you get into the 1960's and beyond the weapon systems are so much better. Tanks are there but they can be destroyed quite easily sometimes. Since they are usually a high point value item you have to be careful with them. There is also a new function added call "Recon Spotting". Recon units can perform spotting to see what is in front of them by expending action points. In JTCS recon was usually done by death. In other words you found out where the enemy was after he shot at you and in most cases killed your recon unit. Now in CSME recon units can spot out to visibility range and because of that have a higher survivability!

"Is it the same when playing against a human, as far as saving files etc."

Yes but in CSME there are sub folders which save ongoing and played games in a folder called "Saves". Also there is a folder called "Scenarios" where all the files associated with scenarios are stored. This is a big advantage because unlike JTCS all your files are not in one big folder, the game folder. This new feature keeps thing separate which is nice.

"I feel like I manage reasonably well with the older game, is the transition onto the new style easy. "

I've been playing the original East Front since 1998 when it first came out. A few years later when they came out I jumped right into West Front and Rising Sun. The transition? Yes in general I found it easy. But at first I went with a couple of smaller scenarios just to get the feel of the game. Also very important are the Bootcamp scenarios and Teaching scenarios. They walk you through various aspects of the game and some of the new things that are in CSME. They are very well done. If you want to learn from scratch go through a couple of those against the A/I. You'll get a good feel for the game!

Hope this helps Oldbones and good luck!

If you have any more questions please post. Myself and other CSME veterans are always happy to help!

Regards,

Big Ivan (John)