Conscript Bagger

Using a lower level of trees, doodads, smoke, etc. might speed up your camera too. I always turn them down or off during the orders phase so I can get around quicker. And avoid heavily-damaged maps - all those craters are death to framerate.

Installed any mods lately? If I'm correctly picturing the effect you describe, it could happen if your trench bmps accidentally got overwritten with road images.

Hee hee, Gyrene's been around here so long, I never thought he'd need to be told to Do A Search (albeit on a different site)! Though it does help if you know how to spell "Strontium"...

I thought Thermopylae and Joe Shaw were being real bastards until I re-read and noticed their siglines...

You're right about the free setup issue, but aren't scenarios usually meant to be played using the designer's setup (at least the first time)? Also, instead of using landmarks, I've been thinking about more of a grid coordinate system; i.e., put labels at regular intervals along the map edges and give references in the briefing like "AT guns at C-8." That way, the defender can't tell at a glance which of his positions are compromised at setup.

gpo = Government Printing Office link to CD-ROM collection Granted, much (most/all?) of the material on the CDs is already online. [ August 25, 2003, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: Impudent Warwick ]

Maybe a light bridge with a wire unit on it? Not sure how much that might increase bogging, though. If you put the wire lengthwise down the middle of the bridge, there might still be enough space to either side for infantry to cross quickly (as I would think they should be able to, compared to a vehicle).

Lt. Bull, your chart seems to indicate that the Withdraw order was only executed toward the enemy. Is that correct?

I was thinking of another possibility during the last assault boat thread--if it's critical that the assault crossing take place "on screen," what about making the water Deep Ford terrain instead? It would still be impassable to vehicles, but AI infantry wouldn't need the boats. I haven't tested, but I suppose it would depend on how similar move speed and exposure to fire are in a ford vs. in a boat.

For all who are still playing CMBO... How about a visit to the Pruemerberg? A 2 km x 2 km map for your force-buying pleasure. I was originally going to make a series of scenarios using this map, but then CMBB was released and I never finished the research. Hopefully you can have some fun with the map itself, though. (No host = no screenies, sorry. ) Get it at the Depot under CMBO Maps, titled "Pruemerberg 12-44." From the description:

On the way... hopefully my Yahoo account will work where the other failed. Thanks!

Fighting Steel is fun, though it doesn't grab me like CM does. Had a good time sinking the Bismarck with the Hood, though. Setting the Autosave to the smallest possible time increment goes a long way to alleviate the pain of the game's frequent CTDs, and night battles are very attractive.

Adm Keth, I sent my "Pruemerberg 12-44" (CMBO map) file a couple of weeks ago; could you let me know if you received it or need a re-send? (Return address on the e-mail would be ezp@mail.com)

Juardis, a couple of possibilities: 1. Like Kingfish said, once the game begins, empty boats have to be on land to be boarded (your infantry can't cross any water pixels to the boats if they're offshore). 2a. Are the boats inside your setup zone? If not, that would explain why you can't embark in the setup phase. 2b. An alternate reading of your comment could be that you're trying to place units inside boats in the editor and it won't let you... I don't have an answer for that one.

Perhaps "free" in the sense that you aren't charged for it, but you definitely pay a price!

The Berkeley URL has changed. Here's the new one: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/x-ussr/ukraine.html Try http://www.multimap.com too.

Ken - you're right, it's an outstanding map. I can say that because it isn't mine. I posted this link a couple of weeks ago in the Scenario forum. Go there and you will find the Demyansk map and many, many others: http://mapy.mk.cvut.cz/news.htm

The town is pretty much dead center on this map. If you have trouble finding it, you can see the Cyrillic spelling of the name here.

Kip (or anyone else who knows), to me this implies that the Soviets had (a) good enough intelligence/recon to know where the panzers were concentrating and ( time enough to move their AT units to the area. I'm prepared to accept this for the most part, as a panzer division is pretty hard to hide, but were there also instances where, say, the Germans pulled off a deception plan and managed to send an armored force where the Soviets didn't expect it? or expected it but just plain didn't have the AT assets in place? Of course, "everyone knows" that the Soviets had all the time in the world to prepare gun fronts at Kursk, but I'm wondering how the strategy worked in the rest of the war. How much time did it take to find the panzers? How long to get the guns in place? Did they simply have enough guns and the flow of the campaigns was so established that the Germans never surprised them? thanks in advance

Yes, you'd think European reviewers would be better versed in battles that took place "over there." I hope not too many people rely on that site for their history lessons. I finally picked up Medieval: Total War last week, so I'm getting into that. Trying to finish long-running games of Jagged Alliance 2 and Starship Troopers, too (stop laughing). When CMBB goes in the drive, it's usually to design scenarios that will never be good enough for release, rather than to actually play.

Hey Valera, no problem. The more designers see that site, the better for all of us!

I just found this site; don't recall seeing it posted on this board before. maps galore Tons of scanned maps at 1:200,000 or 1:100,000 scale - and some even lower - covering the CMBB area (as well as other parts of the world). The maps of Russia are in Russian, so you might find this translator handy.

Merchant tonnage, 1939 1. Great Britain ------ 21,001,925 2. United States ----- 11,470,177 4. Norway ------------ 4,833,813 7. Netherlands -------- 2,969,578 8. France ------------- 2,933,933 9. Belgium -------------- 408,418 3. Japan ------------- 5,629,845 5. Germany ---------- 4,482,662 6. Italy -------------- 3,424,804 from Bartelby.com [ May 14, 2003, 02:37 PM: Message edited by: Offwhite ]

I'd give my (non-mouse) hand to have time to actually play the game...

Are you sure? One of the major complaints in CMBO was that the AI suffered from an incurable case of "out of sight, out of mind" (go to the forum archives and search on "Villers-Bocage," "turret," and "why." ). If this has changed in CMBB, I missed the fanfare.