ASL Veteran

I agree that AI plan is probably not the most challenging. It was intended to create a second AI plan with the focus on Monte Calvario but there wasn't enough time to implement that AI plan before the game was locked down for release so all you got was the one that was there. Monte Calvario isn't an American objective, so while the AI plan may have seemed strange from the German perspective it will perhaps make more sense if you load it up as the American side. In terms of points, the victory conditions are also slightly asymetric to account for the difficulties of attacking the monastery so it wouldn't surprise me if you didn't get a Total Victory with your points in spite of how many Americans you killed. Yes, all the American troops moved, but the ones you saw 'camping' were there for flank security and since the AI isn't reactive there is no way for the AI to know that the main assault has already been defeated or if the German player gets the itch to counterattack. So, sorry for the disappointing battle. The OB for each side was almost accurate to the man and the Germans did actually mow down a lot of attacking Americans if you read the designer's notes - although doubtless the real attack would have been called off long before the casualties in game had been reached. Perhaps some of the other scenarios will prove to be more challenging for you. We'll try harder next time.

Jon has done an excellent job of organizing the process he uses when making a scenario, but while most designers may go through each of the steps he has listed it is more typically done in a less methodical manner. I think probably the most difficult part isn't following the steps per se, but rather acquiring the ability to 'feel' whether what you are doing is going to end up with something with potential or not. Sometimes you are plugging away and it just feels right from beginning to end and everything goes smoothly. Other times you sit there and struggle with something chipping away at this or modifying that until it either finally feels right or you have to abandon it. If you follow the steps Jon has outlined your chances of getting it right from the beginning are much better than if you just open up the editor and start flailing away. However, after you have done it for a while it should become more of an intuitive process than a mechanical one.

With regard to the Exit after and Exit before .... it used to be that broken and rattled troops would stop following the AI plan but that was modified back sometime ago .... in between when Commonwealth was released and CMBN was released. I don't remember exactly. Anyway, the truppen will always follow the plan to completion or until they are eliminated whichever comes first. The only thing is that currently Rattled and Broken etc status truppen will follow the plan much more slowly and will hang back from non rattled truppen. Another thing that I have noticed is that the AI will not necessarily wait until all members of a group reach a certain waypoint before moving on to the next waypoint. So your truppen can get really strung out if you have to move them a long way and you don't have any delays baked in with the Exit After times. This especially seems to happen with Mortar teams and higher level HQ teams. Sometimes they actually wait so long to move that the leading elements of a group have already started off to the next waypoint - in which case the mortar teams and HQ teams may skip a waypoint and just head for the next one. This is very annoying behavior if you have carefully selected a covered approach and all of a sudden, because your mortar team was hanging back for so long they end up running out in the middle of a field because they are skipping a waypoint. Exit Before times are useful for keeping those mortar teams from falling too far behind the leading elements.

Many were noticing the odd way that the AI plans were being selected even when no artillery plan was being used. It was never able to be proven to the point where something was done, so perhaps you can reply in Pete's thread if you haven't already (I haven't checked those forums yet before typing this).

Another way of saying it is that there is only one artillery plan and every AI plan will use the same artillery plan. Therefore if I have three AI plans all three will use the same artillery plan since there is only one artillery plan. This effectively restricts how you contruct your AI plans since all of your AI plans are stuck with the same artillery plan. The AI is pretty good with opportunity fire for artillery. On the attack you generally need to have someone sitting in place for a while before they use it. If they are continuously moving then the AI doesn't have a chance to drop it anywhere since they may end up running into the area that the FFE is landing.

Well that is what we are discussing here isn't it? Whether or not you are going to buy the game? You made your judgement - you don't think the value from purchasing the module is equal to the price that you may have to pay for it. Pretty simple really. All the rest of this discussion basically amounts to you asking Steve to PM you with a special beelzeboss discount because you want the price to be cheaper.

So beelzeboss, after endlessly going around in circles with Steve and others, the bottom line here is that you aren't interested in purchasing the Market Garden Module. I'm glad we are now well informed about your decision not to buy the module and the basis upon which you have made that decision. Your ability to use your knowledge of economics and the gaming market when weighing your decision to pass on the Market Garden Module is remarkable and shows that you don't make this decision lightly. Perhaps when BFC announces their next release you will be more interested in the subject matter. In the meantime, I sincerely hope that the titles that you already own will keep you busy until the next game is announced.

Your only job as the customer is to decide whether or not you obtain value from your purchase. If you don't think that you will gain an appropriate amount of value from your purchase then you don't make it. If you are a working professional then you can afford the price - it's not a function of whether or not you can afford it. It's a function of the perception that you have of the value that you gain from purchasing the product vs the price that you pay for it. If the developer is able to remain profitable with the current pricing structure then the market is telling the developer that their product is appropriately priced. It would only make sense to alter the price if they can project a higher gross income from sales by doing so. One more purchase probably isn't going to be enough I'm afraid. Whether or not you feel you gain a level of value out of the product that you are comfortable with is entirely up to you.

Marketing is very complex and the pricing perception issue is present in all products to a greater or lesser degree. If Mercedes came out with a car that cost $12000 to buy new then people would do a double take and think there was something wrong with it even if it was built to the same quality standards as their other vehicles. Regardless, when it comes to Combat Mission the only thing that matters is if the pricing is set correctly vs the target market. If it's too high then not enough people will buy it and if it's set too low then it doesn't matter how many buy it because the income won't cover the expenses. So if the current level of sales is such that expenses are being covered then the current pricing model is the correct one. I'm going to take a guess and say that many / most of the people who buy combat mission games are working professionals who can afford the price of the game at the price it is set at. Steve has also said that this particular market tends to have a more even distrubution of sales over several months as opposed to a huge spike on release followed by a dramatic drop off in sales. If most of your target audience has to ask mom or dad to buy it for them, then sure a lower price would probably be necessary, in which case unless the gross sales increased pretty dramatically the sales income wouldn't cover the expenses because the price isn't high enough. In other words, even though you sell more units you make less money. If I sell 50,000 units at $100 a unit then my gross income is $5,000,000 If I sell 100,000 units at $60 a unit then my gross income is $6,000,000 If I sell 200,000 units at $30 a unit then my gross income is also $6,000,000 If I sell 150,000 units at $30 a unit then my gross income is only $4,500,000 So you see, my ability to double my sales from 100,000 to 200,000 didn't mean a thing in terms of the bottom line since my gross income is the same. So unless the increase in sales is worth it, then the reduction in price isn't worth it because your end result is the same. That's even assuming that you can double your sales by halving your price. If you gamble like that and only sell 150,000 units instead of 200,000 then you are actually losing money while at the same time selling more units than you were at $60 or even at $100. Once you have set the lowered price it becomes more difficult to reset it higher because you know with some level of certainty that you are going to lose some of those customers with the higher price.

Yes, I'll be sure and add Ian to my flame list as well ... I have it right here ... let me see .... yes, Ian is the screen name. Added.

Thank you for coming back and letting us know that the problem has been resolved. Hopefully we can get a Yippeeeeeee out of you now since you will now have full use and access to all the new big bridges in the MG module .

I think you are a reasonable person Waclaw. You did give BFC eleven days to rush out a patch that tells pixeltruppen who are rendering buddy aid to prioritize the acquisition of SMGs. I think eleven days is more than enough time to respond to your request, fix up a patch, and have that distributed to everyone. Do'h, I confused Waclaw with Superwoz ..... it turns out Emrys was correct once again because I feel a choking feeling coming over me.

As far as I'm aware there was never any announcement that there would be fire in the Market Garden module, or anything else that was mentioned above. In fact, I'm not sure there has even been anything officially announced for Market Garden yet. I don't think anything new was introduced with Commonwealth Module either in terms of the game engine as I recall. There were changes with the 2.0 upgrade but that was separate from Commonwealth. If this isn't what you want then don't buy it and wait for Eastern Front if that's what floats your boat.

I believe it was Napoleon who sold America the Louisiana Territory, so if he hadn't sold it there wouldn't have been a battle of New Orleans with the Americans. Perhaps it would have been a battle between the French and British instead? I seem to recall that Napoleon sold Louisiana because of the Haitian revolt or something .... I don't remember all the details but I think it had something to do with Haiti. Just think, the entire Mississippi River could be British today if not for Nappy and his need for some quick cash.

In the screen shot he has selected the squad. Over on the left side of the screen you see what each member of the squad is doing - planning, moving, aiming, whatever. In the area of the UI that is supposed to show the squad, it actually shows the Platoon Headquarters instead of the squad. If everything were correct, then you would see the headquarters selected in orange on the screen, the headquarters down in the UI, and you would see four fellows on the left side and what they are doing 'planning, moving, etc'.

1. Andrew Jackson I don't know the others

Hey, this guy must be new around here. Basically your entire list has been requested multiple times by multiple players. The problem with getting those features in has been BFC's lack of manpower so they have to prioritize what gets done and what is left on the shelf. We've been told that each one of those items would be many months worth of work and at the moment they don't feel the payoff is worth the time spent on them. Things may change in the future though so you never know. Suggestions are always welcome though so don't hesitate to keep them coming.

There is always Chief Pontiac who not only makes automobiles but led "Pontiac's Rebellion" against the British in 1763.

William Tecumseh Sherman perhaps? That's the only Tecumseh that I know of. I don't think it's a very common name ... but you never know.

With the engine improvements effectively divorced from the game through the use of the upgrade system, you could just keep upgrading the base game as more improvements are added. I think the only thing that would require the use of the different base games would be if there were significant terrain differences ... to the point where the same terrain modelling system isn't used between base games. The maps are inherent to the base game and I think that's really what keeps CMFI and CMBN as separate and distinct base games.

It actually does that now. If you have a commonwealth scenario on your computer and you don't have the commonwealth module installed, it will be darkened with red writing across the image that says 'Commonwealth module is required for this scenario'.

Who is saying that we don't need any scenarios playable vs the AI? Certainly not me. In fact, I think playable against the AI is an absolute requirement for any scenario on the CD. I'm at an absolute loss as to why people are reading my posts and getting that impression out of them. :confused: I would never, ever, advocate the creation of a scenario that had no AI plans at all for either side. That would be ridiculous. If you want to play against the AI, wouldn't having a scenario as playable vs the AI as either side be much better than having something playable as only one side? It doubles your options .... what am I missing here? Oh, and people do play Quick Battles vs the AI in spite of it's limitations (there are only two or three groups available per side and the one making the plan can't tailor the plan to a specific force).

You can always play a scenario in Scenario Author Test Mode if you want to. There is absolutely no fog of war for you when playing in that mode so all units are on the map at all times. The Tac AI still has fog of war though. That's not the way I would play it, but if you need to do it in order to get the hang of it, the option is there.

Yes, you are correct. The AI is basically fighting blind and the designer is just guessing where the player will be at any specific point in time. The bigger the map is and the longer the scenario lasts the more difficult it is to know where the player will be. So if the AI seems to always be in the right place at the right time, then the player is playing the scenario the way the designer predicted that it would play out. Once the player knocks any of the AI gears out of place or does something unexpected the wheels will generally come off the AI plan.

I don't think there was a video for that review, but I think that scenario can be found in the Gustav Line module. I think someone posted a video about Kiwi Soldiers in another thread though.