Bruce70

FWIW, I'm sure Adam1 is talking about red vs red. (and probably CMBB) Perosnally I'd be interested to see the results, but I certainly wouldn't try to draw any conclusions.

FWIW, we were doing a platoon assault exercise in the reserves. I was one of a few defenders, and the Sarge asked me to "pretend" that I had a Minimi because they weren't expecting that. I said "what do you mean?" and he said "use your imagination". So I line up about 10 mags on the ground in front of me and fired them full auto (with an Austeyr) as fast as I could change mags. It was fun while it lasted. Thinking back I don't remember checking how hot the barrel got.

I agree with what you are saying here Steve and it's good that you plan to improve the QB system, but I would encourage you not to ignore the campaign system entirely. While it's true that your customers will never agree on how to improve that, I believe that you would attract a wider audience no matter what direction you went in. (Of course that wider audience has to be balanced against the effort involved, and I'm in no position to comment on that) Having said that, there's not a whole lot more that I think needs to be added to the current campaign system - except more campaigns! Is it your intention that the campaign system will evolve over time?

Sometimes I think Steve's an arrogant bastard , then I read what he has to put up with and realise that I would be 100x worse. CMx2 had quite a lot of problems, now it has a lot less, and there has been no let up in the pace at which problems are being fixed and features added. Keep up the good work BFC!

I would like to have more info about map sizes and stuff *before* I load a scenario. I also prefer the block terrain.

I've seen quite good results with the technical-mounted SPG-9's, but I suppose they only have one option. I've taken out quite a few strykers with them though.

Thanks for the advice. I'm planning to have the full range of missions, which might seem a bit strange for uncons. But I think it fits OK if you have the right storyline. For example sometimes the Uncon force gets caught up in another battle, sometimes they have an intelligence gathering role while another battle is proceeding, etc. So you will get to see the whole Syrian TO&E as well as uncon only battles such as hit and run, convoy ambush, and at least one where they are cornered and have no choice but to fight.

I need to test this, but I am actually inclined to believe that it is possible for in game arty support for the AI (at least for Syria). What you need to do is this: - have a limited number of FOs, preferably one. - place them out of LOS of the support zone. - at the prescribed time (or a few minutes before), have them move into LOS of the support zone. That should do it, but as I said, I havn't tested it.

Hmmm, that could work well for hit and run missions - not silly at all. Thanks.

Hi, I really love playing as uncons, and I really love campaigns. So I've started working on an uncon campaign, I realise there are a few issues (having no exit objective is proving to be one of them) but I have ideas to work around those. So far I've completed the first battle, about half finished the second, and just started the third (I like to have several things on the go at once). The campaign is based around the premise that a decorated Hezbollah militia leader (and some of his best 'fighters') is working with the Syrian army in the East, training them in unconventional warfare, when the invasion begins. I'm not planning on making it particularly realistic or even tactically challenging - just fun. If anyone's interested in helping out with maps, battles, AI plans, storyline, or just wants to offer encouragment or suggestions, I'd really like to hear from them. Alternatively if someone's already working on something like this and I've missed it, I'd be happy to help them out instead.

I can almost accept this, except that there is one thing that can be done that will NOT cause an exponential increase in CPU/RAM requirments: Simply calculate the angle for the direct path and check to see if that path is clear. If it is, move at that angle. If it's not, fall back to the current algorithm. I think this would be an acceptable solution for almost everybody as it is pathfinding in completely open environments where the "L" moves are most noticeable.

A lot more businesses have gone under because they tried to do too much. "We are going to produce a game with everything that any customer has ever asked for" is a ridiculous business strategy.

Yes, but preferred CMx1 for some reason I can't put my finger on.

I think it's a great system, but I agree with OM. I can't see any reason why a unit would decide of it's own accord to use area fire - so there should be a command delay.

I've always preferred "The final cut", but what would I know

OK, that sounds promising, thanks for the replys. I still think it would be nice if scenario designers could create AI plans for various difficulty levels. But now that I think about it this can be done already - just create separate scenarios. So please ignore the feature request, there are bigger fish to fry.

bump

BF and Steve in particular are adamant that the bulk of their customers play vs the AI. They must also realise that many of those players play QBs. So a points system, and even victory conditions, are irrelevant for a very large number of people who play QBs. Some people just like to experiment and can decide for themselves if it's a victory or not. JasonC gave a good example in another thread. Having said that, I'm quite happy to start with a standard formation and then prune it down to what I want.

I've only played the demo and only single player RT. For my first attempt I played on beginner level (or whatever it's called) and I got a marginal victory, because I was still learning the controls (and I did stuff that I quickly found doesn't work in the modern era). I repeated the battle at elite and got a total victory with 1 man wounded. OK, so maybe I got lucky. I then replayed as red and got another total victory - and that was with hardly using the reinforcements since I didn't realise they had arrived (that's RT for ya). Now I had the same problem in CMx1 too, so the next thing I tried to do was to give the AI a bonus (+100 or even +200 was sometimes necessary in CMx1), but I couldn't see any way to do that. I assume that this is the case for all battles and that it has something to do with the Strat AI Scripts and/or C&C? If that is the case, can someone tell me if there are any scenarios and/or campaigns that are much harder vs the AI than the demo? Also can I make a feature request for scenario design that allows the designer to create easy, medium, and hard games that the player can choose at play time. e.g. The easy AI opponent might be an understength company; medium, a full strength company; and hard, a full company with attachments. Obviously this would require another set of plans for each case, which would be a big load on the designer - but it would be nice to have that option.

It might be better if, every time you select a new unit, you change back to the first tab. BTW you're not the only one, I bailed a unit by accident as well. For commands like this an "are you sure?" dialog might be useful.

When the 1:1 rep was first anounced there were several people who were concerned about this (link)and rightly so IMO. My personal opinion has always been that the 1:1 rep done right would be great, but done poorly would be worse than the abstraction. I've only played the demo so far, but from what I've seen I think it's pretty good. The thing that makes it work is the "hotspots". As far as I can tell a map designer doesn't have to designate these, so I'm assuming it's done automatically. It may be that on some maps the hotspots are not well defined, or it may be that with no hotspots (e.g. in open terrain) the AI is fairly poor, but I haven't played enough to form an opinion.

If you had a drum mag, I imagine you would need a heavy barrel too. I'm also guessing the ROF was an unintentional side effect of the mods, but I could be way off with that.

I don't have the time to weigh into this hefty debate, but thought I'd add my 2 cents: I have bought most of the CM titles, and while I have enjoyed a few PBEM games and even fewer TCP/IP games, I have mostly played single player. The reasons for this have mostly been covered above (time, being a big one), but also a lot of the battles I like playing would be boring for a human playing the other side. The computer never complains about what units I give it, etc. It may well be true that most games of CM are played multiplayer, but that does not mean that most purchasers of the game prefer multiplayer. People who play multiplayer probably have the time to play the game much more than the rest of us, but they don't provide more income for the developers. I'd also like to rant about AI in general, as I have been known to do a few times on this forum already, but I'll give it a miss this time.

Seconded.

I may have missed something, but I'm not sure that it does. To put it succinctly: Can a friendly run in front of a MG firing at a distant enemy and not get shot? Or to put it another way: Can a MG engage a distant enemy if there are intervening friendlies?