Broadsword56

Motherboard failed on my PC the other day. Getting a newer, better rig. But I dread the process of getting all my CM games back and restoring them to the latest patched versions, etc. Any tips for making that go as smoothly as possible without licensing hassles or missing a step somewhere?

It's pointless and unnecessary to fully detail a home-made master map, since you never know in the beginning which places on it you'll be fighting. Select the battle area first, then add details.

There’s a master map of nearly the entire XIX Corps area for the June 1944 push to Saint-Lo that I made years ago. It’s still widely available on the download site that replaced the BFC Repository. It’s fully accurate from satellite terrain and period photos. But it’s not detailed with objects, trees and vegetation or buildings. The idea is that you first cut out the area you want to use, then detail just the actual area of your battle. Still way faster than a map from scratch.

Also, the best grand-Tactical board Wargames have command-control mechanisms (e.g., chit-pull, op sheets, objective control markers that restrict route of march and unit boundaries, activation points) that limit and vary how much a player’s units can do (if they activate at all). So in those games, an attacking player is often having to push on in less-than optimal circumstances — without all the assets one should have, for example, or giving too big a mission to too small a unit because of time pressure, or having to depend on a fatigued, spent unit to win an attack. It’s those games that generate the variable soft factors and surprisingly interesting setups for CM, not the I go-you go ones that let a player methodically build up 3:1 odds and let you move troops at will all over the map.

Back in 2016, sburke and I were using BCS Last Blitzkrieg to run a KG Peiper campaign with CM2 4.0. We’ve found the battles at 3:1 odds are not the ones you necessarily want to set up in CM. But we’ve often found that in the course of a campaign, lots of other, less-certain, oddball engagements happen that make thrilling CM setups. In the Bulge, a single US engineer company holding a bridge vs. A panzer battalion for longer than expected is a huge deal and can cause huge problems for the Germans. Often, we find engagements that look one-sided on paper turn out to be much more interesting and closely fought due to terrain factors, weather (reducing visibility, for example), and localised fog of war. In one battle, I had a US cavalry unit trying to fight a screening/delaying action against Peiper’s spearhead. My nimble little armored cars were able to perform surprisingly well as they shot and scooted from good cover in a village. So my advice is, play the board game and just watch for the interesting and unexpected things to happen. If it’s one of the better-designed games (BCS series certainly qualifies), the game will tell you when a CM-worthy situation appears.

That IS genuinely good news, Steve! A Merry Christmas to all, and I look forward to peering through the pixelsmoke of war-torn France, Russia, Italy and Holland again in the new year.

Yes, really between My XIX Corps master map and LLF's Le Carillon master map, we really did have most of the St-Lo campaign area mapped. The glaring exception was the 2nd ID sector on the E side along Martinville Ridge -- a very important sector -- but one that we skipped at the time because back then the German FJ troops weren't yet in the game.

The Scale of St-Lo is 306 yards per hex, and time scale is 1 day per turn. Each turn lasts a good while, as the sides alternate attempts to activate their troops. What's particularly good about St-Lo for use with Combat Mission is the nature of bocage fighting -- the engagements were highly compartmentalized due to the terrain, so it really was a company commander's war. Copies of the game are very easy to find used for cheap, and there's a fine VASSAL module for it -- which is what I used.

I thought that ditchlocked basement under the multistory building was great as long as the building stood. But yes, when artillery collapsed the building into its basement, I recall sending GIs into that huge rubble pit to hunt out any surviving Germans. The yanks would hesitate at the edge, as if to look at me and say, "Are you nuts?" and then would leap off the edge into the abyss like hatchlings taking their first tentative flight from the nest... They ended up getting mugged down there by various Germans who they (and I) had no way of seeing. It was very weird and didn't look particularly realistic at all, but I found it kind of cool in another way -- or at least different! I think in that same battle there was a German command post in another building in a ditchlocked basement, and sburke's men got stuck down there. It was quite a few years ago now, so my recollection has grown hazy...(CM has entered the category of pleasant nostalgia for me, I'm afraid, since it's been so long since I was actually playing it and I reluctantly set it aside in the wait for the patch.)

And in at least one WWII campaign -- Operation Market Garden -- a chain-link fence played an important role. It was a high one that lined part of the British main route from their drop zone to Arnhem. It channeled movement and trapped some British paras when the Germans counterattacked.

OK thanks -- I'm all set now.

OK thanks -- I got the fresh install done and have requested a new activation key with a help ticket.

I searched the BFC site and can't find any downloadable file called "CM Normandy 4.00 Full Windows." Nothing when I search on "installer" either. The only thing I see is "CM Battle for Normandy Big Bundle (Windows)" but to get it I'd have to pay $105, and that's for all the same content I've already bought and paid for since 2011. Still confused.

I just applied my CM "Big Bundle" upgrade to my CMBN that was up to v 3.11. When I launch CMBN, it shows the title screen and 4.0 on the lower right (so far, so good) But there's an error message on the screen that says it's missing 2 files and to contact support: normandyv220.brz normandyv312.brz Where do I find these or how to I get them to make my CMBN launch?

Thanks, but since my original CMFI install started with the physical CD, would the license number from that box allow me to download a fresh version of CMFI from the website?