c3k

You laugh, but THAT is EXACTLY what threw off the September release! 

As a Beta-tester, knowing how much pent-up demand there is for Rome to Victory to be released, this only makes me redouble my efforts to find a bug, error, or flaw which will delay it yet again!
As soon as my Thanksgiving repast allows, I shall dig back in and analyze the spent brass as it flies out of the open chambers of my REDACTED BY ADMIN

Ken

As a Beta-tester, knowing how much pent-up demand there is for Rome to Victory to be released, this only makes me redouble my efforts to find a bug, error, or flaw which will delay it yet again!
As soon as my Thanksgiving repast allows, I shall dig back in and analyze the spent brass as it flies out of the open chambers of my REDACTED BY ADMIN

Ken

You laugh, but THAT is EXACTLY what threw off the September release! 

You laugh, but THAT is EXACTLY what threw off the September release! 

Welcome back @Pascucci I remember you from a thread in Fortress Italy.  Also some good news for you.  Battlefront does not charge for patches.  Patches are completely FREE!!!  Sorry if someone mislead you or maybe you just mis-remembered.  Also Battlefront has the new all in one installer now that greatly improves downloading and installing a game with multiple modules etc.  The hassle of installing multiple games and modules and packs on a new computer was a valid complaint back in the day.  But as Battlefront continues to be responsive to the community and make improvements they have taken care of that problem.  So when you buy CMFI R2V it should install very easily.     
 
IMO there is some validity to this point.  I think the reason we are disappointed with late releases is because we like the games so much we can't wait to get our hands on them.  There are probably many reasons for later than anticipated releases of some games, modules & packs.  I like to think one of the main reasons is that Battlefront is trying to get the best product they can out the door.  I am also frustrated with the wait at times and think there is room for improvement here.
 
More good news for you on this front.  @BFCElvis is now assisting with communications with the community.  So this has also improved.  He also works the help desk and continues to keep BFC as one of the best product support companies in PC gaming.  In fact there is a thread around here about Elvis providing customer support on his laptop from a hospital room.  Not to mention on holidays.  So while your eating turkey on Thanksgiving Battlefront will be there to support you holiday missions................  
 
I hope you didn't take my reply in anyway as being hostile because it was only meant to be friendly and informative.  And in the interest of being friendly I'll completely ignore when you told me where I should not stick my head  .  Now that you are better informed on a few of your concerns I hope you will eagerly follow developments for CMFI R2V.  This is looking to be a really great release with new nationalities, TOE, equipment etc.  It will take the CMFI game from July 1943 to the end of the war.  Very cool game.  I look forward to playing a PBEM with you after the release, my friend.   
 
 +1.  Don't be annoyed my friend.  Look on it as an opportunity to point out all the positive aspects of the game.  You are always at an advantage in this regard because the positives out way the negatives by a significant amount. 
 
 +1  Hold my beer ..............   
Now I have to go eat turkey while @BFCElvis handles the support desk . 

I think that you are referring to when many years ago "back in the day" when they used to give away the new modules. That was when it was just Combat Mission before CMBB.  They don't charge for patches, just for the new modules. They can't really afford to give away new modules anymore as they do take time to program and with all the games out there now some players naturally gravitate to different games and some like me come back after being gone for a while.  The amount of posts is not an indication of sales or how popular the game is. It's usually means that there are no problems with the game and no one is complaining. Only a small percentage of people generally post, in some sites you would think the game is dead but there are actually quite a few people playing.  As far as deadlines go it's better to have some people complaining about how late it is than to have everybody complaining on a poor product that came out on time.  

Yes thanks playtesters! If it were not for them I could not be enjoying Rome to Victory right now.

The Canadian series by Zuehlke.  He has books on Sicily, Ortona, Liri Valley, Gothic Line.  These are particularly good for CM because he has so much tactical level information from veterans themselves.

Oh, shove it. If someone sees that the topic is about suppression from small arms, that's the discussion they should see when they open the topic - not a bunch of grumblings about health insurance and car repairs. 

Spoilers abound...
 
I freely admit that I fired up the first battle and, 5 minutes in, restarted. I'd gone in with a bit of, err, hubris. "Big ol' me, been there, done that. A little training campaign? Ho, hum..." And then I had my ass handed to me.  Once I took it "seriously", I did far better. (By that, I mean applying the lessons I've learned over the many years of playing. You know...like tactics.)
 
Two total victories, and I'm starting the third battle. The German onslaught is very impressive. My men on 1056 don't stand much chance. The reinforcements showed just in time. I failed to realize that they (reinforcements) were visible almost as soon as they advanced. I did a couple quick "grab the whole platoon and Quick them 'over there'" movement orders. And that's where and when the German arty started landing. Never good to have two platoons quicking through the impact zone. Sigh. I was in a rush to get the platoons up on the line and did not follow good tactics...like only exposing a team or two at a time. I got punished. Again.
This training campaign is a masterpiece. My compliments to @Chris, the author.
Off to travel, so I'll have to leave the battle as it is, for now.
 

In-game, it'll go up and down the chain, but not efficiently. No amount of radios will be as fast as some GI running up and have a conversation a little like:

"Oi guv'nor!, bloody Jerry tank right over there"
"Excuse me, why are you British?"
"Issa war, see, it does odd fings to a chap"
 

I've dabbled in real-time, but it's much more messy, and my brain can't handle it. I watched a video on youtube the other day of a player playing the airfield battle from the Task Force Thunder campaign in real time and I could hardly take it. So inefficient and sloppy, with units forgotten about doing nothing, needless casualties and lack of real co-ordination. And just watching videos of Combat Mission is difficult for me as I am constantly rolling my mouse wheel to change the zoom to no avail since I'm watching a video. Derp derp.
On the other hand, the real-time player can more quickly react to events (though the real time factor means this only happens where you are watching) and can more quickly correct blunders.
No sir, give me WEGO everytime. In real time I miss so much that's going on, which aside from the tactical ramifications, is just undesirable from an enjoyment point of view for me. Actually WEGO is for me the best wargame system ever. As I like to say, going from tactical genius to nervous spectator never gets old. It's a system of action and consequence and frankly it's brilliant.

how about 1. attacked USSR and didn't win in 3 months  2.  declared war on USA.  3.  or the more basic catch-all:  easily blockaded country of 60M w no resources other than coal gambles everything on wars of conquest with hundreds of millions of people who have vastly superior resources and logistical capabilities.  This after having gambled and lost a previous war against hundreds of millions of people w vast resources just 20+ years before.  All the other stuff is details.  Fun details, but details.

@Panzer_Freak and @IanL,
I'll take this. Send me your tests and/or savegames. PM me for my email address.
Ken (one of the Beta Testers...for those that don't know.)
 

Wow. I read his commentary as being very on point with some sarcasm tossed in. Apparently, others thought it was some sort of personal attack??? Maybe I come from a less sensitive generation.
Whatever your FEELINGS are, @General Jack Ripper has made some SOLID points, AND has advised how to get around the game engine limitations...AND shown both techniques in action.
Now, onto the OP's question: I really don't think you'll see this get changed anytime soon. (<- IMO)

The mod package is for scenarios set in a fictional country.
Either way, here's another look at what we've come up with so far...
 

Thanks, I'm gonna need it considering what just happened 
*spoiler alert*
At the beginning of this mission a platoon of T-34s went on a crazy mad suicide charge straight at my lines. My tanks were out of position to deal with a sudden, unexpected tank charge like that, so only a couple of my tanks were in a position to fire back. Two of the T-34s were destroyed, but not before knocking out one of the Panthers. The third T-34 managed to charge full speed across a field straight toward my infantry and trucks in the rear, running a gauntlet of Panther fire the whole way. Five Panther shots were directed at it, and all missed, at a range of about 700m. The T-34 kept going until out of view of the Panthers and got mixed in with my scout line, almost running over a scout team. The T-34 stopped, blew up a different scout team at point blank range, then started getting hit by repeated volleys of AA half-track fire and grenades from the scout team it almost ran over. Eventually it was knocked out by an astonishingly lucky Panzerschreck hit from 185m away, just as the turret was turning toward the AA half-track. If the T-34 had made it just a little bit farther, it would have been in a perfect position to blow the hell out of the mass of trucks, mortar teams and support units I had parked in the rear. The T-34 had even fired at a couple of trucks, but missed. That was a close one.
Even crazier though was the lone tank driver that jumped out of the burning T-34. He hopped out right in front of one of my scouts, just a few feet away. The cowardly scout promptly got up and started running away, but the tank driver started chasing him across the field, firing his pistol as he ran after him, hot on his heels. The driver eventually got shot in the back by the scout's teammate after a brief chase. That had to be one of the sillier things I've seen in this game.  

A repeat of some of what I already wrote, but this is an excerpt from a campaign thread I have going on SimHQ. It's written for a more general audience, not the hardened veterans of Combat Mission who frequent this board. Includes a shot revealing enemy positions, which is a major spoiler, but after all the other spoilers I reckon that horse has bolted.
After reaching Cimene South and triggering the T-34 counterattack....
 
The T-34s found themselves suddenly surrounded by my troops and pushed on through at high speed, causing a few casualties. As they reached the end of the road and emerged from the smoke my hidden Mark IVs opened fire from point-blank range of 80 meters and three of the four T-34s were knocked out, while my startled infantry cut down the baling crews from very close range.. The fourth veered off the road in to a field I had no LOS on. That broke the Russian and he surrendered at the end of the turn. With additional time allotted in this one I expected it to be a harder nut to crack, but it proved the easiest so far, but of course in a game like this anything can happen and disaster and victory are often separated by fine margins. Maybe your APBC shot penetrates a turret, or maybe it fails and that tank goes on to gun down your whole platoon.
Here's a good shot of the leading elements on the left side of the map during the battle. This shot is fourteen minutes before the surrender.
 

In this shot you can see the three Mark IVs sent to Cimene in the upper left. Just out of frame are the halftracks carrying the infantry. I wanted to send the tanks ahead to be sure the tracks weren't ambushed. You can see my tank strength, along with the faded icon of the sneaky bastage AT gun center-right. A mortar spotting round has just hit to the left. On the left side you can see the Mark IV hit by the the AT gun. The icon appears as normal (because it's abandoned at this point, not destroyed), but has the crew icon right behind it. The halted armor is just a bit further left. At the bottom of the shot is the Rzyska Folwark objective and an infantry platoon can be seen moving on to it emerging from the smokescreen. They would eject a HQ unit, a Maxim, and a F/O team, all of whom had nowhere to run. It doesn't hurt to be supported by nine Mark IV tanks either.
At the top of the map is Cimene, and the tanks that counterattacked at the end came from Cimene N (the sound contact is visible). The smoke in Cimene shows some of the positions of the assault guns encountered earlier in the battle. The frantic action at the end occurred on the Cimene S objective. This shot shows only a portion of the huge map, but this is where the battle was decided. I said this thread was full of spoilers, and this goes beyond my normal level of spoilerification. But a picture's worth a thousand words. I usually only include map shots of the setup phase to prevent revealing too much, but I thought this might be interesting. If you play this campaign try to forget what you saw here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not a big deal and probably has been brought up before, but the briefings and debrief identify the town as Cimne, and on the map it's Cimene. Not asking it to be changed, just something I noted.
 

Oh man, battle three. Not sure if anyone cares much about what happens in my campaigns, but this is the sort of stuff I enjoy reading so I'll put it out there.
Did the terrain analysis for the third battle, this one the 'right flank force' with Panthers. Big, open map, and when you see it you think well now this will place a premium on gunnery. Got all set up, with the idea to just get eyes on the right flank, and push up the left with the limited starting units. It's only the leading element of the kampfgruppe, with a platoon of Panthers and mostly HQ type units.
Issued the opening orders to get eyes forward leaving the armor hidden in the trees until I could get some spots and see what's where. Got spots on a few T-34/85s and issued orders to the tank platoon to inch forward to the edge of the trees on turn 2. I hope I could keep my tanks from being spotted until at least they could open fire.
Pressed go and the Panthers dutifully moved forward and got spots and opened fire. The platoon conspired to miss their first eight shots, and at the end of the WEGO segment two were knocked out and two were reversing, with casualties, and essentially out of the fight.
I sat back and said aloud "Perhaps if I built a large, wooden badger"
So yeah, I restarted and kept my armor keyholed to await the rest of the KG. This time it went much better, my boys shot well, and 20 minutes in we've lost just one while knocking out a number of T-34s. The Panthers have shrugged off a lot of turret hits, so I'm somewhat fortunate that so many are still in the fight really. But they are, and combined with the generous artillery on call, things are going well so far. I still need to get on the objectives, but those are all soaking up HE at the mo, so no hurry with an hour left. But if it's like most of my campaigns I will dawdle too much on the approach and be forced to rush them at the end.

Mmmmm... let me think.
75 and 76mm M4A2 (diesel) Shermans, SU-57 (U.S. 57mm gun on HT chassis), White Scout Car, Jeep, M17 AA halftrack, M5, M5A1 and M9A1 halftracks, GMC CCKW truck, and Valentine Mk IX (which I REALLY had to lobby hard to get into the game). I think that's the lot for lend-lease.
 

Guys
This thread will be used for me to advise you of updates and latest uploads to the aforementioned areas.
Its an ongoing process that Im working through but a quick update for this first post is....
The Scenario Depot III : Ive totally redesigned this and am working on fixing thumbnails so that the grid format looks good.  When uploading scenarios be sure to use a square image (any size) for your featured image.

The CM Mod Warehouse : A huge task that Im still plodding away at. Im tidying up all the downloads from the previous site and have also got a HDD full of mods from the mists of time that will eventually all get uploaded also.
The Proving Grounds II : This site is dead but I am going to work on it to turn TPGII into something new... possibly a challenge site or something along those lines... still to be decided.
Any updates I carry out or content uploaded you will be notified about in this thread.  
Thats all for now.
Thanks
Bootie

Wow. I read his commentary as being very on point with some sarcasm tossed in. Apparently, others thought it was some sort of personal attack??? Maybe I come from a less sensitive generation.
Whatever your FEELINGS are, @General Jack Ripper has made some SOLID points, AND has advised how to get around the game engine limitations...AND shown both techniques in action.
Now, onto the OP's question: I really don't think you'll see this get changed anytime soon. (<- IMO)

A few points...trying to keep this on track with your OP.
 
His post was very useful. It explained, and used examples, of how splitting up into teams and giving staggered timing orders to each team will prevent an team from running around to the wrong side of a house. 
You may not like the STYLE he used, but the factual content was spot-on and useful to those who don't know that a full squad will send autonomously split into teams to pathfind to the next waypoint.
 
If you re-read your original post, you did not specify that you KNEW about the pathfinding/autonomous splitting behavior. That behavior is responsible for the vast majority of running around to the wrong side. The "buggy buildings" issue is much more rare (and solved in recent releases.) You mentioned doors being mis-aligned, parenthetically and only in regards to a specific campaign.
 
^^^
This is true. The requirement to take out ALL buildings and replace them with the SAME building solved a LOT of those issues. 
There are still two outstanding issues: sometimes terrain slope will make a door unusable and sometimes invisible damage will make a door unusable. Both of these cases will cause a team to run around to the "wrong side".

Oh please. 
"god forbid i play scenarios where i push 2 or 3 companys through urban space."
You mean like this one?
You do not seem to understand my point, so I'll make it clear as day:
YOUR TROOPS WILL FLOW THROUGH A CITY LIKE WATER IF YOU BREAK THEM INTO SMALL TEAMS.
 
Nice to know someone around here seems to comprehend my posts. I do occasionally get the feeling I am screaming into the vacuum of deep space.
Thank you.
I work sixty hours a week doing a mostly thankless job and that results in my overuse of sarcasm to blow off steam.
Perhaps I should tone that down in the future, but after being here for so long you come across these complaints so wearily often...
 
The issue raised was one of infantry movement. I addressed that issue, and provided a known workaround for the benefit of someone who may not have already seen it. I also took the time to address the most common complaint about said workaround, and attempted to place said complaints within a realistic context. I'm sorry you didn't find that useful, and I'm sorry I'm not a BFC staffer with secret inside information about how to painlessly and effortlessly work around every single problem people raise on the forum. I'm also sorry I haven't specifically tailored several different responses to the issue in the thread specifically tailored to everyone's personal experience with said issue.
Sometimes dealing with a problem takes time and effort. I suppose you could try to convince every single person who ever released a scenario to open them up in the editor and replace all the buildings in them.
I mean, you COULD try that. I doubt it would work though.
 
Good question.
Why AM I even still here, anyway?
I guess after being here for sixteen years I've forgotten why I even signed up here in the first place.