Erwin

I'll hazard a guess that he's added a lot of grain to get that old photo look. I also had no idea the balconies in CMFI are that detailed (or is that a fake pic?).

I'll look forward to your design. I enjoyed making maps for CM1. The new CM2 engine/system has me completely intimidated with regards to the time commitment designers seem to have to make.

Since you are a Jr member I'll assume you are asking re explosive power. That would be the 65mm (larger shell) over the 45mm.

That's good. Haven't used planes since CMSF since I could never figure out what one was getting other than the vague "heavy" or "light" munitions.

One issue is that most CMBN and CMFI scenarios are frontal assaults. There is very little opportunity for maneuver, going round flanks etc. Ironically, the bocage in CMBN altho' claustrophobic did mean you could break a flank and move unseen/protected around your enemy's flank and rear. I don't know if it's realistic that Sicily/Italy were all assault battles, but it's more playable and fun imo when one can maneuver and be given the choice of multiple options rather than always assault, assault, assault... Especially when playing campaigns vs the AI.

Is this an update of your earlier one?

"This explains how brilliant leaders can fail catastrophically when it matters most." Uh, thanks John for explaining my situation so eloquently.

Am glad you're having as much difficulty as I had... I thought it was either me... or CM2 had finally gotten impossible to play. I'll try it again now. But, it's a bit naff when you have to replay scenarios in a campaign to have a chance of getting through it.

"there's a limit to what flesh-and-blood soldiers can endure...' Yes, I was hoping there was some researcher here who had some % figures like that... Am sure that sort of thing must be calculated at GHQ.

Interesting point re casualties Broadsword. Are you saying 15% is "acceptable"? (Or, does anyone have info on what sort of casualties would be considered "acceptable" for the front line combat troops that CM features?) And FMB, the WEGO vs RT debate has been going on for so many years I hoped everyone saw it was a joke. I often forget that not everyone has good English. So, my apologies for getting your knickers in a twist.

Yes, I really like using them. Thanks again.

Thanks again Bill.

sburke: I keep saying that I enjoy playing CM2. I happen to be in a CM1 tourny right now at WeBoB where both sides do have several battalions plus a lot of armor and we're all having a "blast". But, I definitely want to get back to some unfinished CMSF, CMBN and CMFI campaigns. Alas, time limits etc... My comment was regarding my impression that each iteration of CM2 seems to get harder and more time-consuming (to play well). Maybe I play the CM2 system differently to you. My subjective "victory conditions" are that one needs to win the game with x<5% casualties to record a good win. Winning the objectives but suffering 10% is pyrrhic at best. More than 10% is a loss in my book regardless of what the game system result screen says. And getting these results in CM2 (even vs AI) is usually very hard and getting harder it seems. And Aragorn... not to start a new flame war or anything, but RT gives you god-like powers of instant reaction of every unit you control, which even today's military can't achieve. That's why Real Men play WEGO.

Thanks Bill. Just to confirm, these are ONLY for CMBN, and you have a different version at the CMFI site for CMFI, correct? Can I now delete from my CMBN Z folder the version that is at CMFI that you said could also be used in CMBN? Currently I have "Bils CW Icons" as well as "Bils Period Icons" in my CMBN Z folder. (All these mod versions with some being cross-compatible and others not gets confusing...)

I don't know how many times, but they definitely can cook up multiple times - possibly for the entire length of the scenario.

Rankorian's ideas reminded me that the increased problems I have with CM2 over CM1 are primarily as a result of loving the huge combined arms maneuver battles, and not liking the small infantry-focused scenarios. I need to emphasize that am not trying to convince folks that CM1 is superior in all ways, it's that CM1 enables me (and others like me) to more efficiently and pleasurably play the huge scenarios with 3 battalions assorted infantry on each side with several companies of tanks and other vehicles. Eventually, maybe we'll be able to do that in CM2. But, I predict that due to the increased detail/granularity and lethality of CM2, any huge scenarios will take a looong time to complete and be hard work to play well/carefully. The scale and abstractions needed to play on that scale is where CM1 still shines. I also know that there are many here who enjoy and want small infantry-based battles. ...And that is the basis for 90%+ of the disagreements and misunderstandings here.

You guys may be correct on a couple issues. However, with all my years on CM play, I still have a hard enough time playing vs the AI without taking unacceptable/unrealistic casualties. My life experience is that there are many people who have similar experiences/problems as I may have, but the vast majority are unwilling to say anything and get targeted. As you all know I am sure I speak from the POV of a gamer who loves the ILLUSION of reality, but nearly always will promote playability as being far more important than accurate simulation. I have loved the CM series from the start and aside from the early CMSF iterations, I think CM2 is by far the best computer wargame series ever, and BF gets my respect and admiration for sticking with it. I do believe/fear that there is a danger that we could see a repeat of what happened to the cardboard game "industry" in the late 70's-early 80's. Maybe most of you were not around then, or didn't play cardboard wargames at that time. But, at that time there was a very vocal demand for increased realism which was answered by game companies who produced very larger more complex games that attempted to be better simulations. This resulted in rulebooks that took (literally) days of hard study to read and required an eidetic memory to remember and a lawyer's capabilities to understand. These games often took more than a full day to setup, covered several dining tables with maps, and months, even years to play. They were hard work to play and were no longer fun. Not long after, the hobby imploded, most players like me became "collectors" since so few had the time to play these monsters. Great game companies like West End Games, Victory Games, SPI etc etc went out of business. Now, most gamers would consider me a Grog. But, I aint got nothing on you folks. So, what we have on these forums is a minuscule specialized sliver of the tiny wargaming niche. Believe it or not, I love all of you and your idiosyncrasies... (Well aside from the reprobates... you know who you are lol.) But, I think there is a danger of expecting too much from the average gamer, and I do not want to see BF go the way of the cardboard wargame companies.

"...you want to have your ambushers deep in concealment, not in the edge of it. Being one tile back from the edge of a patch of concealment offers 3 times the concealment of being in the edge tile." Right here is a big problem I have with CM2. How is a typical player (not a grog constantly visiting these forums) to measure a tile? How does he measure how much extra concealment his man gets being "x" meters in a forest vs brush vs rough etc? Why do we have to resort to that when one could simply have a terrain base color so it can be easily measured? Where does the manual explain this? When I read these comments it starts to appear that "cover/concealment" is very similar to CM1. Somehow, a player has to figure out how many meters one needs to be from the edge of the concealment/cover to get "x" benefit. But where is that edge? In CM1 we had ground base colors. What CM2 has done is remove all the aids that could help one play the game to make it more difficult for difficulties sake. It's that additional difficulty which sparks endless discussions about how "realistic" it is. In reality for the guy in RL who is in the woods, it's pretty obvious how far he is from the edge, and also what he can see and not see. I always thought that in RL foxholes would provide cover and concealment for guns. Instead, CM2 teaches me that foxholes are deathtraps. One has to be very selective to learn the "right" lessons from CM2 as it also teaches many wrong lessons.

Been watching it. Rather slow and boring unfortunately. Rather than doing it as a History Channel "academic" story, it would have been more exciting to copy the newsreel reporter in the field "partial panic approach" as you can see almost every day on CNN. Also, way too much backstory. What is fun is seeing the CM engine and units in action, not the voice-over and lengthy verbal explanations of this fictional story. The voices unfortunately sound phony and it destroys suspension of disbelief.

I am no historian, but I had the impression that the Italians relied on arty heavily like did the Brits to compensate for the mostly (not all) poor-ish infantry. Actually, it wasn't necessarily the fault of the Italian fighting man, but the awful officers who (I have read) would often flee on transport leaving their men behind. That would tend to mitigate good morale I would think.

Yes, good solid suggestions. However, what I am saying is that getting them to be in an appropriate "hull-down" position is often very tough. You can test LOS from a waypoint, but when the vehicle gets there it often doesn't have the LOS you were expecting, or inadvertently no longer hull-down etc. I can see it working in RT when you can make instant adjustments. But, WEGO is often deadly to weapons systems that require exact/perfect movement and placement.

You beat me to it. Yes, don't forget to add in the walking wounded who are simply yellowed out but still capable of fighting.

Re your 3rd question, if I understood you correctly, you can set a waypoint so your troops can move to a firing position, CLICK on that waypoint and order a PAUSE plus a TARGET command, then a 2nd (or more) waypoint back to wherever you want them to end up finally. Re your first two questions I hope you don't get flamed as players have been complaining about the strange LOS and targeting issues since CM2 came out several years ago.

If anyone watched the video to the end, the colonel quite rightly says neither is "better" - they were each "excellent" when used in conjunction with the other weapons available to their side.

Please write a tutorial on how to do it right...