Pak40

Jon vs John. Clearly this is a battle over how to spell 'John' correctly.

True, I'm not sure why these haven't been implemented for the AI yet. Even Steel Panthers had the AI pop smoke when units were retreating or under heavy fire, etc. Area fire is such a basic tactic, it's a shame it's not implemented.

Well, you've touched part of the point I was trying to make, i.e. we are already at a big advantage over the A.I. and an auto LOS tool will only make that advantage greater. And fine, I recant the term "Cheat". But you have to admit it's a tool that will give us more of an unfair advantage against an AI that cannot nearly compete with a human's superior understanding of the battlefield. And, for those of you saying that covered arcs and hiding are already something that gives us an advantage because the AI cannot perform these actions, well you're half correct. The scenario designer can program the AI to ambush at various distances and can have units hide at any given AI Plan, however, the computer AI cannot choose to do these on it's own.

Heck no, I love my beer, porn, strip clubs, and short skirts. You can keep the ciggies.

Well, first off, I never called you or anyone else a cheater. However, the tool you wish to implement is in fact a form of cheating. Since the AI doesn't have the ability to do this, and you would use this LOS tool knowing that it gives you an unfair advantage, then yes, I would consider that cheating. The problem is what you're suggesting is too easy and tempting for players, even players like me who are adamantly against it. Dangle an apple in front of someone and they're going to bite it eventually, it's human nature. If it's ever implemented in single player it should be optional at all levels and forced off at the hardest grog level. As I said before, if in MP both parties agree on it then it's not cheating. However, I still have an issue with an auto-LOS tool because it will fundamentally change the way the game is played. RAKE, has a very good point which sums up what I fear will happen: Basically, what Rake is saying is that the role of scouting, which is an important part of combat tactics, will be greatly diminished because people will be using Auto-LOS tool instead. It will fundamentally change the way the game is played, diminishing the realism that BF is trying to simulate.

Making a magical LOS tool will only be a band-aid to a TacAI problem. I think the real solution to the "herding cat syndrome" is to fine tune the TacAI so that individual soldiers actually seek and find better vantage points from which to fire from. But this has to be done so that soldiers or vehicles are not constantly moving from one spot to another until they finds a good spot. And don't forget that the AI or human opponent has the exact same limitations, so it's not like we're at a disadvantage. What exactly is the interface change problem that you're referring to?

Regardless of your intentions, it's still cheating, or if you'd rather phrase it this way, an unfair advantage. If I was playing a game versus you and you had a LOS checking tool and I did not, that's an unfair advantage. It's kind like a chess match between two humans but one of them has access to IMB's Deep Blue. As mentioned by others, humans already have this basic ability when setting waypoints, which gives us an unfair advantage - it's just cumbersome to use. Now what Townes(and others before him) is suggesting will make it it easier for the player to have an unfair advantage.

Yes, it would be a HUGE time saver. It would also be cheating when playing vs the AI. You'd be playing against an already inferior opponent that cannot check the LOS of any spot on the map to any other spot. So now you're probably saying to yourself "well, BF can even the playing field by adding LOS checking to the AI code." Now you just opened up a whole can of worms to reprogram the way the AI behaves and it would probably take up massive CPU cycles in the process. Massive disaster. The only logical and fair implementation of this would be to allow it for online/pbem only, but make it OPTIONAL for those of us who don't like to cheat or who like the realism of the game the way it is.

+1 to this. The last thing we humans need vs the AI is yet another tool that will give us a bigger advantage. This reminds me of when I used to play paintball in the woods. I'd move to a new flanking spot thinking that it would give me a better LOS to my target. Sometimes it worked but sometimes I still wouldn't have a good shot, however I never knew whether it was good or not until I got to the new spot.

I just finished a book called Commando by John Durnford-Slater, considered one of the founding fathers of British Commando tactics in WWII. He was given 2 or 3 Garands by some American Rangers when doing some joint training exercises and was very impressed with the weapon, even took it on some raids. I'm surprised there weren't at least some experimental British units that took Garands into battle.

You're thinking of the 1:26000 aerials, like in the photo on the site that you have linked to. However, I found a set of aerials in the Buron area and south west of it from 1945 that is 1:6980, considerably lower altitude than the 1:26000. Only problem is they want 20 Euro per picture. If you're still interested, the photo set id is 1512-0131 and is dated 31/12/45. Have Google Chrome translate the page, use the Back in Time button on the map, then adjust the sliders to the appropriate time frame.

There is a French Geoportal site that has aerials from about 1947. I had to use Google Chrome to translate the text on site and play around with the map quite a bit before I could figure it out. See link below http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=100059

Thin Red Line came out in late 90s and was US Army, not marines.

OK, I'm going to do something unheard of - steer this thread back to it's original topic... Did anyone actually read the long list of WWII movie coming out? Two of these really interested me: Combat - yes, it's based on the 60s television show which I always loved. No Better Place to Die Based on Robert Murphy's book for the La Fiere Causeway fight on D-Day and the following days.

I can zoom in the photo and save the image at the desired scale sort of like taking a screen shot. However, it just seemed strange that there's no way to download the entire aerial photo at it's full resolution. I'll have to save several zoomed in screen shots and then piece them back together in GIMP.

Great find Broadsword, Has anyone figured out how to download an entire aerial photo yet? All I can seem to do is right click and save the image, but all this gives you is the current view at whatever zoom you've got it at.

Has anyone tested the "copy AI plan" feature yet? I think this will save a ton of time also.

Well stated and researched Rickusty.

Italians chose to model their artillery FO methods after the French. They mime them in.

Honestly it shouldn't matter whether it was used as a direct fire weapon. There are lots of accounts of assaults on artillery batteries a la Brecourt Manor, Point Du Hoc, Anzio beachead etc, British Commandos etc... The guns should be available for the simple fact that they would make these scenarios possible. It doesn't matter if they were actually used in a direct fire role although there are many documentations that they were.

I don't have CMFI (yet). However, the one big draw besides the 2.0 improvements is a collection of maps and campaigns that will come with a more diverse topography. Normandy battles were basically flat and in many cases close quartered fighting. CMFI should see a change in some tactics largely dictated by the landscape.

True, but just to be clear, when I say 'wargames' I mean the traditional Grognard term, i.e. hex tiled boardgames with rulebooks thicker than War and Peace , which I consider CM to be a direct descendant of. Flight sims and games like ARMA 2 can certainly be realistic but they're a totally different class of game than a wargame. Then there are a million RTS games which depict war but I would never classify them as a wargame just for the fact that they're not even trying to be realistic.

Well, wargames have been historically about 1v1. The meeting of two opposing tactical minds to see who comes out on top. I'm not saying that 2v2 wouldn't be fun or shouldn't be designed, it just doesn't seem to belong in the realistic wargame genre. Maybe one day it will be done but I don't think it will be worth the time to code for the many reasons listed above. I also don't think it would be a widely used feature unless a game lobby were implemented into the software.

I don't understand why people want Cooperative Play. This to me would be a big waste of valuable programming time. Single players already have many distinct advantages vs the AI. Two players vs the AI would be even worse since players will be able to pause and discuss tactics. PvP is where multiplayer shines anyway. I'd much rather have BF develop the AI, map navigation, designer, and general features like flame units, UI, etc..

You should read the manual about the Order Types on pgs 136-137. Max Attack is the opposite of Dash which is what you want.