Erwin

"Old people shouldn't play RTS." I have an awful feeling I agree with you. I get a headache and stress playing RTS for more than a few minutes these days.

IIRC you can only locate mines by getting blowed up. Only then, can the engineers mark it by staying real close for a number of turns. It wouldn't be realistic, but the game would be greatly improved re "fun" if engineers could detect and remove mines. The more "realistic" you make a game (trying to make a training sim), generally the more boring and non-fun it gets.

Thank YOU for all the work you've done snake. I think I will stop playing this now and wait for v2 as I really think you will make it an even better scenario.

I suspect I know the scenario as well. I ran my cheapest out of ammo supply unit over the bridge, hugging the edge, then another one at FAST. Nothing happened, then I tried that again later and it blowed up. So...? I did recall killing a triggerman later in the scenario but he was a long way away. Not sure if he was the one or just one of many.

Looks great. I sent message to send me mods, but why would you not post to the suppository?

Always nice to see new maps. Thanks.

The other (small) issue if you decide to do a v2 of this scenario is to leave the trucks empty and ready to board the ANA guys. Cos the trucks have most of the US force's supply of missiles etc. I am spending tons of turns unloading the trucks, running them to US forces so they can board and get ammo and missiles etc. Then unload and back to ANA and load them up etc. This is a terrific scenario but could be really improved by mine and others' comments above.

Like Zeb said, smoke will prevent the IED trigger man from seeing the bridge and hence it won't blow up. You can't locate mines or clear em without running something or someone over it and blowing em up. Maybe the arty barrage you used had a good effect(?)

For mods try GreenAsJade's site. It's accessible via the "LINKS" feature at the Battlefront website or at yuku's Band of Brothers CM site.

Reading the above discussions, I realized something. When I step in to issue orders to my CM guys, I don't think that I am roleplaying that NCO. I see myself as getting on the radio, or seeing that NCO about to do a boo boo with his team or squad or vehicle and telling him what I would rather he did to stay alive/accomplish the mission. To me that is what the time delay is for. The elite well-trained trooper comprehends my instructions immediately and gets going. The Green guys need more hand-holding and advice. So, what we are discussing is the "style of play" "level of immersion" and "quality of verisimilitude" that each of us enjoy when playing a game. You all know where I stand on time delays. I think it increases verisimilitude regardless of whether it is realistic or not realistic. In game terms all that matters is verisimilitude. I thought delays worked well in CM1, it contributed to the phenomenal success of CM1. Yes, it required some tweaking to allow vehicles to move down complex roads without a 90 sec delay... Not because in RL it would take less than 90 secs - it would probably take a lot longer to get a convoy moving - but because delays much over 30-40 secs degraded the FUN. Whether or not delays are "realistic" probably should never have become the issue. CM1 delays simply worked well to make the game innovative and interesting and it was a brilliant method of showing the differences between high and low quality troops. As a govt Prime I played many games that were realistic but they were all horrible to play. For a trainer that's to be expected. For an entertainment product (and whether CMSF is designed as such is another discussion I suppose) if there is a choice between "realistic" and making something "feel" right and give pleasure to the customer, the latter should always win. Or, the BFC market will be stuck with our tiny niche market of grognards, and that is not economically viable. (For reasons we can discuss elsewhere the chances of getting govt contracts has greatly diminished over the last few years and winning the lottery is not a realistic business plan.) Oh and btw: I know of many instances where developers in the US were seductively approached by the Australian govt to develop product for them. I know of no one in the US who ever got a penny out of the Australians. I hear that Aussie-based Panther Games recently won a contract to do some sort of "study" I think. But, they've been at it for decades. If they don't have money in hand don't waste your time.

I am hoping for a late 2011 release so I can continue to learn how to play CMSF with all its mods and CMA. I figure another 6 months of full-time play b4 I get to understand all the features and how to use em good. And I am sure that I represent the average newbie gamer lol.

All some of us are saying is that CM1 accomplished an almost perfect match of in-game intuitive info and useful manuals that helped get everyone into the game and playing quickly. CM2 is much harder and less intuitive. I am a very experienced gamer and have been a Prime Contractor developer for DoD, and have to keep referring to the (not particularly helpful) manuals re what ammo goes with what gun and it's hard to compare an ATGM or tank vs tank issue, and lots of other things that make it hard to play the game well without masses of posts here at BFC forums. (Maybe they get lonely and that's what they want?) But, does anyone think about or care for the average gamer or newbie trying CM2 for the first time? They need more info and in-game help.

From a a gamer perspective it's such a great aid for immersion and helping identify with your guys if at least a few can improve over the course of a campaign by at least one experience level. There was some posts elsewhere that showed how guys did learn and become vets over the course of one or two battles. So, in a 8+ game campaign??? If the market is the average gamer, features such as this (plus in-game stats like in CM1) should have been a must.

Will this feature be able to sim those battles where forests were denuded by arty - ie: Do the trees look like they have been blasted into broken stumps? I hope so as that would give us a double value for this "treeless" effect.

The Army team was led by the creator of Decisive Action, the redoubtable LtCol Jim Lunsford, who designed the Decisive Action game precisely to train his officers there present. So, yes, they may have had an advantage. Us developer/gamer/contractors were experienced gamers but only a couple of us had seen/played DA at that time. We simply saw opportunities in the game that the oppo did not - presumably cos they were hidebound by RL doctrine. The lesson/moral of the exercise was that the instructor input was critical to ensure appropriate learning. By itself, games like DA and CMSF can easily teach the wrong lessons as the RL tactics may easily get you killed in the game and the winning tactics will probably get you killed in RL. But sadly, despite asking, we we were not allowed to subsequently try our winning tactics in RL to check. Thus the US lost forever some of it's greatest military thinkers, and we all saw what happened next in Iraq and the other place. <dry joke>

I know that in 1.30 the Canadians had no satchel charges and that 1.31 fixed that but lost the German rpg launchers. However, I read here someplace that also in 1.31 the Dutch lost satchel charges(!) Is that true? (Am playing all three campaigns and want to make sure which ones need to be put on hold until 1.32 fixes these issues.)

Wow, hadn't noticed. I love it!

I think that the real question is who is the primary market for this game? If it's gognards and mil pros then yes, we at least know enuff to play effectively. But, the evidence is that there really are not nearly enuff of us to make for a viable game developer biz (unless BFC wins a govt contract, and, for various reasons I can go into elsewhere, that is virtually impossible, akin to winning the lottery, and you can't base you life or biz around the possibility you can win the lottery). If one wants to reach a wider market and attract new blood into this tiny niche wargame market so that BFC can afford to go on forever making these great games for us, one must make the game accessible to at least the average gamer who probably knows little about WW2 or the difference between a PzIV and a Tiger. This is a comparatively very complex game and newbies will need to have the learning curve made as easy as possible.

Treating wounded definitely reduces one's KIA and one can collect ammo and valuable weapons if dropped. imo this is by far the best innovative feature of CM2.

jnt is correct that my approach is unrealistic in RL but works in the game, because the game itself is somewhat unrealistic except for certain well-defined parameters where I can see some training potential (assuming no DoD V&V requirements which CMSF would completely fail). Because I find that using "realistic" tactics in CMSF often (but maybe not always) results in a worse result, I feel one needs to regard CMSF as a game and therefore requires "gaming the game." As I mentioned some time ago, when a bunch of us developers and gamers fought real life armored officers using Lunsford's Decisive Action, we wiped the floor with the officers. It didn't mean that our tactics were sound in RL, but they were sound in the game. It's just a petty peeve I have that we may feud over forever, but I hope you know that it's not personal jnt.

"You are right, something should be done to the right village ‘Al Farouk) before the left one (Sidi Bou Said), since there is a ford on the former. The Plt on the left hill, since they did not have any strikers, was placed there as a security screen. They are checking by fire the all area from the Sidi Bou Said village to the bridge, up to hill 54 and as far as the edges of Hassan’s village and its near wood. The left Plt was the one I intended to use against Sidi Bou Said latter on..." I think you are doing too much of the planning/thinking for the player Snake... It's more fun if you let us decide what we want to do. eg: I felt that the right flank village should be dealt with immediately so as to open up the ford as a 2nd approach. So, I would have positioned the forces with the non-Styker inf on the right.

Just checking... someone mentioned that now the Dutch don't have Satchell Charges in 1.31. I know the Canadians didn't have em previously in 1.30 and now they do, so what's with the Dutch? I stopped my Canadian Campaign till 1.31 gave them back their stachell charges. Then I had to stop my German Campaign due to their 1,31 missile issue. Be nice to know whether the Dutch are now ok or not.

More questions: The briefing talks of Bradleys arriving at noon, but it's 6.10am and the scenario is 3 hours, so...? Also, we have an air controller, but apparently will never see any air (according to the briefing)?

Sounds like Janis is talking about us lot lol. "social cohesion can also result in excessive socializing that interferes with task performance" Like excessive posting about the game stopping me from playing the dam game. Heh.

BlackMoria... Re your: I haven't played any of the CMx1 games so don't know what these armor penatration tables look like but the CMx2 damage system is so sophisticated that I suspect the CMx1 tables are largely irrelevant and unhelpful as a reference tool." Respectfully... Plz play some CM1 and then you can dissent but with some knowledge of what the rest of us are talking about.