Plugger

Goodaye, Looks interesting but I'm somewhat confused as to what aspects differentiate it with the Civilisation series? I already have CIV IV however I'm open minded to alternatives. Can anyone point out some differences? Also is the game aimed purely at the Multiplayer market or will it come with a decent AI? Thanks in advance, Plugger

Goodaye, I'd like to second the fault mentioned above. It also regularly pops up in my games as well. It seems to be specific to the 'quick move' command and I suppose the AI figures the quickest route which is what you've asked for. While it may be the quickest route it isn't necessarily the smartest one. Hence the apparent frustration when your squad gets hammered unnecessarily. How you'd fix this is beyond me but perhaps you could throw into the move algorithim some sort of 'exposure' calculation and get the AI to select from the best combination of 'fast' and 'minimal exposure'. Just a thought. Cheers, Plugger

Goodaye, Interesting thread. Going back to the civilians issue and the suggestion that a building can be given an icon showing whether it has civilian occupants or not. I think that this is a great idea and a fairly (?) simple means of incorporating one of the major limiting factors to Western Military Supremacy on todays middle eastern battlefields. Having to think twice before automatically flattening / shooting up every building in sight would really change the game mechanics. Could I suggest that the prevelance of civilian occupied buildings be tied into the scenario civilian density and that you wouldn't know if a certain building has civilians in it or not until you were within a set distance. Off course the scenario designer could tell you up front about certain buildings but others would require some reconnaissne. Steve's point about the nightmare of having to control and move civilians around the map is well taken but on an active battlefield it would be a safe bet that any civilians would be holed up in their houses / buildings as a matter of self preservation. The icons over the buildings method would give you civilians and all the related tactical decision making that this entails without the need to actually visually represent farmer fred sprinting across the street to visit his girlfriend. Cheers, Plugger [ January 26, 2008, 05:51 PM: Message edited by: Plugger ]

Goodaye, Glad you enjoyed the AAR. To answer a couple of questions. The mother and eggs was a stuff up on my part. It should have been grandmothers. I also didn't read the patch notes for 1.5 before updating as it clearly stated that previous save game files aren't compatible. Duh! I'm aware that I can go back to 1.4 but I'm going to leave it as is and have already started doing another AAR which I'll post when I get the chance as family matters take precedence in the holidays. Cheers, PLugger

Authors note: Unfortunately it looks like I’ll have to end this AAR prematurely as I’ve just upgraded to the 1.05 patch and managed – my own fault, I think – to do something to the save game file. The scenario still loads up but I’m getting some strange behaviour that effectively makes it unplayable. Observations on the AAR I’d like to make a couple of comments on various aspects of the game that arose out of the AAR, none of which relate to my military prowess or lack thereof. Firstly the path finding cock-up that resulted in Frizz’s scout team moving across the rooftops of the farmhouse and subsequently being spotted and shot up. I’ve read a lot of posts on the forum about bad path finding but I really can’t blame the game for this. In my experience the path finding in the game is pretty good and when it does go AWOL it is in pretty obvious situations where you would expect an AI to have difficulty. In the above instance I ordered the team to move from one side of the farmhouse to the other using a quick move. That’s what the game AI did. Moved them the quickest route possible, across the roof tops. If I had been thinking clearly I would have put a waypoint down on the ground floor (ensuring they first went down the stairs and out of sight) before plonking another one down in the intended target building so as to cross via the concealed courtyard. My mistake and one I’ve done a few times, mostly in situations that are time critical. This is interesting because I have the ability to pause the game at any point and think things through at my leisure but human nature being what it is, I don’t tend to do this when I’m under a bit of pressure. When things are moving fast so am I which is probably a realistic portrayal of the command process in the heat of battle. The faster the pace of events the faster your decision-making tends to be with a proportional rise in mistakes. Full credit to the game designers for coming up with a simulation that can get my head into that kind of mind-state. . . . . The second and final thing I’d like to mention is related to the farmhouse incident above. The scenario designer cleverly left the farmhouse empty (luring me in…) but placed a squad of Syrians out of sight, directly behind it. Smart move. They opened up on the guys on the roof and then pinned them down in the western most room. Well done George Mc (?). Sorry, I’ve forgotten the correct name of the bloke who made the scenario but I give him full marks for a great effort. If it’s the same George who’s posted in this thread already then, George, take a bow, as we applaud your hard work. . . . . If I continued to play out the AAR (assuming I hadn’t stuffed up the patch upgrade) there are two things that I could assume, both of them bad, game wise. (I’m climbing up on my soapbox now. You’ve been warned!) The first is that the squad of Syrians behind the farmhouse will stay there, lined up like a row of brain-dead ten-pins until I figure out a way of eradicating them. Yes they might hit the deck if shot at and will fire upon anything that comes within their view but beyond that they will sit still and wait for their eventual demise. The other assumption I could make with confidence is that Sergeant Frizzle and his shot up team are in no danger. Yep the Syrians behind the farmhouse will shoot them if they stand up but provided they lay low the only possibility of mortality they face is a grenade or RPG shot through the window. Nobody is going to come into the room they are in and waste them. Both of these assumptions (even though I didn’t get to play further I’m basing them on my past experience with CM:SF) are a direct result of the AI’s inability to react to the player actions. Is this a big deal in an otherwise excellent game/simulation? I think it is. Let me mention another game I own. An old one, SWAT 3 which is a police tactical shooter. It features a training scenario which consists of a ramshackle building with many rooms and levels. It’s full of cardboard pop-up targets some of which have happy faces painted on them (civilians) and some which have angry red faces (bad guys). Additionally the bad guy pop-ups have the ability to shoot back at you (don’t ask). All the pop-ups are static and some are concealed in dark areas. So what you do is carefully creep around till you find a bad guy pop-up, or two, and shoot it before it shoots you. Every time you play it’s a different placement of pop-ups. In CM:SF you likewise carefully creep around until you find a bad guy. You then shoot him before he shoots you. Because of the lack of a reactive AI at no point does a bad guy do anything other than ‘pop-up’, shoot or get shot. In effect CM:SF is an elaborate version of an a FBI / SWAT training program. To a large extent the problem is hidden because of the range and lethality of modern warfare and the predominately open terrain of the Syrian battlefield. But give the following a try. Fire up the scenario editor and make a simple map with a handful of buildings in the centre surrounded by whatever terrain you can come up with in sixty seconds. Stick a few Syrians in one of the outer buildings and see if you can take it with a squad of Americans. Note that at no point in the whole exercise will the Syrians do anything other than stay in their house. Nope, they’ll sit there like a bunch of wooden ducks until you finish them off. Once you get within spotting distance they’ll ‘pop up’ and at some point exchange fire with you. Now consider how the same simple scenario would play if the guy who made the scenario (assuming for the moment it wasn’t you) had the ability to set a few ‘triggers’ or the like. Yep, the Syrians would ‘pop-up’ just as before but once you closed your squad to within a certain distance they would relocate to another building forcing you into a very different tactical situation. When you got closer to that one, or if, for example, you tried to flank them to the right, they might then relocate to a third building, one that better counters your actions. They would be ‘reacting’ to you. (And incidentally doing what in real life urban insurgents do in typical MOUT situations – stay mobile.) Hang on minute, I hear you say, you can make the Syrians move from one building to another via the editor. Sure you can. But it is a preset scripted move that happens at a set time which may be totally out of context with what’s happening on the battlefield. It’s not reacting at all, it’s just robotically carrying out its orders regardless of the circumstances. Just like the local council sprinkler system at the park down the road that switches on to water the grass at 1700 every evening regardless of whether it is in the middle of a drought or raining cats and dogs. Time to climb down off my soapbox now. . . . . Finally, I’ll add that CM:SF is a very good game deserving of our continual support and I’m confident that at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, something will be done to address the point I’ve highlighted above. Or somebody might tell me that I’m wrong. Captain Kangaroo may yet ride again. Cheers, Plugger

The Frizz makes it safely into the right hand building. He radios in that they can hear Syrian voices nearby but this could be coming from the close by infantry position that is currently taking mortar fire. Not much can be seen from the building so Frizz moves his men up onto the roof. Several Syrian units are spotted but before the Frizz can put his binoculars on them a third BMP-2 is seen over to the north-east in the objective town. I tell the Frizz to extract his men off the exposed roof quick bloody smart and to relocate to the western building before they start taking incoming fire from the BMP. He asks for permission to enter the larger, middle building. I’m reluctant to give it and hedge for time, asking him to check in with me once he’s relocated. Unfortunately I must have failed to make my orders clear. Or perhaps Sergeant Frizzle misunderstood my Australian accent. Instead of moving downstairs and over to the next building via the concealed courtyard, Frizz goes via the exposed rooftops. The BMP opens up and a squad of Syrians behind a wall directly in front of the farmhouse spray bullets through the windows. “Man down! Man down!” yells the Frizz, frazzled and teetering on the edge of panic. “Fast movers, f’movers, N-O-W!” interrupts the Mouse in a rabid squeak, unhelpfully, on the radio net. “We’re pinned down and taking heavy fire!” shouts the Frizz, overriding the rancid rodent. “EVERYBODY SHUT UP” commands I, “HOUGHTON, SAY ANOTHER WORD AND I’LL SHOOT YOU” I add, to make it clear exactly who ‘everybody’ refers to. Nothing worse than having everybody yelling and running around like a bunch of headless chooks. It’s bad for morale and besides, it takes me straight back to the time when I had the serpent wrapped around my neck. Somebody yelled up a storm then and it wasn’t the snake. After a long moment or two the situation stabilises, more or less. Sergeant Frizzle, still with his head on the wrong side of frantic, calls for an immediate medivac, air support, back-up, anything… The mouse, on the other hand, appears to have slipped into some kind of marsupial funk as all I hear are the occasional whimpers on the net. Good. The tactical sit-rep as of now is that we have a four man scouting team, under Sergeant Frizzle, pinned down and isolated in the western-most building of the farmhouse. Two men are reported wounded and in need of urgent medical attention. O.K. Time to get serious. We need to push a Bradley up to the farmhouse ASAP and evacuate our team. Provided the Bradley stays within the lee of the farmhouse, out of sight of the bad guys, with enough smoke we should be able to manage it. It’s right about now that the door of the Command HQ bunker slams open and a buzz-cut, pea-brained, nose on legs (Check the size of that honker! You don’t get one of those in the standard issue kit. Must be Special Forces.) stomps in and informs me that, as of this moment, I’m no longer in command. The Proboscis orders me out the door and into the chopper where I’m to be taken back to Brigade HQ for a ‘debriefing’. Without a single ‘thank you’ or a ‘get me up to speed on the situation’ or even a ‘good morning to you’, I’m dismissed. Nobody looks in my direction. Eye contact is conspicuous by it’s absence. Out I go. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Bloody wonderful. Thanks a bunch.

In the midst of Shelman deploying 1st Platoon for their canal-side advance, another BMP-2 is spotted, north-west and a good 750 metres away. The lead Bradley on the eastern side of the canal opens up while the other Bradleys continue moving into position. Splat! I’m starting to think that I’ve overestimated the potential threat. Fifteen minutes into the battle and we’ve taken out two enemy vehicles and an RPG team for no loss. Not even a thrown track or bogged Bradley. Even the sceptics back here at HQ are beginning to crack the odd smile or two. It wasn’t this easy back in the jungle. Did I mention the size of the snakes back in Timor? The Mouse’s mortar rounds finally arrive. Sergeant Frizzle and his scouts make a dash for the right-hand side building. The larger, middle one is the obvious place to go but I’m loathe to do the obvious. The Frizz has had a full five minutes to examine the three buildings at close range and he has seen no indication of any Syrian presence. Why, then, do I still have a bad feeling?

O.K. A few minutes later and it appears that Captain Shelman has done well. He’s positioned one Bradley with good sighting directly up route A. The other three Bradleys are tucked out of sight at the village’s eastern edge. I expect he’ll send one across the canal bridge and position it facing up route B before deploying the remaining two Bradleys. Good man. Sergeant Frizzle, over to the west, has managed to work his way up towards the end of the irrigation ditch that leads to the farmhouse without being spotted – or being fanged by a snake. Excellent. The Mouse has prepped mortar fire on a nearby Syrian infantry position. The plan is to have Frizz and his team sit tight until the mortars start falling and then, and only then, make a dash across the small open space and into the farmhouse. The two scout Bradleys are sitting tight, ready to open up on any visible threat. 2nd platoon remains in the village, uncommitted.

Reports are streaming in from Brigade HQ of heavy fighting in Al Fud. Where the hell is that? Is it nearby? Do I need to worry? I’m handed a map and I’m buggered if I can find Al Fud or Al anything. A nearby subordinate kindly suggests, in an overly loud whisper, turning the map the correct way up. Heads fast track sideways like guidance radars in my direction. Damn. One good thing about being in the jungle is that everybody got lost, not just me. “In the southern hemisphere, gentlemen”, says I. “That’s how it’s done”. Bull**** baffles brains but are they that gullible? Mmmm… They don’t look it. Better tell another snake story. 0610 and reinforcements arrive. Yahoo. The 1st Mech platoon (4 Bradleys and a full complement of troops) under the dubious command of one Captain Shelman (-1 rating and Regular. Probably a distant relative of the Mouse) turns up in the eastern part of the village while the 2nd Mech platoon (same size) fronts up in the village west. I take particular note of the 2nd Mech platoon. They are the battalion’s crack unit and are under one of the best commanders that Fort Bragg has produced, Captain Lewis (+2 rating). I decide to keep Captain Lewis and his platoon of hit-men in reserve until the situation becomes clearer. Captain Shelman’s 1st platoon immediately swing into action, taking out a BMP-2 infantry carrier lurky between a couple of farm buildings to the east. Keeping the momentum rolling I order Shelman to move his platoon to the right, form up and then conduct a twin-pronged advance up the two eastern dirt tracks, A & B which constitute the boundaries of the canal. Both avenues of advance offer clear fire lanes for any Syrian ATGM’s that may lying in ambush. Shelman, hopefully, will exercise caution in both first approaching A (perhaps by sending a Bradley up the small connector road the joins into A at the edge of the village), and in crossing the bridge that leads to B. Is Captain Shelman up to the task? I’m not certain given his resume but seeing that I’m already having to micro-manage the Mouse’s men I’m not in a position to do anything other than have a little faith. Fingers crossed.

I ask the Mouse to provide details of the sightings. The Mouse, who I suspect is flat on his belly and unable to see diddly squat, stammers out that he can see some infantry. “Righto Houghton, call down some artillery on them.” That’ll keep him busy and out of my hair for a while. “Who’s in charge of the scout team?” I shout at a lackey, back at HQ. “Sergeant Frizzle”, comes the almost instant reply. At least somebody is on top of the situation. I call the Frizz directly on the radio, bypassing the Mouse. Having a functional hierarchy of command is well and good but all it takes is one wimpy rodent and before you know it you are flat-lining. Sergeant Frizzle, who sounds like a soldier should sound, i.e with a deep bass voice resonating from balls that must drag on the ground behind him, tells me that he’s currently hiding in the ditch and can’t see much. He adds that standing up to have a good look around might not be a life-enhancing decision either. I respect his judgement and together we decide that he should carefully creep down the full length of the irrigation ditch and take up an observatory position in the farmhouse to the north. I stress the need to see but not be seen and I get a fast comeback all about eggs and my mother. I’ll wear that. The Mouse, listening in on our conversation, interrupts and ‘strenuously objects’ to one of his scout teams being pushed so far out in front of the Bradleys. To ease his mind I order both Bradleys to creep forward a little and to shoot at anything that even looks like a Syrian. I then tell the Mouse to bugger off and play with his artillery and leave the thinking to me. Annoying rodents to one side I have to admit that I’m having second thoughts about the farmhouse that I’ve ordered Sergeant Frizz to creep into. Yes it does have an excellent view over the next section of battlefield but it’s awfully conspicuous and if I was the Syrian in charge I’d be making good use of it one way or another. On the other hand I can’t think of a better plan other than pushing the Bradleys further down their respective roads which I suspect would not have a happy ending. I need to get a better idea of enemy dispositions before advancing further. So the farmhouse it is. Sergeant Frizz has got a covered route almost to it’s door and besides, aren’t scouts supposed to scout?

I can almost smell the smoke from here. With all these palm trees around I could just as easily be back in the jungles of Timor. There’s an old jungle fighter’s saying – “Always sleep with your boots on”. Good advice that. Lots of creepy crawlies in the jungle. And snakes. I make a mental note to pass it on down the chain of command. While we are on the topic of jungles I’d better own up and admit that the reason I’m on secondment to the US Army is that certain members of the Australian military establishment, psychologists and the like, i.e people who don’t know one of end of a gun from the other, are of the opinion that I’ve seen a little too much jungle and that a spell in the desert would serve to ‘actualise my potential’. Wankers. A problem has arisen. The RPG team has decided to go to ground in their ditch, out of reach of the Bradleys. Sneaky bloody Syrians, stand up and fight you bastards! Unfortunately I can’t let them be as they are only 150m abreast our main route of advance. They’ll have to be rooted out and eradicated. None of this namby pamby ‘neutralising’ bull****. We Australians don’t neutralise anything bigger than a can of paint. We ‘eradiate’ them. And if that doesn’t work we feed ‘em to the snakes. Did I mention the snakes? Had one fall on my head in Timor. One moment I’m sneaking through the jungle and the next I’m mortal combat with an evil hissing serpent trying to fang me in the carotiod. Hideous. You won’t catch me standing under a palm tree. Or wading through the swamp. Jeez. Hey, back to the job at hand. Focus, son, focus. There are a couple of options for dealing with the RPG team. Cap H., undergoing a temporary blood surge to the brain, suggests disembarking the 2nd four man scout team from one of the Bradleys and have them race across the open field, jump into the ditch and kung-fu the bad guys. Or something. What a Wally. It’s obvious to all and sundry that a four man team racing across an open field isn’t going to be anything other than fertilizer before they get half-way across. There is bound to a Syrian MG tucked away somewhere waiting for just such an occurrence. We could do a charge of the light brigade with the Bradley’s but that’ll only put them broadside on to any ATGM sitting downrange. Nope, I’ve got a better idea. Cap. H. hums and haws – squeaks and squawks is more like it - before reluctantly giving the required orders. Talk about flaky pastry. That boy is starting to get on my nerves. One hummer hangs back providing overwatch while another hoons up the nearby dirt track and goes for the jugular. The two Bradleys on the main road provide additional covering fire if required. In fact I’m so taken by this minor tactical vignette that I’m seriously considering taking notes and submitting it to the Duntroon Royal Military Academy back home as a case study on how to neutralise ditch dwelling deadbeats. Mmmm… Maybe not. Once my point hummer reached a ‘hose down the ditch’ position I find out that it is a specialised recce unit, one not armed with an MG. Or anything. Whoops. Perhaps I should have listened to Houghton the mouse. So my recce hummer turns up, burps, farts, takes incoming fire and then gets to hell out of dodge, rapidly reversing back the way it came. Not a good look. I ponder plan B. Mortars. Five minutes, minimum, says the mouse. Too long, says I. “Get it fixed Houghton or you’ll be retrained as a tunnel rat!” Lots of squeaking on the radio. I offer some guidance. As his superior officer I feel obliged. “Use the Bradley’s man, the Bradleys.” One of my staff attendants turns the squelch on the radio up a notch so I don’t have to listen to slurs on my cultural background. Peering at the BLUTRACKER screen I see the rear most Bradley backtrack through the village before advancing halfway up the dirt road and disgorging its four man scouting team. Once they creep through the long grass in the field and pop up over the lip of the ditch, offset a little from the Bradley to avoid it’s covering fire, it’s all over red rover. Job done. Well how about that. It’s 0608 and I’ve won my first battle. If I keep this up they may let me stay in the saddle till dinner time. Unfortunately my scout team at the ditch radio’s in multiple OPFOR sightings, including vehicles. It’s about to get sticky. [ December 26, 2007, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: Plugger ]

Like most recent American wars, Australia plays a part, albeit a small one. Circumstances found me, Major N. Kelly, a.k.a ‘Captain Kangaroo’, assigned to a heavy mech task force punching down route 66. Normally I’m there purely in an observatory capacity but circumstances (haemorrhoids, I think…) found me temporarily in charge of task force “Hammer”, on the day. Given that I’m the only Australian south of the Sinai desert this presented a few curly cultural problems. The American military machine is not accustomed to being told what to do by foreigners. Fair enough, but I have talents that few others possess (I can drink a hell of a lot of beer in a short space of time) and given the sudden absence of Colonel Sandpaper-Ass, I’ve stepped up to the plate. For today. Yep, they are ‘vectoring in’ some General from Iraq as fast as they can but heavy sandstorm activity down south has slowed his passage so I’m it until he arrives. Why do I see so many eyes rolling heavenward? Bugger me, don’t they know I can spell ‘tank’, backwards? Clearly not. Well, here we go. It’s 0600 and my - well temporarily mine, they tell me I’ll be kicked out of this job by lunchtime - scouts report entering the southern village. Today’s exercise in military might and muscle is to take down the town a click or two to the north. Shouldn’t be too hard. Here’s a quick sit-rep. There’s a canal running north/south to the east of the main road which seems to traverse irrigated fields. There is a darker swampy area roughly in the middle and the main approach road sits on a slightly elevated base to the surrounding terrain. The Battalion drones have all been grounded due to adverse climatic conditions (Don’t know why, this is a-day-at-the-beach weather. Perhaps it is all done on a need to know basis and I’m out of the loop?) so there is little in the way of intel. Satellite pictures are all out of date and, anyway, haven’t proven to be of much use to date as the Syrians have proven adept at camouflage. I’ll just have to wing it. So basically some flat countryside with a bunch of mud brick dwellings at either end. The swamp is a concern. Snakes. Lots of snakes in swamps. The scouts (a couple of Bradleys, a few hummers and some fleet-of-foot troops) are hunkered down in the village to the south, having their morning coffee and waiting for the word. So I give them the word, plus a few choice extras, and a certain Captain Houghton (He of the squinty eyes), in command (I’m yet to be convinced about that…) of the scouts, snaps to attention with a burr up his bum and high tails it up onto the roof of a nearby two storey building. He orders one of the Bradley’s to carefully hunt down the main road, careful being the operative word here. Almost immediately a Syrian RPG team is spotted to the left, lurking in an irrigation ditch. The lead Bradley pops smoke and lays down area fire while the second Bradley races forward to the edge of the smoke blanket to get into position to splat the bad guys. The Bradley’s see-through-the-smoke capability is good gear. Captain Houghton, man of action that he is, cautiously peeks over the roof wall and calls in the play to HQ on his radio. Damn, this is getting exciting.

Note: This is a CMSF user made scenario called ‘Hammertime 3.0’ which I can highly recommend. It’s played on Elite level, real-time with the 1.04 patch. Believe it or not I haven’t played the scenario before and didn’t do any save/restore reruns. It is as it is. And no, I’m not a direct descendant of General Patton. If you wish to play the scenario then feel free to read the first post below as it won’t give too much away but reading beyond would definitely be one big spoiler. If you’re keen, read the first post, play the scenario (available from CMMods) then come back and read the rest. This AAR is written with an element of entertainment rather than a strict blow by blow account. As such it isn’t politically correct. Neither am I. Please don’t take offence as none is intended. Cheers, Plugger

Goodaye, Good stuff. More please. Cheers, Plugger

Goodaye, I'd whole heart'dly endorse Cpl Steiner's comments. I'd also add the ability to 'branch' on a test condition. Eg. Is the unit under fire? If so then do this... If not then continue doing whatever... Without some kind of conditional AI scripting you have no ability to react to the other sides actions. Having a preplanned strategic AI working on a set timetable is pretty limited if the opposition doesn't do exactly what you expect it to do, when you expect it to do it. I realise that any improvement to the AI scripting would be a significant programming undertaking and is probably well down the list of priorities but at some point it needs to be addressed as once players get familiar with the game a canned , non-reactive AI won't present much of a challenge for the majority of players who choose to play against the computer. Regardless of how good the game is in other areas if it eventually becomes too easy to beat at the highest difficulty level then you'll loose interest. I'm confident, however, that Battlefront have already figured this out. From a commercial viewpoint if they want to continue to grow the franchise they will implement improvements at some point in the future. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Cheers, Plugger

Goodaye Matt, The patch file I downloaded from Gamershell last friday was "CMSF_v103_Battlefront_Patch.exe with a size of 97,953 kb. I had initially installed CMSF in the C:\program files\combat... folder (same as default, just excluded the 'battlefront' subdirectory). I tried patching twice with no success. The first time I simply changed the directory to the correct one(where I had put the game) by altering the text readout of the directory in the patch program. No luck. The second time I used the browse button to manually go to the correct directory. No luck. On both occassions I found that the 1.03 patch notes installed to the correct place but all the files went to the default, c:\program..\battlefront\shock.. directory, which by the way, didn't exist until I ran the patch. I also got the EULA message on both occassions. I solved the problem as mentioned in an earlier post. My computer rig is pretty standard with no virtual drives or dual operating systems. Hope this is of some help. I assume that you're the same Matt that helped me out with my tangled-up download order (wrong email address). If so, thanks again. Cheers, Plugger

Goodaye Misgha, Thanks for the tip. Spot on. I had installed Shockforce into a directory that wasn't the default and even though I pointed the 1.03 patch to the correct place it got bloody minded and patched the non-existant default directory (c:\program...\battlefront\combat...) I removed Shockforce and reinstalled into the default directory, patched away and viola! It's all good now. Cheers, Plugger

Goodaye, I've just bought a downloadable copy of the game today from Battlefront. It tells me it is version 1.02 so I downloaded the 1.03 battlefront patch (confirmed) and installed only to find that... 1.The game stills shows 1.02 on the main screen when I launch 2.The patch message "missing Eula.." comes up when you try and launch the game at the completion of the patch installation 3.None of the new functionality, eg. the "Show all moves" hotkey option is being displayed All of which indicate that the patch hasn't updated the game. I downloaded the 1.03 patch from GamersHell via Battlefront and can confirm it is the CMSF_v103_Battlefront_Patch.zip and exe files. Am I doing anything wrong or have I unearthed a problem? Cheers, PLugger

Goodaye, Great game. Appreciate all the developer interaction going on. Getting a grip on all the different aspects and 'issues' of the game is a lot easier when the reasoning behind the design decisions is explained. I realise that you (dev's) probably have your hands full at present but I'd like to put a suggestion forward for some kind of conditional AI ability. By this I mean the ability (as a scenario maker) to have you units interact in a basic meaningful way with what the enemy does when constructing AI strat plans. A typical example would be positioning troops in a building. Along come the bad guys, see your troops, engage and in short order blow the bejesus out of said building and troops. In real life the good guys would 'relocate' quick smart, hopefully before any heavy ordance levelled the place. Currently the scenario maker who sets the AI strat plan really only has the ability to relocate them on preplanned timed maneouvre that may or may not coincide with enemy movements. What I'd like to see is some basic ability to flag a condition like "Under fire" for instance. If your troops in the building come under fire then they have the ability to do 'x'. Another way it could work would be 'enemy within distance x of troops'. Whether the above is doable code wise is beyond my remit but hopefully I've got the gist of my thinking across. The main reason I'm suggesting this in order to create a more 'interactive' battle plan that has the ability to adapt to enemy action (on the AI strat level, not the hard coded tac AI level) and provide a more challenging opponent. If this could be incorporated at some future point it would be great as the strat AI parameters currently available to a scenario maker have a pretty minimal ability to react to what the enemy does. And who was it that said that any battle plan is redundant once contact with the enemy is made? Cheers, PLugger