Erwin

Hmmm... You mean like they just landed on a new planet and have no maps or aerial reconnaissance??

Bloody cyclists... Hope they get off off airport parking (ie: on the other side of the map). What am looking forward to is the potential for longer range (1Km-2Km) fire situations. That is extremely rare in CM2.

"Furthermore they reported that they had sensed a strong garlic-like odor in the air - a clear indication of the so-called mustard gas, first deployed as a biological weapon by German soldiers in World War I." OMG!!! My house must have been contaminated by ISIS!!!

Generally, putting lots of waypoints close together works. Also try SLOW.

Beautiful. What kind of gamer wouldn't want to play on a map that featured good parking facilities?

Impressive that versions have guns up to 120mm tank killers as well as twin mortars. Some v design good ideas.

+1 for AI controlled friendlies plus the option to turn off icons of friendly units that are out of C2 (and also any enemy contacts that those friendlies see). One can try to play with blinkers on. But, it's so easy to not have any unit selected and you see everything. That certainly makes the game more playable. But, any attempt at "realism" goes out the window when one easily has a god's eye view of all units and everything they see.

Now we're getting to the really interesting issues - what food does a CV90 driver like? Can CMBS simulate that?

Of course not, that would be unthinkable... (I think...)

So glad we are making such good use of this valuable opportunity to talk with a RL CV90 crewperson. Normal folks always suspected that we're all weird morons. Now that's confirmed.

Wow! Very impressive. Was that a simple CMBB to CMRT translation program or a vast amount of work?? Only wish you did a vs AI version.

Yes, I have been very keen on the dog catcher job! Glad my bitcoin deposit to "VoteHacker666" paid off. Now I have to wait to see if your system is hijacked for ransom b4 I d/l.

Well, given the current major hacking attacks going on around the world, your handle "Thief2125" doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The mod looks lovely. But, I plan to wait and see if someone else tests the d/l first.

What is that mod? The site seems to be Russian. Is it on CMMODS? Given all the fuss on hacking etc. Donald tells me that we all now have to be paranoid downloading anything from Russia that one can't be certain about.

Thank you! Under what circumstances would the vehicle expose itself to give inf support? In our CMBS game, it seems generally to be a bad idea to ever expose an IFV as they are so vulnerable. So, we tend to use IFV's as armored transports - keeping them well away from combat. But, then what is the use of all of the IFV's weapons systems? Or, is the RL use of CV90 different than what we see depicted in the CMBS game?

They seem to be designed as a tank that carries inf. But, are they really capable of attacking into enemy armor, or what is their doctrine?

The C2 system is fascinating. After what... ten years of playing CM2 I have never deliberately used recon or scout units to bring back info to the main forces. I think that time constraints usually force one to move ahead without reporting back. I then make shameful use of "borg spotting" to allow follow on forces to attack known targets. But, am loving the idea of using scouts properly like described above.

The most enjoyable campaigns are branching ones, where 1) you can choose between different courses of action for the next mission - this goes some way to providing an operational feel, 2) a win or a loss will send you to different follow-on missions - so if a mission is too hard and you lose you can get an easier one next so one doesn't have to replay just to win (I hate having to do that) and 3) requires conservation of men, materiel and ammo - so you have to win "economically" as there is a "tomorrow". But yes, the above requires a huge amount or work to design. That's why many of us are happy to pay BF for campaigns professionally developed by designers who understand all the tricks of the very complex CM editor.

You know that I have only best wishes for BF. I hope that they have govt contracts that are keeping them solvent while they produce entertainment for us. But, I have been playing versions of CM for almost 20(!!) years now. That's VERY successful and a VERY long time for a game that covers more or less the same topics. CM has been a phenomenon. It's sad to see that activity on this site is now very low compared to a few years ago. There are very few of us making nearly all the posts. A whole generation of very well known CM enthusiasts who greatly improved past games with mods and scenarios have completely disappeared. Just look at how the number of user-made scenarios and mods has plummeted with each new release. I certainly hope we'll get to see the whole of WW2 simulated per BF's plan. But, how many years can an essentially early 2000's game system survive? 25 years? 30 years? How old will some of us be by the time we get the 1939/40 era? And how complex will the update procedure be when there are 20-30+ games in the family? I very much hope that BF will give the entire CM system a full conceptual redesign in the not too distant future.

Generally BF goes quiet when they are rushing to complete a new release. My regular fear is that this niche game is running out of steam with declining customer base dispersed over more and more separate titles (and forums) with fewer and fewer people playing each title (or posting on the forums).

My campaign folder contains only 7 CMFB campaigns. If someone has something other than the following I would also like to know: Bastogne Plus BulgePlusOne Courage Conquers KG Peiper Knock Em All Down Road to Bastogne Training Campaign

A definite improvement for graphics. Hope you get this polished and ready for use.

FWIW am playing Grigsby's WITPAE to give my brain some R&R from CM2 for a bit...

All good suggestions. cf: "With highly asymmetrical forces, the best one player could do is to delay, but that's not really a lot of fun from the player's perspective." I disagree with this. All the designer has to do is make one of the major objectives to be conservation or force and/or ammo. That makes any type of mission challenging and interesting, regardless whether it is vs uncon or conventional forces. Also, we need to define whether we are talking H2H or vs AI. Much easier to get enjoyment in asymmetric situations when vs AI. When H2H it's easy for one player to get fed up. Probably it's H2H situations where one sees the clamor for "balance".

+1 An op layer would breathe new life into the CM series. Recon vehicles are all but useless currently and tend to get used as supporting light armor - which doesn't seem correct since they were specialized troops. It's almost as if one needs to have the recon units "disappear" from the map after they have accomplished recon objectives - and then the main assault units take over. In the meanwhile, all one can do is use the largest possible maps which give some reason for vehicular recon. I vaguely recall a couple of scenarios like that in the early days of CMBN - one spent a lot of scenario time probing enemy positions b4 major reinforcements arrived and one embarked on an assault.