ASL Veteran

On the bright side though, when Steve gets chatty like this it usually means ....

Once everything gets on Steam then everyone can go to Steam Charts and see how many players are playing each game series so people will know which titles are the most popular based on current players (as opposed to sales which we aren't privy to). That also makes the discussion about what came out before what and what has more content largely irrelevant - at least for current players anyway since the measure is the same for all titles (who is playing the game today). More than likely all the East Front fans have also bought CMBN because it came out first, but not all players who bought CMBN bought CMRT thus the East Front fans count towards both (making it improbable that sales of CMRT would surpass CMBN since everyone for CMRT likely has CMBN). That doesn't necessarily mean that all the East Front fans are still playing CMBN at the same level as they are playing CMRT. Fire and Rubble might also increase the number of East Front players just because there would be more content. I'm sure that even accounting for that CMBN outstrips everything else, but at least we would get an objective measure of current popularity once everything is on Steam. Last time I checked Steam Charts CMSF had about twice as many current players as CMBS IIRC. I am curious what CMBN would be.

well, and obviously the properties of the flavor object made by someone would not be coded into the game as the ones in the game are done by Charles so whatever object you chose to modify would retain the properties assigned to whatever the object was before you turned it into whatever you turned it into.

I seem to recall Steve saying that Panzershreks were not normally available to Panzergrenadier formations by TO&E, but rather that Panzershreks were distributed amongst leg infantry units instead. I'm just going from memory and I haven't looked at the TO&E for Panzergrenadier formations or anything like that, but if what I'm remembering is accurate then that's why Panzershrek teams wouldn't be available in the Armored Infantry category. Incidentally the teams are functionally identical no matter what category you are choosing them from, so if you want Panzershrek teams with your Panzergrenadiers then just grab the team from the Infantry category. Nobody will know the difference.

Well that's the thing. There is a Well flavor object in CMRT so if it provided cover then you would see bullets bouncing off it since it's stone. It might, I've just never tried it or noticed it. At the same time though any flavor object that gets added to the game has to be coded on the back end by Charles to give it cover. Flavor objects typically have a very low priority when it comes to getting a game completed so I'm not sure how much time is spent on giving flavor objects appropriate properties. Map makers always want more flavor objects, but there is always push back on what we can have and how much effort is put into creating them. Without Pete Wenman's good work we would probably still be using flavor objects from Shock Force in Final Blitzkrieg! I kid, but only a little.

Well I don't pretend to know how complicated it would be, but it's been like this forever ... I'm sure if it could be fixed it would be. It seems like, for whatever reason, buildings just tend to have an invisible footprint inside an action spot when placed at the diagonal - at least for vehicles. A footprint beyond what you can see visually 3D or even what's represented in the 2D map editor. I've been bit by that on occasion in the past and it's aggravating. If you catch it you can adjust the map accordingly, but that's not always going to be possible to catch that sort of stuff if you have a big map. I spent hours on the Hot Time In Hatten map only to find out that I couldn't drive anything down the main road through Hatten!! Eventually I was able to fix it by adjusting the building spacing, but it can be hard to detect even when you are making the map. Infantry can't body up to a fence at a T or + intersection, but I think that shows as prohibited terrain when you try to move them up to the fence (although I can't be sure as it's been a while since I've tried that)

Color me surprised. I've seen them get destroyed when vehicles drive over them (disappear). I've never seen the pixeltruppen take a knee behind a flavor object - at least that I remember. Interesting.

I feel your pain. I can't really tell from the screen shot, but the game does have some vehicle pathing issues for buildings at a 45 degree angle (as opposed to straight north south cardinal directions when looking at the 2D map in the editor). Your compass in the screen shot seems to indicate that everything is at a 45 degree angle, but I'm not certain because you may be looking at a 45 degree angle and buildings are at cardinal directions. For example, you can put a road down an angled street with buildings along each side and then find that you can't drive anything down said road. The gap between obstacles basically has to be a full 'action spot' in order to be sure that a vehicle will pass through a gap. The unfortunate part is that you can place buildings, walls, and other things such that they will only be half an 'action spot' wide and it will block movement and the game won't even tell you that the path is obstructed (although if the building is facing the cardinal directions the game works better with smaller gaps). The only way to know is when it happens (as you found out). So once again, I don't know what map that is or if the building is diagonal vs a cardinal direction, but if they are then likely the gap is not a full action spot in width and so your jeep was blocked. The person who makes the map isn't going to know either unless they drive something through there or know about the 'issue' and can remember to adjust for it. My only advice would be that if you are thinking of a move like that, check the direction the building facades are facing. If the building facade doesn't face the cardinal directions then you should probably be cautious when attempting to pass through a gap near a building.

From a scenario design standpoint there really is no need for window entry. As I recall there was a lot of discussion about this years ago, but ultimately if you just think of doors as 'entry points' rather than doors then the window discussion becomes academic. On the modular buildings a designer can put a door on every side of the building as well as putting doors on every floor between adjacent buildings if the designer chooses to do so. I can't do that on the independent buildings, but for the most part if I want to allow the player easy entry to every modular building I can do that as a designer. A door on every wall would probably look funny, but it's possible. When two modular buildings abut each other I tend to add doors between the buildings on every floor - it only takes one shift click and it's done now. Back when CMBN was originally released the windows remained in place when buildings were touching each other and you would have to painstakingly cycle through all the facades until you got the one with a door and no windows. Now when two buildings are adjacent to each other the walls that touch another building are blank and it just takes one click to put a door in the wall. So easy peasy lemon squeezy these days. You can even shift the location of the door along to different parts of the wall if you have two buildings that don't line up exactly against each other. Or add a door between buildings and then put a window on a part of the building that isn't covered by an adjacent building. I don't remember exactly when that was added - maybe it was added for Market Garden? Anyway, it's basically up to the designer and how much time they want to spend cycling through the building facades. It can be a bit of a time sink, but it's time you have to spend if you want your map to work the way you want it to. The only thing you can't do is put two doors in the same wall - which is unfortunate in some instances because there are cases where I would like to be able to put an interior door between adjacent buildings as well as put a door to the outside on an exposed part of the building along the same wall. In the case of the screen shot, if the elevation was adjusted such that the door was no longer blocked then window entry would be unnecessary since the door would work.

Flavor objects do not provide any cover. They can be driven through freely by any vehicle. Not certain if they provide concealment or not - but if you are already spotted it probably doesn't matter that much.

Yes, but when you fire them from a building it causes suppression and possible casualties to building occupants.

Linking up and Breaking out is an older scenario. At that time I seem to recall that buildings would automatically flatten the terrain around it so the building sat flat. At some point later on buildings no longer pushed the terrain flat automatically so now unless the designer places elevation points under the building the ground will rise up and cover doors and windows. I may not be remembering right though cause it's been a few years since Commonwealth. The elevation routine was changed with the first Italy game IIRC because roads wouldn't cut into mountains and other complications that were specific to Italy. I'm guessing that scenarios from before the first Italy game may suffer these issues with doors and windows more so than in later titles.

In this case it appears that the door is partially underground because the elevation appears to be different between the two doors. When a designer doesn't put buildings on flat ground the doors frequently don't work because the door is blocked by the ground. Creating a town in hilly terrain is a lot of work and you really have to massage the ground in order for it to work and have it look okay. I can't be certain because I'm not looking in the editor and I don't know what map that is, but to my eye that door doesn't look like it's the right size (my eyeball is telling me it's too short so the elevation isn't flat)

I don't know if this means anything or not, but I heard this song playing in BFC's offices as I walked past - draw your own conclusions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIuYQ_4TcXg

That would be nice.

Isn't there already a combat mission Afghanistan game?

If I recall correctly there are no separately tracked smoke rounds in the sense that they come from an entirely different pile of ammo than the HE rounds. If the HE is expended then the smoke is expended as the smoke rounds listed is a subset of the HE rounds. The reverse is not true though in that if you expend all of your smoke rounds then the remaining HE rounds can still be fired. Not really sure why they did it like that, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

Well to be fair, for Paradox anyway, some content does come free when they create an improvement but most of the additional / upgrade content comes with the purchase of the DLC. So not everything is free when they upgrade. Some fraction of the content is free and if you want all the new features unlocked you still have to buy the upgrade.

Okay hang on a second here. All any scenario designer can do is create an AI plan. As to whether it is challenging or not is going to depend on the situation and the player. In Drive Them Out the scenario is very difficult for the attacking force - even for a player attacking and I did the best that I could do but the Americans frequently get pinned down and the MG sections and the tank often have trouble spotting the enemy so they don't fire very much in support so it is what it is. The scenario designer can't adjust the attack based upon circumstances or adapt on the fly. A scenario designer can only do so much. So as long as the Americans are moving then I've done what I can. If the player stops the attack with minimal difficulty then I don't know what to tell you. Just getting the plan to the state it was in took many many hours of work along with some trial and error and that's the best I could come up with. It is what it is. Not every scenario is going to be that easy for a defender though as different situations will yield different results. If the American AI in Drive Them Out actually captured an objective then I consider that a win. Oh, and yes, I was originally answering the question of why the Americans were lined up not moving and not why does the AI plan not challenge me enough so whatever was going on initially seems to have been taken care of.

Drive them out has an American AI plan. I know because I made it myself lol. Not sure what you are doing - you sure you selected the German side? I'm at a loss as to why they wouldn't be moving for you unless you maybe selected the American side instead of the German side after picking the scenario.

You are playing a scenario or a Quick Battle? If you are playing a QB you would have to be playing with a map that had AI plans but if it's for a scenario then maybe if you say which scenario you are playing we can look at it.

here is an instance where the turret crew bail out and the driver and radio operator remain fighting in the tank. So anyway, the long and the short of it is that people can quote regulations and from that derive opinions of what tank crews are supposed to do or act, but the reality can be something entirely different. The only way to know for sure what really happens is to read first hand accounts - lots of them because one veteran's experience will not always be the same as another veteran's experience, but you can sort of get a picture of what is probable and what isn't by sifting through the accounts collectively. Some of the ways reality differs from the game is 1. If a tank takes a casualty the tank retreats off the battlefield. There is no crew swapping of positions or anything like that. If the driver is dead or otherwise incapacitated then the tank is immobilized. If the driver is okay then he drives off the battlefield if any crewmember is killed or wounded. 2. If a tank takes a penetrating hit and actually notices it (sometimes they don't even know it), but no crewmembers are killed or wounded they will typically withdraw off the battlefield. Taking a penetrating hit and just sitting in place never happens unless the crew doesn't know that they took a hit. 2a. If a tank takes a non penetrating hit that causes damage to the vehicle it is likely that the vehicle will withdraw off the battlefield although this isn't 100 percent and it is situationally dependent. For example, a Tiger took a turret hit that knocked the turret MG back inside the turret which then knocked the gunner out cold. The tank withdrew from the battlefield. Another Tiger took a hit on the turret and the gunner's eyepiece was driven into his eye and blinded him so the vehicle withdrew from the battlefield. I guess that also falls into category 1 above. 3. If a tank crew bails out of a tank the crew retreats to friendly lines and counts themselves as lucky to have survived. They are lucky to have a pistol if they are armed with anything at all. 4. Just as many tank crewmen are killed in the process of bailing out of the tank due to jammed or blocked hatches or other complications as are killed when the tank is destroyed. In CM everyone gets out of the tank as there are no jammed or blocked hatches. A big offender in this is the PzIV with the turret skirts - if the turret is turned the skirts can block the driver and radio operator hatches. The Panther commander's hatch is also an offender since it apparently has some sort of a screw mechanism and can be difficult and time consuming to open in an emergency even if the hatch wasn't damaged. 5. A tank crew typically won't recrew a tank that they bailed out of, although it does happen on occasion it's relatively rare. I've never read an account where a recrewed tank immediately rejoins the fight though or recrews the tank when it is under fire with the intent of engaging the enemy. Usually there is time spent away from the vehicle and when it seems the situation has changed they might recrew it. Certainly no crew would jump back into a tank that wasn't theirs if the enemy is nearby since there is no way for them to know what the situation is with the tank mechanically if it's just sitting abandoned in a field somewhere. That's all I can think of at the moment, but generally speaking tank crews in CM are already supermen in many ways. They don't need any additional morale boosters in the game. The problem is that if tanks acted the way they really act players would complain about it because their tanks aren't doing what they want their tanks to do so some compromises are to be expected.

Okay so in fairness I decided to put a couple of good Soviet accounts up. Just in case anyone had doubts about the veracity of the descriptions of tank crews bailing out of moving vehicles here you go. I should point out that these are Soviet veterans describing their own troops and not German accounts which some might doubt - although there are German accounts that describe the same thing This is just one of those things that make you go hmmm Here is an extended account and at the end he basically explains why you might need to be cautious about taking some accounts at face value.

I'm not sure that's it, but the author is using the Japanese description of it (the book is from the Japanese perspective). They describe it as thin flat metal strips and they don't mention any barbs on it but maybe it is? Or maybe Piano Wire in Japanese is their word for Concertina wire and the author is just translating it exactly? However, the Japanese describe it as though it's some mysterious new thing that they never encountered before which seems odd if it was concertina wire, unless they just never saw any before?

Okay, well maybe one last one just because it's so ridiculous for a tank to be taken out by a tree but odd things can happen I guess