Paper Tiger

Interesting analogy there, altipueri. However, in this case, the 'religious' thinkers would be these people who think it is unethical/bad business for BFC to charge $10 for a major feature upgrade to an existing game. The rest of us are the rational ones, the ones who expect to pay for things in a store, whether physical or virtual.

This springs to mind when I read threads like this...

I have to agree with that post. What a complete waste of Steve's time. Mission accomplished for the whiners.

Of course, in the Red v Red campaigns, there are no such restrictions on the player . 'USMC Gung Ho!' uses maps from the Dinas campaign though so it will look familiar even if the battles play out in an entirely different fashion. BTW, I thought 'Gung Ho!' was the best thing I did for CMSF.

There are quite a few of us who do not want to see the Russians portrayed as the 'bad guys' in CMSF2 and have been lobbying for a more Russian-friendly back story for the title for quite a while now. And yes, TTBOMK, CMSF is not going to get any additional support.

I'm no expert on modern military affairs as plenty of folks around here will be happy to confirm. I had a military 'advisor' given to me when I was crafting the NATO campaigns and he hammered the point home to me that NATO had much stricter ROE in place than US forces did pointing out that pilots/officers face criminal prosecution in some Human Rights court in Brussels if they make a bad call that results in 'collateral damage'. ISTR that NATO forces have some sort of lawyer attached that will advise them if a particular weapon strike is permissable. I could be remembering wrong though as it was a while back. FWIW, I crafted an independent campaign (USMC Gung Ho!) that employed the same strict mix of PRESERVE, DESTROY and Casualty VP conditions that were employed in the NATO series as a test. I found that combination to produce much more realistic restrictions on what the player can or can't do with his abundance of air and artillery assets. IMO much better than simply removing said artillery/air assets. Generally people don't really like having these restrictions in place and would prefer to play without them as it's more fun.

I wouldn't worry about that. I've been running v1.11 with all of Aris' mods installed as well as Tanks A Lots buildings and barns, Rambler's trees/bocage mod, Veins skies etc and I have had no problems whatsoever. I've also been using Tanks A Lots buildings and barns and Rambler's tree/bocage mod while testing v2 in the latter stages and they both work as well.

No, because it is up to the scenario designer to balance his missions. Yes, it would definitely make the German side more effective in every existing scenario crafted to date but that's not a strong enough argument to maintain this behaviour. I'd rather play newer missions with the behaviour modelled more accurately, as would you I suspect. Not really. It just means that the MG will waste more ammo firing deliberately away from its intended target. And since that's most of the time, I don't see how that helps anything.

Heh heh. That was pretty much the main source I used when crafting the campaign. I took a few liberties with some locations because I absolutely HATE wiggly roads with a passion (to the point where I will just refuse to play missions that have them) and will distort the existing terrain to preserve the long LOS that exists along the roads as they would in real life. Particularly on the Neuville au Plain map. Without the straight roads, it's NOT Neuville au Plain. Glad you enjoyed it. Looking back, I'd probably say that Montebourg was my best work. It's the one I enjoy playing the most nowadays, that's for sure.

I said that MGs producing the historically expected casualties was an accident and was not justifying it in any way. TBH, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever if MGs do in fact produce the expected range of casualties in the game. However, opponents of change to the existing behaviour argue that they do. You're completely wasting your time debating the point with me Perhaps you would be better advised to take issue with those who advance this argument instead.

Killkess I'm actually very much in favour of changing this behaviour and I have petitioned for it to be changed on the Beta boards as well. However, there are one or two people who think that MGs are working just fine thank you and don't want BFC to waste valuable coding time changing what ain't broken (in their opinion, NOT mine). That MGs produce about the expected number of casualties is just an accident.

When you put everything together and play a normal game, MGs are about as lethal as you'd expect them to be. But this is entirely by accident and as a result of another deficiency in the game, namely that the Tac AI has no ability to react to a small arms threat until that fire either hits one of the squad's soldiers or the terrain it is taking cover in. Bullets whizzing past do not cause any suppression and that's not realistic either. Therefore we find that these troops running in the open take very few hits from MGs and so the MG's kill ratio is about right when compared to history even if their historical ability to intimidate and suppress is not. So what we see here are two wrongs making a right. Paradoxically, the more infantry you throw at a MG position, the more effective the MG's fire will be. The smaller force you advance in the open with, the less effective the MG's fire will be because when the MG starts firing randomly off to the left or right away from its intended target's position, it might strike a squad/unit in another action spot by accident. Or it might not. I think it's pretty safe to say that we all agree that the current behaviour is wrong and we'd like to see it changed. But I doubt that it is something that can be fixed quickly.

Nothing for CMFI as I'm not really interested in WW2 Western Front. I'm only really doing CMBN because it covers the most interesting aspect of WW2 West Front (post 1940 anyway) - Battle for Normandy and Market Garden. Same applies to the Bulge title which I'll likely skip unless it has some awesome new features that I MUST have. I much prefer the East Front and am really just honing my skills for that theatre when it finally arrives. I will probably still craft stuff for CMBN after East Front arrives though. Wait 'till you guys see how good CMBN looks with version 2

In the past, for modules and titles, there's also typically been an announcement to build up some anticipation showing screenshots of the work in progress about 1-2 months before the pre-order announcement. Not applicable to version 2 for sure but more applicable to Market Garden.

That IS from the campaign briefing. I think I've done that in every campaign I've ever designed too.

Beau Guillot is located about a mile to the south of Utah beach Glory is actually Brecourt Manor The next three are all named after their locations on the Georgian ridge, in close proximity to Ecoqueneuville Turnbull's Stand takes place at Neuville au Plain to the north of Ste Mere Eglise Les Licornets and Labrynth take place to the right and the left of the highway north from St M Eg to Neuville au Plain

Chapter One.....The Georgian Ridge (6th-7th June) 1..........Beau Guillot...............2/8 INF - E Company 2..........Where all the Glory Lies...2/505 PIR - D Company (Revised campaign only) 3..........Ecoqueneuville.............2/8 INF - F Company 4..........Le Grand Hameau............2/8 INF - E Company 5..........Le Hamelet.................2/8 INF - F Company Chapter Two.....Ste Mere Eglise (6th-8th June) 6..........Turnbull's Stand...........2/505 PIR - D Company 7..........Les Licornets..............2/505 PIR - D and E Companies 8..........The Labrynth...............2/8 INF - E Company 9..........Neuville au Plain..........2/8 INF - F Company Chapter Three...Le Ham (9th-11th June) 10.........Hell in the Hedgerows......2/325 GIR - D and E Companies 11.........Breakthrough...............2/505 PIR - D and E Companies 12.........Orchard Hill...............2/325 GIR - D and E Companies 13.........Holding Action.............2/505 PIR - E Company 14.........Le Ham.....................2/325 GIR - D and E Companies Chapter Four....Eroudeville (9th-10th June) 15.........Ecausseville...............2/8 INF - E Company 16.........The Farmhouse..............2/8 INF - F Company 17.........Eroudeville................2/8 INF - E and F Companies

The Quick Battle maps that ship with the game are crafted with AI plans that have to cover every possible eventuality, from force size to force composition. They have to be able to handle any type of force that the AI side purchases. Then there are around 200+ of them, usually crafted by one guy so it's unlikely that they're going to produce spectacular QBs every time. To get a good, and I do mean good QB experience you should customize a map for a particular type of battle and use lots of AI groups and have five plans. I have crafted a few for my own personal QB needs that are designed for Infantry v Infantry Probe/Attack/Assault battles only, (No MEs) and they all work just fine, just like regular scenarios. But they'd suck big time if I were to play them with combined arms groups etc.

I've reported this behaviour to the forum administrators. It might be too late to find out who is responsible for this childish act of petty vandalism this time around but we may be able to catch him the next time.

Downloaded and installed it. What a fantastic addition to the game. These barns are ultra-realistic looking and highly appropriate for the Normandy setting. A must-have mod! Thanks for sharing!

Interesting. The coding functionality to do this is already there in the HUNT command. If such a FOLLOW command were to be implemented, it might be a good idea to use the HUNT command as its base so that the command is cancelled as soon as the lead unit comes under fire. That would be better than have the whole formation follow the lead unit if it survives contact with the enemy.

I wouldn't jump in and start playing the Canadian campaign until you've had a bit of experience playing with these forces. The Khabour Trail campaign was designed to be quite challenging

That's all that a designer can do at the moment. That's why short battles on small maps with a company or less work best for play against a dynamic AI opponent. Huge maps with large OBs and more than 2 hours+ on the clock are not really feasible for AI play unless the defenders do nothing. There's just too much that can happen for a designer to predict under these circumstances. Not only that, but if you take a chance and try to guess and get it wrong, players will complain. I'd just stick with a static German AI plan and balance it for H2H play.

This is a fantastic mod, Rambler. I love it! Thanks for sharing it with us.

I wouldn't play the 'Scottish Corridor' campaign for a while as it's designed to be quite challenging. I don't know if there are any third party Commonwealth campaigns available to download yet but I'm sure the good folks here will point you to them if they do exist. "Devils Descent' is a good place to start as it's a small-ish campaign and is probably a nice step up in difficulty from the tutorial. From there you can go to either 'Panzers March' Germans v US AI or 'Road to Montebourg', US v German AI. Montebourg has around 14 missions so perhaps the German campaign would be better.