Russkly

BTW, how do you get that embedded quote thing to work?! I just got this, when I clicked on the "Quote" icon:

Thanks, Sneaksie, and don't get me wrong - this is a very good game, a vast improvement on ToW and right up there with CM:SF. SPOILER: Who was spotting for the 75s, since they had no line of sight? I have never seen indirect fire called down with such accuracy against moving vehicles and infantry. I didn't even know the LeIGs were used in an indirect role. On the bail out issue, how realistic was this? Can't imagine 4 crew members choosing to remain in an M-Killed/F-Killed AFV just because they still have access to one of the MGs. From what I've read about AFV warfare in the desert, the crews were out as soon as they lost either the main gun or mobility, and who'd blame them in that heat? Any comments on the other points made, please, especially that relating to infantry crewing of AFVs/arty/AT (I know it's a core feature of the ToW series, but I'd like to know if they are historical precedents)? R

So far I am enjoying it... Impressions pretty much as for the demo: Infantry with smoke capability at section level - can somebody let me know if this is realistic or not. Artillery/AT guns wasting ammo and revealing position by expending rounds at single infantrymen. Scouting does not seem to hinder enemy spotting - lone infantryman at 500m crawling to side of peak of ridge still spotted and taken out by hyper-accurate rifle fire. Ability of ordinary infantry to spot for on-board artillery. Surely this should be restricted to FO at company level, or at least by section/platoon officers. Radio is a must for directing arty, or not? Enemy infantry AI sometimes suicidal with failure to use ground. Ability of infantry sections to crew AT guns and AFVs. How possible was this in reality? My guess/experience is that it was not - manning AFVs or arty requires trained personnel even to make it work, and setting "Driver" or "Gunner" to 0 is not prohibitive enough for me; ordinary infantry simply would not man a tank, and I don't know any infantrymen, who would be able to fire a field gun with any accuracy whatsoever, if at all. I'm afraid we have the 'fight to the last man' situation again - twice now I've had to hunt through the village to find the last remaining infantryman. There needs to be some force surrender values set to avoid this unrealistic situation. Battles are usually not won by killing every last enemy combatant. Plus some new ones: During the Kasserine Pass campaign (1st mission) as the Brits, I experienced the most accurate off-board artillery barrage ever seen: moving tanks and infantry were hit as if the arty were using direct fire. Made me laugh until I had to re-start, because I lost 2 sections of infantry and an immobilised Valentine. During the "Tactics" tutorial, I had a half-section of infantry sneak into a building (Action Mode set to "Sneak" and "Scout" command used). The door was on the opposite side if the building; to the right was the main road with a few metres of wooden fence, and to the left was a wall with some breaches allowing ingress. 4 men decided to sneak along the road in the open, past the un-scaleable wooden fence (lol) until they got caught in the open by a lone German with an MG42. Seems that micro-management of waypoints is still important, and infantryman don't act alone, especially not MG42s firing from the hip! AFV bailing out - you get a lot of stranded AFVs, immobilised and even F-Killed, but still the crews sit in them enjoying the heat, thus enabling them to spot my units. @General Solomon: You can group infantry together and clear out houses using the "Storm" command. They use grenades, although I haven't seen any yet throwing them through the windows before barging in. R

Out of interest, has anyone tried neutralising the armour, i.e. destroying the German armour and AT guns and leaving the US armour in the rear, and then assaulting the village with infantry alone? Would be interesting to know how the infantry behaves in this context. On one play-through I lost all my armour and had to attack the village with infantry alone, and I was sruprised at the high casualties, especially when assaulting a single building containing only 1 or 2 enemy soldiers. Could be operator error, and I have had similar experiences in all the CM iterations too, but it was disappointing. No screenshots, but I might try to replicate and post accordingly. It does seem like an armour game thus far, and the behaviour of the enemy infantry in attack is suicide - advancing section by section over a ridgeline exposed to small arms and AFV fire. No attempt to use terrain. But they kept on coming... R

Infantry with smoke capability at section level - can somebody let me know if this is realistic or not. Artillery/AT guns wasting ammo and revealing position by expending rounds at single infantrymen. Scouting does not seem to hinder enemy spotting - lone infantryman at 500m crawling to side of peak of ridge still spotted and taken out Ability of ordinary infantry to spot for on-board artillery. Surely this should be restricted to FO at company level, or at least by section/platoon officers. Radio is a must for directing arty, or not? Enemy infantry AI sometimes suicidal with failure to use ground. Ability of infantry sections to crew AT guns and AFVs. How possible was this in reality? I'm afraid we have the 'fight to the last man' situation again - twice now I've had to hunt through the village to find the last remaining infantryman. There needs to be some force surrender values set to avoid this unrealistic situation. Battles are usually not won by killing every last enemy combatant.

Having played the demo through a few times... Like: Graphics Improved AI (esp. vehicles) - played demo 4 times , and each time different dispositions, attack routes, etc. Genrally decreased 'uber' spotting cf ToW, esp. by vehicles of infantry (but see below) Increased control of formations and actions, esp. infantry Storm feature Area fire Not so sure: Infantry with smoke capability at section level Artillery/AT guns wasting ammo and revealing position by expending rounds at single infantrymen Scouting does not seem to hinder enemy spotting - lone infantryman at 500m crawling to side of peak of ridge still spotted and taken out Ability of ordinary infantry to spot for on-board artillery. Surely this should be restricted to FO at company level, or at least by section/platoon officers. Radio is a must for directing arty, or not? Infantry AI sometimes suicidal with failure to use ground Ability of infantry sections to crew AT guns, etc. How possible was this in reality? As stated before, I like it a lot and also look forward to a 1940-42 mod as well. R

There's a bit of a tendency for AFVs to target individual soldiers with their main armament - annoying waste of ammo. Am I doing something wrong, because at present I have to chenge their fire orders manualy all the time? R

Haven't posted here, or indeed on any of the Battlefront forums, for a long while, but, after the disappointment of ToW, I'd like to express my heatfelt thanks and congratulations to the development team. Visually and aurally a fantastic achievement, and personally I find the theatre (excuse pun) one of my military favourites. Some of my frustrations (camera, stopping units charging around without orders to do so[ a la ToW], etc.) have been addressed in this thread, so it's largely a question of laziness in not reading more about the controls - look forward to the manual lol. Didn't realise the 105s could go indirect, because they got wiped out by the German infantry assault designed to do just that. Which units can relay fire orders btw? Like the area fire option and the ability to 'storm' positions, which worked well, as long there wasn't an MG42 in the building. Would agree with other poster (sorry, forgot your name), who suggested that the infantry weapons effectiveness was over the top - hitting a moving human target at even 200 metres with an M1 is seriously hard. I was rubbish even with an SA80 with SUSAT sights. Some AI offensive doctrines seem a little short of panache - little attempt to use cover or bounded approach, and little use of AT screen to cover flanks before tanks followed infantry up, as was Afrika Korps doctrine. Defensive arrays good, with good AT and MG sitings. Suicide for infantry to advance on the village in the open and rightly so. Also, probably wrong, but how easy was it for a M4's 75mm to take out a IVF2 from the front at >1.000m? Another OOB point: did US sections have smoke capability in 1943, or indeed in WWII? Also agree that snipers are spotted too easily - I know it's the desert, and cover is spartan, but at 1.000m I'd expect snipers to crawl around the tops of escarpments without being killed by rifle fire. Perhaps I've missed it, but is there any way to issue orders above the section/vehicle level (without using the slightly cumbersome drag and select tool)? It would be useful to issue platoon/troop orders, especially if the friendly AI could execute them well. This would cut down on the micromanagement, which, whilst a key aspect of the scale of this game, could become onerous if we get beyond a reinforced company. I hope the campaign(s) is more closely linked chronologically than ToW, where the jump from one theatre to another ruined (for me) the sense of continuity and developing your combat group's skills. So, in summary, much more immersive than the first iteration, and I will definitely be pre-ordering. Love CMSF, which is a truly great game, but I just can't get excited about the theatre... Russkly PS Great to hear Battle for Britain is still in development.

Windows XP Pro 64 5.2 Build 3790 AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 Dual Core @ 2.8GHz 2Ghz RAM nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS w. 162.18 Settings all maxed out @ "Best" or "Better" with AA @ 4x and AF @ 16x. Looks great and no hangs after disabling one of the processors in the "Set Affinity" dialogue. No MS Hotfix applied, becasue I was unsure about changing the Registry. Appreciate this doesn't give you much info. R

Thx, metalbrew. I'm running XP64 but couldn't find the MS Hotfix for this OS in the MS knowledge base - any ideas? R

1. Battlefront 1.02 - downloaded version 2. AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 2.8Ghz 3. Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS driver 162.18 4. 2GB RAM 5. XP Pro 64 6. Game hangs and vehicles teleport to other parts of the map.

Thx Douglas. Don't think I feel comfortable messing around with the registry...lol. R

I've read this in the official Battlefront sticky dealing with the graphics/hanging/teleporting issues that I am experiencing: SECOND (have your system looking like this) The Microsoft hotfix is installed The AMD drivers are installed The AMD Dual Core Optimizer is NOT installed What is the Microsoft Hotfix, what does it do, and where can I get it? That the AMD drivers are installed I think (hope)I can handle, lol. I can remove the Dual Core optimiser, but there are no options to do anything other than install or uninstall. All seems a bit neanderthal for a high-end machine with a new game! R

AMD 64 FX2 2.8GHz GeForce 8800GTS 2Gb 400MHz RAM Win XP 64 Bit Have to run on 'normal' settings, and I still get hang-ups. Doesn't look that great either. Had to disable AA and AF by selecting "Application Controlled" from Nvidia control panel. Disappointed, although the game, when it plays, seems like a corker. Have also installed AMD Dual Core Optimiser. R

Barricade, Pretty much the same spec as you and pretty much the same hang issues. I think I have already installed the AMD dual core fix, since other software has problemns with the AMD dual cores too. How do I check? I suppose our processors and GPUs seem to be problematic with this game, which is a shame, since they are pretty standard high-end specs these days. Here's hoping, because the game looks extremely promising. R

I've played this over 10 times on the highest difficulty, and I am getting increasingly frustrated. AT best I can have 4 x 45mm ATGs, 4 x BT7s and a BT7a. No matter where I position these AT assets, the waves of German PzIIs, PzIVcs and Pz38Ts always overrun my positions. I've tried putting infantry in the forward trenches and the tanks counter-attacking from the flanks with the ATGs set just in front of the town. I've also tried withdrawing everything into the town so as to reduce the engagement ranges for the 45mm ATGs and tank main weapons and to allow the infantry to engage the tanks at close ranges. I've also tried positioning the ATGs in front of the infantry in a dip by the central crossroads, in order to engage at closer ranges. All to no avail. I never take out more than 5 tanks, and that is simply not enough. Any guidance from others who've won this battle? R

Great work from FinnN. Problem I still have with this game, is that infantry are so much less useful than AFVs that I always opt for the minimum possible number of inf. units at the selection stage. I can't make them do anything but die against the AFVs, which are always present in the opposition's OOB. At best they are useful for re-crewing ATGs, but purely inf. battles seem rare, although this was not the case historically. OT, I realise, but I wonder at the moment why we would bother using infantry, let alone modding them to look more accurate, lol. R

DeLaVega, Excellent editing and compilation. You have talent, Sir! R

Very useful. Thank you! Please do more. R

Bristol, England. Nothing yet.

Have to say that I like it a lot, although the campaigns are a little disjointed and don't really immerse. Visibility from buttoned-up AFVs is getting on my wick, however. Infantry seem to have little chance against tanks, even when the latter are moving slowly through a village and the former are 'hidden' around (obviously not 'in') buildings and are armed with AT weapons. The tanks always spot them and kill them. I had one guy with a faust crawling along a tree line towards two buttoned-up US tanks with their rears to him (approx. 100m away). They were happily killing some other infantry, but, as soon as the faust guy moved, they turned round and MGed him. How on earth was that possible?! Unless I've got it horribly wrong, it seems useful only to hide infantry somewhere until the AFVs and AT guns have sorted eachother out. R

Moon/BillyBob, Please stop. This exchange is beneath both of you and this forum. The game has potential, and the more I play it, the more I realise this, even after intial disappointment. There are a couple of threads highlighting major areas of required/desired improvement. If the development team can address most of these, we have a winner. It may be helpful, once the runnability issues have been addressed for those who have experieicned them, to post a list of proposed items for improvement in the second, larger patch. This way we can all see what will be 'fixed' and what won't. Russkly

...and fatigue! Soldiers can go from one end of a map to another without penalty (or have I missed something?). Everything else above is also required, especially: Waypoints (basic, guys) Moveable HMGs (again, basic stuff) Useable buildings (come on, this is really basic) Infantry can go over obstacles such as walls & fences Mortars - we have platoon-level engagements, and there would sometimes be a heavy weapons team available to a platoon; not always, since mostly at company level, but there should be that ability to select at unit selection level. Stop units moving off of their own accord, especailly section commanders, who seem to love running around alone. A re-group function to allow sections/platoons to regroup on their leader. Command indicator to show who's in command radius. Cover status (as in Close Combat series) Vehicle platoons should act together with a leader, as in CM. More maps - they all look the same. Apologies if some of this is simply a result of me not having read the manual - I am waiting for the hard copy, since I hate reading stuff on-screen lol. Can't really work this game out - I shall await the CM2 game engine being applied to WWII; that looks incredible, but modern warfare leaves me cold. R

Get's a whole big new thread... http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=63;t=000705