Erwin

Your rant has inspired me to rant: It really is a new world where (some/most?) younger folks have a desperate need for constant contact with someone else they can label a "friend" even tho' there is actual no connection other than the most superficial electronic transaction. Now there is also a push to make all financial transactions electronic via your cell phone or similar - so no money, everything deducted direct from your bank AC. (And we know how hard it can be to get your $ back from a bank where there has been an error or fraud that has nothing to do with you.) Feels like we are in the middle of a disaster sci-fi story. Anyone who's worked on DoD-related projects knows these systems are not secure, that they are being hacked all the time (altho' never admitted), and that one day the stockmarket, or the power grid or food supply or somesuch will be hacked big time and this paperless world will crash. I dread to think how the Facebook generation and their ilk will cope. In the meanwhile, we have new versions of smartphones every few months requiring new skillsets... My wife just got a Samsung III and has barely any idea how to use it except for the basics. I still have a voice only "old" phone. I hate texting. Seems to take far longer to get actual useful info across than just calling someone. And I liked getting Netflix DVD's in the mail. Now I have to d/l to my computer, run an HDMI cable from my computer to the TV and only then get to watch a friggin' movie(!) All this new communications stuff seems aimed at kids who want to secretly chat in class, and moron level execs who can text while in some inconsequential meeting.

I took another look at the saved "Where Farmers Dare" scenario from the "Road to Dinas" campaign and realized that only the FO was armed properly with 3 AK's. All of the other inf units were armed with one or two (only) western small arms weapons, like Minimi's or M4's or somesuch etc. The rest of each of the squad or teams had no weapons at all! Totally bizarre... Anyone played this scenario and can confirm this isn't a bug in the campaign itself?

It used to be one needed a teenager to explain technology to us oldsters, then it was 12 year olds, next week it will be 8 year olds... I mean, who the f*** gives a sh** about facebook and/or the ability to tell people in real time what stupid nonsense you are doing every ruddy second? Can't believe I have transformed from a high-tech worker considered pretty cutting edge to a fuddy duddy in the space of a decade or two...

Yes, AI is THE hardest thing to program. Untold millions/billions have been spent on it over the last decades, and the result... The game market is saturated with a plethora of multiplayer shooters... cos online muliplayer doesn't need much if any AI at all. The AI required for a wargame like CM compared to the AI for chess, is comparing the AI for Tic Tac Toe vs Chess. There are gazillions more possibilities in a wargame than in a relatively "simple" game like chess. I bet most us could kick Kasparov's butt at CM! I think the CM2 AI is better than CM1 - at least I still find playing CM2 games vs the AI quite challenging enough. But, then it may also be the greater complexity and detail that makes CM2 harder than CM1. However, I have also found my style of play has changed - largely thanks to the casualty averse character of CMSF. In CM1 one rarely worried about casualties and fighting to the last man/machine. But, CMSF forced us to learn a completely different style of play where high casualties almost always resulted in ignominious defeat. People tell me that WW2 combat was much more bloody and high casualties were common. However, I still enjoy playing CMBN and CMFI as if I were playing with the same concern for casualties one needed in CMSF. If you play to avoid high casualties (eg <10%) the CM2 AI is quite hard enough.

Have been stuck for over two years(!) at the start of the Red vs Red "Road to Dinas" campaign - the "WHERE FARMERS DARE" mission (11?). I really want to finally complete this campaign as it is xnt. Despite removing my entire Z folder, the at-start Red units have still got US/Nato weapons. So, this appears to be a game issue, not a conflict with any mods. Some of the units like the MG teams don't seem to have any weapons at all. Not ony do they not appear in the weapons windows, the units themselves are empty-handed. I have never experienced anything like this in any other of this campaign's missions, nor in any other CMSF scenario or campaign. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Presumably instructions for programming the mice are online only? Have no idea how to set up "profiles" or autodetection. Like I said, I have no 10 year old old here.

It may still be something abut max loads for these teams.

"Not that you need to go Chomsky deconstructionist or anything, just saying, beware a writer with a beautiful turn of phrase but a visible agenda." I love that quote LLF!

The giveaway is that the cameraman is often shooting from a higher position than the prone soldiers who are "sheltering from explosions" just a few feet away from the cameraman and the cameraman never flinches. We see no camera jerkiness/shakiness whatsoever. It's always possible there is some actuality footage edited in, but this sequence is, at least mostly, staged.

It was all so bloody long ago... way before CMFI, so maybe a year ago or so. I can't even remember the scenario or campaign I was playing. But, I definitely recall that there was a very informative discussion about which units can "see"/TARGET" a bit further into terrain than other units. It didn't have anything to do with binos. Just that certain units had this enhanced ability for playability issues (I would suspect). No worries... I am sure the situation will come up again, and I hope I remember to do experiments then.

You can't have enuff grubbiness and dirt from pics of combat troops I have seen. I had no idea you were doing uniforms as the stock CMFI ones are pretty good. It's astonishing how you have made them "pop" with detail even more. (Are there battle-weathered/exhausted face skin mods for CMFI like someone made for CMBN?)

Thanks for the CMMODS link Rokko. And thanks again Stephson.

Hmm... Programming the mouse a bit better is actually a good idea to try. I have a G500 I use for CM and maybe a G700 elsewhere. My fear is that I always somehow manage to screw up my equipment every time I do experiments with it that others find childsplay. In addition to PC's my wife and I have iPhones and iPads, and neither of us can barely use em. They drive us nuts as we find em totally non-intuitive. The trick is to have a ten year old explain it all I guess.

womble: there was a thread about this but many months ago. I definitely experimented and found that FO's could "see" further thru terrain like wheatfields etc. I just don't recall which other units could as well. If not HMG's then maybe recon?? I just wish I could recall the thread.

+1 re using CMMODS or The Repository. Seems like there is always a problem with Gamefile. Apppreciate you rowk. When might you have the final version?

I have experimented with FO's and one can trace an FO's TARGET line much further through terrain that blocks the TARGET lines of other units. I wish I could recall for sure what other units also have this ability, but IIRC HMG teams and snipers(?) There was a thread about this many months ago. So this enhanced spotting ability is not only for indirect fire. I was just curious if anyone noticed if the enhanced ability also exists if the FO is HIDING.

Perhaps licensing out CM1 is seen as a potentially no-win situation for BFC. 1) They clearly want to having nothing more to do with CM1 for whatever reason. They see the increased fidelity of CM2 as a simulation more than as a game as being the future. 2) However, logically, if BF were to offer a license to revamp CM1, BF has to contractually allow a reasonable opportunity for a third party developer to make money out of a revamped CM1 somehow. 3) BF only "wins" if they can get a bunch of money from a third party and then the "revamped" CM1 is unsuccessful (makes very little money, or loses money). But, then that diminishes any perceived value that CM1 may have. (Kinda like your million dollar house is only worth that so long as you and the bank say it is. The moment you try and sell it and are offered only $500,000 you are screwed and the value is adjusted downwards.) 4) But, what happens if the revamped CM1 was a big hit? BF would then have created a huge competitor for CM2, and they could look foolish if revamped CM1 (being for many a more accessible and fun product than CM2) starts beating CM2 in sales and the third party developer starts making good profits. So, from a decision-making game perspective, it's safer for BF to "discourage" any attempts to revamp CM1 by either making a license too expensive/having too arduous profit participation terms, (or simply not granting any licence at all). The challenge for any improvement of CM1 is perhaps that BF is overvaluing a revamped CM1's potential revenues, while at the same time saying it's not worth investing any more effort in it themselves.

Ok, I see... For what it's worth I go to and from CM1 and CM2 a lot. One has to change the click sequence a great deal when doing that. But, it becomes instinctive and I have very rarely if ever experienced that sort of confusion. It's pretty obvious when one has clicked on a waypoint in error since the unit appears in the bottom window. However, in a large scenario like Himmelfahrt where one has a battalion of troops in halftracks and over a company of armor etc., it is very irritating to constantly go and find the original unit in a spaghetti of waypoints/movement lines, as opposed to simply clicking on a waypoint/line to immediately access the unit. At the very least, the CM1 ability of clicking anywhere on a movement line or waypoint immediately gets you back to where the units are located without having to zoom out and move around the map to find em. (That process also seems harder in CM2 since the cntrl-click method nearly always moves me to someplace unexpected and not where I want to go - so I have stopped using cntrl-click in CM2.) I don't see it as sufficient argument to not have that very, very useful and time-saving feature of clicking anyplace on a movement line/waypoint to select a unit that works so brilliantly in CM1. CM2 could be so much better and so much easier to play if the CM2 UI system hadn't removed some of the CM1 features that worked so well and so intuitively. Note that I am not talking about improving/changing the CM2 game itself, only making the PROCESS of issuing commands/orders much more ergonomic/efficient/intuitive and less time-consuming/frustrating. CM2 may be a huge improvement over CM1 in many ways, but not in its PLAYABILITY.

Re FO's... we know that they and certain other units are able to see/spot through obstructing terrain (eg wheatfields etc) further than other units when in their default position. Is that true if they are HIDING as well? ie: In effect would an FO make for a better ambusher if they are more aware than normal units when HIDING (leaving aside the wisdom of using them in this way)?

The irony is that after recovering from injuries and having to travel and work more, am now having less and less time to play and enjoy your wonderful mods. I spend most of my time just looking and drooling.

IIRC the demo scenario does not allow you to change the set-up. You just play from the existing set-up. It's been a long time since I was at the CMBN demo stage but I think this is the issue you've been frustrated by. Yes, (all) the CM2 manuals leave a lot to be desired. They are full of apparently useful info about weapons systems etc, but it's all stuff that you could have gotten from "Janes" or somesuch, and there is very little useful info (compared to the CM1 manuals) on how to actually use the weapons systems in order to play CM2 well. You'll have to figure it all out by yourself, and/or spend hundreds, perhaps thousands of man-hours (as many of us do) on the BF forums asking questions about how to do things optimally. CM2 is a great game that can be very rewarding as it is much more accurate/realistic than CM1,and the graphics are way better, especially after adding some of the superb mods that have been created. But, you won't find sufficient training/explanations in any of the CM2 manuals. It often occurs to me that BF could make money by writing a serious and large manual about the CM2 game system and how to play optimally and marketing that document like many "shooter" games have done. And if it were a downloadable pdf it would cost nothing to print and publish.

It does make playing large scenarios very time-consuming. So, we're back to the philosophical question as to whether the CM2 engine should ever be played with anything larger than a company. Many of us who started with CM1 see this as one of the biggest disappointments of CM2 as we greatly enjoyed the huge scenarios and tournaments that are still only available in CM1 (eg the superb Birthday Bash series at WeBoB which features scenarios that offer huge scenarios to the limit of what is possible in CM1). Re the formation command issue, the current group order creates chaos at choke points unless one does a lot of tweaking. I agree that in the game it is definitely better to play as if every tank is autonomous and doing its own thing to take advantage of every terrain feature it can. Not sure if that is "realistic" but it doesn't bother me as having fun playing the game is my priority. However, a follow/convoy command so that one could order a large (company sized+) formation to head down a road, cross a bridge or two and continue down a road to the desired "form-up" point would be a huge time-saver - and Himmelfahrt is a great example. Himmelfahrt is a wonderful large scenario that is highly recommended. But, aspects are gruelling to play due to the mass of orders and waypoint replotting required to get mech company reinforcements to the front line down a road, across a bridge and then either down another road, or through a pass surrounded by impassible terrain that can mess up movement unless each unit is faithfully following the unit in front. I can see arguments on both sides for formation commands, but a convoy/follow the leader command would definitely be very helpful and time-saving... saving time so that one can focus on the fun/combat aspects of the game, and not on playing CM: TRAFFIC COP. Re the ability to select a unit by clicking anyplace on its movement line or waypoint... I didn't understand what you meant by the "current mouse-paradigm"... Plz explain why this feature that worked brilliantly in CM1 would be a problem in CM2.

Interesting to see what may be operational. I was working with an AF physicist in the late 90's who was involved in HEL development.

I was thinking of scenarios like Himmelfahrt where one can recon to discover a large distance of safe territory through which that it takes later (significant quantity) reinforcements a long time to get through to reach a dangerous area. I do agree that one would want to adjust waypoints significantly if one was in contact or moving through unknown territory. When one may be making 5+ waypoints for each unit of (say) a company having the "base" waypoints all done in a simple formation order would be a huge timesaver even if one needed to move the last one or two waypoints. The trouble with the current "group orders" is that the units don't keep in good formation and usually run into each other, so one ends up moving a lot of waypoints to avoid traffic jams/collisions. However, it would be an even greater timesaver if one could select the desired unit by clicking on that unit's waypoint line (as we can do in CM1). The basic point is still that the UI seems to require a lot more effort to accomplish things in CM2 vs CM1 and much seems to be complexity for complexity's sake.

Downloading from CMMODS right now.