ASL Veteran

Oh well, it was worth trying. If that trick didn't work then I think you are out of luck.

Yeah, I have to admit that this situation seems kind of odd. It should be relatively simple to test though so I might check it out some day just out of curiosity. I do know that there have been frequent alterations to crews and victory conditions in an effort to prevent what many consider to be 'gamey' behavior so it is possible that crews can't hold objectives. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, but I don't know for certain if it is the case or not.

In general, I think the first rule of reinforcements is to always have them come in behind friendly forces along the designated friendly map edge. Coming in from the side will almost always create problems at some point unless the timing and location is thoroughly thought out and rigorously tested. If you need the reinforcements to be at a specific location by a certain time to make the AI plan work, then you just have to have the reinforcements enter along the rear map edge a little earlier so they can move into position. So yeah, I agree that the situation described by the OP is more of a design issue than anything else. Unfortunately it appears that this particular situation was missed when testing the campaign. We'll just have to try harder next time.

I agree with this assessment. It isn't an issue with official scenarios because one skilled person is creating all the graphics for everyone, but if you are out there creating something on your own then I can definitely see someone viewing this as a bar to uploading something. The other thing for me is simply the motivation factor. I create a lot of very large maps and after spending the time to create the overlay and set the map dimensions in the editor I will then frequently go into 3D mode and just view the map for a bit to get a better feel for its size. I have to say that looking at that massive flat blank green rectangle with the clouds floating over head can sometimes be a motivation killer all on its own. Creating QB maps should be much simpler to do and to some extent I'm a little surprised more people aren't creating QB maps. It would also be a great place to start for new scenario designers since they could hone their map making skills without needing to worry about briefings and where the AI plans have to be as simple as possible. I'm guessing that those who would be the most interested in QB maps probably would rather just play on them rather than make them and those who would be interested in making maps would probably rather be making scenario maps rather than QB maps. Edited to add that in my opinion one of the biggest time savers would be if an 'estimated arrival time' could be added by the editor to each AI waypoint location that you paint on the map. That would shave hours of time off of AI plan creation for me because as it is now I have to physically run the plan through its paces in order to figure out when a certain formation will reach any given AI waypoint. If the game is giving me that information in advance then I can spend more time on the actual mechanics of the AI plan rather than trying to figure out where everyone will be at a given point in time.

Okay, well let us know how it goes. Good luck and I hope you enjoy the campaigns that have been provided. If those don't work out for you then perhaps you might look into some of the refereed campaigns at one of the gaming clubs like 'Few Good Men'.

Yeah, I don't want you modifying my work in any way and putting it up to a website for others to use. My reasons are my own. It also makes no difference what BFC's reasons are for not providing you the tools to swap maps between titles. It only matters that the tool isn't provided and that the lack of such a tool implies that it isn't an action that is endorsed. I can certainly appreciate the enthusiasm with which Kohlenklau and others play and modify the game, but please try to show a little respect towards those of us who spend hundreds of hours creating the content that players enjoy (or complain about). You may completely ignore everything I create because you want to turn it into something it wasn't intended to be, but that doesn't mean I am under any obligation to say 'Yeah, I love it when other people take my hundreds of hours of hard work and turn it into something it was never intended to be. Please continue to alter what I do so I can appreciate how much you have modified what I have done.' Maybe you should spend a little time creating stuff from scratch rather than spending time porting other people's work between games. Perhaps that would give you a little more perspective on my view on the matter being discussed.

Excuse me?

Okay, well I am trying to be helpful but this isn't really going anywhere because nobody can actually figure out what it is that you want exactly. It is not typical for a commander to know absolutely nothing about the enemy in front of him. I'm sorry but it just isn't typical. The degree of information would vary of course, but advancing into a total void is absolutely the exception rather than the rule. Why that is important to you is something I can't figure out, but if it is important for you then it is important for you. However, there is hope for those who want to advance into a complete void. You can always play a Quick Battle or create scenarios and campaigns with out any briefings at all. Alternatively you can always just play a campaign and skip over the briefings. If you don't read the briefing then you don't know what the situation is so there you go. If you want the campaign system of CMx1 then why don't you just buy a CMx1 game and play it? I think they are still available for purchase on BFCs site. In general, those who are responding to you don't think the game is weak. You think the game is weak but nobody can figure out exactly why you think that. I think that might be a result of your expectations of what reality is versus what reality actually was, but if you read enough about WW2 battles and campaigns I think you will find your expectations to be wanting a bit when compared to reality. Ultimately battles and combat are story telling if you are writing about them after the fact. If I'm reading the history of the 28th Infantry Division I am reading a 'story' about the 28th Infantry Division. A story that was written when the soldiers fought in the battles that they participated in. I'm not really clear on how you are defining 'story telling' or how that fits into your perception of what the game is all about, but most scenarios and campaigns are not 'puzzles' for the player to solve by doing things in certain specific ways. Perhaps it would be helpful if you stated in simple and direct terms exactly what it is that you want from the game or what you expect the game to do? Describe in detail how it would work and how the game would play out because in spite of all your text you still aren't making very much sense. What other games do you like? Perhaps that would be helpful in giving us a common frame of reference.

Maybe, maybe not. If it was intended for players to switch maps between games then the tools would be provided in the manner that you are requesting. The tools are not being provided and there are currently no plans to provide them so ...... I would also appreciate it if you guys didn't take a map from a scenario that I made and convert it to something else, or if you do please don't post it on a site somewhere for general distribution.

At this point it appears more like you gentlemen are hacking into BFC's game files in a manner that is not approved so I'm not sure making demands is the smartest way to go about getting what you want. There is an obvious reason why BFC might want to convert maps from one game to another because hundreds of QB maps are needed for each release and converting maps is a massive time saver. There is no obvious reason why allowing customers to convert maps between is beneficial to BFC in any way.

It is actually more realistic than you might realize. A scenario briefing represents such things as operational recon and prisoner interrogations. If a given unit has been in contact or near an enemy unit for several days or weeks the exact unit designation of the enemy unit is typically known. Morale state and combat capability can also be deduced from the prisoners who have been captured and from the manner in which they were captured. It was a very rare situation during WW2 where a friendly unit was advancing into a complete void. There are individual gamers who, on their own, have created an 'Operational Layer' for players to play within which is what I'm thinking perhaps is what you are looking for. The game itself doesn't have an 'Operational Layer' and probably never will. Various independent parties have made attempts at linking an Operational Layer to the game itself but so far all attempts at creating an actual computer Operational Layer have failed. Some of the gaming clubs like "Few Good Men" have ongoing 'Operational Layer' games that they host, but they are conducted manually outside the limits of the game of Combat Mission with a referee or game umpire who manages it for the players. Perhaps you might check the CMx2 forums at Few Good Men and see if that's what you are after. Here is a link to the appropriate forum at Few Good Men http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/forums/combat-mission-x-2-cmbn-cmfi-cmrt-add-ons.160/

Well now you are starting to confuse me because I'm not really certain what your expectations are or how reasonable they are with respect to what is possible and what isn't possible in a computer game of any kind. As a scenario designer I can recreate, down to the individual soldier, any battle that has been fought where sufficient information is available to recreate it. I'm beginning to think that perhaps there is a difference between what you term a 'battle' and what I might term a 'battle'. If you want to fight 'The Battle of the Bulge' as a single battle that lasts for a month and covers several hundred square kilometers well then Combat Mission isn't your game. A 'battle' as defined by Combat Mission is when the 1st battalion of the 376th Infantry Regiment attacks some German bunkers behind the Dragon's Teeth at the West Wall. A battle has a start point and an end point and typically an engagement like that (in other words, an individual unit attacking another unit at a given location) might last a few hours at most before the attack has either succeeded or failed. An individual scenario can simulate a battle just fine. As far as what you want in a campaign goes - well by definition a campaign will be a series of linked battles. Sometimes the battles might be in the same location (old way) and sometimes the battles might be in different locations (new way), but a battle is a battle is a battle and has nothing to do with some of the things you seem to be including in your battle calculus. The odds of actual combat troops running out of ammunition during the course of an actual campaign is pretty low unless your force is facing some sort of strategic difficulties as the Germans faced in the closing months of WW2 where the entire logistics system was failing. An American unit running out of ammunition? That's not likely to happen and really that's something that most players would rather not concern themselves with. Most players would rather just fight the battle without worrying about ammunition availability. Why don't you just download one of the demos and try playing the game yourself then you can decide to get it or not get it.

I don't think there is any plan for a 'feature' like this so don't get your hopes up.

Have you tried giving them a 'passengers dismount' command? You have to select it when you paint your orders. If you wanted them to sit for a while and then dismount you would paint Order 1 on top of the bunker and then select 'passenger dismount' and put the exit between time to the order so they dismount at that time. Assuming the passenger dismount AI command works with a bunker of course. I'm thinking that it might though because Kubelwagen drivers dismount with that command, although vehicles with dedicated drivers do not dismount the drivers.

I'm not a code guy, but considering that there is no intent by BFC to do anything like the old system in the future it can be assumed that combining the two systems would be that much more difficult to accomplish. Thus combining the two systems is even less likely to happen than switching entirely back to the old system from the new system.

I know that at least a few of the scenarios directly correlate to the back story. I don't know if all of them do though. You would need to check the briefings and perhaps the designer's notes to be sure.

It is not possible from a coding standpoint to combine both systems. The old system isn't even under consideration for implementation so while we can all dream of things that might come, the old system isn't going to be returning any time soon if ever. With the new system you do have a core force that can be whittled down as you fight battles so you do need to be careful with the core forces, but any additional forces can be destroyed without consequence. You do not have any manual control over your force though, so if that was what you were driving at then no - the player has no control over their forces. Since the first campaign structure operated entirely on a single map, unless a player managed to capture everything on the map in the first battle there would still be map areas remaining under enemy control. Your troops might be scattered over various parts of the map - perhaps some in a church down the road, and others in a house a few hundred meters away. Ideally the front line could be drawn such that most friendly forces end up in contiguous set up zones. Under most circumstances these set up zones would ideally snake across the map as needed to encompass friendly troops as necessary. Some friendly troops might also end up in isolated pockets separated from the main friendly set up zone by an enemy set up zone. The problem was that the game wasn't smart enough to create such complicated set up zones and the set up zones typically ended up as a straight line that cut across the map with a few smallish bumps or bulges in the line. Many of your troops who were in advanced locations would then be forced back into the friendly set up zone so you, as the player, would lose ground because of the way the game created the set up zones.

The current system can portray attacks on defended locations. It just has to do it in the time space of a single battle that's all. Whether you succeed or fail in that battle the next battle in the series of battles will be on a different map or perhaps, depending upon the designer's intent, the campaign could come to an end. The current campaign system is a series of battles in different locations that could represent actions over the course of several days or even weeks if that is the designer's intent. The old system entirely consisted of multiple battles taking place in the same location over several hours or perhaps a couple of days, but the battle represented was essentially a static engagement. Both styles have their place, but given the type of actions that were characteristic of WW2 combat the old system would be better for something like Stalingrad whereas the new system fits better with - say Kampfgruppe Peiper and his advance during the battle of the Bulge.

You are getting confused. I was addressing the 'Operations' that were essentially the old 'Campaign' system in the first game series, also referred to as CMx1. I think those games are still available on the BFC main website and are referred to as CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK. The battles all happened on the same map, although the entire map wasn't necessarily visible all at one time. When a battle ended, the game drew a 'front line' on the current map based upon the positions of your forces at the end of a battle and default friendly set up zones were created based upon how the new front line was drawn. The forces were continuous between battles, although each side could get reinforcements in the period between battles. None of that applies to the current series of games. That all only applies to the CMx1 series of games. The current series of games, also known as CMx2, has an entirely different campaign system. With CMx2 campaigns a player is given a 'core force' that fights in every battle as well as some form of 'extra' forces that the campaign designer may or may not add to any individual battle within the series of battles that make up the campaign as a whole. The 'extra' forces do not carry over from one battle to another. Each battle in the series of battles that comprise the campaign are played on different maps as separate battles. Even if a designer decided to use the same map for two battles the map would still be new - as in exactly as the designer put the map into the campaign. No battle damage or destroyed vehicles etc. carry over from battle to battle. I hope that clears up any misunderstandings you may have between the two systems. If you don't own any games in the CMx1 series then you would be unfamiliar with the old campaign system, thus this discussion wouldn't have much meaning for you.

The main problem with the old Operation system was that the game had to draw the new front lines between battles and the game never did a very good job of it.

Yeah, I grew up as a Rams fan and my dad was a 49ers fan. Richard Sherman's ridiculous lunatic ranting and raving after beating the 49ers in last years NFC Championship game has me always hoping the Seahawks lose. Their arrogance and flapping gums just really rubs me the wrong way and I have to admit my intense pleasure at watching that ... guys face turn from jubilant to stunned in less than a second.

What black stripes? You mean the uniform that the referees wear?

I think that was a bug that was introduced with the vehicle pack ...? I think a patch was already released for that issue but I'm not 100% certain of that.

BFC actually tried adjusting the stance of soldiers in fields with tall grass or crops and ... well it didn't work out as well as we had hoped it would. As frustrating as it can be the way it is now it was even worse when it was tweaked.

Yes. It is known by BFC that this is inaccurate.