sburke

Well hurry up! I'd love that map!

Yes it can, but that is one aspect I like about it. There are consequences. It kind of reminds me of The Gamers TCS series where you had to implemet op sheets. If your plan was hosed, implementing new orders took time (a lot of time with a poor force) and in that window you paid for your errors. The net result for me is to slow down. Haste is usually what gets me in trouble, not necessarily the 60 second turn. Granted this all comes down to personal opinion and playstyles, but I really do like the current game configuration.

I see you have learned the finer points of how to try to influence people. "I'd like you to implement something new in the game and I know you have time because the product you are delivering sucks and is pretty much a rip off compared to your old product. You guys should work harder for my money". Yes you might be able to create a map quickly, but as you noted w/o the AI. Let's see how long it takes you doing the AI. I honestly have not spent much time looking at the QB maps so others will have to comment on those, but the scenario and campaign maps look pretty darn nice and I know they take a LOT of time. Personally for the money I think I got a really great deal. Sorry if you feel differently, but it is a subjective experience. I also expect your assessment of how much effort goes into producing the game is seriously off.

I don't believe I ever said I knew how much time it would take. I simply assumed it would take some X amount of time that would have to come from somewhere. It seems every change that is asked for on this forum is always done so with the assumption that it won't take any of BFCs time and therefore they should just do it. Personally I start from the assumption that everything takes time and I have no idea of the intricacies involved and therefore am very hesitant to just start throwing out every suggestion that comes to mind. I am betting BFC pays about as much attention to that as I do roadkill while roaring along the highway.

I don't believe there was ever a game called CM1. There was however a game engine by that name which is significantly different than the CM2 game engine that runs CMBN. Yeah I know you knew that.

LOL not according to the post 3 before yours. I love how varied the experience in this game between different players.

Except the time spent by CM coders that would be lost to other projects. Not a small item for something requested by a very very small number of users. -1 on this idea. +1 on focus on the next module

Beautiful.... except for the fact that it was MY landser!! You realize now you have to do an entire AAR of our battle in comic book style?

Kind of like what has already happened here? LOL Seriously thanks Phil for trying to provide some light and clarity so folks realize you guys really aren't ignoring us. Now enough water cooler chatter, get back into your monk's cell and get to work please. Times a wastin! Now about those TPS reports, you know we have a new cover sheet right?

No less crazy than expecting a computer simulation is going to always give exactly the expected results. Seriously a couple of times out of how many situations does this occur and the game HAS to be tweaked? S**t happens, it's a game. They can either spend the next ten years ironing out every occasional oddity in the behavior of the AI or they can keep working on bigger items. Does it suck when it occurs to you (or me) yeah probably, but how often is that? I pay really really close attention to my units (yeah I am one of those nut cases who splits all my teams in an entire battalion) and I can't say I have seen this behavior standing out. Not to say folks aren't seeing this but is it a matter of the occasional incident just being frustrating or are they seeing it a lot? My AT teams are functioning and successfully ambushing tanks, my sniper teams work (including my asst not blowing our position and wasting ammo). Not trying to be a pain in the ass, but at a certain point not everything that goes wrong has to immediately mean BFC has to start tweaking the engine. (at least not if we want to see them churning out the big ticket items) I have had this happen once (and documented in the screenshot thread way back in some shots of a battle with vKleist in Bois de Baugin. So rare for me I can remember the one time in almost a year it occured.

Nevertheless, ya gotta admit it is an interesting article and germane to the OP. Honestly, yeah he can get awfully blunt but I have to admit that most of the time I think he is right and some of our requests..well they just aren't thought out very well. We tend to be very self centered on the things that bug us and what therefore is an acceptable solution. Rarely do we think of the wider ramifications of our requests, what that might mean to trying to configure the AI or even the impact on other players. For example on this very thread there is a suggestion to make a change and the requester considers the only issue to be: Seriously? Up the required computing power when many of the players out there are already struggling on older machines? I mean yeah I generally feel folks should consider upgrading anyway, but that is a financial burden not everyone can simply take on.

I may actually have an occurence of this and a save. I need to go back and look to confirm, but I had reviewed the scene several times trying to see what this unit was firing at as I wanted to confirm if there were any casualties, but I couldn't find the target.

I do. I am in a pretty big PBEM fight right now (reinforced Inf Battalions slugging it out in the hedgerows). The game turns get flipped around slower, but the reward in seeing the small unit behavior is worth it. Broadsword and I both split up our squads and spend quite a bit of time checking out how all our units are behaving. It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but watching the game at that level of detail makes me appreciate just how phenomenal a job BFC did on this game.

If this is still occuring it may be something more specific. I had an FO team call in artillery fire and the team was eventually wiped out as the strike was being called in. The fire was resolved and the battery eventually was available for other observers. It may have gotten past the spotting rounds though, prior to the team being hit. I didn't bother with a save at the time as I expected this was fixed and it was performing as expected.

Wait, are you saying.. no you couldn't, yet it does sound like...yes I think it is.. It was that way in CMSF? Sorry I just couldn't resist and I am bored waiting for a turn to come back.

astroturf for carpeting, no problem! Seriously the buildings look great and i vote for no base.

LOL I'd say that was right on the money. I'd go with option 2 as well. I don't look inside the buildings all that often. One question though. Have you noticed any impact on unit movement with the bases removed? Be curious if it has an impact on the TAC AI's ability to maneuver particularly for vehicles.

LOL it's all good. Yes we are a passionate and at times cantankerous bunch, but this would be a hellaciously boring forum otherwise. If we didn't have varying viewpoints it would be scary...cult like even. We just all have our personal peeves and playstyles. But regarding the game, Broadsword and I are currently engaged in a brutal slugging match on a pretty stunning map. We expect to be posting some screenshots and an AAR when we wrap up as it is really reflecting the strengths that are in CMBN. If we could post the entire game as something viewable we would as I have yet to have a single moment where the command structure/UI has been a real issue and the TAC AI provides some truly cinematic moments. We had one a couple turns back where the Germans and GIs confront each other over a hedgerow and trade casualties. One lone surviving German flees the fight racing for safety across a wheatfield and runs smack into a couple GIs cowering in that same wheatfield on the other side. A high noon episode ensues with the landser trying to fight with a bolt action rifle against a couple GIs with Garand and SMG. The Landser buys it finally when a tank round hits him from behind (and I think taking out one of the GIs as well). Tanks burning, artillery exploding, tracers rounds zipping all over the place, the occasional casualty far from the front line from a stray round. The game is simply jaw droppingly good. Yeah we all have things we would like, but that comes in the context of a phenomenally amazing game.

Makes a difference when you can logistically support that effort.

I think he meant 600 men, not 0600 hours.

ROTFLMAO!!!! BTW Buffalo, welcome back. Ya got a lot of catching up to do.

See what you started Harry? :eek: Not quite true in a direct sense. CMx2 is a new engine as BFC found the old engine was just not capable of being developed any further. It wasn't a matter of we really like this game and just want to build on it. It was more- grrrrrrr we could do so much better if.. oh hell let's just start from scratch and build it right. (right being their perception of what they wanted, not ours necessarily). Going way back in the thread I'd mentioned a BFC response at length on this very same topic which folks are more than welcome to search for if they want to read it rather than simply asking BFC to repeat themselves.. again. There was a long thread about armor and movement etc. My bet is they like the 15 second rule even less than I do. Who said we were not interested in improvements? We are simply trying very hard to point out that folks are asking for a feature modelled on CMx1 behavior and not taking into account how much different it will respond in CMx2. For example that infantry unit in quick that stops and fires can do so because LOS and LOF are the same thing for that unit. Just as in CMx1 a tank had LOS/LOF simultaneously. In CMx2 that is not the case. Programming that behavior is far more complicated for 5 pixeltruppen in a big metal box than you guys are willing to admit. This is kind of the gap between perspectives. My feeling is Cmx2 gives me more control and more options. Are they exactly the same? Certainly not, but I haven't seen enough in the desire for a CMx1 modelled hunt command to desire it. Now an armored covered arc, that I would like.

It could handle that, but it still wouldn't do what the CMx1 hunt command would do. Here's another example. Your tank is cruising along. The TC spots an AT team out of LOS/LOF of the gunner. The tank stops, it can't shoot and the AT team now has a stationary target. Sure it is easy to put the command in (we'll just accept that contention for the sake of argument), but you aren't going to convince BFC to bother with it if you don't try to answer the issues of what if. They just aren't going to listen because when they do put it in and people realize, "oh crap that isn't what I'd intended", they have a whole other thread of "BFC do sumfink, I got what I asked for, but it isn't what I want!" So move to hunt gets your tank killed by the AT assest only the TC can see, or move to contact has it stop where the gunner can't see the threat?

like wow, I knew that couldn't be true cause the Dead were jammin real hard that NY Eve in Boston and like man I'd have never stopped to log in then... I think... wait what year is it now?

I would suggest then following the whole thread. I think it is actually a very good discussion and it isn't about bickering. CMx1 offered things because it was CMx1. Those same options don't apply in CMx2 as has been extensively noted in this thread with very good, sound, clear reasoning (and yes a little bickering). What I haven't seen from any of the proponents of the old style hunt command is how you'd expect to get past the differences in the game engine. It isn't that anyone is saying "no we don't want the hunt command to work like it did in CMx1". What we are trying to express is it won't work and giving some pretty good examples of why. edit Note in your own response you are already introducing additional commands and complexity to the decision making sequence. See it ain't so easy. What if the TC spots an AT asset the gunner can't see?