Childress

Fire up any number of scenarios. 'Rescue on the Outskirts', for example. Place a Syrian squad on the roof of a bldg, adjoining another identical bldg. Plot a movement from one roof to the other. The squad will exit their current bldg, and climb the stairs of the contiguous one rather than step over the tiny, shin-high wall separating them. Renders urban combat rather farcical, methinks.

While a great deal of work was done on the interior door and movement orders, I don't believe the roof top jump was addressed with this patch...I'm making a note of this for my 107 wish list. It may be more difficult to do without creating a situation where troops can be ordered (inadvertently) to jump off roofs. </font>

I see that the crossing contiguous buildings bug is still festering: //www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=003468;p=1#000000

Surrendering troops added some atmosphere and charm to the original series, yes. But, in practice, the whole process was, IMO, kind of goofy and unconvincing; marching that solitary enemy unit, maybe herded by a solitary, tankless crew, off the map edge. But you have a point, in a modern war with Arab armies there seems to be a whole lot of surrenderin' going on. Would anyone be happy with simply abstracting the POWs out of the game along with a to-be-designated friendly guard?

How about a provision to stack different unit types? For example, an armoured corps with an AT formation or combining a land unit with an air wing on a strategic location- like, I dunno, Guadalcanal. I think this preserves the game's lean simplicity and adds flexibility.

One hopes that some of the new features will rectify some of the engine shortcomings discussed in the Malta thread. Right?

I'm with xwormwood, too. It's about taking Malta the *right* way. :; There are higher principles involved.

A squad is on the roof a multi-level building adjoining an identical multi-level building. Sargeant: Ok, men, this building is clear. Let's step over this knee high wall and work our way down the through the next one! Private: Can't do that, Sarge! Sargeant: Hmmm, I see. Ok, we'll retrace our steps down the 5 floors we just cleared, exit out through the door, look out for enemy fire!, and march up to the roof of this here adjoining building! Maybe there are some abstractions going on that I'm missing but has anyone run across this situation?

21- Terrain indicated as tree terrain when trees have been removed (alt-t).

Yes, be careful what you ask for you may get it. The concept of attacking a single unit at a time doesn't bear scrutiny, lol, but the depth and realism of a game like SCWAW lies at the strategic level. From reading the forum, it appears to do this quite well. But to do do justice to a situation like Malta (or Iwo Jima or Dieppe) you really need a way to invade from a non-land square. Also, limited stacking of, say air and ground units. Problem with Malta, is, that to really do it right you 'd need to stack a land unit, a fighter unit and a bomber unit. SCIII?

IMHO the mammoth 1.05 patch represents a major step up, but frankly, compared to the earlier series I still find the 'it' factor largely AWOL. There's still a lot of missing stuff- too numerous to list- that made the charm and addictive quality of CM 1-3. Also the modern, assymetrical setting seems to be an acquired taste for some. It's an ambitious project with flashes of brilliance but I tend to fire up a scenario and lose interest. CMBO after a few patches (there were 12) was more fun and finished feeling- for me. YMMV. But the developers seems dedicated to ongoing improvements. I'd wait until 1.07- 1.06 is apparently going to be a quick fix.

Agreed. One suspects, in the case of the Arab-Israeli wars, that if the weaponry had been reversed the results would have been the same. As was claimed of the the late NFL coach, Bum Phillips and his coaching staff: 'He can take hiz'n and beat your'n, or he can take your'n and beat hiz'n'.

Maybe also some provision for integrating land and air units in the same square. After all, Malta as an airbase dominated supply lanes as a source of interdiction. I suspect the game provides rules to recreate this, but in a wonky, work-around fashion. This opens up the 'stacking' can of worms but one wonders that if the game allowed 2 units per square new possibilities would open up without violating the simplicity the games aspires to. As well as a retreat provision, as you mentioned, or sea based invasion squares. [ December 16, 2007, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: Childress ]

Question: If single square islands cannot be directly invaded how does the game handle the island hopping in the Pacific? Just curious, I don't own the game.

It seems sensible that when you have troops that have closed to close proximity, especially if there is a disparity in numbers, a surrender occurs. This is an event that CMSF, at least in the current version, sorely lacks.

Well, you can do it manually. This won't help you if you favour WEGO, however.

Giving them a limted cover arc, maybe?

Veteran, though Elite will be mandatory if co-op multiplayer ever sees the light of day.

Yes the US is overpowered vis-a-vis a 3rd world country like Iraq,er, I mean Syria. But we have to remember that, in terms of military planning, a closely contested battle is often a *mistake*. Even in WW2. The desirable 3-1 attacker/defender odds from the hoary board games of the past was there for a reason.

LOL. As it stands now, a T55 will stand toe to toe with an Abrams and duke it out. Syrians tankers seem to be missing that useful self-preservation gene. Or it could be sheer chutzpah. Fewer bugs, better performance but version 1.04 is still missing a lot the *stuff* that contributed to the fun, realism and (not least of all) immersion factor evident in the older games. 1.05 could be the magic number- but it will have to be a meaty download, imo.

Calvin, you sent me surfing with your allusion to SLA Marshall. His 'findings', with which I was vaguely aware, are controversial to put it mildly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall (Among other sources)

Yes, CMSF is starting to resemble fun. I actually started reading the imposing manual. Soon after release, I predicted on another forum that version 1.05 would be the keeper. Looks pretty right on, now. I still miss some of the flavor of the older titles like: *actual mortar teams *self-reversing tanks *surrendering troops (Arab armies do a lot of that) *aircraft sounds and shadows *and, maybe above all, appropriate underlying tree terrain when using alt-t

Some flavor objects that appear, IIRC, awol in the game are stationery/abandonned private vehicles-cars and trucks- usable for cover. CMSF aspires to re-create urban warfare, after all.

Or all the extra time devoted to including WEGO *and* RT? Frankly, personally, I would have been happy with either environment. With a few(?) months extra development time we'd have a release version in our hands instead of a .75 beta (IMHO ).

Lol, not bad, GalacticCmdr. It's funny 'cause it's true. What WERE they (meaning BFC) thinking? The old system with a delay at the beginning of the plot seems more plausible. [ September 21, 2007, 04:39 PM: Message edited by: Childress ]