Erwin

What ere your video card settings to get that realistic look. My colors are always too colorful "toy" like, or too washed out, or too contrasty or... (I already have the subdued terrain mods.)

Delicious. Thank you.

Wonderful (and about time). Thank you.

Well, trucks... I find they rarely bog. BTW: I have been playing Germans in the wet, so my comments were regarding PzV's and MkIV's.

Thought it might be helpful to make a list of CMBN bugs/weirdness in one place. I recall when CMSF first came out I gave up on it, only to return and be very pleasantly surprised when it got into patches 2 point something, at which point it became an xnt game. Hopefully we'll see similar significant improvements with CMBN... The following are compiled from comments here as well as the WeBoB site plus my own notes from playing thru 9 complete campaigns plus a bunch of individual scenarios. My hope is that eventually this may be a useful reference for the BF folks to triage what can or may not get fixed/improved in future patches/CM versions. "1) C2 issues. In the campaigns when platoon HQ's get killed, the Co CO of that platoon cannot give C2 even when within kissing distance of his leaderless platoon(s). In addition, when a platoon HQ takes casualties sometimes it loses its C2 capabilities. This C2 capability is NOT replaced in subsequent battles. 2) KIA platoon HQ's are not replaced between battles. Again, I have 4 or 5 platoons that lost HQ's in previous (C&F) battles and they have not been replaced, nor can their Co CO's provide C2. Generally, there is something weird with the whole C2 thing as it does not seem to work per the manual. Personally, I find the HQ/leader/sniper attributes to be too subtle in CMBN to see actual differences in the game. eg: I can use my leaderless platoons pretty much the same as ones with HQ's and C2. 3) Bocage issues: a) Using engineers to blast (x2) a hole in bocage so that tanks can pass through. However, in some situation the gap made is still not enuff for vehicles to pass thru the bocage. It's very hard to tell between the two smaller/lower bocage/hedge graphics whether it's passable or not. c) It's hard to see gaps in the (lower especially) bocage. d) Buddy aid is one of the most innovative new features of CM2 and SHOULD be important in endgame scoring (apparently it is not at the moment). However, WIA are hard to see if they are adjacent to bocage as the foliage hides them. Even looking from above, I often cannot find WIA men. Tthere should be a toggle to get rid of undergrowth/bocage/hedge graphics like there is for trees. Or, a toggle to temporarily make WIA stand out more. 4) Movement Pathing: Around and on bridges and minefields, units move in strange ways that tend to get them killed. Pathing across bridges and spaces between buildings is especially weird for vehicles. Vehicles zigzag across bridges. Sometimes vehicles can drive between buildings, sometimes they cannot. Infantry take strange paths across bridges to get off them that invariably lead them into trouble. They don't move in realistic/sensible paths. 5) Artillery issues: a) FO's: If they have a mission and get KIA, you can't cancel/alter the mission. Hard to tell explosion differences between 81mm mortars and 105mm guns - the blast graphics look the same/very similar, even though (hopefuly) the effects may be different. c) 81mm mortars are often used vs enemy AT guns. But, repeatedly when using the shortest firing durations the 81 mm often has little effect on AT guns even when sitting in the open and the shells explode a less than 5 meters away. By contrast other players report casualties from 60mm mortars sometimes dozens of meter away from the impact zone. d) If your display shows something like: 80mm HE 100; 80mm Smoke 10; you can fire 100 shells, not 110. You can fire 100 HE shells or 90 HE shells and 10 smoke shells... This confuses many folks. e) It is reported that 60mm and 81mm mortars are unrealistically effective at destroying bunkers. Why would one construct bunkers if small caliber arty could kill em that easily? (It has also been mentioned that while satchel charges etc can destroy a bunker they do not kill the crew, which was observed running out.) 6) Certain crews cannot board certain vehicles. So, for example, one cannot use one tank/recon crew to board a 2nd tank/recon vehicle. Suposedly this is to prevent gamey behavior. But, there are so many other gamey behaviors that are possible, it's unclear why this should be an issue. And of course inf currently cannot use tanks for transport. 7) Someone did tests with snipers in CMBN and found that the difference between Green and Elite "to kill" was 9% vs 19%. So, the difference between Regular and Veteran, or Veteran and Crack is too small to notice in normal gameplay outside of testing. For a game, one should be able to see a difference more easily. Ammo issues: a) It wastes a lot of time (esp in WEGO) to have to EMBARK in order to ACQUIRE ammo and stuff from a vehicle. Better if one could ACQUIRE ammo by simply being immediately adjacent to a vehicle with supply. This would also be a good feature for inf sharing ammo rather than the current method. It would be helpful to have an UNACQUIRE or to be able to give ammo back to a vehicle or unit as sometimes one makes a mistake like taking bazooka ammo when the taker has no bazooka. c) Why can't one board an immobilized truck to acquire ammo? d) Ammo resupply between scenarios of a campaign - esp armor. Often some of the armored vehicles are supplied up to 100% and one is left with what they had at the end of the last scenario. It seems that the tanks with most ammo get topped up first, but that can leave a tank with hardly any shells with hardly any resupply either. Similar can can happen with inf. e) The 7.92K ammo used by the Sturmgewehr (Stg44) assault rifle apparently can only be found in bunkers. Why not in any vehicles? 9) Ability to order a certain number of direct fire rounds to be fired. In WEGO one has to order a "dance" for the tank to move to another waypoint that has a covered arc in order to limit the number of shells it fires. (Almost always this is for HE fire. Often one one needs one or two rounds fired, but the tank is capable of firing 8 or more in a WEGO turn. This become especially critical for boogged/immobilized tanks as one cannot then limit their rounds fired with the waypoint method. 10) Covered arcs. The 180 degree arc is at least as useful as the 360 degree arc. It would save a lot of time if there were a similarly simple command to get 180 degree arcs. Also, it would be useful to differentiate arcs for anti-inf fire from AT fire. 11) When a lead unit triggers a minefield (and it's marked), following units still move into the minefield and get KIA. Doesn't make sense. Also, once Engineers have marked a minefield, units (incl vehicles) should be able to move thru it safely albeit on SLOW. 12) Bogging. One can move wheeled vehicles at all speeds in all terrains in wet conditions and they rarely bog. Tanks bog and get immobilized so often that you would think that nations would have abandoned tracked vehicle designs and converted everything to wheeled vehicles. Even when using SLOW all the time, there still seems to be a 30% chance of bogging/immobilization in any damp/wet conditions even on roads. This is is frustrating for an entertainment product and mitigates against gameplay enjoyment. 13) It is reported that tanks see infantry way too easily. 14) RAM issues. Since CM is a 32 bit software, even Win 7 64 bit systems with large amounts of RAM cannot use more than 2-3 GB to run CM2 games, hence the performance hit. There is a software that supposedly liberates us from the limitation, but BFC doesn't advise it for some reason. This needs some investigation by techie folks, as it could greatly help CM2 perfomance. 15) The cookie cutter sameness of squads and other units. In CM1 one could have a variety of experience levels within a platoon resulting in units having a uniqueness. In CM2 scenarios generally, all units (tanks etc) and squads are identical with the same squad leadership attributes, ammo loadout etc. Experience and abilities as well as armaments used to differ widely as units picked up stuff along the way. Having units are that not cookie-cutter makes the game more interesting and enhances identification with certain units and commanders. 16) Difficulty in obtaining meaningful Victory Levels. Usually the victory/defeat level one obtains seems to not have much relevance to actual performance during a scenario. You may force a surrender, not lose any units and still only get a "Minor Victory." Unclear if that is a scenario designer issue, or does the game system make it hard/impossible to provide meaningful victory levels? 17) Infantry even when hiding will fire on an armoured vehicle at long distances and especially fire on buttoned up tanks at long ranges. 18) Maybe it happens but so far have not seen a tank miss its target, especially against other armour. Playing now an all tank battle in CMBB and so often tanks miss even under 300 m but do not see this in CMBN. 19) LOS issues are an exercise in frustration and time-wasting. Even though a gun or tank can SEE a target, it frequently cannot fire at it. This explained that "a crew member can see the target but not the gunner." This is ridiculous and incredibly frustrating for a GAME. If you want to talk "realism" one would know that a gun could not fire at a target just because (say) the 3rd gun crew member could see it. In a GAME all one is concerned about re LOS is whether one can shoot at something or not. There should either be a notice warning the player that altho' a crew member can see a target, the gun cannot, or simply the game should go back to the CM1 "if you can see it, you can shoot at it." Otherwise one wastes precious minutes (esp in WEGO) trying to get a gun to fire at something before one realises it is futile. This is a big negative to gameplay enjoyment, and counter to "realism." 20) When a house is detroyed there is inadequate smoke so that units hiding behind it are immediately seen."

Hmmm.... I think I shall use some of your xnt faces for the Axis now...

If you look at the Normandy pics, the US kids look about as worn out as the Axis... Your face mods (I just saw you did a US one) looks great for both.

I have been finding that my wheeled vehicles seldom bog, it's the tracked armor (that was designed to move across ground that bogs wheeled vehicles) which seem to bog/immob. most.

Yes it is. But, for valuable R&R time verisimilitude is better.

Then heaven help us, my tanks were bogging and immobilizing all the time on SLOW - but out 10 AFV's, after 3 battles in a campaign, I had lost 6 to immobilization. Way too high (and no fun at all when one considers this is an entertainment product). I increasingly feel that in trying to be "more realistic" that also means more hard work and more misery.

You obviously haven't played CM1, Gerry. Wespes (105mm) and Hummels (150mm) were great fun.

Sergei: WASP was a Brit flamethrowing Bren Carrier.

You can't assume that FAST = more immobilizations as one would think would happen in RL. After posting about my own bogging problems in the Hoffnung campaign where I moved all tanks SLOW all the time (assuming that would result in lowered immobilizations), the folks who were suffering minor boggings said they moved FAST or QUICK as that seemed (to them) to reduce the distance traveled/immobilization ratio. So, your results will be very interesting.

Great DAR, but am I the only one who sees only blacked out images with some shadowy colored stuff in there someplace? I recall when I played any night battles I had to fiddle with my nVidia controls to get a version of daylight just to play.

However, remember that all innovation/invention is driven by those who wish to transform their environment to their wishes rather than resigning to the way things are.

I can appreciate the work that goes into CMBN scenarios and heaven knows what it takes to do campaigns. I used to design stuff for fun for CM1, but CM2 seems so much more complex on every possible level and everything takes so long to do, whether its designing or simply playing. It often feels like a job than an entertainment. (And that increasing complexity concerns me as it parallels the way cardboard wargames got so complex in the late 70's and 80's they ran the biz off an economic cliff.)

Bless you Aris!

Maybe vs the AI, but vs human I can't recall anyone making the error of having an exposed squad without cover so I could attack it with teams. I also play the huge scenarios so maneuvering with platoons is quite normal, let alone squads.

noxnoctum: You do have to look at the leader values of the teams/split squad. Sometimes they can be a lot worse than the squad. Sometimes the leader value will be different depending on HOW you split the squad. On the whole, I have noticed that CM2 teams can do a lot more damage compared to CM1 teams. So, I find it more effective to split squads for example even to do assaults rather than use the assault command for the whole squad. slysniper: I found CM1 teams were great for recon, but not that great in combat, so I tried to keep my assault troops unsplit. Then again, I was never that good with infantry. I much prefer handling armor and doing maneuver.

Apparently, CM models all sorts of holes in walls that are not actually visible in the game.

In CM1 there was, but apparently not in CM2.

mjkerner: I found your answer confusing. IIRC the engine reads the Z folder LAST, and ZZ would be even "LASTER" - that's why those mods show up. ie: ZZZ would be read after ZZ which is read after Z, so whatever gets read last gets to be seen/heard in the game.

Yes, your AAR was great. Hope more people play the Hoffnung campaign as it has a good variety of scenarios.

Well, it supposed to be an entertainment game. So many of the extra detail and realism of CM2 and esp CMBN makes it a lot harder to play or enjoy imo. And there continues to be a huge amount of abstraction as with CM1, it's just the that "granularity" has increased. The point is that abstraction is required to make a game that moves along and gives one pleasure. It's getting the right level of abstraction that is very tough.

If it eases the work load, +1 to that of course. The more beat up the better. After the vehicles, am hoping Aris may turn his attention to making uniforms more dirty/torn/worn...