A Canadian Cat

Oh, yes I am soooooo happy to be able to turn off the edge panning "feature". That alone is worth the $10 upgrade fee - IMHO I do a lot of fine turning with the mouse camera controls (and the scroll wheel) but the bulk of my flying around the battlefield I do with the QWE, ASD keys.

Yes, you need to have the same version to play. Yes, you can have a game in progress and continue playing it after both players upgrade. It is possible that an upgrade fails to work. Long ago I did have it happen but the vast, vast majority of the time the game continues to work just fine. What you can see is some odd sounds or graphics being used temporarily. For instance with this latest upgrade any existing smoke will look funny after upgrade (seems to be using fire textures instead) but any new smoke generated will use the right textures and look fine. Once the smoke from previous turns dissipates the game looks normal from that point on. Since we are on the topic the officially supported way to upgrade is to Load the PBEM turn in the current game version Watch the turn and enter command mode Save the game Install the upgrade or patch which ever is appropriate Load the saved turn file you created in step 3 Finish adding your orders and then Push the BRB to generate the next PBEM turn Your opponent can then upgrade or patch and then open their next turn and off they go.

My understanding is that for a fresh install you will not need any other keys than the v4 key and any module and pack keys that you might need. So, no need for a v3 key. No, my understanding is that you do not need to buy anything else. Yes, now I see what you are asking.

No that update has the platform specific game .Exe as part of it. Your license key is good for both platforms. That is they key change that makes it possible for one purchase to allow either platform to run.

Beats me. Can you simulate the equipment with the CMBS Ukraine gear? With the Russian gear. That is all you need plus someone to re-skin the red side. If you can simulate the chechians with the gear in game then you can create such a scenario.

Oh understood, right back at ya.

Yeah, an odd artifact of something no doubt. Might even be an interesting behind the scenes story. :shrug:

What @sburke said is totally correct. But come on this is basic logic stuff . CMSF is a pretty big family with multiple modules and some unique features (spys, IEDs etc.). One huge issue is going to be simple compatibility of all the user content that has been created (just getting the actual files that exist to load correctly). Then there is the whole how much effort do you expend to ensure that the older scenarios play well. The list of work just piles up as far as the eye can see - just to get what they already created working well and playable. Then people ask "can we have x, y and z new stuff". It's all good. All good ideas. All very tempting. How much work is there to do again? I think we can all do that math and come to the same conclusion - while no one but Steve knows for sure: "don't hold your breath for a bunch of new things - cause you might die".

Well said, although I feel more like @||CptMiller|| a lot of the time. What people don't seem to get is that BFC does listen to feedback - all of it. Sure some people are hard to listen to and some of them are so frustrating that eventually their "feedback" goes "straight to the round bin". What people *really* don't get is the there is a time frame before you see the response to that feedback. For stuff like requests for new commands it can take a three or four years (target briefly, hull down as examples). For stuff like tweaks to the way FOW is handled it might only take one or two years. When simple requests are done on time scales of years changing the engine to make the game shinnier; that my friends is going to take a really long time. Don't show up here years ago and make grand "re-engineer the whole game requests" and then get upset years later when they haven't been done yet. Patience man, patience. Not to mention knocking legitimate decisions to go with OpenGL and to write their own engine that were solid engineering decisions when they were made 12 years ago by using information available now is just plain silly. Beyond silly. All this time they have been creating great content that we are willing to pay for, which needs to continue for the company to continue and for additional advances to continue.

Agreed - as long as the poetry keeps coming. I nearly spat out my coffee when I read @ForwardObserver's then the next one was nearly as good but I was ready by then.

You can check out this listing of all available scenarios and campaigns: http://www.combatmission.lesliesoftware.com/BlackSea/Scenarios/index.html Most user made scenarios are uploaded here: http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/search-2/#search/category=CM+BLACK+SEA+[SCENARIOS] (and all of them should be listed on the above site)

Yeah there were a few here and there. I logged this latest one.

Yes. Frequently you will find what designers actually do in this situation is pick an interior wall in both buildings with a door in each wall that lines up. The game will allow you to go from building to building through any door. What this means is that if you have one building with a solid wall and the next building has a wall with a door along that wall then troops will be able to pass through the door into the other building. Yes through a seemingly solid wall. This is why it is best to line up doors so people who think their squad is in a solid room are not surprised.

Yay good to hear. I do not believe that any intentional changes were made to cause HE to be stopped by trees *more* frequently. My anecdotal experiences do not see a difference in that area. If you continue to feel that is happening then it could be worth some testing. Oops that probably means it did not get logged properly. Can I pick a M4A3 105 early in a QB and see this? I'll look into where that report went or didn't go. Humm this is another one that I am unaware of any changes. I would not have expected command troops to perform better in 3.x or 4.x. Could it just be observational bias (which just means you remember when things go wrong and don't notice when the go right- no an insult at all).

That is correct. I never mess with sound so I was unaware that it is different for sound. I though the '1' is the one without a number was used for all things.

That is a good way to think of it. LOL no it makes you smart Agreed. Those are also times when you can drop some artillery on them too. Yes, withdrawing is tricky - I agree with @mjkerner's thoughts above.

Introduction A while back there was a post on the BFC Battle for Normandy forum announcing a new project by @choppinlt “Operational Level Game Announcement”: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/109632-operational-level-game-announcement/. He and his team have been working away on the project ever since. The have a system designed and they are testing mockups now. You can read about it in full here http://dogsofwarvu.com/forum/index.php/board,36.0.html but this AAR is for but one small battle in one mocked up campaign. To read about the overall campaign from the US perspective you can check out this thread: http://dogsofwarvu.com/forum/index.php/topic,3111.0.html. The battle in question takes place on turn 7. In a previous turn someone used ASL to determine the outcome of a campaign battle. This time it is CM’s turn. Read about it here http://dogsofwarvu.com/forum/index.php/topic,3111.msg14998.html#msg14998. @Mad Mike and I are fighting this battle out: Notice the second battalion of the 116th (2/116) on the right edge of the map. The battle of St. Andre de l’Epine You can read about the setup for the order of battle and such here (I just tried to not read the German info too closely). http://dogsofwarvu.com/forum/index.php/topic,3613.0.html Here is a summary of how we prepared for the battle: @Mad Mike chose the map Hill 192 (http://www.combatmission.lesliesoftware.com/BattleForNormandy/Maps/HILL%20192%20expanded.html) @choppinltdetermined the forces for both sides and sent us screen shots of the force selection in CM @Mad Mike setup his forces and after a little back and forth with @choppinlt handed the map off to me I chose my forces, again with @choppinlt ’s help. I missed a few things and asked a bunch of questions. I then setup the deployment of the forces – this is using the scenario editor we have not started the game yet. This is an important step since I have a battalion of infantry and two companies of tanks plus some supporting engineers and a 200m strip of land for setup zone. After looking at the map what I decided to do was: i. Two companies would push forward along two avenues but not so far apart that they could not combine to exploit success on one avenue and failure on the other ii. I determined that the setup area is too small for everything to arrive at once. If the enemy has artillery that could be used (not during setup but later) I just don’t want my forces to be that concentrated. Heck 200m depth is too little for that many forces at any rate. iii. I divided up my forces so that F Co is on the left and E Co is on the right and each has tanks in support. G Co is in reserve and the weapons company, H Co, had its resources divided between the three other companies. iv. Then I set things up so that battalion recon and one platoon of each company plus the company HQ started on the map. v. The rest of the companies plus a platoon of tanks arrived after 5 minutes vi. Additional tanks arrived after 10 minutes vii. The rest of the tanks arrived after 15 minutes along with the engineers viii. The rest of the infantry arrive after 20 minutes ix. The rest of the forces – including an AT gun platoon that I am not sure what I am going to do with arrive later @Mad Mike and I sent the file back and forth a couple of more times to tweak things as per the discussion. We loaded the scenario and started playing. Forces 837 men (6% casualties is 50 men) 2nd Infantry Battalion 116th Regiment Lt Col Madison Pioneer Platoon Lt. McKee AT Platoon E Co Cpt. Rost 1st Platoon Lt. Moustakis 2nd Platoon Lt. Dubbins 3rd Platoon Lt. Cudlipp 4th Platoon Lt. Ogden F Co Cpt. Bova 1st Platoon Lt. Turner 2nd Platoon Lt. Salberg 3rd Platoon Lt. Hillard 4th Platoon Lt. Keller G Co Cpt. Salder 1st Platoon Lt. Grow 2nd Platoon Lt. Weire 3rd Platoon Lt. Krumin 4th Platoon Lt. Youmans H Co Cpt. Palmer 1st Platoon Lt. Reece 2nd Platoon Lt. Castro 3rd Platoon Lt. Cooper 747th Tank Battalion A Co Cpt. Donavan 1st Platoon Lt. Tubb 2nd Platoon Lt. Denney B Co Cpt. Fry 1st Platoon Lt. Wynn 2nd Platoon Lt. White 121st Engineers B Co. Cpt. Edward Humpheries 1st Platoon Lt. Dunlap 2nd Platoon Lt. Sanchez 3rd Platoon Lt. Blair The Mission The US infantry, and their tank support, need to advance up to 1000m with 6% casualties or less. If my forces manage to advance 300m into the defensive area it will be considered a success and if they can make it 400m they it will be exceeding expectations. In order to track my progress I added touch lines Able (200m past the line of contact), Baker (400m past the line of contact), Charlie 600m, Dog 800m and Easy 1000m. The edge of the setup zone is 200m a head of the line of contact.

LOL, awesome

This is what you want: A PDF version ships with some titles. I am not sure if the latest CMRT has it or not. CMBN certainly does.

This. The binaries are not the same - the game is compiled separately for each platform as is the installer. The change to shared licensing is implamented in the v4 upgrade. There has to be client side code in place, which came with the v4 engine upgrade and licencing sever / database changes that also were done for the v4 upgrade.

Good points about planning. I know time limits have been debated lots. I will only add that as a defender the time limit is your greatest resource. In this game the defender rarely can actually defeat the attacker. Their path to victory is to delay them and for that you need the time limit otherwise the attacker will always prevale. Just another angle to consider.

I doubt there would be any chance of tagging being used to determine which game a mod would be used for since that would take a ton of work. However adding a common directory to the search path would at least be concievable. Each game family already has two directories that are searched: the shared (between versions of the same family) mod folder under my documents and a version specific folder under the game install directory. I already make use of that feature where my vehicle mods are in the shared location and my animated text mods are with the install directory so the version specific mods are with the version. Having an additional shared location for all families would be cool too. I'm not sure how much traction that will get as a feature but cool idea.

Yes, they do. A tank that has been told, via information sharing, the location of an enemy tank will spot it faster once the tank has line of sight to the location of the enemy. As an example. Mostly. Except one additional thing. If a unit is out of command from its immediate superior, a higher level command can act as direct leaders for the squad. For example if a squad from a platoon is to far from it Lt they will be out of command and you will see the red circle appear and there will be no command communication icons. But if you then move the platoon's company co up to close to the squad the command communication icons will appear for the squad indicating that they are in voice and visual command. This time directly by the company co. The circle will remain red since the platoon HQ is too far away but the squad will have command icons. My understanding is that only voice and close visual command work for this, not distant visual.

No known issues that I am aware of. The teams need to be in the same action square though not just close. Try this: verify that the two teams really are from the same squad, give them each a quick order to a near by action square and make sure the move way points are right on top of each other. See if that does it. That is what I usually do when a squad is being difficult.

This! I wasn't around for a debate in the CMBN time frame but now with CM 2x I don't see something worthy of much debate. Present the smallest target to your opponent for the shortest time. Just like in real life.