Erwin

The more recently created CMSF missions are much better designed as the designers had gained a lot of experience with the CM2 system.

Now that is what I would like to see more of in the German briefings. Puts one in the right frame of mind - either cynical/ignoring the rant, or a true believer...

In CMSF I experimented with how much I could shoot at a "preserve" building and still not lose points. I recall that with 20mm and less you could shoot for around 60+ seconds with no points loss. You'll have to experiment with CMBN.

Womble has said just about everything you need to know, BRO, JD. The fact that you played CM1, but perhaps not CMSF puts you at an initial disadvantage, as the CM2 system is different to CM1. CM1 was usually about armor being supported by inf. In CM2 its about inf supported by armor. In addition, you may have to spend 50%-75% spotting and scouting with inf to spot the nasty enemy assets, then waiting another 5 mins while you kill em with arty, before your main attack with armor supporting the inf. CM2 requires a different mindset and a lot more patience than CM1.

It's not just snipers but AFAIK engineers, recon etc would have also received extra training so should function better than they do in any of the CM2 series games. I read that it's a deliberate design choice by BF to not depict superior training. But, I don't understand the reasoning. Maybe it reflects the mil mindset we saw in CMSF that tends to dislike any particular units standing out from the crowd, hence the reason it took so long to get the numbers of crack/elite Special Ops forces we have now in RL.

"Note 1: Die Letzte Hoffnung does not have nearly as much foul language in the narrative as Devils' Descent." There is no way any self-respecting wargamer would play this new shamefully PG campaign. Do you have no shame or moral compass, sir!

Reading this thread made me laugh so much I wet my diaper!

altipueri: Yes this is a cult, and suggesting new ideas or coming up with innovations that might make it a more fun game will get you excommunicated or worse... However, I can't say I would be thrilled with a difficulty slider since as said above, CM is attempting to be somewhat more realistic than your average game - even a good one like ROME-TOTAL WAR for example.

At the amazing rate you are producing these xnt mods we should run a book on when you will have completed every vehicle in CMBN. I hope you know how much the community appreciates what you are doing. Um... can we see more rust/blood wooden handle wear on the brand new-looking axe and other tools plz.

It would seem reasonable that it would be easy and relatively quick to go from Conscript or Green to Regular, but after that fewer would make it to Vet (unless a special unit like airborne, engineers, snipers, recon etc) and very few would get better after that. It should be quite a rare occurrence to have a unit or leader make it to Crack (unless the unit starts at that level), let alone to become an Elite (Audie Murphy, Skorzeny, Mikey Wittmann etc.) But, as a means to really get you to identify with your men and handle them like they were precious rather than the anonymous cannon fodder they tend to be now would take this game to a new high.

Duh. I should have figured that out. Sorry for more even more dumber than usual question.

I am told that moving house is as stressful as being in combat... so good luck!

IIRC BF said that they will work on CMSF2 from now on. Not sure if we'll see anything more from them for CMSF.

Actually, I did start a brand new Z folder now that Aristotle has given us so many great mods. However, when I have all three of the terrain mods in my new Z folder (and no other terrain mods in it at all), I still get gridded terrain in the game. Any ideas?

If you have a mod pack that includes all Aris' mods would it not quickly become very large? Since Aris gives us only a few options, if any, per mod, I don't understand why downloading them as individual mods is a problem. I am not a fan of .rar and .brz files. I like to explode em and put the .bmp's into regular folders. That way, (esp for the huge myriad of uniform and helmet mods that are available), one can more easily mix and match.

I don't know enuff about how units improved in WW2 to seriously disagree with you JonS. But, we know that some units were much better than others. So, how did that come about? I am in the camp that if it's fun and "feels realistic" (verisimilitude - my favorite wargame word) as opposed to being actually realistic but less fun, then I say go with the more fun option. There should be room for both ideologies.

Be sure to warn us. We have been conditioned to think in games that there is always a way to win.

"punish players who win every mission by giving them a tougher opponent to face in the next mission ('The Road to Dinas' was the first campaign to feature this)" And I thought that was a really good idea, since the whole point is to maintain a level of entertaining challenge for whatever skill-level the player may have. In terms of variety, it is nice to have easy "restful" scenarios amidst the hard ones. But, it's horrible when scenarios just get easier and easier thru a campaign, or if due to bad losses in one scenario you end up three scenarios later and realize that you no longer have the units to continue with, and you have to restart and replay a whole bunch of the same scenarios.

Re defensive/ambush positions, it is critical to NOT have them have easy LOS to the enemy starting positions, as they will inevitably be spotted and easily killed by his guns, armor, arty etc. Better to sight bunkers and guns to fire ACROSS the enemy's line of advance - ie hitting him in his flank, so that his supporting heavier weapons systems cannot see or shoot at your units. You then need to predict what your oppo is likely to do to attempt to neutralize your key ambushing units, and set additional ambushes, TRP's etc to defend against his attacks to take out your flank shooting bunkers/guns/armor. And so on... At the very least this frustrates your oppo and makes him waste a lot of time. And yes, if you can in addition afford to keep a hard-hitting mobile force even better.

I just tried it, and actually I cannot load the saved file of the setup I did in the pre-patched version. So, I loaded the game fresh in the patched version without any problem and saved it without making any moves and then tried to reload the saved game. It crashed at 15% loaded.

JonS: "In a few weeks or months, your unit would be completely unrecognisable." I completely agree that from what I know of this campaign, in RL that would be true. Of course RL happens to be 99% boring. Fortunately... CM is a GAME. In an ideal world there should be an option for milpro purists to have things as "realistic" as possible, and an option for gamers to have more fun with their troops shepherding them along, getting to know some of them at least, even taking them out of the line for TRAINING like in Matrix's monster "Pacific War" game. Quite possibly the above is not practicable with the resources that BF has. But, I don't see why those of us who crave these features (that are well-loved in other successful games) should not be able to dream and speculate about experience improvements (or degradation due to massive casualties) as well as medals, promotions etc... without being the objects of the Spanish Inquisition (which nobody apparently ever expects).

I worry you will exhaust yourself and have a nervous breakdown, Fuser... Pace yourself and rest (occasionally).

Lovely work. I was unable to see from the preview pics the difference between the "green" and "black" variants. What is being referred to?

I installed all three and I see that the "no grid" file has ZZZ in front of its name, but I still see grids in the terrain. Would this mod conflict with Flesh's or Vein's terrain mods even if they do not have ZZZ in front of their names? (Am hoping I do not have to completely redo my Z folder as there is a lot of stuff in there these days.)

+1 to that. Amazing work.