ASL Veteran

Ummm, Steve has already stated on a couple of occasions that they are working on a UI upgrade. It just isn't going to happen for CMFB that's all. If a UI upgrade is necessary for you to enjoy the game then I suppose you have another option besides buy or don't buy. You can hold off on buying CMFB until the UI upgrade gets released and is backported to CMFB. So we should be able to put that complaint in the 'problem solved' category. I suppose that you could still complain and say that it 'should' be included in CMFB but since you already know that it is in the works that would simply mean that you want the CMFB release to be delayed for however long it takes for the UI upgrade to be completed. That would then mean that you want to deny those who are fine with purchasing CMFB as is the ability to enjoy the game when it is finally released 'soon'. You also want to take money out of BFC's pocket from the sales of CMFB and delay that income until the UI upgrade is complete. So, in other words, you would rather not buy now but force everyone else to wait for another year because you want that upgrade included in CMFB rather than to let everyone else buy CMFB now and have you wait another year by yourself because you can't play without a UI upgrade when it is finally released. I find the argument that is being put forward that ownership of prior releases entitles someone to complain to be a specious one. Granted, a person who has purchased prior titles has more personally invested in the series but the option is always whether you want to buy or not buy based upon what's being offered because BFC has absolutely nothing invested in you. If ten new customers buy CMFB and one old customer doesn't buy it then BFC is still ahead irrespective of whether you bought it or not. Those purchases that you made before have already been put in the bank or spent by BFC a long time ago and have no bearing on anything going forward. I had almost every Total War game ever released up until Shogun 2 was released so I had a lot invested in that series, but I delayed buying Rome 2 until it was on sale on Steam and after a short honeymoon I found that I didn't like it. I haven't bought a Total War game on release for quite a while and even with an extended wait the Total War siren song drew me in to try one more time. The game was okay for what it was I guess, but it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. I doubt that I'll ever buy another Total War game again and that's my choice. After all those releases I have a good idea about the Total War game design philosophy now and I basically know what to expect for future releases. Nobody from Total War is going to show up at my house and demand that I buy the next one and if I don't visit their forums I won't have to interact with anyone who likes it as is. I'll just play Europa Universalis now instead.

Yeah, I have to admit that I don't get it. Okay, if like Europa Universalis and I don't like Total War I guess I can understand that for one release I might hang around the Total War forums and complain that Total War isn't like Europa Universalis but after a release or two I have to admit that I probably wouldn't be hanging around the Total War forums anymore. In this case you have at least one guy stating that another game is superior to this one and maybe three or four other guys saying that the game is a waste of money before is it even released and they do this release after release for about the last - what - two or three years or something? At what point does someone finally just pack it in and admit to themselves that the game isn't to their liking, is likely never going to be to their liking, and just decide to play something else? Why waste the time investment in the forums here making demands that the developer has directly told them are unrealistic and will never be included? I have enough other things going on in my life that wasting time release after release on a forum for a game I don't like seems like inexplicable activity to me.

The Panzergrenadiers that come with the Panzer Brigade formation - I don't remember what it's called in game.

There were German cavalry formations on the Eastern Front in 1944. They had a brigade or two from what I recall. There was also an SS Fallshirmjager battalion in the east too.

Flashless and Smokeless powder can be known easily enough. All you need to know is the chemical composition of the various gunpowders used by the forces involved. You can then make your case. The US and British navies were using flashless powders after WW1 but even with flashless powder the muzzle flash is not eliminated entirely and apparently there were storage issues. Even modern NATO weapons have muzzle flash and I can't believe that German gunpowder technology from WW2 is superior to what is used in NATO weapons today.

No I don't. For one thing your test was in daylight and flash isn't going to have much of an effect during situations where visibility is not limited. If flash has no effect during daylight then I wouldn't be surprised at all. For another thing, if you have already stated that it is a fact that spotting is increased when a unit fires and you have already ruled out flash then I simply want to know what you think is the cause of the increased spotting. It is a very simple question and if you continue to avoid addressing it then I have to assume that you are unserious. If you believe it is sound then that can be tested easily enough by placing a tall wall between the spotting unit and the firing unit so that they can't see each other.

That's all very interesting Carl, but you haven't addressed the question. This is what you said above "The fact that in game spotting chances go up, if a unit opens fire IMO is NO indication that the muzzle flash effect is modelled at all" If you believe that there is no correlation between muzzle flash and spotting, and if you agree as "fact" that spotting chances increase when a weapon is fired then you need to identify what you think is causing the increase in spotting. Have you tried any spotting tests under low visibility conditions?

If you agree that the spotting goes up when a unit fires and you don't think that muzzle flash is the reason why, then it would be helpful if you could tell us what reason would you attribute the increased spotting chance to? It can't be dust because the increase is noticeable in limited visibility conditions. I'm also not sure taking a position that a gun firing at 1000m should have an equal chance of being spotted to a gun firing at 300m is a very .... well defensible position to take. It isn't as though a weapon firing is the equivalent of a flare going off. Muzzle flashes only last a fraction of a second and In normal daylight conditions they are barely, if at all, noticeable.

Oddly enough I only bought the original game. It wasn't necessary for me to buy ASL and all the extras because my friend had all of that stuff. My friend probably would have that issue since he was proud that he had a 'complete' collection and maintained it until very recently. I was fairly lucky because I had access to several opponents growing up, but alas, that was a long time ago in a state that is now far far away.

The mountain units that I know of were mostly transferred in from Finland and hadn't seen much combat for a couple years. Other mountain units were used in the Carpathians and in Yugoslavia so I'm guessing that most mountain units still had decent mountain specific training. I don't think any brand new mountain units were created at the end of the war in the way Para units were. There weren't any 'branch' differences between mountain and regular army units either in the way that there was between air force and army so the internal political considerations would be absent.

I don't even know what a reduced armor Elefant variant would be.

The last Elephants ended the war in the East. I think they finally expired somewhere in Slovakia although I'm not positive of that. I can look it up though I guess.

I'm pretty sure that the temporary ban has already been lifted, although I can't be certain. Temporary bans are usually only for a few days. I'm going to assume that Jason is simply choosing not to post at the moment. Whether or not he wants to contribute again is entirely up to him (assuming the temp ban has been lifted of course).

As far as infantry skylining goes, I'm pretty sure that the issue is the game isn't smart enough to know when you want the infantry to see and when you don't want the infantry to see. The game always tries to put infantry in a position to spot and fire at enemy soldiers so it will tend to place squad members in position to do that even in situations that you don't want them to. If infantry never sought higher ground in order to spot enemy soldiers then there would be just as many complaints going the other way (my infantry refuse to take firing positions near the crestline - fix or do somefink). It is simply a game limitation. I suppose in theory it could be mitigated by having a command to have soldiers either seek firing positions or to remain out of sight, but BFC isn't big on adding micro commands to the game so I would expect that limitation to remain.

Well that's the thing isn't it? I don't think anyone would mind if he made some scenarios and then said 'I think this is the best way to depict WW2 East Front combat' and just put them up for download. The problem comes when he says that everyone else is wrong - which is pretty ridiculous considering the breadth of combat situations that could be represented in scenarios and the limited number of scenarios that come with each release. It is one thing to say that battles with King Tigers in them were rare, but it is another thing to state that any scenario with them in it is not representative of actual combat. Especially when they are included in a scenario that was well researched and which, in fact, included King Tigers in the actual battle.

Making a scenario in CMBB is a completely different animal than making one in CMRT. It takes a lot more work and requires a lot more detail. You can probably make three or four scenarios in CMBB in the time it takes to make one in CMRT and the design challenges and limitations are different. If someone doesn't understand those limitations then that can lead to nonsensical statements if those statements are based on the way the old game works or are made without knowledge of the limitations of how the current editor works. I'm sure Jason means well, but he isn't really giving any useful feedback. What he is doing is saying that everything that ships with the game is historically inaccurate or is not representative of reality (no matter how well researched apparently). He then proceeds to tell us all the 'correct' way to make scenarios because nothing anyone makes seems to meet his standards or perception of what is 'correct' in his view. Well that isn't helping anyone because designers can't design scenarios that please everyone. That is an impossible task. Each release comes with scenarios designed by several different people who each has their own style and he can't seem to find any that suit his tastes. If he can't find any designers who make something that he likes then rather than spending his energy telling everyone about their failures in his eyes he could spend his time in a more productive way by creating stuff for the community. There are several scenarios in the release that even have a listing of references included in the designers notes so when someone comes on here and says that nothing is accurate in spite of the research that went into the creation process it shouldn't be surprising if that rubs some the wrong way.

There are a couple of Canadian scenarios that come with the release, but yeah there probably aren't as many as there could be.

I would just like to point out that anyone who has had the opportunity to research battles down to the company or battalion level will very quickly discover that very few, if any, battles play out or get fought in the 'text book' manner. It may be the case that X is supposed to happen followed by Y, but even with pre planned and deliberate attacks things seldom match the 'script' as written by the attacking commander or as spelled out in the field manuals. It would be historically inaccurate to try and force scenario designers to conform to a battle script of what some individual deems to be the 'right' way to do something.

Try it out and find out. The side surrendering would 'lose' per the games surrender protocol, but all VP would be assigned by the designer so it could result in a curious outcome whereby the side that surrenders gains more points than the side that wins. Just do something simple and tell us the results and if the results are odd enough maybe something can be changed or fixed.

Various game tweaks get added as newer ones get released or older ones get upgraded. However I don't think that the demos are upgraded beyond what the game was like when it was released so if the game is working differently in the Red Thunder demo as compared to Black Sea then it is possible that there was something present in the Red Thunder game when it was released that was subsequently eliminated through a later patch that may have an effect on the way the game plays on your machine. Ideally all the Combat Mission games are at the same level because BFC releases upgrades to keep the older titles at the same level as the new titles although it is possible that the demos don't necessarily reflect that.

The problem with, I guess I'll call them 'distant views' for map edges is that the maps are all custom made in the editor and anyone can make one. For example, if I'm playing a game like - say Total War or something like that - the maps are all made by the people making the game and the company can create a custom distant view that starts at the map edge for every map because nothing on the maps are going to change. With the Combat Mission series every map is unique and a creation by some individual somewhere who is using the game editor. These map makers may be doing stuff for BFC or they could be creating maps for themselves as players. Because every map is unique and not all maps are made by BFC itself then there is no way to create custom 'distant views' for every map since there is no way to create a 'distant view' for a map that BFC doesn't know will be created. I hope that makes some sense. Now the gap between the stock 'distant views' that are present in the game when you view the map from higher up can be pretty disconcerting and if something could be done to improve that I'm sure it would be done, but with the situation as it is I'm not sure anything can be done about it short of eliminating the editor and having all game maps be created by BFC.

Perhaps democratic façade would be the better description?

I totally get where players are coming from when they don't like taking casualties in the game. It's only natural, not necessarily because we care about writing letters home for our pixeltruppen, but rather because it seems like your combat power is being frittered away. I think we've all had those games where we get the PBEM file and we dread running it because we just know that disaster awaits our pixeltruppen. People prefer to play games and win. People don't generally like to see forces under their command be ripped apart helplessly. Who enjoys seeing their well laid plans be disrupted and their pixelsoldiers destroyed within a game? Certainly not me. I enjoy inflicting casualties upon the enemy. The game environment is the same for everyone who is playing the game though so regardless as to how flawed or imperfect a player's perception of the game environment may be since both sides are operating under the same issues there is no competitive advantage or disadvantage. Another thing to consider is that while you may be able to make adjustments that make casualty creation a bit more difficult, the only effect it is likely to have is to slow down the game and make it less dynamic and possibly less fun.