Sgt Joch

Franko, glad to see you are back. I actually lost "Tank Warning" as the Soviets against a good German player, found out the hard way charging the German lines was not a good idea even when you have a huge amount of tanks. My favorite were "Der Manstein Kommt" and "Anzio". I hope we will see your work in CMSF.

I am also thinking it may be a pathfinding issue. I had a squad on ground level. It was healthy, +1 morale in C&C of the platoon HQ in a nearby building. I tried to get it to move to the ground level of an adjacent building, but no luck. However, when I ordered it to go up on the roof of the building they were in, they moved without hesitation. [ August 05, 2007, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: Sgt.Joch ]

I don't know if anyone else has seen this. In the Al Amarah scenario which is MOUT fighting against irregulars, my Stryker infantry had occupied the first line of outlying buildings and got caught up in a fierce firefight. After it died down, I ordered some of my squads to cross the street and occupy the next line of buildings, but they refused to move, whether I gave them a "hunt" or "quick" command. I checked and both squads were in C2 and had good morale. So what is going on? bug, feature or am I missing something?

Now that I have more game time under my belt, I just wanted to say I like the way air/artillery is handled, it's flexible and you have many options, but it is easy to use.

What does the pause feature have to do with "realism"? Quite the contrary IMHO. No single RL commander is presented with what the player needs to do in a CMSF game. Lack of it just pushes the emphasis onto fast fingerwork and familiarity with the camera controls rather tactical acumen. As previous posters have said; those who don't want to pause don't have to. Roll on the patch which fixes this. </font>

as I see it, this is the issue: there are presently 3 modes in RT: -basic + give orders while paused -veteran + give orders while paused -elite + not able to give orders while paused BFC wants to get rid of the last level and replace it by: -elite + give orders while paused All I am saying is since they have already gone to the trouble of coding "not able to give orders while paused" and it works well, why get rid of it? instead just combine: -elite + give orders while paused that way you get 4 modes, namely: -basic + give orders while paused -veteran + give orders while paused -elite + give orders while paused -elite + not able to give orders while paused and that way everyone is happy. Whether they do it as a additional mode or a toggle, I don't care. Why restrict choices when we have no idea how the game engine will develop over the next 5-6 years?

This is why I personally don't accept the notion that it's more "realistic"-Unless you're attempting to simulate a WW2 Imperial Japanese style of C2. It assumes that the company commander has to personally assign things as basic as facing to each and every soldier under command, and that no smaller unit has any eyeballs, ears or initiative.(and a short attention span, to boot) I mean, you could argue that using any other camera than '1' with the camera not locked on a unit is unrealistic, but..it's not. And neither is pausing. </font>

That is a overly harsh statement. I would argue that having a pause in Elite is actually more arcadish since no commander in battle has the ability to freeze time, issue orders, and restart time. At my age, I am actually quite a slow player, but in Elite, WEGO and RL, the key to success is the same: sound pre-battle planning & sound battle tactics. Do battles ever spin out of control? sure, but is'nt that what happens in real life? Players should really give this a chance before they dismiss it out of hand.

My main point here is that there seems to be a rush to scrap the current "Elite" level before players have had a chance to decide whether they like it or not. After six days of playing with it, I like the way it works right now and there should be a discussion on whether to modify or not before it is gone forever. If some players want the ability to issue orders while paused, the correct method would be to modify the "veteran" level or to create a new intermediate level "Elite FOV + pause" and not scrapping the existing "Elite" level. If they are planning to recode this feature in any event, would it be really harder to give players an additional choice instead of removing one? [ August 03, 2007, 11:57 AM: Message edited by: Sgt.Joch ]

really? I must be going blind, i never noticed that, will check again.

This is not really a bug, but we need some sort of indication (like in CMx1) that reinforcements have arrived. I don't know how many times I have played a battle only to discover that reinforcements were sitting in the rear doing nothing. Any indication, pop up, message text, flashing light would be welcome. Personally, I would like a voice message: "Reinforcements have arrived, sir!".

I think the current "Elite" level could have a lot of potential over the life of the new game engine, if players give it a chance. I just don't think scrapping it in the first week is a good idea.

Excellent! As it is, I rarely use this method, anyway, but when I feel I have to use it, I want it to be there even in Elite mode. In your case: just do not pause. Problem solved. By the way, I do not agree with you that RT is any more or less realistic than WeGo. It is just as unrealistic that I advance only on one front because I focus my attention there and leave the other front static. It is also not realistic that, simply because you double the number of units in a scenario, the degree of 'confusion' will also double. Does not correspond to real life. Just my thoughts, though, nothing I would go into a pseudo-religious argument over. For me, RT is a matter of economy. Try to play a 90 min. scenario turn-based *shudder*. Best regards, Thomm </font>

where?

Catching up on the huge volume of posts, I read BFC is planning to dumb down the "Elite" level by adding the possibility to issue orders while the game is paused. I personally think this would be a bad idea and a step backwards in the quest for a realistic simulation of warfare. One of my biggest criticisms of CMx1 was the unrealistic God like command and control the player had. Since you had an unlimited amount of time to plan a 60 second move, each unit would be micromanaged and coordinated to a degree which would be impossible in real life. I have been playing the game in "Elite" ironman mode without pausing and it does a decent job of simulating battlefield confusion where you have to make snap judgments, not every decision is perfect and mistakes happen. Adding the ability to issue orders while the game is paused would actually be worse than the CMx1 system since players could pause the game every 5 seconds (and I know some who would)and micromanage the game to an even greater degre than in CMx1. So I am opposed to this plan to dumb down the current "Elite" level to make the game easier. My suggestion would be as follows: 1-keep the current "Elite" level as is for diehard realism nuts like myself;and 2-introduce a new "Crack" or "veteran plus" level which would have the eilte FOV and the ability to issue orders while the game is paused, for the players that want a less stressful gaming experience. The discussion is now open...

So there will only be 5 patches? I would expect more serious support from Battlefront...

This is a continuation of the same debate with had in CMx1 of whether Halftracks are taxis or assault vehicles. -If you move your infantry up inside a Stryker/Bradley, they are safe from small arms fire and light shrapnel, but a RPG/ATGM can easily take out the vehicle and all the troops inside it in one shot; -If you move your infantry up dismounted, they can be chewed up by small arms fire/artillery, but they give you an extra set of eyes to spot RPG/ATGM teams which they can take out on their own with JAVELINS, plus the vehicles can provide fire support against any spotted infantry/MG/HQ units; Since you have to assume that any enemy force, even irregulars, will be liberally equipped with RPG/ATGMs, moving loaded vehicles blindly within the enemy LOS is risky. On the other hand, moving dismounted infantry across open ground can also be dangerous. Hence the rock, paper, scissors conendrum...

I just started that mission. I am trying my CMx1 WW2 tactics, basically move my infantry up, one team at a time, in short bounds with the remaining infantry/vehicles in overwatch. As soon as they spot something or take fire, move up my MGS/40 mm Strykers in LOS and blast the enemy into oblivion. rinse, repeat. I will report back on how it goes.

I'm game. I just didn't want to foster the idea that I'm someone who could just be walked on...I don't do it in RL, and I won't do it here. Would it be wrong to tell everyone here now that I'm just 13 years old? My mom says I'm "precocious"! </font>

Hey, we whipped your ass in 1812, you don't want to get us Québécois riled up!

Who appointed you "arrogance patrol"? I can't help the way you feel, so my advice to you is ignore me...please?! </font>

It works perfectly, the biggest improvement in the game system as far as I am concerned. Been playing at the "Elite" level and I like the way target info acquired by one unit is gradually passed off to other nearby friendly units based on command&control, it has a nice realistic feel to it.

My goal here isn't to find out the specific answers to these questions. I'm giving feedback to the developers about the questions I had in mind when playing the game over the last couple of days. Why I haven't read the manual isn't important. What IS important is the actual real world fact that most users don't read manuals, or look stuff up in a book when playing a videogame. Developers should create their games with that fact in mind (and most do), with a great deal of attention put towards user interface. </font>

To echo what Sergei said, there is no parallel. CMSF simulates a hot conventional war, while Iraq is a counter-insurgency/police operation where different (i.e. political) considerations come into play. This should really be in the GF.

Players can make their own campaigns, so I am sure it won't be long before user made Red campaigns appear. I am toying with the idea of making a Red guerilla campaign against occupying U.S. forces when I am more familiar with the game.