Erwin

Am really glad this was resolved...

stry67: You sound like maybe you haven't played many semi-realistic sims. Don't be discouraged or upset. There is a steep learning curve to all the CM2 games, much more than for CM1 if you did play that series. CM2 is probably one of the most challenging games I have ever played. But, its attention to detail and attempts to simulate reality are second to none in the COTS (commercial off the shelf) world of tactical military sims. But, you will have to dedicate time to learning it - probably vs the AI for a while. Some knowledge of RL tactics etc is very helpful altho' not essential. You can find lots of hints and methods of playing CMSF and the other games in the various forums here and at Band Of Brothers (a YUKU site).

"the us infantry 1944 is much superior to the german infantry..." the Ostfront and "stomach brigades" maybe. But, many of the Germans had East Front and Africa experience and would have been much better. For understandable commercial reasons most thought that CMSF was biased towards the US and only started to feel right when the Brit module arrived. I feel the same way about CMBN. I have a hard time believing that Panthers etc would bog so easily as depicted in the game. And after countless hours of watching History/Hitler Channel etc all the Allied tankers interviewed expressed real dread of Panthers and Tigers. The Germans interviewed seemed to enjoy ripping the "weakly armored" Allied tanks to shreds. I suppose that this could all be post-war propaganda, but to what end? Doesn't mean the game is not entertaining of course...

IIRC US armor philosophy was to use the M4's for inf support and the M10's etc for anti-armor. Wasn't successful, but that was the theory at the time. Also, I was always under the impression from documentaries etc that CAS was superb (the Germans could only move safely at night) and the majority of German armor was KO'd by air. Or was that only the Brits' CAS? The primary advantage of the Allies was economic. They could churn out more equipment and they had more men.

Thank you!

That's unfortunate as it implies someone who knows these numbers can game the system vs an otherwise xnt player who doesn't comprehend the numbers game (ahem).

Completed prison escape scenario v2 (tried 3 times to get a good result): 1) Putting a 4-man team in one of the towers is too much. They were able to wipe out a Gerberian 4-man assault team that was carefully hunting up the tower with 10 sec pauses at each floor. 2) I experimented with avoiding the two towers furthest from the gate and that seemed to work best, as those guards played no part in the game. 3) I put two teams plus the sniper and MG team in the buildings closest to the gate. and the third squad split in teams hunts thru the large barracks building. Not sure who notices who first, but the guards in the barracks shoot one of the MG team as it moves and are in turn KIA. The guards in the gate towers and the gatehouse open fire at this time and get neutralized in a firefight. However, each of the two squads (that were waiting for them to appear) takes a casualty. After that, there is no further problem as Gerber's teams hunt through the woods to the left of the gate and then around the side of the map towards the RR. The patrol in the woods is spotted and several are hit with no friendly casualties. Gerber's guys are spotted by some units in town and a long range firefight occurs with no effect. The Gerberians run away towards the EXIT. At the embankment it is now easy to run down the side close to the EXIT and disappear with 4 mins to spare. Major Axis Victory: Guards: 6 KIA and 6 WIA Gerberians: 1 KIA and 2 WIA Of course I knew where the guards were this time. My instincts tell me that escape from the prison with no casualties is very hard/impossible. Suggest you use 1 or 2-man guard teams in the prison, not 3 or 4 man-teams. Then the Gerberians have a chance of killing them with fewer or no casualties (but it's still an entertaining challenge). However, after that, if one uses the circuitous route away from the woods and town it's too easy, uneventful and boring. I think it's a mistake to make it so easy to avoid the town and bunkers and the patrol in the woods. You should present the player with real choices/decisions to make: "Should I go via the town to the RR, or via the woods, or...?" Suggestions: 1) More patrols in the open area and woods to prevent an easy escape via the map edge. 2) Maybe slightly lessen the troops in town. 3) Man the bunkers. They can be taken out with grenades, I did it. 4) As someone else said, make all the guards conscripts so the Gerberians have a good chance at doing some fun damage without taking WIA and KIA. 5) If you make changes like the above, put some hints in the briefing as to the choices the player has. Presumably Gerber would know that there are patrols in the woods and approx strength and quality of the guards in the town as well. This should be a real 50:50 choice. 6) I also wonder if there should be a back exit (via a tower or via the barracks building) from the prison - that would provide another decision re whether to take the towers/barracks, or go for the gate.

You know it's in the main CMBN folder under Mod Tools(?).

"What's the point of a 'fuzzy' VL edge? Why not just make all VLs a bit bigger?" +1 to that. Otherwise it is virtually impossible for players to know if they have captured something or not. I thought that the reason that many VL's are already so big was to take that into account. Any bigger and VL's will take up most of a typical CMBN map!

Suggest you use the RezExplode tool and see exactly what wav sounds are included and compare with Vein's. You can also listen to both and see which you prefer. Generally, I now always explode brz folders and place all the files into regular folders so that it's easier and much faster to compare one mod with another. You can also easily mix and match in this way as well. In terms of mod management, I think it's best to only have the mods you actually want in your Z folder as (AFAIK) the game may try to load everything initially and that slows the process down. I put all my unused/unwanted mods in an UNUSED MODS folder so I can always access them if needed.

I can understand backpacks when one is moving with no contact expected. But, AFAIK they were discarded when going into battle - and that is what CM depicts. Hope we can get a mod to get rid of them.

Since these new sounds are not by Vein, the chances are they cover the same sounds and the last mod in alphabetical order gets used. So, you may at least have to label the new mod "Z_something".

"...there is no "wood guards" as you mentioned, because there is a patrol there, but they moving to the town and back..." That is excellent as that is what I was hoping was possible. Since I was eventually able to easily avoid that patrol and find a route close to the map edge, then swing down to the RR to get down the embankment 8 indentations from the EXIT ZONE, maybe you need to have a 2nd small patrol go all the way to the edge, or to the woods at the back of the map just to give the player something to worry about. BTW: If the patrols are moving it would be great if one could simply wait till they pass. If that is possible then you could reinforce the patrols to make them inadvisable for the player to attack. But, waiting till the patrol passes will almost certainly require extending the game length a few minutes. BTW: Why not have all 4 of the prison towers occupied? It would make more sense. An alternative is to start with a friendly team in at least one of the towers to simulate that they have already taken out the guards there. Will let you know re the new version. (and PLEASE name the zip and file with a version number to prevent confusion.)

Splitting squads and having them roam all over the place independently is too easy for the Allies as well. (I regularly choose a depleted squad and split em to use as sacrificial recon all the time - sorry about that.) It would be terrific if the system did not allow one to create waypoints for a squad or team that were further than (say) 100m from any other squad or team from the same platoon (and its HQ).

Thank you!

You da man...

Thanks. Just curious... Would this work with CMSF or CMA?

Probably as a result of the many escaping Nazis who were evacuated to the US and became Native Americans esp in the SW.

Ok, so I played it again WEGO WARRIOR. I think it was the same version though. This time I didn't bother clearing the two towers I knew to be empty and simply hunted teams towards the exit until a guard noticed. Got into firefight and lost 7 guys WIA and KIA but eliminated all guards. However, these were the last casualties I took in this scenario. Went out to the closest woods and deliberately avoided the next woods where I knew there to be guards. Went around far away from the town and bunkers and came in down the RR embankment. For some reason 8 indentations from the exit is a way down. But, one cannot tell by simply looking. I think this spot is also out of LOS of the bunkers, so imo you may as well have the bunkers manned. Exited all survivors 4 mins b4 end. Still only got a DRAW and a campaign MAJOR DEFEAT, so no next scenario for me. Obviously, it's not good for replayability once you know where the guards are outside the prison. Not sure if it's possible to get out of the prison without taking some casualties. However, the first time I ever playtested this I only took 1 WIA within the prison walls.

In that case we need to know how many meters away from the victory zone does an enemy have to be, and/or how many firepower factors do they need to pour into the area. Not knowing this doesn't spoil game enjoyment vs the AI. But, how can one have a competitive H2H game without knowing the parameters? Otherwise we're back to CM1 where one is playing the engine/system rather than the oppo, and victory goes to the person who has a better sense of how the system works rather than tactics etc.

Very good advice Broadsword... esp "Reinforce success, not failure".

Thanks... BTW: Anyone else reported that strange situation where I used two charges per SOP to clear a large hole in bocage for vehicles, but my armor STILL refused to pass through until I used a 3rd charge? (I save all game files these days, so...)

"... it's one of those things so hard to define in terms that the basic game engine can work with..." I think it's number 18263/B345-N873...

Interesting and obscure fact 100345/B349: Note the Finnish tank captured from the Russians (T26?)... I recall seeing those in museums in Finland. They used the swastika and deathshead symbols before the Nazis appropriated it and I recall the swastika (reversed from the Nazi version) was still being used for decades after WW2 ended.

Sorry, I have never tried to mess with the CM2 editor, so maybe what I suggested is not possible. I thought that with different AI plans, that meant that the AI units could start at different locations, or enter as reinforcements at different locations or at different times(?) At least I hope that the units in the town and in the woods can move to different places so the player cannot predict accurately where they will be every time. That would make the scenario very replayable. I will d/l the new version and play it now... EDIT: After the new d/l, the scenario briefing looks exactly like the old one so I wonder if it's the same old scenario still??? I played the new d/l anyway. It seemed the same as the old one as there were no guards in the towers furthest from the exit. I really think there should be some in those towers! I then tried to ignore the town and bunkers and make thru the woods to the RR. Again, I find I must be spending too much time clearing the prison, as then I actually took more casualties rushing thru the woods to make deadline. Fortunately, the whole scenario is so quick, I may try again. PLEASE RENAME YOUR NEW VERSIONS SO WE KNOW WE ARE PLAYING THE LATEST VERSION! BTW: I realized that is is absolutely vital that you take into account how people are playing your game so you can evaluate our feedback. So FYI: I use WARRIOR WEGO.