A Canadian Cat

I cannot comment on #1, I will refrain from commenting on #2 As for #3, actually starting with the v4 upgrade, license keys work on either platform. When you purchase the v4 upgrade you get access to both OS install packages. #4 starting with CMBN they created all in one installers so you do not need to go through the error prone steps of installing all the bits and pieces on the correct order. So, once you have the v4 upgrade you can down load full all in one installers for each title you bought.

Yes, after you upgrade you should use your v4 keys to license the game and the should work with both Mac and Windows.

Yes, the v4 upgrade is it. If you purchase new product now or the v4 upgrade your key will work for both the Mac and the PC.

Yes, I suspect a TRP too. The craters in that screen shot are my doing. They are 105s.

Yeah same. Fraps still works for my on game capturing so I'm not looking for something new yet. I was going to try to get Nvidia's solution but have not gotten around to it. Is that a possibility for you?

Minute 3:21-3:20: The artillery keeps raining down and causing casualties. Shells even start landing on the farm, disabling one Sherman. Grenades do the job for F Co. You can see where the mortar team used to be as well. Minute 3:20: Orders E Co still has men that need to get away from the artillery. It seems the farm is not safe either and the lead elements need to run further forward. F Co brings up a tank for more support.

Minute 3:22-3:21: Disaster strikes. Artillery falls just behind the lead troops and lands right on top of the engineers and the following platoon. No artillery land on the men at the farm, thankfully. Over on the left flank F Co finds the enemy… Minute 3:21: Orders For E Co the orders are simple – get away from the artillery fast. For F Co lots of area fire to suppress the spotted enemy and then move to flank them. Meanwhile the advance continues on the other side of the field.

Minute 3:23-3:22: The scout team is now in the position where the MG team used to be. The other MG team finally gets taken out. Lots of supportive fire as the lead members of F Co make it to the bocage line Minute 3:22: Orders More of E Co moves up to the farm as the lead element take control of the farm. More members of F Co take up positions on the bocage line.

Oh I should have added that I would actually like to have a shoot and scoot command that waited until the bazooka, shrek, tank fired on an acquired target before scooting. I think it would be very useful. Oh and I would add that it would also be nice to have in the AI scripting too (I hate to add more advantages to humans and deprive the AI). That way I could create a shoot and scoot order and tie it to a trigger so that my tank hunter team would wait in cover until the enemy armour started down the street and then they would head to the building corner with a shoot and scoot order. That would be sweet.

It is actually variable - units in closer proximity get shorter cycles to help reduce the amount of instances where we have units tripping over the enemy. LOL that first word is our perception problem. True, there are still LOS issues especially at close ranges especially with poor visibility but even in bright daylight humans do not achieve insta spotting (tm) and neither should our pixel troops. Just because your god's eye view means you know there is a tank poking out into the street 70m down the road does not mean that two guys who are totally unaware of that tank will spot it instantly when they round a corner. Even though there are issues that could be improved upon *we* have to let go of our idea that there should be an insta spot feature in the game.

If no one directly answers here is a thread that discusses several sources of PBEM opponents: PBEM opponent wanted - Battlefront.com Community

No, that's not it. The determination was long ago made that a gun crew would "spike" the gun (render it inoperable) so as to not fall into enemy hands. So if things get too hot for the gun crew and they decide they have to abandon the bug they will render it inoperable. That is why you cannot reman the gun later. This has been debated and argued over a few times (I'm understating it :-) but that is BFC's stance. It does mean that you cannot setup a gun and have the crew hidden in a safe location during an artillery barrage and then go back to the gun which is a drag but it is what it is.

The AI groups are part of the AI scripting. You assign units to groups and then create a plan for each group. In a scenario you choose the forces and assign the groups. In a QB the AI author has to create the plans for the various groups without knowing which units might be chosen for a battle, what combination of units might be assigned to a group or even if there will be enough forces to fill all the groups. Basically the planning has to be done without knowing what forces you are working with. It is a limitation of how QBs are done.

I have no idea if there will be individual notifications sent out but it will certainly be posted here. You will be able to download the CMFI installers from the same place you downloaded the other titles: log into the store, look at the order where you purchased the bundle, click the download link, make sure you uncheck the other titles you already downloaded.

No it just means it was taken down. I thought that Steve added it back. At one point all of CMFI was taken off the store because it's upgrade to v4 was delayed. At the time it was planned to be ready very soon but now that it was delayed I thought Steve put it back up. I see that the base game is available but GL is not. I am sure that is just a mistake and once the v4 upgrade is sorted it will be back too.

I'll leave the deeper explanation to the guy that creates to the QB AI scripts @MarkEzra. What I will say is the v4 upgrade will not change the over all moves that the AI uses to attack or defend. There are a few components to the way the AI behaves in QBs and scenarios. The AI scripting that the designer "writes". Over the years there have been improvements - more groups, more orders, etc. Triggers were added to allow the creating of reacting to events on the battle field, withdraw command and more. The AI scripting is set when the scenarios / QB maps are created. So there are few things that take advantage of the full set of available AI scripting moves since only a handful of things have been released by people since the v4 upgrades. But even the scripting from the original game offers reasonable battles. QBs have improved a lot in the last few releases, new features have helped I am sure but @MarkEzra has just learned too. The operational AI (I think that's what Steve calls it) is the layer that translates the scripting into actual orders. Nothing has been trumpeted about improvements in this layer but I am sure there have been some. This is the code that issues the actual orders you see when you play in scenario author mode. The Tac AI this is the layer that controls the actual troops - both the AI player and us human players have this layer working for us. This is the one that actually governs the movements and activities of the individual soldiers. It decides how to follow the orders and when to ignore them and evade. There are a handful of changes in this layer in v4 too mostly around movement and evading. So if the author creates the scripts to take the first two objectives and not the third then that is what the AI will do. It is not governing its actions based on a heuristic that tells it it only has two of the three objectives it is following the script.

LOL oh this is going to be "fun". I did a quick search and Steam's official response was that there was a copyright complaint. However lots of people are theorizing that it was removed for political reasons. I don't now much about Valve's policies but they don't strike me as being very political but hey you never know.

Yep, I just did a search and a forum post on the publisher's site said that Steam removed it. The publisher said they hopped an appeal would resolve in their favour on the 15th and there is no other way to get the game.

Yeah it is tricky. They need some peace and quiet get a bead on the enemy to fire. I find three things help - distance (as you alluded, it can be hard to get LOS over 1K due to terrain), concealment (they can operate from a little way back in a forest, that makes them much harder to spot), other threats (if you can get them setup semi hidden at a distance and have other AFVs in front of them they can last a while). Pretty tall order in some cases. I have had some good use from them in First Clash and a QB where the rolling hills allowed me to get all three of the above.

+1 for that

Well sure that is the danger the enemy presents but loosing a track, wheel or just getting tangled up is also a real risk. Doing something like that under enemy observation would be very dangerous because no one could get out and clear the wheels and repair the tracks without getting shot up. Hence that was not a usual every day activity.

All new purchases yes but honestly I am not sure about the demos yet.

Yeah I keep forgetting about that. Only CMFB and CM Red Thunder have tank riders. The only other thing I can think of is that CAS in CMRT is probably more realistic (you cannot direct the planes they just show up and try to find enemy targets) but CMBN still allows directing CAS.

The latest is CM Final Blitzkrieg but they all were just upgraded to the v4 engine. That means that the new features that have been added over the years are now available in CM Battle for Normandy too. The only issue is CM Fortress Italy has been delayed but it will also get the upgrade soon too. Given that all the games have the same features and performance and your choice should probably come down to theatre and content instead of newest and oldest. CMBN has two modules and two packs so it has the most content while CMFB is newest so only has the base game available.

Yeah cease fire just ends the game early - no effect on scoring. Surrendering gives the enemy any occupy and unit points. You still get any touch objectives and any unit points you earned though.