Holman

That's a slippery-slope argument that we can disregard. No one is suggesting that we turn CMAK into a CMBO expansion pack. I *love* the fact that we're getting the Med, and I plan to play all of the Med scenarios I can. But the fact is that the OOBs and equipment that are already coming with CMAK will leave us just inches away from a very realistic and (depending upon the scenario designer, as always) historically correct means of doing "beyond Overlord" under the new engine. Why should we turn our backs on this? The request to BTS is a limited one: please allow winter weather and ground conditions to remain in CMAK, and please include bocage as well so that we can do France properly. That's it. Since winter conditions may already be planned for CMAK because of the Italian theater, the request really just comes down to bocage. (If people want scenarios that take place in German-looking rather than Italian-looking villages, the modders will accomodate them anyway. BTS need not spend time on adding a whole new theater's worth of terrain graphics to CMAK.) Someone mentioned that bocage would necessitate leaving out some other, Med-appropriate terrain tile. This is almost certainly not true: is there a hard-coded limit to the number of terrain types possible in the CM engine, and would the addition of bocage cross that limit? What people fear about "turning CMAK into a CMBO expansion pack" is that it would mean downplaying the Med, spending time making NW Europe Scenarios, and generally delaying development time. No one wants that--certainly not me! But this is not what people are asking for. All we want is the option of using what's already in the CMBB engine to make northern battles using the Allied data that will come with CMAK. This could only be considered unrealistic (and thus a perversion of the CM ethos) if tank behavior, squad compositions, and other carefully-modelled factors were different between the Italian front and the NW front. But isn't a Sherman Jumbo a Sherman Jumbo whether in Rome or Caen? Are OOBs so different that careful scenario designers couldn't replicate the distinctions? There almost seems to be a defensiveness about the Med being overshadowed by NW Europe in the next game. I can appreciate this: the Med is lesser known and less sexy than D-Day and after, at least to the American market. But the theme, marketing, and scenarios included in CMAK will all emphasize the Med, so there's no danger of it being overshadowed. And the fact is that people are going to take those CMAK GIs, Shermans, Tigers and SS troops and make Europe scenarios *anyway.* This is natural: those of us who love CMBO are dying to play those battles with all the enhancements of the CMBB/AK. But no one will force Med purists to play them. We'll consider the enhanced European possibilities of CMAK as a bonus, an easter egg. And we'll be grateful! It just comes down to this: 1) Please keep winter in CMAK. 2) Please include bocage in the CMAK editor. That's it. No new units, no unique northern green terrain set, no special ambient sounds for Falaise as opposed to Tunis, no V-2 rockets, no Qaddafi. Believe me, we will be grateful.

I understand the desire to keep CMAK battles as historically pure and as realistic as possible, but I don't see a danger involved in including snow, frozen water and even bocage in the scenario editor. CMAK is going to be able to prohibit certain random occurrences in the QB editor anyway: otherwise we might get snow at Tobruk and sandstorms in Rome. Remember that CMBB *already* prevents steppe from showing up in the North and Finland theaters. As for units, nothing need be added. OOBs for Italy 43-45 are already enough to create most of the "Beyond Overlord"-type engagements that people might want. Someone objected that we must have CMBO "all the way or not at all," but I fail to see the logic in that. Why not allow us to do the CMBO battles we can (even the winter ones) if the code already supports it? All in all, the presence of "CMBO+" within CMAK will be just another of those features that adds legs to the game. Keeping NW Europe terrain in the scenario editor would be enough. Calling for its deliberate prevention, however, seems more like Puritanism than purism.

Dear BTS, Official announcements have said that CMAK will include (among other great things!) the OOBs for fighting in Italy 43-45. This being the case, some of us are very excited about the possibility of using CMAK to replicate best-loved engagements from CMBO under the CMBB/AK engine. After all, it looks like everything will already be there (except perhaps the volksturm, Pershings, and a few other seldom-used special vehicles). Would it be too much to ask that you include bocage terrain tiles and winter conditions as options in CMAK's scenario editor? I know that the focus in the new game is on events farther south, but these small terrain options would go a long way. The upcoming new engine for CM series will be a while in coming. Being able to "do CMBO" in CMAK would ease the wait while allowing us to play (almost) the whole European war at the latest CM state of the art. Please consider or, well, somefink. Many Thanks!

Three cheers for better customer service than I've ever seen anywhere else! Most publishers would have contented themselves with some kind of "errata" log and left it at that. You guys are the best.

Tecumseh says: Hmm. I read "Split squads don't have direct negative effects on global morale or victory points" to suggest that each split squad no longer lowers global morale slightly during the game. This was always an incentive not to split your squads unless truly necessary, since splitting lots of them would affect global morale quite a bit (and thus affect whatever calculations *it* affects). If we can split squads with no penalty now, I don't see much reason not to split every squad on the board. Tactical flexibility and all that.

The Great One Intones: Wow--this is a pretty major revision! Would someone explain the remaining downsides of using split squads? Does a split squad get suppressed/panicked faster when coming under fire? (I assume that actual casualties will definitely affect a split squad more, since the lost men are a greater proportion of the unit.) I'd love to hear the official reasoning behind this change.

PeterX says: I see your point, but I'm more optimistic. I doubt that we're going to see many game enhancements and new features anyway: CMAK is going to be an "on the fly" adaptation of CMBB's engine, as one of the BTS fellows (Moon?) pointed out. What we're getting in CMAK seems to be mainly the appropriate OOBs, Med terrain and skins, and probably new models (if the Allied tanks are going to be brought up to CMBB levels of detail; Germans have already been done). Armor and other data for US and UK vehicles is probably mostly done (from CMBO), although I understand that the CMBB calculations are more complex. With the Med made real and NW Europe maybe sneaking in alongside, I think we're looking at enhancement enough!

Juardis sez: Yep. I guess I'm just worried that the Italian terrain in CMAK will reflect the sunny Mediterranean character of Africa and Crete, and that we'll not have snowfields or snowy weather. The inclusion of Bocage would, of course, be lovely!

PeterX says: But the beauty of it is that my request *doesn't* add development time to CMAK! All of the essential equipment needed for 44-45 Western Front battles will already be in CMAK. Maybe a small number of CMBO units will be missing (volksturm, Pershings; anything else?), but we can live without these. In fact the sum of my post is this: if BTS will refrain from *removing* the northern terrain types already in CMBB for the CMAK engine, then we will essentially have CMBO under the newest engine as soon as CMAK is released.

I'm curious: If CMAK actually goes to 1945 in Italy, won't we be getting the entire slate of nations, OOBs and vehicles (barring a few UK Funny Tanks and the Free French) that we have grown to love from CMBO? If this is the case, doesn't this mean that CMAK will essentially *include* all of the elements necessary for 44-45 West Front battles except terrain? In fact, given what's already in CMAK, it looks like the only thing necessary for our Western Front needs is the terrain set from CMBO (so that we can have marsh, snow and grass in addition to CMAK's sand, oasis and olive groves). And fortunately these European terrain elements are *already* all present in the CMBB engine today! BTS, please don't remove the green grass, snow, frozen rivers and other northern terrain types from the CMAK engine just because they don't fit the Med setting. (Maybe they could be just be left as undocumented features in the scenario maker.) Given what will already be included in CMAK, those terrain elements are all we need to make "Beyond Overlord" a reality under the CMBB/AX engine. (I should add that I know that the next generation engine will probably return to the West Front. But I can't imagine that the presence of Western Front terrain and user-made scenarios in CMAK will in any way hurt sales of the next CM two years from now.) I'm looking forward to converting CMBO scenarios to CMAK! [ April 04, 2003, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Martyr ]

I asked this question once before with regard to German armor, and I don't think I got a definitive answer. Did the Pz III, Pz IV and StuG crews (for example) have nicknames for the models they commanded? Of course the Pz V was a Panther and the Pz VI a Tiger, but what about the others? Did they just say, "We'll be receiving some Panzer 4's to replace our losses tomorrow"?

Let me second the request for more Sovs! Andrew, have you done any Russian winter uniforms beyond the early-war period? EDIT: D'oh! You answered my question just seconds before I asked it! [ February 21, 2003, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Martyr ]

Excellent news! Many thanks! Just to clarify: I don't know of any mods (CMMOS or not) for the gelb versions of the vehicles I listed above. I may have overlooked something, but so far these are the tanks that still stand out green (or yellowish) in the snow.

I am in awe of the talent that you artists are able to put into your CMBB mods. In awe! Lacking such talent, I can only download the work of others. One thing I'm trying to do is gather winter mods for every vehicle in the game. I have everything I can find for CMMOS, and I've scoured the usual modsites, but here are the vehicles that still need a winter coat of paint. Please let me know if I've missed something out there! (All are gelb:) Lynx (Pz IIL) Pz IVG Pz IVG (late) Pz IVH Brummbar/SturmPanzer IV (late) Panther (Pz VA) Panther (Pz VG) Panther (Pz VG late) Tiger (Pz VIE) Tiger (Pz VIE late)

(*bump*) Anyone?

Yet another query from a new WinXP owner... I recently set DPI (Dots Per Inch, found under Display Properties/Advanced/General) to "large," which increases DPI from 90 to 120. To my untrained eye, this *seems* to sharpen up my graphics in CMBB a little bit. Am I fooling myself? In other words, does the DPI setting help (or hurt?) graphics under OpenGL/Direct 3D, or does it only affect non-3D desktop applications? Also, is there a performance hit involved in setting DPI higher? Thanks, y'all.

Hi all, I've heard that 30.82 is the last driver that works for CMBB without "blackouts" under WinXP. Then I've also heard that 30.87 works. Is there a benefit to moving up to 30.87 from 30.82? Is there a driver above these that also allows CMBB to work with WinXP? I know from experience that 40.72 does not. (I'm looking for drivers that include the "texture sharpening" option, which seems to be necessary for CMBB to look its best on my machine.) My specs: Pentium 4 2.4 GHz CPU 256MB RAM (more on the way) WinXP Home edition GeForce4 Ti4400 128MB video card NVIDIA 30.82 drivers

Hi all, Can anyone tell me where to find Aussie Jeff's Winter Grass now? I had it instealled and liked it, but I've moved to a new computer and can't seem to locate the mod to download it again. If Aussie Jeff's Winter Grass is AWOL, can anyone suggest another good winter terrain set? Thanks!

Thanks for the advice. I've gone back to 30.82, and everything is now OK. However, graphics are a little murkier than under the 40 series drivers, probably because 30.82 doesn't have the "texture sharpening" option. Is there a benefit to using 30.87 over 30.82? And is there a way to get texture sharpening under 30.xx drivers (a tweak utility perhaps)? Again, this is for a GeForce4 Ti4400 128MB card. Thanks! [ February 15, 2003, 03:24 PM: Message edited by: Martyr ]

I may be wrong (I'm not at home where I can check), but doesn't the T-26 carry a 37mm gun? Buildings are tougher in CMBB, and smaller-caliber guns can't hurt them. I've had a 37mm-armed halftrack refuse to fire at buildings for this very reason.

Looks like I'm the new guinea pig... As of today, I'm the proud owner of a brand new computer running Windows XP Home. The first thing I did when I got everything plugged in was to download the latest (41.09) NVIDIA drivers and then install CMBB and the 1.01 patch (I don't yet have 1.02). When I try to run CMBB, my monitor goes black and can only be restored by alt-tabbing to the desktop. Switching back into CMBB means a black screen again, every time. This video card and these drivers were great for CMBB on my old machine, which ran Win 98se. I haven't downloaded any Windows XP updates, and none are listed in my Add/Remove Programs list. Control Panel says I have "Windows XP Home Edition, 2002 version, Service Pack 1." [edit: I should add that I get the same black screen whether I have FSAA or Anisotropowhatever enabled or not...] What can I do? Is there a way to eliminate this mysterious 328310 from my system? Or is there a generation of NVIDIA drivers that I should go back to? (Say it ain't so! I'm waiting to run IL2: Forgotten Battles on this machine!) My specs: Pentium 4 2.4 GHz CPU 256MB RAM (more on the way) Windows XP Home edition GeForce4 Ti4400 128MB RAM vid card NVIDIA 41.09 drivers Thanks! [ February 13, 2003, 11:06 PM: Message edited by: Martyr ]

Hi all. A few questions about face textures... Does anyone know about face .bmp's in CMBB? The files are 5100 through 5121, but some of the faces are duplicated. Does this mean that the duplicates could be replaced without losing any of the current faces (or just losing their frequency of appearance)? Also, the faces after 5114 are duplicates of earlier faces but with a very visible brown/olive undershirt collar where the earlier faces have bare skin. Could these be winter faces (which I thought CMBB didn't support)? The color of the T-shirts looks more Russian than Axis, so could these be Russian-only faces? I noticed a while ago that CMBB soldiers are brunettes to a man. Given all the nordic types (on both sides) running around on the Eastern Front, I'm thinking of making some blond boys.

I'm sure this has been talked to death and dismissed by Charles, Steve, Matt and anyone else with clout. But I just have to ask... Why not release a special edition of CMBO that is essentially the original CMBO models and data placed atop the CMBB game engine? The CMBO data (which is already modelled and available to BTS) added to the CMBB engine (which is already programmed by BTS) would give us an instantly improved Western Front CM! Heck, BTS wouldn't even have to invest time in making scenarios: perhaps they could contract Boots and Tracks to adapt the CMBO scens through the CMBB scen maker. BTS could choose from among the hundreds of CMBO mods out there for the best graphics. BTS could sell this as a new product during the market "downtime" of CM-II's development, and I'm sure it would sell. This would seem to be a fairly minimal investment of resources for a very high gain! OK, shoot me down now. A man can dream, can he not?

Gordon, you're a hero to the whole CM community! Many thanks! While we're on this thread, could someone post a list of what the new mods are? They're integrated into the master indices at CMHQ, so it's hard to see exactly what's just come out. Wouldn't want to miss anything...

Hello Andrew, I'm very impressed with your uniform mods over at CM Mod Database, but I happen to be bandwidth-challenged these days. Alas! I'm probably not the only one. Would it be possible for you to bundle together just the winter uniforms that you have made into one handy download? Your new summer uniforms are great, but I'm trying to start with the basics. Since CMBB doesn't come with any snow camo, your winter outfits fill a real need. Putting them all together in a single "basic snow" package would help some of us quite a lot. Thanks for your time, and for the great mods! Martyr