Paper Tiger

My all time favourite face. One of the best mods ever for CMSF. Nice pic.

Or, in "It Ain't Half Hot Mum", some of the green troops will hold their positions like beserkers, and are apparently immune to just about everything. As the author of that particular slugfest, I can tell you that the best morale any RED troops have is Normal. Best training is Green. There are quite a few Conscripts with Low morale there too. The thing is they don't have any vehicles so it's harder to get a surrender. I have to confess that I'm a bit puzzled at how resilient they prove under fire, not only in that mission but in the new ones I'm working on. But I'm not complaining, I like it better this way as they feel more realistic when I play them.

Some of us would appreciate it if you were to record a couple of scenarios. There are some very challenging ones out there.

Once again thanks for all the helpful responses. This has been very inspiring.

I don't think anyone outside BFC knows where the surrender threshold is set. However, one thing that plays a large role is the training and morale level of the Syrian side. The higher, the better. In fact, I've designed a couple of missions that featured a Crack/Extreme Special Forces company and it was almost impossible to 'break' those guys. They would almost fight to the last man. But of course the majority of scenarios will feature forces that are Green-Conscript with Poor or Low morale and they're not so steadfast. Every unit that RED loses contributes something towards that hidden threshold. One thing to bear in mind is that destroying the enemy's vehicles will force a surrender faster than killing his infantry. Vehicles contribute a higher award towards the surrender threshold than do infantry units. MBTs contribute by far the most while Trucks contribute little more than an infantry unit. So if you eliminate all those T-62s and BMP-1s, ta Reserve or Regular enemy formation will probably give up quite quickly afterwards. I have repeatedly found that the AI surrenders when it still has the capacity to inflict serious damage on my forces, usually with infantry forces and AT assets that I have yet to spot. Yeah, both Hitler and Stalin complained about their own forces doing his a wee bit.

It would depend on your computer's ability to run a battle of that magnitude with the new engine. I once accidentally created a mission that had an entire Regiment in RED's OB and it took a-g-e-s to load it. And then I got about 5 seconds per frame. I imported ALL the campaign's core units and opened it before deleting the unnecessary formations. You can certainly run a battle with two Battalions right now if you play WEGo though.

Interesting discussion, especially seeing as how I'm far more excited about playing in a temperate climate in the Modern Era than in WW2, already 70 years old now. Modern Era already has everything that WW2 can possibly offer a wargamer and then far more on top of that. I am not so so pessimistic about a distant release date for CMSF2. It's not unlikely that it will be sometime later next year or early 2011 at worst. Why do I think that? We already have most of the kit required to make this game. Once the Temperate environment stuff has all been coded successfully into the game, then we just need some new building facades and we've got a game going. This means that the CMSF2 game most likely would be NATO v Russia as we've got a LOT of Russian kit done but no Chinese. My only real concern is that the Russians would be cast as the 'bad guys' in the background story. I like the Russians and I'd really like to do a proper Russian v NATO campaign played as RED.

Hirr Leto Seriously mate, you really need to listen to this. It's just a game. It's a hobby. You don't like it. Oh No! Who cares? It's time to put it all behind you and move on. There really have to be more important things for you to do in your life than waste your gifts fretting about a game you don't like or the people that do, aren't there?

Well, this has all been very helpful, thank you. I was a wee bit worried that it was the practice to fly your boys right into the thick of things with some attack helos equipped for ground support providing devastating cover fire. Very gung ho, very Hollywood and probably very exciting too. (A 'two pairs of underpants' mission) I could do this too but it might be a bit hard on the BLUE side. As I understand it, it sounds reasonable that the LZ would be as far from suspected enemy positions as possible. The infantry would go in first and then some support vehicles would follow on in the second wave once the LZ had been secured. Therefore, my scenario could feature two infantry platoons starting on the board edge moving from a LZ located somewhere offboard. The third platoon and Humvees (or Jackals etc, if British) would arrive perhaps about 20 minutes later. That's what I wanted.

Okay, I confess, I don't know how this is done in real life. I'm working on something at the moment where an IBCT formation is airlifted by helicopter into a small village on the east side of a river as part of a larger operation to secure a vital road bridge. So I'd like to ask the following questions. First, would an entire company be airlifted in at once or would it be more realistic to have two, or even one, platoons come in first and the rest follow a few minutes later? Second, would the heavier equipment be airlifted in. I imagine that a Humvee would fit quite snuggly under a helicopter carrier but would an entire company's support vehicles be transportable in one go? Third, their intended LZ is only about 1 klick NW of their main objective. Is that a wee bit too close or would they land even closer? Since the expected (and actual) Opfor is Uncon I'm making the assumption that these units would not possess a lot of effective AAA assets. There's not much point in recommending good books on the subject to me as I live in Indonesia and it's very hard to find any books in English here, let alone specialised ones. Yup, I know I can order them from Amazon but that can take up to 2 months to arrive and I can't wait that long. And since I have online access to a bunch of military professionals, why not ask you guys?

There's the official Canadian army website with photo archive Great link. Thanks for that.

I'm a bit late seeing this but do any of you guys have any pics of Canadian Infantry and their equipment? I'm particularly interested in seeing units of the PPLI Regiment, both Light and Mech.

I would really like to see RED airpower in the game so that I can employ it in the RED v RED campaign I'm in the early stages of putting together (Human Player controls a small battlegroup consisting of Syrian Mech Airborne and a couple of platoons of T-90s - equipment I haven't done anything yet with as BLUE).

Sure, he couldn't reduce it to percentage terms but that is hardly the point, is it? Emm... yes it is.

I actually prefer to create my own style thank you Not sure what you are getting at when you say "believers'" though. I just like this game and you don't. It's my hobby and it's not yours. I really enjoy working with it and you don't. It's not because I 'believe' anything, I just enjoy it. I guess this is just a symptom of your own need to 'demonise' those who are different from you. Understandable when discussing political issues or current affairs but a 2 year old computer game? :eek: Anyways, in response to the OP, I adore Classical Music but no matter what I do, I simply can't get into Jazz. You can recommend any recording by any performer to me and it won't matter how fantastic it is, I won't enjoy it. And I've tried too. And it's not an intellect thing. I can 'understand' a jazz performance, I just don't enjoy it and it's my loss. So you could read lots of AARs and watch videos on YouTube but if Modern Era's not your thing, it's not your thing. Fortunately, I happen to like both WW2 and Modern. In fact, after taking the time to learn the ropes, I've grown to prefer Modern Era to WW2. BTW, I would be what you called a CMx1 'super user' as well. I bought CMBO just after it was released in the UK and played it almost exclusively for several years. Perhaps CMx1 was such an easy 'fall' for a lot of us because there was no CMx0 to compare it to. Or perhaps it's because CMx1 is actually more like a board wargame (I played ASL before CMBO) than the CMx2 series is.

CMx2 is much more complicated than CMx1 with it's point-shaped units and at the same time very few information about the engine mechanics and their relation to cover, concealment and spotting is available. Like real life eh? When you're looking for somewhere safe to park your touche in a firefight, real life commanders aren't told that this knoll over here offers 64% concealment and 24% cover while that carrot patch over there offers 86% concealment but only 5% cover. Very very gamey and maybe appropriate for a console game but not a wargame of this level of sophistication. No thank you. Please let's not have this feature. A gaming experience too much like a turkey shoot? Well, of course, there were never any turkey shoots in your beloved WW2, were there? If a CMSF scenario is a turkey shoot, then it's a badly designed scenario and that's all there is to it. You're certainly more than intelligent enough to appreciate this, aren't you?

<Sigh> Again with the attacks on Montgomery. And some folks don't like CMSF because of the controversial politics. There's no controversial politics in WW2?

Are you using a "mod" of sorts? The screenshots are 100% untouched. Cropped, but otherwise untouched. It would be a fraud to touch them up first and then say to folks "Look how beautiful this game is!" I only play the game with all the graphics settings maxxed out because the game looks so damned good when they're set there. What you see in those screenshots is what you will get when you play with those settings. I also play Real Time and I often follow the action right up close, just like you're seeing in those screenshots. (Another reason why I prefer smaller 'Company sized' actions as opposed to Battalion actions.) One point that I'd like to make is that these graphics don't come at the expense of the gameplay at all. Personally, I think this game is far more sophisticated than the CMx1 engine ever was. For those folks who gave CMSF a miss because they didn't like the Syria/Modern Era setting (or whatever) you've got a lot to look forward to when the WW2 title arrives sometime next year.

It is possible to create very realistic looking, dynamic combat environments even with the arid terrain textures CMSF currently features. Just how much more beautiful will the environments be when we get the temperate textures? I am particularly looking forward to seeing CMSF2 which will be set in a temperate environment. Next screenshot shows US troops assaulting towards a Syrian strongoint. A spotting mortar round explodes near a Syrian MG team. And a warning for those delicate little petals who like to play wargames that have been sanitised of violence... look away gentle things because the next screenshot features graphic violence and may shock you. US troops open fire on Syrian soldiers fleeing from their fierce onslaught.

Well, even after two years playing this game, I still get the 'WOW!' factor from time to time. This morning I was playtesting a mission I'm working on and I took a small series of screenshots that illustrate the oft overlooked (even maligned by some) beauty of this wargame. I say wargame for a wargame it is! This mission features a US IBCT performing a company sized attack on a Syrian airbase at night under clear starry skies and a full moon. A pall of smoke hangs over a MG bunker just destroyed by a javelin team. In the early stages of the mission, the first platoons to arrive must secure their LZ from Syrian defenders. Having suppressed the Syrian defensive positions they are able to cross the main runway. Pushing deeper into the airbase to secure the facilities they encounter the main Syrian defensive positions the squads split into teams and use Infantry SMOKE grenades to conceal their movements. more to come in a minute...

Trying to set a terrain objective with a link to reinforcements. I want my guys to Assault OBJ A, and get reinforcements when they take it. Unfortunately, you are unable to do this with the CMSF editor. I share your pain that we can't do that. As others have mentioned earlier, you have seven reinforcement slots and you can choose the time each 'slot' arrives, and further add a degree of uncertainty to that arrival time by adding a +/- delay. 1) Which terrain objective modifier do I use? 'touch', 'destroy', or 'occupy'. It seems that 'occupy' doesnt work or is not clearly defined. I THOUGHT 'destroy' meant to destroy all enemy forces within the objective, but I'm thinking thats not the case after testing it out. And I dont want to use 'touch' because that means I can take the objective without killing the enemy...in that case its not really 'taking the objective' There are several different types of Terrain Objectives, 'Occupy' and 'Touch' being two of them. Basically, when you create an OCCUPY objective, you will get the points for this if your side has at least one good order unit within that area while the enemy has none. If both sides occupy then neither side gets the points, that is assuming you paint identical zones for both sides. There's actually a few ways to utilise this objective to create certain effects but you can learn about those later. TOUCH means that the side will get the point reward merely for having a unit enter that zone regardless of its type or the presence of enemy units. Once touched, the zone disappears and you get notified - the same sound as when reinforcements arrive. 2) Reinforcements linked to an objective....All I see in the scenario editor are reinforcements linked with preset times.. any way to change this? Already covered... Thanks in advance. BTW. I'm working on a Red Army vs Red Uncon mission where the Red Army Mech commander (BMP3's) is tasked with cleaning up an insurgent-held part of a city. Trying to link in a T-62 tank platoon as reinforcements when Objective 1 is taken. I'm having tons of trouble with the setup of the insurgents (AI tools isnt working. I'm setting their 'setup order', but they're not setting up there). In the map editor you will have to 'paint' at least one set up zone (there are three) for one or both sides first if you want the AI to set up its own units. If you don't paint a set up zone for a side, the units will always start the scenario set up where you find them in the editor. Once you've painted the set up areas, you can then 'paint' locations in the AI editor within these set areas and the AI will tthen deploy stuff depending on the set up orders you gave them. If you want to see how others have done this, open up a couple of scenarios in the editor and have a look at the AI plans. Then you can come back and ask us about Exit Before/ Exit After I like Red on Red stuff myself so it's in my own interests to get you up and started with the editor. It's a complicated beast and some of us 'old hands' have been using it for a long time now and sometimes forget how difficult it is to get started. If you need any more help, just holler...

But when MBTs are rocking back and forth on their tracks as they accelerate/deccelerate and Humvees are doing wheelies as they begin a Fast move order from a dead stop, it's kinda breaks the immersion. I kind of wondered about this myself. I just assumed that since none of the military guys on the Beta team (and there's one tanker) are complaining about it that it's not unreasonable. It seems a wee bit overmodelled to me too. PS I've just posted about this on the Beta board so we'll see what happens.

tyrspawn: what program do you use to record your videos? Sorry if you've already mentioned this but I'm just getting ready to go to work and don't have time to read through the whole thread.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if we got a French module for CMSF1 but I hope that we'll get the French for CMSF2. After all, the models for most of the Allied kit have already been done for CMSF1. No doubt, there will be some new vehicles added to the existing US, UK and NATO formations so there's only really the Russian kit to do. However, I wouldn't hold your breath on this one. BFC are an American game company and the bulk of their customer base is American. For reasons I'll never fully understand, Americans don't like the French very much at all.

I am being nice. Steve said it was OK to make such posts for all CM games Well, it turns out that you are right and I am wrong. Please accept my apologies.