Paulverisor64

I've found the trick to getting the recon accomplished. I was on to the correct method, I just didn't look close enough to find a better firing lane for the anti-tank gun. I had the enemy's fire concentrated on the rifle squad so I had an open shot at the half track. I tried this twice before moving on. I am discovering that the recon was the easy portion of this tutorial. Dodging artillery on the top of the hill is much more difficult. My 1st trial I discovered that I must have missed the fire for effect rounds. My entire line of infantry, machine guns and HQ unit ended up getting virtually wiped out. I just completed the 2nd trial, this was to let the artillery fall and then come back. Little was I to know that the 2nd barage was going to be much worse than the 1st. The small building and it's occupants were destroyed as well as the front wall. My troops that were sneaking back to the just destroyed wall also bought it, and they were behind the 2 story building. Also very concerning was the advance of the 2 light Italian tanks which will eventually take out my pill boxes. At 11 minutes to go I don't even see survival likely. I will want to formulate a better planned trial 3.

Up to this point I've done fairly well in the Fortress Italy training. I can not however figure out how to pull off the "Investigate Activity" action in the 2nd Advanced Training exercise. I have a small group of 6 to perform the recon activity. The training manual suggests splitting the team into 3 seperate teams. I do this prior to engaging the enemy that awaits in ambush. My 1st try at this my rifle squad crawled to the left of the chokepoint to have cover behind the stone wall. My anti-tank squad went up the middle so they could achieve a true spot of the half track. In the attack phase I had the rifle squad open up on the targeted area. My anti-tank squad paused 20 seconds after which they had a short hunt command (to raise them up) followed by the targetting of the half track. The rifle squad survived due to their protection, but I don't believe they even pinned the enemy. The anti-tank squad was gunned down immediately. Since that time I have tried sneaking the rifle squad to the choke point and attempted to flank to the right with my anti-tank squad. The result of this was that my sneaking rifle squad always is now getting picked up by the ambush while the flanking manuever dies when the anti-tank squad hurdles the stone fence on the right because they get picked up by the other German infantry units behind the main action. A variation of this had my anti-tank squad pull up to the edge of the stone wall in the right choke point area. My anti-tank squad couldn't pick up the half track, but the half track could pick up them, and finished them off. Afterwards I did a line of sight from the anti-tank perspective and it appeared the half track was in clear view. For some reason the tree branch in between must act as a shield for the half track but not for the poor anti-tank squad. Could someone prescribe the technically correct way to achieve this small victory? I could bypass this, but since this is considered training I don't want to miss any details that could help considerably down the road.

I too am experiencing the 2nd generation of Combat Mission with training wheels. I've found different situations where I'm not sure exactly what is going on. I guess with more experience I'll be able to ask questions about it. From my perspective I'd like to play through Fortress Italy which is a lot like reading a book that you don't want to put down. When I get through this I'm crossing my fingers that Combat Mission Battle for Normandy will have it's version 2.0 released. I really like the face lift the game has taken on since the original Combat Mission games.

skelley, Sorry no one could help you here. The fix for this is simple but certainly not obvious. When you installed CMBN Norton thought one of the files was a virus. You should be able to trace the file in question and restore it. Click on your Norton Anti virus icon. Click the Tasks Tab. Click on the Security History Heading. Search for the quarantined file that has Combat Mission in it. Click to restore this file. A lot of people with Norton are struggling with this install issue. There should be an easy to find known issues Readme with the download or disk install, or a troubleshooting FAQ that deals with this specific issue, or Battlefront should settle this known issue with Norton.

I'll be honest; I never got into the Combat Mission Battle for Normandy, I just ended up bogging down on it, and didn't give it the learning effort that the game deserved. I downloaded the Fortress Italy trial and it pulled me in right away. I have since that time bought the game and am enjoying it. There really aren't that many noticeable differences between games, but the ones that stand out to me are the movable waypoints and the manual that you can actually read. (The CMBN manual was definately artistically done, but the dark background text was very hard to read). I will most definately buy the 2.0 upgrade for Combat Mission Battle for Normandy if they fix the above mentioned differences. I love the relative spotting and the intelligence of the AI. This game is great fun!

I have done the same as Narses has done and haven't had any issues with the game. I've not had Norton difficulties as many have expressed. I personally wasn't going to go with Norton because I have heard horror stories from people. However when I bought my new laptop it had Norton 360 which I gave a trial. Besides the issue of installation of Fortress Italy (which was easily resolved) I've only been happy with Norton. In what I've seen it just runs in the background and does what it's supposed to do which is snag viruses before it infects the PC. I personally have had more issues with Microsoft Security Essentials. In that case there was no resolution. Just because the product has had releases that were awful doesn't make that product awful forever. To make a wise choice on any product it is very helpful to look at reviews of the actual released product; not strictly at opinions of people who swore off the product long ago. I personally give Norton 360 a very good review.

I just tried this out. Even though it looks like this is a command for the troops to cover the ground by foot they do wait until the vehicle stops before unloading. This is great. Hopefully they do address the periodic bug where troops leave the vehicle while it is running.

I'm playing through the tutorial using the turn based mode. I am wondering whether it would be possible to unload a vehicle after the vehicle has arrived at the end of it's checkpoint. With each turn a minute of time passes by. I would like to be able to effectively use the time left over from when the vehicle reaches it's destination. I've set the vehicle waypoints but it doesn't appear that I can continue with a vehicle unload once the vehicles have arrived in the initial movement even though there may be a half minute available to start the unload. Can an unload be added in directly after the vehicle movement?

I'm not sure whether I should ask the question here or start a new thread. What would the optimum computer makeup look like? At 1st I wasn't too concerned but I'm anticipating that 4km by 4km maps might be a system hog. It sounds as if Open GL will be the bottleneck which the game speed must go through. If this is so what would need to be looked at in order to get the most Open GL performance? I have an ATI 5850 card. From many experiences I have seen that ATI often short changes their Open GL. Is there something out there that might shine above all others with Open GL performance?

I am wondering whether the communication's vehicles such as Sd.Kfz.232 that might be in this game might actually have functional communication capability within the game? This is something that Theater of War 2 Kursk did not have even though they had the vehicles. I'd love to see something like this be modeled within the game.

What I'd really like to see is Combat Mission with the CoPlay in which the battle size would essentially be double the size to allow for a good 2vs2 matchup. I think something like that would be epic. Will CoPlay be in the game anytime soon?

Thank you!

Judging from this reply it does SOUND as if SOUND contacts are in. That is great. I thought I read something earlier in the CMBN forum which was contrary to this but this referred only to the abstract misidentification of contacts.

I'm sorry; I guess I jumped to a big conclusion since I ordered both products from the same company. I'm glad you straightened me out.

One thing that is a curiousity to me is how a company as short staffed as Battlefront is able to produce 2 essentially similar types of games concurrently. Here is an example of how the blending of the 2 games could produce a better product. It would seem that combining resources between TOW and CM could yield greater production value in a shorter amount of time. I also don't really care for how Combat Mission makes you feel like you are playing on a table. You can zoom out of the map to where you essentially don't see the map anymore. TOW at least gives you the illusion that the scenery continues off the edges. The perfect game might be the combination of visual dynamics from TOW and game mechanics from CM.

I remember those numbers That game really got me into the WW2 gaming.

They were X'd out for me as well but there was right click option that allowed display of the pictures.

Vinnart: Thank you for sharing your N52 layout concept. I might have to re-install the old N52 to see how this would work. It sounds like your concept is to have the most used keys front and center. Everyone has a different concept for key arrangement; it is fun to have the flexibility. I do like your idea of adding texture to the keypad so you don't have to look down to see whether you lost your hand position. There is a small key locator in the center of each gamepad, but there are times when that's not enough. Viajero: There are numerous people who think a lot of Arma II as a decent FPS which is almost simulation like. This would have to be on my short list of games to try out. However I do believe RO Heroes of Stalingrad will be an awesome game; as well as being a WWII title. That I am really anxious for. LJFHutch: The N52TE may have it's weaknesses on the software end, but it is a top notch hardware peripheral. I would not trade it for the original N52 because I love the feel of the keypad.

I have had different issues with ATI and OpenGL. To be quite honest I bought the ATI 5850 because it handles directX 11 (which I haven't been able to use yet). I've had oddities with open GL applications such as CAD, simulation software and older games such as CMBB. I don't seem to have anything that is serious when playing CMSF but I can't say I'm completely satisfied with what the game does with brightness in the game. I'm sure there must be tweaks to get the desired effect though. I guess if I were to buy a graphics card again that I'd switch back to Nvidia.

I have a graphic card related question which could address Nvidia or ATI. Would CMBN benefit from DirectX 11?

user 38: I appreciate your checking for what I could not find. It appears that the lower Menus directory and the 3 Instant commands just can not be tied to a hotkey. I think there are other commands as well such as setting an artillery strike that can't be hot keyed. In having the conversation with you in your G700 thread I'm sure that you can see what I was trying to do. I'd like to tie all the key strokes to my N52 to free up from having to drag the mouse into the command interface area. I am quite happy with the relative key layout which I did program into my N52, as that takes care of the majority of the command interface. However I like to see just how far I can customise things. I didn't notice anyone who was searching for the icon equivalents in the thread you attached, but perhaps it wouldn't hurt to ask a question there as well as in this forum. Thank you

Sitting Duck: The thread that you are looking for in terms of Command Delays is here. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=94476 The short answer is no, but I do appreciate that a better way of implimenting Command Delays was discussed by Steve in this thread for down the road. I do agree that Command Delays would be much more substantial in a WWII based game compared to a modern day game. I guess we'll see if this results in an aura of unrealism.

I would like re-configurable waypoints as it worked well in Combat Mission x1. However I think that this really is just a safety net feeling as making mistakes with waypoints in Combat Mission x1 meant a lot of command delay. Since mistakes no longer mean command delays it appears that now this really isn't a huge issue. The only drawback that I now see that could drive someone crazy is if they waypointed all the way across the map and discovered that they made one mistake towards the beginning. For this reason perhaps the use of waypoints eventually will be scaled quite a bit back.

user38: Last evening I video reviewed the Logitech Revolution and the G700 to see if this would give me a big gain. I believe your review of the G700 covers more points and is more applicable. I hold the MX518 mouse exactly the way you describe holding the G700 mouse. Since I have smaller hands this would tell me that I too would have trouble reaching all the keys; it would not be a perfect fit. Still it is good to know that there is a gaming mouse out there that could provide more keys if I find I needed them. Both the G700 and the Revolution have a free wheeling scroll wheel. That is very intriguing but I'm wondering whether that would be a huge gain in gaming; especially with Combat Mission. Vinnart: I like how you use the forward and back buttons on your mouse. It is also good to see that there are several people who play Combat Mission who use the N52. Please feel free to share your key layout if it works good for you. Yesterday afternoon I pulled out my N52TE and set it up for the Combat Mission SF demo. I set this up to Combat Mission's relative key layout and it works awesome. Basically anything you see on the screen is what the gamepad is laid out to. This frees up a lot of keys because each key does quadruple duties. Each of the 4 menu headings MOVEMENT, COMBAT, SPECIAL, ADMIN is triggered by the 4 main D pad headings. For this alone I'm happy that I dug out the N52TE. I would like to capture the other important keys; since I've not played CMSF that much I'm thinking that this will be a work in progress. I won't be able to completely abandon mouse clicking in the game interface unfortunately as it appears not every icon on the screen can be configured to a hotkey.