Ranger33

I'm pretty sure they stated CMSF for Mac was not the big news, and the real announcement would be in the near future. However, BFC time is a bit like Valve and Blizzard time. "Soon" means "maybe this year, but we will have to see"

I'm not sure exactly how these pics are named, but I submitted a similar mod which should be out today and it adds on to the photos already there, and is compatible with the "Force Specific Background Red and Blue. It adds photos instead of replacing them, so you will have a big mix and not just CW ones. There isn't a way to specify American from British or Canadian, the only choices are red and blue. Mine has several of the same ones as this mod, but a bunch of different ones as well, so whatever floats your boat.

Triggers would most definitely improve the game. At the very least it would eliminate the scenario where a unit reaches the end of it's orders, and then spends the rest of the battle staring off into space. Just give them a trigger that sends them off on patrol if they haven't seen any enemies in awhile. Also, the problem where if you break through a defense on one flank, you can make your way around through the rear and attack the rest of the defense from behind, as they will never react to being outflanked. A simple trigger that fires when your units reach a certain point could tell the AI to fall back to better positions.

The game only allows them to be designated "blue" or "red" so its Axis and Allies only. You don't need to have the CW module to use it, in case anyone was wondering.

Alrighty, I culled down the massive pile of photos I accumulated to about 30 of my favorites. Over half are Commonwealth, with the rest split between new German and American shots that I just couldn't pass up. I ran into a hurdle with the way the game selects loading screens. Basically, the photos must be numbered in sequential order, and if you skip a number, every shot after that will never be selected. This creates a conflict with other loading screen mods, as I can't just start my numbering at 200 or something as I intended. I set it up assuming that, like me, you already have the New Force Backgrounds - Blue (and Red) installed. If you don't, you just have to do some renaming of the files. This is all explained in the readme, and isn't that big of a deal as long as you read it. Uploading file now, should appear in the repository sometime in the near future!

I guess the easiest thing would be to just offer two versions, tinted and not. Then people can mix and match as they please. I just thought it odd that in the stock pictures, the Allies get a sepia tint, while the Germans are unaltered. Thanks for the tip on centering, I was thinking it would be something like that, but as I said I am totally new to photo editing and am learning as I go.

I've found quite a few images, but it's hard to find good high resolution ones, so if you have one you want in send me a link. I'm also having to wrestle some around since the game requires a rather exact sized image or it won't look right. Also, if I use a narrow vertical image (like the last one below), it very unhelpfully sets the image on the left instead of in the center, so I'll have to tinker with those to get them centered. Aaaanyway, here's a few nice ones I've found, as a teaser: Do you guys like the blue tint for the German pics? I think it looks cool alongside the red tinted Allied ones. Or would you rather have plain gray like the stock ones?

Okay, so finding good pictures, resizing them and putting into the correct format is no problem, but does anyone have tips on how to apply the color filter (ie the reddish color with dark corners)? I have no experience with photo editing. I've downloaded GIMP and am tinkering around with it, but if anyone could point me in the right direction that would be great. Edit: For my own sanity, I've decided to just give them as close of the same hue as I can, I don't think anyone will mind.

Obviously, there are indeed German photos I meant adding photos for Commonwealth troops now that we have them in the game.

Was thinking about gathering some up and making a mod, it's a bit weird only seeing American troops when there must be thousands of photos of the other nationalities out there.

It's just one of those things found in every other game made since 1985, but would take far too long to implement in this one. We are talking literally minutes of coding time.

The XO team will (in theory) take over as the HQ if the commander is killed in action, which is handy. I usually use the HQ Support Team as dedicated medics and for supporting fire. Does anyone know if the XO gives a command bonus like the HQ? I think that would be realistic but I have never seen it mentioned anywhere. Can't answer the second since I'm not entirely sure how all that works either. Obviously, a better HQ will give better bonuses but the specifics are an enigma. I know that increasing the stats on a battalion HQ costs quite a bit, far more than lower HQs, so it must give a significant bonus.

Sweet! One can never acquire enough CMSF missions and campaigns.

I don't think any of those mods are possible, units textures can be changed, so you can get all sorts of infantry in terms of appearance, but the models themselves and stats/weapons cannot be altered. I would pay $10 (or more, depending on content) for a patch to merge CMA and CMSF, and maybe add in a few low tech formations for the US forces. It would open the door to all sorts of possibilities, since you could just plop the Soviet infantry into modern Syrian vehicles, maybe change up the textures a bit and get all sorts of modern scenarios. I suppose we will just have to wait for CMSF2 and see how that pans out. No more desert is all I ask.

I'm thinking maybe the other guys in the unit (radioman, etc) can see those points, but the spotter himself cannot and therefore you can't call in artillery on those points. Kind of a backfiring of the super detailed individual spotting. Something that could certainly use a bit of tweaking, if it is the case.

Have you tried using the Face command to shuffle him around a bit?

I get a cancel button on the save screen after ending a scenario, but that still takes me to the next screen, where you can choose WeGo or RT, with the only option here being "OK" which immediately loads the next mission.

Yeah, please be aware that right now, a lone totally broken and out of ammo crewman can contest a territory objective being occupied by a battalion of infantry, giving neither team any points. Multiple small objectives make things more interesting and flexible anyway. Maybe the player was able to capture 3/4 of the important buildings or intersections in a town, this allows him to score accordingly, as opposed to one big all or nothing objective. A small request: clearly indicate terrain objectives as either occupy or touch, unless you do a high-quality briefing that makes this clear via the description. I've seen some scenarios where this will be in the on-map label (ie. Hill 134-T or Town Hall-O) and this is much appreciated by me and I'm sure many others.

No "Exit" button when proceeding from one campaign mission to the next. You have no choice but to wait 3-6 minutes for the next scenario to load or to open the task manager and force the game to close. CM: Afghanistan has this button on the screen where you select RT or WeGo, it is also present in CMSF and CMBN on the same screen when starting a stand alone scenario. It's absence between campaign missions is a bit baffling. Looks like a copy and paste job, couldn't take more than 5 minutes. The code is literally right there in the game already.

**spoilers** Didn't have much trouble reaching the King Tiger, but I only managed a draw on this one after that. The enemy doesn't just attack, they put the pedal to the metal and roll right at you with several companies of infantry and seemingly endless tanks, while artillery falls nonstop. At times I was only able to fall back because they had run under their own artillery barrages It's good that the campaign fully restores your forces after this one, because I lost almost all of my vehicles in a futile attempt to stem the tide. They finally broke through on the right before I could get my forces to the exits.

I don't have much problems with vehicles spinning around or doing 28-point turns like in CM1. However, it would be so much nicer if, when you plotted a point, the line showed roughly the path the unit will actually take, and not just a straight line. Perhaps if they ever put movable waypoints back in, this could get done along with it. Nothing worse than missing a little gap in the bocage and then watching your infantry merrily run out into the open to be gunned down. Also, I don't think it's asking too much for units to go around known minefields, instead of going straight through them, unless directly ordered to. Mostly this is a problem in WeGo, some unit will "discover" a minefield and the units directly behind will happily run right into it themselves.

This looks really cool. After I get through the Engel campaign in CW I will surely be in the mood to take another crack at the German NATO campaign.

They had the American voices instead. Someone up there said it didn't happen to them, so I don't know, but it definitely was the case for me.

You could just buy a $10 flashdrive and put all of them on it. Quicker and easier, and no worries about scratches or breaking the disc.

You get two in the new German campaign, if you want to play with some.