PSY

Thanks Schrullenhaft.

I'm building a new computer and would like to transfer my CM licenses to it. I found unlicense executables for ShockForce and the various modules (e.g., British Forces) I have for it. But I don't see anything similar for CM Normandy or CM Italy. What procedure should I use for these games?

I also really like small scenarios. More please.

Thanks sburke, I've got them all up and running now.

I have a new computer and I'd like to move my Battlefront products to it. I seem to recall Shock Force had an "Unlicense" option that I needed to run before transfer and then at some point the newer Combat Mission products got rid of it. I can't find the "Unlicense" did it go away? Here's what I need to move: CM: ShockForce + expansions CM: Normandy + expansions CM: Italy Empires of Steel I'm pretty sure I've got the keys and install files around somewhere, so the main issue is just whether I still need to run that unlicense procedure.

Nice, apparently it is now public domain and is downloadable from the Internet Archive: http://archive.org/details/TheirsIsTheGlory1946

Not yet available. From the Upgrades Q&A thread:

[Never mind, I got it working. Apparently I accidentally checked off the "NATO Module" in addition to the "Marine" and "British" Modules when I ran the patcher. I solved the problem by purchasing the "NATO Module" :-)] I downloaded Patch 131 and am trying to run the game after patching. I've tried entering in both my original Combat Mission ShockForce key which I received July 5, 2007 when CMSF came out and my CMSF British Forces key, neither of them work. I haven't tried my Marine Modules key yet since I'm not altogether sure where it is, but I've probably got it somewhere in some e-mail folder. Am I doing something wrong here? The CMSF key I'm using was contained in an e-mail for my pre-order and is listed right below the line: "IF YOU PURCHASED A DOWNLOADABLE ITEM YOUR LICENSE CODE AND DOWNLOAD LINK WILL BE PRINTED BELOW:" then there's a little table with a column labelled License Code. I presume that's the code the game is asking for after patching?

I loved my iPad 1, but honestly it crashed a lot. There were a lot of webpages it would randomly crash on (from what I've read apparently webpages that use a lot of JavaScript cause it problems). Plus there were a fair amount of games that would randomly crash. I'm not at all surprised Combat Mission: Touch doesn't run on an iPad1. It's definitely one of the more complex games I've seen for the iPad. I know it's not financially doable for a lot of people, but if possible pickup an iPad (3rd Generation). It really is a huge step up from the iPad1.

Combat Mission: Touch is now up on the US iTunes Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/combat-mission-touch/id496265964?mt=8

[Moon/Steve feel free to delete if you don't want us discussing this on the Battlefront board.] Well a lot of them are board game conversions, which may or may not be to your taste. As far as wargames go, the only one I can really recommend is Battle Academy, which has the main downside of being $19.99. I'll have to profess to being shocked that CM:iPad is releasing for $4.99! Some of my favorites board game conversions are: Small World (although the fact that it only supports games with one opponent -- AI or human) reduces the strategy from the actual boardgame when played with 3 or more players. Elder Sign -- which is a Cthulu type board game. Neuroshima Hex-- which is kind of a tactical puzzle game. There's a whole bunch of other board game conversions out there -- including Ticket to Ride, Carcassone, Puerto Rico, Ghost Stories, and Catan. You can track what's coming out soon at the iOS Board Game blog at Boadgame Geek. There's a pretty good list of what's available at iPad Boardgames.

One thing I do really like about the iPad is that there are a lot more turn-based games and more traditional non-action / non-twitch games on it. Whether that continues to hold as the hardware gets better, we shall see.

I always play wego, so that's not a huge down for me, and I actually prefer 30 second turns, assuming it doesn't make the game take too long -- only works for smaller scenarios though. Some of the campaign scenarios would take forever at 30 seconds each. It does have an AI though right? We can play against the iPad, not just against people online?

How does the new CM iPad compare to CM:N? Is it basically the same game logic with a different User Interface, or is the game logic simplified to run on the iPad hardware?

Not definitive, but some quotes from Steve in the November 2010 thread Chops linked to:

I seem to recall a prior discussion on the forums on this where Steve said that there were two Eastern Front games on the long term schedule. The first East Front game was mid-war, and they hadn't decided if the other East Front game was going to be Barbarossa or 1945. [Edit] Here you go. Looks like late war is first East Front game followed by a second game with time period TBD.

For players that weren't interested in modern warfare, they won't have to buy CM:SF, instead all their purchases can be WW2 related. If CM:N was a module, everyone who was interested would have to buy CM:SF and then get the CM:N module. Also performance would probably be better with a CM:N which didn't have all the modern warfare stuff in over a CM:N which was loaded on top of a CM:SF base, although of course this would depend on how the system is architected.

While Battlefront may never give us a Pacific Theater CM game, I thought y'all might enjoy these WW2 Pacific Theater Photos from the Denver Post. Warning very long webpage with lots of photos -- may be a long time displaying even on relatively fast connections, but I think most of you will find it worth a visit.

Great game Brit. I picked it up at Christmas and have really been enjoying it. Kudos on a great game. It's really a lot of fun. I like what you've added to the classic empire game genre. The resources really make the game much more interesting. The artwork is also great. I love the tech tree and how things progress from a WW I dreadnought era with standard ships as transports and biplanes on to WW II with landing craft and prop planes on to the modern era with hovercraft and jet aircraft. I'm also impressed with your interface, which I think is very slick. I particularly like how easy it is to chain together orders in an intuitive fashion -- for example telling a transport to go to a location, off load some troops, and then go to a different location while simultaneously telling the troops to go to a specific point once they offload. If I could offer a few suggestions: Having the game remember the last game setup when generating a new game would be nice. It's a minor annoyance to have to re-enter all the information when I want to start a new game, and a couple of times, I've accidentally forgotten to change a setting or two back to my favorite settings when I start a new game. It would be great to be able to setup permanent teams in the game setup. This would be particularly useful for play balancing, for example, if I found it was too easy to beat a single Elite opponent, but too hard to beat two Elite opponents, I could setup a game with me teamed up with a Novice AI player and play against two Elite opponents. It would be nice to have an "always at war" option, which could be combined with the above teams. All teams would start the game at war with each other. Having units gain a bit of experience from combat would make for a fun addition. You probably wouldn't want too much of a experience bonus for balance purposes, but a bit of an improvement for veteran units would add some spice to the game. Maybe a 2-3% improvement in attack/defense values per successful combat, with a maximum of 20% stronger than a regular unit. Having tooltips with the name and level of a unit (e.g., Tank (Class 4)) show up on the left-hand information sidebar would be useful. For example, when it displays a list of "Sightings" for the turn, it shows a list displaying enemy unit icons, but I don't always know what I'm looking at (particularly their class). So I have to roll back to the point in the turn when the unit is actually displayed on the map, and then mouse over it to get the tooltip of unit name and class. It would be nicer to just have that information tooltip on the sidebar itself in addition to on the map. Alternatively instead of a tooltip, maybe just list the unit name and classes in the "Sightings" and "Combat Reports" sections. A more explicit indicator that we are out of research projects would be nice. I've played enough now that I tend to notice it on the left-hand sidebar. But for my first games, I repeatedly forgot to setup research, and would occasionally go several turns with no research project before I noticed. Maybe actively bring up the research window when more research needs to be assigned, just as you actively bring up city build windows when a city has completed its production list. It would be nice to have an end of turn hotkey. In Civ4, for example, I'm used to being able to just hit the spacebar to end the turn. (Maybe this is already in, and I just don't know the right key?) Some people have kind of hinted at this in other posts, but it would be nice to have a bit more flexibility in Field Orders. In particular what I most miss is orders telling a unit to avoid combat. I'd like the ability to tell some units to always flee and others to flee if they are faced with tough odds. For example, I'd like to be able to tell my transports to always run, and damaged capital ships to flee if they are facing opponents at their level and size or above. One UI improvement to consider if it's not too difficult is to have some indication when you try to move units but the "Replay Slider" is not at the end of the replay. Sometimes I've gone back with the Replay Slider to look at something that happened in the middle of the turn, then after spending some time looking around the map, I forgot to move the Replay Slider back to the end of the turn. What ends up happening next is I try to give individual units orders and the game just ignores me, and I think the game is bugged. But it's not, it's just that you naturally have to be at the end of the replay to give orders. Also a bug report. Someone earlier reported a few weeks ago that Battleship bombardment was having problems. I'm still seeing this as of the build immediately before your New Year's Eve update. It could be I just don't know how to do this. I've had a Battleship selected and had the icon turn into the standard target icon. I've also had cases of the Battleship selected and had another icon displayed which looks kind of like a bombardment -- target plus a shell. But regardless of which icon I use to give orders to the Battleship, typically nothing happens. I've also had Battleships parked right offshore with enemy units next to them, and usually nothing happens. I think I've only seen Battleships bombard enemies on shore once.

I agree an adjustable time would be nice. In general, I think 30 seconds is probably better 60 seconds. There's just an awful lot that can go wrong in 60 seconds.

Video on British Army Gurkas in Afghanistan.

System's like XBox Gamerpoints / Achievements are very popular. I'm not as heavily into them as some other gamers, but I do feel like they increase replay value by giving you objectives to shoot for. You could have objectives like completing a small-size mission with no casualties, or gaining control of a particular building within an earlier time frame than strictly required to win the scenario, or maybe trying to win a mission without taking any armor units along. If you want to reach Rankorian's category 3 -- 16-30 year old, non-military gamers -- an achievement system is something they will be used to seeing, and it could potentially provide value to your traditional customer set too. Even a simple system in which you could receive a bronze star, a silver star, or a gold star (or maybe Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, and Medal of Honor) rankings on each mission based on your performance might increase replayability and increase player's sense of immersion or "ownership." There are a variety of different casual games that do this (for example, IIRC the popular Nintendo Advance Wars series does this), and I do think it works rather well -- I might beat a scenario earning a bronze star, and immediately try replaying it to increase my rating in the scenario to a gold star. This means I play the scenario multiple times, gain a greater sense of accomplishment, and feel like the product has provided me with more game time and thus better value for the cost of the game.

Neat. I hadn't seen those before. Thanks for the links Smaragdadler.

Thanks Mark!

I haven't played in a while and I just picked up the British module. I've got this problem where sometimes when I give a unit a command it is mirrored by all the other units in the platoon. For example, if I tell a Spartan to move forward 100 meters, the other Spartan in the troop automatically pickup the same order. I don't remember this happening before, so it might be behavior added in 1.11 or 1.20. What's controlling it and how do I get it to stop, so I can make sure that if I give a unit a command, only that unit will carry it out? I'm playing turn-based, if that matters.