CAS

If you "cheat" by replaying the scenario you can keep losses low. When replaying you know where the enemy is and can suppress accordingly. If you only play the scenarios once it is a lot harder! You do not have the ammunition to suppress the entire map. Losses add up and the successive scenarios get harder. And still you can win some campaigns first try! That´s what I call acceptable losses

In the Afghanistan game the enemy was fleeing from the map (fighting retreat). I liked that! Combine it with units surrendering when you get close. In most scenarios I think the timing for the retreat / surrender of the enemy is OK. I only play the scenarios once and see if I can win the campaign. If the enemy gets much more resilient I have no chance to win... P.S. Steam brought me back to the game! Good decision on Steve! Hope for the fire and rubble release on Steam!

Sad to see units removed from the campaign Would it be possible to ad all Syrian units to the base game? I think most customers would buy the modules for the new campaigns and western units anyway. Thanks for the update to SF2. Had no problems with the install!

- a cinematic mode without transparent buildings and crosses for casualty s - a new advance movement order where a unit advances until contact, engages until contact is lost, waits a choosable amount of time and continues the advance. Preferably the advance state could be toggled on/off for all movement states. - boarding rearming and disembarking vehicles in the same turn.

If i have the time I like the big scenarios. Mechanics like flanking, recon and long distance stand-offs work better on the big maps. WeGo is essential in the big scenarios because the game performs better and because it is easier to maintain control.

The reason why I play more WEGO lately is that the game performs way better in the big scenarios. (on my system at least) And I enjoy the replay feature which unfortunately not is possible in Real time. And yes in real-time there are phases in the battles where i hit pause bottom every 10sec. (i do not have replay, so I have to know what is going on) Having played both Real time and Wego I do not think that the implementation of the fog of war from real-time to WEGO would have any down sides (you only have to click once to get the big picture) But well it takes programming time and probably it is not essential. In my opinion the combat mission series has one of the best C2 systems I have seen in comparable games. It is a hidden gem that I would love to see improved upon. In no way I wish a game that is more clumsy to play or more cumbersome to select units. I do not have the time or interest to have a stack of papers besides the game with self limiting rules (used and proposed by other players) My wish is to use the implemented C2 system to full effect. A unit out of C2 should not even be able to react to the threats it does not see. (that´s why you should not be able to give orders to them) A unit out of C2 should not be able to give you (as the commander of the operation) information about the enemy. In the modern games loss of C2 is not as big an issue as everyone has radios -but in the WW2 era it would make a big difference. Just to round up the discussion from my side, as I do not think we are going anywhere. And if Steve does not even play in iron himself I think we have a lost case... And of course I am still supporting your product as it is still unique on the marked. (just a shame for the hidden gem)

Thanks for the answers. I tried playing a bit without deselecting units. Did not really work: In WEGO you can always see all units while giving orders anyway. In real time it worked better but if you cycle throe the units you will still select the units out of C2 and see what they see In RT it works better if you only click on units your HQ can see, but it does not work for voice and radio contacts. In between you try to select a unit but you miss it and immediately you get the big picture and can see all units. Would have been an easy way to make it work ... unfortunately it does not seem to be the solution.

Hi Steve, I know we discussed this before and I do not want to take too much of your precious programming time for one of my favourite games... But you seem to seem to be quiet active on the forums the last days and I feel I have to support the argument for a "improved fog of war" while the discussion came up again. I know from my kids that sometimes they do succeed in getting their will after asking me multiple times because i can see the issue is really important for them. -and their arguments get better and better. Two questions: 1.Can you actually see or estimate how many players play in which difficulty mode? 2.Can you see or estimate how many players play in SP or MP (sometimes I am worried with games shifting more and more to MP) I ask because I would expect most players to be interested in the most realistic difficulty setting. They chose to buy a game that is proud to be one of the most realistic and well researched games on the marked. It is not the easiest game to buy / install and understand and there are many games on the marked that have a similar setting and are more accessible. The biggest difference is focus on realism and detail, which is best represented in iron mode. Maybe the naming "iron" is a bit confusing. Often in computer games the higher difficulty settings mean more enemies and unfair advantages for the AI. This is not the case in "iron mode" and maybe "realistic" would be a term that would motivate more people to play this mode. Concerning the MP / SP aspect of the game: If you still want to invest in the SP aspect of the game, all improvements to the tac AI should be a good investment. The argument that you need the player for every decisions of a small teams /squad works best in the MP environment. In SP you want your AI opponent to react reasonable too! I think that it is important that the AI can react appropriate when coming under fire so I would not mind if some units with broken chain of command do their own "AI thing" (of course there is room for improvement still... did you not say it is on top of your list for the next patch ) Probably your military contract would also be interested in more realistic representation of broken comms and the ensuing loss of control and confusion. I would love to see what the missing radio would do to my T34 platoons or if I would succeed in commanding a Italian battalion with the few radios they have. Maybe I would understand that it was neither the Italian soldiers nor the Italian officers that failed but the problem was that the soldiers never found out what the officers wanted them to do Just as a reminder what I would like to see: -loss of chain of command: unit greys out and becomes unresponsive/ continues orders, no updates to intel from the unit. - after a certain time without orders/ out of contact the unit try´s to re-establish contact. - a new, more robust waypoint order where a unit advances until contact, fights and continues to the waypoint as soon as the contact is lost. (would make it possible to make battle plans for units without comms in the beginning of a scenario) - an after action review where all units are visible (so we can see what the AI did while we could not see them) Remember such an update would make it interesting to play ALL the games again (oh wait - I do not have the time to do that...) Hope you can accept that I had to push for my favourite topic again. (hope you do NOT stop all work on comms and AI in protest )

France and the polish campaign would be nice!

So true, would be a great feature, one of the most important ones for the entire series. I learned to love the 1min replays and they it would be greatly improved in a "true" cinema mode. Should not be too difficult to implement for the developer (what do I know...)

I have been playing my last games wit a strict policy to keep my units in C2 and this is not impossible! (WW2) You have to keep the officers closer, take good care of them and recover all lost radios! With free line of sight the squads are allowed to move pretty far away. You can still move them further away than C2 and give them complex commands before they break contact. You will just not see what they encounter before they are back in C2. Obviously a squad is more fragile when out of C2 because it can not split up and react dynamic to new contacts with flanking manoeuvrers. Autonomously they can: - react with fast move (move order) - cancel move order (when suppressed) - stop (hunt order) - retreat (when suppressed) (additionally i would like them to stop and fire on contact, continue to the waypoint after a certain amount of time without contact) All this is not perfect but certainly not a game breaker! The problem now is: You send a squad or even a tiny recon detachment to the front. The soldiers (without radio) spot a enemy and you (as the commander) have instant knowledge of the situation and adopt the behaviour of the entire Company to the new situation. This situation encourages the use of small teams spread over the map as cheap and effective recon. This is not realistic at all! I would prefer degraded control over units out of C2 over this unrealistic "über" view. In reality a isolated squad without C2 would be pretty helpless and useless in the big picture. Of course this is not everyone cup of tea and it should be optional. Sorry Bil Hardenberger for hijacking your thread, at least I think we share some ideas.

Just what I thought: I do not have the time and temperament to play it the way you do with all the paperwork next to the computer. But I really like the realism aspect of it! - no orders to units out of C2 - no feedback from units out of C2 - a more robust hunt order where units stop and fire on contact, continue to the waypoint after a certain amount of time without contact. - when idle for a prolonged time units should automaticly go back to the last known location of their commanding officer Would be the most important improvement for the series for me. And a step forward for wargaming

What i would like to see is more advanced / realistic communication: A new difficulty mode would feature that you only can use the soldiers within comms range. Out of comm range you can not give them orders and you do not see what they see. A two man recon team would need an extra waypoint to get back to the commander to tell what they could see. Squads or tanks without radio would have massive disadvantages. Flares and cable comms could be implemented to compensate for some of it. I know we discussed it before, it is still the feature I would like to see most.

I like the fleeing soldiers in 4.0 Played a German campaign where you play some scenarios with elite SS or Falschirmjäger troops and others with green Luftwaffe or Marine troops. The difference is huge! For the green soldiers it is essential to keep them in command range. And your enemy's will flee too! The fleeing soldiers seem to be especially happy for big shell holes....

A new move (fx. Advance) Speed like normal move, when the unit gets under fire instead of changing to "fast" the unit should take cover and return fire. If the unit is out of contact it should proceed with the move order.

Would be nice to have a official comment on the amount of work needet.... We can only guess. If you look at the first page of the threat you can see that the manual states: If you have a friendly unit not in line of sight or in contact with another friendly unit, then the only way to find this unit is by either re-establishing contact with another friendly unit..... Looks like the feature was about to be implemented? Problems with the Code? Bad Gameplay? Hard to Imagine the Ai could have Problems with the extra fog of war. The AI does not seem to react with dynamic movement orders to enemy Contacts in the first place?!

I have been playing the game with these self restricting rules and it is possible with orders. What is not possible today is the extra fog of war you would get if units out of C2 would not feed you with informations about the enemy. All the talk about the insufficient AI... I think the units are good at taking cover, fleeing and shooting back! And that is all i would expect from a unit out of C2

I really would like this to be implemented into iron mode! Looks like much of it already is in place. If you click on the units you get a realistic picture what the unit is aware of. If you un select the unit you should get a picture of what all units in C2 are aware of. The problem is mostly for WW2 games with low number of radios. I feel like cheating when i send a 2 men spotter team without radio into a outlook position and i instantly can see everything they see. Would be nice to give them a move order to a spotting position, a pause order and a move order back into C2 where you get icons for the spotted units. If units reach the destination of their move order they should stay there. If the order gets interrupted by the enemy (or they have to flee) they should eventually move to the closest known friendly position to get into C2. A sniper team should work just fine this way.... If friendly unit icons would be click-able you could use scouts as runners to give orders to units out of C2. Last week I was playing the FI mission where you as the Italians have to defend a beach: The Italians had no radios at all!!! This would need fixed cable communication to be implemented. It would add so much to the game! Imaging reestablishing C2 to a separated unit: you can hear a firefight in the distance... are they all lost? -is everyone OK? In the real world even elite forces can get lost when C2 ist lost as we can see in "Bravo Two Zero" link: Bravo Two Zero

The roads in GTOS are great. You can order your vehicles to follow roads (good path finding) to make them move faster and reduce chances getting bogged. And you can order your troops to follow the vehicles (in the Mius update they will even take cover behind the vehicles) In relation to the unbalanced battles: The dynamic campaigns sometimes produce battles where you face overwhelming forces, this is how it should be. If it is hopeless just retreat. The early German infantry units have sparse AT weapons. If they manage to immobilize a tank it can still be a little victory in the big picture.

It is a fantastic game! The developer is very activ with patches, even adding new features along the way! I bougt it from Steam and after the latest patches the installation of the addons is easy. The game takes a lot of time to get into! both the way the strategic phase on map and the RT tactical gameplay are different from all other games i know. The documentation is bad but there are some good userguides. Good things: - great gfx. Big maps and nice visuals on the outside of the playable map too. - the best dammage moddel for vehicles i have seen in a game: ammo cookoff, visible track dammag, parts blowing off (unfortunatly not the turrents). - after the game you can have a look at the map and look at the dammage, including hit vectors etc. - advanced communication, flares and field telephones including personell and vehicles to place the wires. - a dynamic campaign map with persistent dammage on the RT maps -visible air support The best is if you get "Steel armor: blaze of war" you get a tank simmulator (M60+T62) + the campaign and tactical gameplay from GTOS. This way you can play as the commander "1 person" and give orders to your units on the map. Things i am missing from CM are the cover system behind low walls and in buildings, breaching, mines and buddy aid. I think both games are classic!

When i am talking about firing at icons i only mean the icons that appear because other units have eyes on the target. If a unit has LOS/LOF on the icon it should fire. I absolutely do not want them to fire at all the contact markers including the fadet ones.

Yes, thanks for the detailed response, valid points and some nice links you posted! Took me some time to read through it... i mean units should autonomously be able to fire at new contact icons! Sometimes some of my soldiers can see an enemy in a building, the tank right next to them can not see the enemy but get´s a new contact icon. I usually manually order the tank to (area) fire at the building. Now i would like the tank to area fire on that new contact icon autonomously. Are tanks in contact to nearby infantry when turned in? (i think they should when in the same square) Did Bil ever play a match with these rules? (the link you posted) The taking cover mechanics could be better but they work now and all in all it would encourage a game play where you try to stay in contact. If you lose contact it is likely that things go from bad to worse (like in RL) Does it make more sense to stay in place if you have no active orders? Some forces have a routine to re establish contact at the last known friendly location. Overall i understand your concerns, but i think it would be an interesting game mechanic without being too complicated.

I finally own "fortress italy+GL+3" (+SF, Norm, BS) After a day off struggling the whole day with the installation, the game support helped me to get the game running (server issue). I have enjoyed playing the game for the last weeks and i am sure there it will take me a long time to play all the missions. One of the reasons why i decided to buy the game were the different Italian order of battle and their sparse use of radio equipment. Coming from BS where every unit has a radio, i hoped for a new different challenge. I was surprised to see that in some instances soldiers without radio equipment could call in indirect fire (on map) without being i contact to other troops. I understand from other forum discussions that this is a trade off simulating other communication means like cable and flares. The reason why i post is that i wish we could have a more restrictive communication in iron mode. All CM games would profit from that. - it should only be possible to give orders (move/fire) to troops that are in communication with other troops (not only their own chain of command) - If troops are out of communication and sight they are replaced by a fading unit icons until they are in communication or visible again. - The unit will still follow the orders made before communication was lost - For better unit control the hunt command should continue after contact with the enemy is lost (fx. 30sec. delay) - If cable communication is simulated there should be icons for it (after a delay to establish the link) - the chain of command could be better simulated by giving commands additional delay if the unit establishing the HQ link is not part of their own formation. - to balance the loss of control units could be allowed to fire on fresh communicated contact markers from units they have direct communication. (fx. a mortar team or tank firing at a fresh enemy icon that popped up after a soldier close to them got eyes on the target. should be low rate of fire) - Tanks that are turned in and have no radio can establish contact with ground troops in the same action square. - If troops are out of contact a long time (10-15min?!) they should move to one of the last known friendly contact markers to reestablish contact. This advanced communication would give some nice game play challenges and open op for some nice search and rescue scenarios. I just played the battle where you have to find the crew of an ambushed half-track in an Italian city. With this game mechanic in place it would have been possible to find the crew, establish contact and get them to a exit point or to buddy aid the casualties. All in all battles would be more dynamic with units loosing contact because their radioman is down and then them showing up again after the radioman is buddy-aided. Hope this is possible, would make a grate game even better. Maybe Steve has the time to comment? Sorry for my english Regards CAS

Thanks for the help! I found a solution to fix it, might be interesting for other win 7 users as well: I had to mark "desktopgestaltung deaktivieren" (something like deactivate desktop layout) by right clicking on the shockforce ikon! Great! I am set for the next modul!

Just reinstalled the full package on my new rig: i7 860@4Ghz, ATI 5870 (9.11), samsung syncmaster 24´1920-1200. Game is unplayable because of extreme flickering! Hope i get it fixed before the new addon comes out! Hope you can help????