phil stanbridge

I realise CMBN is priority which is understandable but is there any eta? I still haven't playe the German campaign yet due to the missing panzerfaust launchers.

The campaigns are the best bit for me. Well, that along with the single missions and the QB's . I have read that there will be two campaigns provided with CMBN. One from the US perspective in an attacking role and presumably one as a counter-attacking German role. Is this still the case? A German defensive campaign as a human player would be a nightmare for the AI.

I really can't remember much about it! I just remember CMBO well after it was first launched and thinking to myself how amazing it was.

Ah there were some amazing scenarios in CMBO and CMBB that I can recall. Recall everything apart from the names that is! One such scenario that sticks in my mind must have been produced during the CMBO days as it was late American versus German in a winter war setting - it was a fantastic map that was tree heavy and deep snow. I remember having to cross a river that spanned the entire width of the map - with the Americans attacking the Germans defending. It was a really good human v human attack/assault that lasted some time. But it had some fantastic heavy cats and rockets and heavy artillery. It was a blast (literally!). But that said, I'm still really looking forward to the Normandy battles too!

Quality! I play Empires too from time to time but only with the Darthmod - I believe the game suffered with a number of bugs, but the smoke bug was one which effected the frame rate the most. I was going to invest in a 60GB SSD but I convinced myself that 60GB isn't enough these days even for the system drive. So I'll stick with my 750GB main drive. Shogun II looks good by the way

Yeah in my 20 years plus experience of building and fixing pc's I'd generally go with Nvidia too, but I couldn't resist the deal I was offered.

Thanks for your input guys - I ended up going with ATI this time round. I found a reasonable deal on a MSI 6950 with twin (quiet) fans. I'm thinking this will last me longer as it has 2gb of ram versus 1gb of the 560ti. Time will tell!

Absolutely not, as it uses Open GL as far as I know.

Hmm I've decided to build my own rig as it will work out cheaper in the long run plus it's more future-proofed. The question is, do I opt for a ATI 6950 which has 2gb of memory, (which may help as I have a 24" screen @ 1920x1200), OR do I opt for the old faithful, and purchase a quiet and reliable Nvidia 560Ti, which only has 1GB of memory but it is more likely (possibly?) to give me less hassle in the long run.

Wow that is an amazing story. Nice to know there are people like that around. Kudos to the generous chap and good luck to you and your family. I know what you mean about the cost of running a family too, having just had a baby boy 2 months ago, he is rather demanding

I know they fixed the lighting issue recently in Shock Force with Nvidia cards which was great and I hope that they don't have the same problems again in Normandy. But there have always been 'niggles' ever since the days of CMBO. My current laptop will play the game but not particularly well if I use Shock Force as a benchmark. I'm guessing that with more 'flavor' and terrain the game will be slower still for me, hence the upgrade.

lol nice. Looking forward to it.

I need a new rig for CMBN - and I'm undecided what to do for the best at the moment. But my choice will depend a lot on whether CMBN performs admirably on ATI/and or Nvidia chipsets. I'm half tempted to get myself one of the new Sandybridge laptops for simplicity sake - if I take this route they have the Nvidia chips. But past experience tells me to hold fire until the game is released. Can you forsee any problems?

I couldn't resist that steel box. Man that looks good! That $20 strikes me as a tad excessive considering it's shipped from Germany to the UK for a few Euros, (I remember seeing the packaging from CMSF) - someone somewhere is making a nice little profit from the shipping! Still, I'm not overly complaining - can't wait to get it even though my little baby boy is eating up all my spare time Maybe I can teach him Combat Mission:D

Looks like BGA memory problems to me - caused by an overheating graphics card. Make sure your fans are spinning on the VGA - get rid of the dust, and install some software to check the temps, and make sure nothing is out of the ordinary. Can be caused by old drivers/corrupted drivers, or by particular games stressing the system.

lol suits me just fine as it goes! My new baby is taking care of that! :-)

Well, you can't have a 'preview' AFTER the game is released can you?

Indeed RIP. I loved his interviews in the BOB series.

I like both games - they are fun in equal measures. As long as you look at the TOW series through rose tinted glasses most people like what they see. I quite like the TOW series because it offers a different type of gameplay from CM. It's also 'prettier' in many respects even if it isn't based upon the same scale. It's not as accurate as the CM series under any cirumstances, even though it tries a little too hard IMO. For example, every man in the squad is named and you can mixro-manage every soldier individually. It reminds me very much of a 'polished' Close Combat. CM is actually catching up in this respect now, and that will be interesting to see how it feels in a WWII theatre once again. You can also choose which round to take out that tank, or when to use that rifle grenade, whereas this is more automated in CM. But then there's daft things, like not being able to unbutton that tank, and laser-guided tank machine guns that can fire accurately at 1000 yards. But overall, TOW is a pretty nice franchise. It will be interesting to see how TOW Korea pans out with it's new found versatility.

Thanks guys! Appreciate it. I'm holding off the German campaign for that very reason. (I finished the first mission without the panzerfaust mind you). I'm also holding off the Dutch campaign due to the engineers lacking demo charges

I would play loads of different QB's - actually I was probably addicted to unbalanced QBs versus the AI, with the odds in my favour because I hate losing It was simple really, I would never lead with the flamers - I would send them in after the initial attack. I'd keep anything soft-skinned or 'flamed' up well out of the way until I was satisfied everything that could potentially knock it out had gone. So I would pick out the usual plethora of AT guns first and then I could cruise my dudes anywhere I wanted within the relative safety of numbers. Once you get a flamer inside a village though - it's great. Set fire to the lot, and nothing can really touch you. Actually, I think they are one of the most under-rated things in the game.

Already spotted but very much appreciated all the same. There's a helluva lot of ordnance there. More than I expected actually. You won't see the 355mm shells falling, but you'll certainly HEAR them God, and remember all that friendly fire from those fighter bombers! AAArrggghh.

I used flamer vehicles quite a lot in my random QB's mate. That's all I would play latterly. Not realistic of course, but fun all the same and that's what it's all about. With the poor QB engine in SF I lost a lot of that instant gratification. Sure, the scenarios and ops were generally very good, but I really missed that quick fix. With Normandy offering a revised QB engine, this opens up massive potential once again. Of course, I'm patient and happy to wait, but fire and flamers would be pretty cool eventually if you'll pardon the pun!

It would be nice if you could get an observer up into the spire or something along those lines but I'm pretty sure BFC stated prior that they would be handled just like any other several level building.

Ah good to see you again JuJu. You'd best get to work on some Normandy flavoured mods