Doug Williams

I think they (CMBN 2.12 and CMFI 1.12) are just patches to fix the bugs that were introduced in last weeks patches.

Good points.

Another limitation of the game engine. Bunkers are, correct me if I'm wrong, essentially treated as immobilized halftracks (with better armor), so the software won't let you enter an enemy bunker any more than you could board an enemy halftrack.

I would say it's a limitation of the game engine that we are just going to have to accept for now. Perhaps BFC may address this in V 3.0. I very much doubt they will make any changes to bocage right now, seeing as how the Normandy series is basically done, with the possible exception of an "odds and ends pack". The best thing to do is remember to buy demo charges and/or choose your QB maps more carefully and/or make your own QB maps for H2H play and/or buy Rhino tanks, and/or attack through the openings that are already present on the map.

IMO, DLaurier did not make a mistake, he merely pointed out a flaw in the copy protection scheme.

Agreed. Back when CMBO was first released, I noticed that even lightly armored vehicles, such as halftracks, were extremely resistant to infantry that were located in the adjacent action square (assuming the infantry did not have any game enabled AT weapons). By "extremely resistant" I mean they were almost invulnerable. This was very unrealistic, IMO, and I pointed it out in at least one thread in these very forums, which is now probably lost in the dustbins. Fast forward to today, and now we have a thread complaining that armor may be too vulnerable to infantry close assault. Personally, I would much rather have it as it is today, than the way it was back then.

This should not happen. It is bad for business, BFC.

Jim, Sh*t happens. The more you belabor this, the more strident you are starting to sound, IMO.

As has been pointed out several times, the game abstracts infantry close assaults on vehicles. Just because all you see are the animations of men throwing grenades does not mean that the game is only simulating men throwing grenades. It's a limitation of the game engine, and I would imagine we will just have to accept it until future versions of the engine are released. As for the close assaulting through bocage, I can understand your frustration, Jim, but again, it's the game engine abstracting things. Is this worth BFC spending coding time to try to correct? I dunno. How often does it happen? I've personally never seen it happen, but I'm trying my best to make it happen right now in a tourney game. ;-) As far as the In Real Life did infantry ever close assault tanks with just small arms and grenades in WW2 question, I dunno. This makes me ask the question, just how "buttoned up" were buttoned up tanks? Were the hatches all locked from the inside, or could a man crawling on the outside of the tank open a hatch, throw a grenade in, and jump off? I would imagine a grenade exploding inside a tank would effectively be a KO.

Curious, I did a quick search and found this brief article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_warfare#Infantry_close_assault

You mean to test a scenario VS the AI?

That's what I was thinking, Nelson. I'll have to test it.

I've seen a good deal of two types of threads here over the years. People coming on here whining about some minor issue and/or making unreasonable demands as well as people having legitimate questions/concerns then getting jumped on by the pack mentality mob of BFC-can-do-no-wrong'ers. Thankfully, I haven't noticed too much of either lately, though my visits to the forum are spotty.

Just to make sure I understand, are you saying that there are no victory points assigned for causing casualties in Quick Battles? If so, then theoretically one side in a Quick Battle could kill/wound every enemy soldier save one, and if that one remaining enemy soldier occupied the victory location (let's say there is only one VL) and the other side had 100 men remaining in good order, but none of them inside the VL, the side with the one soldier would win the game 100 to 0?

That's a good point, poorfish. I personally prefer smaller scenarios, not because my PC cannot handle the larger ones, but because I simply don't have the time to play them. When you are involved in anywhere from four to six PBEMs, as I usually am, and try to do a turn a day on all of them, as I do, the huge scenarios/quick battles simply take too long to properly do each turn. I suppose I could try one against the AI, and perhaps do a turn a week or something.

Sounds like it's time for a hardware upgrade, poorfish. Games have always driven my PC upgrades, since the late 1980s.

So, how do casualties affect the score in Quick Battles?

Like several have pointed out, the close assault abstraction isn't supposed to represent just throwing hand grenades. On a side note, I think hand grenades may be a bit more powerful than you realize, James. I don't know your military experience, you may be retired infantry for all I know, but when I went through basic training in 1983, we got to throw several live grenades, and I recall being very impressed with the explosive force they generated. It seemed to me at the time to be far more powerful than what I was used to seeing in old WW2 films.

I think reports of the PC's demise as a gaming platform are highly exaggerated, thanks in large part to Steam. Sure, no one buys PC games in brick-and-mortar stores anymore. Why would they, when they can sit in their comfy chair and download them? I have personally purchased at least ten PC games so far this year, half of them on Steam, and have only played perhaps five of them so far. I also recently spent close to $2k upgrading my gaming PC, which should now be good for a few years. In the same amount of time, I purchased exactly 0 console games and 0 tablet/mobile device games.

That is good to know. Thanks.

I'll save you, and hopefully others, some trouble. Here is the CMBN install order (to date, subject to change without notice, etc): Install order: (1) CMBN (2) Commonwealth Module (3) V 1.11 Patch (4) CMBN 2.0 Upgrade (5) CMBN V 2.01 Patch (6) Market Garden Module (7) V 2.11 Patch And the same for CMFI: Install Order: (1) CMFI (2) CMFI V 1.01 Patch (3) Gustav Line Module (4) CMFI V 1.11 Patch I also save all my license keys, and there are, what now?, eight? ten?

Thank you, Jim. This forum is full of (I hate the term fanbois) persons who will defend BFC to their last breath. Infantry being able to knock out a tank via close assault (in CM2) is a good thing. I remember one of my early arguments on these forums regarding CM1 being the fact that any even slightly armored vehicle (including halftracks) seemed to be virtually invulnerable to infantry close assault. I was poo pooed even when I provided evidence that an entire squad of WW2 soldiers seemed to be totally unable to knock out a halftrack that they were right next to. I was very happy to see, with CMBN/CMFI that infantry could effectively close assault an armored vehicle, even though it was "abstracted". Now you have found a fly in the ointment. The coding doesn't seem to take into account bocage when it comes to infantry close assaults of armor. I, for one, can live with that. This is a computer game, and even one as ambitious as CM has to incorporate a certain level of abstraction.

Yes, the entire a la carte system currently used by BFC for CMBN/CMFI can be confusing, especially when you factor in pay-as-you-go upgrades and free patches. It can all be quite daunting, especially for a new person who just wants to buy the game and begin playing (I know Fed is not that new). BFC is going to need to find a way to make it easier for new people to break into the game, IMO. Once the patch-to-fix-the-patch (otherwise know as V 2.12) is released, it would behoove BFC to offer a CMBN/CW/MG bundle patched to the latest version of the game at an affordable price. I have been buying, downloading, patching, and upgrading CMBN & CMFI since they were first released, and even I get confused as to the order of installs, so much so that I made myself a TXT file and saved it in Dropbox, just so I would know what to do in case I lost my hard drive, which recently happened.

That would be a reference to "Jump the Shark", in which Fonzi literally ski-jumped over a shark in one of the later episodes of the Happy Days television show. It is generally seen as the moment in which the show's quality started to go downhill. "Jumped the Shark" has now become a phrase used whenever any franchise has started a decline in quality. People who try to appear more intelligent/witty/in-the-know than most will allude to "Jump the Shark" without actually using the term. CM is far from having "Jumped the Shark", IMO. In fact, I have high hopes for it's continued improvement and longevity.

"Half Assed" was a poor choice of words. "Insufficiently Tested" would have been better. My apologies for any offense. I've been a staunch supporter of Combat Mission and BTS/BFC since CMBO was a new release, and I have several times defended the company on these forums against people with (IMO) unreasonable demands. You lost me when you released Shock Force, but got me back with CMBN. Keep putting out good WW2 product for us "grogs" and I will keep buying.