dakuth

Hmm. I'm not having that problem. I'm not getting errors - in fact it sends fine. I just assumed it was also supposed to download returned files........ Also, I can't see anything in that screenshot. Too small. Might be just me. I would suggest if you're not using gmail, check all the settings floating around and ensure none of the gmail settings are set.

So long as the interface for doing so is a little slicker than fire missions

I only split if I think it's tactically relevant - generally leaving them together. I'm sure it puts me at a slight tactical disadvantage, but saves on administrative work! Also: I'm not saying the design is perfect - wouldn't it be better if the MGunner knew he was shooting at a split team and didn't spread his shots as a result? If you want to suppress a horde of incoming Ami split-teams: area target. I'm just pointing out ... I don't think this is a bug, so much as a design decision that doesn't work out well in the given case.

Has anyone considered that this might be by design? e.g. a Squad covers three action squares. You target the squad - thus the MG locks on to the middle action square... but let's be honest, you'd want the gunner to spread his fire left and right a little to try and suppress or kill the whole squad. Basically "targeting" a unit is no different to area firing except that the action square you have targeted is moving. By design the gunner spreads to shots left and right to adjacent square to suppress not just what you're shooting at, but other infantry as well.

I agree wholeheartedly. Has anyone worked out the gmail integration though? It sends fine, but doesn't receive? Is that it's limitation?

How come the last couple pages of your images don't load? Is it just me?

Wow. I wander back into the forums after a while away.... and what the hell? A TOUCH version? I've never seen a point to a tablet... but that has been slowly changing. Seen one or two apps that would actually be decent on a tablet over a phone. Combat Mission definitely qualifies. Now: I have an android phone, and suspect I always will.... but I'm actually looking at the JUST ANNOUNCED MS Surface. CM:N is already a Windows game - what's the chances CM:T will be Windows 8 compatible (and thus playable on the fancy Surface tablet? ) Something to keep in mind, BFC, don't you think?

In case anyone is wondering: the manual provides instructions on how to set up relative keymapping.

The "alternative" keys are actually the "sane" keys. Relative key mapping is some of the most ass-backwards way of controlling a game I have *ever* seen (in about 20 years of gaming.) And it's default?!? I have started a really long document on all the short-comings of CM:BN's UI issues, and how they could be fixed. The NUMBER ONE was this "the same keys-mean-different-things-depending-on-the-tab" craziness. That's when I discovered you could change to "alternate" keymapping style. I pretty much stopped on the document, because it was just a GIANT relief to be able to have sane keymapping I was willing to overlook the hundred other questionable decisions. Change to alternate keymapping. Do it NOW. It doesn't matter if you're used to the madness that is relative. You know how it took you a week to get used to relative, and even now you often make a mistake? With the alternative you'll adjust within the time of a *single battle* and never look back.

My best moment (and it was in my first game after upgrading the demo to full I think) 1. I "soften" up a village with a heavy arty bombardment. 2. I send in the infantry to secure the 2-story buildings 3. Once cleared of AT threats, I move up my Panthers, working their way down the narrow little streets 4. A sherman counter attack begins from the far side of the village, so I creep a Panther between some of my 2-story buildings to see if it can get a shot off 5. The sherman fires first, and the shell deflects harmlessly off... into a heavily damaged building my infantry were occupying 6. The building collapses killing everyone inside

I got a tactical victory first go - I had no idea a counter attack was imminent. I was expecting lots of resistance around the bridge. I proceeded carefully up the left side of the road with everything. I wanted to avoid having to pick through much forest, as I didn't have many men - but the forest overlooking the bridge obviously needed to be thoroughly cleared out. So, using overwatch and cover I moved up to the forest edge, then began to creep my infantry through it spread out, while my vehicles stayed back. My plan was to clear the forest, then secure the bridge with the HT guns and support weapons overwatching the infantry. So they were close to the forest, but behind it. When my infantry got to the far side of the forest, I suddenly got many contacts of Ami's running across the open towards the forest I had just crept through (from a smaller forest which I assumed was their starting point.) I lay down fire ASAP trying to catch them in the open. I drove several vehicles around the forest at high speed to provide cross-fire on the exposed enemy. I hustled up my MGs and set them up 1 action square into the forest to pour more firepower on them while they were pinned in the open. I avoided crossing the road, and focused everything on those infantry - I didn't want to get into any entanglements that weren't necessary. That's about when the shermans showed up, and dispatched several of my HTs and ACs. I wasn't expecting that, but the losses were worth the damage they inflicted. I searched around for something to dispatch the shermans, but there was nothing. As you point out - only 30m fausts. So unless the shermans happen to drive within 30m of a forest edge, I had no hope. I resolved to simply avoid the shermans. However, it didn't matter in the end because after a round or two of backing away from the shermans, a platoon of panthers showed up. I used these reinforcements to engage the shermans directly, and with some new infantry that came with them, also secure the area around the bridge, and suppress American assets in the forests to the right of the road. My panthers destroyed 1 AT gun and 5 shermans for the loss of one Panther, damaged gun controls on another, and one was de-tracked. All-in-all my biggest problem was it was quite time consuming clearing out the forests around the bridge so I could be assured of a successful occupy. I rushed some vehicles and a small number of infantry to secure the final occupy objective - I had no time clear it of enemies, but I think it was defended by only a MG jeep, so it was quickly dispatched and I succeeded at that objective too. My biggest losses, IMO, were the infantry that cleared out the forest. Even though I worked hard to try and pin the Ami's in the open, a couple squads got into the forest causing night-time forest fighting to occur, which was just a slaughter. Yes I lost a handful of HTs and ACs, but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. (I assume this is why its called Bloody Gulch) The infantry were a terrible loss though. I just wish I'd been able to pin down those squads before they got into the trees.

Crap, sorry. Wrong thing on the clipboard I guess! http://youtu.be/qLRl9MFaN6E I can't edit my post now, either Boo forum policies.

The tactical problem I faced was that the Sherman had retreated through a gate and so to approach it I had to drive in such a way as to expose myself to the gate before rotating to face - thus exposing my side-armour to a waiting Sherman gun. I have from experience noted that although a Sherman has almost no chance to penetrate a Panther frontally, it can be quite successful from the side - even on the turret. I moved the Panther in focus along a dry creek bed to keep it concealed. Even if it was visible, it would only be exposing the top of its turrent to the enemy - both the strongest part of the tank, and a smaller target to hit. I was able to drive down it to line up with the gate, then rotate to present the front armour and use a "slow" command to creep up the embankment to get the shot. Even if the Sherman had have got the first shot - entirely possible since it was stationary and waiting for me - it would have had a very hard time (if not impossible) to penetrate my Panther. It was a bonus that he exposed himself to the second Panther and received 3 shots to his 1.

Very nice ! The sounds I thought were a pretty cool addition Although - do mortars whistle like that?

I looked at my losses, and noted them. But I didn't record them and I knew I'd live to regret it. I believe, from memory, I had approximately 300KIA - something like 295? I do know for sure it was very close to what Germany had to. So we had similar losses over this campaign (despite me getting awarded a "total victory.") My armour losses weren't too bad. A smidge high, but acceptable. I can't recall the number though If I remember I'll fire up my last save and add here.

Does it matter whether you give the rotate or deploy command first?

Courage and Fortitude spoilers: What and epic, epic campaign. I have fortunately read that most people found it brutal so I'm looking forward to "relaxing" on more enjoyable campaigns. I played through it on elite, and have been slogging away on it since day 1 release. I have *just* finished it. After School of Hard Knocks I put it down for some time. La haye du puits ... I took one look at this map and put it down for months. I did reload several times in School of Hard Knocks, because I didn't think to call for a cease fire. I'm too used to more generic games where it is "complete objectives, or repeat the scenario" so every time TRP arty dropped on my men, wiping out an entire company, I'd reload. I forced I and L companies UP THAT DAMN HILL until they could go on no longer. We got there, but the toll was terrible. I then had to slog through the rest of this nasty campaign with basically shattered companies. I had no CO, most Platoon HQs were dead, many squads consisted of one or two guys. None were at full strength. Then La haye du puits loads... a large map with a hundred buildings lining narrow roads like medieval kill-zones. At first it looks as though all you get is I and L companies, with W (weapons) company in support and the entire town is a large green "occupy" objective. Before you can even worry about flushing the Krauts out of each and every building you first have to cross a minefield that at first glance appears to stretch the entire map like a deadly moat. I spent weeks of real-life time (doing one or two turns here and there when I could bring myself to do it) poking slowly, slowly through that mine field. I dropped arty on it in a vain hope it would "pop" the mines. I edged some pioneers into the field and left them there for turn after turn in the hope they'd spot and mark the mines. It was such slow going, in fact, that reinforcements started to roll in. Nothing useful for crossing minefields of course... more support platoons. A Halftrack. Then a tank platoon. Just as I had developed a plan of sneaking each squad through the minefield in column formation one at a time, a full platoon of engineers shows up (or was it a company?) Along with good old K company - the only company I hadn't had a chance to tear to shreds in this campaign. Oh yeah, and I had another wrecked infantry battalion (made up of C and D companies) coming from another angle. They took their simple objective, but were destroyed in the process. Enough men to claim an "occupy" objective, but otherwise just single riflemen by that point. By this stage I had 3 nearly-complete tank platoons as well. So, I re-developed my plans. Now I had 3 tank platoons, 2 shattered infantry companies, 1 solid infantry company, and support platoons coming out my ears. I could have dug a tunnel to the town square with 60mm mortars and machine guns - medium and heavy abounded. On top of all that 105mm howies and 80mm off-map mortars. I had plenty of HE, my problem was the urban environment calling for lots of infantry to clear out building after building. If I could just SPOT the enemy, I could definitely drop things on his head. So using the copious amounts of explosive (engineer satchels for this job) I busted up the bocage in spots that weren't marked with minefields and just prayed the intel was correct. I sent I and L companies ahead more as a scouting, screening force. Their job was to spot the enemy so they could be blown to pieces by HE or assaulted by full-strength K company. Once through the minefield - which was trivial once I had blown open some bocage (when I think of the real life hours I spent trying to bust that nut!) - the entrance to town started to roll-up fairly easily. A few german HMGs scattered around the place - but with the number of shermans and 60mm mortars I had on hand, opening fire was a death sentence for them. One or two panzershrek teams did their job knocking out two shermans despite being spotted first (2 200m shots in a row for instant knock out. Very skilled teams... I guess? Maybe lucky? In any case shockingly deadly. To see a shrek fly true across that distance was quite the surprise.) I and L proved themselves useful yet again, though, even though they had almost zero leadership. As they rounded the street corner that lead to the main square, they spotted an AT gun and a cleverly placed Panther tank. This tank was parked right at the far end of this main road, behind sandbags, and flanks protected by these wall-to-wall buildings that ran the length of each street. Rolling Shermans around that corner would have been like shooting ducks in a gallery for him. My forward observers who I knew would be key (what with all the arty I had on call) were called up. They snuck into a building, and called in the howitzers. So satisfying. I was a little lucky perhaps - the second shell fired hit the Panther directly on the roof and blew it up, then all subsequent shells were off target by about 20-50m - but the plan worked. Some 60mm called in to dispatch the AT gun, and the shermans could round the corner. Heavy and medium MGs leap frogged from building to building as the shermans and infantry (mostly engineers) rolled down the main road. I was expecting it, so I wasn't terribly surprised when my scouts moved ahead and looked down a side-alley to see an Assault gun parked down the end. More arty! The StuG reacted though, and decided to come forward. "Fine," I thought, "Let's see what happens when you come out from your side-alley into 4 waiting shermans." I don't really trust a Sherman in a frontal-duel with a StuG - but 4-on-1 surely he wouldn't live. My only concern was taking loses first. Fortunately it went my way - the first sherman's shell deflected harmlessly away, but the second penetrated the superstructure, and it was knocked out. With the way cleared my little I and L company remnants scattered ahead and found a second assault gun (I knew there had to be more than 1) but it was on the wrong side of the buildings - out of town. Not far from my tanks in a straight line, but neither side would be able to fire on the other without first leveling a few buildings. I went searching for the nearest AT team - I also had plenty of AT. I turned many of the scrappy squads into AT teams by sending them to a nearby truck or jeep and grabbing the 'zook and rockets. I ordered the first ones I found to head through the first floor of the nearest building, and out into the backyard. There the large yard was surrounded by a high, brick wall so I gave them a way point at the gate, and then through the gate where they should find the rear armour of the StuG that just drove past. They did just fine getting through that building and to the gate in 1 turn. They ran out the rear gate, and were greeted point blank by a panzershrek team and the StuG's rear armour a short distance away. The turn ended. I gave a few orders here and there, but there really wasn't much I could tell my AT team to do. It was AT team vs AT team ... I didn't know what was going to happen. I hit the "start turn" button. The tube guy whipped out his garand, shot the Kraut AT enemy in one shot, then quick as a flash switched to his bazooka and blew the StuG away in a single shot. All in the space of 60 seconds. What a guy! After that, it was mostly a case of mopping up. There was a brief and extremely frenzied fire fight at one stage when I committed K company. 2 full Ami platoons took up residence in a few large houses (complete with MG support of course) revealing a full platoon of germans just across a houseyard in the 2-story building opposite. Some of the germans were caught in the open, some ran for the building, but most were already set up with multiple LMGs. The fight lasted about 30seconds with the Ami's routing the enemy fairly handily, but for that brief time the tracer fire licking between that short gap was just incredible. I called in my remaining Howie guns over the last objective point towards the rear of the town and my shermans rolled ahead sending HE through the windows of any building that housed a german (supported by the remnants of I, L, and engineers clearing out the buildings.) As the arty fell, the remaining Germans lost the will and surrendered. And that's how I finished Courage and Fortitude. PHEW!

Just thought I'd give my old thread a bit of a bump. I'm still getting a steady stream of hits, so I figure people must be getting something out of it - which makes me very happy I've started playing CMx2 again, at least a little bit, so maybe I'll do another one. I'm just undecided on what the correct format should be.

Yes I believe so. I think the way the system works is if some soldiers spot, and the rest of the squad cannot, after a short time the information is communicated and so the whole squad can start to see the unit (although LOF might be another question.) So perhaps that is what is happening? Perhaps the one guy can spot the StuG, after a bit he communicates that to the squad and so now most guys can "see" it, so it pops in. However, just seconds later the only guy who can *actually* see it loses sight, and it immediately winks out - a case of weakest link or something - and it'll now take some time for him to reacquire it and communicate the information again. Meanwhile, two guys have unobstructed view to the 88 due to ever-so-slightly different LOS and so it stays permanently in view. It's odd - particularly from our god's-eye view, but maybe these are one of those strange occurrences that happen in war? "We were taking pot-shots at the 88 when out of nowhere this StuG right close to us lurches in view only 20m away! How we didn't see it, I'll never know. Just as fast it disappeared, only to reappear a few minutes later it's gun barrel training on us..."

I'm probably the only one to download that file But it is an odd one that. The only thing I could put it down to is the forest.... something like the StuG isn't normally visible (very well hidden, or LOS is passing directly through a tree-trunk) until it does something specific (perhaps move slightly) and this is tipping it over to visible. It soon winks out again. It doesn't make a great deal of sense though, since a hard-to-see (you'd think) 88 is directly BEHIND the StuG. Another thing to note is that individual soldiers can sometimes see a target and they don't appear. The StuG only really appears after the majority of soldiers can see it. I think the guy on the left is spotting it no problems (and might even be firing on it) while the rest of the crew is mostly blocked by a tree trunk.

By comparison to what several of the guys in that thread are listing off (like assumptions people are using Linux... huh?) Filezilla is quite simple Though I freely admit that they were making it *sound* simple. I know I set up Filezilla with little more than double-click setup.exe, punch in the ftp server and port I was told, and it worked perfectly from there... However, if your average wargamer runs into any problems whatsoever, I think they'd soon come unstuck. Port forwarding I thought was becoming fairly mainstream - although it may losing popularity again with the prevalence of match making services.

http://xkcd.com/949/ http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=74245&start=40 I know Dropbox is the most popular solution at the moment - and combined with the excellent H2H helper by Martin I suspect that is the defacto standard for the BFC community. However, discussions on torrents, ftp, and the like in this thread that are making it sound quite simple. (e.g. with Filezilla and a little port forwarding you could have your opponent suck the file directly off your harddrive - no need to upload yourself. With torrent you have a pausable peer-to-peer copy system that most people already have installed.)

I am actually currently stopped about 20 turns in or something (A few tanks and a company of infantry have arrived.) I dropped a few mortars on a section of the minefields I thought I might try probing in the hope of popping a bunch. I have been slowly, slowly creeping foward... seeing if I can sneak through the minefields. Like other posters, I assumed the "gap" in the minefields was a limitation, or a vagueness and was actually mined. However, my slow creeping through the minefields has not been going all that well. I don't think I could risk marching a company of two of men through there without ruining their morale. So I was just lining up a squad of men to "scout" (read:charge) through the unmarked area to see if it is actually mined. If not, I was going to smoke like hell and attack enmasse "up the guts!" The whole prospect is pretty daunting though and has prevented me from firing it up. I keep thinking "I should at least do a few turns..." but it feels like work as I sweat over it all. I mostly blame minefields, which I dislike as being nasty, hard to spot, and no real way of removing (realistic I guess) combined with a shattered couple companies of men (mostly thanks to School of Hard Knocks.) I really, really, don't relish going in.... realistic again, I suppose. I've been tempted to simply do some scenarios to take a break, but my OCD prevents me. It's the last mission! I should at least complete it then reward myself with "fun" missions. I'm kind of glad I read this thread - quite a bit of spoilers, but it is nice to know that I would have been right - that gap actually has no mines, and if I smoke it good and proper I should be able to get to the town itself. From there I think I'll be able to dislodge them - or at least have fun trying. It's those damn mines!!

Ultimately I think H2H will be the driving focus for the future of the game. It always will be - both in this game and others. Playing the AI is fun and all, but the guys that hang around for months and years playing the same game are nearly always the guys playing Multiplayer. This game is a little unique in that the TacAI needs tweaking along the way to make for a solid MP game, but you know what I mean.

It's a shame SS. I think you'll ultimately like the game, but it would require jumping some hurdles. For example, if you and your son are at the same house, you could do PBEM and use you network. i.e. just drop the files on a shared location. It'll save e-mailing things around - even several hundred MB will only take a few seconds to copy. The big downside of course... in proper TCPIP WEGO both players could give orders at the same time. By doing it this way, your son (who probably has better eyesight!) could play Call of Duty or whatever kids are into these days while he waits for your turn As for the camera controls... yah, they suck. But I can assure you that you get good enough with them to do what you want and need after a bit. I don't think you ever get as good with them as one would hope... but it's usable. especially if you decide to go down the "PBSFOL" (Play By Save File Over LAN) route you can take all the time in the world to fumble with the controls It really is a good game, and if it's your sort of genre I'd recommend picking it up. (The only serious complaints I've heard have been from hard-core board game purists who take offence at the lack of abstraction.)