Holman

Well, those pay records and clean sock requisitions aren't going to take care of themselves...

I love good board wargames, but I'm more and more interested in designs that aren't exactly trying to do "simulation on paper," at least at the tactical level. My short BGG review of the ASL rulebook sums it up for me: "The ASL rulebook is a monument. I'm in awe every time I crack it open. "At the same time, I'm put off by a ruleset that wants to add systems for everything at such a cost of weight and fiddliness. I know most of them aren't used in most scenarios, but the degree of look-up and the dense web of exceptions/clarifications/complications add a burden of rules overhead that puts me off the game. "The system seems just a step away from trying to do more than can reasonably be done with paper. Approaching that gap, it's easier just to make the leap to the PC Combat Mission series. While CM falls a few theaters short, it simulates much more and with more granularity while keeping the workload under the hood. For me the paradox is that ASL simulates too much without simulating enough. "For some this is the game of a lifetime. My rating indicates huge respect tempered by moderate alienation."

I'm not an insider, but I assume that the initially announced date was based purely on time for programming CMFI to the 4.0 standard. Now that a few bugs have emerged with 4.0, they're probably fixing those first, then planning to release CMFI 4.0 along with patches for the other titles. Unfortunately, bug-squashing takes a while.

I think the CM clubs (e.g. Band of Brothers, The Blitz) assume that scenarios will be new for both players. If you've played it before, you're expected to disclose this.

It's an engine limitation: armor crews can only remount their own original tank. While it might seem frustrating under certain circumstances, it's better than the inevitable gaminess of players shuffling crews around to match the biggest tanks with the most skilled tankers.

They're going to want a savegame if possible. I'm not sure where you'd send it, but I'm sure someone will be along to tell you.

A lot depends on the orders given by the scenario designer. A strong scenario can be an amazing AI experience. Judging only the TacAI, I'd give it an 8 (but with flashes of 6 through 9).

Yes, that!

In the normal game, when you select a unit you see a list of its individual soldiers' activities on the lower-left side of the screen. So, for example, a 10-man squad will show you each soldier's title (squad leader, gunner, rifleman, etc) along with the activity each is pursuing (spotting, aiming, firing, reloading, cowering, etc). In the vanilla game, those activity labels are text. This mod replaces that text with easily recognized icons ("spotting" becomes a crosshair, "cowering" shows a small prone figure, etc). For most people, this makes it *much* easier to take in a squad's status at a glance. It's far simpler to interpret a column of cowering icons than to read a list and parse how many say "cowering" vs. how many say "reloading" or something else. The mod always comes in two flavors. I prefer the "Light" version, which changes all the terms except "spotting," leaving it as text. ("Spotting" is the default activity that means the unit is basically un-engaged and un-busy, and leaving it as text gives you a quick sense that the unit is not actively doing anything.)

The same files work across all the titles?

I'm an outsider to the process, but it seems that the need for a little tweaking to infantry behavior came up after the engine 4 releases. Probably BTS is working on that first, and then they will release CMFI at engine 4 level with these changes rather than without them.

You've got to put them in the right place. For CMFB that will be (assuming you're on a PC) "C:[...]\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Final Blitzkrieg\User Data\Mods". Campaigns are not mods. They'll go in "C:[...]\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Black Sea\Game Files\Campaigns". Single scenarios will go in ""C:[...]\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Black Sea\Game Files\Scenarios". For CMBS it will be "C:[...]\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Black Sea\User Data\Mods". And of course you have to unzip them before CM can see them. All recent CM games follow this pattern *except* for CMBN. Its files follow a similar pattern but inside the main game installation folder rather than Documents. Mods are in "C:[wherever you installed the game itself]\Battlefront\Combat Mission Battle for Normandy\Data\Z".

Right. It's generally agreed that no player is allowed to pre-target the opponent's set-up areas, but the problem is that you don't always always know where they are. The usual course is to avoid plots that could affect the oppo's edge of the map and some margin in from there. Some players go so far as to say that the defender (if there is one) is not allowed to pre-plot bombardments at all.

The thing to remember is that you don't register it when it happens to the AI.

Not only that, but I don't believe a whole squad on the same floor will find enough windows to shoot from.

"Angelou was abused by her mother's _____" is obviously a reference to Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a book which has become a staple of the curriculum. Perhaps this was a ham-handed attempt at some kind of coordination between math class and English class?

I think the core question is how the new movement style relates to a mine clearance action spot. (If I understand the game, a mine clearance flag indicates a single action spot's relative safety.) Movement in that action spot offers much less of a chance of setting off a mine, while the mined spots to either side (or ahead), if any, use the uncleared chance. In the past, a squad using the traditional ant-trail movement would all funnel through the mine-cleared action spot. Now, the question is whether the same squad (which after 4.0 might normally move forward using two or three action spots abreast) will still funnel through a single cleared minefield action spot. Do they do so?

I haven't tested this for spacing, but be aware that traversing a marked minefield at "Move" can still set off mines. I generally use "hunt" (with a target arc set very small to avoid actually stopping and engaging) as I believe I've read that it makes soldiers more careful in the marked field.

So does it work to just rename "1" to a higher number?

Yes, that's an obvious copy and paste error.

It seems like it would cause problem when a "common mod" needed to be updated for one game but not for another. When I think about it, I have all the CMx2 titles and use literally hundreds of mods, but I have two or three that are common to all the games.

Hold on. If I had "immediately assumed something needs to be fixed," I wouldn't have gone out of my way to include the "if" clause you quoted. You're responding as if I'd trashed the update or the game. I've done no such thing. However, the potential problem I've seen reported would be a severe one, so I'm trying to see what others' experience is and (if there's a problem) hope for a solution.

Well, I've already bought all of the upgrades, and I trust that (if there's a problem) BTS will fix it. What I'm wondering is how much of a problem there is in the first place. Does the AI really sneak too much, and does it indeed break older scenarios? I haven't been able to test enough to see proof one way or another. I'm wondering if some others have. This isn't panic or pessimism. It's discussion of the current state of things.

I might be misunderstanding some AI script issues, but haven't people been saying that the AI now goes into sneak and stays there for many turns? The solution (as suggested a few post above) might be to use Dash instead of Advance/Quick for the AI, but that doesn't help all the old scenarios where the movement orders originally in place will now result in AI units sneaking forever.

I don't know about AI orders and have never dabbled in scenario design, but does this mean that 4.0 may have broken many pre-4.0 scenarios? I hope someone can confirm that this is not the case.