Doug Williams

To the OP, yes it can be a pain but like the others have pointed out you really have to micromanage using lots of waypoints, different movement speeds, and the pause button.

It's been a loooong time since I've played on any skill level other than Elite. Elite seems to be the default skill level that almost everyone in my club seems to want to use. So, to me, there really is only one skill level: Elite.

Yes, you are correct, ian.leslie as well as Baneman. That is exactly what I would like to see. And it should not be difficult at all to implement, from a coding perspective. The game engine already allows the attacker to adjust QB points up or down. How hard would it be to allow the defender to do the same?

This is a feature request pertaining to quick battles for future versions of all CM2 games. Why does the software only allow the users to adjust the Attacker's points up or down? Why can't the Defender's points be adjusted up or down in the same manner? Since CMBN was first released, I've always thought this was strange. It came to mind again recently when my club was discussing Huge quick battles. If you want, for instance, a 20,000 point Probe QB, there is no way to achieve this other than going through many convolutions in the QB and Scenario editor, and having a lot of trust in your opponent not to look at your force selection. How much easier would this be if we as players were able to adjust both the Attacker and Defenders QB point up or down via the QB interface? The obvious answer is much easier. How could this be difficult to implement? The code is already in place to allow points adjustments to the Attacker's force selection. Simply implement it for the Defender as well. Win.

All I have is anecdotal evidence from my own battles, but I am convinced that the amount of casualties from deflected AP rounds bouncing off armor and injuring nearby ground troops is inconsistent with reality. It is almost as if deflected AP rounds suddenly turn into mortar shells.

Yea, true. Time to look at some mods. ;-)

So, a third party "mod" solution? No thanks. I don't like the new "casualty" designation in CM3. I have little interest in the UI showing troops that were formerly under my control but aren't any longer due to death or severe wounding. TMI.....too much information. Toggle this, please, BFC.

Good ideas put forth here. I'm not a "mod" guy, but may have to go that route in this case. Best solution is a toggle. Those who like it, get it. Those who don't, don't. I definitely don't.

Get your ass in the grass, VAB. I don't like the change. Why should we have to see dead (useless) troopers in our unit view? Just a distraction, IMO, given the scale of CM.

I'm not a big fan of the "casualty" designation when we click on a unit in RT/3.0. All this does is clutter up the UI, in my opinion. I prefer the original method of removing noncombatants from the unit view.

Great evolution of H2HH. Thanks, GAJ. :-)

No, you are not, and no, you can't. How do I know this? Because you posted here complaining about the price. Men, I think we need to start a CM "scholarship" program, for bright young men who show promise, but have limited means. I would be willing to contribute. Nothing like this was ever offered to me, back in my Squad Leader days.

What price? $55? Are you kidding me? Yes, RT is worth $55. I expect to receive many hours of entertainment value out of RT, just like I did, and still do, from CMBN and CMFI, and modules. Many, many hours. This isn't even mentioning the hundreds of hours of entertainment I received from CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK. $55? LOL.

Just saw this. Makes me glad I have never owned an Apple product, and never plan to.

"Faking"? Are you sure?

Welcome aboard, Erik. Since we're all talking about our military experience.....I was in a reserve MASH unit for nine years. Learned how to shoot an M16 pretty well in basic, then the rest of my 9 years were spent "drilling", which means lots of setting up and tearing down GP Medium and GP Large tents. ^^^Set up *many* of these and spent many summer "camping" in these for two weeks, usually in someplace very hot and humid. Good times.

Just don't piss on the spark plug.....

Everyone has a different definition of "gamey". On one extreme, you have players who believe that if the game allows it (CM is, after all, a game) you can do it. On the other extreme, you have players who consider many things that I often do, such as the above described method of moving the camera around the battlefield to listen for sound contacts, and my propensity to fire mortars on enemy units that can only be seen by a different friendly unit and not the mortar team (think CM1 borg spotting, only more work and less accurate), as gamey. Some things are almost universally accepted as gamey (even by me), such as defender or meeting engagement pre-planned turn 1 artillery strikes, or using TRPs in meeting engagements. Best solution is discuss any house rules with your opponent before you begin. Of course, a house rule such as "no using mortar sound contacts 2000 meters away" would require the honor system.

Awesome pics, Baneman! When we see outliers such as this happen, it goes to show how much attention to detail went into the coding. Bravo.

Re: SSD VS traditional "spinning platter" hard drives There is no question that SSDs are, in most ways, superior, and the days of the old spinning platter drives, as well as optical disks, are numbered. Why did I qualify my statement with "in most ways"? Because SSDs are still very expensive, compared to spinning platter drives, in terms of storage capacity. I purchased my most recent internal HD, a 7200 rpm 2 terabyte model, for around $100 at my local Best Buy, after my more-than-twice-as-expensive 120 gigabyte SSD failed less than a year after install. It was the first drive failure I have experienced since the 1980s. Since this is a Combat Mission forum, I would imagine we would all be interested in how to improve CM performance. In my personal experience, the SSD did not offer any significant performance boost over my old spinning platter drive, though it did, as I mentioned, offer significantly improved boot times, as well as noticeable improvements in other games. Bottom line (IMO). Your best bet, at this time, is an SSD for your OS, as well as your page file. I think it's still makes sense to buy a traditional high capacity spinning platter drive for data storage. For CMBN/CMFI (and RT) it won't make much difference at all. I would steer clear of Intel brand SSDs......based on my personal experience. Kinda ironic, since I bought the Intel brand because of the name.

In other words, CM1 is more like ASL, where you could easily tell the difference between a +0, +1, or +2 leader, as well as easily tell the protection (die roll modifier) given to troops in a stone building VS a wooden building VS the woods, etc. CM2 has many more variables. Yes, we all know that being in C2 with a good leader is a good thing....buy why? Well, because it just is. Being in a stone building provides more protection for infantry in CM2, just the same as it did in CM1 (or ASL), but the difference isn't just some die roll modifier. In CM2 we actually see the bullets bounce off the building. Or wait!, did that 50cal or 20mm actually penetrate the stone wall and kill some of my troops? Yes, it did. Fun stuff, IMO. And I'm glad to have been a part of it from back in the old original SL (pre ASL) days.

Hister, I believe that upgrading your GPU will make a difference in those frame rates. I upgraded my old Radeon card to my current 680 before I swapped out my MB/CPU/RAM and did notice a difference in CM at that time, though loading screen times were not affected enough for me to notice. When I upgraded my MB/CPU/RAM CMBN/CMFI loading times were drastically reduced. So yes, it's certainly not going to hurt anything to swap out your GPU to a better model, as long as your power supply is beefy enough to handle it. You can always replace the MB/CPU/RAM later.

I never turn my PC's off. I have the monitor set to turn itself off after 30 minutes, that's it. The computer is always on. Oh, and the only hard drive failure I have ever had since 1986ish was with the only SSD (Intel brand) that I bought a couple of years ago. It lasted less than a year, then "bricked". All the spinning platter drives that I have ever bought (many) have worked just fine until their capacity limits forced me to buy larger ones. To be fair, yes, the SSD made a very noticeable difference in booting up the computer. It also made a noticeable difference in some other games, besides the CM2 series. It made almost no difference in CM2 load times, in my experience.

SSDs provide very minimal advantage over traditional hard drives in CMBN/CMFI. I speak from *personal experience*, not quoting a bunch of blah/blah.