birdstrike

Aww it's always hard to please the perfectionists... In fact the mentioned issues will be fixed... ...in the next CM-engine Until then, I'd recommend using walls only if there is no other cover available and always tell your men to keep their heads down. And if you absolutely cannot get used to the 'flat' look of the game, there are also some 'high contrast'-mods besides the gridded terrain mods, if you don't like these. Hopefully that will give you back some of your enjoyment in playing the game.

WAAAHHH WANNA HAFF!!!!

Just to reiterate and further underline what JasonC said: Even for a mediocre tactician as myself and without advanced shoot-and-scoot tactics, TDs are indispensable. (Personally, I LOVE the M10! ) Their main purpose is denying the enemy freedom of movement with his tanks - something a Sherman is often not capable of. And as with most allied units, their main strength is numbers. For QBs I use about 1 TD platoon for every 1-2 tank platoons (or in small engagements 1 TD for 2-3 tanks). As has been said before, stalking and taking out individual enemy tanks by baiting and flanking them is the most effective tactic, but due to lack of cover (and because of my own impatience) I find myself using them often much more offensively. I either keep them in second line behind my Shermans and employ them as need arises, or scatter them among my advancing tanks for mutual support: if there's an AT gun opening fire, I have my Shermans deal with it. If a tank pops up, my M10s will do the job. (Okay, often it doesn't work out that well... cough). When reaching a good overwatch position I have the TDs halt and cover the advance of the rest of my troops. Generally I avoid moving up TDs too close to the enemy positions, for known reasons, but time and again they are useful to overrun guns. Infantry, mortars and and light guns are in fact their worst enemies, because they are hard to spot and effective supression fire is thus not possible. (but then again, it's the infantry's job, to find and clear those.) In a tank duel I prefer them over any 'real' tank, because their shots can really hurt and even if their armor would be 30mm thicker, it doesn't matter when being hit by an 88. The AI targets the biggest threat first, which for tanks usually is what can hurt them most. So the answer is no, you're not mistaken, yes, they do indeed target Firefly/Hellcats/Woverines first.

Greaty-great! You just brightened up my day.

also in the same picture, some more indication of the orders menu for vehicles: - target, target light, target arc, clear target, face - Seems all quite straightforward, but I wonder what target light means? :confused: And the little bars below the tank icon tell us that the Abrams a big strong tank but is a nightmare when trying to find a parking spot? Or is that 'turning' a reference to turret speed? Oh yes, and great pics indeed, by the way!

Don't forget the ones asking where to find a decent bulb-mod, since the stock bulbs are good, but could be better.

Damn, beat me to it!" My thoughts exactly - note to myself: "must learn to type faster".

Sumac, please take a step back and and calm down. This whole thing has escalated and you did play an essential part in this. You may feel offended by Steve, but you are really acting unreasonable. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to stop making a fool out of yourself by acting like a child. Look at it this way: Steve could just say, "Yes, PBEM is definitely in", to shut you up. If for some reason PBEM would be left out in the end, he'd face loads of people like you complaining that BFC stinks and ripped them off. That's why he tells you that PBEM will be in CMSF, unless something unforseen happens. (Wish my gf would have been only half as honest. ) And if you got the impression Steve is making empty promises and they really never had no intention of including PBEM, then cursing BFC or Steve would not help you neither (as seen in various other "I want ... included or I won't buy the game"-threads). So take a deep breath, stop ranting and resist the feeling to tell Steve who's right and wrong, cause when the game is out and PBEM is in, you will feel pretty stupid for causing such a ruckus in the first place. Couldn't say it any better.

God, I love this board.

Maybe something like an additional "report" command we could issue only to units we want to tell us about their information. e.g. we could activate "report-mode" for recon squads, while units at the back, or already involved in heavy fighting could have it turned off.

... and once more a case of precious lifetime wasted...

Aww, I bet this is only a problem in the beginning. You do that a couple of times and soon you'll know blindly what to click to get your shells flying.

I second that. That's what we wanted to hear.

Definitely. Compared to CM1 I expect rather some sort of 'NCO-AI' than the 'simple' TacAI we learned to love and hate in CM1. And because I saw this in another thread here: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=001065;p=5 If you look at this pic - it is perhaps a good example of a state-of-the-art RTS game (not involving base building): I don't know the game - I don't want to judge whether it's good or bad it - but as it seems to differ from what we heard of CM2 so far, I may be so bold as to use it to take a guess about some things: from what we heard by Steve, we should expect troops in CM2 not be scattered around like this, but to operate in a certain formation, and they should use those boxes and walls as cover (I don't know maybe it would look more like 'Full Spectrum Warrior'?). Firefights could possibly take place over longer distances, and there would most likely sit a sniper up in that church tower .

... plus some AFVs... maybe 15-20 units? Perhaps I was a little too optimistic there? Well, there is still the TacAI...

Funny, I always thought this was a mistake in the script - ought to say a 75 mm that should look like a 76 - and that they changed that to 90 to make the difference more obvious (how could a non-grog know why a mere 1mm should make any difference. ) Never expected they really considered a gun that big on the little tank. You can aleays learn something new on this board.

Not in the sense that we need to tell every unit to perform even the most oridinary tasks. First, I don't need to tell every single soldier what to do individually. They move in squads, hence less units means less micro. I think more in terms of the Total War series which is also quite slow paced and with fewer units. I would say that there, high apm-rates are almost useless. Second, there is no need to keep my units in motion all the time (e.g. no dancing - this takes off a huge load of micro already). And, with the TacAI performing decently, I don't need to watch each of my units' steps all the time. My guys will know when an enemy enters their cover area and will fire on him if they can kill him. They will not shoot at a tank and give away their position if they wouldn't harm it. An experienced CM player should be able to position his troops and issuing them orders for them to hold themselves for a time. I think micro-skills will mostly come to play when setting up several waypoint actions for a unit. Then again in the heat of battle there will be probably more "improvisation" than "planning several minutes ahead". Good point, but I'm not quite sure about this. Consider the time it will take the tank to move up to his new position, identify the threat, turn the turret, acquire the target, and fire. There is nothing I, as a player, can click to speed things up. A high sustained apm rate is impossible if there aren't that many apms to perform. I expect the game speed to be too slow to even be able to perform 200 apms even if I want to. Also it might be foolish to only move a unit, because I can. A situation might require a certain tactical assessment by the player first, or I might end up in an ambush. Quick thinking before quick clicking. Simply rushing in a tank could end with a scrap of burning metal. And given that tanks in CMSF are not replaceable and short in numbers, they should easily draw all necessary attention to their whereabouts as soon as they show up . And one more thing: something that comes with the usual hitpoints-system in RTS games is the 100% chance to hit. Often damage is counted as 'damage per second'. HPs and DPS values taken together indicate how long a unit can survive when being attacked by a specific opponent. An infantryman in CM being hit is gone, right the instant he got shot. A tank hit by an appropriate AT weapon has not much chance to fight on, either. On the other hand not every shot in CM hits its target, or the target is out of sight/reach because of terrain, or visual limitations. In RTS you normally detect all units automatically and can shoot at them as soon as they move into your visual range. Now try to shoot a target through a Humvee blocking LOF in CM. To sum up, high apm is useful but not necessary. In general, I would expect fast-clicking RTS gamers to play more aggressively and slow-clicking CM gamers more defensively. But no one will win this game only based on apms.

I am quite certain we don't have to fear CM real time. In RTS games, I'd say it all boils down to three things: basic gameplay, tactics and gamespeed. To make my point: in essence gameplay considerations in 'classic' RTS are limited to - "resource gathering" (or energy or victory points or whatever, to buy new units) - "building" (when do I build what unit, what building, etc?) - "teching" (when do I upgrade my units?) - and "attacking" (when and where do I attack?) Luckily, none of the above (apart from "attacking") is something we CM players should care about ) As for game speed and combat tactics: many RTS games are played at ridiculous high speeds. Units move, shoot, act faster than they would in reality. This is mostly possible because there is only little tactics (as we know them) involved in RTS combat. From a CM gamer's perspecitve, fighting in RTS games looks like big 'brawls' where all units involved gather in a very limited area. It comes down to selecting one unit to attack a specific other unit as quickly as possible, while keeping ranged units away from close-combat units (that's what they call "dancing" ). Any player with good micro-skills and high reflexes, and who knows what units are most effective against their enemy counterparts, will have the upper hand in these fights without knowing anything about things like supression fire or cover and concealment. To illustrate what I just said: CM players worry over "ground pressure" and "sloping armor", RTS gamers are more interested in "time to build" and "damage per second". Some games like "Company of Heroes" consider certain terrain effects or include some sort of damage/morale models, etc. But they cannot simulate those things in detail, simply because the gamespeed does limit the amount of information a player can deal with and react to. Thereby, most RTS games lack the tacical depth of games like CM, as they keep many simplyfing RTS features to appeal to the action-craving game-crowd (did I mention Hitpoints? ). On the other hand, we know from experience how important things like terrain, morale, etc. are in CM. CM1, and from what we've heard CM2 also, aims at simulating actual combat in great detail. If CM1 is any reference, gameplay in CMSF should be faaaar more slowly than in common RTS games. For instance, units in RTS games might cover whole maps in less than a minute and portable rocket launchers will fire every few seconds, while in CM1 Soldiers running across 100m of open ground would already need about half a minute and reloading a bazooka would take quite some time as well. This should give the player at least some time to breathe now and then. Micro should be less of an issue as the TacAI will presumably perform basic tasks like using cover and selecting appropriate targets. Also, fighting will most likely occur over relatively long distances (compared to common RTS games) and units will probably be more scattered over the map, i.e. fire-fights may occur between isolated elements instead of all units crowded in a small area. The main difficulty with this will probably be, to keep an eye on all your units and issue orders to them at the right time, that's why I think situational awareness and tactical flexibility will be much more important than clickspeed. And if everything fails, we still got our old WeGo. But I dare to predict even very experienced RTS gamers will get their rear-ends kicked by the AI when they start playing CMSF.

F****** AWESOME!!!

Coil, thanks for the clarifications. There is no doubt about people having different opinions. You having a different idea of realism is not the problem. It was the way you (and others) presented the plea for a bogging-toggle (or AoG-Toggle in general). Specifically, referring to incidents like bogging in dry, open-ground or on roads as if they happen all the time. They do not. Period. There is a certain randomness involved in bogging that seems not to be there in other aspects of the game, but I got the impression you are focusing too much on that single issue while not wanting to see that there is randomness all over the game. For example in shooting (that's the reason we keep coming up with it ): - hitting another tank - there is only a certain chance of a hit. Why only so much and not more/less? - how much damage/how many casualties caused by a hit - based on firepower, yet still some randomness. Yes, you can keep a unit out of enemy sight and you are not being shot at. As well I might say, you don't need to move a tank and you don't risk bogging. Of course you will tell me (and rightly so) that, in order to win a battle, you will have to move your tanks around. But, if you want to win the battle you sooner or later will have to engage with the enemy, too. Sooner or later you will have to put your units into a position where they can fire and being fired at. You can apply certain maneuvers and tactics to avoid your infantry getting caught in the open, or to flank a tank you couldn't take out frontally. But in the end, you will be presented with a situation where it comes down to sheer luck of hitting the target and causing damage. I had a battle in a town where I managed to get two Shermans to both flanks of a Tiger. Range was less than 100m. I scored several hits, penetrations, partial penetrations, armor flaking. Side and rear. The Tiger took both my Shermans out and kept going. What did I do wrong? I was in a perfect position, at point blank range, I hit my target multiple times, yet I ended up with two burning Shermans. You tell me how this, in any way, is less annoying and less based on randomness than boggin on a road on turn one. Do I consider it a flaw of the game that makes the game less fun to play? No. It was disgusting the moment it happened, but it was a one-in-an-hundred incident. The only difference between your bogging and my failed assault is that my tanks went out with a bang. I somehow have the impression, the anti-bogging faction is mostly annoyed by the fact that they lose a vehicle without a mark to show for it (at least, that's what bothers me most ). The second thing I'd like to question is the bold assumption that bogging (and related incidents) will be transferred 'as they are' into the new game engine. Why can't you just wait and see how the new engine works and deals with the problem. Bogging in open ground, for instance: please remember the fact that 'open gound' was anything but open in CM1. Ground will be much more detailed in CM2 - why should boggin not be handled accordingly? You said yourself, bogging in a marsh is normal. Why should throwing a track when turning on rough terrain be not? You don't drive through a marsh, you don't turn on rough terrain. If I drive my Stryker over some sharp rocks, I risk losing a tire or two. If I know these things and can identify them clearly on the map, avoiding them is as much of an issue as staying out of the enemy's line of fire. If there really will be some freak-boggings left in CM2, it won't be more of a problem than in CM1. If I really happen to lose a game because of one in a hundred tanks bogging on a road... I deserve it. Steve said that there will be more unpredictable incidents happening. In general this means a wider variety of incidents, not necessarily more incidents in a single battle, since Steve was talking about 'single vehicles' in a game, not whole platoons of Strykers or Abrams. On the other hand, we could be faced with more 'smaller' annoyances like radios not working or turrets not traversing, etc. I understand that you don't want to see your units crippled. I understand that you want a certain control over whether or not you are faced with a sudden lack of fire support because your Abrams was hit by a meteor. You (and others) want to have confidence that a system is functioning as long as they don't do something stupid. But CM2 is not supposed to simulate 100% reliable equipment. Steve said the game would be different if it wouldn't include the occasional system failure. I am not against including more options. More choice is never a bad thing. (as you said, people like myself could still play the game in full wacko-mode as much as they like ). But it is neither you nor me who decides what is worth coding and what not. If the guys who make a game decide that a certain aspect is essential, it is after all not only a question of time or ability, but of sticking to what they wanted the game to be.

I think this is exactly the point. Steve appeared to be saying there were going to be more random bogging effects out of the players control. The whole issue, I'll state one more time, is not about making the game more realistic (although everyone seems to continue to insist it is). It is about making it more fun. Nobody wants a totally realistic game. They want a fun game. To most people playing CM realism = fun, to a point.</font>

This whole majority this, majority that thing is of no use at all. Do we hate bogging? Yes. We hate it as much as seeing our Shermans getting blasted by a Tiger that shrugs off anything we throw at him. We hate it as much as seeing our Tigers getting immobilized by a Mine where the PSW2 drove though without any problems. As has been said before, if you center your whole tactic around a single vehicle, you are doomed if it's gone, no matter how it has been taken out. Take more armor with you and it's a whole different ballgame. You lose a tank to an 88, another one gets bogged, one gets its gun damaged, all not nice, but if you got a whole platoon, the single one lost to bogging is hardly notable (and it's not even really lost). Yes, I had scenarios where 3 of my 5 tanks got bogged, but I also had scenarios where out of 10 tanks not a single one bogged down. I see that you are frustrated by the way the CM1 game engine handles bogging. But while Steve stated the principle of 'bogging' will remain in CM2, you simply cannot suppose that it is handled the same way as in CM1. I myself would appreciate some hints in the manual as to what behavior could trigger certain 'bogging' effects, like not turning on certain types of ground, or allowing Stryker crews to place their coffee mugs besides the weapons control system . You have every right to ask fo an option to turn off bogging. But you have no right to demand for one. There are games that allow customizing gameplay to a high degree and there are games that don't. Flighsims, for example, often include a lot of realism options. Reason being, to allow newbies to slowly accustom themselves with the complex nature of flying an aircraft. Or to compensate for players lacking controller hardware (like pedals, thrust control, etc). And even then some aspects will remain beyond the player's control. For instance, going into a tight turn with your P51 and next time you want to fire, 2 of your 6 MGs are jammed because the cartridges got wedged. Much of the complexity a player has to deal with in a sim will be handled abstractly by the 'pixeltruppen crew' in CM2. You won't be required to know how to operate a specific vehicle or aircraft. You don't have to worry about how to insert target data into the targeting computer to fire a shot. You won't have to worry about the oil pressure or torque. And you don't need to cope wth the shortcomings of a 8-year old Joystick for avoiding hitting trees in low-level flight. Some options for turning on/off certain aspects in a sim are a necessity to play the game at all, in CMSF they are not. You tell your Bradley where to go and what to attack, that's all. You have no more control over what your crew does in the vehicle as I have as a pilot of where the bullets from the flak shooting at me are going. As it is, bogging is considered an integral part of gameplay. People make mistakes, especially in a combat situation. They miss a target that should have been a certain kill. They panic when getting shot at by a lone sniper. They drive their tank into a ditch and can't get it out again. CM2 will include options to make the game easier. It will just not be that much customizable as it 'could' be. Set the game to a lower realism, and voilà, no more bogging. You have to live with some other things turned off as well, but that's how it is. Why not wait and see how everything plays out in the end? You might even end up enjoying it.

Yeah, it's always the good ones that have to go first.

Syria with Minor Backstory and Fictional Subsection is acceptable. Where do we preorder? And may I express my support with MikeyD's Illiad background story. US needs a reason to go to war? Just imagine the impact of classified information a defecting insider could leak to the Syrian government! And there is romance in it. Show us the human side of war. "All she wanted was love, but there can be no happiness in a world like hers." Let's face it, CM has long been neglecting the other 50% of potential customers out there.

kipanderson, I see your point. But as you said, it's not historical. We're not playing a campaign that has been taken place in Syria and there are no battles to reenact. If that would be the case, I'd also vote for real Syrian terrain, for sure. CMSF is about a possible 'near-future' campaign aimed at simulating certain aspects of modern warfare. If BFC had initially stated the game would be set in Iran, we'd be be quarreling over whether or not to use real Iranian terrain and no one would argue that Syria would have made a much better place to fight. After all, even given that some aspects of the terrain in Syria differ vastly from those in Iran, we'd still have a tactical simulation of US vs. ME OPFOR (as the ME setting is somehow no longer debatable ). And as I said, if Syria (or Iran for that matter) offers a unique form of terrain that would require very unusual tactics, there is no point to have it not also in the fictional country. The map could basically be an accurate copy of the real thing. But in general, if I hide my RPG team in an orchard on a hill, I don't care, if the orchard belongs to an arab or a persian. And I don't see the point why the game would be any better in portraying the kind warfare it aims to portray if we'd stick to a strictly Syrian terrain instead of a more generic approach.