alan123

Hello, This sounds like a really exciting project. I have taken a big break from TOW for the last year or so, after having played it almost daily, however I am now back. (I got into Red Orchestra and did a realism mod that no one seems to want to play lol, it showed me that you need a game with a respectable AI otherwise you can sit on an empty game server all night and never get to play your game no matter how good it is) TOW3 looks great with the strat layer, I always said that that was what was needed so that it was like the last versions of the Close Command games, with endless possibilities. Then I thought to myself this game would be great if TOW 1 and 2 etc could be made like this and then I discovered this thread where exactly that was being done. I am willing to be a game tester too if you need one, I helped game test some of Gnashers and Arzoks work the year before last. (Bulldog and De Gualle mods) Cheers Alan

Yes the Italian and German campaigns were the best ones, especially the Italian one.

Yes it is annoying sometimes though the game just misfires, misses an internal trigger and just does not end. It could be you have to occupy something with Infantry and not just with tanks, check the mission briefing to make sure. I remember that knocking out the artillery behind the original german start positions (2 75L18 infantry guns) was important and it may be that this ground must also be occupied with infantry too. Alan

You have to drive down to where the germans came out of and nail the leftovers and the ATGs on the other side of the pass. Then the game should end. There is also a narrow walkway accessible only to infantry running parallel to the pass on its right hand side about 300 (game) metres away, there might also be enemy units still active up there too. Failing that just do it all again saving as you go. Good luck.

Hello, Another option is to change the resolution in the config file using wordpad as an editor. That works for me when all the other options are exhausted. AL

I have bought and played all the games you mention, as they were released, a real gaming pioneer I am. I quite liked GI Combat but it never took off like I hoped it would and then TOW game along and I have been playing that ever since. AL

I could not find any Close Combat games on Steam, did you mean Command and Conquer?(groan that is not a real wargame and belongs in the arcade game genre) If Battle Front et al wanted an absolute hit game they should forget scripting and simply make a 3D version of Close Combat V and then to enhance it even more a random map and campaign generator as well, like in the Steelpanthers game. Cheers AL Cheers AL

[quote=jcmil;1200220 Wonder what will happen to BFCs profit margin with Steam prices tho!!

TOW on steam was fully updated a few days ago, it even came with the Lehr Campaign and the Belorussian Campaign, Great value, I am well pleased. Cheers AL

It is there now, TOW was updated to the lastest version today plus the Belorrussian campaign and a few other extras are there too! Brilliant and all at no extra cost! happy gaming Alan

Dear Knokke, Thanks for your help, I have coincidentally just bought the game again as part of the bundle offer with Steam (I only wanted the Kursk game as I have all the others however to get all the games plus the new one for 40euros was too good to go past, especially if they start adding the campaign packs etc as they go, which has been suggested) this then means that I have fresh install to work from that will hopefully be steadily (automatically) updated by Steam and also allow me to keep going with my campaign. Will give it a go. As Winnie said: "Never ever give up". Cheers Alan

I just bought all 3 TOW games for the 40euros package, I already had TOW1 and 2 and now I have the Kursk game that I wanted plus all the online Steam support for updates etc for the other TOW games. Maybe the mission editor in TOW2Afrika will work again for me! Sounds/looks like a great deal, might even find someone online to play. Cheers AL

Hello, Yes I am testing them as a solo mission before adding them to the campaign. Still they do not work. The campaign is now 7 missions long and works fine. The problems began with the 8th mission (which I have now tried to redo about a dozen times now plus some other completely different mission examples just in case the problem was with the map). This pretty much ends my mission and campaign writing career in TOW2 Afrika, as far as I can see I am using only stock units nothing fancy. I even reinstalled the mission editor files from a backup that I have, thinking that perhaps they were corrupt, but it did not help: I made another mission and it crashed on test startup, interesting is that sometimes even the deployment zones get moved around as well, all by themselves. All these problems and crashes etc are the equivalent of having not been able to make about 10 missions. Now it has entered the no fun zone of endless repetition and frustration. Such a shame. Cheers AL

Well I made about 8 missions linked them up as a campaign and all was going well until the 8th mission. Now no matter what I make with the mission generator it freezes and crashes on startup when I test it. When I examine that mission in the mission editor I can see that the placeholders and crews have become seperated and spread themselves over the map in places where I did not place them when I created the mission. I do not know how to fix it and have had about 6 goes at creating new missions and each one freezes on startup, this is despite the use of different units, maps, support etc etc. Somehow I think my mission generator has become corrupted. Is this a known problem? Is there anything I can do? Lettuce no! Alan

I discovered a little trick that gets the computer to write that file for you. What I did was make a copy of the in game German campaign folder, copied my missions into the folder, disassociated and then removed the stock missions from the folder, renamed the folder, restarted the editor and low and behold the computer had written the campaig.xml for me. Plus when I edit the text in the missions using the editor the computer also updates the text.utf8. as it goes along. This gets around writing boring pedantic code. Cheers Alan.

Thanks that was exactly what I needed. This sort of thing should be an automated feature in the mission builder programme so that anyone can do it. No wonder I was not able to do it myself. I am going to do a monster campaign that uses all the maps in TOW2! roughly in date order of when the battles actually occurred but really purely fictional. It will be like a Close Combat 3 The Russian Front Campaign where you fight from map to map in a big long linear line over the course of the whole war from 39 to 43 in Afrika. Thanks again. Alan

Hello, I have been making some simple missions with the mission generator. I wanted to link the missions into a campaign. The trouble is I do not know and cannot find out how to actually create the campaign for the missions to go into. Can you send me some info on how to do this? I have read through the readmes, searched the forum and of course spent hours trying different things in the mission editor but cannot do it. Thanks Alan

Hello, I did have to, ahem, play some of the battles again and of those battles none were the same twice. I will give it a few weeks and do it all again, maybe this time with a handicap like limited Fireflys etc. Some of the finer touches were nice like finding abandoned enemy equipment on the battlefield at startup that could be manned and used. But most of all I liked that the maps were big, there were lots of units in play and everything was done on a grand scale and historically correct too. Thanks for making it and I look forward to seeing more of your games soon. I have played everything to death now and there is no choice left other than to get TOW2Kursk, should be good now that the game has been out for a while already and has received a few tweaks, the demo version was fantastic. Cheers Alan

Hello, I have finished the campaign! It was fantastic and easily the best game around for TOW1. Apart from the excellent game play, missions and maps I liked the historical research and briefings that back it up. It brings history to life. It certainly makes you appreciate the efforts our boys made in Normandy, they were up against about the best Panzer Divisions there were, all of them, all at once and all in this one sector of the front. One thing that occurred to me during play was that it would be great to turn the game around and play from the German side. With all the work you have already done it would probably be relatively quick to do. Probably it would be even more popular than the game you have made given that most gamers, given the choice, want to be a Tiger tank commander. Cheers Alan

Just an update. I moved all my units into the town and the game ended ok. Great game am really enjoying it. Cheers Alan

Hello, I am at Bloody Tilly. The yellow panthers are still there. The game does not want to end and I think it may be because of the Flak38t behind the hill, I cannot get a LOS to it and so the game will not end. Have grid searched the map for enemies but not found any. Also the radio truck behind the village is not showing up as a unit, the motor is still running and it is indestructible, I have been shelling it with my Shermans on area fire mode but is just jumps and bumps but takes no damage, this could also be causing the game not to end. Is there another victory trigger perhaps, such as occupy the village with troops (have hardly any left)? Will save this one and start again and see if I can make it end next time around. Cheers Alan

Hello, I tried reloading Maltot with different units and found that when I used Fireflies, M10s and infantry it worked and loaded ok and the war went on. I have a feeling it was the Staghounds that were causing the crash, but have no idea really. One little thing in this game is the name Churchills kept popping up even after the first reinforcement as though caught in a loop, no big deal, and the reinforcements were not Churchills but a mixed back of M10s, infantry, APCs and ATGs. I forgot to mention in my last post how good this game is and I can see all the little changes, tweaks and improvements you have made since the last edition of this game. Well done, I am enjoying it. Cheers AL

HAllo Gnasher, Have been playing off and on for the last few weeks with some longish breaks in between. Have got as far as the first Maltot battle and the game crashes to desktop. This has stopped me. I have posted my log file below. Also in the last Hill112 battle the line of 88s on the back of the map had no ammo and crews bailed out and ran away when the game started. Log File: [Jun 20, 2010 12:15:41 PM] ------------ BEGIN log session ------------- Sound: Native library (build 1.1, target - P IV) loaded. Main3D >>> renderer type: OPENGL WWThreadPool.create(): Thread pool is created. Threads count = 0 Load gui skin from: Data/Settings/gui.ini =========================== CampaignRecList.updateList() begins =========================== java.io.FileNotFoundException: I/O error: missions/strategy_break/texts.utf8 at com.maddox.rts.SFSInputStream.open(Unknown Source) at com.maddox.rts.SFSInputStream.<init>(Unknown Source) at com.maddox.rts.SFSReader.<init>(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.local.SerializerBase_Text.loadFromFile(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.campaing.CampaignRec.reloadStringTable(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.campaing.CampaignRec.LoadFromXml(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.campaing.CampaignRecList.loadCampaign(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.campaing.CampaignRecList.updateList(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.Main3D.beginApp(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.Main.exec(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.GameWin3D.main(Unknown Source) =========================== CampaignRecList.updateList() ends =========================== Time overflow (0): speed 0.11723329 ERROR file: File wwrcu not found Initializing DirectSound playback device... Primary buffer created. Playback format is set : sampling rate = 44100, num channels = 2. Buffer caps : Transfer rate = 0, CPU overhead = 0. Default speaker config is : 1310724. Direct sound audio device initialized successfully : DX Version : 7 Hardware - disabled [buffers : 0] Extensions - disabled : EAX ver. 1 [ ] - disabled EAX ver. 2 [ ] - disabled EAX ver. 3 [ ] - disabled I3D ver. 2 [ ] - disabled ZoomFX [ ] - disabled MacroFX [ ] - disabled SIMD render [X] num channels 16 cannot open file for reading Cannot open audio file samples/Error_empty.wav =================================================================== Last serial num: unknown Total size in bytes: 0 Number of blocks: 0 ::: setLoading=true VoicesTable.load(): files were scanned in 2888 ms ::: setLoading=false ================ MissionManager.loadMissionBriefing() missions/bulldogs/maltot/briefing.xml ================ ================ MissionManager.loadMissionBriefing() ends ================ ================== START LOADED MISSION missions/bulldogs/maltot/mission.xml===================== =================================================================== Last serial num: unknown Total size in bytes: 0 Number of blocks: 0 ::: setLoading=true ERROR file: File ww.cmd not found Selected Decal #1: STEEL, TEX 0, BRIGHTNESS 0 --------------------------- Precache Effects begins --------------------------- --------------------------- Precache Effects ends --------------------------- MapsStorage.aiMapAddRoads(): roads where added in 7 ms LandscapeTrees.recalcTreeVisBlocks() recalculated in 8 ms Normal: availNodeNum/availNodeList.Size = 0/0 Aggressive: availNodeNum/availNodeList.Size = 359/0 --PFSCache read-- ================ MissionManager.loadMissionBriefing() missions/bulldogs/maltot/briefing.xml ================ ================ MissionManager.loadMissionBriefing() ends ================ === END OF TRIGGER COMPILATION === owner=ENTITY id 708, classname [HUMAN], skeName [models\human\sk_0\skel.ske], meshName [models\human\sk_0\ger\ger_ss_solder_40_summer\body.msh], has master [--none--] ownerstate=1 name=infantry_ss AnimState: stateAnimCur=0 stateAnimNext=-1 timeout=0 moveMode=0 ===TRACE LOG START for 708:Lambert Kastner : T 0, state started: Main ===TRACE LOG END java.lang.RuntimeException: state was INIT at com.ic.bc.testnav.SplineNavigator.setState(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.testnav.SplineNavigator.sleep(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.entities.Unit.setState(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.game.groups.Group.sleep(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.entities.factory.MissionCreator2.createMission(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.Mission.loadMissionStart(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.gui.menus.Loading$BackgroundLoader.run(Unknown Source) at com.maddox.rts.BackgroundTask.doRun(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.MainWin3D.loopApp(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.Main.exec(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.GameWin3D.main(Unknown Source) ::: setLoading=false Load Mission Start crashed java.lang.RuntimeException: Load Mission Start crashed at com.ic.ww.game.Mission.loadMissionStart(Unknown Source) at com.ic.bc.gui.menus.Loading$BackgroundLoader.run(Unknown Source) at com.maddox.rts.BackgroundTask.doRun(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.MainWin3D.loopApp(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.Main.exec(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.GameWin3D.main(Unknown Source) *** FAILURE *** [sYSTEM] Main loop: BackgroundTask crashed: java.lang.RuntimeException: BackgroundTask crashed: at com.maddox.rts.BackgroundTask.doRun(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.MainWin3D.loopApp(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.Main.exec(Unknown Source) at com.ic.ww.game.GameWin3D.main(Unknown Source) ================== DESTROY GAME ===================== ::: MeshShared.shared Effects\GunFire\020_049mm\mono.sim not destroyed, link count = 20 ::: MeshShared.shared Effects\GunFire\050_089mm\mono.sim not destroyed, link count = 39 ::: MeshShared.shared Effects\GunFire\010_019mm\mono.sim not destroyed, link count = 80 GObj.finalize (1): C++ object 1210777728 [null] java name [?] of class com.maddox.core.Mesh NOT destroyed, JAVA link count = 80, last link count = 0 GObj.finalize (1): C++ object 1210777944 [null] java name [?] of class com.maddox.core.Mesh NOT destroyed, JAVA link count = 39, last link count = 0 GObj.finalize (1): C++ object 1261695640 [null] java name [?] of class com.maddox.core.Mesh NOT destroyed, JAVA link count = 20, last link count = 0 PFS recalculate missionDestroy for Normal: nodeNum= 52481, availNodeNum=1452 PFS recalculate missionDestroy for Aggressive: nodeNum= 27217, availNodeNum=1775 PFS recalculate missionDestroy for Normal: nodeNum= 52481, availNodeNum=35119 PFS recalculate missionDestroy for Aggressive: nodeNum= 27217, availNodeNum=9945 ================== DESTROY GAME IS DONE===================== WWThreadPool.destroy(): Thread pool is destroyed [Jun 20, 2010 12:17:11 PM] -------------- END log session -------------

Hello, That sniper comment was not a complaint just an observation. Now having played that battle several times I can see that it is not that they are especially good but that there are quite are few of them. You only really get to see them at the end of the mission when the Germans quit and run and the Snipers break cover to join the retreat. Just a handful were enough to annihilate practically a whole company. One thing this TOW1 needs is on map mortar units like the German 81mm, and the allied 60mm and 81mm mortars. (just like in CC lol). I find the 75mmL18 IG in TOW2 a very useful weapon in the indirect fire role. I have fought may way across 3 maps so far: Rauray Spur The German response Incident at Cheux And then the game goes back to Rauray Spur for pretty much an identical battle as for the first, is that correct or is an unwanted loop? I am on my third loop now. I went through a couple of times to make sure as I know that many hills and so on were fought over many times. However the briefings and units are the same etc and the incident at Cheux only happened once. I did not mind repeating the battles as they are so good however it would be nice to be able to see and experience the rest. I have done Rauray Spur, for various reasons, about 5 times now and on my last attempt only lost 8 men in taking the hill, a big improvement on the first few times I can tell you. Other small things I have noticed is that on the German side sometimes vehicles show a no ammo icon, mostly half-tracks, though I did see a JpzIV like that too. On the last go at Rauray Spur German Response my first lot of bomber Typhoons flew around for the whole battle and I cannot say for sure if they actually bombed or strafed anything. Looked good though. Is there anything I can do to break the loop and move on? Cheers Alan

I would like to have edited my message above but cannot, anyway I did the whole install process again (you can see I am keen!) and this time it all works ok. Got through the first mission no problems, stalls or crashes, it even saved ok part way through and after setup. Those German snipers in front of the trenches were just too deadly. Cheers Alan