Erwin

Re updating the manual, many cardboard game companies have "living rules" available at their sites which are updated regularly based on comments from customers. What would it take for the CM series to have a WIKI encyclopaedia sorta site where players could add their own explanations for certain game features? Between all of us here, it would probably become a comprehensive manual quite quickly.

I removed all my inf mods and I see that some US troops do NOT have backpacks, you just see suspenders. eg Some members of the MG and mortar crew. So, the graphic and capability must be in there someplace.

I agree it's best to not change the difficulty level as the skills of players can vary. At most you could produce a different version that is easier. But, some of us (at least) like a hard challenge as that is the best way to learn and improve. Am still bogged down in CMBN, but am looking forward to the new CMA (and CMSF) battles.

I have been looking through lots of WW2 pics and it's rare to see any backpacks of (any nationality) troops in imminent danger of combat - which is what CM series depicts rather than moving safely in rear area. Is there a mod that gets rid of backpacks?

I understand, Mord. I suppose the question is whether, within a single formation, would one see significantly different paint jobs? The other "nice to have feature" (which I suspect the randomization aspect makes impossible) would be to have a platoon of AFV's that are numbered correctly.

Yes, we need simple easy to understand definitions that we can relate to as in: "Nervous" - state of mind when the phone rings while you're having sex... and it's your wife calling. Nervous -1 - You hear wife walk into the house. Nervous -2 - etc...

Well, yes, of course if you use two mods (that are significantly different) of the same unit there will be confusion. Not sure why one would do that anyway. Esp when Aris is producing the best. (Hmmm... well actually I did do that in CM1 quite a bit with vehicles. But, only when I wanted the horizontal surfaces to be a lighter shade than the vertical surfaces as that gave a great shadowed effect that made the models better. But those mods were very similar except that one was lighter than the other.)

You may want to test that. I have used ALL the variants that Aris made available in each of his new mods (renumbering them so that turret variant matches hull variant etc) and in the game it appears like the correct turret matches the correct hull for each M4 variant. It's possible I have been very, very lucky re probabilities. But, so far they all look like they match the way they are supposed to.

I have a bunch of uniform mods, some by ez from a couple of months ago. Do the new mods created in late August and early September completely replace the older ones. Or, are they to be pasted into Z folder in addition to the older mods?

I have been using a bunch of uniform mods from 2-3 months ago. Then, between August 16 and September 12 there were another set posted mostly based on ez's mods. (eg: ez_US_Infantry-Patched_Uniforms_Normandy_Khaki.zip and US-Uniforms-EZ-Altered.zip etc.) Are we supposed to delete all the older mods and now use the newer ones posted between the above dates? Or, are the newer ones to be added to the older ones?

It's easier to compare two similar bmp's side by side imo. It's time consuming to replace entire brz files and have to restart the game every time to see the effect in the game. That was the way I... er my granddad was doing it for 10 years in CM1, and if it's good enuff for my him...

Aris: If you ever have time to read these posts any more since you seem to be working full time on modding... But, when you eventually run out of things to do, is it possible to have sequential numbering on the AFV graphics so that one could have a proper platoon with correct designations? (My suspicion is that since the graphics are randomized, even though one may have afv graphics 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. each tank representation in the game has a random chance of having any one of those numbers. So, it would be quite possible to have the entire platoon numbered with exactly the same number.)

Thank you again, Aris...

Bless you guv! BTW Aris: I asked this on another forum. Your older brz folder mods... Are any of them worth exploding to check on any variants within, or are they all single version?

brz files are the work of the devil imo... I now find myself routinely exploding em and simply putting the bmp's into properly named folders. So much easier to then see what you have and if another mod is an improvement or not. With brz's you have to put one into the Z folder, then start the game to see it, then exit and try another similar mod and then restart the game etc etc...

One of the big selling points of CM2 was that vehicles etc would not all look the same. So, am assuming that using the numbering system, we should now be able to get a mix. One question tho' is that Aris has a number of mods that were given to us as brz files. Without having to explode every one and looking, anyone know if any of the brz files have variants that we need to do similar renumbering?

"More interesting threads here to read." Ummmm... I dunno about that lol...

Great. I was hoping it would work for vehicles like for uniforms and helmets etc. What about Aris' optional "Shared US Gear?" There is only one file in that. Not sure if there is an alternative "front of tank" graphic than can be renumbered to get more variance in that gear. What I do when there is only one named vehicle is to copy and rename about 3 plain mod graphics to one named mod graphic. That way I hope I will see maybe one of the tank platoon vehicles with the name and the others will be plain. It's terrific to see so much variety now.

I know re helmets I have gone over 10 different types in a single brz or folder with no problems.

Just wait for the first time the "The Cloud" goes down...

Great idea. Thanks!

Aris: I noticed in my games that while the plain M4's have your wonderful graphics the M4A1 and A3 versions still appear to be the CMBN originals. Are those variants still to come, or why would the mods not show up for those versions?

I don't pretend to be an academic expert on this, but somewhere in the massive amount of otherwise useless info I picked up along the way was that, initially at least, Wehrmacht troops had to be German citizens. Now, all bets are off in the late war when desperation set in. IIRC the Spanish and other national troops (Rumanian, Hungarian etc) were not German Wehrmacht, but notionally at least under their own country's command (kinda like the Iraq coalition). In theory, those countries could pull their troops out, altho' politically, not really possible since (some of) those countries had been subsumed into the Greater Reich. It's possible that being in the "Greater Reich" got around the legal niceties of what it meant to be German citizenry. Re Ost Divisions which fought in Normandy, those were POW's who "volunteered" so once again a bit of a desperate measures exception to the rule. Oh, and I read a fascinating book (decades ago) about Brit POW's who also volunteered to be in the SS. Don't recall if they ever fought, but certainly they were used as a PR device by the Nazis. Oh, I just found this:

Consulted with the FBI and we're all pretty sure it's you...

I have to admit I haven't played QB's (only premade scenarios etc.) in many years so, maybe...