Paulverisor64
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Posts posted by Paulverisor64
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Does anyone know whether the upgrade will include an improved user interface that would expand the width of the screen? I've read some speculation about this being implimented in the future but would like to know whether it will be introduced with the upgrade?
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In CMFI I noticed this type of a thing. It ended up being my own fault.
I submitted my firing plot and waited.
While waiting I observed another bug; my troops were firing even though they absolutely had a tight firing arc.
What did I do? I hid all the troops I wanted to stay concealed.
After seeing several shots hit way off the mark I comprehended that this was because I hid my spotter. When I unhid this unit everything hit quite well.
Perhaps your issue is a CMBN anomoly. I just thought I'd give you another possibility.
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YankeeDog sums up perfectly my opinion on this matter.
I agree very much as well.
However that is a lot to lay on the shoulders of a 5 man team to fix.
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I didn't realize that this could be done.
I appreciate that this topic was brought up.
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In what I've experienced it would be good to break apart your units prior to being engaged in enemy fire.
It seemed like they needed a little to get their bearings right after the splits.
Even though there is an Assault option that leap frogs segments of your unit it seems that people prefer to split their unit and do this manually.
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Wrong place Paul
Since CMFI, you should put your mods in:
C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Fortress Italy\User Data\Mods\
(Where USERNAME is your OS username)
Thank you Simas,
I didn't have that path unfortunately. I've finally discovered that I need to create a "z" folder under "Data" Once I did that I see this as quite simple. I appreciate the hard work that this represents. Unfortunately this is hard to read. Still crossing my fingers that the data screen will be increased in a future mod or upgrade.
By the way;
I am enjoying the discussion in this thread.
None of my SMG'ers have survived long enough to use up their ammo
but that is a good point in regards to these troops opening up at greater than optimal range.My way around this so far is to split up my teams and give the SMG'ers a tighter cover arc.
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Thank you for this link.
This will be my very 1st mod I've tried.
Unfortunately I haven't figured out what I have to do to get it to work.
I've placed the unzipped contents of what I'd like to use in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Battlefront\Combat Mission Fortress Italy\Mod Tools area.
I don't see what activates this, and when I get into a game I don't see the changes applied.
What's the trick to get this to activate?
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I appreciate both of your help.
I would like to look for the Mod you suggested Sublime as it would be helpful.
It would be nice to have listings of max and effective ranges.
I've been more or less eyeballing it up to this point. Perhaps this has some to do with my lack of effectiveness.
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In playing the game I've observed that some units show the weapon range while others do not.
Is there an area that this is cataloged? If so I'd like to print this out to go with the rest of the game manual.
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I personally like the fact you can't micromanage every soldier. The way I approach it is that as a a commander you wouldn't just say "you, go behind that bush" or "you and you, get behind that window". So essentially if a couple of your guys seems to be looking the wrong way and totally ignoring the fact they need to get behind cover - they might be rookies or something.
Also, I found that if you want to somewhat influence their cover positions you issue a move order on that grid and then select the last move waypoint and issue a face order in the direction they need to cover. This way they tend to move in the best spot to cover that direction.
I also don't wish to micromanage each soldier. I would prefer that the troops would just find the best cover possible in the area they are placed. If you do give a facing command they would naturally find cover in the direction of the facing.
I don't really like the random behavior of the unit being exposed to gunfire from the direction they should be facing.
If I was placed in a situation of being under fire I most certainly would seek the best cover the area had to offer. My attention would be focussed in the likely direction of the attack. Unless the gunfire started dropping out I would be very focussed because it likely could mean my life.
Combat Mission does give a very good "overall" feel for realism, whatever they do to get to that point. I remember Battlefront discussing the layers of abstraction that they removed when they went from CMx1 to CMx2. There was a perception drawn where people associated the abstraction for realism. It was certainly an adjustment but the game today certainly has a more realistic feel.
Without discussing this with the game developer it's not clear whether abstractions are built into the game for survivability.
It is clear to me however that cover finding could be improved as other games already have been able to do this.
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I started reading the thread started by killkess which shows the inaccuracy of HMG's in the game.
Vinnart brought up a good speculation; that perhaps the innaccuracy is an abstraction to counter a playability issue. If this wasn't so; the kill rates would be far too lethal.
In playing the game myself one thing I find frustrating is how hard it is to get my troops to hug to the best cover. On top of that I find the 8 by 8 tile that waypoints can be placed to sets up some difficult cover situations in itself.
My question is this; does the difficulty in getting troops to find cover tie together with a need to dial down the HMG effectiveness?
I recently installed my old Company Of Heroes game to look at game interface differences and noticed how simple it was to send troops to best cover in Company Of Heroes. NOT THAT THIS GAME IS A MODEL FOR REALISM. It just shows me how there is room for improvement in this specific area for CMFI or CMBN.
I certainly would like to see the HMG accuracy and cover finding capability dialed up.
Perhaps there are huge programming obstacles to this. I will say that CMx2 with CMFI is a big playability improvement over the CMx1 games. I just am anxious to see gameplay bent less by abstractions.
Regardless of this all; I'm very happy with this game and will without question be buying future expansions.
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Thank you for your helpful feedback!
With this game sometimes things aren't fully apparent and must be approached in the correct way in order to get the correct result.
From what I read I could have averted my mini disaster if I used the "Dismount" command as Baneman suggested. This would have allowed the movement of my Half Track to it's destination as well as my HQ unit on foot. I discovered that this is very order dependant however. "Dismount" "Will Not" work if the vehicle already has waypoints keyed in. You must 1st give the passenger orders to "Dismount". (Otherwise the command is greyed out)
There is further versatility as eltorrente suggested.
- You can pause in the beginning of a turn and embark troops, then move when they are embarked, though. The halftrack won't move until all the troops are inside, no matter how long you set the initial pause for. This is only if the vehicle is paused for long enough for the first soldier to step inside.
- I'm pretty sure you can also move a halftrack next to a squad's position and pause, and once it pauses the squad will embark on the halftrack (obviously only if it had an embark order), then the halftrack will move to the next waypoint after they are all embarked.
The vehicle will wait to be loaded; as long as there is enough pause for the 1st soldier to climb aboard.
This really only leaves 1 issue: It would make the game more fluid if the vehicle could drop off it's passengers in the middle of the vehicle's waypoints. Could a "Dismount" command be tied to a specific waypoint?
Thanks again for helping me out!
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As a general rule; if the survival of your transport and the passengers depends on split second timing, you are unloading in the wrong place.
I absolutely agree with what you say.
What I am saying is; if it only takes 5 seconds to unload a Half Track why does it have to sit the remaining 55 seconds of the turn?
I just see this as a simple to impliment game improvement.
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I ran into a situation in a game that I'm now playing in which I planned on dropping off my passengers from a half track prior to sending this vehicle to it's destination. I gave the Half Track a 30 second delay prior to it's departure.
This turned out quite badly for me. My troops never left the vehicle. I watched in dismay as the entire family took off on a joy ride.
Noticing my mistake the next move I waited the entire turn for my troops to evacuate.
My HQ unit arrived 3 minutes later to complete the loop necessary for ordering up my 1st Mortar strike. This was aggravating.
The Half Track didn't fare so well; it arrived late at the crucial crossing and became a flaming heap.
After this I wanted to get the timing figured out for how long the pause needed to be in order to unload. I discovered that the unload has to be the terminal end of the waypoints or it wouldn't take place. Conversely to unload the same troops when there were no waypoints was very quick. The vehicle had to sit out the majority of the turn.
Before I suggest my idea I'd like to ask the question; is there any way to unload a vehicle prior to it's last waypoint? I'd like to take advantage of any timing improvements because as I noticed it can make a life or death difference.
My suggestion would be to have a LOAD and UNLOAD option added to the vehicle. The vehicle would wait until it's passengers either arrived or departed, and then take off.
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The success of the upcoming patch will determine whether it gets followed up by more pay for patches. I personally hope this tactic is successful enough for Battlefront to afford an additional game programming employee. This game is great, but quite clunky. Battlefront certainly does the most with what they have. I'd love for them to have the opportunity to raise it up another notch.
Hopefully what they release does warrant the upgrade cost.
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You can run multiple installs of CMBN at different version levels. I have several running. there is no reason at all to be worrying about saved games. If you are really worried you install an additional copy in a new folder and continue to run your old saves on the old version. Once done you can always then upgrade that version and delete the newer one if you want it in the default folder. This does not impact your activations at all. Believe me I delete and reinstall additional instances of CMBN on a regular basis.
I would also not assume anything about the sales startegy, but seriously we are talking $5 maybe $10 dollars versus months of time lost from playing time. Really? Is that worth it?
You are correct in regards to backwards compatability. I really thought I read a post that said contrary to this.
Here is a segment of Moons post:
Upgrades are backwards compatible with all battles and campaigns, no matter who authored them or which units/terrain are used within them. Some Mods will work without modification, others may need to be updated to take advantage of game engine changes.
Thank you for catching that.
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It's really hard to know whether it will be worth the wait, not really knowing what the final product will look like.
I have personally found the CMFI game a lot more riveting with the updated features and the interesting maps. I've determined not to go back to this game until the update has been released. A lot of people are in this same boat. You might not like the theatre, but you ought to at least try out the demo to see how the game interface works.
If I had to do this over I would have waited just from the standpoint of having to now install the original game and then the large patch; instead of taking care of this all at once. You might even lose game activations when installing both from scratch.
In my own note; I am very much hoping that the user interface will grow in parallel with the monitor size. This would be worth the price of the upgrade alone.
I would have to believe that the pricing will be similar whether you buy the old game with the new patch or new game alone.
I also believe you will lose saved games should you buy now and upgrade later.
I have to believe the game will be released before Christmas. There have been some hints to that end. Hopefully someone can confirm even better news such as that it will be released in November.
I am very anxious for this release as well.
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Since we have a very good game engine to work with it would be interesting to see a somewhat scientific test taken to show results of how advancing in file might differ in effectiveness from advancing abreast (using the split squad method).
I certainly could concur with what Jason C has said in regards to the advantages of advancing abreast.
However; in the game I am playing right now I have run through a situation where I "felt" much safer advancing in line. I advanced through a wide open flat field where the enemy was gathering in a wide stanced hilly woods in front of me. I feared that by widening my advance I would allow more shooting lanes for the better protected enemy. Would this be another exception to the rule?
It would be interesting to see results of situational tests of both methods.
I did try a little test of the exact same situation as specified in bold.
In the 1st test I gave the "Quick" movement command across the open field with NO adjustments. I used 2 squads (1 assault team and 1 HQ) which is the same as I tried from the prior attempt. I faced these 2 squads against 2 squads. I had only 1 casualty in crossing the open field.
In the 2nd test I split the assault team into 3 seperate paths and the HQ squad were set to equal distances apart from each other. Their orders was the identical "Quick" command. The result of this test was 6 casualties. I could absolutely see that the opposition (covered by the forest) had more open firing lanes. HOWEVER: The greatest deterent to this crossing was the ensuing confusion where there my troops spent 20 seconds trying to decide where it was that they wanted to go.
This test was done as a 2 player Hotseat. I saved the game just prior to the split.
I doubt this was a great test of advancing abreast or advancing in line given the glitch. However; given the tight time restraints and path finding issues it would be the only appropriate choice for the given scenario.
I hope to be able to see advantages contrary to this in other given circumstances. Prior to this thread I hadn't given the concept much thought.
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I've followed this thread from the beginning. It certainly has meandered a bit since the starting post. I still enjoy reading through this thread as it does have some good suggestions on movement that could absolutely make this game feel more realistic. There are some good pointers on how to achieve the desired movement as well.
Since we have a very good game engine to work with it would be interesting to see a somewhat scientific test taken to show results of how advancing in file might differ in effectiveness from advancing abreast (using the split squad method).
I certainly could concur with what Jason C has said in regards to the advantages of advancing abreast.
However; in the game I am playing right now I have run through a situation where I "felt" much safer advancing in line. I advanced through a wide open flat field where the enemy was gathering in a wide stanced hilly woods in front of me. I feared that by widening my advance I would allow more shooting lanes for the better protected enemy. Would this be another exception to the rule?
It would be interesting to see results of situational tests of both methods.
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However, it would be nice to have a 'use as cover' command in which the infantry stick to one side of the tank which acts as a shield. This was a common tactic, but is hard to replicate since it requires having the tank and infantry move at the same speed.
The above would be a nice feature as it would allow for a better integration of combined arms.
I also would like to see the ability for infantry to hitch a ride up to the point of combat.
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Certainly looking forward to this upgrade. Whether viewed from my laptop screen or my 32 inch monitor the user interface is very difficult to read.
Hopefully this will also be implimented on the Battle For Normandy upgrade that is upcoming. It would give more incentive for buying this patch.
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Enough with the training already
Paul, do you want to try a PBEM (play by email) game with me? Being that we are both relatively new to CM it should be an equal skill match up.
And how do you guys get your PBEM matches going? Is there a special forum section or a website for this? I don't think I saw a lot of PBEM requests in the general forum area.
Certainly, that would be good practice for both of us. I would like to figure out how PBEM even works.
Perhaps someone might know how the mechanics of PBEM works. I briefly looked at Quick Battles and it did appear you could pick a scenario and make a PBEM from this.
If I had a choice I'd prefer an infantry or light mechanised matchup. I'd prefer a small or medium even balanced map. I'm thinking that a meeting engagement might be interesting.
Would anyone out there have a recommendation for a good PBEM map to play?
Perhaps we'll have a chance to give it a go.
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I've finally got to the point of playing through the Hill 1056 training scenario.
I think this mission could be summed up with "Wow, what a barrage".
I did learn a lesson from my 1st play of this mission.
I learned to fall back as the manual suggested. I also used cover from the buildings as suggested; however 1 of the 1 story buildings didn't fare that well with the shellings.
I fell back just after revealing my HMG and troops that defended against the gun threat from the 2 half tracks. I fell back just in time as the artillery hit my position the next turn. I waited through a considerable hail storm of artillery. I could watch the German forces slowly advance in great numbers.
The 2 Italian tanks came up to near point blank range of the bunkers. The German troops also advanced to this position, but for some reason they weren't able to finish the 3 bunkers off.
On the flank of the bunkers I had an anti-tank squad in position for flanking from the tanks. This never happened. However they were in great position to pick off the troops that made it to the back side of the bunkers. Perhaps they also took out 1 of the tanks.
The numbers encroaching the bunkers were quite substantial. I called in Mortar fire to get many of them pinned. I also took my HMG out of hiding to drop back this advance.
On the other flank I had a machine gun stationed on a ledge to prevent enemy advances along with one of the HQ units.
I more or less lost my scouting troops from the 1st initiative, but they certainly slowed the advance down.
My great disappointment was that I didn't get the 300 points for defending the bunker position. My big question would be; do you lose the position even if the enemy just reaches your position? I thought my forces did an amazing job of clearing out the opposition. Would this also mean that I failed the mission?
My comments of the mission were that the AI was great in telegraphing the firing of my better units to set it up for artillery fire.
I was a little perplexed that I didn't lose all my bunkers to all the fire directed at them. I had very little defense in each one.
It was interesting how a couple of my troops literally hid away even though they were close to the action.
This was an awesome training mission. If I failed it I may be tempted to try it again. I do think the mission gives you a good feel for the game.
From sounds of things the difficulty must even escalate in the next mission.
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Excellent, I'm glad someone else is going through the same exercise.
Unfortunately I won't be able to reply in depth now as I am heading to work.
I did discover that the "Investigate Activity" points activate with a touch requirement.
Thanks a lot for the anti tank advice!
but that is a good point in regards to these troops opening up at greater than optimal range.
Is firing Mortars or Artillery acceptable on 1st turn?
in Combat Mission Fortress Italy
Posted
I apologize if this question has been asked before I was having trouble searching for it.
The game appears to allow the firing of Mortars and Artillery from the very 1st turn, even if there is no line of sight present. Is this intentional? Should it be allowed in PBEM games?
The next turn this advantage goes away.