ASL Veteran

Perhaps, but I think one can convincingly tie the German late war lack of fuel to the Allied bombing campaign without too much effort. All of the German fuel sources were bombed to the point where the entire German armed forces was almost immobilized.

If someone ever decides to play against another human opponent then taking casualties is going to be a fact of life. I don't think anyone can get through an entire battle without taking a casualty. In all the games I've played since CMx1 was initially released I can only recall one game where I defeated my opponent without taking a casualty and the deck was probably stacked in my favor. The problem is that if you don't like to take casualties and you play another player in a game then that leads to unfinished games. It is very disrespectful of your opponent to just disappear because you take a casualty or two and if a player can't take a casualty or two when playing against the AI then chances are that player will have a hard time playing against other people without building up the reputation of being a quitter. If someone ever wants to take their game to the next level and play against other gamers then not reloading when playing against the AI is the only way that player will be able to build up a tolerance for making it through a tough battle. So charge into battle and take your lumps. It will improve your game by forcing you to overcome adversity and it will also improve your gamesmanship if you ever decide to take it to the next level.

You have no control over when or how the AI uses the artillery if you haven't set a start of game bombardment by painting the areas on the map and there is no delay function that you can add to the start of game bombardment. The start of game bombardment happens at the start of the game or it doesn't happen at all. In other words, you can have your FO creep (sort of, because there really isn't an AI move command that will get him to 'creep') but once he is in position there is no way for you to tell him what to do because there are no AI commands for telling him what you want him to do. The best you can do is have the FO move into the position you want him to be in and then hope that he decides to call artillery in after he gets there. He may decide to call it or he may not, but there is nothing you can do to have him call the artillery in at 'Time X' because there just isn't any AI orders for that in the game as it stands. The AI typically uses a circular area fire pattern, although the pattern is usually a little smaller than I would personally use so that makes the barrage more concentrated.

Yes, it is true with the exception of a pre planned artillery strike at the beginning of the game. No spotters need to have LOS to the location of a pre planned artillery strike at the beginning of a game whether the artillery is controlled by the AI or the player. The only difference is that the AI has to have the artillery strike location painted on the map in the editor by the scenario designer, otherwise the AI will not conduct a pre planned artillery strike on its own. I am going to assume that the manual is using 'When Support Targets are specified', it means 'Specified' by the AI during the course of a game and not 'Specified' by the designer when creating pre planned artillery strikes. Otherwise the second sentence doesn't make sense with regard to LOS. If you play a scenario using 'Scenario Author Test Mode' you can select different AI controlled units on the map and all their artillery target lines will be displayed for you to see so you can confirm this pretty easily on your own by play testing your scenario. The AI doesn't always use artillery in the most efficient way though because it frequently has company or platoon commanders calling in artillery strikes instead of more effective FOs who can call artillery in more quickly. The only thing that you can be sure an FO will call in is some form of artillery that regular troops can't call in because the type of artillery is prohibited to be used by them.

Pre planned artillery is mapped out in the editor the same way you map out waypoints for AI groups. You paint the area on the map that you want the artillery to land in. It will always hit at the beginning of the game and there is no way to delay it and no AI forces need to have LOS to the location in order for the artillery to begin firing. Your plan could work, but the AI would have to decide to use the artillery on its own without any intervention on your part via pre planned artillery strikes. You could possibly help the AI decide to use the artillery by placing TRPs (target reference points) but ultimately the AI needs to do it on its own.

1. No 2. None 3. It only affects LOS not movement. You can generally see right through a light woods without a tree on it, but once you place a tree there the LOS is much more restricted. 4. yes, different foliage types placed on different woods grid squares has an effect on LOS, but the only thing that affects movement is the grid square itself, not what you put on it.

It's a bit of an ongoing theme and you are probably only disappointed because you haven't seen the one hundred or more similar threads to this one over the last decade. First it was people who liked CMx1 and who always came onto the forums with an axe to grind about one thing or another - including a great deal of commentary about the business model which quite honestly isn't any of their business. Now the old CMx1 types seem to have faded into the ether to be replaced by more forward looking types. Even so, there is a way to request features and a way to not request features and when someone explains that there are limitations about what can be done and feature X can't be implemented the best response is to say 'thank you for considering my feature request. I hope it will make it into the game at some point in the future'. The least appropriate response is to say 'Because feature X isn't currently in the game and because I know it only takes two days to code it, I can't understand why BFC hasn't already added this feature to the game. I can only assume the reason such a feature hasn't already been included is X' with X being whatever derogatory term the poster feels like tossing out at the given time.

Ah yes, I understand. I think your observation is correct and that there isn't a counter showing the time remaining. BFC has stated publicly about their desire to address the UI so perhaps that's something that might be added in the future if they eventually get around to doing a UI overhaul.

Actually I think the deployment time is shown in the UI .... although it has been a while since I've specifically looked for that.

Just because someone has an opinion doesn't mean it is correct. I'm not saying whether I think you are correct in your opinions or not, but if you don't have a full and complete understanding about how CM's code works and how things are done within that context then you are arguing from a perspective of ignorance and assumption. The only one who knows how CM's code works is Charles and the only one who has learned the code well enough to become a programmer for BFC is Phil. Charles has never said anything publicly, that I'm aware of, about the inner workings of CM's code. The only things that I recall Phil ever saying about CM's code publicly was along the lines of how unique it is and how different it is to anything else that he had dealt with previously as far as coding things in the game. So while you certainly have the option of stating your case, you could probably also demonstrate a little humility with regards to your lack of knowledge of how things actually get done within the context of the code that CM is based upon. Making simple comparisons to other games is probably an exercise in irrelevance since CM's code appears to be a unique creation of Charles and not really similar to anything else 'on the market'. Edited to add: Do'h, ninja'd by the man himself.

What was the most surprising thing to me was the little chart at the end of 'Unknown Eastern Front' that listed the contributions of the various nations to the fighting on the Eastern Front. Number 1 on the list? Russia (for the Axis side!) Here is the list of contributors, most of these figures are estimates of course 1 Russia 800,000 2 Hungary 800,000 3 Romania 500,000 4 Finland 500,000 5 Caucasus 280,000 6 Ukraine 250,000 7 Italy 250,000 8 Croatia 145,000 9 Latvia 100,000 10 Estonia 60,000 11 Spain 47,000 12 Byelorussia 47,000 13 Slovakia 45,000 14 Netherlands 40,000 15 Belgium 38,000 16 Lithuania 20,000 17 Poland 20,000 18 France 10,000 19 Norway 6,000 20 Denmark 4,000 He indicates that had the Germans chosen to support various independence movements Ukraine alone could possibly have supplied an army of around 1,000,000 men but by the time the Germans started to think in those terms most Ukrainians were done dealing with the Germans. If the Germans got 800,000 Russians in spite of the way they were acting just think of how many they could have gotten with a little different attitude towards the occupied territories. It is doubtful that things ever could have played out any differently with respect to the occupied territories, but it is still an interesting exercise in 'what if'. These numbers include all the 'helpers', SS recruits, national battalions, and security battalions. Most of these guys were probably assigned anti partisan duties and supply and logistics type activities.

Just going from memory from ... I think he discussed it in "The Unknown Eastern Front" by Rolf - Dieter Muller, something like half the Axis soldiers on the Eastern Front throughout the war were non Germans. I am of course including Romanians, Finns, Italians, Hungarians, etc. in all of that. Many thousands of Ukrainians also filled out German supply and service functions in combat and non combat units which acted to free up more Germans to serve in combat roles.

I'm not certain I fully understand what is being asked, but if you have high speed internet access I think you are always connected unless you physically unplug your computer or something like that. The game also doesn't automatically update itself in the same way that - say Steam does. Updating the game is a manual process that you have to perform yourself.

It has been mentioned internally and the guy who does the QB maps has taken a look at it, but you can always submit a ticket to the help desk if you want to be thorough. It would be helpful to have a list of which QB maps seem to be affected by this.

Post number 2 eh? Welcome to the forum. Just so you know, even the actual game AI barely has any sort of command scripting as you describe let alone giving that power to the player. I would be very happy if they eventually gave the AI that level of command level scripting, but know that what you ask for would probably consume the majority of BFC's meager programming capacity for more than a year or two.

It may also be worthwhile to point out that BFC does have access to actual Russian armor experts living in Russia who speak Russian.

Sorry, I haven't done a thing to the scenario file in over a month.

I only re enter here with extreme reluctance because I want to make my point as clear as possible. Generally speaking I think that BFC want players to enjoy the game they purchased as much as possible. I don't think they have too much of a problem with the map transfers for a couple of reasons, the first of which is that the content is produced by individuals who are not directly employed by BFC and because BFC doesn't have a direct role in the creation of content it would put them in an awkward position for them to vigorously defend such content. We do get something from our labor though, but nobody is going to get rich making maps and scenarios for BFC. Anyone who owns the game can create a scenario or a map and put it up on the repository for anyone to download. There is also an expectation that individuals will alter and use content provided within the game for their enjoyment of that specific game. We all know that. However, here is the crux of the issue from my standpoint. Ask yourself this question: If BFC released a base game or a module and no content of any kind was included, would you feel that was a valuable purchase? In other words, a new Bulge title is released and there were no QB maps, no scenarios, and no campaigns included at all. We already know what a release like that looks like to some extent - it is the equivalent of the vehicle pack that was released only it would be even worse because at least with the vehicle pack there already existed QB maps in the previous base game and modules. If a new base game was released with no QB maps at all then there would be no maps created until someone in the community created them (and we all know how well that is going don't we?). I think that BFC thinks of their games in that context to some extent because they obviously thought the vehicle pack was a good idea. Only BFC knows what the sales numbers were for the vehicle pack and if they were strong then theoretically BFC could simply release a game engine with TO&Es and vehicle models and tell the community to just create their own content. Does anyone here think that would be a good idea? If your answer is yes then you won't understand my point. If your answer is 'no' then there is hope because then the next obvious conclusion one can reach is that ... yes ... people purchase BFC games and modules at least partially because of the content that is provided with the game. If that wasn't the case then BFC wouldn't feel the need to include content in their releases and they could just have the community create their own content. To some extent I think BFC thinks in those terms, but I am of the opinion that content is actually the primary reason why people purchase the games because without content there isn't a game to play. All you have is a 'war game construction set' with vehicle models and TO&Es and who wants one of those? The sales of the vehicle pack should be proof of concept either way. Therefore, if content that is contained in a game is part of the reason for purchasing that game, then transferring that content between games in a manner that isn't intended is potentially giving someone something for nothing. The very fact that individuals feel that the transferring of these QB maps between titles is something that they gain value from is essentially proof of my point that the content has value (otherwise why transfer it), and if it is content that was provided by BFC when a player purchased the game then that content, by definition, can be assumed to have been given to someone for free that which should probably have been purchased. I hope that clears things up from my end.

Ah, so perhaps when someone took the scenario map and created a QB map out of it they took the old map before I deleted and replaced the offending buildings. Incidentally the missing floors showed up in a later beta build so they were present for most of the time the game was being developed. I only caught it because I inspect my scenario maps after every beta build to make sure nothing is broken. Do the buildings in the scenario itself exhibit the missing floors or is it just in the QB map based on the scenario map? Incidentally I didn't even know there was a QB map based on that scenario map.

There was an issue with the missing walls in an earlier beta build, but I deleted and replaced all the independent buildings before submitting my final copy of the scenario to BFC. None of the buildings in the scenario currently exhibit this characteristic in my copy. Very odd.

If you just send them your own file then just your password should suffice. If they need a file from your opponent then they'll ask for it and perhaps they could even just get the file and password from your opponent (thus preserving your game).

It really just depends on what one considers paid 'content' or not. If everyone owned every game that BFC sold then obviously it wouldn't be an issue for everyone to share QB maps across different titles. However, not everyone owns every game that BFC sells and once one person converts a map from one title to another then everyone, regardless as to whether they own both titles in question, has access to every map in every title. So if one considers QB maps to be content that has been paid for with the purchase of a particular game, a map converter then makes that content available for free to all BFC customers regardless of which titles they own. This then makes the case for questioning whether it would be worthwhile to actually create and sell new content. Sure, in the short term some individuals may gain access to some interesting QB maps available in other titles, but at what long term cost for 'new' content. After all, why include 300 + QB maps in a release when you can just include twenty new ones and tell everyone to keep on using all the old ones that they are swapping between different titles. Sure cuts down on the work load doesn't it? This is why selling 'content' packs will always fail unless BFC creates some very good ways to keep individuals out of the files so they can send the content to all their friends. All those who dream of putting together some sort of independent 'scenario packs' will never be able to do it in a way that works. Only BFC could create and sell 'content' packs and only if there were a fool proof way of keeping control of the content restricted to those who purchased it. The way this horse is being beaten makes one wonder if BFC will ever consider it to be worthwhile to produce and sell 'content' packs. I think this is all I'm going to say on this subject so I'll now 'exit stage left'.

Just curious, but are you able to reproduce this problem with a new game against the AI? If the issue can be reproduced then that makes it much easier for the programmer to isolate the problem. It may also isolate whether the problem is related to something PBEM specific or if it shows up in both PBEM or single player. Otherwise if you have saved your PBEM files where the issue was occurring you might be able to send the file to the help desk so they can take a look at it. Just to be thorough, I'm assuming that you didn't have the vehicles moving into prohibited terrain or across a wall or hedge or something.

I think it will be difficult for anyone to assist you with this without more information. Perhaps a screen shot would be helpful, or if you are playing a scenario or QB perhaps a description or title would help.

I definitely agree with this sentiment in principle, but in practice there are a lot of players who simply don't like large maps and / or the longer scenario time limits that go along with the larger maps. Someone actually told me that they felt 'uncomfortable' while playing a scenario with a large map because it wasn't possible to assume a secure flank since the map was large enough that the map edge didn't play much of a role in the battle. So yeah, while larger maps are usually going to give you better results, they also require longer time limits. Larger maps are also harder on people's computers and some maps can be so large that a player can't even play on it. So there will always be a balancing act that has to be navigated when creating something.