mjkerner

Urban terrain such as half-destroyed, multi-storied buildings (some walls standing, etc.), and a lot of funky German TO&E's covering SS training schools, Kriegsmarine units and the like. And windmills!

I seem to recall that we were warned that "might" happen when installing CMSF modules, so the advice was what Pvt. Ryan said. Back it up just in case.

Hey Para, how was the time-travel weekend? I'll have a scenario for you soon.

My computer is down...a virus that won't let me connect to the Internet...and won't be back up 'til my son gets to it this weekend. So today-Saturday is about when it will be released, I'm sure. But we're upgrading the HD and adding RAM, so not all is lost.

What's HoI???

No dog, Michael. Can I threaten to shoot yours?

"One Button Mouse" sounds like the title of a really smarmy chick-flick. Sorry...

No, you're wrong. If you say it out loud, in front of a mirror, three times, it will appear.

Thanks, good to have that confirmed. It here are so many variables in setting AI plans. It's more art than science, for sure! Between AI groupings, placement, stance, movement and reinforcement options, it just takes a lot of experimenting to get things to gel.

LOL, my IPad doesn't do me much good for playing CMBN! Should have bought a laptop instead.

Snake-eye, did you try painting yellow map zones just along the sunken road--just one square wide? So if you painted one say about 10 squares long, a platoon should move to that zone and lineup down the road? I'd try but the wife took over the 'puter today to work on a power point presentation!

Snake-eye, you get no argument from me. I was just giving an idea of an "average" size for trying to keep the unit together. You are correct that it doesn't work well for a narrow axis of advance, and probably a bunch of other situations. I think we need about 21 AI groups to really be able to work the AI planning process to get the results we'd like. Another thing: when you use the yellow setup zones in a plan, the game seems to rearranged and reposition the troops, despite how you may have initially set them up in the Red/Blue map setup zones. So in order to keep the troops in the original stance/positions, I just didn't paint a yellow setup zone for them. That seems to work okay, but I only tried it last night for the first time. Am I seeing this right?

UGC, HQ, specialist teams and the like will tend to move faster than a full squad/platoon, so it can get tricky. Two things will help, and maybe there are others but I can't say. One, make sure your squads/platoons have a large enough...but not too large...map zone. I was experimenting with this very problem last night and finally started taking notes. A German platoon in line should be about 10-12 action squares wide, and 3 deep to get a good dispersment. I was using Assault and Max Assault, and it worked pretty well. The squads would do the assault leap frog, using mostly the assault move order and the HQ, schreck and MG teams would lay low, move fast, them crawl, always behind the line troops. But set up areas were crucial, too. I was testing 3platoons all in one AI group, and had 3platoon-size setup areas and 3 map zones directly forward of each setup zone, on a perfectly flat, clear map. The first test, the 3 platoons each setup in a separate area, and moved to the next zone in their line of advance. The second time,the HQ/schreck and mg teams again all followed behind the line troops, except mid-way toward the other side of the map, all the mg and schreck teams veered over to one map zone on the flank, although the HQs acted properly. More testing needed! Oh, the second thing is the AI movement orders. That all depends on the map and the enemy placement, etc., but so far Assault and Max Assault seem to work best for me. But all that said, it just takes a lot of testing to get. Things right. Oh, I get my AI to retreat by the same method of moving them forward...paint a map zone back the way they came! That actually seems to work well for launching spoiling attacks on the human player. Have say a squad move to a flanking hedgerow, stay there for enough time to (hopefully) fire for a few minutes, then retreat for a while, then back again.

thejetset, I'm not sure if I'm the guy that noob meant or not. I'm definitely interested, but I will have to hold off for at least 2 months due to real life and one ongoing commitment to CMBN. I truly don't think I could even handle one turn a week right now! But I wish you well if you find another player. If not, maybe early May??? Noob: I just checked and have Kurson Pocket and Market Garden (and at one time I had the West Front/East Front package, although Tiller games, I don't recall if they were from the same series).

OMG, I just checked the PZ Campaigns link. I have most of those games! I didn't really like the system so I didn't play it much. IL2 Sturmovik took over so 10 years ago and I never followed up on WW II computer land warfare games until CMSF. I played around in those oob's some as well. I'm definitely interested in trying this out, noob.

I certainly remember that victory, LemuelG. Steve sounded very serious and certain about making that change.

Selection of the size of the battle...tiny medium, huge, whatever...can't recall all the size options. But it makes a big difference in points.

Wow, noob, you have really put a lot of work into this. Thank you for this great addition to theCMBN gaming experience!

Thanks for that, noob. I wanted to check it out but couldn't get anywhere with it. I thought it might be my system. Looking forward to checking it out myself.

undercover: An update on AI planning. check out this thread on the CMSF Scenario Mod Design forum: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=82396 para: my Internet connection is out on my home comp, and will be for a week or so. I can't send files from work or on my iPad, but PM me your email and I'll send you the file(s) when I can. Thanks for volunteering.

Check with noob, Winckies. His operational system might interest you: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=99018

para, I'm working on a couple (not OMG)...a delaying action and limited counterattack on a looong map, and a breakthrough/seal the breach on a wiiide map. Will need testers soon. You interested? Also, when CW comes out, I and I'm sure many others will be building OMG scenarioas...there's always the 82nd Abn, 101st Abn, XXX Corps, and plenty of Red Devil actions to fight in "normal" CNBM terrain. When OMG comes out, I plan to use sdp's Italian mod with some modded terrain I made from CM Afghanistan to make Crete scenarios (although admittedly, the Brit uniforms and kit, even with modded colors, won't be right). So, it's all good!

Noob, Internet shortcut for "if I recall correctly". Sticky, no, I'm not sure. You could be right.

IRRC, it's abstracted for the most part.

Undercover geek, The manual says (from memory) that the AI will continue to try to execute the orders in sequence, and that's the behavior I'm seeing. So yes, they will try to execute order 2 after they deal with the problem.