Humbug

Greetings my fellow strategy gamers. I thought I was going to create a pack of QB maps much like LJF's once, but I soon realised it was too big an undertaking and I didn't have the time for it. I almost managed to create two before I ended up quitting, and now after many months I thought it was a waste to have my second map just sitting there unfinished so I decided to finish it (it only needed some fine tuning) and release it stand alone much like my first one. However, I then got the idea that perhaps someone much more experienced in the skill of scenario making would like to take the map itself and make a good scenario out of it. I may be wrong but I think it has a reasonably interesting layout. I created it with a meeting engagement in mind but I suppose it could be made into an attack/defend-scenario if need be. The river is shallow and fordable for infantry all over, but vehicles can only cross at the bridge in the south or the vehicle ford in the north. If there are no takers I will just release it as is. It's perfectly playable as a quick battle H2H. There are AI plans for both sides but they are pretty basic and haven't been play tested. Here's a few pictures:

Speaking of the Jagdpanther, is there any single scenario in CW that uses them?

You sure have been cranking out those mods at a rapid pace lately. Just don't forget to take breaks and don't overwork yourself because of peoples expectations. You're an integral part of the modding community, would hate to see you get burned out.

Mortars are indeed great for anti-vehicle use. Especially against open topped vehicles. In my current PBEM I was having some trouble with a Marder I which had a long and thin view of my side where I had my tanks, effectively locking them down from moving. What I did was take one of my 81 mm mortars which was too low on ammo to be used effectively for indirect fire, moved it behind bocage in direct line of fire of the marder and let them loose. It took them a couple of rounds but with 2 rounds left they got a direct hit on the opening and knocked it out. Was a great moment for me, my opponent might not be as pleased however. He lost his other Marder to one of my stuarts before it could do anything, here's hoping he doesn't have more of them.

Not entirely sure but I think it has always become available after the strike is concluded. The problem lies in wanting to abort the strike or direct the spotting rounds.

Bumping this. Just playing a PBEM where I used a tank commander to call in a heavy and maximum artillery strike with offboard 25 pounders. A minute or so after calling the strike, with about 12 or so minutes before it would even begin spotting the tank was hit and only one member survives. This artillery is then blocked for usage by any other spotter, and even the surviving member himself can't abort or direct the strike. It has now started spotting on the other side of the map from where I intended it right in front of my advancing infantry. Quite an annoyance to say the least.

Looks great, the unmodded cannon really stands out and makes one appreciate your work even more.

Excellent like always. Battlefront, hire this man!

It's funny because it's true.

Don't have much to add, I agree 100%. I've also really missed the combined arms option. It would definately be my most used option if it was added.

It does put up a fight if the scenario builder isn't incompetent. I'm not sure if bringing TW into this as a positive example is very accurate however. I own most of the TW games, have played them extensively, and if it's one thing the TW developer is known for it is certainly NOT well made AI. Many of the TW titles like Medieval 2 and Empire have completely atrocious AI and is a very common complaint. The newest TW game Shogun 2 has much improved AI but it still does a LOT of very stupid things like charging its general alone into your spearmen. Allied AI's ust running straight into a vastly superior force instead of forming up together with the human player, standing around with units instead of helping his own forces that are fighting, and much much more. But I digress. The CM AI is by no means perfect, but it's not true that it will always do the exact same thing in one playthrough of a scenario to the next. Scenario builders can add multiple plans for the AI with different chances of execution to keep the player guessing, and the combat AI may not choose to execute a plan 100% to the letter every time. Unit positions will vary. It's not a very dynamic AI however and will not react to your decisions. All in all though I'd say the AI may not be perfect, but it doesn't go off the wall and do utterly outrageous things very often either. A well made plan and it can be very deadly indeed as I'm sure you'll find out. If you want a truly dynamic opponent however I'd recommend you play against other humans like yourself. That's where most of the fun lies.

If I ever would want to make sweet love to a big, square chunk of polygons this would be it.

You personally prioritizing other things first, while I don't agree, I respect your right for that opinion, but coming into this thread and trying to shoot down the suggestion with false claims that there's absolutely no need for it whatsoever is a very different thing altogether, my friend. Like I said, you yourself admit that moving multiple units at once is currently flawed to the point of being unusable, that to me sounds like it should be a pretty big priority seeing how a streamlined UI can make or break an otherwise good game and forcing people to always individually move their units isn't really an option with bigger force pools. Wanting to have an UI at least as good as in CMx1 isn't too much to ask, is it?

Well, duh. Thanks for proving my point. Draggable waypoints would be much quicker and easier than both the individual ordering that you claim to always do no matter if you're moving an entire batallion or not, AND simultaneous ordering with the clunky manual removal and re-adding of move orders. It's just a flick of the wrist, really. I've played enough games that DO have this feature to know what a time saver it really is. You say you know how much work moving groups of units can be when you have to readjust them currently and still you try to argue against a feature that would actually make this very problem much less of an issue. What a silly person you are. Even though YOU (or so you say) may be a god of epic proportions when it comes to ordering individual units one by one in an endless sea of other units, not everyone are, and believe it or not, the game isn't made solely for your enjoyment.

You seriously cannot see the benefits of draggable waypoints? Are we even playing the same game? When you give multiple units a move order a few of those will often be in a place that is less than desirable, like when you want to put them all against a bocage wall for example. Adjusting those few units with a drag and release would be one hell of a lot faster and more intuitive than having to select each unit individually and giving them separate move orders one at a time. Also, sometimes (like when playing RT) there's no time to be taking the long way around and as it is now you just have to settle with inprecise move orders or take the time that could be better used elsewhere. But I suppose even the currently existing feature of being able to select multiple units and giving them orders all at once isn't really needed since you never, ever use that particular function, right?

I'd be happy with draggable waypoints. This change alone would lower the workload by a TON. Now: Select a platoon, choose a move order and click on the destination. Then delete the waypoints of the squads that will be wrong (like on the other side of a wall for example) and redo them one by one. Then: Select a platoon, choose move order and click on the destination. Click and drag the waypoints that are slightly out of place. Done. This single change would make the UI a lot less clunky and frustrating and more time could be spent enjoying the game instead of wrestling with the UI.

Say hello to my little friend.

I'd rather have proper WeGo in Tcp/ip, thank you very much.

Unfortunately not, and I myself cannot fathom why they'd leave out such a critical and iconic feature as WeGo in tcp/ip play either, but that discussion has been done to death so I won't start. I will however tell you that you better hold on for dear life to that wife of yours. Females interested in war games (especially ones as complex as CM) are pretty much the most rare jewel on earth.

Sure they can, even a 75mm sherman can if close enough and from the right angles and flanks. But putting the hurt on them will be much easier than before. And you can't argue that a longer barrel is always good, right? No I'm not compensating for anything!

I for one can't wait to get the 17 pdr mounted sherman (firefly) and the achilles. Finally something to give the big cats a run for their money.

One of my favorite things that I'm missing from Cmx1 are the clear distinction between sound and sight contacts. A lot of times you could hear tanks rolling around somewhere but you couldn't see them. This both gave you intel you should have and increased the immersion. I also miss how your pixeltruppen could misidentify things at times (usually as something bigger and scarier, as it says in the CMBB manual). I'm willing to bet the Panzer IV got misidentified as tigers quite often.

If the loader is abstracted then couldn't you at least prevent him from using his weapon while the gunner is reloading and/or targeting something? No animations needed. Him running around shooting his rifle when he should be busy doing other things just produces silly and almost always unwanted results.

Agreed, it should be an easy enough fix. It's especially annoying since some things are in the wrong flavour object category. Like the big gravestone in the fountain category instead of in the actual gravestone category, as an example.

Version 1.2 includes some critical fixes to balance and LOS as well as fine tuning of AI plans and a few cosmetical changes. Hopefully this will be the last version but I'm open for feedback and criticism.