leakyD

Yup, I found SLOW to perform well for this. Use HUNT when you want to preserve you armor, regardless of what they spot.

Crew asssulting w. pistols only? That's pretty damn funny....

More testing is in order to see if this is always the case. Ideally, buddy aid vs weapon pickup would be variable. In some instances troops would grab weapon first, in others, would patch up their buddy first. Having too much exact control over one's troops, I feel, takes away from the realism. IRL, commanders are NEVER in full control of all their troops actions.

Wonderful work, Marco. You're skills are MUCH appreciated!

and what difficulty setting again?

I *really* like the direction CM is going. The graphics are nice (and quite welcome), but the under-the-hood stuff is where CM shines. Regardless of difficulty level, players are rewarded for using tactics over "other" techniques. *cough* Of course the AI can always be improved, but we have a CM now (without all the hi-tech stuff) that forces players to think MUCH more tactically. Really nice to see the 3rd iteration of CM come as far as it has. and then: Market Garden Bulge OstFront SF2 That's, what another 5-10yrs? And it gets better? Sweet.

Great stuff BFC! Thanks to all participants for your efforts. Got a total victory on Iron w. the training scenario (lost 1 shermie plus troops). A little too cautious in the beginning, and had to push my troops in the last 15min. It's all about overwatch, baby! Liking the improvements over SF. All the subtle stuff really adds up! And from here it's going to get better? Yum! Sadly, RL is going to get in the way here soon, so maybe I can get the rest of the demo in before the S hits the F.

Yup. I had to sign for my Bradley in GW1. Good thing I didn't lose it. I'd still be making payments! It should be made clear that losing gear and combat attrition are two different things. Discarded items in a firefight is one thing. Being a knucklehead has consequenses.

Probably performing maintenance on the vehicle. Sadly, there's always work to be done. Always. Crews are slaves to their vehicles, not the other way around.

I was just being silly. Having that kind of data in the backgroud (available with a few clicks, or on/off toggle, whatever) would be nice, and help satisfy more types of CM players.

Isn't having access to all this in-game data gamey? Marco's mod is nice, but WAY to cluttered for me. I guess that means I'm more the intuitive type of player. Less info makes gameplay more "real", in my opinion. The new UI will help make us all a bit happier.

Please go into a firefight and see how much you can recollect during, and after. Answer: not much "Efficiency" "Memory" "Recollection" are holy grails that rarely exist on the battlefield. Over weeks and months of combat, yes. Over the scope of a CM battle, no. Battle is chaos. He who manages the chaos better will win. Period. The problem is that battlefield intel degrades rather quickly. At ALL levels, but especially as you move up the CoC. From my recollection, few individual units are tracked at battalion level (I was driver for a brigade infantry colonel for 5 months, so I've been in a few TOC's and seen a few maps, but this was 20+yrs ago, so things might have changed). Mostly companies, with perhaps special platoons, were tracked (again, could be wrong - been a while...) This degradation of intel needs to be modelled somehow. Intel in CM isn't perfect, but as players move up in difficulty, they are forced to fall back to using good tactics and flexibility instead of relying on intel. This, I feel, pretty accurately represents the dilema of the commander during battle: Do I rely on intel or more on tactics/flexibility? More granular difficulty settings would accommodate more player styles. Maybe a "more intel" difficulty toggle, able to be used in conjunction with a "harder AI" difficulty toggle would help. That might satisfy what you're looking for.

Release date: SOON or: LATER I think they're interchangable. I keep telling myself: "the longer we wait the better it'll be", but it's not working very well. Hey BFC, any option to host demo here, at least for the 1st week?: http://aws.amazon.com/s3/ I think AMZ can handle the load. We'd sure appreciate smooth DL's!

Played the demo a few yrs ago, but couldn't get into the desert thing. Me+desert=0. I must be traumatized or something.... Played the updated demo last week, and WOW, gameplay is MUCH better! But, still can't get into that desert thing..... yeah, there's mods and all, but the improvements for BN will be worth the wait...

Of course WEGO is gamey. The whole thing is gamey. Anything apart from the real thing (ie- combat) is not real! :eek: CM is 1/2 game and 1/2 simulation. Conflicts occur when some players want "more real" an others want "more fun". It seems one player's "fun" is another player's "gamey', and another players "real" is one player's "not fun". CM, as in life, is full of compromises. Personally, I would love fully deformable terrain. This, I feel, would add to the immersion and "realism" of the game. However, develpement budget does not allow for it. At best, CM has partially deformable terrain. Not what I want, but better than nothing. Do I like this? No. Do I accept this? Yes. Hopefully, in time, most of the commuiy's needs are met. Maybe.

Understand what your asking for, but it seems it may be out of the developer's vision with the path they have taken with CM. Ideally, it'd be great to have a "MORE REAL" vs "MORE FUN" toggle or switch (or whatever), in addition to the difficulty settings (elite, iron, etc). More variation and options would help pull in more fans (= more sales for BFC). But, due to limited developer budgets, sacrifices have to be made. Maybe someday, as time allows, they'll be options for "more fun". But, a bunch of us here are hardcore wargamers, vets, or both, and many are VERY VOCAL with their needs (which seems to fit in w. BFC's vision). If the resources are there for "more fun", they'll be crying for "more real"!

Thanks tyrspawn for authoring and BFC for releasing. Even though you do not prefer WeGo, if another VAAR, then please WeGo, and playback the interesting bits. Perhaps multiple replays of same turn from different angles. Will help us see all the variations in animations, etc. Realtime is more, well, real, but a lot is missed during play. Thanks!!

Agreed. At the squad/vehicle level, it's hard enough keeping track of you OWN platoon, much less the enemy. Allowing too much granular intel takes away from what CM tries to simulate best: chaos. On the ground, troops are going to forget stuff. New threat's comes up, and that's the priority until the next threat comes up. Hell, most troops (apart from officers) barely know what other platoons in their own company are doing or where they are on the battlefield! Players who've never been in the combat arms of a military, much less been in combat, can never understand this. In CM it's easy to get over zealous and over ambitious with gameplay. Doing so makes one want more info (intel) on what your units and the enemy's unts are doing. This is why mastering the art of good tactics and flexibility will help win most CM battles. Good intel is nice (and degrades rather quickly), but good tactics and flexibility trump intel. Just like in real life.

Agreed! There's a LOT of info to keep track of as is...That's the problem when you have accurate modeling.... and a good UI to display the data (which, I must say, we have a pretty dang good UI). WeGo is pretty straighforward. Plenty of time to get intel! If you play realtime vs AI, players can just pause. Again, plenty of time. If realtime vs human, lack of intel, I feel, is part of the gameplay. The pressure is on, you'll miss some things, and, yeah, mistakes will be made. By both sides. Just like in Real Life!

Any new PC should cover your needs. I'd suggest i5 processor (or equivalent), 4GB system RAM and 512mb VRAM minimum. Can be had for ~$7-$800US. That'd probably cover you for 3-5yrs for CM. (FPS gaming, different story). For those on older systems that can't upgrade entire PC, your best bang-for-the buck will be system RAM and video card. CM won't be multi-core aware for a while, so no huge need for a new rig just yet. Either 2x your current memory, or jump in technology (DDR1 to DDR2, etc). New HDD (5400rpm - 7200rpm, or 7200rpm - 10k-rpm) would help as well. You could probaly do RAM, video and HDD for less than $200US. I just went from DDR2 to DDR3 on my 2yr old Q9550 system (have both DDR2 and DDR3 slots), and went to a 10k HDD (from 7200). About $160US. Gaming difference is noticable. Smoother redraws and a bump up with textures, etc. Definitely more snappy!

I beg to differ: Buildings could use some work, but nothing mods/patch/module can't fix. We've come a LONG way in 10yrs. Wonder how things will be in 2020?

Some discussions here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=90609&highlight=multiple+cores and here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=92463&highlight=multiple+cores Are there any options for CMx2 implementation, or is this a CMx3 thing. Is it even viable development, and instead spend dev time focusing on playability/features/modeling? Can CM get by for 5yrs (more?) with single core x86 support? Thinking about it, we'd probably prefer more playability/features/modeling than faster load times/higher pixel counts. But then, greater playability/features/modeling might necessitate multiple cores, x64 support.

Just make sure to note substance of choice in the briefing... will make it a bit easier than us playing trial and error for a few nights....

givin' a bump. Great screenies, and nice to see some closeups of gameplay. REALLY diggin' this one: and... Thanks for sharing!

Suck it up, soldiers! Our boys (BFC and testers) are on a mission, so let them Charlie Mike (CM - hah!) and get 'er done right (oh man, I'm on a roll...). I hate the desert, and I'm actually playing the CM:SF demo (can't remember who suggested that) to get a feel for the UI, commands, etc. Never thought I'd go back to the desert.... And yes, the waiting is the hardest part....