Erwin

Thanks to Kieme's new mods for CMSF, I fired up Zawiya Uprising campaign as I was on mission #5 when CMBN came out and took over my play time. Well, Kieme's mods do a fabulous job making Zawiya Uprising terrain and buildings look the most realistic that I have seen. It really reminds me what most of those ME countries look like. I am using a ton of mods in CMSF that give me mishmashed Syrian Assad Govt. vs mishmashed Uncon forces that look a lot like what we're seeing on TV. The mods even include black pick-ups with light and heavy MG's, Recoilless, and AA artillery; Arabic radio chatter (Mord's Allah's Army and a lot of others too etc.), beat up cars and taxis... There is a ton out there. I really hope someone can do an ISIS flag and insignia mod and maybe some black outfits. It would be very easy to sim the current situation in Iraq and Syria. (The current scenarios and campaigns would work.) Since ISIS has US equipment now, I wonder if it's possible to get uncon forces in Humvees etc? (Does the Iraqi Army have Humvees in the game? Or, can one change US uniforms to approximate uncon "uniforms"?)

Is that Relief of JOKER 3? Amazing map. Such a shame there was only one scenario ever made for it.

Need to differentiate between the "Optional Highway" which is what the photo depicts - sorta like the best of the ME freeways - and regular "Paved Roads". (And even with your highway photo, note the absence of lane divider lines.) Outside of UAE and maybe some high end towns like Muscat, the "Paved Roads" are usually in very poor condition. Perhaps you could experiment with drawing black jagged lines across the road to simulate cracks in the road. Also, maybe potholes using the magic of light to create a depth feeling. I was recently on the roads in Jordan and they were bad outside of Amman. You have done a wonderful job with your other mods. So, I hope this feedback re roads is helpful.

Michael: Ignoring the color blindness issue for a sec. We're not talking about colored borders for EVERY team on the map. Just for the 2 or 3 teams from a particular squad so the squad can be located and reintegrated efficiently re ammo resupply etc. Selecting a platoon HQ with command lines on, efficiently identifies all the squads of that HQ, so that's not a problem.

And the song is available as a mod!!

You may be perfectly correct re CMBS. However, unfortunately real life issues like this can have an effect. eg: Why no Arab-Israeli war CMSF modules?

+1 for a visual symbol for buttoned/unbuttoned.

point taken... I am happy to let you lead the "nag BFC" campaign on this one.

very cool. looking forward to seeing it in "action". Will it work as is in other titles, or does it have to be renamed for every one? (*PITA)

There must be a way around color disabilities... otherwise how do you even play the game as is? We're talking about a play aid for the majority of players. Those with color issues would be no worse off then they are now.

I would imagine that the UN and the west in general will be "Werry, werry upset" and might actually vote to consider issuing a written "condemnation".

sounds good. thanks

btw: where is aris/fuser these days? did BFC persuade him to work on CM:BS?

I dunno about other vidcards, but NVidia allows you to mess around with colors etc to get whatever desired "mood" lighting one wants.

Thank you Kieme...

How about a color to identify all the teams of a squad, and the 1, 2 and 3 dots to represent teams A, B and C. I am all for anything that speeds up gameplay. Recognition of which unit is where (and knowing which team was A, B or C would provide some idea of what each team is equipped with) would be helpful. (And of course the other big time savers would be selectable waypoints and lines, and an adjacent ACQUIRE ability rather than having to embark and disembark etc.)

WG has a point. Many times smoke obscuring a target causes immediate loss of targeting whether it's infantry or vehicles and the target is a few meters away. A randomized (say) 1-5 second extension of fire at the obscured target would make sense.

So, you're saying it would be easier to sim Ukraine using CMA? Will Euroscape mods work in CMA?

It's possible that one of the CM1 games - CMAK (Afrika Korps) or CMBB (Beyond Barbarossa) may be what you want. CMBB covered the entire East Front from 1939 to 1945 and included many minor Axis and Allied units. IIRC CMAK did enable one to fight in Crete and Yugoslavia vs the Italians and Germans. But, you'd need to find a mod that turned the Brits into Yugoslavians. Same thing with CMBB. You'd have to find a mod that changed the Russians into Yugos.

If all the icons for the teams of a squad changed to a certain color or colored outline when a team was selected, that would instantly ID them as belonging to the same squad. A different shaped icon would be more confusing. Fortunately, the command lines does make identifying all the sub units under an HQ easy when you select the HQ. But currently, time is definitely wasted when trying to ID teams of a squad. Esp needed when acquiring/sharing ammo etc.

The long windows all seem to work very well. Maybe because you don't see them side by side. It's when you have a beautifully destroyed/shot up window and then you see many more identical windows immediately next to it and above it. Maybe it's better to leave those windows looking "vague" and undistinguished so that they don't immediately pop out as identical. I didn't notice anything obviously weird about any wall textures. They all look realistic to me at first glance, and that is good. BTW: I had a looks at the doodads. I know they have cactus in the ME, but I don't recall seeing the optional cactus that you have included. I see a lot of that sort of cactus in the US west deserts. The tall grass options you have look good. Also, the reason that the regular paved roads don't look right to me is that they are way too lovely and new. They look European. The default CMSF roads look more real imo. And even those default roads are in "too good condition". I would recommend messing them up a lot more with LOTS of cracks and potholes and a poorer center line paint job (that one can barely see) + ragged edges to the road (if possible) as they pour the tarmac poorly. Definitely no nice clean yellow lines on the road sides! Then your HD roads would look a lot better/more realistic. (PS: The lovely Highway tiles you did maybe would only be seen in the most modern urban settings in wealthy nations like UAE, and not in your "average" ME country.)

Yeah, I just loaded "USMC RAMADI - Relief of JOKER 3" which is the best ever urban map. I recommend the scenario and for testing our what a ME urban map looks like. I made an error re the regular roads, they are better close up, but become vague paths at a distance. Doesn't blend well. The highway tiles just don't work at all if there is diagonal highway, and unless the designer has specifically designed the roads for your mod, one gets strange results - like the "centerline" is not in the center of the highway etc. So, I would not recommend using the optional roads and highways mod files. The windows of small single floor houses look very good as the fact that there is a great variety of buildings each with different windows, and the fact that each small building has identical windows is not especially troubling. The 2nd floor windows of the larger two-floor houses start to look weird as the identical nature of the windows stands out more. Once one gets into the large multi-story buildings the identical windows is rather distracting. I would prefer the default or just black openings to simulate windows being blown out. So, I presume with the window graphics all the windows of a single building of any size will always be identical?

What I was referring to was that we really shouldn't be able to have the camera enter the room of a building to see the layout until a friendly unit is already in the room. But, it's a game and we need these abstractions.

+1. This would help speed up gameplay - especially as scenarios get larger. people have suggested using colored frames around the icon etc.