Erwin

Many thanks. Between all the superb modders who upgraded the uniforms, the terrain and now the vehicles, CMBN looks like a new game. (Although I still think they all look a bit too sunny and should be a bit more dark and sinister, hehe...)

It would also be great to have some units gain experience between battles in a campaign. Or, the ability to give some high-performing units awards etc like in Silent Hunter. Now that we have such a greater detailed depiction of units, I have never understood the objections to this since battles could easily be weeks or even months apart. It would really make one identify with and care about one's men in a very "realistic" RL manner.

My saved setup definitely crashes when I try to load it. Is there an issue if I saved before patching and then tried to load the saved setup in the patched game?? I didn't have any tech issues with Utah Beach (it was even larger than FB I think and the slowness just got to me).

One thing CM teaches one is "never give up." So many times I thought I was losing only to having the situation radically turn around in the last ten minutes.

It's useful to save games at intervals so you can go back to that point and try for a different result to get to the alternative scenarios. (Hint: It's usually easier to get a "Lose" result.)

Possibly the tank got stuck in that position, and an enterprising PR wonk said, "Hey, get some troops on that thang and it'll make a great photo op!"

For what it's worth I was able to save my setup, but was never able to load the saved game. Either it won't work with the patched version of CMBN, or something else is up with this great-looking scenario. As an exercise try the Utah Beach monster scenario and see if you experience the same problems. I did not, altho' it was very slow to load. If you have problems with that it could be your computer hasn't the juice.

These mods just get better and better. And so many so suddenly. It's like the dam of creativity suddenly collapsed.

The question is why does the installer do something weird like double the last folder? I love the implication that it's somehow the users' fault hehe. It's obviously not something at least several of us here expected (like the Spanish Inquisition etc.).

This useful info ought to be sticky.

Thanks. For some reason the new .exe installed to a subfolder of the CMA folder rather than the main CMA folder. Pasting the contents of the new subfolder back into the main folder seems to have fixed the problem and 1.03 seems to be running fine now.

These are fabulous mods Aris. But, plz note that we really should not be able to see the hull through the bogie wheels so easily. Tracks are nearly always much more muddy/dirty.

One used to be able to destroy some vehicles/inf after creating a scenario in the first turn(s), then baking the game and let people play from there. That is one way to achieve a map with lots of destruction and death already in place. Is that no longer possible?

I had the same problem. In case this is helpful to others: I found that even though I had the correct path, the .exe file installed to a subfolder of the CMA folder instead of the main CMA folder. Moving the files in the subfolder to the main folder and replacing what was there fixed the issue and 1.03 CMA runs fine now.

Ok, you are correct, CMBN is not a good WW1 simulation. It's an amazingly wonderful, entertaining and yet frustrating sim that blends amazing detail with features that may or may not work properly, but one can't tell much of the time cos of inadequate documentation leaving so much room for "interpretation." Hence the vast amounts of discussion and opinionating on these forums. (Quite brilliant of the developers to come up with that formula actually.) And I say all of the above with genuine admiration and affection for the CM series.

Presumably a sound mod of a cloud of flies would be possible.

Re linking your machine to a TV, make sure you have a plenty long enough HDMI cable, so you're not stretching it like a trip wire. You will always regret not getting quite long enuff. (I got 25'.) Also, I found the best deal is to go online and buy direct from tech guys who make up the cables themselves. They are expensive from stores.

Beautiful work. Thank you.

If you check the BF Home page, it does not mention 1.03 is for the Mac.

I agree with all that was said. A common problem with the CM2 system scenarios is that just about every game involves the first 2/3 to 3/4 of the game spotting and figuring out where the enemy could be lurking (recon is fun, but uses very few units), then waiting (boring) while one calls in arty to kill em or smoke to disguise movement, followed by an intense last 20%-30% of the scenario when one actually gets to do fun stuff like "the attack" and gain the objectives. Sometimes, it feels like a (superb) WW1 game. But, it's an example of enhanced "realism" not necessarily creating enhanced enjoyment (for many of us). It's largely due to the fact that CMBN is much more of an inf game (with a little armor in support). Many of us enjoy armored/maneuver warfare with inf being in support. That may be the essential difference from CM1 in which it was easy for average systems to run pretty large armored scenarios on huge maps. I am looking forward to future modules which hopefully will open up the terrain and allow for more maneuver. But, I am concerned that with the much larger processing demands of CMBN, that we may still be stuck with relatively small maps and scenarios.

For what it's worth there does appear to be a problem with C2 at least with this campaign and it's being looked into. Blackcat: Re "making a fuss". It's just that without a decent manual one has no idea as to what is a feature or what is a bug. So, if mentioning that there are confusing/weird features in what is an otherwise superb game bothers you, then I do apologize for irritating you.

So... does that reflect reality in Normandy era US tank gunnery, or...?

I agree with that. I use 2560x1600 for work, but have the CM games manually set to a much lower res just so I can read the briefings.

Re "For those of us who play Elite/Iron level of difficulty, artillery call times can be quite long -- 3 minutes even for TRP'd artillery, and it goes up from there." From the manual, I thought that Warrior on up in difficulty is exactly the same re arty call times and pretty much everything else. I had the impression that the only difference is that one has less info about units in Elite and then of course Iron where one has to be in C2 in order to see your own units. From the manual: WARRIOR Warrior is similar to the Veteran setting but introduces more realistic time delays for a number of tasks and events. Hardcore players will favor this setting. The following special rules apply: - Enemies appear as generic “Enemy contacts” until they are positively identified by your forces on the battlefield - Treating wounded soldiers takes a realistic amount of time - Artillery and air support take a realistic amount of time to arrive ELITE Elite is identical to Warrior with only one difference: - Enemy infantry icons are always the plain “soldier” type, regardless of their armament or function IRON Iron is an optional setting that goes even one step further than Elite, and introduces special restrictions on what the player can do and when. While even more realistic than the other settings, this option introduces a number of interface limitations which might put off the casual player, so it is strictly an optional choice. - Friendly units need to be spotted just like enemy units. If you have a friendly unit not in line of sight or in contact with another friendly unit, then the only way to find this unit is by either re-establishing contact with another friendly unit or by clicking through the chain

I transferred my CMA from the Programs Folder to a new folder in C:/SIMS etc so it wouldn't have games saved under VIRTUAL STORE and have all those UAC problems. CMA 1.02 has been working fine in its new home. However, the patch doesn't work on it. I get "elicense40.dll... missing" type messages. Do I have to reinstall CMA to the new location instead of merely copy and paste for the patch to work?