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Ditto the above on CMSF. The initial release needed polishing. It was patched and resolved almost all BIG issues very rapidly. It is now mature (and has been for some years). If you have any itch at all to see modern weaponry in action, that's the game to buy. Demos: download them. Find the one you like. Buy the game.

Hah. If our British cousins had a set, they'd order a shipload full of CMFI tins. Then, while it is sitting in harbor awaiting customs inspection, they could dress up in Indian garb and throw all the games into the Thames tidal pool! Overthrow your oppressors! No taxation with gaming! Or somesuch.

Like some sort of sticker included in the tin-case? Cool idea! Paste it on your bumper, up on a bus, in the loo at work, anywhere you want to announce "I play BF.C!" Yes, indeed, we need to get Steve to toss some decals into the pre-order cases. Ken

You're almost there... (FWIW, I only started using Iron Mode in the last couple of months. I'd been comfortable with the next one down (Veteran, Elite?) and got prodded into it for a PBEM game. Iron is my new favorite. ) John, you can select EITHER friendly or enemy units. Whichever you select provides a level of information. - Friendly selected: You see all units/contacts which that friendly unit knows about. - Enemy selected: You see all FRIENDLY units which have IDENTIFIED that enemy. So, with nothing selected, you see a Panther near a bridge. Let's kill it. Select the Panther. Now, look about. Which friendly units are highlighted? Good. Select each of them in turn and TARGET the Panther. Any un-highlighted friendlies near the highlighted friendlies? Move the un-highlighted ones a bit closer and add a COVER ARC. Pretty soon you'll have every unit you own hammering that Panther. (Of course, if they're just rifle-armed soldiers, it won't do much good and may even anger the Panther. It's not smart to anger a Panther. ) Ken

This is EXACTLY what it looks like on my machines which have AMD graphics. One is an HD6870, the other an HD6850. Nvidia cards do not suffer from this ugliness. I agree that this should not be happening. It does. The solution should not be to change graphics cards. That is far too expensive. Ken

DX vs. OpenGL seems the biggest difference. Then, hunting around the edges, I'd say there's a huge polygon difference in models. Additionally, the ballistics/morale/behavior modelling in CM seems far beyond anything in any of the RTS' I've ever played (I've NOT played/seen the one referenced by the OP). Finally, in WEE, how many maps can the player make using the in-game editor?

John, Go back upstream a bit... Fog of War and relative spotting are what I tried to address and that's what some others are discussing. My apologies if you understand all this, but without saves and screenies, it can take a while until we're all on the same page. Let's say you've got 6 units, labeled "Unit 1" through 6. The enemy has two units, call them "Target 1" and "Target 2". If you have NO units selected, you, the player, get the overview which incorporates ALL of what EACH unit (1 through 6) can see. Starting condition: your Unit 1 can see ONLY Target 1, and Unit 2 can see ONLY Target 2, and no other units can see EITHER Target. - if you have NO units selected, you will see BOTH Target 1 AND Target 2. (You get to see the sum of all knowledge.) - if you select Unit 1, you will see ONLY Target 1. (You are limited to seeing what Unit 1 can see.) Change the conditions so now Unit 3 can see Target 1 as well. - if you select Target 1, BOTH Unit 1 AND Unit 3 will be highlighted, indicating they have LOS to, and have identified, Target 1. That "identified" part is very important. You can have LOS to a location with an enemy unit, but you may not see the enemy unit...yet. Time, experience, enemy movement, enemy fire, will all play a part in determining whether or when you spot the enemy. So, you can see Target 1. You select Unit 4 to shoot at Target 1. You get a red target line to the location, but Target 1 has disappeared. Well, that means Unit 4 has LOS to the location but Unit 4 has not seen Target 1. Unit 4 WILL fire as ordered. Maybe, by chance, some of the rounds going to the location will hit Target 1. Maybe not. Maybe Target 1 will move, thereby allowing Unit 4 to SEE it. "Ahhh", says Unit 4's TacAI, "Target 1 is an existential threat. I should shoot at Target 1 rather than plowing up the ground, as I was ordered." Then Unit 4 will "break lock" on the ground it was ordered to target. If Target 1 subsequently moves out of LOS, then Unit 4 will not re-engage its area target. (Hmmm, I think!!!) Now, back to Unit 1. You order it to fire at Target 1. Great job. The impact (hit or miss, doesn't matter) creates a huge dust cloud. Now there is no longer an LOS. Unit 1 will fire again (maybe once, maybe more), even though there's no LOS. That makes sense. (The same behavior occurs if LOS to the location exists, but the enemy is no longer spotted.) This allows your units to fire during a WeGo turn when the enemy drops out of view momentarily. Does any of the above help? Ken

Hmm, regarding the halftrack comment: if you're thinking about pulling ammo out of a destroyed halftrack, the first question must be, "Did the enemy who killed the halftrack move or get destroyed?" Unless the answer is a definite "yes", then you're just sending men into a convenient targeting box. The quick solution would be to split off a pair of scouts, with a pause, to run into the halftrack. Use the rest of the squad to throw smoke. Have the platoon lay down covering fire on likely/known enemy positions. Have the other platoons feint! Send a few tanks around their flank!! Mass your artillery on their reserves!!! Send in a stream of heavy bombers just to rock their world!!!! Dear God, man; you must support those poor S.O.B.'s who are getting your ammo for you.

I'm a non-Mac'er. Er, PC'er. This is probably a Mac issue. Anyone else having a similar situation?

John, Select the enemy Marder. Now, with that Marder still selected, zoom out and look at your units. At least one of your US units will be highlighted. That unit(s) is/are the one(s) which have LOS to the Marder. If you're trying to TARGET the Marder with a US unit which is not highlighted in the above step, it means that the US unit does not see the Marder. Therefore, it MUST area target. I am being very specific by stating it "does not see". There is a possibility it COULD. It just may not be facing the right way, they may be prone rather than kneeling, etc. A screenshot (Fraps is often used), would clear up this situation rather quickly. Ken

I agree. However, quantum theory means that it IS possible. Hedging my words since I'm not BF.C

dpabrams, Send me a pm at my user link. If you have a savegame I'll pass it on. (Be advised: I'm not saying it's a bug, but it sure looks odd. There may well be an abstraction to certain building structures that openings exist which aren't explicitly and visually modelled. This projectile may have found 4 of them in a row.) Ken

Ah, but was it a lummox which did the flummoxing? (Frankly, the bovine vs. equine issues are NOT getting the attention they deserve. What about proper precautions against mad-cow disease? How is your puny fence going to stop a herd of zombie cows? Yeah, I didn't think so. That's why those Norman farmers were made of sterner stuff... )

Cattle, man, I said "cattle". Holstein, spotted termidors, whatever. The ones in Normandy which, at one point, stood on their hooves and weren't hideously bloated with clouds of flies swarming them. Before that. When they mooed. And moved. Aye, I've seen plenty of John Wayne films, so I imagine I know what cow-proof wood fence must be like. Aye. Cattle, not horses. Ken

Did you give the AI TRP's along the high tide line? This battle is on my "must play" list, but I've been too swamped to get to it. Ken

To the testers: thank you for bringing facts to this discussion. Okay, so we now know, from akd's postings, that a King Tiger can go through 350m of barbed wire fences before it gets so entangled with wire that it cannot move. That "feels" right. We also know that top speed is affected by the color of the track status. That makes sense to me as well. Now, looking out my window, my neighbor has an artsy split rail fence. If I lean on it, it'll fall over. It provides neither cover nor concealment. I would contend, that in game terms, it doesn't exist. In other words, this is NOT the fence I see in CMBN. The CMBN fences are, in my mind, strongly built, deeply sunk, cattle-proof fences. The kind that would total your car if you hit it. That's where my head is when I play the game. Ken

In MOST cases, this isn't an issue. Truly. However, in extreme terrain, you can "suspend disbelief" and imagine micro-terrain which allows the skilled tank driver to slope the vehicle so the gun can get on target. Even that falls apart, though, in very tight city fights. But, if you drive tanks in towns and streets with tall buildings AND enemy infantry up high, you'll soon lose the tank, making it moot. Not great, but there you have it. (BTW, most folks take a lot longer to find this.)

One big SHIFT-Left Click box to select them all and a QUICK order about 10km away should get it done. That's an ambitious project. Best wishes for success!

John, Difficulty levels do NOT change enemy equipage (or friendly). Instead, it affects artillery delay, command and control, and many other characteristics of the units. Read the on-line manual to get a more accurate description. However, the best way to find out is to select the different levels and see what happens. The TacAI plays at the same level as you. If you play at easy (or whatever that's called), there is very little, if any, artillery delay. The enemy gets the same benefit. As you're finding out, the learning curve does have a steep slope: at first. The full game will allow you to try some tiny battles, a platoon per side. Buy it. You won't regret it! Ken

Hmmm, "entertaining" EF books? Both the ones recommended, above, are interesting reads. Knappe is far superior, IMO, since it is an autobiographical book. The "Infantry Aces" book suffers from a poor translation into English and seems to inflate some of the actions. Having said that, it IS a book which fleshes out the awards citations for various Knight's Cross recipients, so there were some quite studly actions which it tries to convey. (It's one of a series of "Aces" books.) Of the two, if I could only get one, "Soldat" would be my purchase, hands down. Back to operational level: Ericson's "Road to Stalingrad", "Road to Berlin" two volume set is a great operational history. For detail (and accuracy), Glantz really is the main source. Glantz can be dry. Bone dry. However, some of his battle studies are quite good. Most, if not all, of his books suffer from horrid maps. Nothing worse, IMO, than reading an operational discourse which mentions, "division X moved to village Y and defended the river crossing" and then, when I look at the map, there is no village Y. If it's named in the narrative as an important point, it should be shown. Shrug. I've got shelves bowed by the weight of the many EF books I've gathered over the years. I hate to say that I really can't say which, if any, of them would focus on personalities. For a first overview, Ericson's books. Ken

Double ditto!!

That is the key. There is so much complexity in the game that a single event, even a "feel" developed over months of play, does not mean a thing as to how it works in the code. (Note: as a beta-tester I have no idea what's under the hood. All I get to do is drive the game into ground and gleefully tell BF.C what's broken. I have no coding knowledge.) For example, let's say you've developed a definite trend of your tanks being immobilized by enemy fire. Why could that be wrong? (I'm not saying it IS wrong, I'm postulating why it COULD be wrong.) Perhaps you love leading your attacks with tanks. Maybe you only get a challenge when you play against an enemy with a lot more antitank weaponry than anyone else. Maybe you love the map-edge and always have a tank's flank exposed. Etc. Your particular style of play MAY be the reason why you're seeing whay you consider unrealistic immobilization numbers. It may be that you have an unrealisted idea of what WWII tanks could do. The solution is, as you stated, to test it. Set up tests which ISOLATE the variable. Run 100's of iterations. Assess the results. Change a SINGLE variable. Run 100's of iterations. Assess the results. Compare them to the previous results. Etc. Of course you don't have to do this. Posting an issue and ASKING about it is far more conducive to better answers than immediately proclaiming it's wrong. (Hey, it MAY be wrong. That's where testing comes in.) Light green may just mean a bent fender. It may just be a die-roll modifier. However, notice how it STAYS light green even after many fence crushes? If not, go crush some fences. It's fun. You're a customer/gameplayer. If you don't want to waste your precious game time with testing, that's cool. I'm not being snide. I know how difficult it can be to set aside some game time. Why waste it testing a product that's already been released? However, if you don't want (or can't) test it, then please give a little more weight to the answers you get from those who have. For example, dieseltaylor asked if the damage level is different for different classes of vehicles hitting the same obstacle. I don't know. (I _thought_ I test for that, but it's been over a year...) I'm going to grab some time today and try it out. (Language barriers and cross-posting, as well as the difficulty of expressing subtleties with the written word, all contribute to miscommunication. We're all here to make this a better game.) Ken

There's a lot here. First, you need to recognize that light green does NOT equate to less mobility. You don't seem to know that. Toss a tank on a map, drive it through a fence, then do everything else you'd ordinarily do. (BTW, you DON'T always get a light green from fences and gates.) Re-read my post, upstream. Seriously. Secondly, a single hit to running gear COULD cause a total loss of mobility. If it hits the drive sprocket, dead on the bearings, that track won't be going anywhere. So, you need to be MUCH more specific when you say that you think tracks are too fragile. Are rifle shots stopping tanks? Are hits from high velocity 3" guns immobilizing them? Etc.

Yes. No cheating by the computer. It sets its orders and watches with glee or anguish during the next 60 seconds.

Let's dial down the hysteria, shall we? Some of us tested this. It may need to be tweaked, but let's look at what actually happened: a tank went through barbed wire and went from "perfect" tracks to "less than perfect". I think you should do something like set up fences every 24m for 1,000m and run a tank through them. (I've done it.) The light green does NOT continue to degrade with each fence. It takes a lot more to go from light green to yellow. Test it. Play it. Do it with all destroyable terrain. I was in the "tracks are too fragile" camp until I tested it. After the first bit of downgrade it takes a lot more for the next one. Ken