SteveP

I am having the same problem. Also no progress bar when resolving turn playing WEGO.

It certainly looks a little scary trying to get your guys into a position to drive out the Germans. But your troops have the fire power to do it without relying on the off-board mortars. I'm no tactical guru, but I try to organize my assault so that I can get 3-1 odds (e.g., three squads vs one squad), and try to hit the defender from 2 or more directions (they hate that!), and also try not to get so close initially that the Germans can make effective use of their submachine guns (I hate that!). I did use one of my MMGs at a certain point to shake up a German squad so my guys could get into a better position. I also made sure my guys were in good morale and rested. It's a good situation to practice on. Just save your turns and try them over again with a different approach. Also, don't worry about the scenario time limits. You have more than enough time to accomplish the mission.

I happen to be in the middle of that scenario right now myself. My plan was somewhat different from yours. My view was that any Germans in the buildings would not be affected by mortar fire. Any Germans out in the open on the approach to Borgo could be knocked out by my onboard mortars. So I decided to save my off-board mortars for the second phase of the battle, after capturing Borgo. I did use the off-board to fire smoke rounds on the approach. I did this as a pre-planned bombardment, with a five minute delay. Probably a waste of good smoke rounds. Where I think coordination is necessary in this first phase of the scenario is getting all the fire power in your platoons working together at the same time to knock out each component of the defense (at close quarters), so that you dominate the fire fight at each point. At some point, your MMGs can help with this. I think this may be a better way to focus your thinking rather than relying on the mortars to help you win this part of the battle. Just my thoughts.

IMHO, it is possible to design scenarios that give the player a pretty good idea what hedgerow fighting was really like (e.g., check out my Bocage aux Foilles scenario). However, scenarios like that tend to attract a barrage of complaints (including the view that they aren't realistic ). I think that if BFC were to improve the defensive capabilities associated with hedgerow terrain, this would not be well-received by players generally. What we have is probably as much as we can expect.

Another thought: I haven't played any QBs because I decided I would have to edit the QB maps (especially the AI Plans) first. However, there have been a lot of threads on how the forces end up getting switched to the wrong side in QBs. If the AI is confused about which side the enemy is coming from, that would explain what you are seeing.

Don't know if this helps but I noticed this problem some time ago when analyzing scenarios. Then I worked on it when I created scenarios myself. If the directionality of the hedge/wall/etc. is ambiguous in relationship to the end of the map designated for the enemy, the AI may set up on the "wrong" side. You have to take special precautions to avoid this in scenario design. QBs are a much greater challenge, of course.

Odd. Your version of Safari is kind of old, but perhaps you are running an older version of the OS as well. Don't have any good reason to suspect those things, but thought it was worth noting. Have you checked the Safari Downloads window (which you should have in that version of Safari) for any info? There is a way to check on what happened with a specific download that way.

Is this still your problem: that you can't find the patch DMG on your Mac? Difficult question for someone else to help on, since it's specific to your computer (I had no problem). Have you tried spotlight or the find option in the Finder, to do a search. Possibly something has changed which is causing files to download to some place you don't expect. If you are using Safari, you can check Preferences to see where the file might have gone. You could try downloading some other type of file just to see what happens. Don't know what else to suggest.

The US army suffered more casualties from pre-registered mortar fire than from any other source during the Normandy campaign. If anything, the game is unrealistic in the general rarity of TRPs in scenarios and campaigns. However, people would probably complain. TRPs for the attacker should be more uncommon and they are that way in the game.

Yes. That is what it does. It does not even have the intelligence to calculate what orders to give to optimize for the one minute intervals. It just gives orders for the next path and then waits for the next turn.

I studied this and the other AI Plan commands at some length not long after getting CMBN (because of the odd behavior I saw when the AI was attacking). AFAIK, you are absolutely correct. With the exception of Dash, all commands will cause the tanks to use Quick. It is also impossible to devise a plan by which infantry will use move or hunt. I also learned to stay away from the Advance command when designing scenarios, because of what can happen with larger groups composed of infantry (HQs and specialist teams racing ahead of the supporting squads).

My choices were based on the assumption that the decision to engage in a battle at all is part of what could make a battle decisive to a war. The Japanese might very well have accomplished their war aims (access to raw materials and dominance of East Asia) without attacking Pearl Harbor. The decision to do that made the specific results at Pearl Harbor immaterial. The US could have lost the carriers. Could have lost Hawaii. Could have been fighting the Japanese on the coast of California. It wouldn't have mattered in the long run. IMHO, there simply isn't any other battle that occurred in the war with Japan that could be considered decisive in that way. Kursk occurred at about the same time that Germany finally mobilized their economy for war (in reaction to Stalingrad). Had the Germans somehow broken the Kursk salient and driven the Russians into retreat, it is difficult to predict how the rest of the war in Europe might have played out. By losing that battle so badly, they made the final result certain, though not the time it would take.

Kursk for the Germans. After that, the Germans no longer had any practical ability to return to the strategic offensive, even though they had finally mobilized the entire economy for the war effort. That made it decisive. Pearl Harbor for the Japanese. They had no chance to win a war against the economic might of the U.S. Having attacked Pearl Harbor they were going to lose. The (belated) invasion of France for the Italians. After that, the Italians could only lose a war they had no good reason to join.

Having designed three scenarios, I would not try to design one that could be played either direction against the AI or H2H. Programming the AI is difficult and time consuming enough without having to worry about whether I am making it too easy for the Player if he decided to play that side himself. I also prefer to play scenarios that have been designed for play against the AI in one direction only.

I think there should be three versions: H2H, AI on Defensive, AI on Offensive. I think that is the only way you can deal with the limitations of the AI and still have interesting battles in any configuration (plus limiting perfect intel if you play against the AI a second time from the other side). However, there seems to be a strong bias against this sort of arrangement.