Is CM dying?

[Westland]

I'm also a friend of 30- 45 minutes CMx2 games.Longer is too boring.
The maps are too small and have too little victory Tokens.Most of the time it is only a victory Token.The victory flags in CMx1 were much better.They were more frequent and better distributed.So you had to distribute its troops more.Tactically much more exciting.
Much is unrealistic in CMx2.For example, snipers are discovered early.Tanks which are available on free field detect cloaked enemy tanks in Woods.A lot Optics and Cannon damage.Meet Panzerschrek units very often to more than 150 meters!
Medium and heavy tanks can push away no wrecks!I think it's completely ridiculous.
No display (red line) whether tank can go through bushes.Even through gaps in bushes tanks can't get through mostly. And I'm not talking of Bocage!Very frustrating.

Infantry is nearly useless because die faster as in CMx1.Buildings offer no more protection.
Basically use only tanks and artillery.Support units (AT-guns and howitzers) are also useless.
Too expensive.Too slow in the construction.Too cumbersome.And be quickly discovered.
It was better in CMx1.There, one could deal effectively with such weapons.

Summarized:
CMx1 offers more fun.

[Steiner14]

Infantry is nearly useless because die faster as in CMx1.

I agree with lots of things you wrote about the spotting behaviour, but I think this is totally wrong.

I make every bet, you are moving your infantry units over terrain forward, although enemy has LOF on them.

Jst put yourself into the same situation and plese tell me: Yes I would walk on, if 80 meters away five guys have clear LOF on me. I just hope that it doesn't hit me.
You are complaining about a HUGE improvement of CMx2 over CMx1: realism.

What is the tactically correct behaviour? You don't move forward when the enemy has you on his corn (until he is supressed, but then your men don't die anyway)!
You are talking about the possibility to run with the head through the wall in CMx1. That opposing players attract themselfes like magnets (this still happens very often, because also in CMx2 players still are using unrealistical tactics, but the losses do not allow the extreme Hollywood-action style of CMx1).

I'd urge you to try a different mindset and you will notice, how fantastic CMx2 models things:
Instead of using slaughtering commands that make the units move forward no matter there is enemy shooting at them, use the HUNT command for the first meters to get them moving.
Players in CMx2 generally use the HUNT command for infantry movements way too seldom.

The result of using HUNT to get the units moving the first meters, where you used to use the move or fast command give the result that it doesn't move, if there are enemy units. So instead to enforcing a slaughtering you try for two or three minutes, but you will recognize they do not move. That's highly realistic.

Hunt used for the first meters for infantry is great to develop are more realistic understanding of what is going on.

In case to achieve an advance nevertheless, the HUNT command forces the player to use realistic tactics:
a) use other units that search for weak spots that are not under fire.
Or
b) if that is already the best location and the weakest spot, then you need more fire on the enemy before you can move your men forward. And that brings up lots of tacticall challenges, ofcourse. But realistical ones!

The playing style changes away from "I want this and that" and to achieve it, I must move my units to move through walls of hot flying lead and if they die like flies it's the game's fault.

[Westland]

@ Steiner14

I never move infantry over open Terrain.I move them always in the shelter of trees or bushes.
And the command "hunt" I use also.Especially in forests or conquest of buildings.It uses everything but nothing.There is nowhere a little protection for the infantry to survive longer.
Trenches and buildings are useless.In combat, the soldiers fall as quickly as on open Terrain.
There is no difference.
Appear tanks and artillery then begins the big die.I buy only a few Scouts and MG units.So you have less losses.Tanks and artillery decide almost every CMx2 battle.

[Steiner14]

Westland,
if your infantry units are dying in CMx2 too easily then they are moved in Hollywood action style and not in a realistic way. Houses do have windows and doors. If a few automatic weapons shoot at a house, you will not lure out of the window but better hide. When artillery is falling and you are not flat on the ground, soldiers die. That's realistic.

IMO all that is much better modelled in CMx2. And becuase of this the pixelsodiers are much more vulnerable. And therefore the applied pace in CMx2 is slower.

By applying realistic tactics, CMx2 allows to achieve very low casualties. But applying this kind of tactics takes lots of time, because much more movement and more units are involved to solve a certain problem.

For my taste for Western armies the received casualties still have a way to low impact on "success" compared with objectives in most scenarios.

[Westland]

@ Steiner14

OK. Let's see an example.

You defend a village or a Little town. Only the village is the victory brand!
The environment consists of temperate trees.No hills.How do they defend?
I use only tanks,a few scouts and heavy artilliery (105mm-150mm Guns).
If you have infantry or AT-guns, are all dead or broken.Only your tanks are a weapon.
And when I put Panther still your chances are even smaller.Infantry has simply no Chance.Only in woods against enemy infantry.

Such fights were exciting in CMx1.The attacker had many victory flags take to win.Tank/artillery tactics were not crucial.
Because the maps were wider and had many victory Points.This is tactically much more difficult than those ugly green large victory marks in CMx2.

[Steiner14]

There are scenarios with VLs that don't make sense tactically. But that's nothing CMx2 can be blamed for. For example most meeting engagements IMO are tactically extremely unrealistic (and they were the reason, why I stopped ladder playing, because personally I am most interested in realism, not action). And with the artificial time presure CMx1 was mostly a frontal rush and slaughter with a few tactical elements.

If there are a few houses and no cover, then ask yourself: would you place yourself in the houses, if these are the five targets that will be turned into rubble? I guess in reality this would be the last place where I would defend anything.

If tactically important locations are very exposed (think of a crossroad or a railway station), then they need to be controlled indirectly by controlling the important areas around them and not by sitting on it. That's the reason why a hilltop can be important and why it would make sense to have it as VL. But a few undefendable houses in the flat open terrain without fortifications? That's bad scenario design (from a tactical point of view).

Therefore I do not to focus on VLs that much. I only use them to get a rough guidance of the direction, but I ask myself: where must I go, to destroy the enemy with the least own losses?

If I understand the case you describe and I were a defender, I'd simply not defend this VL from within. Defending VLs can also mean to control them from further away.

[Westland]

@ Steiner14

You write:
"That's the reason why a hilltop can be important and why it would make sense to have it as VL. But a few undefendable houses in the flat open terrain without fortifications? That's bad scenario design (from a tactical point of view)".

Since I agree with you completely.A further weak point of CMx2.Because there are no generated maps more.In CMx1, I could adjust quick battle maps.Since it was his "Commander Hill" create.How you want it.And quickly and with little effort.

But back to the village defense.
Even if they their "commanders Hill" have.How want to proceed against Panther and heavy artillery?Even if they have their units outside of the village.
You can back up the win mark only with tanks.Infantry is useless once again.What do they do with it?In the village, they all die by artillery. Outside by tank.

[Weasel]

BBrus and myself were talking about the way victory areas are just big blobs of green now and we both agree that the designer should design the scenario with green areas over individual buildings (sort of like using flags) instead of just an area mass.

I find infantry die fast too, even in cover and as I said before, it is always the leader or gunner that gets it first. In one of my few games I am playing right now I have a platoon set up in two buildings and they are well out of combat yet a fully intact squad is still cowering. But my biggest grief now is a turreted tank that won't shoot until he pivots the body, this bug needs to be fixed.