Malaspina

@BFCElvis (shh, shh, let me get in the action, too. Whisper, whisper, I do not want to rouse Steve’s Smaug-like wrath …) I have a question. Is CMRT F&R going to sound the death knell for WW2 games from BF? [Sigfried’s Funeral March starts in the background... ] CMBN and CMFI are now both complete (correct?). Only one module will be added to CMFB soon enough (?). We’ve been told in this thread and elsewhere in the past that BF has no interest in: - the early war period in the East, Barbarossa, Stalingrad or other operations in Russia, so CMRT seems to be done and dusted; - the early war period in the West (France 1940 and I’m assuming, Norway, Finland, Op. Anvil etc.), - Crete ’41, thus Greece, and I’m assuming northern Africa, so no CMAK remake in the works, - the Pacific war (in a reply to me years ago, this hasn't changed has it?), - any other theaters of Ops I'm forgetting? Is this end of an era for Battlefront? No upcoming WW2 titles or modules in the near future (apart from F&R and the one CMFB module)?

Long-time Italian happy customer here, and I couldn't be happier with RtV and Gustav Line, but this is difficult news to digest. It is hard to believe that a CMRT: Barbarossa or Stalingrad module wouldn't be appreciated by the market. Or even "Little Saturn". It would be little: only Hungarians, Romanians and Italians to add to the game. That's nothing compared to RtV

Great to see you back too! If you still have energies after all this work and you ever decide to make an Italian partisan mod for CMFI I might be able to help with the voices and text

Thanks!

Yes, of course! And light up their pipes while they're at it No. but I did have a couple of instances where a tank exhausted its ammo pounding the enemy while another fellow tank with a disabled main gun just sat there in the back doing nothing. It would be cool to somehow be able to transfer that ammo to the fully operational vehicle (in safe conditions ;).

Back to the topic: - ability to swap crews between vehicles, tanks especially - ability to acquire ammo from another (disabled) tank - ability to (re)man guns after they've been abandoned by the same or another crew

Thanks for these rules! Excellent. For my purposes, I'll be using the following to make scenarios vs. the AI more challenging in WeGo. In a nutshell: - No area fire unless in command and HQ has LOS to area - No movement outside LOS area unless in command - Scouting teams excepted Back in the day when playing CMx1 games there was something called Franko' Rules (I think) that, among other things, limited your view to level 1 (ground level) when plotting moves and level 7 (eagle's eye) to be used as if it were a physical map, forbidding all other viewing levels since they are impossible in RL. I sometimes tried to use them but often sent vehicles harmlessly wandering in various directions and ended up with a headache!

I have the same problem with CMFI. Double-clicking on the desktop icon will elicit no response. Neither will double-clicking on the .exe file in the BF folder. Absolutely dumbfounding. No other BF game has this issue. Incredibly enough I tried adding it to Steam as a third-party game and it launched perfectly. It's now the only way I can launch it. If you have Steam I'd give it a try.

Hi! I've just started using this. Looks cool. How do I update the cells for "Real World Date"? The default options go from January 2011 to December 2020. How can I change that from, say, from January 2021 to December 2064? Thanks!

Welcome! AFAIK, if your family member is playing in online mode on another PC, you will not be permitted to open any other game with your shared account (regardless of the game you intend to play). Well, at least that's what happens to us in the family. My way around this is to restart in offline mode and everything launches perfectly.

In addition to those mentioned above, one (small) advantage I can think of is that multiple (infinite?) installs are now possible on as many PCs as you like and you no longer need to worry about how many licenses you have left if you have "fried" four PCs in a row during the year. Is that correct? A (small) disadvantage I can think of is that if you use Steam in online mode you will only be able to play the game on one PC at a time. It may be an issue if, for example, one of your family members (my son for me) is using a CM game with a shared family account. You will be thrown out of your game. The workaround is to use Steam in offline mode, of course. But if a multi-player, co-play version ever comes about it will be a major issue (well at least in my family )

Looking forward to this ever since CMBB came out Really, really hope you're going to pull it through.

I found it quite unconvincing. The plot is trite and the characters dull. You always have a sense of having read (or watched) this story elsewhere, over and over again (the cruel occupants..., the young and beautiful rebel..., the heroic fight... bla, bla), very unlike other semi-historical shows that retain an element of unexpected plot twists, like Game of Thrones for example. But I might be biased as I identified with the losing side The Latin spoken by the actors is a washed-out version of the Italian pronunciation I learned at high school, proven to be quite incorrect. "Il primo re" (The First King) by Matteo Rovere gives you a much better representation of ancient (archaic) times, IMHO. There's also a series "Romulus", which I haven't seen (it's not on Netflix), that should be great, too.

I liked it very much too. The cartoonish effect reminded me of the ww2 comic books I used to read as a kid (in the 70s). The larger-than-life heroism goes well with the format in my opinion. Although as a CM player I cringed when I saw a 60mm mortar taking out a German panzer with its second round or when artillery scored direct hits on two tanks in the very first barrage. Aaaargh! I never had that kind of luck going for me!

I would love that!

Here you go. Found a couple of typos in the first two paragraphs. Can't see any other. "September 2016 Battlefront.com was founded in 1998 to provide high quality, innovative games for people looking for serious wargames. At the time such games had been all but squeezed out of the marketplace by the crushing forces of retail sales practices. To woark work around this problem Battlefront unvieled unveiled itself in 1999 as an Internet only company. It's hard to believe now, but industry veterans and so-called experts said "you're crazy, it will never work". 20 years later Battlefront is here making games and most of them are not. What follows is a shortened version of the original "Manefesto" "Manifesto" which was posted when Battlefront.com first went live:..." You're welcome

Yeah, I have that game. Very nice graphically but fails miserably to reproduce the specific features of the Napoleonic wars. The developers just adapted their Rome TW engine. The campaign especially is nothing close to what Napoleonic warfare was all about, IHMO.

The real shocker for me was Steve's admission he's more of a strategic/operational rather than tactical player, given the company's determined refusal to add a strategic layer to CM over the years. But just like with Steam (a no-no only until a few months ago) things may change in that respect too, who knows? Hey, why not change your perspective altogether and retry a foray into the Napoleonic age, this time at a strategic level integrated with tactical battles? Probably much easier to do than a WWII game. An old game called "Napoleon 1813" comes to mind, which was a terrific concept (but hell to play). No? Well, one can only dream...

Hi rocketman, I used gmaps for terrain and satellite overlays, and then relied on MacDonald's descriptions (and my own experience of the area) to add foliage and terrain tiles. I'm not especially pleased with the end result but it should do. I'll probably go over it several times before I'm fully satisfied. If you want to check it out, any suggestions are more than welcome! The master map is 1520x2000. Ideally I would like to reduce foliage and add craters (caused by US arty) in subsequent scenarios as the battle progresses. True, the inclines are too steep in many places even for infantry, which, while historical, makes the map unplayable in many areas. To avoid that, I spaced the "direct" input in elevation mode (black tiles) when following the altitude lines of the overlay map. If you draw a continuous line of "black" altitude markers on each and every tile, you will see a lot of horizontal lines of impassable rock slabs in 3D preview that make the map look horrible and prevent any vertical movement of infantry trying to climb the hill. If you space those "black direct inputs" every four or five map tiles, some of the slabs will be pierced here and there and the overall effect is a more "rounded" map. However, you still have to deal with impassable tiles and horrid-looking spikes everywhere... To try to solve that, a trick I used in one battle in particular was to draw vertical footpaths wherever those rock slabs prevented movement or created choke points. Again, not aesthetically ideal but it works. I'll send you a message for those resources, yes!

Thanks! I'll message you right away.

Hi everyone, I've had an obsession with "Monte Altuzzo" for quite a while after reading MacDonald's book Three Battles a few years ago. With RtV out, I couldn't resist temptation and had a go (once again) at the scenario editor. I drew a master map of the entire area and then carved out small maps to create four scenarios depicting the action that took place on Sept. 13, 1944, which I've almost finished. (The actual battle went on for four more days. I might keep going if I have the energy...) These are Allied v. AI scenarios with a feeble attempt at A.I. plans for the Germans. Rather than actual scenarios I would call them "companion scenarios" to Three Battles following MacDonald's narrative as closely as possible. Just to give you a better idea, this is the Designer's Notes I will probably include in all four: "This battle is part of a series called “Break-Through at Monte Altuzzo” depicting the action described in the book Three Battles: Arnaville, Altuzzo and Schmidt (pgs. 103-247) by Charles B. MacDonald. All scenarios are historical and should be played as Allied v. AI. No balancing effort has been made in terms of forces available for h2h purposes. The scenarios are an attempt at a historical depiction of the 338th Infantry Reg. assault on the Gothic Line between Sept. 13 and Sept. 17, 1944. This means that in some battles you might, for example, be facing overwhelming odds, while in other scenarios you will be fighting against a broken enemy previously wiped out by an artillery barrage (which was in fact a major factor in the American Army's ultimate success). Historical participants are marked with an asterisk (*)." While they are "historical" scenarios (i.e. very possibly unbalanced) I still need general feedback and would like them to be enjoyable for the single player. How does one go about searching for testers and publishing scenarios these days? Is anyone here interested? Thanks! enrico

Thanks!!!

Hi! These look great. I'd like to use the "F flag patch" portraits if only I knew how. So I unzipped the downloaded file and dropped the "F flag patch" folders (G folders for the Germans?) into my z folder, but nothing happens. Then I dropped all the single files into the z folder, directly, putting them all together without their F folders and still nothing happens. I know my z folder is the correct one as I use a modded splashscreen and it works fine. I must be doing something wrong. Do I have to rename files? Do I have to use rezexplode and rezpack (that would be a bridge too far for me I'm afraid)? Sorry, old fogey here. Thanks for your help.

Downloaded. Thanks!

Freyberg, These look great. Nice job! I wish the real places looked like that! Have you uploaded the maps somewhere?