A Canadian Cat

Most interesting. I am fairly certain that this is not random. I also strongly suspect there is no logic behind it either. When I say it's not random I mean there is computer code for combining teams and that code will execute the same way each time. When I say I don't think there is any logic behind it I mean no one sat down and figured this was important enough to create a series of rules and a specification for how to handle this type of situation. Decisions were made while coding that determine which set of orders are set on the final recombined squad. It could be the last team that joins wins. It could be the first team wins. It could be that for target orders there is a priority. Any one of those is possible and you probably can experiment and figure it out. I don't really think that is worth anyone's time but some one might find it interesting. The above is total speculation on my part - based only on my experience with programming computers not my experience with the game or any insider knowledge.

Minute 3:40-3:39: The engineers cut the first section of bocage for E Company’s shift to the left. F Co continues its cautious advance but all is quite at the moment. Minute 3:39: Orders The lead elements of E Co continue to take pot shots at the enemy they have spotted along the road. Meanwhile F Co will continue its advance across the field.

Minute 3:41-3:40: Things are pretty quiet for E Co. They continue to reorient themselves to move into the field to the left of the road. F Co continues its advance at the edges of the field. They are also making sure they have firepower in position to watch the field to their left and continue to supress the location where the enemy first opened fire on them from in front. Minute 3:40: Orders For E Co more of the same shifting behind contact. For F Co the advance continues along the farm track and the left edge of the field.

That should only happen if you are playing in scenario author mode (where you get to see every unit).

Well there is no doubt this is challenging for the allies. I won vs a human opponent but my losses were severe. I stared with two pronged approach toward A and B. When I came under fire my men stopped and brought up their mortars and MMGs to overwhelm each German position as it fired on them. Use the 60mm with direct fire from further back than you lead units - use Target Light to slow ammo usage. Once one MG position goes silent continue advancing until you find another one. Once I cleared the enemy from around A the area near B came next but you are right when you try to go over the top things go badly very fast. By the time my men go there there was no / or very few enemy just behind the main dyke. I tried to go over the top and was punished for trying but from afar not from up close. I made sure the upper stories of the houses near B were under fire and then used those houses to cover a pointed attempt to go over the top. If you position your forces to go over such that the houses block the LOS of the enemy at the back of the map you can reduce the fire power they can bring. Once I cleared the houses (did not enter them) I was able to basically expose a little more of my men behind the road dyke and the houses to pick off one German position at at time near the back of the map. Again using the mortars and MMGs. Once the 88s were dealt with and the back of the map was quiet I used the road dyke to shield my advance to C (yes you can do that). Again the enemy that was initially firing on my advance was long since mortared to death so I only had to deal with squad MG42s not HMGs. I massed soldiers across from the bridge to the fort and the "To RR Bridge" objective and attacked simultaneous along with a weaker thrust from the houses at B. This final phase was tough though because my men had suffered and I was herding broken and rattled men into the fray. The only saving grace was my opponent's troops were in no better shape.

Each movement order can have a fire zone attached. You paint the area so fire is distributed. They probably can but area fire is their lowest priority. Since once the game is running the AI script generates commands just the same as we do it depends on exactly how the area fire commands are set - if they only get set after the unit stops moving or is set before. Even if they are set before then they will behave just like our troops - they might fire a bit while waiting for their buddies to catch up but moving will be there top priority. I cannot remember in detail what the actual generated commands are but if you try this out and run the game in scenario author mode you can find the answer to that. Relevant section of the manual (pp 103 of the CMRT v4 Engine manual): Fire Zone Each AI Order can designate a Fire Zone for area fire. This is done by painting on the 2D map just like a Movement Zone, but by CTRL-left-clicking instead. The tiles designated as targets will be colored red instead of yellow. While that AI Order is being carried out, the AI Group will attack the Fire Zone with suppressive area fire if it doesn't have any spotted enemy units to engage or other important tasks to do. It is important to note that the Fire Zone is the lowest priority task for the AI Group. Other tasks, such as moving, unloading, attacking a spotted enemy unit, etc will take priority over shooting randomly at the Fire Zone.

Yeah, if you have been gathering up mods as time moved on but never pared back ones that don't work with new versions cleaning up now would be a daunting task. I try to keep up and when a new patch, upgrade or module comes out I ditch the mods that don't match up any more. Uniform numbering changes - delete all uniform mods, vehicle X gets a fix - delete its mod. Then when new mods appear I can pick them up knowing they will work with the current version. I'm not sure about the wasted HD space - sure there is some overlap but many vehicles and uniform mods don't really fit cross games (wrong colour of paint from Italy in Normandy). I suppose sound mods might be different but since I have never found one I liked I have only dabbled with sound mods. Ah you do remember that there were three CM1x games right? While we are going to have more games in CM2x there was never a time where there was one engine to rule them all. In fact the CM2x system is vastly superior because we can actually have upgrades to CMBN that keep it up to date. That never happened with CM1x. Don't get me wrong having a single engine with modules for all the content does sound cool and if BFC find they can do it I'll be happy but don't let nostalgia get in your eyes because the only reasons CM2x seems like there are move moving parts is because BFC has created / is creating more content for CM2x than they ever did for CM1x and they are keeping the older games up to date. By definition that creates more moving parts, more keys to keep track of and more combination so mods that might or might not work. I for one am happy to have these problems so we can have such a good game.

Minute 3:42-3:41: One of the supporting tanks firing on the suspected enemy locations. The recon elements leading E Co cut their first bocage row. Minute 3:41: Orders E Co brings up its reserve platoon to push to the left as lead while the lead platoon will stay where they are engaging the enemy for a while. F Co and their support move forward into the field as well.

Minute 3:43-3:42: E Co’s lead platoon stay in place at the point of contact and keep up some kind of fire since they have spotted enemy contacts ahead. Meanwhile F Co is advancing across the field by using the farm track on the right side of the field… …and hugging the left edge while the tanks spend their ammo on the opposite hedge row. Minute 3:42: Orders E Co’s push to their left needs fire support so I move up more tanks – lead by a Rhino tank to cut onto the road from the fields where the tanks were moving up (remember I played this turn before the discussion above about how the Rhinos were not available yet – I figure we can pretend this unit had some of the experimental cutters and pipes and they helped some so we can see the use of Rhinos and demo charges that I’m going to use as the combination of partially working cutters and explosive that were actually used – that’s how I am sleeping at night anyway). Similarly F Co is bringing up more tanks to help maintain fire superiority while the lead platoon’s flank the field.

Minute 3:43: Orders The lead platoon of F Co will push further into the field with lots of fire support to keep them safe. The tanks will keep more than 250m and keep up the direct fire on the opposite side of the field. The road advance has stalled out. There is no way to continue along the road. Behind the scenes some engineers are being brought forward but in the meantime the recon troops have satchel charges and they will pull back and start the bocage cutting process.

Yeah, you are right. I cannot add the markings for the unit size - since each icon shows over each vehicle or team. The allied icons for tanks and gun can be used for individual vehicles (without the section, platoon, etc. size markings) when the scale of the "map" is that low level. I guess it would be used for a platoon Lt to direct his tank commanders on where they should be. The German icons cannot be used that way. The icons I am using are actually the platoon symbols and the icons themselves get adornments for higher level units. There are no icons for individual vehicles, guns or teams.

Oh yeah that's a good point if one part of a pontoon is on the ice that could effect the bridge stability for sure. I had not thought of that angle (pun intended).

You mean for the person who posts the pictures? Once its in the thread there are no hoops. But I do agree navigation is slow and I have so far uploaded my photos to the wrong album more then once because of the UI not being clear. I find that once I get the pictures organized and in the slide show its easy to go from one picture to the next and they automate coping to the url to the clipboard to make it easy to post. But hey if those other sites are better hosts then great hope the new guy uses them.

Sounds good looking forward to it.

Like a baby - up every couple of hours crying Now I feel bad that your men will suffer for something I said. Not be enough to keep my mouth shut in the future mind you

You can use a third party hosting site such as photobucket.com to host your images and insert them in to your posts. Then you can use unlimited pics. Right here. Go for it. Or start a new thread if - that might be better. The devs read the forums some but the beta testers read them a lot. If stuff like that gets posted news of the threads make it back to the devs. If you post a discussion about equipment etc. it will get noticed, just be aware that there might not be an official response.

I'm going to stick with charges to breach going forward. I should point out I am actually playing turns many minutes a head of where my write up is so there will be a few more Rhino breaches before they stop.

Sorry for being pedantic but it actually does highlight - in the sense that it gets the orange treatment - but it is so faint you can hardly see it. Since you can hardly see it, it is hard to call it highlighted. So the main thrust of your point remains valid - it can be difficult to figure out which of your units can see the enemy when you have some that are in a shaken or panicked state.

Interesting. Looks like they used the presence of the ice to aid construction of the bridge but then they blasted the ice next to the bridge. Was that just to keep the ice from pushing the bridge around?

Cool two examples of ATGMs being used against infantry targets in the same minute. I wonder how frequently that is likely to happen.

LOL I was thinking the same thing. In the end I figured it will be so long before I get to play it I will have forgotten any FOW spoilers so I'm reading. BTW love those icons

Yes, it is a big change. For that reason no the campaigns have not been updated. It would be a worthy project but traditionally scenario devs have not gone back and reworked campaigns or scenarios after an upgrade. Mostly because people are busy with new content.

No, ammo dumps are not mobile in any way.

Thanks. Yes using those farm tracks is dangerous for sure. And the shots feel clostraphobic too.

Sometimes you can get tripped up by the difference between the global view of the enemy units and the view of the enemy units for a specific unit of yours. One thing that happens is the global view shows ? contact icons right on top of some of your units. When you select that unit the ? icons go away. What that means is that your specific unit knows there are no enemy units there but one was spotted there by someone else at some point and your unit on top of the ? icon has not yet communicated the new information to the rest of the units yet. In the case of enemy units if you have one of your units selected you get to see what enemy units it can see - all other icons are hidden. If you then select that enemy unit the rest of the global picture of enemy units appears too - because you are no longer seeing what your one unit sees but the whole pictures. Could that be what is happening here?