wagtunes

Never mind. Odd deployment that's a little different from CMBB which is why I couldn't find them. With CMBB, you could +/- through your troops and the trenches would actually show up as a unit. With CMBN +/- doesn't include them in the scan through. You have to physically spot them on the map and move them. In scenarios that are huge, this can be a bit of a logistical nightmare having to visually find all these fortifications. So...I figured out an easy solution. Deploy your fortifications before you add anymore troops. This way at least they won't get lost in the soup and they'll be relatively easy to find, even on a huge map.

In the old CMBB game (which didn't have sandbags) if you chose trenches they showed up on the map and you could place them wherever you liked with the soldiers in them. Well, kind of. In CMBN, they don't appear on the map at all. I figured maybe during the actual start of the game I could find and move them at that point. Nada. What's up? Do these features not work or is this a bug peculiar just to me?

Ah, so that's how it works. Okay. Cool. Learn something new everyday.

It's kind of hard to answer this without actually walking through the process. Different things become available or unavailable depending on what I choose. It's how CMBB worked so I expect that. But like I said, CMBB had an override function so that you could choose anything regardless of what you chose before it. When I get a chance, I'll walk through a brief scenario creation and list the steps here. Then you can try to do the same thing on your end. One thing you can see right from the start on the mission screen is the year and months choices. 1944 is the only year choice and the only months you can choose are June through September. I understand this is historically accurate. But in CMBB you could override this even if you chose a region where there was no fighting in a particular year and still choose that year. It's been so long since I played CMBB that I'd have to look in the manual to see how to override the restrictions.

Had to come back and report that my CD came in the mail today along with a printed manual that I wasn't expecting. A very pleasant surprise.

I had this whole thing ready to respond with and then I figured it out after doing some history research on the 101st Airborne. Long story short, I was picking the wrong options. However, my point is, under certain conditions, some things won't be available because, historically, they didn't go with certain things. If I remember correctly in the old game, you could override all that and pick anything regardless of whether it technically went or not. I understand that this is now more historically accurate, including the graying out of certain months, which you could also override in the old game in order to get some pretty bizarre combinations. Point is, if you choose Column A, you can't get anything you like in Column B, unlike CMBB where you could override all that, unless of course there is also an override function in CMBN. I haven't read the entire manual yet so I don't know if one exists. But long story short, I am now able to choose 101st Airborne as long as all my ducks are in a row. Thanks for helping me walk through this.

Got it. Referring to the "Appearance" tab. The only option available is Standard. Everything else is grayed out.

Okay, been getting into this game a lot the last couple of days working on creating scenarios. Noticing a number of grayed out options (not available) while creating that, no matter what other options I choose, are never available. Now, I did purchase the Big Bundle, so I should have everything. So, are there just options that are never available? If so, why were they put in the options list? I seem to remember in CMBB there was some kind of override to allow to pick options that weren't normally available. Does such a thing exist in CMBN or do conditions have to be specific for them to be available? Scratching my head trying to figure out how to get, as an example, 101st Airborne to be available?

Okay, that is just awesome. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks for the offer. I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that yet. I am by no means an expert at this game, old version or new. I just play it because I love it and always find it challenging even against the AI, which might be a good thing as I know a lot of people are so good at this that the AI presents no challenge at all. But if I ever think I'm up to it, I'll definitely give you a buzz.

Fascinating to see how this series has progressed and improved over the years. I give Battlefront a lot of credit for this game. IMO, it is far superior to every other WWII simulation out there.

I'm going to assume all the above becomes really super cool when you go to split squads. Okay so where's the "I'm really super excited" smiley? I don't see one. lol

Thank you both. I did not realize all these things were added to the game. Wow...now I'm even more intrigued than ever. I guess it's time for me to tear the manual apart and see exactly what has been changed and how much more there is that I can do with the new engine. I expect this to be a crap ton of fun.

Your enthusiasm for this game is wonderful. I share it totally. Finally did get the scenario editor down after a lot of reading and scrapping and hair pulling but I nailed it and finished my first relatively small battle and tested it. Played very well and gives both sides a fighting chance. In fact, it was a real nail biter for me, losing 3 of my 4 tanks. But one managed to sneak through the artilary fire and lead my troops to victory ending in the Axis surrender of their town. Something I have noticed about casualty figures compared to CMBB. In the latter, usually wounded outnumbered killed. Now it seems it's reversed. I'll keep testing with other scenarios (mine and the stock ones) but my gut tells me that this is an actual change in the logistics of the game. If I'm right, why it was done is a mystery to me. More realistic? Don't know. Didn't study WWII casualty figures to be able to answer that. But I suspect this is the case. Will have more as time goes by. Like you said, steep learning curve and it's almost like I'm starting all over in spite of playing CM since 2005.

Thanks. Yeah, I'm most likely doing something wrong. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.

@Christopher Thank you so much. This is all great stuff. I am getting a hang of the editor though I'm having some minor problems with reinforcements, trying to assign more than one squad to one reinforcement box, for lack of a better term. I'm not sure it's possible or if it's just more user error, which it probably is. Game is much different from CMBB as I am finding out. Thank you and everybody else for all your help. You guys are the best.

Thanks. I finally did find that and suddenly all the lights came on. The missing units? It's my eyes. The graphics are much different from CMBB and you really have to look at some of the smaller units. It will take some time for me to get used to the new look, which I love. It's just a bit of a learning curve. For now, I should be good to go. PS - This editor is amazing. So much more powerful than CMBB and the terrain height level tool is superb.

Thanks. I will read the PDF but I do have one last question. Is there a way to rotate the troop so that it's pointing in the direction you want when the scenario starts? There was a rotate hot key in CMBB but I don't see one here. Granted, the whole command structure is totally different so I'm probably just missing it. Have no doubt this is all user error or PEBKAC. LOL

Well, I've run into my first WTF moment. I understand that somebody said the map editor is different from CMBB but something is going on that I don't know if it's a bug or I'm doing something wrong. I just created a very small map (about 208 meters square) just to make sure I understood the basics. I went through everything including the Mission where you setup your friendly edges for allied and axis. I set allied to E and axis to W. I then chose just a few units to make sure they were placed at opposite ends of the map. 3 things. 1) Not all my units were placed. 2) Some of the axis units were placed on the same side of the map as the allied. Not all, but one vehicle in particular. 3) The units that were placed were facing N and not W as I expected them to be. I can try going through the steps and report each one (will take some time to document) but is there anything off the top of your head that would cause this to happen? Is there a way to load up a stock map and scenario to see how units were placed? All the years I've played CMBB, I shouldn't be having this much trouble with the map editor. Everything else as far as building and brush placement is working fine. But deployment (yes, I did find the deploy commands for each) seems to be not quite right. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Just wanted to come back and let you know that I just ordered the whole shootin match. Downloading now on my 122 Mbps connection. LOL. Shouldn't take long at all. Thanks for all your help.

Thank you very much. Appreciate the assistance.

Well, I ready to pull the trigger on buying this game but I'm a little confused on the price. On the sales page here if you go down to Big Bundle, it says $135 crossed out and then $105 under it. However, if you click on ORDER NOW and go to the next page, pulling down the Delivery Method Selection options, the 3 options are $135, $135 and $145 if you want the download and the mail delivery. Is the sale price no longer valid or is there some kind of discount applied at checkout? Anybody know for certain? Thanks.

Thank you. Much appreciated. You know, I was just looking at my profile and on the 28th of this month it will be 10 years since I started playing CM. I can't believe it's been that long.

While I haven't created my own mods for BB, I've created hundreds of maps and battles/campaigns. I see the map editor in BN is even more detailed and I love it. One thing I absolutely love in BN is how casualties are left behind and not dragged along with the unit. It is a much more realistic game visually. So whatever may have been "dropped" from BB to BN probably isn't going to bother me much, if at all as I am really loving what I see here. I am in the US so I won't be hit with any extra taxes or anything like that. But I did notice on the sales page for the Big Bundle that it says $135, scratched out and then $105 (save $30) but then when I click on the drop down box to order, it says $135 and $145 for the download and CD. Is the discount applied at checkout?

Thanks. That's good to know. Just more wonderful challenges to keep me busy for hours on end. (57 going on 15 LOL)