Ranger33

So...I just figured out that the reason the game ran so terribly on my laptop was due to it defaulting to my integrated Intel graphics chip instead of the real Nvidia card.....it runs perfectly fine after making the switch manually. I only thought of this because I just had the same problem with the new XCOM expansion. Fudge! So much time wasted! Now the dilemma, should I get MG or GL...both?

I took a break from the game simply because I was playing it all the time and got burnt out. Haven't been visiting the forums much over the last few months but I was pleased to see that the long begged for urban combat changes were made. Now I'm kind of getting a hankering to play again, but I don't have my gaming PC where I am living right now. My laptop has a dedicated video card and Core i5 processor, and can play Battlefield 4 or any other game just fine, but even the smallest CMBN scenario runs like garbage. Might fire it up again and see if new drivers have made any difference...

Another example of a disgruntled customer that could be easily remedied by BF allowing folks to download the install files via a BFC hosted, community seeded torrent. Would be completely free, and just as secure as the current system, but they won't do it.

This is one of my big irks with the engine and one the reasons I'm not playing the WW2 games for now. In CMSF it's absolutely suicidal for an armored vehicle to drive down a narrow street with buildings on each side. In CMBN/CMFI, a single tank, even without supporting infantry, is practically invincible in that situation, unless facing PIATs. Two tanks? Forget about it. You might as well pull all your infantry out of the town.

My 2 cents: The game is too tedious to play beyond company sized battles, and just in general. Anything to help with that should be fairly high on the priority list for 3.0 Personally I Just don't have as much desire to play anymore because it is more work than fun. It was less of a problem in CMSF since the nature of the terrain and long range fighting meant less micro management. In the WW2 titles you have to really get into the nitty gritty to keep your guys alive, and you often have larger forces than in CMSF to boot. Urban combat that was very enjoyable in CMSF is now a PITA due to the no AT weapons in houses rule. I'm not sure I will be getting any new titles until some kind of improvement is made in this area.

Matrix will now have weekly sales! Very cool. Can't link to it because rules, yadda, yadda but it's 60% off two older ACW titles. Hope it works out for them. I'm personally looking for Conquest of the Aegean or some of the Close Combat titles go on sale, I would be all over those.

With the terrain, what you see is what you get. The trees and such are not abstracted, they simply either block a bullet or they don't. I'm not sure how this works with the "rocky" type of terrain, which doesn't seem to offer much cover really. Or not as much as one might imagine from having seen hundreds of hills covered in big rocks in real life. One thing missing in that department is some kind of big rocks that can be scattered around. The game needs more "clutter" objects in general, really.

I had the opposite happen recently, so there is still room for improvement. AT gun was aimed right at a Sherman less than 100m away, about to fire, then the crew from an earlier destroyed APC (fearless despite almost getting blown up minutes before, and packing only a couple pistols) came charging out of some trees to the left. Instead of just firing at them with sidearms, the crew turned the entire gun 90 degrees to engage. The Sherman somehow missed 3 times, giving them enough time to swing back around and knock it out.

Another great find! I think this shows how getting super-detailed with everything can backfire a bit (ie CMx1 vs CMx2). The more intricate something is, the more likely some small change somewhere will screw something up, which is what I'm guessing happened here. Or make something which should be simple into a micro-management nightmare (ie acquiring ammo from vehicles).

I'll ask the obvious hypothetical question, if one were to provide a legit torrent or cloud link providing the (non-cracked) setup files to the next poster of a "Why can't I download my files again!?" thread, what would be the response from BFC? Indifference, ban, legal action? Frowny faces?

I worked my google-fu and presto!

Thanks for the input Phil, the only reason I say that is because your post is the first official post of any kind in this forum that I have seen in months. Tons of other threads with legit questions go unanswered. I'm not sure what other conclusion one could draw. Getting the game on a new store, and patched equivalent to the iPad version from who knows how long ago is nice, but isn't much of a headline. Should we expect expansions, new features, maps, etc?

Yeah, it's too bad that this branch seems to have died as quickly as it sprouted. Matrix Games has really embraced the market with the Battle Academy series, and several other titles including Legion which looks really cool. They are for iPad only though, which is too bad for me.

Well I wouldn't either, I'm just pointing out that the files are out there for the downloading. Free (the download, I mean). Why would BFC not use the same technology to benefit their paying customers?

At a glance I found everything but CMFI and the Commonwealth module. Including the Strategic Command files that OP is looking for.

Sixxkiller, I feel like you didn't read any of the above posts at all. A torrent would reduce the bandwidth costs for BFC, especially at the release of a new game, and cost them exactly zilch to implement. It would take all of five minutes to set up. If you think a torrent link provided directly by BFC would somehow be dangerous, you are simply uninformed. I understand BFC's position on not providing direct downloads forever. It's perfectly reasonable. That said, there's no reason to ignore a perfectly good alternative. If they are concerned about piracy, there are private trackers, like I mentioned above, which restrict access to who can download the files. Besides that, it doesn't really matter, since one trip to google reveals cracked versions of most every BFC game are already available. The DRM, like all DRM, is completely ineffective. The saving grace of the titles that haven't been cracked is simply their niche status. The question is why pirates should get free downloads forever via torrents, while paying customers do not, when the exact same technology is right there waiting to be used by BFC.

One can already get cracked versions of almost every Combat Mission game, so that ship has sailed. I was just thinking it would be better if you guys offered the torrent through an official channel. It doesn't take that many seeds to work, and it would alleviate the complaints of "I lost my files and it's been a year and now I have to pay $5!" I'm no tech whiz, but I know that private trackers are a thing, so you could control access that way.

The problem with all of those (besides Dropbox) is that they can be lost/damaged/corrupted just as easily as anything else. I have CMSF, CMA, CMBN, and CMFI plus the modules, all tucked away on an external HD I bought just for that purpose (and storing my Steam library). Trouble is that some days it's moody and doesn't want to work, so I know it's going to fail eventually. Now I'm probably going to get a big thumb drive just for CM, which I will have to hang onto forever and hope I don't lose, which never happens, as we all know Dropbox requires you to upload what you just downloaded, but at extremely slow rates (for me anyway). It would take days/weeks to upload just one install file. I think if BFC wanted to be really progressive they could offer up Gustav Line as a torrent download just to try it out. The more people that download the game, the faster the downloads get, and the less strain on BFC's bandwidth. It would take virtually no effort on their part to try it out.

Wow, those poor guys really don't have a chance. I just upgraded to CMBN 2.0 and noticed that taking out tank commanders seems to be much more common. Maybe it isn't just my imagination. Thanks for taking the time to test this out!

It's just a difficult thing to get your brain to accept full price for something that you saw go for almost nothing on Steam multiple times. I actually just got into the AGEOD series recently and one of the nice things about it is the pricing, $20-$30 per game is pretty cheap in the land of wargames. I don't mind leaving a game a full price for years when the starting price is reasonable to begin with. I'm curious whether the next expected game in the series, American Civil War 2, will be priced similarly or hiked up following this merger. Tangent: I highly recommend Alea Jacta Est (or Birth of Rome) to anyone interesting in Roman history. Really fun game that's quite deep while avoiding excess micromanagement.

If BFC is unwilling to host the files themselves, why don't they offer the downloads as torrents so that we can seed the games for others past the 1 year window. I've asked this several times and never got a reply. It's exactly the sort of thing torrents are good for. It's a win-win for everyone. I was on the fence about whether to get Commander: The Great War at Matrix or Strategic Command WW1 here and this policy plus the DRM was the deciding factor in going with Commander.

I just played through this one again this last night. Finally had some free time this weekend so I picked up the 2.0 upgrade and decided to make a fresh run at the Engel campaign (was thwarted repeatedly by the red button of doom bug the first time around). I actually had great success with the "up the gut" strategy, using my 105's to blast northern approach area and immediately assaulting the dazed Americans. After that taking the town was a breeze, then disaster: my Panther got taken out by a single, head-on shot from **spoilers** a 57mm AT gun halfway across the map. I was literally sick to my stomach for a few minutes. It made the next mission much harder. Be sure to leave someone behind to occupy the Northern Approach objective. I forgot to do that. So annoying.

To me the biggest problem with the aircraft is that, in my experience, they seem to have the exact same level of accuracy (both strafing and bombing) as the ones in CMSF. Who needs laser guided munitions when a dumb bomb from WW2 can do the job just as well

Yay! More micro-management! I get what you are saying, but the AI could certainly be smarter about it's weapon usage. See also: AT guns/tanks/direct-fire-arty mindlessly firing into obstacles over and over.

I've read several German accounts where seeing the Russians rolling in to battle on tanks was common. I definitely would not want the game delayed for it though.