Knokke

Every infantry in the game can remove mines, with a varying degree of success. The higher the scouting skill of the unit, the more chances he has to detect mines. The most important factor is the stance of the unit: units advancing at a crawl have more chances of avoiding mines, while units running have almost no chances of avoiding them.

Sure, and even more important, ToW1 is openGL. What I had in mind, was using the latest ToW engine (DirectX) and incorporating in it the content that was in ToW1, not the other way around.

Yes, me too. And I would pay even more to have ToW1 updated to the latest standard too.

Keep in mind that the theatre of war serie is a niche genre. There are not that many peoples interested in such an advanced simulation, most customers being interested in more easier to play and more "glamorous" WWII games (more akin to BF1942 than to a simulation). Of course 1C is interested in making as much money as they can, for the sake of keeping the serie going. They've to try to reduce the costs as much as possible, because a Theatre of War game will never have as much customers as a more arcade style of game. That's the reason why they're forced to reuse as much material as possible from previous games, and can't afford to update each version to the latest standard. But it seems to me a bit too much to say that 1C is not supporting their game. They've always come up with patches to fix problems when they occurs, even adding free new content into the games. They even went so far as to give us the means to entirely mod the game and add new vehicles, building and maps, with the release of the modding tools. Of course, I too would like to see Africa43 and Kursk43 updated to the latest standard, but doing so would be a time consuming thing that 1C probably cannot allow themselves to do for lack of budget. With the tools that the ToW community has at his disposal, bringing the content of both games up to the latest standard is something that would be possible to do for a modding team, but the sheer amount of work means that several modders would have to work together for quite a lenght of time to achieve this result, and there is not a whole lot of peoples interested in modding on the ToW engine (unfortunately).

Infantry is very vulnerable (as it should be) when in the open. Infantry should never be used on its own to capture a position. There should be ample support with them. Their advance needs to be covered by tanks, guns, SPGs, and heavy machineguns. It's good pratice to shell the area you want to attack before sending the infantry (hopefully, some of the opposition will be killed, but most importantly, after a while, they'll be forced to keep their heads down under the weight of your fire). When attacking a position, you've to rush your infantry there as fast as you can (preferably under smoke cover), but you must not rush too early, or the defenders will not be pinned down and will retaliate mercillessly. Trying to get to the ennemy position unnoticed by crawling is usually inviting desaster, as your men will spend a longer time in the dangerous area without protection. To take a position with infantry, you need to have superiority in numbers (or very well trained troops) as well as an overwhelming superiority in fire support. With both conditions fullfilled, you can take a trench system with almost no losses. Infantry starts to get killed more easily when they enter villages, because they're very likely to get ambushed, the terrain offering endless possibilities for the defenders. It's very important to use good scouting units to try to spot any hidden soldiers that might ambush your advancing infantry. You must also have at least one team covering the advance of an other team. Here, a lot of micro-managment is often neccessary (checking LOF of fire of the covering infantry, choosing the best positions to cover the advancing team). It's the same during clearing a trench system, having part of your team set ready to fire at anyone showing is head (carefully placed so that there is less chances of friendly fire), while some of your men are carefully progressing inside the trench. As to the mortars, I've never lost a single of them. I never put them in a position where they can be shot at by the ennemy (always setting them on reverse slopes, hiding behind houses, or inside mortar trenches) It could be that a lot of these casualties are caused by minefields. As soon as you have men dying unexpectedly and you can't tell how they get hit, stop the advance immediately, have your men lying low, and back-up while still crawling. They are probably in a minefield, and they've more chances to escape the mines and even deactivating them if they're advancing at a crawl. Soldiers without scouting ability will be at a disavantage trying to find their way through a minefield. The trick to reduce losses is to use all your assets at the same time. Don't attack only with infantry, or only with tanks. Both should be used at the same time. Use your infantry to detect threats to your tanks (they are better at spotting ambushing ennemies , and use your tanks to protect your infantry (they're less vulnerable, and can easily wipe out an ambush with a combination of HE shells and MG fire). When playing the germans, I find that the lightly armored SdKfz-251 type of vehicles are very effective in supporting infantry advances, staying a bit behind the foot soldiers to avoid being hit by AT-grenades (my prefered one being the SdKfz-251 with 37mm gun)

Did you try to install SFSExtractor within your Kursk43 installation? That might be the reason why you can't extract the files (I only managed to extract kursk files with SFSExtractor installed inside the Africa43 mission_editor folder)

It is definitely a problem with placeholders. Units that appears in the center of the map are probably units without a placeholder. But I can't tell you exactly what the problem is when you change the default composition of your army (I have a problem too with default composition - alternative units don't always appear at the exact place where I wanted them to spawn. I have several deployement zone at the same time for the player, and alternative units don't always appear in the deployement zone I intended)

As far as I remember, setting the cost to zero will give support right from the beginning.

I'm pretty sure it happened in one of the battles of the american campaign in ToW1. I had a sniper who infiltrated the ennemy defensive line with a few survivors of an infantry squad. If I remember well, the sniper started to fire at the gun crew, killing first the leader, then the other crew members abandonned the gun and started to head away from the spot, as if panicking. There is a possibility though that they where amongst the last ennemy survivors, as I remember it was at the end of the game and I was mopping up the area (perhaps it was related to a script having the ennemy withdraw when the battle was lost, rather than the effect of suppressing fire making the crew panic).

Barbed wires can be cleared by artillery fire to allow the passage of troops and vehicles. Tanks can also flatten some of the less sturdy obstacles with their tracks (a risky job, if there is a minefield or infantry with AT weapons near the obstacles). I've not tested if they can be destroyed by grenades bundles (It's usually safer to clear them with artillery rather than sending troops in the open to do the job).

The best way to destroy anti-tank guns is to stay behind the cover of some bushes. The ennemy gunners will have more trouble noticing you, and even if you don't have clear line of sight, you'll be able to aim a few HE shots in the vicinity of the gun to kill the crews (aiming at area rather than directly targeting the guns) I'm surprised than the PaK gunners are not quickly starting panicking under suppressive fire. I remember several instances where targeting the area near the gun with MG fire , or having a sniper shooting at the crew, was enough to make the crew abandon the gun and run away

Playing at veteran level is not the most realist choice IMO: Novice means your troops have a bonus over the ennemy troops (better trained and better morale) Normal means that no sides as an unfair advantage Veteran mean that your troops will be at a disadvantage because the ennemy will benefit from better trained troops and have an advantage in morale. I find most of the missions very challenging playing in normal mode, so it's not surprising that you had trouble with the first polish missions. It meant that your inexperienced troops went against crack gunners. You'll notice a big difference in the performance of your units once they start to gain experience after a few battles

@DaveyJJ You'll probably have to use ToW1 to recreate engagements in Italy rather than ToW2, unless you're ready to do intensive modding on ToW2 (you'll have to be able to use 3dsMax and the Mega Mod Pack tools to create italian style buildings and static objects, and create new textures for the units in photoshop). As to the creation of maps from scratch, rather than simply editing existing ones, it is possible both in ToW1 and ToW2. There are a few threads in the forums covering this topic. Basically, you'll need to create 16 bits RAW BMP greyscale images for the elevation of your terrain from Digital Elevation Models data available here

Download the latest version of SFSextractor and install it in ToW2 africa (if you have it) MissionEditor folder - for a reason or an other, I've never succeeded in making SFSextractor work if I'd installed it in ToW2 Kursk MissionEditor directory. From ToW2 Africa, the extractor is able to extract all the Kursk files without problem, provided the fact that the path of the files to be extracted points toward ToW2 Kursk instead of ToW2 africa, and that you're using a filelist.txt listing the files from Kursk.

@ Dakuth: I've to be more accurate with what I've said above: Without the latest patch 1.31, the game was running very slow after a while. Now that I've installed the patch, I'm no longer experiencing any pauses or slow-downs in any of the missions I've played so far (except the only case I mentionned above, and that I've experienced only once since I've upgraded the game with the latest patch). So I would not like to give the false impression that the game is still unplayable. Except this single occurence, all the problems I had where definitely curred by the latest patch. Before, the problem was very crippling for me (I'm playing on an old laptop, so it does not help), but the problem was adressed by the devellopers in the patch 1.31, and so far, I'm 99.9% happy with the way the game is running. So if you've played the demo and liked the game, I would recommend you to buy it and enjoy it, rather than being discouraged by the former negative comments about slowdowns and pauses in the game. Peoples are more eager to report the troubles they've had with the game than report of how it runs flawlessly now - this is human :-), so one can easily be given the impression that the game still has a major problem just by reading the posts. Just give the game a chance, it is the best in it's genre, and is a lot of fun (but also frustration sometime, because it is much more difficult to master than the average WWII game - but it has nothing to do with performance issues now).

My favorites german units are the 75mm LeIG for the reason you mentionned. I would favor them over the mortars anytime because the later are VERY unaccurate (they would be deadly if several of them were fielded at the same time, but they would take too many slot and be too expensive in my opinion) . I will take a SdKfz-250/2 anyway, for the mobility and cover afforded by the vehicle, because it can be usefull against infantry in the open, and can land a few lucky shots on guns emplacements. I would then field at least two SdKfz-250 or SdKfz-251C to use as artillery tractors and/or fast transport for the infantry. They can be usefull in supporting mopping up the ennemy positions in the latter stages of the battles. Tiger and Panthers are a must, and should be used in hull-down positions for overwatching the advance of the foot troops and protecting the advance of less protected tanks. A must have is the FlaK Vierling on SdKfz-7/1, ambushed behind buildings or a cluster of tree. It is well worth the investment once the ennemy aviation makes an appearance. It can even be used as an infantry support weapon from long range, or against light ennemy vehicles once the treath of ennemy tanks and guns have been suppressed. I would try not to risk them in this role, though, as it would be a waste to have such an asset destroyed and the trained crew killed and not be usable in the next battle. As to the infantry, my favorite units are the scouts. I would also always take two platoon command squads, as they're a great boost the the efficiency of the troops they're with (as long as they're not killed and don't run away) There is a long list of SPG that I would like to use more often, but as there is no ammunition carriers to go with them, they're not worth the cost. They have too few a reserve of ammunition on board to be worth the trouble. I would rather prefer use any Pz-III because of the higher ammo capacity and the versatility of the MG armament. If there were ammunition carriers and the possibility to replenish the SPGs, I would gladly use the Wespe, StuG and Marder III more often.

I experienced slowdowns too with the latest patch in second german mission, and I was able to discover that it was caused by the crew of a SdKfz-251-1C. Here is what happened: I was running low on infantry, and needed to use the 251-1 gunner to join the survivor of an infantry squad to man a captured russian mortar. As soon as the gunner left the half-track, the game started to slow down almost to a crawl each time I was giving him an order - enter russian trench by crawling - pick-up russian weapons on a dead corpse - crew mortar... (each time, the game would freeze for up to 30s seconds to one minute, then it will resume normally untill the next order I gave). After the mortar was out of ammo, I gave the order to exit the mortar to the 251-C crew member, experiencing an other freeze of the game untill the order to get out was aknowledged. Similar pauses occured each time I gave the unit a new order, untill he was back at his post at the 251-C machine gun. That's where the game started again to behave normally, without pauses. It looked like things started to go wrong because the halftrack was not fully crewed (kind of like the AI entering a loop testing for crew members untill the missing crew boarded the halftrack again) Anybody noticed the same thing happening?

As anyone noticed that casualties happening in scout teams are replaced with new recruits with almost no scouting skills? If I start the campaign in Kursk 1.31 with a novice scouting team, all members have a scouting and marksmanship of 90, but when a member will be killed, his replacement has very low scouting and marksman skills (about 5). Is it working as intended, or is it a bug? I was expecting the new member to have a scouting skill in the same range has the other novices and untried scouting teams in the pool. It looks like the replacement is a simple infantryman untrained has a scout.

If you liked ToW, you'll definitely like ToW2 Afrika and ToW2 Kursk. There has been a lot of improvement, (even if at first sight you might be disapointed a little bit by the fact the battles are focused only on one theatre and time period). And with the latest patch, ToW2 Kursk now runs flawlessly. It's a good idea to try the demos to see the differences, and make your own idea of how you like it.

Just make sure you start the game by right clicking the icon and choosing "run as administrator", otherwise Vista User Access Control will not give you write privileges, and your save game will not be recorded. Even better, right click your shortcut, select properties, then the shortcut tab, advanced options, and tick the "runs as administrator" button. Your game will now launch everytime with administrator right, and you'll no longer have to select the option everytime (it will be there by default from now on).

1) How do you set waypoints? SHIFT-click on the ground where you want to set a waypoint 2) What are the rules for minefields? Not sure about that. Usually, they are of a mixed type (anti-personal and anti-tank mines found at the same time in the minefield). A soldier walking on an AT-mine will not detonate it; it will detonate only if a heavier vehicle runs over it. Armored vehicles like tanks can detonate the anti-personel mines without damage to themselves (usufull to clear a path untill they hit an AT mine). Mines can be detonated by powerfull explosions in their vicinity (It's possible to clear a path through the mine field by firing an artillery barrage in the minefield area). 3) Can combat engineers clear mines and/or barbed wire, and if so how? Barbed wire can't be cleared by engineers. any soldiers can attempt to clear mines when attempting to cross a minefield (success depends on the scouting ability of the unit, and there is a modifier for the stance/movement speed of the unit - units scouting the minefiled area while laying prone have a better chance of spotting and deactivating mines) 4) Can on-board artillery such as mortars fire indirectly, and if so how? mortars, field guns, tanks and SPG can usually fire indirect by using the "target area" command. Check the cursor icon to see if the unit is able to reach the spot you intend to target (some units like the LeIG18 are able to fire indirectly on many parts of the map, because the gun barrel can have a greater elevation. Other units like the Hummel will not be able the fire indirectly most of the time because the gun can't be elevated that much and the rounds have a shallower trajectory) 5) What are the rules (if any) for FOOs... and can anyone else spot for artillery? There are no dedicated artillery spotters. Anyone can "spot" for the indirect fire support weapons (mortars without the "hold fire" order will start to shell any ennemy that is spotted on the map, even if the mortar itself does not have direct line of sight, provided there is at least someone with a line of sight to the target. Of course, firing blind in this way oes not provide a high accuracy and will give poorer results than if the mortar has direct line of sight. 6) How does leadership work? For example my first game played as German included 6 infantry sections in the default line up but no Platoon Commander. Would this have a detrimental effect in the game, or were my instincts correct when I included the necessary command element? Command elements have a great influence (they add a modifier to the morale of all units located in the area near the command unit - check the circle radius around the commander to see the area of effect. They act as a morale booster to the units in their command radius. They can also have a detrimental effect: if your commander starts to panic, it will have a big negative impact on the morale of the troops nearby. Hence, it is advisable to keep the commands units in cover, so that they don't get shot at and risk panicking. And to digress slightly... 8) I cannot find the Flak 88 anywhere in the standard TOW. Is there one, or has anybody included it in an add-on or patch? There is a FlaK88 gun in both ToW2:Africa and ToW2:Kursk. You can find the gun amongst the AA weapons (it can be used both against aerial targets and ground targets, but is much more effective in game against ground targets. As an AA weapon in the game, it is near useless as the aircrafts are flying too low for the 88 to be effective: it can't track an individual airplane flying low very effectively and a single gun has too low a rate of fire to be able to achieve anything but the occasional lucky hit.)

Alan, You should try to start again with a fresh install of the game, and try to add your missions folders back into the game one by one, testing them as single missions first, to check if everything is working. There is probably a file left in your install that is either corrupted or where there is a mistake, that is not replaced by your backup files.

I've also noticed the improvement in the choice of proper ordnance, but some aircraft keep attacking the same armored targets with light MG stubornly after having exhausted their main armament instead of choosing a more suited new target. Is the aiming point of aircraft still the same as before, or have it changed? (they seems to be always targeting the lower part of vehicles, always firing in the ground even when the targets are hull down) A tip I've found usefull about the A/A vehicles: never leave them in the open, hoping for them to have the best field of fire; they'll attract the attention of ennemy airplanes too easily and die quickly. It's more usefull to have them hidden behind something, like a building, or if there is none, in the woods. Position them so that they're on the opposite side of the building, away from the main direction from where the planes are coming. They'll not be spotted by the attacking aircraft initially, and when theses are passing overhead flying away from the scene of their attack, they can have a nasty surprise.

Not particularly related to the latest patch, but more a wishlist for the next episode in the Theatre of War serie: -Bunkers working like in ToW1 -possibility to have multi storeyed buildings, and by extension, bridges that can be crossed over as well as under, tunnels... -Engineers with special capacities and equipment/weapons (mine and obstacles removal, demolition charges, flame-throwers) -new type of vehicles: amphibious vehicles and boats so that we can simulate assault landings. -ammunition carriers vehicles -airlanding operations with paratroopers, gliders, supplies drops (a new kind of support?) Well I better stop right now... I would like everything that is not in the game yet

Yes, a PzIII shot down an ennemy plane with its main gun during the first mission I played to try the patch.