ASL Veteran

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.

No, the game doesn't fire at icons, the game has units firing at vehicles, infantrymen, action spots, etc. The icon just floats above whatever it is that it is floating above. As far as the troops and vehicles under your command are concerned the icons don't exist. The game doesn't need an icon to see what is at a particular location, only the player does.

Quite honestly I'm not even sure how we got talking about FOW for friendly units because generally speaking you don't area fire against friendly units. I had to go back and re read Ian's initial post and I see that he mentioned friendly and enemy units for contact markers. Vanir then only disagreed with Ian about the friendly contact markers - something I neglected to notice. I thought Vanir was saying that when a unit is selected you see all units and that your view of enemy units was undifferentiated between when a unit is selected or a unit is not selected. That's why I posted my initial response - because the point was not that you would get contact markers on friendly units since you wouldn't be area firing on them, but rather that you would get different contact markers for enemy units depending upon which unit was selected. That is relevant when area firing. When Vanir then continued discussing friendly units I then responded by reaching back into the memory hole because I wasn't even sure why he was discussing friendly units in the first place. Once again though, the game doesn't even consider an icon to be an eligible target so all of these theories of the AI area firing vs. contact markers are essentially non starters. The only way that I can think of to allow the AI to area fire would be some method of painting the map with an area target location when creating an AI plan, and even something like that would be difficult to make work in a way that makes sense.

Yes, I think that Elite in CMSF was changed so that friendly units when selected would only see spotted friendly units during the orders phase when a friendly unit was selected. This setting was probably carried over to CMBN during beta and perhaps dropped or altered before the game was released. Just goes to show how often I play this game these days. Sometimes I do try to play through a scenario with one of the normal FOW settings just to see what it looks like for the player, but most of the time I have to see what the AI is doing in order to make the play through worthwhile. Anyway, this doesn't really have much to do with the topic - I probably just didn't read Ian's comments or the replies carefully enough to make an informed response.

Hmm, well I think that during the beta for CMBN friendly units were not shown unless spotted and I think it was like that in CMSF. They still only show spotted enemy units when a unit is selected now though don't they? Anyway, it's not really important ... perhaps just a memory lapse.

Something tells me that there is no way that the game will consider an icon as a valid target. The truppen don't target the icon, the truppen target the troops or the vehicle, action spot, etc. that is being fired upon. Making a contact icon an eligible target is probably something that Charles would say 'can't be done', even assuming that targeting contact icons would be a good idea to begin with - something I'm not sure I would agree with. If your goal is to use area fire to fire upon recently spotted units that break contact all you have to do is increase the amount of time that the firing unit spends firing at the recently spotted enemy unit after contact is broken. That's something Steve already indicated was done in the past and could probably be done again in the future if it is deemed to be necessary. Where I would see AI area fire as being most useful would be in beating the bushes to ferret out player ambushes, and in those instances the AI probably won't have any contact icons to target (even if a contact marker could be deemed an eligible target by the game in the first place).

Well it must have been changed at some point because it did used to be as I described. It has been a while since I've played a normal game against someone though as I spend most of my time now in Author Test Mode.

For the record I certainly wouldn't mind having area fire ability for the AI, but I can't think of a way that it could be executed in a satisfactory way. For one thing the AI is going to blow off ammo without any regard as to how much is remaining or what the situation is. As long as the AI is area firing the AI will be area firing, so there would need to be some logical way to have the AI know when to stop firing. The AI is essentially playing the game blind so you have to account for that. Because area fire is targeting specific locations on a map, the only way I could see it happening would be if the designer could 'paint' a target area on the map when creating AI plans, but even in that case it is almost impossible to know where the player is going to be at any particular time so depending upon the situation it could be a complete waste of ammunition. Triggers might help with that, but once again, getting the AI to execute an area fire plan while playing blind without making the AI look foolish would be difficult to pull off. Try playing a game where all of your orders are plotted before the scenario begins and you don't change a single thing during the course of the game and see how easy it would be to try and plot effective area fire on an enemy position.

As long as you have no units selected you can see everyone, but if you select a unit to give it orders then the effect is as Ian describes IIRC. So whenever you give orders the view you see is the view that the unit sees and you have to remember what the battlefield looked like when nobody is selected while giving your orders. I like Iron mode as well so I don't have any issues with it, but I can see where some might be inconvenienced by it when trying to coordinate moves with friendly units. I also seem to recall that the higher you go in difficulty level the closer friendly units need to be to each other in order to be in command and control, although it has been a long time since I actually looked at it so it is possible that it has changed a bit from what I remember.

I'm sorry, but every time I see you post something I always think of the chant "Holman, come down! Holman, come down!" from the movie "The Sand Pebbles"

I would also add that America wasn't even fully tapped into their manpower reserves by 1945. The US was still forming and fielding new full strength divisions almost up until the end of the war and there were several divisions in training that hadn't even been deployed overseas yet.

The game does come with an editor. Sorry I couldn't resist. There may be some maps up on the Repository because the game has been out for a while.

If you are looking for opponents you may also want to check the various gaming clubs such as The Blitz and Few Good Men.

I think I can say with some level of certainty that cooking rice was not essential in securing a Soviet victory.

No, it is not possible.

If you select the enemy unit that has been spotted, you can then see which friendly units have spotted it by noticing which friendly unit icons are a little lighter colored than the others. At least that's how I remember it working.

The only time the AI walks is when the troops are exhausted and they can't run. They will crawl a lot when you use the Max Assault move command though.

sburke is a beta tester and sometimes the help desk will ask beta testers to assist them with an issue either for general information or through replicating it. The help desk is not staffed by the game programmers but rather by helpful individuals who use all the resources they have available to them to assist the customer in solving a particular problem or issue.

The kill information is still available. Its been a while since I checked it, but if I'm remembering correctly at the game's conclusion if you decide to view the map you can then select your troops and the kill data will show up. I don't think you can see the kill data while the game is in progress though.

The only 'official' voices of BFC who would post in this forum would be Steve himself, Chris ND, Phil, and or any of the other actual BFC employees. I'm not sure what relevance that has to the discussion though. Just because we aren't speaking on behalf of BFC in an official capacity doesn't mean that our responses to your posts are invalid. I already mentioned in my post to you that I was referencing previous posts that Steve has made in the past (and which you can locate using the search function), so the fact that I'm referencing past posts by Steve should be treated in the same manner that you would treat a new post by Steve in this thread because nothing that he discussed in the past has changed in any way since he made those posts. I am aware of the attitude that people have about 'Beta Testers' and 'Fanbois' and as far as Beta testers go people get a very skewed view based upon their perceptions of how individuals act in the public forums. Keep in mind that Beta Testers interact directly with the official staff of BFC and with each other in special beta forums that are not accessible to the public at large. Why is that important? That is important to understand because there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a Beta Tester to come onto the public forums and put forth their complaints about the game and how it is not working the way they want it to. Why would any Beta Tester do that? It would be pointless because a Beta Tester can discuss various issues directly with the official BFC staff if they want to. Coming to the public forum to complain about something the game does or doesn't do is almost disrespectful to BFC as well as being pointless because individuals who don't have access to the Beta Forums (in other words, people like you) aren't going to solve or fix an issue with the game. All you can do is say 'yes I agree' and if BFC can't or won't fix it that hasn't accomplished anything but stir up a storm on the forums and annoy the BFC staff. Beta testers complain on our own forums, so just because you don't see a Beta out here pushing issues with how broken the game is doesn't mean that all Beta's think the game is perfect in every way. The only difference here is that you don't get the opportunity to view and participate in the discussions on the Beta Forums. Beta Testers have also all signed Non Disclosure Agreements and we are under a contractual obligation not to discuss publicly what is discussed on the Beta Forums. However, that doesn't mean that we can't have an 'informed' opinion about something because we know first hand what it takes to get something into the game or fixed. We know that because we have to interact with the BFC staff directly and we know first hand what is required to get something fixed or altered. So when we come out to the public forum and say 'you need X' or 'that's a feature not a bug' then we are saying that through experience and first hand knowledge. We also have general knowledge of how things work internally at BFC, although there is still a lot that is hidden even from us because the actual staff obviously communicate directly with each other. So I guess I'll wrap this rambling post up by saying this; no I don't speak for BFC but that's entirely irrelevant because the information that I am providing you with is the most recent answer to your inquiry that has been publicly outlined by Steve himself (and he speaks for BFC in an official capacity). So while you are free to assume that fog of war will eventually be applied to fences and hedgerows if you just complain about it long enough and loud enough, all you are doing is living in a world of your own construction that is divorced from the reality of what is possible and what isn't possible in the game as it is currently structured.

Steve has stated publicly that those two items will never be affected by fog of war. There were more discussions about this than I can count, but mostly they came up in discussions about foxholes and trenches (probably on the CMSF forums but I can't remember for certain - just do a search for fog of war terrain in the CMSF forums and you should get more posts than you can read in a single sitting). You may recall that CMSF trenches were part of the terrain mesh and could not be deployed by the player. Only the scenario designer could place trenches and once placed everyone could see them. Once the current version of foxholes and trenches were implemented the constant beating of the dead horse of fog of war terrain seems to have passed. Players were hoping for Fog of War terrain where the entire map was blacked out until the player could see it with a unit - that's how extreme people were asking for on Fog of War. So yes, Never is the correct characterization of how Steve described it because things that affect the terrain mesh have to be visible to both players. Could that change in the future with an entirely new game engine? Maybe, maybe not, but if you are going to wait that long for FOW broken fences then ...... , I'm not really sure what you are doing here quite honestly.

Well those are never going to be 'fixed' because it is a limitation with the game code itself so if that is on your list you will forever be disappointed. The problem with the 'game improvements over content' discussion is that the two are completely divorced from each other from a development standpoint, yet they are inherently intertwined from a gameplay standpoint. From a development standpoint there are only two coders working for BFC and they can only get so much done during any given span of time. There is a list of things that they would like to do that is longer than what can be done so they have to prioritize what they concentrate their efforts on. Some of the things that the 'game improvements' camp focus on are also subjective in nature. For example spotting. Some people dislike the spotting system so much that the game becomes impossible for them to play. Others don't really see what the issue is and the spotting is 'good enough' for them to play the game. Subjective things are difficult to tweak because what may be perfect for one player is not perfect for another. I have watched some YouTube games that people have posted where they complain about the spotting but when I view their game all I see is complaints that their troops aren't mopping up the opposition the way they expect. If they spot the enemy the game is working perfectly, but if the enemy spots them the game is broken. In one series of videos the player literally spots and fires first upon several enemy tanks without taking any return fire and he celebrates. He then takes fire from a few enemy tanks that spot him first and he complains that spotting is broken. I only mention that because, once again, it is subjective, but at least in that video series the player's bias is unmistakable. As far as the content goes, and here I'm talking about QB maps, TO&Es, Scenarios, and Campaigns, you can't actually 'play' the game if you have no content. So you have to have content in order to play the game. The two coders don't make any content. The only interaction that the coders have with the content is to create the environment where the content can be added to the game. Other than that they don't do anything with it, so 'features' and 'content' don't have any effect on the development process for either. So if someone complains that they want features instead of content then what they are really saying is 'I can't enjoy the content because I don't like the game engine.' If you don't like the game engine then you run up against the problem of there only being two coders and if your 'game breaking feature' isn't on or near the top of the priority list then .... I guess you are just out of luck.

Well everyone is using the same broken and flawed TacAI so at least the playing field is level for everyone.