Holman

I've never seen soldiers fail to spot a nearby tank unless they were cowering. What was happening? What difficulty were you using? Getting off a few shots before being spotted is exactly what AT guns are designed to do. (Most players complain that they are spotted too easily.)

The 9mm ammo is for the infantry squad's pistols and SMGs. German machine guns and rifles are all 7.92mm.

"Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." - Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson

I don't think Windows does weird things with files in Documents the way it does weird things with files in Program Files, does it? (I always install games to a C:\Games of my own making.)

Good grief. I didn't even notice the dates!

It was an analog prototype of the Combat Mission series.

Probably. It may be that the demo includes some fixes coming soon to the CMRT engine. It may also be that they are intentionally kept incompatible to prevent people from doing what you just did in reverse.

I believe the little "Achtung!" signs are an abstraction to indicate that you *now* know mines are present. If mines were clearly marked from the start, they would be much easier to spot (except the hard way). As it is, even engineers might sit next to a mine spot for several turns before the little sign appears.

I didn't even know there was such a thing (or at least so common), but I see now apparently there was.

"7.92mm AP" is ammo for the machine gun mounted on the vehicle. I don't know why it's called "AP" when it feeds the vehicle MG, but perhaps this is just a categorization trick to prevent infantry from taking ammo away from a vehicle's mounted MG. I doubt that it has any special armor-piercing qualities.

Really?? I don't believe I've ever encountered this effect. In my experience, line of sight is blocked by a windowless/doorless building wall until the wall is destroyed, and the visual change is obvious. I've never seen a wall destroyed by small arms fire, just explosives (e.g. demo, bazooka, HE rounds).

The Mark Mines command has a definite in-game effect: When mines are first discovered, the space is given a small "mine" indicator--the mines are known to exist but no path has been marked. After successful execution of a Mark Mines order, the status of the mines changes; you can see this in the changed indicator on the space. Units moving at a moderate speed through a Marked Mines space will be much less likely to set off mines than if the mines were known but not yet marked. That's more a matter of scenario design than game mechanics. All mines in CMx2 are treated as buried and hidden. Maybe the Soviet engineers were busy little bees because they knew you would be back.

The point of minefields wasn't just a sneaky sudden kill but (in fact especially) to deny passage to the enemy. If mines could realistically be eliminated in a few minutes' time, no army would have wasted their time and effort on mines. Look at it from the soldiers' point of view. They have no reason to assume that the mines you discovered are an isolated action square. They're now aware that mines are present, and they are 500% more wary because of it. If tactically possible, they will want to have nothing to do with the threat zone just discovered. They'll go elsewhere. I think this is realism.

I remember how frustrating it was when CMBB was released and made CMBO feel obsolete. The new common engine is much better. Rather than games supplanting games, now it feels like an expanding system (a la Advanced Squad Leader).

As a rule of thumb, moving through unmarked mines will kill soldiers while moving at Slow or Hunt through marked mines will not. It makes all the difference in the world if the mines endanger a critical path. If you have another decent route, just ignore and avoid them. Marking mines is realistic. Removing them on this timescale would be unrealistic.

Just to be all nitpicky here: --I believe units react cautiously in the presence of mine markers, which show up (usually) after the first mine kill. Will units opt to cross a mine marker when another path is available? --It's quite likely that you don't know where the sniper shot came from, so you can't easily avoid its direction more than any other. Meanwhile, your buddy is lying there wounded, bleeding out, pleading for aid. I like that CM soldiers sometimes do stupid/heroic human things. --Memory actually does exist to a degree in the form of lost-contact markers--in fact this is one of the real innovations of the CM engine. If troops saw a tank go behind a building, there will be a "?" marker at the point where it disappeared from view. I believe that, in the absence of more immediate threats, the unit will keep an orientation towards lost contacts for a reasonable amount of time. The flow of information between units is another form of memory, or least intelligence, that tends towards realistic awareness and behavior.

I see! No problem at all here, and thanks for taking the time to give advice!

Ah. Thanks for the explanation.

(I've never done any work in the scenario editor, so I don't know how this works.) Some artillery assets are denied to some HQ's. Is it possible to deny air assets to all but a certain FO (who is thus the FAC) in the same way?

Well, I wasn't suggesting we all do it. I was asking if it would work. Now I know.

The British/Americans should definitely have contact with their air support (albeit with appropriate levels of inaccuracy) when a dedicated air FO is present. Otherwise that great stockpile of purple smoke will go to waste.

My preference is simply for all three games to have the same file structure. Will CMRT and CMFI work correctly if I place the files currently in Documents into the main game directory (as CMBN has it)? I never thought I would say this, but (windowism or not) I've gotten used to having the CMFI/CMRT directories I actually access snuggled up together in Documents.

Is that limitation just for the Russians in CMRT or for the Germans too?

When CMFI was released, the directory for placing scenarios, mods, etc moved from the main installation direction (as it was for CMBN) to a Battlefront folder in Documents. If I move my CMBN materials to a parallel set of directories in Documents, will the game find them there, or do they still need to be in the main directory? (If I can move them, what exactly do I name the CMBN directory in Documents?) Thanks!

Whatever engine changes are in CMRT will be brought to CMBN and CMFI. Off the top of my head, this includes the hit decals, limitations on spotters running simultaneous artillery missions, ammo dumps, WeGo online play, AI triggers in the scenario editor, tank riders, and AA units discouraging air support. (Flame throwers are a unit, but I wonder if they might not come with the package too.)