Ithikial_AU

I'm guessing it would only be if there was a strong desire to expand the existing product dramatically in one direction. Crowdfunding to bring in extra talent for a fixed period to dramatically improve the graphics side of the series or something like that. Essentially tick off those 'would be nice to have' wishlist boxes that would never be feasible for a studio of Battlefront's size. It would probably just be sucking money out of the wallets of the die hard fan base... but hey if the community was willing to put their money where the mouths are to make it happen outside of a regular purchase. But yeah a lot of potential heartache for questionable gain, but at least you'd know whether costs would be covered based on whether the funding target was met or not before being committed.

This. With the additional ability to sync up waypoints of different fireteams/squads/vehicles. So for instance you have two squads of a platoon about to enter a building while a third squad will provide overwatch at a good position nearby they are currently moving to. The ability to have the first two squads enter the building only once the third squad reaches the assigned waypoint (LOS / Command and Control considerations obviously come into play) would give the players an additional level of planning you'd expect to be occuring on the ground during an engagement. The squad doesn't wait strictly for 10 seconds for another team it get into position, it waits for the team to get into position even if it taks 12 second. Currently it's very hard to do with just the pause command trying to guesstimate timings across a battlefield. Will make urban fights a bit more workable and avoid silly encounters.

Always been curious how BF will be treating the end of the war across the three 1945 games. Though I understand TOE changes probably are not going to be anything noticeable, but will the games still allow engagements in the first week of May? Cheers for the update.

I think the misconceptions is centered around that we outsiders have no idea what 'risky speculative activities' actually means in a Combat Mission and wider Battlefront sense - and how those conclusions are reached. And the perfectly fine arguement is nor should we, Battlefront are a privately owned company who can do what they want. If they decide to list on the stock exchange and we all bought shares... that's another story. Even with my background as a number cruncher/economist by day, I have no idea how someone in Battlefront's position would analyse an evidence base to decide if a specific module of new game family is a worthwhile venture or not. I mean a number of us will always go on about wanting to see mid and early war titles within the CMx2 engine at some point, (guilty hand up for being part of that crowd), but for all we know Battlefront have already decided the market/expected sales, even within their die hard customer base, is too small to entertain developping a Barbarossa or a North Africa family. From what I gather from Steve's comments over the years is that the forum crowd is only a fraction of CM customer base so may not be an accurate sample. Even surveying the customer base based on past customers would probably be a wrong step and provide a massively biased result; you ask people do you want X, Y and Z with no links to wallets... they're generally always going to say yes.

+1 for this trilogy. His other titles centered on Italy and the final months of the war are also a good read. The only criticsm I had was that he jumps around a bit between different units (most at the battalion level) so it can be a touch hard to follow geographically at times. Having some maps on hand is a big help.

Should point out It's largely Umlaut's work when it comes to the greatcoats. I liked the work he did on German snow uniforms for CMFI and got tired of waiting for him to get around to CMFB. (I checked with Umlaut first)

That's part of the reason why I thought of Carentan. Quite a narrow front of advance between St Come Du Mont to Carentan that was carried out by the 502nd PIR as Battalions leap frogged each other. Maybe you switch over to commanding the 506th PIR for the main assault on the city whenever that point is reached. (Though yes 502nd was still involved). Sadly CM:A is the only time I haven't brought a Combat Mission release. Ran into too many technical problems with the demo. Well aware of the "dummy mission" concept and sort of used that approach at the start of my Lions of Carpiquet campaign (though there is a small risk to the player if they play it silly). This idea is a bit different to that since the two players playing against each other aren't limited to a binary win/lose situation of a regular single player campaign game. You can design the VP's to equate to different scales of victory (in this case how far they advanced in the previous battle) and then the next battle determined by the flow chart and should reflect terrain wise whatever gains they made last time - big or small. I was thinking having a fixed rate depending on the previous degree of victory or defeat programmed into the following scenario variants. Once a battalion reaches a certain point they are pulled off the line and replaced - like they would have been by regiment/division command. Once the player loses too many formations from the fixed list in this way, then it's an auto campaign loss. This system means you won't have any 'speed bump' battles though still gives one side an advantage if they have the operational momentum from a string of prevous victories. It would also be safe way to avoid arguements breaking out half way down the campaign tree. Only downside is you couldn't guarantee matching up losses from specific sub-formations such as companies or platoons (ie A Company took a battering last time but comes back with only 20% casualties because of a major victory). No sytem is perfect. @Mad Mike 's little tool should give you the campaign script file. It's easier to have one that's already been used successfully as a template and replace the necessary bits of information with the game manual in hand. That's what I did for Lions of Carpiquet. You are going to make mistakes but the game will give you a rough idea where the error is if it spits the file back you. It's usually a formatting issue or a typo that causes errors. (From a guy who isn't a a programmer ) I like that metaphor.

Thanks and nice stats. Sadly any record keeping needs a time investment from the user before it starts bearing fruit to see patterns in how you play. To add to @IanL 's comments about The Blitz's split in scenario/QB H2H matches, it's pretty much the same over at the FGM. Up until we stopped recording details about the type of battle played it was roughly 60% scenarios being played for ranked ladder matches. @Mad Mike - Once the upcoming CMFI module is released the Career Record System is going to need a hefty update given the new nations/formations included (I assume based on earlier BF released bones). Expect a tap on the shoulder. Team up projects with a common interest/theme I think is a big way to try and attract new community members to experiment in the editor. That's not to say it's the solution, there's certainly long wishlists out there for editor improvements from the community. However CMx2 scenario design is a time consuming task, so having a group of people with a common interest in a particular battle or theme means you can pool knowledge and research. And if you're lucky maybe have some testers on hand already to try out each other's work. Our little Arracourt project probably not the best example given the scale of most of the battles and the fact we aren't done yet (guys I am alive and have a three day weekend off coming up ), but even here it has lightened the load already allowing some helpers to just make maps while others tackled the OOB and AI plans. The worst thing I think for a scenario designer I think would be to work on an idea only for a double up of scenarios trying to depict the same event, either from other community members unknowingly working at the same time on the same idea or for it to be covered via a future official Battlefront release. One of the ideas I've had but never had the time to to even start to put it together was to recreate CMx1 style Operations inside the editor - to reflect a steady advance by an attacker over a large peice of terrain over a fixed period of time. Given the much larger maps inside CMx2 now this became a more viable proposition. It would be basically a block of scenarios (each with variants) and two players would follow a flow chart based on who won the last battle and/or some other criteria. For example, let's say IanL and I fight the opening engagement with IanL playing the Allies. IanL win's with a Total Victory and pushes me back to my rear defensive line. We follow the flow chart and move to "Battle 2A" which is for when the Allies meet all their objectives in Battle 1. This battle is set a few hours after the last engagement with my forces in a battered state and the front line moved up to reflect earlier gains. Alternatively let's say I won the first battle with a Total Victory by holding IanL's forces in place quite comfortably then we'd move to "Battle 2D" which reflects the different situation, with the Allies needing to make a second attempt against the same line of defenses later in the same day. In this case, IanL may get additional forces/support for the second attempt as higher command realises there's a problem. That's up for the designer to plan out and construct a narrative to suit the varying situation. The best test case for something like this I think would be to recreate the 'Carentan' operation from CMBO. Basically can the stretched German forces hold on longer than they did historically? What happens in the 101st Airborne can't take Carentan by the 12th of June and then have to attack again on the 13th of June but now with the 17th SS Panzergrenadiers on station to assist (ie no counter attack and Battle of Bloody Gulch). Now that would be a bit of multiplayer fun.

Considering it's a one universal installer now it got a lot easier. Simply run the installer and then enter the individual serial keys you get when you buy each module/pack to unlock it.

Just a quick little announcement. @IanL and myself have recorded weather observations from across the Ukraine over the past three months. This just so happens to be the same time frame as the conflict depicted in CMBS. Who have thought? Do you want to add a bit more authenticity to your scenarios and quick battles? Why not fight in the actual weather conditions that occurred in that part of the country at that given day and hour? Records are for key points across the country (including the area focused on by base game content), at three hour intervals across the entire summer. IanL has designed a little script that is still recording the weather in the region on a daily basis. So just in case (if and when) CMBS one day gets it's timeline extended, we'll be able to extend these records out further. Maybe one day... Enjoy! http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=5228

I'd agree with @IanL's comments about using modtags. I'd just add to pick a vehicle that is present in most if not all games (so something German) that isn't likely to be used in regular scenarios. Maybe a flak vehicle? Using something common like a Kubelwagon or Opel Blitz, you'll be back needing more retextures done down the track.

That is actually a brilliant idea to add a bit of variety to an rubbled urban map.

Once the decision is made the CMx2 Engine is being retired and the last piece of content for it has been released, a vehicle pack specifically for this vehicle of cult status in the CM Community should be dropped for all games where appropriate. Maybe also hide it somewhere random in the online store and wait to see how long it takes for us to find it.

Coming to this a bit late but @akd has summed up my thoughts precisely. TacAI knowing the unit is in hard cover should have a stronger level of influence, especially for incoming mortar and artillery fire. If the unit takes a heavy hit resulting in a number of casualties resulting in a panicked status then fair enough there should be a risk of it doing something unpredictable/stupid. The same argument could also be made for conscripts or green troops. A TacAI's understanding of the terrain the unit both currently occupies and what is close by when they come under fire has long been one of my pet gripes. Just watch some of my YouTube videos. Soldiers that come under fire while running across a street to hard cover waypoint such as a building, will turn around and run back through the line of fire (even when they know where it was coming from) rather than dash through the open door that was literally two feet in front of them.

About to head home after 6 weeks or something like that abroad. Back in Australia in about 48 hrs.

<-- Author of Lions of Carpiquet. It's not a stock campaign and was myself trying a few different things within the limitations of the engine. The big one fighting multiple battles on the same maps as the game doesn't have the ability to import a map state into future missions. The fact you thought the map was the same between my 'clean' and 'ruined' versions means I did something right. Mission 2 and 3 are designed to be next to very hard and historically the Canadians failed in taking their objectives this quickly as per their plans. The track you were going down as a result was the historical path due to the failure of these two missions. But your second attempt at taking the village itself now means you have a lot of toys from 'Hobart's Funnies' and another battalion - that was meant to be the follow up forces for the eastern command complex of the airfield. (That was never taken inside Operation Windsor itself).

Thanks for the update and all the best for Chris.

Two points on this one. 1) You wouldn't notice it under the water graphics that sit across all water and ford tiles. You'd only notice the texture of the camera was moved under the water line. This is why may map makers give subtle clues where a fjord is located on the banks of a river or stream. 2) I asked a few years ago and it's doubtful the community can majorly edit the colour of the water. (I wanted a brackish brown/green tinge for a small city map I wanted to try). Hope that helps.

Sadly I can't see strategic bombing forces being represented inside CMx2 anytime soon. It's actually quite an interesting story, particularly around the political machinations that went on between the Commonwealth Govts at the time. The 6th and 7th Australian Divisions left the Mediteranean theatre early in '42 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and lightnight strikes across South East Asia. At the time there was a real fear inside the Australian Government they would be facing a land invaision inside 1942 - reinforced by the bombing of Darwn and other towns across Australia's northern coastline. While they were enroute home, Churchill tried to divert the convoys of Australian troops to fight in Burma without the Australian Government's blessing/approval. Australia's relatively new Prime Minister Curtin, got wind of this and ordered them re-routed back to Australia. A combination of there not being enough ships available, (combination of losses in the Atlantic, constant supply needs to the forces in North Africa/Middle East and early plans to get American forces across to Eurpope), it became very hard to get all three Australian Divisions home. Prime Minister Curtin relented to British requests to keep one of the Australian Divisions in North Africa in exchange for a deal brokered with the US to base an additional Division in Australia in it's place. The Division that was to stay behind was the 9th Division which had only recently been pulled out of the Siege of Tobruk and was refitting in occupied Syria at the time. The 9th Division was newly arrived at the front when First El Alamein broke out and would hold the northern Commonwealth flank throughout 1942. (Along with the South African's IIRC). The 9th was also the first Commonwealth Division to achieve a breakthrough during Second El Alamein which forced German forces redeploy north, allowing weakening the line further south. Shipping availbility made it possible for the 9th to be withdrawn to Australia following Second El Alamein, which also meant the 2nd New Zealand Division had to remain in North Africa/Europe for what turned out to be the rest of the war. Yeah if there ever is a CM Africa, there's quite a few ideas I have for scenarios featuring this Division. From Wikipedia (sourced) [A] batch of some 50 or 60 Australian prisoners were marched off close behind us—immensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle.[84] —Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel, Commander, German Afrika Korps, Battle of Tobruk, 1941. We could not have won the battle [i.e. theSecond Battle of El Alamein, 1943] in twelve days without the magnificent 9th Australian Division.[85] —General Bernard Montgomery, writing about the Allied breakthrough in North Africa. My God, I wish we had [the] 9th Australian Division with us this morning [D-Day].[86] —Major General Freddie de Guingand, Chief of Staff, Allied Land-force Headquarters Europe, 1944.

Sorry Aussies had well and truly left the European theater in terms of ground forces at least. The 9th Infantry Division / 2AIF, was the last unit to depart following Second El Alamein, so left the front lines in Nov '42 IIRC. I believe there were still some Australians attached to the RAF forces supporting troops in Italy but I doubt BF would add in a whole country just for some air support assets.

If you want a Physics TShirt. (Granted from another game but still) https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.11706212.5430/ra,unisex_tshirt,x2950,fafafa:ca443f4786,front-c,648,590,750,1000-bg,f8f8f8.lite-1.jpg

It doesn't look like much yet but the idea is that at the end of the 3 months of the 'Black Sea Crisis,' any scenario designer can quickly look up what the weather was for that part of the Ukraine on a 3 hourly basis.

Appropiate many times inside Combat Mission over the years.

Merging the individual game forums into two forums, one for combined WW2 and one for Modern Era would be the easiest short term solution to put the community back in 'one place'. Perhaps give a new title 6 months in it's own space to give it some attention. Browsing through a host of individual forums at the moment isn't ideal - I know I skip a bunch unless I'm already subscribed to a topic. The ability to tag new topic by individual game (if applicable) is great for easily organising material and allows readers to browse through topics of interest if they are only intered in a handful of the titles.

Why we need volunteers to keep an eye on and enter the data as the days go by. Cheers for the links.