Erik Springelkamp

Well, minor ones, like they used captured Dutch soldiers as human shields during the air assault on Holland in May, 1940.

I have no idea whether this is really the case, but when I saw this behaviour first, I assumed those tanks have automatic detectors that recognise the signature of an incoming missile (infrared?). T90's against Gill's seem to do it all the time, but the rockets often see through the smoke and hit nevertheless.

Yes, I see that kind of thing a lot in my part of the woods. They speak funny as well.

All these questions are so easily answered by looking at the CMA or CMSF demos. Or just wait till the real thing is there. But for your convenience: yes, the demo's allow PBEM and TCP/IP. have done since living memory. And you want Steve to take his time off the launch of the game to answer that easy question for you? http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1659&Itemid=318

I think you have to re-apply the 1.31 patch. See the knowledge base somewhere.

Yes, the Demo is for potential buyers, and you don't want bugs in it (that are not in the game itself). So it must be essentially the same build, with just some limitations. The Demo is not a public beta, or a toy for impatient children.

And there are scenario makers who tell you exactly what your campaign forces are. Sergei, for example, made a campaign for CMSF, where in the second battle the briefing advised you to use the attached police forces as cannon fodder. Paper Tiger also made scenarios with a very detailed background story, and instructions for each battle on how to deal with casualties, when to be careful, and when you would receive replacements and refits.

And some forces in a battle of a campaign are not part of the campaign force, they only take part in this particular battle. If you know who they are, they are the ones to sacrifice, if you have to.

I use that for broad moves, but for finer control I use left-click-drag. I don't see a big problem with using the left mouse button for both camera-control and unit selection, but it can be awkward when you need fine control of the camera-position while plotting a move, like when moving around in large building-complexes.

Great. I think that will make me play more of them.

The State of the USSR was a monster, but in CM we play with the soldiers, and I don't see the Soviet soldiers as ideologically driven. They fight because they are sent there, and a bit for the Motherland. Some officers excluded of course. On the German side one can would have met a bit more ideology on average I am afraid.

BFC may want to offer a placebo version.

They can, if you position them close to the corner. Not all of them at the same time, and some will probably leave cover, but shooting around the corner is included. It helps when you give them a covered arc or facing towards the desired direction.

I have seen very different behaviour there: from perfect hits on the top of a tank by every team of a platoon, to collective misses for every one of them. Even when reloading and replaying the same turn I have seen such differences.

I know, alas. I was just fantasizing. I have played many Quick Battles in CMSF and CMA lately, and the maps and AI plans are great, but the force selection is so poor.

There is no real need for a mod manager, as it involves no more than moving some files or directories into and out of the Z folder.

If they would back-port the new Quick Battle system of CM:BN, that would for me be worth more than the price of a module.

Has anyone compiled a speed table for various modes of movement in CMSF? I do remember a recent speed test for trucks over all the types of terrain.

My bet is the demo is released 2 hours before the full game.

I have been trying to attack a couple of T90's with Dutch infantry just using panzerfausts. But those T90's kill most of the AT-teams when they try to sneak over the ridge, and I had two panzerfaust hits on a T90, and it still killed the attacking team. One team was successful at killing a T90, but that one came through a deep wooded area. I had images about bazookas against Panthers. A problem that will probably arise with bazookas and panzerfausts in CMBN as well, is that as you sneak up against a tank through high grass with a hunt command, that when you spot the tank and the team goes down, it doesn't see the tank no more. It becomes very difficult to move nearer, because with hunt you are visible above the grass, but with a slow command you don't stop once you have LOS.

I think Shoot and Scoot is easy in CMSF, and you can implement all kinds of variations.

But you will have a rough idea about the arrival time yourself, won't you?

Maybe you can just wait till you can play the game and see how it works, before you conclude that it is fundamentally flawed.

Yet it is for vehicles, with respect to possible blocking other vehicles.

The reason is the AI cannot take into account all the changing LOF consequences of its own vehicles moving during the turn.