A Canadian Cat

Thanks @Ithikial_AU, I'll try that.

OK this game has actually being going on for a while now so I have some catching up to do. Given that you will notice some differences. First in this early stage when not much is happening I'm not going to post many screen shots. Second you might have already noticed I am not cropping the screen shots just as taking in they go. For the most part that is not going to be a huge difference because all I usually do is crop out the notices, UI and view direction indicator. It should be the same quality pics but with more stuff. For my upload sanity they are reduced slightly and compressed a bit. The picture part is fine but the UI text might be a bit hard to read.

Long time in coming but I have started an AAR for the T4 East battle:

Minute 1:00: Orders 4 Company and 3 Squadron start in the woods and move forward along the road heading for the next wooded area in front of them. Figure 2 4 Coy start out 23rd Engineers start out at the edge of a field and head forward to ford the river and head into the tree line on the other side. The recce group is a bit separated and will move cross country to meetup with them. Figure 3 Eng starts outrd 23 Minute 1:00-59: All forces move forward. No contact. Figure 4 Lead tank in the recce troop watches the engineers go past Figure 5 Major Alarie watches the convoy go past Figure 6 Maj Leslie observing the company move out Minute 59: Orders I forgot to leave a unit selected when taking the first screen shots. Here you can see the remaining orders for 4 Coy. One platoon head for the farm while another follows the tree lined road and field. The third platoon is in the woods along with 3 Squadron observing. Figure 7 4 Co moving up The engineers’ convoy is moving well. I only had to adjust a few pauses – it takes even longer than I thought to cross the ford. I am going to let the tanks just cross the road and if there is any bunching up fix it next turn. Figure 8 Recce troop crossing the road A closer shot of the double ford point – one entry two exits. I am splitting up alternating the trucks to get as many vehicles through as quickly as possible. Figure ord crossingFirst and second f9 Details on the far right ford point. There was a little bunching up there so lots of pauses to get things smoothed out. Figure 10 Third ford crossing

The original plan was to have a huge 2 hour battle with two people on the allied side with units coming in from three directions. Sadly we hit the too many orders problem and had to abandon the effort. This new version of the battle is the right hand side of the battle area on a smaller map and for 1 hour. Initial situation The briefing is pretty basic – force your way across the map and open that road! My order of battle is: 3IG HQ: Lt. Col. nathangun CO 4 Coy: Major IanL 2IC 4 Coy: Capt. Fletcher Sniper Section: Corporal Douglas 1 Bren: Private Shelton Jeep: Private Dewer Truck: Private Morrow Forward Observer: Captain Scouts: Corporal Warlaw HMG: Corporal Darlymple Bren detachment: Corporal Porteous 10 Platoon: Lt. Fraser Mortar detachment: Private Makinnon 1 Section: Corporal Anglen 2 Section: Corporal Lear 3 Section: Corporal Cash 11 Platoon: Lt. Judkins Mortar detachment: Private Anstruther 1 Section: Corporal Chattan 2 Section: Corporal Bartlet 3 Section: Corporal Smith 12 Platoon: Lt. Telfer Mortar detachment: Private Gilfallin 1 Section: Corporal Hamilton 2 Section: Corporal Clark 3 Section: Corporal Applegate 2IG 3 Squadron 3 Troop Cruiser Tank Sherman I: Lt. Dillon 1 Cruiser Tank Sherman I: Sargent Ogilvy 2 Cruiser Tank Sherman I: Corporal Kennedy 3 Cruiser Tank Sherman VC Firefly: Sargent Rapier 4 Cruiser Tank Sherman I: Corporal O’Neil Mine Clearing: Corporal Wallace Flame Thrower: Corporal Clayton 23rd Canadian Field Engineer Coy: Major Alarie 2IC 23rd Coy: Capt. Montplaisir 1 Flamethrower Section HQ: Private Dillard 1 Team: Private Harris 2 Team: Private Belanger 1 Platoon: Lt. Forbes 1 Section: Corporal MacMillan 2 Section: Corporal Sepal 3 Section: Corporal Soloman 4 Section: Corporal Moorehead 2 Platoon: Lt. Lampe 1 Section: Corporal Carrol 2 Section: Corporal Kraft 3 Section: Corporal Miner 4 Section: Corporal Lightfoot 3 Platoon: Lt. Speller 1 Section: Corporal Hubbard 2 Section: Corporal Pension 3 Section: Corporal Charters 4 Section: Corporal Cooper 2IG Recce Troop 1 Section HQ Stuart VI: Sargent Colville 1 Light Tank Stuart VI: Corporal Macfadyen 2 Light Tank Stuart VI: Corporal Yorke The map looks like this: Figure 1: Initial Plan 4 Company and 3 Squadron are coming from the south along a road that leads to town. Meanwhile 23rd Canadian Field Engineers and a Recce troop have been following tracks between fields and arrive to the East. From the south 4 Company will move along the road and stop in the woods to get a view of the town – as shown in that first arrow. The second and third arrows are just the current proposal what route they really take will depend on what they encounter. From the East the 23 Engineers will cross at three ford sites at the end of their track and proceed to the forest across the river. The will also adjust their approach based on resistance but I strongly suspect they will be following the woods to get some cover. Some of the brown areas on the map are fields but some are actually managed forests. From the map it is hard to tell which is which hopefully the screen shots will help.

Hummm those cell numbers look like they are for the last upgrade The current sheet starts at A67 and the new one at A91. I did not use paste special - I'll try that next...

I had a case today where I would have liked to unbutton a TC when the tank reached its destination. It would be really nice to be able to do that. +1

Humm. Not quite what I was hoping to see. On the other hand those two other teams are really close to the guys that set off the mines. Perhaps if you juggled the initial position and assault way points to arrange it so that the fire base teams have not moved and as far from the mines as possible when the first guys step on the mines. Right now those other teams are too close to the explosions - they are in the range that it makes scene for them to be suppressed at that range.

OK I finally got to this today over my lunch hour - shhhhh First This new version is 20Mb while the previous version was just over 1Mb. Is that expected? At first I thought it was something that happened during my data migration so I looked at the original - nope its is that big. Second the WWII version has the PDF for the Modern game so there were no data migration instructions. Since I did it before I tried it my self - got a ton of really cryptic messages about columns and data cell values that already existed and did I want to use the exiting ones or ??? I did not understand the other option. Things looked OK once I was don but then I realized there were new data columns so I throw that first attempt away and started again. This time copy and pasting the data areas where the columns match. So, that meant one copy for the basic scenario data (date, forces etc) one copy for the allied casualty data and one copy of the axis casualty data. I got the same errors that made not real sense to me. After it was all done the data looked OK and the sums were correct. Third: Since things on the data tab looked OK I started looking at graphs. Some had a strange mix of date by year and by month in the axis but I figured that out and got it consistent. Most things looked fine. The one exception is the Casualties Caused by Country graph. For that tab two of the graphs are empty but the other two are fine. What are you using for the data table that the graph is based on? Before I enter any new data I just want to clear my questions above up.

Oh you are not alone in that. I still hold out hope that someday this can be improved upon.

More cool testing by @MOS:96B2P Here is what I would be interested in. In the above situation where B team has encountered mines other teams have not yet directly. If you split this squad in the next orders phase and then see what the suppression meter says for each team. The meter for the entire squad is pretty high I would expect that the B team would be the highest and perhaps even pinned, while the other teams would be less suppressed depending on how close to the blast they were.

No problem with hits at 200m when your tank is the target. No chance of a hit if your guys are the ones shooting. Just like it has always been. Kidding aside 200m hits are possible but not likely. I tend to think of them as being quite good at 125m and sometimes worth taking the risk at 150m or so. I do not find them taking 200m shots on their own very frequently and I often actually limit them to 125m or so. I just don't want them giving their positions away for low percentage shots. I am not sure what you are seeing but firing from inside definitely has downside risk. In medium sized and small buildings they routinely suppress any other team in on the floor with them. My SOP is to make sure they are the only ones in the room. Even then they effect themselves too. I have a platoon that has seen some action but they are doing OK except every time the tube guy (actually it is the loader who buddy aided the Shrek from his team mate) takes a shot he ends up suppressed then shaken followed by running from the room. Good thing his shots have been at under 100m so far. Even worse had a Shrek team kill them selves once. I had them setup in a small shed (the smallest barn) as the enemy tanks started getting close I noticed from on high that I took a casualty. When I zoomed in for a closer look I could not see anything near by and the enemy tanks seemed oblivious. Then, as I was watching, the Shrek team fired and the second guy went down. I rewound the turn and found the team had done it to themselves. The loader became a heavily wounded casualty after the first shot and the gunner because a heavily wounded casualty after the second shot. They hit nothing. Note to self make sure the Shrek team is the only team on a floor and that floor is not one of the little sheds.

Are you sure about that? I thought there were tests that showed that if a squad on the other side of the map takes enough of a beating then other squads form taht platoon can actually end up becoming shaken even though the could not possibly know about what was happening to their platoon mates. I do not have any special insight about that.

Mostly correct but there is a factor that varies with nationality. The Soviets for example do experience a morale hit of some kind (I believe it is more of when bad things happen they feel it faster rather than an as soon as they get split they suffer). This was their way of allowing us to still split off elements of a Soviet squad even though their doctrine was to *not* fight that way.

This came up a little while ago in the back rooms. We testers were assured that any suppression effect on a team does not directly effect the other teams. Suppression is tracked man for man so if the lead team executing an assault command starts taking fire and become suppressed the support team is not effected by that directly. Obviously the UI for the squad calculates and over all suppression amount but each team member still has their suppression level and effects tracked separately. Don't forget that if the assault team is taking effective fire it is also very possible for the support team to be *also* taking effective fire but that is not due to any shared suppression effects.

Sigh. Yeah the plan was for the Sherman to be there waiting before you started to move. My crew still got the first shot and first hit. The trouble was all they got was another scratch in the paint.

LOL - use your imagination - that's the idea

The other variable we have to control is the leadership rating. I agree that it could be argued for a unit that has had that much training Green would be to low. I wonder if Veteran would be a stretch though. One thing you could do is make them Regular but with really good leadership. Yes, there is some disagreement. Some people think the whole experience thing is inflated and leads to behaviours that exceeds what actual soldiers were capable of. This school of thought feels that the over rating of the troops are a major reason why the casualty ratings are "too high". Others are happy with the manual definitions and feel that the "too high" casualty ratings are due to us commanders that push way past the point where units would reconsider their actions. Yes, this is big and one of the reasons I very rarely give units target commands. They do a good job of selecting their own targets. The target command mostly gets restricted to organizing area fire and I let the units themselves pick their own spotted targets.

Certainly I have seen this work well plenty of times. There must be something about this situation that confuses the poor TacAI commander. If we can get a save to BFC they can determine what needs fixing.

Oh my, I thought it did remember. Your the modder with experience so I am sure you are correct.

I hate it when that happens. It probably shouldn't really. Do you have a save? I think the TacAI should be allowed to make the "wrong" choice but to make no choice and be locked in indecision seems like something that should not happen.

Ah, there ya go. I never paid much attention to that since as you said it didn't really matter much. Indeed.

That depends on what you mean by "load the scenario". Whenever you start a scenario the units will be assigned a texture from the list available. If you save the game and continue it later then the same textures should be on the same vehicles. If you start the scenario again from scratch (i.e. not from a save) then the units should get a random skin. Which are you seeing?

Either I missed something in CM1 or you are miss-remembering. As I recall the squads in CM1 were represented by the three stooges (with all the respect deserved :-) ) there was no rag tag look, no representation of specific weapons nor even ammo for that matter.

Excellent Thanks @Ithikial_AU for getting everyone pointed in the right direction - and for creating this thing in the first place. I am about four games behind in updating it and I have to upgrade the version but I will.