Mad Mike

Hi Michael, you can tell from the AAR screen showing after the battle. Here are examples of the three possible ways for a battle to end: 1. One side surrenders: 2. Both sides agree a Ceasefire (the AI will ALWAYS accept a ceasefire, no matter how disadvantageous it is to the AI): 3. The time limit for the battle hav been reached: These should be all the possible ways for a battle to end. Like I said, when the AI surrenders (usually you will notice this, as the game just suddenly ends when the surrender threshold has been reached), you will achieve all terrain objectives. Cheers, Mad Mike

Did your opponent surrender, by any chance? If the enemy surrenders, automatic achievement of all occupy VLs is assumed by the game, even if the player has no troops anywhere near them.

Nice to see that I could help to clear things up .. and apparently entertain a little bit as well.

I don't think there is anything as sophisticated as denial-through-LOS or denial-through-possible-fire going on in CMBN (or CMx2). Simple proof in the following pictures: German rifle platoon occupying a house in an occupy VL, with a US tank battalion and one pioneer platoon just outside the VL (but with LOS and LOF to the VL). As can be clearly seen, even this overwhelming force just outside the VL does not change the result one bit. The winner is germany, with 200 points. Same setup, this time the US pioneer platoon HQ has been moved inside the VL (everything else unchanged). This time, nobody controls the VL and the result is a draw. The game only checks to see if there are good order units from any side in a VL. If you are the only side to have good order units in the VL, you will earn points (if it is your VL). If both sides have good order units in the VL, nobody will get any points (no clear control).This also works if one side has only 1 man in the VL versus a regiment, as at least a couple of complaints on these same boards clearly show. People were complaining that even due to overwhelming force in the VL, they were denied the points. Mostly they were told that they didn't apply the correct "Search and clear" routine to the area. I think the results are based purely on unit status (in good order or not - broken or panicked) and the units locations. A more probable explanation when this doesn't seem to work would be a bug where the game doesn't register some of the units correctly. At least that is my opinion.

No, we do not agree. I tried to point out that better intel does not show up in the second mission automatically, because a certain flag had not been set when the scenario/campaign was created. This is what I tried to show in the two screenshots in my previous post, the first showing the start of the second scenario as it is included in the release of CMBN. The second screenshot is a version I modified as described (using my Scenario Organisor tool to get all the individual battles in the campaigns), showing the effect of what I believe would be proper use of the "early intel" feature of CMx2. But like I said, it is not a big deal and if you're satisfied with keeping stuff like this in your head, I won't argue against it. I'm quite content with the original icons ..

Hi, a new report, the following happened: Game version for both players is 1.01. QB PBEM set up, with US as Attacker for an "Assault" type battle. Map selection was set to automatic. The map which got selected is "Attk Med Town (water) QB-101", which, strangely enough, is an Axis Attack map. Shouldn't the game select a different map in this case? Consequently, my german defenders end up in the attacking setup zone, with nothing to defend. Any idea what went wrong? Why does the game select an Axis attack map when I try to set up an US Assault? Files (ema and save) would be available.

Erwin, I just had a look at the mission, here is what I found: 1. Original mission, as contained in the campaign, setting for "Early Intel" = "Neither" and "Intel Strength" = "20%". This is what the mission looks like in the setup phase: 2. Modified original mission, setting "Early Intel" to "Axis" and keeping "Intel Strength" at the original 20%. Again, this is the view of the scenario during setup: I think the difference between the two is quite clear and speaks for itself. I distinctly remember from my playthrough of this campaign (also a couple of months ago) that when starting the second mission I thought "So what, no recon results showing? Strange...". And I did think so because I was aware back then that the early intel feature was in CMBN. Anyway, no big deal at all. Cheers, Mad Mike

Maybe my wording "defeats the purpose of the first recon mission" was a little bit strong because, as both of you have pointed out, you will still have some information in your head (that is, if you play the battle following the recon battle immediately or without too much delay). My observations were more about the campaign and scenario mechanisms and the fact that recon and the resulting effects (early intel) are directly supported by the engine, but that does not happen in the example used (first two scenarios of the "Panzer Marsch!" campaign). I still think that this is more due to oversight and that it was intented to show up, but somehow the important "early intel" flag was not set in the scenario. Only the campaign/scenario creator could clarify this, it would be nice to know. Otherwise, I have to agree that the player will still benefit from playing the first mission. But this would be true for any game which can use two similar maps for consecutive scenarios. Nothing special really, the special thing about scenarios / campaigns in CMx2 is that it can be used to reflect recon results with the means of the engine itself, without having to rely on the players memory. I assume it was the intention to use the engine feature in "Panzer Marsch!" (with the players memory always coming on top, but not being a precisely predictable factor).

In theory, it should work like that. Unfortunately, the second mission of the german campaign "Panzers Marsch!" does not have the parameter "Early Intel" set to "Axis". Checking in the editor, "Intel Strength" is set to "20%" for the mission of "Stand to" which you will be playing if you got a win in the first mission. But this intel (usually "?"-marks showing the location of some of the enemies units) will not show because "Early Intel" has not been set. I guess it is probably just an oversight, but it kind of defeats the purpose of the first recon mission (and should have been picked up during playtesting of the cmpaign?!).

GI Jas, thanks for the feedback and the praise, I'm happy to read that the Organiser is useful to you. The two campaigns "Assault on Lucherberg" and "Die Letzte Hoffnung" are indeed the "culprits" here. At first I tested the Organiser with "Die Letzte Hoffnung", I found a bug (painfully obvious, once you know it is there ) and fixed it. I happily produced v0.21 and uploaded it to GaJ's mod site (direct link see below). I assumed "Assault on Lucherberg" would be the same problem (no campaign picture contained in the .cam file). And, of course, I was wrong. But I only found out about this now, so that's why I already uploaded v0.21, which will NOT work with "Assault on Lucherberg". The bug for this one has to do with the name of the individual scenarios in the campaign, which I also use to name the extracted bitmap files. This will always work for scenarios, as you cannot create a file name containing special characters such as "/", "\" etc. For some reason, the creator of "Assault on Lucherberg" managed to name one of his scenarios with exactly one of these characters, which will cause a crash when the program tries to write it to a directory (it looks for a different path due to the added "/", that's why you are not allowed to use these in file names). Long story short, I will have to fix this as well, which will result in v0.22, soon to be uploaded, I hope. In the meantime, it should hopefully work for all campaign files except "Assault on Lucherberg". Thanks for your support in finding these bugs. Cheers, Mad Mike

GI Jas, could you do two things for me? It seems like you have encountered a bug in my program which I was able to replicate, but I would still like to know two things to make sure: 1. Could you put three or four campaign files that came with the original game (TF Raff, Courage&Fortitude, Panzer Marsch and Road to Montebourg) into a separate folder and execute the program there and tell me the result, i.e. success or no success? 2. Could you please send me a screenshot or listing of the contents of your campaign directory from when you encountered the problem? I would like to have this to replicate the situation as best as possible. It seems that some situations with campaign files are not handled correctly by my tool, for example when the campaign creator decides not to provide a picture for the whole campaign. I thought I had handled this eventuality (which should be very rare anyway, who in their right minds would not put a picture into their campaign which will be shown when selecting a new campaign?). But still, it happens. This would only change if BFC decided to define a minimum set of information which has to be set mandatorily when creating scenarios or campaigns in the editor. Without this, we will always have a wild, disorganised array of scenarios and campaigns with varying quality of meta information attached to them. Clearly, this aspect of the scenario editor has not been created with an internet community in mind which likes to organise itself. Cheers, Mad Mike

Hi GI Jas, you probably don't need to install anything, but the program needs a Java Virtual Machine (JVM in short) to be installed on your computer. You can check if a JVM is installed here: http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp (which also provides a download in case it isn't installed or up to date). When this is sorted, simply drop the two files into a directory containing scenarios or campaigns and let it do its work (as described in the readme file). If you have any problems, report back and we can try to sort it out. Cheers, Mad Mike

It has been done and as far as I can tell from the feedback I received, it does work for people (it certainly works for me ). The tool is available at the repository and at GaJ's Mod website - see my sig.

Well done, good analysis. I have tried the Nebelwerfer twice in PBEM QBs, one time they didn't really pay off, the other time I think it was quite successful. The Nebelwerfer is quite good at disorganising a defence (especially a larger area), you just have to time it with your assault, so that you take maximum advantage from the confusion. I think the low point cost for rockets and planes was probably done to reflect their virtual omnipresence (at least in the planes case). Don't know about the rockets, how common were they, does anybody know?

Very nice indeed .

I think it is maybe not broken, but there are currently some parts missing, especially when playing campaigns. I also lost a platoon commander while playing C&F (honestly, who hasn't ) and the commander slot in the platoon HQ never got refilled, meaning that 3rd platoon was not in command for the rest of the campaign. What should have happened, not necessarily during the battle, but between battles, is that the highest rank in the platoon should have been transferred from one of the other squads to take that slot. This obviously has knock-on effects on the squad as well, because now a squad leader has to be filled from within the squad. It's like a replacement cascade, which becomes larger depending on the level of the HQ slot that has to be refilled. But this is actually (from all accounts, history etc. I ever read) what happened in real life, if no outside replacements have been received. Outside, fresh replacements are handled via the camapign script, which for C&F is in the range between 1% to 50% Refit for units. According to the manual, this "is the percentage chance an individual unit has of being completely replaced if lost". This is a quite strange wording in itself, as it implies something different from what I've experienced, i.e. that units receive partial replacements (4 men lost in the squad - 2 become replaced between battles). For C&F, the values between the battles are always 25% at maximum, except for after the Crossroads scenario, when it is 50%. This could mean that a 3 men platoon HQ never gets replaced after the battles it fought in, because the replacement (refit) threshold for even one man would be 33% (1 out of 3), so 25% would only give you an replacement of roughly 0,75 of a man. Which means that the only time you would receive at least one man as a replacement would be if the refit value would be higher than 33%. Which it isn't, for most of the time (you can check this for yourself with the tool I wrote, the CMBN Scenario Organisor, see my sig below). Also, that would imply that it is easier to refit units with lots of men in them, as the percentage representing one man becomes lower for bigger squads - which yields the strange result that lower level units get replaced but HQs are left decimated. There seems to be no priority implemented. At least this is my understanding of the current system, any corrections to it would be welcome, as most of it is either very poorly or not at all documented - quite strange for a 4 year old game engine. The replacement cascade I described earlier I think is not implemented (and not designed) at all, probably because it was too involved to do. It would be realistic to do this, though. Maybe some other time / game.

Great terrain mod, how is the final release coming along? Just asking, the beta version is already very pleasing to my eyes .

Hi Erwin, the JAVA Virtual Machine (JVM) is the environment a JAVA program is executed in (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Virtual_Machine for further explanations, but this is not really required). What is important for you: You probably don't have to do anything, because a JVM is most likely already installed on your computer. You can check if this is the case here: http://www.java.com/en/download/installed.jsp (if the check should recommend that you install an updated version of JAVA, you can do so, but it should not be required for the CMBN Scenario Organisor to run). After this, you should be ready to go, so just download the program, follow the included instructions and enjoy the results. Worst thing that could happen is that nothing is happening at all when you execute the program .

Hi Rankorian, no, it can not determine / detail this. The "Victory level determined by overall campaign score" is only interesting for scenarios which can end the campaign (otherwise it is "don't care"). The manual states (on pages 146 - 148, Campaign Script file) that maximum allowed and minimum required victory levels can be defined for scenario outcomes which end the campaign. This means that a maximum victory can be defined for the campaign outcome, which means that you could have performed very well in previous scenarios, but due to a defeat in the current scenario, you are only allowed to have a Tactical Defeat as the best possible outcome for example (see the "Road to Montebourg" campaign for good examples on this). If these qualifiers are not present, the overall campaign score is determined from an accumulated score for all scenario results. I have no idea how this works in the program, as it is not something which can be influenced or set from the outside. Only BFC can comment on this (or maybe a very knowledgable Beta Tester :confused:). One possibility could be that all results are added and averaged over the number of scenarios, giving an accumulated score for both sides and then determining the overall cmpaign score with the same relational thresholds as defined for scenarios (e.g. a relative 10 to 1 score for you would mean Total victory). But I'm only guessing and have no way of knowing. Hope this clarifies it, at least a little bit.

It doesn't really help, but this fact has already been established for CMSF. Marking mines is not worth the time basically, just try to go around and use your valuable troops on some other task.

Hi BASA, something like this could be done with the tool I wrote (called CMBN Scenario Organiser -> http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=99092 ). It will generate sortable HTMl listings of all your scenarios and campaigns. The date is a parameter in the Scenario editor for every scenario, so it will appear in the listing - giving you an chronological overview. If you want to give this a try, you can download the tool here: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=1411 Cheers, Mad Mike

Hi mikkey, thank you very much and yes, it should be possible, but to be honest, i'm currently not planning to do this. The file structure between CMSF and CMBN seems to be a little bit different and I don't think CMSF will receive the kind of attention now with CMBN being available - I certainly won't be playing CMSF again, probably ever. So, hopefully understandably, my motivation for doing this is very low at the moment. Cheers, Mad Mike

Ja, ein Langzeit-Lurker - aber jetzt ja nicht mehr.

Yeah, the manual is incorrect (unsurprisingly) and you are absolutely right. That's the way it works, as can be observed quite easily. And not just since CMBN, also for CMSF before. Which makes the wrong statement in the manual all the more puzzling. Is it time yet for an updated version of the manual, or will that come with v1.10 again ?

Unfortunately, that's what it looks like ... Good idea about the fortifications, would have given the defender some extra staying power.