GreenAsJade

I don't think that this is the problem - I don't think that a change of perspective is what's needed. In fact, the "great thing" about CMx1 was that it was so realistic that real "on the ground" tactics supposedly were the ones to use, and indeed that is what it feels like. I care about writing home about every CMx1 dude that I loose, just like CMBN. The problem is getting used to what it means to be "on the ground" in this new alternate reality where (amongst other things) artillery is so much more dominating. It wasn't "get close to the ground" that helped me over the "difficulty" hurdle, it was someone saying to me "it's all about artillery, stoopid". GaJ

There are all real enjoyment-dampners that I have too. So is the difficulty/twitchiness of controlling the viewing. As is the difficulty of winning. I discovered (thx to Sgt Josh) that partly that this is because actually the tactics needed are WAY DIFFERENT. CMBN is ALL ABOUT getting you artillery to land on his stuff. That's IT. Arty is soooo much more powerful now, it's unbelievable. I used to scoff at 61mm mortars in CMx1, and wonder how to avoid getting them or what to do with them. In CMBN _any_mortar is deadly. In CMx1 I used to hide mortars and use indirect fire at all times. In CMBN, the best way to use mortars is direct fire: they are quick and deadly. Feels unrealistic to me... maybe my expectations are just built from years of the opposite gaming experience. So you use your troops to carefully scout out where his is, try to trick him into staying there, and bomb the heck out of him. Now that I've started to do this, I'm doing better. It's not massively improving my enjoyment, though, because it feels less realistic. I'm hoping that the patch arty improvements will redress this somewhat. GaJ

Back in the early days this was the promise. It didn't really happen eh? I suspect partly due to the subtle contours. The examples posted of how cool this was going to be showed examples from other games that had much more severe terrain. Nisseh far grid is pretty good though.

Ah! We're all hanging in anticipation then (I'd try it too if my oppos would just return a file!)

Over at WeBoB, DT described getting it to work by saving explictly during the command phase, rather than trying to fire up an old "pbem" file with the new version.

THIS. What a shame to have the wonderful models move so unrealistically!

Thanks to all those who've tried this out and the good feedback. Just popping in to say that once again, I think I have given access to everyone who's asked, so if you are still waiting, let me know GaJ

ROTFL.... ......

I contacted everyone so far... if you'd like to get access to the shared folder with H2HH in it, you need to get your email address to me: private message works. Cheers, GaJ

Hot dang - thanks for testing that. I should add these are default installations that it detects. Can someone tell me what a CMSF and CMA installation looks like: I guess it's a similarly named directory under Battlefront? GaJ

Did you ever try out my "Storms At Vereke Pass" scenario. I guess you'd need to play the Axis GaJ

I only play H2H. I found various aspects of this to be a pain. Copying files around from here to there depending how you received them, remembering who's turn it is, forever pruning the files in Incoming so the list in the game menu is manageable etc. So I've been tinkering away with an app I've called H2H Helper. A few fine folk at We Band Of Brothers have been helping with testing. * It tells you who's turn it is (So what?... You'll be amazed how handy that can be!) * It can tidy up your "Incoming Email" and "Outgoing Email" folders... .... so when you go to the "Saved Game" screen, you have only one file per game showing * It can keep all your game files, per game, saved nicely in a folder someplace else you choose * It can handle all the copying in and out of files...... if you use DropBox, or some other means to receive files: - it sees when you received a file and copies it into Incoming Email for you - it sees when you finished a turn, and copies the file out from Outgoing Email into the shared folder It can do all this either when you tell it, or automatically (watching behind the scenes when things change) If you want, you can start up H2HH and never have to touch it again: your files magically go where they need to - perfect if you have a shared folder system like DropBox. It's a shame it can't start up the game and enter your password for you, like the old PBEMH used to do: I haven't heard back from BFC on the small support (command line option) that this would need. Anyhow, I wrote some doco: http://gregories.net/h2hh/H2H%20Helper.html At the moment updates are moderately frequent - both adding features and tweaking out bugs, so I'm distributing it via DropBox shared folder. Drop me a line if you'd like access. GaJ

ps: you are welcome to post your own notifications here, in a similar format to the above. this has to be done until I figure a way to get automatic notification working since BFC deprecated the Amazon cloud. GaJ

mjkerner posted a new Mod at CMMODS: US Divisional Patches Italian Campaign Mod_mjk, by mjkerner Description: This mod has all the US Infantry divisions that fought in Italy, and includes the 1st Armored Division, the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, and the 100th Battalion/442nd Regiment of Nisei Americans. I didn’t include the 82nd Airborne, since Vein has taken care of that mod. The infantry uniforms are the brownish-based OD Dark and have the unit shoulder patches added. Each division mod also has a variety of helmets and leggings. If you have my other uniform mod, you’ll already have some of these divisions. GaJ

ellisam posted a new Mod at CMMODS: US Armored Infantry, by ellisam Description: mjkerner gave me permission to use his great US uniforms and Divisional patch mod to make up infantry for the US armored divisions in the game. All credit for their creation is his. All I did was a little cutting and pasting. GaJ

sdp uploaded a new Mod to CMMODS: sdp_highway, by sdp Description: Plain Highway GaJ

Thanks for posting the note about it being at CMMODS. I haven't been able to close with BFC a way to make the automatic posting here work: I guess they are too busy with the patch to worry about that, fair enough. GaJ

mjkerner poster a new Mod at CMMODS: US Divisional Patches Mod Pack version 2.0, by mjkerner Description: This is an update to version 1.1 of my Divisional Patches Mod. It fixes some errors and adds a second set of uniforms with divisional patches—with darker brown colors for the infantry OD uniform--to the stock ones that shipped with the game. It includes division/unit patches for all US infantry divisions and armored divisions in the Normandy campaign June - August ‘44, and more. I added shoulder patches for each unit and, where I had some decent evidence, I added division/unit insignia on the helmet. There are also two mods for helmet and uniform variety (without divisional patches): helmets--some with netting, some without; and the darker uniform in a variety of shades. GaJ

Juju posted a new mod at CMMODS: Juju's TweakedUI, by Juju Description: Full interface enhancement GaJ

The tests that were done are excellent: thanks to those who did them. I think that they show that foxholes are not as bad as I thought, which was based on the experience I posted. I'm glad to hear that. I've never claimed to be infallible I think that the experiments and discussion show that foxholes and covered arcs are both more tricky to use than one would expect... these sorts of teething problems lead to the kind of experience I had: one which made me feel that it was broken. And I have to say I will still be avoiding games where fortifications need to play a part until either some sort of patch on them or I have a lot more experience with how to drive the troops in easier circumstances... right now even if it's not "broken" its too iffy for my taste. I also have to say that if I could have my choice of customer experience, I would rather the customer rep say "mate, you're wrong, the reason your troops died was because they are green. Learn and move on" than tell me I'm irrelevant because I complain too much or too loudly. I'm actually passionate about the game because I like it and want to see it improve. If I get a bit hyperbolic that shouldn't make me "irrelevant". Of course, BFC reps are just human too, with plenty of faults of their own, and I can understand that they get edgy when customers dis their baby. GaJ

I just want to note that in normal circumstances I wouldn't set up a foxhole defending in an open field like that: it's clearly not a great place to be defending. Unfortunately, in this scenario, the way it is set up, I saw little option GaJ

Java eh? That's new territory for me. Hmmm ....

Just to note that I think "hide" possibly should be the wrong thing for the situation I was in, because a "hide, really, hide" order is a legitimate thing (as someone else said). I _had_ to use "hide" though, because there is no other way to have troops in an entrenchement and not have them completely exposed. That's why I used hide: because there is no "sit sensibly out of harms way in a foxhole" command. I also will re-affirm that I know that BFC have acknowledged that there's a bug here (Steve described it in another thread, something to do with the abstraction of cover) ... the purpose of raising it again in this thread was that up until this turn I hadn't realised just how broken it was. I previously thought "OK, with hide, this is still workable". However, I can't see how to make it work now: there is really no point in setting up a defense in foxholes at the moment. GaJ

So this is ridiculous, right? In one conversation I'm being persuaded that its OK that my guys fire at a tank outside the covered arc that is no immediate threat whatsoever, and now I'm being persuaded that its OK that my guys _stopped fighting_ some guys that were _rushing at them and killing them_!!! Someone said "the hide is the problem". Sure. But if they weren't hiding they would have been sitting up getting mowed down. So how exactly are we supposed to successfully utilise foxhole cover? And it's not the case that the incoming guys were "almost upon them" before they were spotted. They had a long long run through an open field to get to the foxholes, and at one point they stand still in the open and fire upon the foxhole occupants. It's completely broken, IMHO. Those foxhole guys should have been lying down in the foxhole with only their gun and their helmet poking out, and they should have been firing like mad. GaJ

I have been thinking of doing the same thing. Can we work on it together? I'm not interested in collecting from gmail, I'm more interested in dropbox integration... GaJ