slysniper

OK, fixed it, I see what I did wrong before. Unzipped the file and did not take all the graphic files from it.

Ok, I am hoping somehow I just managed to get a bad file download, but I am having missing graphics. First battle I tried to startup was missing the hummers and the Bradley's. Blue Icons showed them there but no unit. men were on the ground. reinstalled the file, fixed it some but those units still did not show up. So redownloading the install file now. Any suggestions Of anything else I should do.

The in game info does not do a good job as to letting you know how good each tank armor protection is. The only way to do it presently is how these guys are telling you. Set up some match ups in a QB and see how tanks survive against certain other tanks. You will get a much better feel for what will happen when using them anyway than any chart will ever do you. But rest assured, you will see how these tanks do vary in what they might be able to survive. They are not the same as you are seeing from the simple in game chart

EXCELLENT CONCEPT. Once again you are providing a service to many players. A great way to help improve skill levels of those wanting to use it for such.

There is no question that the game engine does not represent real life all the time. I think its a impossible task to think that it could, its going to have short falls no matter what, I also think its good to suggest possible solutions as to how to improve the game also. So no issue with any of that and yes I do see some things similar to how you do. for a new player trying to learn how to use the game and apply realistic tactics, the comments were not of any help. Pointing out the shortfalls and suggesting how best to apply correct practices is. - That is all I meant. Also I will point out that spotting in the game and it spotting cycle is unrealistic at times (I agree with you) - no question about it. but it is a interesting way to create something that is much more realistic than most any other game has ever tried. I hated the feature at first, but the more I thought about real life experience's I had while in the service, the more I came to the conclusion that it reflects real life sighting challenges pretty good in some ways. Including, me and my partner on a mission not spotting a tank right out in the middle of a valley that we had be observing for over10 minutes once. It was not until a crew member opened a hatch that either of us spotted it.

I love it when someone needs to bring in items of what they perceive as short coming in the game when replying to such a thread First of all, the subleties of infantry tactics tend to fade to the background once there's armour on the field, and generally there's always plenty of tanks and AFVs in CM scenarios. Once you have armour support, I think it mostly becomes a game of using infantry to probe, then blast pockets of resistance with the tanks, then advance and repeat it. Play infantry only battles, issue removed - but you are correct, most provided scenarios are focused on armor conflicts or armour supported conflicts. The second reason is that overwatch is arguably less effective in the game as compared to real life. The maneuver element takes a lot of incoming fire before dropping down, and the overwatch element takes a quite long time to spot and engage the enemy. Once it opens up, the overwatch element then stops firing again as soon as it loses sight of the enemy. In real life, (trained) troops would be intelligent enough to keep suppressing the enemy position while the maneuver element either continued on or broke contact. Sounds like a personal problem to me, overwatch needs to just area fire in many situations before hand, don't wait to spot a unit. Maneuver unit taking fire and being pinned, then it was not time to maneuver was it. That is a sign of not providing pinning fire to the enemy units or not selecting a proper route to close on the enemy. Don't blame the game for the issue. You can say you don't agree with the amount of fire to do such a task in the game, but doing the task can be done in the game. Thirdly, one MG can only reliably suppress one floor of one building. If the enemy squad is split into two sections and they are in two adjacent small modular buildings, you need two machineguns to target and suppress both, even though from the outside, it just looks like one building. True, it would be nice to see machine guns shift fire with some type of command. So that it covered more area in a one minute time frame. - but I find I get decent results by this method. enemy in multiple stories of bldg. then I target 2nd floor, I get a little pinning action on the 1st and 3rd floor from it., next turn fire on one of those floors if they are managing return fire. Would be nice to see a change in mechanics here in the game Also, it takes a lot of fire to suppress anyone, and the effect disappears quite quickly. Also agree, not so sure about the amount of fire being a issue, but I agree that recovery time is consistently pretty fast, seems unrealistic at times. Especially when comrades have died in a unit.

I agree with you totally as to your view of these types of request and as to how well they would work as to creating new scenarios and content. I like to play around with the editor myself and am always looking for different types of tactical situations to set up. So I have found it possible to set up pretty much any of these types of missions to some extent. Now did I find these interesting - yes. Did I find it hard to get the game set up to mimic realistic results from real life events. (very hard at times, but generally it was possible) Would many of these battles make a good scenario. No - seldom and getting victory conditions that make it a challenge and possible victory for both sides is really a hard task to achieve. Personally, I think the magic to scenario design and battle building is looking for ways to create and reflect different battles and somehow show or reflect a direct challenge in that situation. There really is no one type of design that is better than others, so when people ask for scenarios be designed a certain way, I see that as their preference, likely because it matches their style of game play. But I don't think designers should think they need to restrict themselves to such request. I do think designers should stretch themselves and try to create unusual battles, just for the sake of providing distinct tactical situations. As for having the game model the units for those limited situations, its not a good usage of the companies time. But the game can do it, I wish I had the time where I could provide some quality scenarios in some of these type of situations. But I find I don't have the time or desire to do it. But anyone who own the game can learn to create their own wishes with some effort. and when you are doing it for yourself, it takes much less time. because there is so much more that does not need to be done to meet expectations of a scenarios to release to others. I find I can create a map and get troop types to reflect what I want pretty easily. I don't care if the troops don't look correct or wear the right clothing, I care about their setting so they act appropriate for the abilities that I think they have. I don't need to worry about AI limits or programming it. I either play both sides or I find someone to play one side and off we go. The game is a excellent tool for reflecting combat - learn to use the tool and you don't need to hope others provide you the battles you want to play, its within reach of your own finger tips

It sure is funny how most of the people who complain about price and why is the games not on sale for bargain prices are people who have a handful of comments on the site and are recent new members. In other wards I see them as typical gamers expecting the same thing they see with most of the rest of the industry. Expecting to get something for almost nothing after a short life span of the product , with a newer version out and selling again for that company. They have never played any game for any extended period of time and are just waiting for the next thing on the market that they can consume. The concept of a game with depth and years of endless playability is not a possibility in their thought process. Let alone a fact that the company is not capable of putting out new versions in a year or two with staffs in the hundreds to do such things. A product with only a handful of guys working on and making adjustments to and no ability to try and push the graphic limits of the present home computer each and every year. They see it as a unknown logic in the world that they live in and cannot accept it. I find it funny. BF is two guys that came from that world and hated it, created their own way to run and manage their game and have done what they wanted and made the life they wanted for themselves and provided us with games no one in the all powerful industry want to do. So Bf keep selling and doing business how you want. I appreciate the games too much to care about sales and how they do business.

IanL That sounds like a winner to me, a great method for setting victory conditions. No matter how you look at it, the attacker in the game given enough time has a great advantage, thus the reason many designers create a short time to force the attacker into a sloppy attack that if incorrect choices are made, they have to stay with them because there is not enough time to adjust. but like your suggestion, there is other settings that can be used to provide plenty of time and still give the defense a way to win. So a good suggestion as to how to create some battles that give those that want time removed from the victory settings as a way of doing it. But I do like to point out for those that hate tight time limits and think its unrealistic (they are wrong). Yes the game is played in all aspects in a somewhat unrealistic compressed time frame. ( but In any real battle where the opponent can get reinforcements or adjust units or reorganize if given time. The commander of the forces is always fighting to act as quickly as possible, to not allow the opponent the time to respond and to keep the advantage he has even if it might not be the cleanest approach. To seize the advantage and to push the advantage before the enemy has time to recover. So not wanting to deal with time is a somewhat unrealistic approach except for some types of situations. Like many things we see presently in conflicts in the world today. (Where a powerful Nato force is against an ill equipped and trained force, where time does little to providing them with any added force or aid or any additional abilities) in such a situation, cutting such a force off, taking care to preserve life and to remove the threat as cleanly as possible all makes sense.

well, out of all the things I have read here in a long time. This is the first one that actually makes so much sense. These two items if they could be fixed to do just as mentioned. Sure would be a massive time saver for anyone who does work on creating scenarios. My day to day job is working in 3d modeling. So every time I get in the editor of these games I know just how wasteful it is to have to try and envision the change and then have to go back and forth to view the changes and how things are reacting in the model. The thought has crossed my mind but have never thought about requesting if the programming could change. I would suspect it would only happen in the cm#3 engine. Not the present engine The units placement is also a big time waste. Its a feature that gets old really quick. Really would be nice if they could just manage to stay grouped somewhat to their organization.

Oh no, My shot in the dark on possible time frame missed CMRT mod so here is my new guess CMSFII partial release (in a month) CMSF II completely out and Game engine 4.0 update for all games (6 months) CMFI Rome to victory & CMRT mod (11.25 months) and lets put CMRT first (its long over due) MOD for CMBS (12 months) Mod for CMFB (12 Months) I also place a vote for Russian front year 42-43 being the first CM3 game, even though they claim western front games sale better. I can only imagine a new third engine will be at a point when they will want to do many things that they have not been able to do in the past. Along with all the years of learning how to program this type of game. The first game will change at least as much as we saw from CMX1 to CMx2 if not more. It will not matter what the choice is, it should be a big success. ( But Russia does need their love, that front have become the step child in the CM2 series) and as we know, all true war gamers, its their favorite area of history. Forget the money Steve, Please the true fans.

Thanks Steve Nice to have a comment from the source. It sounds like everything is doing well as to your continued sells of games. (so we known you guys will be around for a while still giving us a great product.) Second, it also seems you do see a day when CM3 will happen. (So sounds like retirement is not a thought process that is strong at the moment) So if nothing else, it appears we will be given you our business for many years to come.

I think the statement about CMBB outselling CMBO is incorrect. I recall comments from Steve saying that Yes CMBB had great sells from the true war gamer (those that tend to seek such games) but that they had more sells for CMBO from the casual gamer market which is and by far a much larger market and that is a majority a American market and they only buy games with American forces. Thus almost every game company will always start a series with a match up with American forces involved. I also remember each game had less sells. CMBO outsold CMBB which outsold CMAF (between code issue and declining sells, that was what brought about CMII) If CM3 does ever happen, it will be for similar reasons. I have a hard time not believing each release is declining in sales. There is nothing to show any growth going on that I can tell. and second, its already been mentioned in many threads as to the limits they have hit in this engine and that they re not going to be able to do much more with it. So at some point those two things will fuel a change if the change ever happens. So if enough keep buying and can live with the present capabilities of the current engine. Then maybe more past the list I mentioned could happen. But from what I sense, we keep losing more and more players to other things and more players keep expecting improvements that will never come under the present engine. So sales will continue to drop til they bite the bullet and start again or they just say, time to retire.

I will sell him all my CMX1 titles and the computer that has them on it that still runs. The secret to success, keeping things from the some era together. Old men like old things, computers are the same, old computers like old programs

Rome to Victory - this project got sidetracked due to a bunch of issues, but it's getting a lot of attention these days. When completed, CMFI will have a big list of new forces and the timeframe extended to the end of the war. It will likely be our next release Untitled Eastern Front Module - active work has been going on since the Spring and it's shaping up quite nicely. This will take CMRT up to the end of the war, including some huge Berlin maps. Existing TO&E expanded to April 45, Germans get access to a range of non-Heer forces, new weather stuff, and a couple new Regions. Waffen SS and rag-tag forces will be available for the Red Thunder Module. New Zealand Defense Forces training aid - pretty much that's all there is to say about it. CMBS is owed a Module. CMBS is theoretically next after CMRT. Marines are an obvious selection for the first Module and the work being done for CMSF2 is going to pave the way for that to happen. Personally I think we will be lucky to see these play out and maybe a mod for CMFB before its time to do some sort of new engine efforts. If one thing has been consistent over the years, its been how much BF think they can do in a given time frame that never really happens. So with work already well under way on the next two, no questions there that they are to be completed. Problem was, CMSFII, it has thrown all of these way behind schedule, a year plus at least. Rome to victory was planned to be out a year ago, but then they had the personnel problems and too many projects to work on at the time, they had to shelf something, Rome was it, so once they ever do get back to it, it should be pretty quick to finish in comparison to what has been going on lately. So that leaves CMRT, CMBS and CMFB all never having a mod yet, CMRT work in progress. CMBS-marines - parts to be used from cmsfII. and CMFB will get some help from the work on CMRT and CMFI. So pretty sure these will all stay in the same engine and no major changes. Now once they ever make it to that, I am pretty sure they will see the need to make a change, likely due to sells by that point. But lets see how far out even these games will likely be before we see them. CMSFII partial release (in a month) CMSF II completely out and Game engine 4.0 update for all games (6 months) CMFI Rome to victory (6 months) MOD for CMBS (12 months) Mod for CMFB (12 Months) So my guess is that is where the present engine will end. It will be the end of the year 2021. All present games will have at least one mod, they will all go to the end of the war for the WWII titles and CMBS will never see those other Nato forces. it would be a good time to break into a new engine on a new topic by that point or a old tried and true topic.

Just to show the drastic difference between how the game models the capabilities of western vs eastern tanks. I did a battle in CMBS 4- M1A2 with abs vs 31- T72 B3 range 1500 meters at the time the abrams roll into place to take on the advancing reds. ground basically flat with no advantages. Crews of the same quality for both sides losses were 18 - T72's to take out the 4- M1's Now does that seem like a realistic number, hard to say. what I did find interesting was the Abram kills were 2,3,3 & 10 for one tank I ran him behind a dead comrade and between that and the smoke drifts that happened, he managed to get lucky and take on small groupings. I think its always hard to decide how accurate the game is to RL. But we do have some real events that show just such results. but mostly these events were Israel conflicts and the tanks are not of the same era. Kuwait also, but there is still plenty of variables. but both have some very one sided results. I find within the game, the basic rule is eastern tanks need to get the jump on allied tanks from flanking positions and even doing that, normally they need to have 2-1 odds and for a sure thing 3-1 odds. With that approach, they will normally have time to spot and at least one will fire before the allied unit. Now in truth, in the real world situation I would expect the same. Because no smart eastern tank commander should ever want to engage head to head without a massive advantage, since they are outclassed in many factors. Point value wise its easy to get a 2-1 tank ratio. so game balance wise the game might not be all that bad between the two forces. But in scenarios where you might not have such advantages. learning how and when to use eastern tanks to take on western tanks is a skill to develop. The trick is still to only engage if possible when multi units can attack and the tank has to choose to engage one target. letting infantry bait a enemy tank to engage them as your tank positions and fires from another direction is a good method to take away the western tank advantages. In otherwards, trying to figure out if they have the modelling just right is worthless. Learning good tactics and getting realistic results is the goal. Presently the game portrays most things pretty accurately. That is all that matters.

Thank You so much, So maybe I have been having a little bad luck plus my lack of knowledge on what makes them work. See if I get a better results the next time I have these. Really did not need them in the battles I played, but beating the AI is not really a good test. Need to have this down pat for using against opponents that bring a real challenge

Can someone explain how to get these to work. Not having owed SF1 and now playing with the demo for SF2, I have no clue as to how to get these to explode. Some clear instructions as to how to get them to blow when the enemy is on top of them would be nice. So far, watching the enemy drive over the top of them and not having the activated unit blow is not fun.

The only game that comes remotely close to getting you the feel of realistic combat. Plus the only way to ever have the chance to control such forces. (Even real life commanders do not get that. They do give orders to such units, but they do not get to control them as to executing such orders.) playing a battle right now I would have to be at least a lieutenant colonel in real life and I would have no clue as to what was going on in the details of the battle in all 4 fronts, maybe if I was leading from the front, I would HAVE A SLIGHT VIEW OF WHAT ONE FRONT WAS DOING. who wants that much realism anyway. I enjoy having God like powers

great, something to keep my mouth watering til I gat the whole game

Disagree with the statement that snipers are not part of or should be part of CM battles, that this is not a normal use for them. Sniper units are a asset assigned to upper level command. So yes, they are considered valuable for all the different actions that they can be used for. So yes , they are not constantly placed in normal infantry action situations just for the sake of it. But as with any unit, there is plenty of times they are, again because of the many different missions they are capable of performing. Just one example, performing security for a O.P. post. If that post is calling in arty or air, then the sniper team is considered a good assigned asset if it can help keep that O.P. operational in a contested area. There is no one answer as to how to use assets in battle, again the best thing to do is to learn all the possible ways to employ combat assets so that it is a possible use in your tactics. I will mention it again, go study some manuals on sniper training and tactics. They are a asset much more flexible than many understand or know how to use them for.

You really need to read some books on the subject. But American snipers have many task that they can perform, I find that in CMBS I am able to pretty much do anything I was asked to do in RL. From scout to spotter, to recon, to delaying tactics. to combat fire support , to designated target missions. In the WWII titles, they are not as flexible or as powerful. but they still can be a important factor in your force. In CMBS when it is a buy your own force situation. I find that my snipers are my most important infantry asset. Armor, arty, then infantry. With snipers doing more damage than any other infantry units I use, MG's, grenade launchers and such. My sniper teams that get used normally will have kills in the teens and will be my units to create the most casualties on the enemy. For two or 3 men teams and the cost, that is a good trade. I will not write a book for you on how to use them, but everything mentioned is good. But I will give one comment on a tactic not mentioned. You do not need to baby them or keep them back in a battle if you want them to be killers on the battlefield for you. if you want them to kill, they need to be at the range they can do that. to keep them doing that they need to in a area where your normal infantry units has fire suppression on the enemy. While the other units can pin the enemy, Sniper units can eliminate them. Learning to use them in the game for this might change your view on how snipers work. Keep in mind, A sniper never puts himself in a fair fight, he always wants the advantage, and if he cannot keep that advantage, he always has a escape route to get out of a bad situation and to set himself up at a new location where he has the advantage once more. Gaming and losing snipers is no issue, these are not real men, risk reward actions is worth trying in the game, its not like losing someone in real life.

I will throw in my simple request that has bothered me since their very first cm game. Add a blasted wind directional arrow to the directional compass or something along that lines. drives me crazy that the only way to tell which way the wind is blowing and how strong is to pull up the text in the briefing. Wnen I am looking at a enemy position from a friendly location, I should have a arrow indicating that. instant knowledge as to what likely to expect of smoke and such.

My memory does not serve me so well anymore. but BF has never hit a guess-amated time frame for any release. Other than once as I recall, and that kind of sticks out to me because I was shocked that Steve finially came through with getting one right, even if it was a statement that the release was only a few weeks away. The best move they ever did was when they did cmfI, which was never gave a clue as to it coming out or when. (solved having threads like these) I figure if we are lucky, we see something this month, if not for sure next month

OH look, my timing is perfect, demo is out. Correct as to the AI not being able to hold vs arty. So that is broken, But I never consider AI much of a fight anyway. The only recourse would have been remove the arty from the game files. But hey, your one step closer to getting that new programming today. But I would suggest trying to play other people, at some point you need to test your wings and fly, or your just a chicken. (no wings necessary)