eichenbaum

Smac ; Cooked ham in a can (Dutch) How would you feel in a Panzer after a day driving through the desert ?

Thanks for your advice Joachim. The AI seems to have some major problems with the type of terrain it's on. But is not an option to alter the terrain because the AI needs it while I'm making maps 1:1. Increasing or decreasing the battle window also turns into a disaster because there's still a bug in CMBB that put all units back in one 1 line afterwards. I guess there's not much left for me then run a lot of playtesting & adjusting on these operations. Nils

Welcome to the BFC forums Iron Man. The PDF version of the manual (part of it) can be found on the CMBB CD-ROM. Because of piracy we're not allowed to publish the manual, only BFC and CDV have these rights. But they don't have it published for download. You can order a hardcopy at : http://www.battlefront.com/products/cmbb_manual/cmbb_manual.html Greetings, Nils

Thanks for those tips Eric! I'll go experimenting with the 'nomans land settings'. These alrerady had been set to zero, maybe increasing will change the AI's behavior a bit. For those covered area's I don't know. There were maps with forests and towns on the AI's side but it just ignorded those and put it self in the open around it. Nils

You're welcome. Glad I could help. Nils

Scenario building: How to trick the AI? After designing a bunch of Assault Operations I really got a bit frustrated about the behavior of the AI after each 1st battle: 1. The AI is withdrawing from fortified positions like trenches, foxholes, barbed wire etc. to spots that do not have any strategic value like LOS, cover or safety. Leaving trenches to only stay a 100 meters to the left or right in a open field with no cover at all seems to me very unlikely. Especially when the human player didn’t fire a single shot on that position because it remained hidden all the time. 2. In the 2nd battle the AI loses his cohesion and mixes all the forces into a soup of infantry and light support weapons. Partisan with Russians and recon troops on the rear. The left and right flanks are uncovered, leaving major gaps in the defense. The pad-locked positions in the 1st battle don’t seem to have any influence left in the following battles. 3. While an assault is being made by the human player on a heavy fortified position with a lot of cover for the AI, it still order its troops to jump out of their positions and run towards the human player in an open field without cover. (1st battle) I am not complaining about the quality of CMBB but I’m just asking if some of you scenario designers know some tricks to force the AI a bit in operations ? Changing the map is not an option because it represents the true surroundings and using Static ops. instead of Assault isn’t an option to. Flags do have a big influence on the AI’s behavior but I need the ‘Battle Window’ for a campaign system I’m working on. Any ideas ? Nils

And guns need trucks for transport between the battles in a operation. If there're no vehicles left that can pull, then the guns will remain on the same spot as the in last turn of the previous battle. So trucks are not a waist of points in operations. Nils

I'm in a good mood. Here you are, the requested files : http://217.123.168.186/Member_Images/Nils/steiner65_bmp.zip (zip file 2.81MB) Good luck ! Nils

External campaigns are really difficult to develop. Therefore most campaigns are a bunch of maps and rules (but great work). Before I started to build CMBB Operation Störfang (http://www.eichenbaum.org/sevastopol.html) I didn’t had a clue that campaigns were such a hot item. The 1st version of Störfang was just a map devided in sections like a checker board. Since then I knew that a major part of players who’re playing against AI really love the idea of a campaign system. More then 2000 players have started it since June this year. Because of the huge amount of response I have started to develop an external system that maybe satisfy the needs of the players at last. This will be the 2nd and last version. This is really a hell of job ! and I recommend to not do the same if you’re only time for this is in the evenings or weekends. (slightly overreacted ) Maybe the interaction of CM with the system, a , dynamic loaded bitmaps for each environment, A LOT OF RESEARCH, reserves, artillery and CAS on command… and more… , seems a bit much, but that’s what people like. They want to use only a few clicks, not more to read then the mission briefings and not be able to cheat. I ain't complaining, really. But if CM had a campaign system I finally could start playing CMAK for instance Happy New Year! Nils [ December 30, 2003, 04:03 PM: Message edited by: eichenbaum ]

Wow ... nice comments... thanks guys! <font color="maroon" size="+1">We whish you all a very happy New Year and lots of CM-playin' in 2004 !!!!</font> Eichenbaum team

Link : Operation Störfang (2nd ed.) Screenshots --Lots of KB's!--

You're right Bartokomus. We won't stop untill the city of Sevastopol has been taken by all of you who are willing to replay this historical battle. Half-baken cakes will not leave the oven in my kitchen! So don't worry Nils [ December 21, 2003, 06:14 PM: Message edited by: eichenbaum ]

Your maps are always great Theike. Keep up the good work ! Had ik maar zo'n CM cartograaf als jij voor Op. Störfang

We have started the design of scenario's a while ago. The testing department was thrown again in the battle for Sevastopol. I'm always planning ahead the activity's and how much time it will take. But since every one is working on this in their free time, beside the fulltime jobs and their private lives, makes it very difficult to draw a deadline and work to that. X-mas isn't the release date of Operation Storfang, that's for sure. The interface for controlling the campaign isn't finished yet. After the complement of the interface it must be tested before we hand it over to you. I guess it will take at least another month before we can say that the beta-version will available for download. However, Druk ist auf dem Kessel. We're giving all we can to get this done as soon as possible. I'm aware that there're a lot of CM players are waiting and the pressure hasn't decreased since the release of CMAK. Nils [ December 16, 2003, 07:18 AM: Message edited by: eichenbaum ]

Page 19, CMBB Manual : "More detailed information about each ubit can be further accessed by selecting a unit and pressing the Enter button..."

Don't forget to pad-lock the vehicles.

Hi Mom !

Brush is too large. Plants that grow from seed that was sown the previous year are very small in March, if they grow at all. Maybe you can MOD the softground tiles and use it as agroculture.

The new 53.03 drivers didn't bring any solutions to the problem. Still the colors are displayed incorrect. It isn't that bad, only the very ugly color that is shown in the mission briefing's background I'm also designing scenario's. The screenshots with those colors seem a bit odd. Nils

The crew of this gun stayed with their weapon in the foxhole, while 2 mortars, 2 tanks and 1 MG tried to take it out. Untill the last man was broken, the rest killed and the gun destroyed, it fought hard to hold off the advancing tanks. Never again I saw the 76.2mm kill so many tanks in such a short time. The oponent (PBEM) wasn't so happy with this score. You can see it's kills in the background. In the next round it took out another 2 tanks before it was destroyed.

You're right. It's 44.1KHz - 16bit. I always had the impression that sounds are compressed. Sounds can be bought yes, but I'd guess you can't buy all of them that are being used in CM.

How fast is your system to decompress the files while playing or loading a game ? Wav's are already decreased in size with a low sample rate and low frequency. Most game engines do not support JPEG files or some kind. Maybe if we get VRML97 engines this would be all over.

It was Madmatt, carrying an old Revox tape recorder in the field with a :eek: gold AKG C 414 microphone.