Erwin

I thought I had that, but it isn't working. Will d/l and put in Z folder again. Thanks.

Wonderful, starting to play now. However, could REALLY do with translucent trees like we have in CMFI. I put that mod in CMBN but doesn't appear to work. Is there a translucent mod for CMBN??

Looking at the scenario d/l'd from CMMODS now. Looks fabulous. Altho' without the CMFI innovation of "alt B - night brightness" I couldn't see a thing until I ramped up the Gamma and brightness (so that typing this is almost blinding!). (I sure hope that the next patch will add that facility to CMBN!) It would also be good to have the Ford marked, as I can't see it. I guess I will have to try putting waypoints along the river's length until it's found. (Edit: Found it next to the bridge, doh!) There is also mention of a "rough path to Froitscheidt" through the woods that vehicles are supposed to be able to use. However, I could not find any such path. There is an impassible (to vehicles) tributary running almost all the way to Froitsheid, so no point sending vehicles that way ayway. As many know, I LOVE huge scenarios so am looking forward to this one. Be warned it took about 4 minutes to load, and we'll see hiow it runs as more reinforcements arrive. I had an almost state of the art machine 4 yerars ago, so this may be nature's way of telling me it's time for a new one. Wonderful map by sburke and Pandur's scenario looks very interesting. My only disappointment is that not much armor will be involved.

I still love that sort of stuff in CM1. I recall racing active friendlies to get to surrendered friendlies in order to rescue them. (Proximity of friendlies would make them unsurrender, altho IIRC they would no longer have weapons or ammo.) Also, when larger numbers of enemy would surrender one had the challenge of marching someplace safe so that one's oppo couldn't rescue them. If we could buy surrendered units in the purchase screen, civilians even, one could create all sorts of interesting missions rather than the repetitive assaults that tend to get designed.

Good attitude. Also, I learned that one should NEVER give up. So many H2H games (in CM1) that I thought I was losing, I found that one could turn em around and win. I recall one delicious CMBB game where my oppo was clearly winning and was telling me all the things I was doing wrong, and gave me lots of advice as to what I could do better... But, it was variable ending, and he was over-confident. He made a few errors here and there, and I ended up with a very solid win lol. Never heard from him again natch.

I was sorry to read that people are unhappy with QB maps. The problem is that players who could whip up a great-looking map and scenario fairly easily in CM1, are clearly not doing em for CM2. I know that I am totally intimidated by what appear to be the huge time commitment it now requires. Same for modders I guess...

I have always been curious if the Italians really did paint the cupola white, or if that is just a trick of the light in photos that make it appear white. I don't understand why they would voluntarily want to have their tanks to have what looks like a target beacon on top. (And it really looks odd when the rest of the tank is so beautifully dirtied up.)

Thanks for the updated version. So, the previous one we can just delete?

Delicious map. Looking forward to (adding it to my list and) playing it!

Another idea for your consideration: There was an xnt CMSF scenario where a light inf force had to stealthily get into the center of a town, locate a spy and (fight to) get him out safely. Meanwhile, their light armed transports and guards had to fight off enemy recon units that were trying to get into the town as well. So, one has action and stealth in one scenario. I forget, does CMBN or CMFI have CMSF type civilians? If not, substitute a small friendly unit without any ammo. (Maybe even an enemy, so he could be forced to surrender?) Personally, I think these sorts of scenarios could be really unique and interesting campaigns. It seems like 90%+ of all CMBN and CMFI scenarios/camapigns are straight ahead planned assaults with little room for maneuver or do anything else, and they get boring.

Thanks for thinking of me mjk...

Any factions that stand in the way of our glorious Soviet liberation of oppressed Afghan peoples are the "bad" guys!

Lovely work as always...

I dislike brz files for that reason. It's also hard/time consuming to explode em in order to compare with other similar mods. So, I generally explode brz's and put the files in regular folder. I am talking about regular files (bmp's) and their compatibility between games. Some are, and some are not. I just wondered why.

Well it certainly made me look, so from that POV... But yeah, anyone who doesn't like cats is usually a pretty sicko. I rely on cats' instincts to tell me who the nice people are. Dogs are, well... dogs... (And it's not the map name, it's his handle.)

Any idea why most mods are incompatible from game to game (and yet, one can use a few others)?

The German campaigns tend to keep the same units and you have to be economical with ammo and men and equipment as you often don't much resupply.

IIRC that color cannot be changed (otherwise we'd have done it years ago).

This is the same as the previous mod version but including the splash screens this time, yes? (Thank you.)

I deliberately lost the first battles just so I could fight on the village HQ map. It's really a good map, and it's a shame that if one wins, one never gets to see it! I wonder if the campaign (or your next one) could be scripted so that one is actually pushed back to the HQ map and THEN one has to fight back to make progress. Right now, if you do well in the first battle, it seems like the Taliban never seems to recover and they are weak for the rest of the campaign. So, the challenge became how to win with minimal friendly casualties. However, if you lose the first battle, the Taliban get quite strong/reinforced, and it seemed HARDER to win the 2nd battle (I lost), and that's how I found myself defending the HQ village in the 3rd battle. I loved the unexpected enemy bombardment btw. Really made a mess of my units. Anyway, great job! I hope your next campaign also requires combined arms and maneuver. The frontal infantry-centric assault scenarios of CMBN and CMFI get repetitive.

Well, only a jilted lover or a kid would be this childish, so my money is still on a Jap girl you f****ed and fled from, or some dorky 15 year old.

Another thought if there is any possibility of a v2, is to make friendly casualties cost more in points so it's harder to win if you lose too many ANA troops. The point of the campaign is to give em confidence. I felt that my big wins (mostly TOTAL) were not really worthwhile when I had lost two entire squads and their HQ in mission #1, then two BTR's and their entire squads (to mines) in the final mission (in addition to smaller losses along the way). I think that the resources available to the ANA/Soviet player are such that he should be able to win with minimal casualties (well, aside from getting unlucky with mines). And while we're on the subject, there's a discussion about designers not getting feedback in the CMFI or CMBN forums. Sometimes I get the feeling that only a couple of us are actually playing these games while most are arguing about historical and technical minutiae. That's a cause for concern as it's the equivalent of players becoming "collectors" like many of us became when cardboard wargames became too complex and not so much fun to play.

I suspect that CM2 scenarios just don't get played as much as CM1 used to - possibly cos CM2 takes a lot more effort, time and patience. FWICS there are unfortunately, not that many discussions going on about ANY scenarios or campaigns, but far more about technical details and historical accuracy etc. I actually enjoyed HARD KNOCKS as it was an xnt trainer for CMBN. And the final mission in that campaign was awesome. But, experiencing that level of difficulty and frustration once or twice was enough. Now, I look for entertainment, and many CM2 scenarios attempt to be "historical" - meaning attempting to make the scenarios as bloodily horrible to play as the original RL experience. I find that CMA and CMSF is now a lot more fun as they are largely fictional so the designer could focus on making them interesting and entertaining, rather than "accurate".

That's a really good point. I just realized that inf is often first suppressed by bullet impacts you see kicking up around their feet, but I do not recall seeing tracers (at that time).

...and threatened more than one relationship...