Erwin

Am in first mission of "Mountains of Allah" campaign. I have one of my Air Controller FO's fly a drone over a target and as soon as intel comes back the same FO orders an airstrike scheduled on the same target. The drone gets there in a couple of minutes but the airstrike will take about 12 minutes to arrive. The FO is then killed. His radio operator is ok. This gives rise to a strange situation: 1) The drone cannot be assigned to any other FO. Ok, so maybe his gear is lost and the drone is lost. But, no... The drone is fine and continues to report back recon info which can be used by other FO's for targeting. Question: If the controls and intel gear are fine then why can't the drone be ordered elsewhere? 2) What happens to the scheduled airstrike? One can't cancel it. I assumed that after the FO had been dead for about 5-6 turns that the air support would get automatically cancelled. But, no... It turned up about 5-6 turns later - presumably as scheduled. (It just so happened that my troops had just overran the base and then got slaughtered by the friendly air attack - but that's irrelevant here.) Something not right here. Is this a bug or...?

There is clearly interest. I know it's huge amount of work. But, it's a real issue when nothing happens for months. Some of us keep visiting the CMSF and CMA forums. But, most just give up and ignore them after a while. If you can do another mission as good as your first that would be great.

"...pilot inadvertently ejected..." Don't you hate it when that happens...

A Russian air strike ordered by the KIA FO just inflicted massive friendly casualties as I went ahead with an inf assault on one of the hills as I had no idea if the air strike would ever come. However, it seems that the air strike that the KIA FO ordered (and then died 5 or 6 turns ago) keeps going and can't be stopped. Am getting better at inf assaults. But, am appalled by the inaccuracies of the mortar and arty strikes. I set area fire over the hilltop forts and most of the HE seemed to land in an area at least 50m larger the target area with very few rounds doing any good. I guess I will try Point Targets and see if that spreads over a smaller 15m area. Similarly, most of the time, I can't even see where the air strikes are hitting or if they are simply cancelled for some reason. I had the helicopters supposedly doing a strike and am not sure they even turned up. Is Russian arty and air support really this bad. Unless the Russians are really screwed up with comms in RL, it doesn't seem right. They seem a lot more effective in what we see in Syria.

Thanks for revealing that there is a recoilless rifle by the mosque. :/

What is strange is hat I wanted this music to play over another campaign (Mountains of Allah - MOH). I removed the MOA music mod tag and put in a "D" HD with my other "UNUSED MODS" and made sure that the TFSR music was in a ZZZ folder so it would be loaded last. However, the MOA music still plays during the loading phase of the mission. Any ideas? Even tho' I removed the MOA mod tag music, does the system still search for it anywhere in the computer and play it regardless of its location?

Enjoying replaying the first mission. However, I had one FO air controller get KIA and now the air support and the drone he was commanding is going on (and on and on) and I can't cancel either and reassign to another FO. Is this deliberate re Russian doctrine, or a glitch?

"It would actually be in the Chinese interest to ally with the U.S. against Russia because the Russians have nothing to offer the Chinese except the the land they're sitting on (Sino-Soviet border conflict)." The Brits achieved power thru their very successful strategy of always allying with the 2nd most powerful nation vs the most powerful nation - until the Brit Empire itself emerged as the most powerful. Probably that's what Russia and China are attempting currently vs the US. Agreed that this leaves aside the moral issues, however, historically, all nations function on a realpolitik level and act callously in their self-interest while simultaneously either covering those actions up or disguising them in a cloak of "the best defense is a good offense" type philosophy using the fear they have made their citizens suffer as the excuse for just about anything. If it is predictable that China may become the most powerful nation in the next decades, then it only makes sense to start to make pally with Russia (India as well).

Did you have a waypoint just b4 the bridge plus maybe another one or two close together for crossing the bridge etc? I think that the AI pathing routine sees things like "safe routes" very differently from the human eye.

"Trump's main concern is China. This is the country that considers the bigger threat to US interests and probably foreign policy will shift accordingly towards there." This would be about time as China has been the main threat for a couple of decades now. Big business interests and expensive lobbying have been able to disguise the China threat from many in the west. We actually have more in common with Russia and have less to fear from Putin than with China. We would be better off allying with Russia to contain Chinese expansionism. The fact that Trump is the only person who hasn't been bought and paid for by the financial industry and large corporate interests mean that he may be able to enact logical and rational foreign policies unencumbered by the need for max profit at the expense of our nation. One can hope at least...

If you really want to play WW2 from the start, go get the three CM1 titles and you can play from the invasion of Poland!

There has always been a problem with making waypoints too far apart. You are just asking for trouble. And it's clearly too complex/expensive to program movement paths any better. It just needs to become a player's SOP to make close together waypoints when in restricted terrain.

Not sure why short range would be a dominant designer "feeling". 99% of scenarios are basically short range encounters. It would be wonderful to have more scenarios with longer range opportunities just to experience it more. That's one of the reasons I love CMSF and would like to see a CMAK- like CM2 title in the desert. (Many of us love playing the Axis and would love to get a chance to experiment with 88's and Nashorns etc used at the appropriate ranges.)

Well, we're all hoping to see your new campaign. Any ETA?

Argh... That is a major pain. I feel for you. I now back up everything on a 2nd computer or 2nd internal or ext HD. Suggest everyone do similar. Please tell us your CMA campaign is not lost.

The "problem" with 60mm mortars is that they were probably rarely used as direct fire weapons at the short ranges we generally see in CM2. It's more an issue that almost all CM2 maps are small and/or have terrain that restricts LOS to relatively (unrealistically) short ranges. It's the same issue with using the 50 cal on a halftrack etc. One needs to be at least 500m from an inf target to be reasonably safe from small arms.

They are all wonderfully emotionally charged tracks. I like playing them at full volume - one can feel the sound waves! Thanks again. And thanks to Mark Petrie, and whoever created the other two like "This War Must End" (couldn't find composer names). I gotta Google them and see what else they have done.

Unfortunately, the number of user-made mods and scenarios (especially campaigns) has declined from CM1 thru all the recent CM2 titles, and keeps declining. The work is so time-consuming it's not surprising as enthusiasts get burned out. Am hoping that BF will start selling professionally-made campaign packs. While some seem to be happy to just discuss, create and look at wonderful mods and graphics, for this to continue as a game it needs new game content.

Putting units in a building with no way out is an xnt way to simulate rescue of hostages. I wish more designers did stuff like that (hint).

Scenarios where one has to fight along a route are my favorite, so this looks great. However, I only have time to play vs AI, so... :/

Yes there are few really good scenarios and campaigns for CMA. I still recommend CMSF as there was enormous support during the 5 or so years that it as the only CM2 title. CMSF scenarios and campaigns became outstanding as very motivated players did enormous work improving the mods as well as learning scenario design. When I play CMSF I rarely notice the lack of the extra features that CM2 now offers. NOTE: It is vital that one updates to the most recent version of CMSF: v1.32 IIRC. The earlier version had problems. One can get the CMSF base game and all the modules at a bargain price. And there are hundreds of xnt scenarios and campaigns available for d/l.

Wanted to say that this campaign has the best music mod (ever) for modern combat. I renamed the three files so they now play over on all my CMBS campaigns and scenarios when starting up. Has the right crescendo of unstoppable power and doom. Hell, I play it just for fun and to get my adrenaline going. Where is the music from?

bump...

"On Slow they will stop and fight if necessary." I didn't realize that. I recall how units HIDING could be literally walked over by enemy and killed easily. I thought that moving SLOW would be similarly suicidal when adjacent to enemy units. Thanks...

You should never say "Your explanation makes sense." to anyone on these forums. We'll never hear the end of it!