C'Rogers

That is something I recall Steve saying he would like to do (not sure how long ago that was).

This was actually discussed a good while back. http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=000532;p=1 The short answer, yes it is possible, but it wasn't considered critical I guess. Relevant discussion comes up around the 2nd/3rd page I think. Ah that thread brings back memories, I remember being surprised at this real time option.

On the subject of boardgames, one of the key reasons they have had a resurgence is simply the cost involved. Design a bad board game and you have lost your time and maybe a little bit of money. Thus if your interest is niche you can "easily" pursue making products for it. On the other hand a computer game must sell well to cover costs. Board game makers can get a second chance, a young computer company will not.

This is actually the main reason I have switched to real time. Not because I inherently find it a better method to play, but current WeGo is just to boring early/late game.

Glad to see a thread on Strykers, US doctrine, the Russian/Chechen war, and, most importantly, the relvance of adminstator forum posts to overall marketing strategy is still going to continue.

Maybe the sloppy and lazy accusation

Alright like everyone else I have my ideas on what can be done to make the game better. Unlike some I have actually tried to give the game some play before posting. But like others I don't have the patience for 1.02 to come out so going to post now. I won't be bringing up the issues that already have been beaten to death -TAC AI and such- and am trying to bring up ideas that have not been mentioned. I have been enjoying the game and mean for this post not to focus on game flaws but on issues that may make the game better -also would like to know if these are even possible-. 1) It would be nice just to select quick battle maps. 2) Is there any particular reason that with all these wonderful victory conditions they are unable to be used in quick battles? It seems to me in my infinite wisdom which comes from no software programming knowledge that there is no need for QBs to be limited to occupy zone. Create a QB map and as an example lock it to assault where the defending team -whether they be Syrian or American- must preserve a certain building. Unit objectives could be trickier but I don't think the terrain objectives must be so limited. 3) Can objectives be tiered into multiple categories? For example take ammo. Could I tier it so if a side had <90% ammo it got 50 points, from 50 - 90% 40 points, 10 points for 25 - 50%, and 0 otherwise. If a scenario designer was willing to take time he could thus creae a kind of sliding scale -reflecting a steep dropoff pointwise from where the unit may have gone from ability to continue fighting with ammo supply to not-. 4) Is there any way to give certain types of ammo more weight -in points or does the engine already do so-? For example I wouldn't mind working on a scenario and saying the US force can fire away all their bullets without penalty, but command is going to be upset if you expend most of your javelins. 5) Are negative victory points possible? One of the topics that has been brought up is that it benefits the US side in urban situations to just level the entire area. If the US could be assigned an "objective" to destroy the buildings, with each building being worth -5, then "success" would subtract from US points. There are workarounds to accomplsih the same thing I imagine but this might be a more conveint options. 6) Ok this idea is a little more out there but I will throw it. Would it be possible to create an option that would allow a player to assign a "priority" to enemy units. For example on the first campaign scenario I wanted to take out the enemy bunkers with tanks but apparently the TAC AI did not think it was worthwhile to waste the ammo. So I had to indiviualy target each bunker -not a game killer obviously but surprising and annoying-. Under this option a player could issue priority orders on enemy units. For example I could just click on each bunker and assign it high priority. My TAC AI would now know what I thought the bunkers were worth being destroyed and could have all availble assets target away. This might not be a problem once TAC AI has been improved. But it seems a perhaps quicker way to dealing with targeting issues that have become much more important in real time, even though it is the reverse of how things are generally done. Instead of selecting multiple units and the target command the one enemy that you wanted target would be all that would need to be selected. Maybe it is impossible or just not good, occurred to me this morning and wanted to throw it out there.

Hey wanted to run a quick question by some people who have played multiplayer. I pretty much played the old Combat Missions solely quick battle TC/IP with friends. Well quick battles don't seem very interesting anymore (but if I am wrong for multiplayer please tell me!) and TC/IP must be real time. It looks like I will soon have a chance to play the game with one of my friends and would really like our first multiplayer battle to be as enjoyable as possible. So wondering if people had any recommendations for a battle or quick battle setting that would make a good multiplayer game?

Before I ordered the game I actually asked about the shipping date. This is the relevant portion of the reply I got dealing with how long until the CDs arrive. "As to the "ship date" it will not be on the 27th, but probably at least a week or two after before the CD's are in stock and being delivered."

BFC said A mere 36 keys to remember? What, are you over 30 or something? Seriously though, after a couple days wish I could say I was picking up how you had laid things out but still continue to give the wrong orders.

Maybe it is because I played Ground Control 1, which from memory had a similar camera control, but am surprised people could struggle with the camera for more than five minutes.

I got to go with the customer angle as well. Everyone wants more for their money, that is human nature as pointed out. Pretty much any product will get people telling you how they want more (or, more realistically, how they wish priorities were different.)

Shoot, you beat me to it.

It is kind of hard not to compare a game to another game when they share the same name. If I liked element X in a series I feel somewhat rightly upset if element X is no longer present when the series continues. I enjoyed the purchase system in CMx1 and did not worry about min/maxing and hope that more randomness if unit selections will be made availble. There are three different options for spotting (with two being unrealistic), it doesn't seem silly then that there should be two ways to choose units. A realistic and unrealistic option with the later allowing purchasing would seem ideal. There doesn't even have to be a huge worry if the forces are even balanced for the latter, it is called unrealistic. Will it affect my enjoyment of the game? A little, but not much. But I doubt at the moment that it will last as long on my computer as CM:BB. But time will tell, I realize I am airing my comments early.

This is my literal first impression. I have played the game once, and avoided other people's reviews for the most part. Also I didn't read the manual so I went in blind (though skimmed the manual before posting this). First game: Quick battle, real time, open territory, blue attack, tiny force, forget the other settings, controlling blue. Elite difficulty (if difficulty is the term). Result: Overall victory Simple strategy for this one. I had 8 strykers and two platoons of infantry. Allowed my strykers to pound away on the Syrians for about ten minutes and then marched my infantry, got a total surrender with about two minutes to go. Play Experience: Positive but not blown away. The first time I played CM:BO I did something similar (played without reading about the game). Then I knew I was playing something amazing, everything was very clear. This time it was a lot more hazy. Because I didn't buy the units really I didn't have much of an idea what was what. Strategy wise I didn't find it very hard, I think much more of the "relearning" has to do with the change of engine then modern combat. Main Problems: Hot Keys - Besides seeming a fairly illogical setup the fact that I couldn't access them all at once was annoying. I went to move a stryker and then give it a face order, only to find out I need to change tabs (because K was used for both hunt and face for some reason). I understand this can be partially edited, hopefully I can get all of the hot keys set. Figuring out what was going on - Even on a tiny battle in real time I was having trouble tracking what was happening to my guys. This may just be an experience issue with the old UI but that seemed a lot clearer (I didn't know until the end of this battle if I had any injured men). Point over terrain/simplicity - In the last game from what I remember there was much more scroll information. Scroll over land, it told you what it was. This time I just had to go on appearance (which at a high angle view was a fairly hard thing to tell). Also there are a ton of icons in the game. I thought I would be able to tell what they meant by scrolling over them but nothing popped up (those I ignored most unit info, which didn't really cause a problem). I hope there is a simpler way to learn them then just looking them up in the manual again and again. Well those are the only problems I noted so far, unlike others I had no trouble moving the camera around (and didn't really use the mouse much). I bought four copies of this to play with friends and am still kind of worried about multiplayer. As a non-PBEM player who wants to play live seeing that real time was the only option was a huge disappointed (at first I honestly felt somewhat gypped that this had not been mentioned when there were 8 million PBEM threads). So I enjoyed the game I played and it looks interesting single player wise, though not the amazing level of CMx1 so far. But multiplayer and the replayibility of quick battles is the real test to come on that.

I like how a whole thread has developed on the validity of putting in computer opponents and that being the hold up, when it was just a floated theory (it seems) and the problem could be something much different. On computer opponents and their necessity (though I play very few games against the computer), some people just don't want to play other people and there a couple reason people haven't mentioned. 1) Some people just aren't really competitive. They don't want to have to worry about taking a game that seriously. They want a semi-serious experience of playing a computer. 2) Winning. Not a problem to play a computer and win yet have it give you a slight challenge. If you are looking for relaxation that might help out. 3) Time. Playing a computer you control completely when and where you want to play. A person is a hugely different issue. 4) Practice. Even if you intend to play other people a lot of people feel the need for a half-way decent computer to learn the game.

That is a generally true fact of pretty much any game to my knowledge. Like I can't imagine playing the Battlefield series against the AI but I know people who only play that way (or at most on a LAN with people they know but not strangers on the Internet). It is still I think common for all games, however those people are obviously less likely to post in internet forums. So if you always play online and visit forums they don't seem to exist.

This isn't a problem at all really, just wait until the demo comes out, then buy. Sure that may be some time in August, but problem solved .

That is kind of what I expected, just sounded like I might be getting two cd keys for the purchase (also remember reading something that the game could be put on to two computers at a time).

I think the answer to two has actually become yes, though I believe the initial assumption was suppose to be no. Not really sure what you are asking in three. Trenches are in from what I remember.

Wait I want to go by that one more time. Say three friends and I (four people total) wish to play CM:SF. All I need to do is order two copies then correct, which would give me four elicense keys, correct?

Random question brought on by the search picture; how long ago was it that the "post a poll" option was removed?

I don't think you understand, they are sighing because they couldn't believe you hadn't heard of this fact yet. You should see an Abrams do it, now that is something amazing.

Good question and sorry to hear that it looks idea didn't make it. I was actually planning on bumping one of the older threads Old Replay Discussion to see if there had been any progress. I had hoped when it came up years ago that it would turn out like PBEM ('We aren't going to promise anything ...' and then it makes it in.)

Steiner14, Now I want to get CM:SF and a couple of kittens.