Project: Close Combat

TheFjordFox · March 15, 2022, 08:01:01 AM

Hello there, good people!

So, let me cut to the chase! I have recently taken upon myself a mission. Perhaps a calling even, some may say.

Are we talking a noble pursuit for the betterment of mankind? ...No. Certainly not! If anything, quite the contrary! I have decided to fight my way through all the war that the Close Combat franchise has to offer! Well... All the war that the singleplayer grand campaigns have to offer, anyway.

My goal is: Play through every single Close Combat game to ever exist. With both factions in the longest campaign the games offer up, on the hardest difficulty there is, making things even harder for myself than the developers originally intended for it to be, as we move along!

I figured, instead of posting about each game separately... Why not have a project collection, where everything can be located as it comes out? And so here we are! I might even throw in some reviews of the games as time goes by, as I certainly am getting a good sense of what is what, and the differences between the various iterations as I progress through my personal mission!

Now, I am a seasoned veteran of the franchise, and have been playing Close Combat games for, at the time of writing this, around two and a half decades. My first experience with the series was with the Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far demo. This was back before everyone had "the internet". Whatever that place was. However - a friend of mine, when I was in my early elementary school years, had gotten his hands on the demo from a CD in a gaming-magazine! He told me about it, and I through it sounded amazing. So we went to his place, and I was not wrong! Instantly hooked me right in like a true sucker! And here I am, 25 years later and still playing these dang games! I have for a while been considering playing through them all with both factions, and put the playthroughs out on youtube. And well, I finally got to it! Why the heck not, right!? It's somewhat of a niche game, and some of it's iterations barely have any LPs of them, so I enjoy the thought that one day, anyone will be able to come to my youtube channel and have all the games laid out for them to choose from in a let's play type format! With some reviews, when the time comes, and heck - even some of the better mods out there being played through as well!

Why do I bother with this? Well. As you will surely figure out for yourself if you watch any substantial amount of these videos, it is simply because I am insane, and don't have my priorities in life straight!

Close Combat. A love and hate relationship that has it's ups and downs. It has me jumping out of my seat screaming in joy at unsuspected victories. It also, on the other end of the spectrum, have me close to beating a hole through my screen at the utter unbelievability of it's BS at times! So... come along from the rides, and see the best and the worst sides of me as the journey goes!

I will now list the four playthroughs I have already got out there below. In the future, more will be added. If there is a specific CC game you'd like to see next, that I haven't played already, I am certainly open for requests on that part. However, I am likely to finish the vanilla games before I dip into the glorious mods that are out there! You can suggest those too - it will just take a while until I get to them!

Either way! I will list them like this; the aggressor in the campaign first, then the defender second. So for the Normandie landings - the Allies, then the Germans. For the invasion of Russia - The Germans, then the Russians. Alright! Here we go!

Close Combat: Wacht Am Rhein (Axis Grand Campaign)

Close Combat: Wacht Am Rhein (Allied Grand Campaign)

Close Combat: The Longest Day (Allied Grand Campaign)

Close Combat: The Longest Day (Axis Grand Campaign)

Close Combat: Last Stand Arnhem (Allied Grand Campaign)

Close Combat 3: Cross Of Iron (Axis Grand Campaign)

Close Combat 3: Cross Of Iron (Allied Grand Campaign)

That is the four iterations of the franchise I currently have available out there at the time of making this post. More is sure to follow soon, and I hope some of y'all will want to come along for the ride! If you got any questions, suggestions, hate or love, I am receptive to it all! Let me know what you think, wether you think I'm doing allright, or you think I need to make some changes to how I do things! For all I know, you might be right!

Oh well! If you're still reading at this point, I would like to thank you for your attention, and I sincerely hope your time spent with this does not feel wasted! Y'all have a good one, folks! And may Cthulhu bless you!

Cheers!

al_infierno · March 16, 2022, 01:35:51 AM

Wow, playing every campaign as both factions on highest difficulty is quite the undertaking. Does this include Modern Tactics? I forget if that one has a campaign.

Good luck and I admire the dedication!

TheFjordFox · March 16, 2022, 06:35:13 AM

Yeah, it's gonna take a while, but I hope to finish this year at least :P

And yes! It will include Modern Tactics as well! There's no campaign unfortunately, but I'll just go through the scenarios one by one and pretend there is one

JasonPratt · March 30, 2022, 05:51:30 PM

Posting to subscribe to the thread! -- and also to ask why you played them in that order.

TheFjordFox · April 11, 2022, 10:23:42 PM

I haven't played them in the order I posted them here I think, but I started with CC COI, as it's my favourite CC game of all time due to it's linear nature where you get more "personal" with your troops. After that, I already owned LSA, so I went for that next, then TLD and WAR as I picked them up (among other CC titles) on a steam sale, and I've played the originals of them and quite enjoyed them. Some say WAR/CC4 is the worst CC game ever made, and the more I play it, the more I'm inclined to agree with that. :D Up next I'm thinking probably GtC or the Meuse mod for LSA. The mod is really nice, with early war units, but I'm not sure if I should stick to the vanilla games first.

GDS_Starfury · April 12, 2022, 12:27:58 AM

I recall some really good mods for CC4 and CC5.
somewhere around here is a Panthers in the Fog review you might find helpful. ;)

TheFjordFox · April 12, 2022, 10:14:17 AM

Oh, for sure there are some good mods! In my opinion, some of the mods out there are tenfolds better than the original games. I'm really looking forward to playing through the Meuse mod for TLD/LSA - it's early war invasion of France, meaning a "lower tier" of tanks and such, and earlier equipment available than in most CC games, which I find really quite interesting! We've already seen the Panthers and Tigers a million times over, so finally having the Panzer I and Panzer IIs actually have a useful place in the games is gonna be, not gonna lie, for me; quite exciting! :P Panthers In The Fog certainly has the best 2D graphics of any CC game, I'll give it that! What makes it a bit off-putting for me tho, is that they've gone so far down the rabbit hole by the time they released that one with some really terrible decisions, and absolutely cemented them as the new staple, that' I've steered clear of it for a long while. I do however now own the game, so I'll see if I can't overcome that in time.

For me the scale of unit selection goes from PITF (1) to CC3/COI (10) :P I really dislike how you can't customize what you bring to battle as much - in the later games you get more like semi-depleted randomized crap, and you can select a broader section rather than squad by squad, and I really am not a fan of how they've decided to keep going with that :/

EDIT: I just finished the WAR playthrough today, and I am quite happy about this! Finally I can move on to some other CC game that isn't the worst one ever made! :D

GDS_Starfury · April 12, 2022, 02:28:05 PM

Meuse mod is excellent. if by chance you can find my Road to Moscow campaign somewhere its more of the same early war goodness.

TheFjordFox · April 14, 2022, 01:34:19 AM

Oh, you've made a mod yourself actually? I'm pretty impressed with that tbh. Pretty impressed in general about what the modding community of CC can achieve, there are some seriously good ones out there. I'll see if I can't find yours on the CC community website, might give it a go for a youtube playthrough in the future, as early war goodness is simply the best!

TheFjordFox · April 20, 2022, 09:35:07 AM

I've just started playing through one of probably the top 10 CC mods of all time - Meuse Crossing for The Longest Day. And I must say, it's a treat! Such a beautiful gem of a game! Contrary to most other vanilla CC games, this one is set during the invasion of France in 1940, as opposed to late-war like most other, if not all, official games of the franchise focused around ww2. It's such a blast using early war equipment, and seeing French tanks I've never seen before!

GDS_Starfury · April 21, 2022, 01:33:40 AM

the French can kick the living shit out of the Germans.

TheFjordFox · April 21, 2022, 04:56:07 AM

Yeah, the AI seems stronger in this mod than it does in the vanilla games. Infantry vs. infantry engagements seemingly are hard-fought as all hell! The AI is counter-attacking and pushing to make moves, so I really have to bring another level of play to this one! And I got to say; I'm loving it! I've not been able to win every battle so far, which I often do in the vanilla games, and some of the wins I've had has been barely scraped out in the nick of time! I'm almost afraid of thinking what will happen when I run into the French heavy tanks! But it's gonna be an exciting CC experience, of that I am pretty sure! :)

Dammit Carl! · April 21, 2022, 09:13:26 AM

Cool stuff as always, FjordFox.

Has anyone ever done a mod for this that overlays contour lines on the map? I think if I had a better grasp of the elevation values of the terrain, I would possibly put up a more robust attack/defense. But, this is assuming that elevation matters or is a thing here.

GDS_Starfury · April 22, 2022, 12:57:40 AM

yes. in fact there were several. but as far as I know theyve been lost to the ether.
one of them was something of a standalone app that gave you a 3d image on the map in a minecraft kind of way.
it worked well because of how the maps are terrain coded in blocks.
I never thought about in then but, you could code 1 block on the map to have the maximum cover, camo, protection and all the rest and make it visually look like a patch of grass. >:D

TheFjordFox · April 22, 2022, 07:28:10 AM

Thank you very much, damner of Carl!

I don't know of any such mods, but a quick tip I can give you in regards to the terrain, which isn't always intuitively represented, is - if you hold right mouse button and hover over the map, on the lower left of the screen, you will get information on elevation, terrain type, cover etc for the section you hover over. Which can be fairly useful! ...in my playthrough on TLD with the Germans tho, I recall a situation where I checked the terrain and noticed "aha. there's a 2.5 meter tall cement wall leading off from the beach at 90 degrees here. There is NO way the Shermans can get up there, obviously!", and I then focused my anti-tank defences mainly towards easier access points. ...can you guess which wall the Shermans actually managed to climb with zero problems what so ever...? Yeah... it didn't really sit that well with me having enemy physics-defying tanks destroy me from flanks I really don't think they should be able to reach