Vanir Ausf B

Wrecks only block LOS if they are on fire/smoking.

True, but in CMx2 live vehicles block LOF in many circumstances.

I don't know about animations.

Are you talking about the shaders? The answer to that is yes according to BFC.

FOs can target indirect fire into areas slightly out of LOS, but I don't believe they can directly fire their personal weapons into those areas. MGs and snipers are the same as regular infantry.

In that case I would guess all of them begin with the words Combat Mission

With fire you also have to deal with different ground conditions, which can even change during the course of a game. But I'm not sure that making two lists of issues to deal with and seeing which is longer paints an accurate picture. For example, I would be shocked if the TacAI changes needed for fire were not much more complicated than for AA. WW2 AA weapons are functionally identical to weapons already in the game except that they can elevate far enough to engage aircraft, and there are no persistent effects for the pixeltruppen to concern themselves with. With fire you don't only have to tell the TacAI how to deal with a persistent and possibly spreading danger, you also have to teach it how and when to utilize flame throwers. Shooting a flame thrower into a headwind while defending in a wheat field may be counter-productive I don't think it's debatable that AA weapons were more prevalent on European battlefields than flame throwers. At the CM scale I think nearly all of them were dual purpose weapons that could and often did engage ground targets.

I would think that AA would be easier to implement than fire, and tactically more important, IMO.

I wasn't aware the Brits made them too. I bet the licensing negotiations were a little tense

You could make one or more AI plans for your test scenario, but using a QB would be much quicker. Absolutely.

For at least a decade now -- going back to before the CMBB release -- I have been advocating a rarity system based on availability rather than on price. As it stands unrealistically jacking up the rarity isn't an answer since you will almost always be able to buy at least 1. I think the answers for this issue have already been said. You just have to pick which one you prefer: 1. 155m or larger artillery 2. Fighter-bombers. Remember, no AA in CMx2! ( :mad: ) 3. Gentleman's agreement not to buy them. 4. Accept that they were a PITA in real life too and deal with it.

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Ah thanks for that.

Do you have a source for this information? I ask because I have not been able to find mention of this feature in the manual nor have I seen it stated on the forums by any official source i.e. Steve.

That is the sepia on sepia nightmare. I have 3 pdf versions in my CMBN root directory: CMBN Game Manual, CMBN Game Manual print and CMBN Game Manual print bw.

From what he wrote I'm sure he understands that, just as you appear to understand that we as minorities can only do what minorities do when we feel our rights are being trampled upon: riot. Unfortunately it is my understanding that Steve lives in or next to a swamp, which is probably not very flammable. Good planning on his part.

Ukraine. Presumably set in the same year the game is released (2013) or very close to it since that's what they did for CMSF.

Actually, I'm not. It's how the content is packaged that I have concerns about, not the fact of the content's existence. And I am more concerned about units than scenarios. As I said earlier, if there is one Pack per title that's fine. But if there are two or three per title I would prefer they be bundled into a single full-priced module, or at least one larger Pack rather than several smaller Packs.

Yes we can still play each other, but for the purposes of our game it is as if I had not purchased the content we don't have in common (and same for my opponent). If that happens often enough it calls into question how valuable that content is, which goes back to my previous point about critical mass. The fairly small number of actual variations you are predicting is -- as you pointed out in your previous post -- a guess, not a given. And it may well turn out to be a correct guess, especially with so much still unknown. But my central point is that as the number of content packages increases and the size of some of them decreases the likely number of actual variations goes up. This should not be a controversial assertion.

A pack? Or two, or three? If it is just one then probably no worries, but I seem to recall Steve mentioning the possibility of multiple packs per title (I get the impression that for BFC, Packs are more of an idea than a concrete plan at this point). I don't know what the magic number is but I will reiterate my earlier point that the more limited in scope any product is the less appeal it will have. Modules with their large amount of content are more likely to have something to appeal to a potential buyer. Maybe you couldn't care less about the Commonwealth, but you still get the SS. To take the example to an extreme, imagine BFC did their own version of the infamous horse armor DLC from Oblivion by offering individual vehicles for download at $1 a piece.

I just realized I said permutations but the correct term is combinations.

The difference is in the number of different permutations of modules and packs. The more there are the more likely it is that any given opponent will have a different combination. You can still play him, but only with common components. I would also expect that the more limited in scope any particular DLC is the fewer people would buy it. As you noted, Packs appear to be mini-modules so it's the same content just chopped up into smaller pieces. If I were only going to play against the AI that would be fine, but if I'm going to be PBEMing each of these modules and packs needs to achieve a critical mass in the multiplayer community to make it worth buying. It may well turn out that most people will buy all of them anyway, but my point is that the more of them there are the less likely that outcome becomes.

Thematic differences aside, it's still a DLC business model. I don't mind BFC making money but the potential for further fragmentation of the multiplayer/PBEM community bothers me.

Cooperative play can be PvP, but I think very few people would actually use the feature.

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