birdstrike

Agree, that's fair enough with me.

Paul, I think it's not a question of 'getting it', but of opinion. Some accept bogging in a game, some don't. It is true that bogging is unrelated to combat int the way that bogging can happen outside of combat, whereas getting shot at is rather unusual. In such a view, boggin represents an additional risk which distracts from the 'combat' aspect of the game. On the other hand, those who accept it, see it as integral part of combat like other random things. In such a view, to seems odd to leave out bogging, but leave in those 'other' random events. The solution seems to be an option to turn it on or off - problem: the work involved and the range of toggles. If bogging can be turned on/off, why not friendly fire, mines, bad weather, fixed starting positions or anything which distracts from the pure tactical element of the game. Again that's a matter of opinion. You said you see it as a challenge to be confronted with superior forces - others do not. If some don't like it at all, do we need an option to force opponents to buy units of equal capabilities (to avoid matches between Stuarts and King Tigers). Or do we need an option to turn off firendly fire, because some think it happens way too frequently in the game? With all respect, but there is no more reason to give the player control over bogging than over any of the things above - based only on the question whether one likes (or accepts) it, or dislikes it. In a perfect world, there would be an option to influence all of these things, but if BF decides it's not worth putting time and effort into making bogging opitional in the game, it's no more personal than the decision to not make friendly fire or anything else optional aswell. It's based on the opinion that those things are relevant for a game as this and otherwise would dillute the experience. And in the end, since they make the game their opinion is what counts. After all, let's not get too upset about this, the game is not even out yet and we're already discussing about too much (not enough?) bogging.

Yeah, the visuals are impressive, but the game itself sucks. The demo was alright, but the full game is way too expensive, too difficult in the later levels and there's no save option.

I would use phase lines or areas to occupy as a winning condition. If the scenario is a victory, the next map used has its setup area extended to these objectives, if it was a defeat, the next map would be one with its setup area drawn further back.

I think to remember that the texture size of the two grass types is different. The normal grass texture is only about half as high as the swamp grass texture. You could try to rename the swamp grass to the normal grass, but I bet, it would be resized to half its height. Have you considered using the grain field instead?

Not to argue about extending the sometimes very short time limits in QBs, but for 'real' scenarios, I see issues. "I wished I had another 20 minutes" is a little different from getting unlimited time (hours, days, weeks?). For a player, it doesn't seem to matter much, but for scenario designing, you'd see yourself faced with a number of issues. Of course you could argue that a "use at own risk" toggle for disabling the time limit would not affect designers in any way, but how many players would enjoy a scenario going 'dumb' after 2hs and play on for another couple of hours? And to say it's a scenario designer's issue how to deal with unlimited time is maybe asking a little too much. Thing is, the player can easily adapt to extended time limits, that I'm sure of, but the AI cannot. The player can use the ammo stocks in vehicles, or pull back the units once they ran out of ammo, but we we have an AI which can't do neither. In some scenarios AI troops run out of ammo in much less than an hour. For long engagements the AI would either need an option to automatically receive supply in the field, or more ammo stocks to begin with. Also, AI plans would need longer time limits, too. Otherwise the AI would go stationary" (I don't think they'd stop working), once it has carried out its final order. And if longer AI times are implemented, planning such a monster could get a nightmare. Where do I send the AI troops in 4hs? Or 5? AI planning as it is can be a pita. AI planning for hours and hours to come - just how many designers would want to deal with that? And in addition, reinforcements would need an option to arrive later (much, much later, indeed). Especially if we have AI troops running out of ammo, we would need fresh reinforcements all through the scenario. And by all means, I'm strogly suggesting we first focus on extending the reinforcement arrivals to the current 2hs, before talking about unlimited time. So, there's more things to consider than just implementing a toggle for unlimited time. Of course, if we were to get these changes, yes I'm all for more time. I can think of extended scenarios which would last 3 or maybe even 4 hours instead of 2, but I feel that there ought to be some limit, and without the above changes, even an extended time limit of let's say 3 hours would become pointless, anyway. Along these lines, as an alternative of extending the time limit, it would be a good idea IMHO to reintroduce the old "operations" from the CMx1 engine. (For those who didn't play CMx1, that's 'campaigns' on a single large map with pauses in between individual engagements during which unit would get resupplied or reinforced). For CMSF that's probably out of question, but we could make use of the current campaign mechanism. What we would need, though, is to have terrain damage carried over from one battle into the next when playing on as single map as a start.

Very nice idea, indeed. But as Blücher has said, currently not possible because there's no multiple backgrounds. Nevertheless, definitely something worth noting as a possible future improvement.

Ah, mais c'est not exactly the same, mon ami

My general impression is that the Marines play out more infantry-centric, for one because of the firepower the rifle squads can bring to bear, then again there are no Strykers for fire support organic with each platoon (and no abundant amount of allmighty Javelins) - the best you can hope for are trucks or those those AAV hulks which look like something right out of Star Wars.

(cough) Triggers? (cough)

That assumption seems to be correct.

Putting together teams and picking their equipment, a planning phase, controlling different team members, multiple approaches to a single level... Vegas is an entertaining game, but in the end not deep enough to convince me to buy the sequel.

Either elite or veteran. I always had the impression those classic Clancy games had the best AI marksmen I ever met in any game - up to plain out frustrating levels. This was probably enhanced by the fact that very often a single hit was enough to take you out. Haha, yes I remember that, too . Though, I think there was an option to climb over obstacles in the earlier R6 games?

Just an assumption, but the old "MG on a tank destroyer" question comes to mind. Could it be that apart from costs, tactical doctrine wanted to discourage deliberate 'misuse' of these units as AT assets? I reckon it would be more sound to focus units on a specific task. LAVs with the chainguns operate against enemy troops, while you the LAV-ATs provide overwatch against enemy armor, instead of everyone shooting everything?

Agree. I really liked the way cover was handled in Vegas, but overall, the game felt more like a movie - lacking all the tactical options and freedom of decisions which actually made the previous games great. My only major gripe with Raven Shield was the deadly accuracy of the AI.

So there's no French at all? That's too bad. I was actually looking forward to give that AMX-10RC wheeled tank destroyer a spin.

No, minarets are not included. BF went for a strict "generic building" design for their first release of the new engine, so we'll not see them in CMSF. However, their next CM Normandy game should see a wider range of buildings and hopefully BF's next take on a modern "cold war" setting as well. But for now, all you can do is build a 8-story tower and add some balconies - not really a minaret, but gets the job done. You may want to check some of the other scenarios how it looks. And I'm afraid new countries or locations for CMSF won't be added, neither. There will be a brand new modern day game sometime after the Normandy game in a temperate, setting (probably NATO/Russia?). For CMSF, there will be a "NATO" module after the British forces are released, most likely including Germans, French and Canadians (perhaps Dutch). Some new stuff for Syria might be included also, but definitely no new country. However, the current engine does a pretty good job at modelling non-Syrian scenarios. Some pleople have already made a couple of Afghanistan battles, and there are a couple of mods out there to help simulate Russian troops or conflictes outside of Syria. Hope that helps.

Nah, we need to be able to drive across tracks, if we want to model this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-RP8-UGvx4

I'm all for bogging in all its irrating and nasty ways, but as Redwolf pointed out, modelling the effects in greater detail, depending on vehicle actions and terrain would be a good thing to add. Retain the 'randomn' bogging, but give the player a way to influence the risk by applying caution to his movements and use of terrain.

Good to see you back in business, 'dude.

Thanks. I could imagine the 'nade throwing thing going back to the original humvees which were indeed destructible because of lesser armor? - though who knows, maybe they were just radical environmentalists.

Umm, you could be right there, it's been a while since I tested that.

You can use blue mortars for red UNCONs, with the added bonus that every UNCON unit can call in fire support, however you need to keep the blue command units for the related mortar unit - who can only be "left out" by puttin gthem into a reinforcement group which is set to never arrive (which again is limited to 1h currently). To make things easier for scenario designers I sure would welcome a mortar asset to UNCON forces (and also en extended reinforcement time, while we're at it ).

First, welcome to the board. Though I'm not quite sure if I see the problem - from what you listed, it seems the game got it right. you get 4 strykers, each Stryker has room for 11 passengers, for the rifle squads that's 9 per the first three vehicles (with 2 seats left each) and for the 4th Stryker the PL commander+RO+FO (a single team in the game) + weapon squad (split in 3+4 in the game) = 10 (with 1 seat left). The MOUT platoons are a little tricky, but if you split up the squads (can't remember exactly) you can get everyone aboard. The only difference seems to be the 2nd crewmember on the command Stryker - which I guess has been altered because the Stryker would have been without a gunner, once the PL commander dismounts (in fact, the engineer platoons in the game had only a driver on the command vehicle, but players weren't all that happy about that )

Currently, replacing fallen crewmembers only works for Humvees. IIRC, there was some discussion in the past about implementing replacements for vehicles, but I don't know if we will see that in the future.