ASL Veteran

If nobody responds here or if you still have some open games then you might try joining one of the clubs like 'The Blitz' or 'Few Good Men'. I'm sure you can find an opponent there.

He's still around? Yeah, why would anyone want to dig that fossil up and ask him to comment on anything.

One problem with water tiles as they are currently is that they can only exist at a single elevation. All water tiles placed on the map are all the same elevation, so even if we could get a specific snow tile they would all be at the same elevation which is another dead end unfortunately.

I don't really know for sure, but my guess would be that a ford tile is designed specifically for that effect and a snow effect would have to overlay every tile. In other words, a grass tile is just grass in summer so you wouldn't have that effect, but then when there is snow over the grass you would have to have that effect. I doubt the engine can use that effect over a tile that isn't specifically designed for that effect if that makes any sense.

From a scenario perspective it's just difficult to find actual information that's usable for those early campaigns. Heck, it's hard to find any information at all on some campaigns because they just don't sell enough books to make it worthwhile for someone to do all the research and publish one.

I'm not sure how you would get something like that because every map is unique. There would have to be some way of allowing the map creator to make something to create the distance effect for those areas that are off map. I personally wouldn't want to spend the time creating map elements that aren't going to be used by the player because it seems like a lot of work for very little result. Just dropping in. Now I'll be exiting stage left because I don't really see the utility of going round and round on various issues when what we say here isn't going to alter what's planned by a single iota.

Nah, Steve knows what would be required for flares and I don't think he would classify the initial intelligence information as equivalent to using flares, although of course he can speak for himself if he chooses to. I am pretty confident that most of the night fighting issues are known and simply haven't been addressed yet due to coding limitations with the game that would need to be addressed, if it is possible to deal with them at all (only Charles or Phil could speak to that).

In order to have decent night combat we really need to have flares added to the game - at least for WW2 combat. We would also need to have muzzle flash effects as well as non reciprocal LOS between units in lighted areas and units in unlighted areas. Perhaps even troops getting lost and troops firing at shadows as well. It's probably possible to get away with not having flares for modern night combat. There must be some complicated issues with all of these issues or I'm pretty confident that they would have been addressed by now. When CMBN was first released I seem to recall that the lighting was not dynamic or at least there was something that was messing with the lighting because there were some odd effects. I think that was addressed with version 2 of the engine when CMFI was released so some progress was made because I'm sure you have to have some advanced in game lighting effects to have flares, as well as having the ability to locate the flares in the sky above the battlefield somehow. Certainly we would need better night combat effects if the game is to go to North Africa or perhaps even to the PTO since there was a lot of night fighting in North Africa and the Japanese preferred to fight and attack at night. Please note that I'm not making any suggestions that any games are planned for North Africa or for the Pacific (because I don't know one way or the other), but if such a game was contemplated for the future I think the night aspects of the game would need to be addressed.

If the scenario is to be vs. AI as a specific side only that would work. However, that would eliminate the chance of that scenario being played head to head or played vs. the AI as the other side of course.

Reinforcements are placed on the map in the editor when you deploy the troops of each side. Unlike forces that start on map, reinforcements do not vary their location based upon set up zones or the initial setup area for each AI group for each plan. So the direct answer to your question is .... no, you cannot vary the location of reinforcements from the location that you set them when you are deploying each side in the editor. When using reinforcements you don't even need to paint a 'set up' waypoint because even if you do the AI will not move the reinforcements to that location. You simply begin an AI plan for reinforcements by painting the first order. One more thing to be aware of with reinforcements is that if you have a single AI group that consists of both reinforcements and troops that begin on map at the start of the scenario, the forces that start on map will not move to their first order until the reinforcements arrive, so it's best to have a separate AI group for each reinforcement group at a minimum.

CMBS has 14 story buildings. The WW2 series of games only goes up to 8 stories.

Of course, the Russ is thought to be the name given to Vikings by the Slavic inhabitants of Russia and Ukraine because Russ is some sort of description of 'rowers' or something like that if memory serves. Rowers being a description of Vikings rowing their boats down the numerous rivers that crisscross Russia. The city of Kiev was founded by Vikings. So Russia is perhaps 'Land of the Vikings'. We are wandering pretty far afield here though.

Time of day does alter the appearance of both the action spots for squads and the set up zones. This issue is known and the set up zones were significantly darkened in Red Thunder, but apparently they haven't altered the action spot highlights for squads yet.

The AI has never had the ability to use area fire. I don't even think the AI used area fire in CMx1.

The reason that infantry get spotted better than they would in reality is that the AI won't fire at unspotted troops. Most firefights would probably be conducted using area fire and that would lead to the AI being unable to function properly. I seem to recall that when the CMBB demo was first released you almost couldn't even get a solid contact if the enemy was beyond 100 meters or something like that. Almost all infantry combat was area fire, but BFC dialed it back a bit so that the AI would auto engage troops.

Yes, the correlation of forces would be different. Unlike today, back then the US military was demobilized rapidly because having a large standing army isn't really an American tradition prior to the 1950s. I think that part of Patton's idea was to put German formations into the field as well and the possibility of doing that would rapidly evaporate as formations surrendered and equipment was scrapped. If Patton's dream was going to come about it probably would have had to be done prior to the Japanese surrender in the Pacific at a minimum and it would probably have had to be done before units began to transfer from the European theater of operations to the Pacific theater of operations. So I'm guessing he would have to have his 'incident' with Soviet forces no later than May or June 1945 in order for it to work. The quote above also refers to 'occupation forces' and I don't think anyone in the western allied chain of command expected that the 'occupation forces' would consist of every allied formation in the European theater of operations that were present in April of 1945. Obviously the occupation forces would consist of a small fraction of those forces. Having said all that, I seriously doubt that even if Patton was able to engineer an 'incident' between allied and Soviet forces I doubt that it would have led to all out war between the two sides. I doubt that anyone on either side had much of an appetite for more warfare with a brand new enemy.

No. The triggers didn't come around until Red Thunder so any stock scenarios made prior to that will not have triggers in them.

I would also be curious to see how each side matches up at a tactical level. I'm pretty sure that a US infantry squad would have a firepower advantage over a Soviet squad at long to medium range because of the Garand. The BAR is probably a lesser LMG than the DP, but the DP isn't as good as the MG 42. All western infantry forces would have bazookas and PIATs while the Soviets might have to rely on captured stocks of Panzerfausts and Panzershreks. I think Steve has mentioned a passing interest in a 'Combat Mission: Patton's Dream' game before, but whether that translates into an actual future game or not is something else.

Yes, I have read that the Soviet air force was designed as a tactical air force in similar fashion to the German, although the Soviet air force wasn't quite as good at it as the Germans. As I recall, the reasons were a lack of radios and tactical flexibility as well as strict guidelines to keep all attacks within six miles of the front lines. Although those limitations were addressed to some extent as the war progressed, the Soviet air force still only achieved some level of dominance in 1944 and even then Germans held local superiority in certain sectors at certain times. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how large each respective air force was in terms of fighters, tactical and medium bombers, and heavy bombers?

Overall my seat of the pants expectation is that the western Allies would have the advantage, although the carnage would be terrible. I think they would have the advantage in terms of artillery (Soviet artillery has been described as roughly equivalent in technology to British artillery at the Somme) and air power (I'm not sure any nation could stand up to the US and UK air forces in 1945 / 46). Although both armies are large and Britain's manpower reserves were pretty much tapped out, I think America's manpower reserves were still plentiful with additional well trained formation coming on line and the Soviet manpower was strained with the overall quality perhaps questionable in some units. Perhaps call it even there or perhaps a slight advantage to the west. Armor ... I'm not sure. The Soviet armored forces were pretty substantial, but western allied armored forces were pretty substantial as well. I think they had so many tanks available in the west that they felt tanks were almost expendable and that infantry were more valuable than tanks. I don't know the actual numbers of tanks for each side though so I don't have an opinion one way or the other. I think western Allied formations were probably generally more mobile and those Soviet formations that were mobile were dependent to an extent on supplies from western sources - which would be awkward in this situation.

And there is always the Pershing entering service as well. I would be curious to see how it stacked up.

The 'area' or map position did not generate the contact. The unit did, thus if the AI is going to target the contact the AI is targeting what generated the contact (remember that the AI targets things not icons or empty ground). Empty ground is not a target that is recognized by the AI and if the ground isn't generating any contacts then the ground can't be a target. That is why the actual ground would have to be designated as the target if you are going to have area fire. Since no ground locations create a contact then no ground location can be considered a target. You, the player, can manually target a piece of terrain because you actually target the empty ground and not the unit that created a contact. You the player associate the ground location with the contact, but in reality the contact is not associated with the location but with the unit that generated the contact. In order to get the AI to target empty ground you have to actually target the empty ground for the AI, and the only way I can think of that you can do that is to physically paint a designated area on the map in the editor for the AI to target with area fire. Anyway, we are all tilting at windmills here since there are no plans that I am aware of to include such a feature and nothing to my knowledge has ever been discussed. I am pretty certain that creating something that you are proposing would be much more difficult to create than you might be accounting for assuming it is possible to do at all. I wouldn't mind having AI area fire added at some point in the future but I wouldn't be holding my breath.

The position doesn't spawn the icon. Whatever was at the position spawns the icon. Let me attempt to clarify what I'm saying. Infantry squad X is at the edge of the woods. A contact icon is generated by the infantry squad. Okay, so you have an infantry contact icon floating over a piece of woods terrain that was generated by an infantry squad. The infantry squad then moves fifty meters deeper into the woods, but the infantry contact icon remains where the infantry unit was previously located. The AI now makes an attempt to fire at the infantry squad that generated the infantry contact icon but the infantry squad is no longer located there. Under no circumstances has the wooded terrain generated a contact icon. The infantry squad generated the contact icon. So if the infantry squad is what generated the contact icon, what do you suppose the AI is going to try to target when firing at the area that the infantry squad used to be located? The AI will try to fire at the infantry squad that generated the contact icon whether the AI can see the infantry or not, not the empty ground that the infantry squad used to be located in because the empty ground didn't generate the contact icon, the infantry squad generated the icon. If the infantry squad has moved to a new location and the AI tries to target the squad at the old location, then there will be no target present for the AI to fire at because, once again, the empty ground was not any part of the process either in generating the contact or in the AI's decision to fire and the AI doesn't know what the empty ground is. In order to get the AI to fire at open ground you have to designate the open ground as the target. A contact marker designates whatever generated the contact as the target.

6th SS Mountain Division participated in Operation Nordwind.

No, I understand exactly what you wrote. What you are getting confused about is what is being targeted in the game. The game is not using icons as targets ... period, end of story. A contact 'icon' is an icon regardless of where it was spawned. Yes, the game knows that something was at the location that spawned the icon, but the icon itself is not what the game fires at. The game fires at what the icon was floating over and once whatever the icon was floating over is no longer there then the AI has nothing to fire at. Empty ground is not currently a valid target for the AI (or we would obviously already have area fire for the AI) so if nothing exists where the icon is floating then there is no valid target for the AI to fire at. Empty ground also doesn't spawn a contact icon, something else does, so now the target that spawned the icon is not the target any more. The target is now empty ground and since the empty ground didn't spawn the icon then how is the computer to know that you are supposed to be firing at empty ground rather than what used to be there? I'm not sure I can be any more clear than that.