Agua

It seems every mod available so far is some variant of "muddy vs. muddier". Not complaining a bit, but I've yet to see a mod that really improves the appearance of the stock models very much. I was just wondering if the level of detail was so high with the stock models that the modders are finding that any improvement they can provide is minimal compared to the effort involved? Can the stock models be brought to even higher resolution (or would it make much of a difference)? Are modders concerned with too heavy a drain on our puters? As these questions themselves will probably demonstrate, I know absolutely NOTHING about modding, but just curious about the paucity of anything other than "dirty" mods being offered.

Welcome back to one of the earliest of early mod artists!

Nice job. Hope this will help a lot of aspiring designers.

Agree with Skelley, wholeheartedly. The "cover with two, advance with one" approach would be the ideal. Also, I recommend a very good practice scenario on the CD: Hill 312. You'll have to utilize all the new advance commands, as well as area fire, covering arcs, overwatch, and suppressive techniques in order to soundly beat that one. It's not a hard scenario, you just have to approach it the right way.

Hey Abbott, Go to the thread in this forum styled "Making the a/i behave" (or something like that), and give the guy some help with making the a/i attack.

In short, it depends on the firepower being directed toward the unit (which is a function of the distance), and the exposure of the target unit (which is a function of the cover afforded by the terrain / posture of the targeted unit). If you place your targeting line on the target unit, just for info purposes, you will get a display of the percentage of exposure of the target unit as well as the firepower of the firing unit that is being delivered at that range. Jason Cawley provided some pretty good number / % combination guidelines in this forum a couple of years ago, but I haven't sat down and looked at what the effects / numbers are in CMBB. Here's a few tips for advancing infantry which is not presented here as being "the best" or anything else, only what I do. As a general rule, if you don't anticipate immediate fire / contact, then "move to contact" is a good command which will cause your troops to stop upon sighting of an enemy, or being fired upon, and return fire (if they have spotted the firing enemy unit). Once they've spotted a unit, however, if they have LOS to any unit on the field, they will immediately stop, which means they aren't going to continue with another "move to contact" command if they start the next turn with LOS to an enemy unit. When that's the case, "move" is a good option, IF the distance to the enemy unit is such that the firepower delivered is going to be very, very low (that is, it won't cause anything worse than a "shaken" state). The problem with "move" is they execute the movement command without regard for fighting back, or seeking cover across the terrain (note that even "open" terrain has cover value to it, its abstracted however, so you can't see it). They not only will not fire at enemy troops, they will not take advantage of the natural cover that's available to them and will blithely take fire until they suffer extreme morale loss. A safer alternative is to use the "Advance" command, which will allow your troops to both return fire, AND, make full use of the available abstracted cover. It's not available to some units though; *I think* perhaps out of command green and conscript units, exhausted units, and support weapon teams are incapable of executing the advance order. There is a downside to this though, as "Advance" will tire your troops rather quickly. When they're tired, their firepower is reduced, and their morale is more fragile. A workaround I've found is at the start of every turn, give your "Advanc[ing]" troops a pause, or two, or three, to help keep them from tiring as quickly. They will stop where they are at during the pause and will not tire so easily over distances (of course, they are slower getting to their destination doing this). Troops executing an "Advance" order do not travel as quickly as when executing a "move" or "move" to contact order. It's a good idea to utilize running or bounding overwatch when advancing so as to keep units ready to provide covering fire should (when) the point squad is fired upon, regardless of the order type the units are travelling under. "Assault", the manual states, is good for clearing the last "10 or 20 meters" or so upon the target / objective. It is very fatiguing and cannot be performed by conscripts, out of command green units, units which have previously panicked, exhausted units, or the support teams. There may be other units excluded from utilization of this command; check the manual. "Run" really should only be used when there is a safe passage for your troops, and you are in a must get there situation. It tires your troops too easily, they are not concerned with protecting themselves from incoming fire but only getting to their destination as quickly as possible. It goes without saying that you need to have as much suppressive firepower supporting your movement into fire as you can gather together. Cover arcs will help keep the supporting units from being distracted by units on the periphery which are not challenging your advance. A lot of folks argue that firing blind at sound contacts, or suspected areas of enemy location without any type of cue, is a good idea. I differ, simply on the basis of ammo wastage, and sound contacts are always inaccurate. Area fire at a lost spotted position, however, if the circumstances are such that the unit really had nowhere to go, seems to me to be a good idea. Otherwise, I just wait until I have a visual contact before unleashing the suppressive fire. These are just my opinions on the matter coming from someone who has played CMBB a little over a month, so, TIFWIW. Two months from now, I will likely be saying, "WTH was I thinking?!?!", but, these seem to work at the moment, anyway. [ October 29, 2002, 08:23 PM: Message edited by: Agua ]

Over the weekend I finished a couple of excellent scenarios which were playable as a defender against the a/i. One was designed by "Berlichtingen" and the other was designed by "Abbott", as they are known on this forum. Maybe you could e-mail them and ask for pointers. I've been involved in playtesting a bit and can say that just from my own observations (that is, with no designing experience), seemingly minute changes in the location of a VL can make a huge difference in the way the a/i responds. This will sound over the top, but there is an awful lot of "art" involved in manipulating the a/i in scenario design.

Hmmm.. I guess I've used smoke so seldom in CMBB that I didn't even notice. Glad to hear they're on it.

Ahh... If the to hit chance is calculated as described by Andrew, then disregard my proposed test setup as it would not measure the alleged fault. You could test Andrew's representation by trying the test by measuring the "to hit" chances in the wide open, as compared to the "dug in" state, and see if all dug in vehicles are providing "to hit" chances that are roughly the same percentage expressed of all vehicles when not "dug in".

Try some tests designed to measure the "to hit" chance for AFVs with different sized turrets as against the same German tank. We don't really have info in CM as to the size of the turret so you're going to have to eyeball it (maybe T-26s, T-34s, KV-2s, IS-2s?). Create a map with dug in samples of each of these vehicles with long rows of woods separating the lanes, then place the german tank of choice at the far end and record the "to hit" chance. I'd also set this up with large variations in distances between each set of test vehicles as it maybe that the chance of placing a turret hit may not differ greatly at the extremes.

This is interesting and a little disturbing. What thread is this announcement/hint in? I must admit I've missed most of the "shared textures" discussions. I wasn't even aware of the issue until I had the game for a week or so, actually. -dale</font>

WHOA! You sure about that?

Good suggestions for dealing with this Tibor, Flame, Michael. Maintaining LOS / command seems go to a long way towards legitimizing this in my mind. I haven't tried any of these solutions out, but will screw around with them over the weekend. Thanks for the comments, everyone, even you gamey squad splitters.

Well, maybe I didn't "just dl[] it". I've got every map in the CMBB map section but none of them appear to have the parameters you mention. What's the name of it?

Yeah, here too. I'm thinking some portion of this is due to the reduced information available to the ai v. EFOW and inability to ID the unit so readily.

Very innovative. I've already dl'd it and will give it a try tonight.

I wish to heaven DD would resurface and convert his grass mod for CMBB. Just personally, that grass, when considering all levels and views, is the best. I've installed his CMBO grass in BB, but there are additional elevations in BB not present in BO, and, of course, the additional steppe terrain.

Welcome. Best tactical combat wargame ever made.

Well, let's look at it this way. We have unnatural spotting in the game. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. By splitting squads, and creating units which the player is essentially saying "f I lose them, they're lost", he/she is setting these units aside solely for the purpose of taking even *further* advantage of omniscient spotting. That's an exploit, isn't it? How would recon be performed then? Well, I think there's a legitimate argument that recon in a CM battle should have already been performed before the game begins. Alternatively, use recon in force, with main battle groups in the ready to follow through. It's not pleasant to think about, because split squad recon has become such regular part of our everyday playing style / method, but without some historical support, or legitimate modeling explanation, I can't come to any other conclusion than its an exploit.

Thanks for the comments. Richard, I'd differ with you here, but only on the point that splitting the squads for recon purposes is *dedicating* a portion of the forces to execute an action that designed solely to take advantage of the borg-like quality of sighting in the game - providing information that they historically would be unable to communicate. Not being judgmental here at all, in fact, I've done it quite a bit. I'm just trying to get some type of justification as to why this isn't an exploitation. Thanks, everyone for the comments.

Yes, but whether they are close enough for LOS to their HQ units really is just a matter of where the recon teams spot the enemy, right? I'm about of the mind that recon split squads are plainly an exploit, unless someone can come up with a valid reason why these teams are able to communicate to their hqs anywhere on the map. Don't get me wrong, I've used them a bit myself, but I think I'm going cease the practice.

Well, that's the question. A lot of folks use split squads for recon purposes, but, given the contours of spotting in CM, don't we have to assume that each recon half squad (or team) had radios to enable them to communicate beyond LOS of the HQ units? Were radios that common, or is this an exploition of the game?

I think there are some limits as to which troops may utilize sewer movement. Off the top of my head, it seems that it requires veteran experience or better, and an HQ unit with a stealth bonus. Don't rely on that though, and go check the manual.

Hehe... Yup, Gerbies in limited LOS situations have racked up some pretty high kills for me before as well.