Erik Springelkamp

> Google in help Yes, I can find large number of pages, but I find it hard to separate solid content from propaganda.

Has Russia developed any major new weaponsystems since the collapse of the Soviet Union, or is it mostly gradual upgrades from existing systems? And what upgrades of existing systems would you regard a major improvement? Maybe one should include the Ukraine in this picture, or even Belarus? I would expect major improvements in armour, anti-armour munitions, targeting devices, anti-aircraft systems, cruise missile technology, but I don't have any references for this assumption, but I expect there are some experts in this forum who are glad to give their opinion.

November 11 is St Martin's day, the favourite saint of the Frankish Kingdom. I am sure this is relevant.

I had freezes once and a while, but I could use Ctrl-Alt-Delete ... Task Manager ... Activate Empires of Steel to get the game running again. The freezing can be triggered by clicking on something with a pop-up window active while some processing is going on.

All events are equally unlikely, but there can be a lot of possible events that yield the same result effectively.

Thanks for the real life info. So do you use them for some tasks in the game? Does it impact the performance of the teams when you put their HQ on some remote observation post?

I have now played a couple of scenarios from the British Module, and I have enjoyed it immensely. In the first - border crossing - scenario I was busy with my main combat troops advancing, and found myself with a lot of headquarters sitting idle in the rear. So I ordered them to check out some buildings that I passed by with the main force, using only some suppressing fire during that first pass. While I slowly prepared my combat engineers for the final assault on the main building, the Syrians capitulated when their living area was flattened by artillery, which was accurately called in by a forward platoon HQ by the way. In the mean time a lot of my HQ units had fallen to booby traps and close combat defence by a few remaining Syrian men. So in the end the the most dangerous function under my command proved to be a radio operator. I still feel kind of bad about that. Later I discovered that the infantry HQ units posses the on board mortars, so that gives them something to do. What I still don't get what a HQ of two Javelin teams has to do all the time, even in real life. They take up one of three vehicles to command just eight men. And their vehicle doesn't have much fighting power either. So what do you do with those guys, other then position them somewhere?

After the CMSF install, you need to apply a patch (1.10 I think), and then you can install the module.

I have been an enthusiastic CMx1 player, and when CMSF was announced I immediately ordered the DeLuxe edition. However, I was disappointed with the bugs at the time and lost interest in the game. Some time ago I visited this forum again and I saw the good reviews of the British Module, so I downloaded the latest patches and started up the basic game. I was really happy, and a few days ago I bought the Marine and British modules. So, after this introduction I would like to fall into whining forum mode and describe a feature that I am missing :-). When I have some groups in different areas of the battlefield, I have to watch each of them in the replay - I play WeGo, but the issue would be even stronger in realtime I guess - in order to see if something interesting happened there. And sometimes I forget a group, and some time later I discover I ignored an important event. Also, navigating back and forth between units can be a bit tedious when they are at a distance. So what I think would be really useful is a popup screen with your entire force in little icons in an organised way, where you can select a unit. The screen would also show in some visual way whether the unit had spotted or fired at enemy units, or taken casualties in the last minute. This way you could see in a flash what units to investigate, and what units to just ignore, and it would make navigating among your units much easier. The screen could be activated by hitting 'space' while no unit is selected, for example. A feature like this has probably been discussed before, but I couldn't find any references.

Mine arrived today, Netherlands. Hoera!

Dutch Army, Infantry, Communications, Intelligence, 3 weeks.

Can't you choose quick battle maps by temporarily removing all other maps from the directory?

TacAI calculation must have become a lot more complicated with the 1:1 model. In the old model a unit was just under fire in a certain terrain type. Now there are 10 figures that are under fire in different conditions. So the complexity of the situation is at least 10-fold. And 10 times a few seconds takes up a large part of a minute.

I saw something that might indicate constraints on CPU. When running a large scenario, where my side is waiting for the enemy to show up, I see terrain disappear and the clock moving in larger chunks like 4 seconds, while there is nothing to be seen. So, just in order to prove that nothing can be seen, the CPU is crunching at 100%, dropping details in the map. At these moments there cannot be much capacity left for the AI, unless the AI calculation has a high priority, but even then it is limited to leave enough time to do the basic graphics calculations.

I didn't start up, but at least now I could see the landscape well, which has a huge effect on gameplay, even when not on the computer effects.

I started a scenario - single player turn based - at dawn, before sunrise, so pretty dark. Before I worked out the setup, I went shopping, leaving the computer running. Now that I return to the scenario it is bright daylight. Not a bug, but something to notice.

Ah, I just should have waited a bit longer. The load phase at 50% just took very long. I guess I start going, as it seems it's going to be a long walk.

RTFM With baking you are giving orders for the first gameturn, so the game can begin with a firefight when you are in an ambush situation. The large size is because it is not just a scenario, it has orders for the AI just like a PBEM game.

******** Keep on spoiling ***************** I don't know these forces yet. No idea what can kill what under what conditions. That's why I asked in the first place. I gave one order at the start of the battle: drive a single Bradley next to a building and unload the passengers into that building. When the smoke disappeared I had basically won the battle. The Bradley took several direct hits that looked like they would destroy it, but it survived all of them. The passenger squad started treating the wounded under fire, but I sent them into the building, leaving the bleeding in the street. That felt harsh.

************ More Spoilers ***************** I played as Blue, and a single Bradley defeated half the Red force. After that is was just mopping up. I lost 1 KIA and 2 wounded, who were dismounting the Bradley while it was fighting 3 Red tanks. I'll give it a try from the Red side.

**** spoilers ****************** Is Red supposed to have a chance?

The scenario hangs my program on load

Thank you for your help. I feel stupid for not completely reading the manual. I assumed baking was needed to finish the scenario, but I didn't give any orders, so they did nothing. And I was using the baked scenario.

Thanks, that was exactly what I was looking for.

Sent.