Pyewacket

@kingofthehill there's L.Tankersley who coded 'Mapping Mission', a tool to easify map creating (runs in windows). Very interesting if you create maps. Just search the forum for this keword... @Hawk Yes. (well it's a honor for me ) I got only one bug report yet (from Japanzer) which is already fixed, so I think there're not much testers around (in the moment I hope). There's a dirty manual which tells you the first steps and after doing this you can try with the apps what you want (...haven't had enough time for a good manual yet) Would be cool if you could tell me the problems you see (to support a campaign). As I said somewhere above, I've never played a campaign yet (ok a small one but no bigger things...). So there's a lack of experience for me to foresee the needs of gamemasters. Thanks in advance... Jens

I might be wrong (or became stupid in the meantime) but wasn't there a direct link to the maps?! I had a look at the maps screenshots a few days before, but can't find them anymore to download them. At www.cmmods.com I don't find a single map but mods .... help.....

Cocat is the mother of all tools: Cocat

@Joachim no good news I guess 1. auweia/oooops: I made a mistake. the "Abandoned" text is not a text, it's a bitmap from the bitmap folder. So the issue would be to comparing this bitmap (part of the screenshot) with the one in the cm folder. This is similiar to reading the text but will change a lot in the code...and I don't really see the big benefit. 2. sounds like a different project. I can't handle those data (same as for 'Abandoned' tanks) in the 'gamemaster.exe'. I even don't think a campaign master/manager would use it. So, could be the next step/project, but this one isn't finished, yet. I received just one bug report but lots of proposals.....this way I won't finish the thing ever 3. Yes, will be added. experience for each unit is already included in the files, I just have to adding the selection boxes on the form and the 'clicking'. 'Bonus'is important and will be added. 4. Forget it. Really, that is awful. I tried that in the beginning and found out that those things have to be skiped!! Have a look at the unit editor where you can change the ammo. Watch out that e.g. for one unit the 1. field is HE and the 2. smoke, and for another unit the 1. field is AP, 2. HE, 3. something else and 4. smoke (so a different order for different tanks). That's in the english version, but in the German there is not HE but SP and not AP but PZ and in the French ???, hahaha. So I don't recommend to try that except you want to become crazy. Sorry...

May I use your maps for a campaign project? by the way, can't find the cmf maps!?

@Japanzer Thanks for the bug report. Can you send me a screenshot of your CM map/battle (please click on a unit so that I can see a name and the casulty). Then I'll try to fix that, probably has to do with the Japanese Windows version.... webmaster@gillspye.de A and I feared this proposal!! This is easy to code but will have a heavy impact on some files the apps create. Will have a look at it next weekend. Thank you Japanzer! C) this is a bug - please send me that screenshot!

this is a problem. I can say that a tank is dead but not if it is burning or destroyed (to separate abandoned tanks should be possible with some lines of code) no problem You should go to gamemaster.exe, build a large group (around 60-80 units from all sections (inf., guns, tanks etc.), create a battle and export and play this scenario with an AI force. Get as much casulties as you can and then import it back and have a look at the import file. e.g. if a gun is knocked out you find the name either twice (1. the gun and 2. the crew) or only one time (crew left the map). In the first case you know the gun must be dead because there are 2 equal names (one must be the crew which left the gun). In the second case you see only the gun and this must have men =0 and cas = 3 (or so). and 0 men means knocked out!! The same works for tanks, vehicles, mortars, guns and bunkers. All other units (infantry, arty, support like MGs) suffer only casulties, there's no knock out. Hope this helps.

great work! The town "7-2" is impressive!

@Kingofthehill thanks a lot. I've stolen the *.ocx from your homepage and added it on my hp @Joachim so when you're living in Düsseldorf why do you sit at the computer instead of moving through the bars, deadly drunken of cause? a) to read the losses is included (reads each unit on the battlefield, those who are not on the battlefield are seen to be dead). the statistics after a battle is not included but not a big thing to read out. If you look to the folder "Groupfiles" you find a file "CMBB Axis sample (Sept 1941).txt" in which a sample army is given. I made a test with excel see picture and exported the units to excel from the file. The same thing is possible with a losses list. The only thing you would have to do is to write a procedure which compares the names of the army with those from the losses/casulty list and actualize the amount of men. There are some difficulties with half squads and how to find out if a tank is KO but there are ways to solve too. Goes this in the right direction? @Zarquon Thank you. I am scanning screenshots taken from the editor and from the map after a battle. There's no binary reading of cm files. Not a big thing when you've found out how to read the Bitmap data. It's much more stressy to handle those f***ing huge masses of data .

@Joachim: 1. Programming language is Visual Basic. Problem was "learning by doing" so VB was the best choice for me. 2. Berlin, and you? 3. Using Excel: I am not sure what you have in mind. As far as I understand these excel campaigns there 's an upgrade included (or am I wrong?) e.g. from June 1942 tanks to July 1942 tanks. This won't be possible with the data I get with my (another) app (not released yet). Maybe we should go more into detail about what you like to do. To give a first aspect about how it works: I made an app which reads out all unit data from the left and right side of the CM unit editor. Each item on the left and it's attached item on the right will be saved as one recordset, e.g. a Battalion consists of 1 item from the left and around 80 items on the right. So I save the first recordset "1;Battalion;1; BattalionHQ blablabla points blabla" and the second is "1; Battalion;2; CompanyHQ blablabla points blabla" etc. This way I know that the first item on the left side is a battalion which consists of around 80 subitems (i.e. 80 recordsets). Just for one month and one year I come to around 15.000 redordsets (infantry is the most recordset producer).(The excel limit is 64.000 rows by the way.) The gamemaster.exe just sorts the recordsets as they are shown in the CM unit editor and the battlecreator.exe clicks on the position in cm (remember the 1 in the example in front of "Battalion" which means it is the first item from the left in the CM unit editor; and the 2 "CompanyHQ" means the second item on the right screen. Maybe this helps you to get an idea what excel should be able to do if you want to code something. By the way, I decided to save battles and groups in a text format, because it should be easy to load or save such files in other application. I think it should be easy to load the files in excel and work with the data. Could be easier as to program all the stuff again. But let's talk about your idea in detail, maybe we can put some things together. @kingofthehill a little bit embarassing, but where did you find the COMDLG32.OCX? Just for the case someone asks me.

@ Sardaukar: Unfortunately the tools are not helpful for these single player campaigns with a core force which is lead through many years (the many years is the problem here). When I talk about campaigns I mean a fixed certain time. My offer is: If you tell me your specific need I can check out what is possible and what is not. @farmerch: I have updated my homepage. Now there're some screenshots and a little description. Thanks for the hint. PCT - with screenshots @76mm: I am interested in your project/ideas. I would also like to work in a group or so to split work and to make things faster or to make a bigger project than just tools...How about you? @mPisi: Thank you very much for the first test, mPisi. As I said I am new to programming and I wasn't sure if this runs on other computers. Whenever you have some information for me please tell me. I don't have the experience as a campaign manager and would like to ask you for your knowledge. If there are any ideas, changes you want etc. just tell me. @all: thanks for the replies!!

I need one or even two serious testers for a campaign tool for windows. There are two setup programs and a very 'dirty written' manual, well not a real manual, but I first step guide, at my website: PCT you have to install both setup programs (of cause on your own risk. Did I mentioned that I am not a real coder?). I am sure there are a lot of bugs in it and would apreciate any help. Need also help with a good manual in English (I am a German and my English is mmmh ... poor). The issue is to give Gamemasters some help and support to run campaigns without those masses of paperwork. The features are: - units management - points (spent for the units) management - exporting units to CMBB/CMAK from the tool - importing casulties back (from CMBB/AK) to the tool There are two specific problems if you test the tools: One problem is that you have to run CMBB or CMAK in 1024/764 mode when you import/export, because I wrote the program on my laptop and this is the max. resolution this old thing can show me. The other is, that both programs use a lot of main-memory (around 60 MB each). I hope this is ok for you and it would be cool if there were someone with some time to give me support and maybe has some ideas for improvements. If you have some questions , you find my email below... Thanks Jens (Pyewacket) webmaster@gillspye.de

thanks Znarf. I'll give it a try.

does your program has any AI included for a single player mode? I ask because I am working on a similiar project and I tried to code a kind of AI and it failed completely!!!

I am going to create a scenario (CMBB, AI=Russians, Town, 30 turns, lots of T34 and a German infantry company hidden in houses) where the AI has 3 FO. I've played the scenario a few times and the AI fired either smoke or nothing. Is there a trick to convince the AI to fire at the houses? (TRP doesn't work!)

There's a similiar app to ADC2 in the net. It is called Cyberboard and it is for free, but has less features than ADC2. Cyberboard download page Like ADC2 it has no AI included. Probably this is the reason why some try to combine a professional strategic game with CMXX....

Hi, I am interested, would you please send me a pdf? Thank you very much webmaster@gillspye.de

Where do I find Nippys QB rules ?

I read these interesting posts about "division deploy" and "unit organization/formation". Does anybody know how these units where named on strategical maps? e.g. what is the full name of a company from battalion x and regiment y and division z. Something like " A Company, Xth Battalion, ....." or the other way "Z Division, Y Regiment,....". I saw a short name like "IV/701/3" (or similar figures) on a strategical map somewhere in this forum. is there a rule or structure for UK/USA/RUS/GER WWII army maps?

@ Eichenbaum nice picture, but obviously I am not the guy. As you can see he holds a Laptop in his left hand and it looks like his wife accepts his hobby because she's carrying the battery. Here's an example of a british amphibious landing on the north coast of Germany (not historical). Ever thought how to push those well trained units back into the sea?

And when you're on a vacation...maybe at the beach you think about how to get the young family next to you out of their sandy foxhole without being flanked by the Baywatch guy on his fortification. just an advice: don't take the blame on your girlfriend, try to get some ww2 books with you and hope these f****ing holidays are over soon!

What are mods good for? Realism!!!!!! There are so many topics in this forum where they discuss ideas to make the game more realistic. And this topic seems to me a step back. I am a German and I would really be pissed off to hear German units shouting English words. And to give them an accents is much more worse. What you want is hollywood. If the units would have a long conversation and chit chat I would understand your request. But what they say isn't really interesting or necessary for the game but very important for the flair/realism.

Ever seen this? In a PBEM (night game, LOS 75m) the Russians captured one of my squads. Some Russian infantry units didn't care about this and shot at the squad (maybe because of the darkness) . The squad took some casulties and the rest (3men or so) started to run like hell. Amazingly this squad stoped being captured!!! but is now "unarmed". Is this something for the rarity top ten?

ooops, forget my post. Goose already answered...

I think the one with splitted squads will loose. As already said splitting a squad affects the moral of both half squads. This means not only that you can pin them easier but make them panicked or even routed very fast. In close combat a half squad panics very fast. Of cause the other half squad shoots at the enemy unit but with reduced firepower which isn't enough to supress anyone. The panicked half squad will run away or hide after some time and then the enemy unit will concentrate on the other half squad. It's like turning a strong man in 2 little boys. They won't harm you and you can beat up one after the other.... To attack with two half squads from different directions could (maybe) bring back some balance but then you've probably lost the command bonus. The only reason, for me, to split squads is, as Eric already said, to irritate the opponent or to use them as enemy spotters in woods or buildings.