Erik Springelkamp

Go to configuration panel -> NVIDIA, and select general preference for the graphics card. Then start Combat Mission again.

I also added a real (wireless) mouse to my laptop, and now I think it will be my permanent gaming platform. With a little laptop table gaming from my lazy chair is much more relaxed than at my desk.

So, how do people manage this command problem for the Russian line troops: Their platoon commanders are part of one of the three squads, so they are in the front line (unless you keep one third of your men back), and I assume they are priority targets. (The other initial casualty was the squad leader of another squad, so the Germans seem to pick on the leaders). Keeping the company commander close by will also increase his chance of becoming a casualty. Is it just the fate of the Russian line troops to often fight out of command? With the other nationalities it was always much easier to keep their commanders a little bit safer, as they are a separate unit. Or should I routinely split the commanding squad into teams and keep the team platoon commander back a bit. That would not be elegant.

I had to configure the graphics card to be used by the game manually. Before I did that, CM used the integrated graphics, with similar results as you describe. But with the graphics card the results were very good. I have now set the laptop to automatically use the NVIDIA for everything. It is probably using more power, but I am normally on the grid, so that doesn't matter, and I could make it selective again easily when needed. My laptop also has the GT 840M

Ah, I found the place to download offline installers for Java, and I chose 64-bit version, so it will not run in my browser, and there were no ask.com offers. And now double-click on the jar works as well as using the command line. (it also made Vassal work)

Quick question. Right in the opening phase of a battle a sniper killed an infantry platoon leader, one of the kind that is part of a squad. After some time all the squads still have no command link to the platoon, although they are all close together within sight. Will someone else take command of my platoon, or will they be out of command for the rest of the scenario?

> Not much difference between thugs is the Netherlands beating up ethnic minorities and thugs in Moscow beating up ethic minorities. I know you just took a random European country, but neonazi's or other groups beating up minorities is extremely rare in the Netherlands, as are neonazi's in general here. (Not saying there is no other racism here though). In the East of Germany it is a real problem though, with arson attacks and murder occurring regularly. But one cannot accuse the German government of supporting such things. That is the big difference with Russia, but unfortunately Hungary as well. And Ukraine.

So modern BMP's are not designed to move away from the enemy :-)

Ah, I will try that -jar option. It is over 10 years ago that I worked with java, and forgot what options to use. Java evidently expected my jar to be a main class, that is consistent with the error message. Thanks.

The license says you are allowed to install the game on one computer, plus one back-up computer. As you are only playing on one computer at the time, the other computer will then take the role of backup computer. In practice you have four activations, and one additional each year, so as long as you don't hand out your license key, which would violate both the letter and the intent of the license, you can install it on all your computers.

I would like to use Mad Mike's ScAnCaDe tool to decompile some campaigns, and downloaded his latest version 1.7. However, I cannot get it to run: I have installed the latest Java runtime (which I hardly trust any more, considering Oracle's effort to make you install additional stuff) on my Windows 7 machine, but double clicking on the jar doesn't produce anything, while using the command prompt to make java.exe execute the jar produces the error message: "cannot find <jar-name>-main class". I know this is not a support forum for this tool, however I don't know where else to ask this, and I assume there are people over here who use the tool.

I found making screenshots and enlarging them (zooming in a photoviewer) is the easiest way at the moment. When enlarged they become very clear. With fraps it can be done in a few seconds, klicking through the briefing, pressing the hotkey, then alt-tab to the screenshot directory and read them. But it is still a hack.

I understand that. I still don't see the advantage of removing the mod folder before patching. If everything is fine after the upgrade you are fine. If it is not, you can remove the mod folder to investigate. But when you have moved them away before and your mod folders contains incompatible mods, you will also encounter them after putting them back, so that involves extra moving around. Anyway, I only have a few simple floating icon mods in my folder, and they have never caused me problems. I can however imagine that with a ton of mods, including GUI and other tricky ones, one should be more prepared.

Taking away the mod folder and putting it back makes no sense. The patch doesn't touch it during the upgrade process, and when it contains incompatible mods, you will have problems after putting it back anyway. And if saving your hotkeys.txt and putting it back works (and it does), then the patch shouldn't have touched it in the first place. The hotkeys.txt had to be changed in some older patches, because of new commands or errors in the original one, but for the last few patches this wouldn't have been necessary, but it probably was a nuisance to the developers to remove that part from the installer. But now it is a nuisance to the player. (Well, a small nuisance, but anyway).

It starts quite moderate, then after a few seconds you can see the 'foliage barrier' moving away. And when I raise the camera or move around, it moves even further away. Only on large maps I see the foliage reappear in the distance when I move the camera back. On medium or small maps the distance will remain larger than the map size. At least now we have another sighting of this effect. In general the other details on my screen are quite good, and high definition quality for for example road textures extends much further than on my older PC. So it is not a simple matter of too little video memory. So I am curious what is supposed to rule the distance at which foliage is replaced by trunks in this view?

Yes, the text in the license dialog screen is confusing and misleading and made me do it wrong the first time as well.

Yes, that is on trees detailed. All display options are on best.

Obviously I use the tree trunk mode a lot (no foliage near by). Now I installed the CM games on a new laptop, which has higher specs than my PC. On the laptop the foliage disappear much further away than on my old rig, and when I move the camera around, more and more foliage disappears, not to return again (until a full redraw is needed, like when I put the laptop to sleep). On small and medium maps there are usually only trunks left, no foliage at all. It is not a game breaker, but it is not aesthetically pretty. I wonder how this is for other players. Is this normal, or is something wrong with my drivers (or settings)? (NVIDIA GTX 760M)

I always considered IRON mode as a service, not a penalty, to the player. It gives you an instant image of the perceived reality of the selected unit, which helps understand its situation. I have been using it exclusively since CMSF. EDIT: seems I am not the only one, C3k, :-)

That would require some really gung-ho politicians. I hope the leaders can restrain themselves from such irresponsible behaviour.

> If Ukraine fell then Poland, Hungary and Romania might be the next to face Russian invasions. The political situation and relation with Russia is for Ukraine completely different to that of those other countries. Ukraine has been an integral part of the Russian Empire for a very long time, something that applies much less to the Baltic states, and not at all for Poland, Hungary and Romania. (although the borders of Poland have been a bit fluid over time).

Beautiful, but I think it needs a different horizon. No hills there, as far as I know. Don't you get a flat horizon automatically in the Dutch theatre?

In the real world there is often some cover on a scale smaller than 8 metres. The abstraction on this scale can be problematic: often cowering would hide you completely from bullets, while in CM the casualties keep happening.

I don't think the Israeli annexation of the West Bank led to a world war. Neither did the occupation of Tibet by China. Or the conquest by Pakistan of parts of Kashmir. I may have missed some other cases.

I installed it right after the 3.0 upgrade. It was very confusing. I made errors. After the Vehicle pack installation I started CMBN and it asked me to license it. I used the old (1.0) licence key first, because the license program instructed me to enter "the key that I had received when I purchased the original product". That didn't work, like the instructions in the README had told me, but the contradicting instructions were disturbing. Then I used the 3.0 key, and that worked. Then I started a program that had a link on my desktop: Licence Battle for Normandy. In retrospect that might have been put there by the 3.0 upgrade, but I had licensed that upgrade already during the installation procedure. I used the 3.0 key and that worked. I hope I didn't waste a licence this way. Then I used the "Upgrade Modules" link on my desktop three times to enter the keys for respectively the base game, the CM-MG combination that I have bought, and for the vehicle pack. CMBN now started with all the modules active, and I had a deep sigh. I don't like this procedure. And I am a professional programmer.