A Canadian Cat

LOL that was hilarious. Wow and my list was clean the pool and get some photo proofs out to customers. That I can get done without any help from @Wiggum15

I have it setup with the games on an SSD and the turns on a normal drive. I have not experimented with trying things on the SSD drive but given the size of the turn files and the load times I strongly suspect that the speed is more CPU bound that IO bound. There is ton of number crunching going on in CM so the CPU is usually the bottle neck. I usually have a fair number of PBEM games going on in multiple titles so what I do is fire up at turn in one title and before I play I start loading another turn in a second title. Then when I am done I start loading another turn and then switch to the second title which of course is long ready to go. Rinse and repeat. I can do that because I have lots of memory on my machine so that would not have worked on my old machine that only had 4Gb. Ian PS. Let me know what you think of WTII? please. PM me if you don't want to write about it here.

Ah, what do you think is wrong? That is quite a lot of damage from a mortar round hit. Or are you saying that was from six hits? Even then the Bradley is in pretty bad shape. I'm just looking for clarification and definitely run that a bunch of times. My testing of precision rounds was mostly 155 and 152 and for that a single round was most often enough to deal decisively with BMPs or Bradleys. I would expect 120mm would be less effective. Based in my testing I use a single precision round against IFVs and two or three against MBTs, that is enough to provide a high chance of destroying them and nearly a guarantee of at least immobilising them. Occasionally one manages to keep driving but the additional cost in rounds is not worth it.

The short answer is mostly it has no effect. Turn load times are slightly slower but nothing really noticeable (some testing was done a while ago I don't have easy access to links from my phone). Actual game play will not be effected at all if the mods are the same resolution. The vast majority of mods are the same resolution as the originals. A few HD modes have been created for terrain. They are clearly labeled. They could theoretically slow things down but I don't think anyone has tested that and a good graphics card would probably handle them with no ill effects.

Nice

LOL yeah I suppose it was successful. I do not agree that the original discussion is more interesting. Some one found a bug - cool good one. It was an interesting bug too actually next others started debating if it was an intentional slight against Russians. OMG seriously you guys are paranoid! So the thread got really uninteresting and silly and then we started talking about pricing which again got pretty silly. If the discussion stayed sane and on topic this whole thing would have been over in a page. At any rate you are right - this has become a bit of a time waster - time to move on....

Oh yeah that was a big one. Really big. Before that I tried and then gave up making scenarios. It was a total write off I tried twice but just could not bring my self to do it. Now it is not the barrier - time is and I have two completed scenarios and others at various stages of completion. Yeah I know not very prolific but it did not just help me out. The thing is this highlights something else important. How much you think a new release is worth might depend a lot on exactly what features they added. There is a large portion of people who could not care less about map overlays but for me was a game changing feature.

True, but it is way simpler than that. The way it is now we have what four or five forum posters who constantly complain they are not getting value for their money. If they changed to what you are suggesting we would still have to endure those very same **** ***** because they would argue that because there were x more units in one game and y different terrain the price differential was wrong. And then we would have a whole new class of **** ****** complaining that why should the have to pay for all this content just because they want CMBN and not CMRT and its not fair. Add to that the simply confused posters trying to make sense of it all and not understanding how the pricing works. On top of that - the idea is just silly. Like imagine reading a restaurant menu where the Caesar salad is more expensive than the chicken Caesar salad because the work of chopping up the lettuce and the making of the sauce is covered by those ordering the Caesar salad so the cost of the chicken Caesar is just the chicken. Yeah I know it is not the same but think it makes just about as much sense - i.e. none what so ever. I'll just add a few **** ****** to my ignore list and move on An understandable and explainable pricing strategy is its own reward. We have enough confused posters just because of the number of choices in the store.

Oy, I'll just ignore that - like I do Wiggum... Yes, they tend to be. Over time they add up and have made lots of progress. As long as they are improving things that's good. Indeed and even Steve has gone on record as saying he wants to do that. If you look at BFC's track record they tend to make improvements concentrated in one area with a few improvements in other areas - at each step. A major design change to the UI will need a bit more of an all or nothing approach. Often if you create a new UI design it will not fit well along side the older one so you cannot do it bit by bit sadly. I think we are going to have to be patient on this one. I'm not so sure about this. The scripted AI does some things quite well actually and it appears to be their design philosophy. The kind of thing you are talking about is not really compatible with a scripted AI. I am not sure what you are talking about here. Of course my big problem with campaigns is the are not playable by PBEM so I spend nearly no time with them so that could be why I'm not getting it. Can you elaborate. Yuck, this has been discussed before lots and I really do no think that will ever happen. 1) those maps sucked - really sucked 2) random selection of prepared maps works really well. I honestly do not see why any one would want randomly generated maps now. Once you have a big enough pool of maps, random selection is just so much better.

I think you have it right. But being able to start A game and then never load the saved file is not intended. I am pretty sure I reported it a while ago. I'll check and make sure once I am back at a real computer.

Something odd must be going on. I suggest you contact support. I only have an i5 CPU and a GTX760 and even the biggest maps with lots of stuff I can get over 20FPS on the top graphic settings.

that winning while playing redfor is really satisfying

No you don't need to use an external site (its fine if you do though). Once you have the attachment as a thumb nail, like you do, get the URL to the image and then use the insert picture button on the tool bar and paste the URL into the dialog box (and remove the _thumb from the file name if you ended up with the URL to the thumb nail) and presto it will be an inline pictures. Just like this:

How did it end?

On the subject of saturation have you actually tried these mods in the game your self? I ask because 1) I have not because (I am very happy with my current set of mods) and 2) to my eye the screen shots he is posting appear to have a extra saturation and sharpening over all. In other words it is not his mods that are giving that look it is his treatment of the screen captures. As far as I can tell the vehicles compare with the surroundings so I would not expect there would be an over saturated look in the game. As with many things expressing a negative criticism needs to be done with some thought. Might I suggest something more like: "I find the look of these mods to be highly saturated. Have you tried out versions that are less saturated?" That way you give your feed back without coming across as a - you know. It all depends on your goal - if you want to give they guy a suggestion and see if he might want to try something a bit different then put on the kid gloves. If you want to come across as a - you know - then you already know what to do.

The Blitz is running two scenarios this month. Sign up for the July Scenario of the Month has started over at the Blitz. This month the scenarios are: CMBN: Char and Char Alike CMFI: DiSaronno The form post on theBlitz for sign up.

The Blitz is running two scenarios this month. Sign up for the July Scenario of the Month has started over at the Blitz. This month the scenarios are: CMBN: Char and Char Alike CMFI: DiSaronno The form post on theBlitz for sign up.

Defiantly not just you. On the subject of playing the game itself: I started out playing miniatures when I was a teenager along with a few cardboard games. The big problem was FOW, or more precisely the lack of FOW. They never felt right. All my grand plans to create multiple rooms and umpires etc. etc. never amounted to a hill of beans because there just was not enough players to do all the work. When I found CM (way late I would have played CM1x for 10 years and been really happy with it) the total surprise when things suddenly went south was like a breath of fresh air. Just yesterday in Objective Delta my men were happily moving forward thinking they had eyes on what was happening (thanks to a UAV) when suddenly all hell broke loose and my opponent came out of literally no where. It has been three of the most exciting minutes of play in recent memory and I am totally getting wrecked. The moments watching the soldiers scrambling for cover is just wow. Every time I cannot see stuff and have no idea what kind of shape the enemy is in it just makes my day. All the first person shooter games that people mention just do nothing at all for me. Not a damn thing. @slysniper nailed it earlier "first person shooters do not feel or act realistic at all. ... there is no concept of death being bad, so constant stupid moves are made because there is no fear of dying". In CM dying matters - if you let your soldiers die recklessly that is how you loose. No amount of better animation, or better graphics or better sound or better UI changes any of that. Bottom line the feel of the game and the behaviour of the troops has to be there first. If it is not then none of the wiz-bang features matters at all. If BFC never created any CMx2 titles I would still be playing CMx1 titles and loving every minute of it. On the subject of criticizing the game: Nothing pisses me off more than people saying that many of us don't accept criticism of the game. The reality is I don't accept poorly thought out or rudely presented criticism of the game - big difference. Ideas are a dime a dozen any one of us could create a list of improvements long enough to keep a larger team busy forever. The trick is choosing the right improvements and doing them in the right order. To understand how this works listen to this: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-march-16-2015-1.2994052/kevin-ashton-dismantles-creative-genius-in-how-to-fly-a-horse-1.2994083 If that is TL;DL the summary is as humans we are wired to look for improvements. We can be counted on to make suggestions for improvements in nearly every tool, item, process or environment we interact with - it is part of human nature. Lots of those ideas actually just will not work, many of them will really only make things about the same just different and yet we can come up with ideas for improvements even for things we generally like already. To be well received ideas have to be communicated and presented. Nothing kills an idea faster than rudeness - people stop listening. I say bring on the ideas, bring on the criticism but keep your perspective. You pet idea might not really be that good. Your idea might not really move the bar forward much at all - it just might be a little different. Your idea might not fit with the vision the developers want to go - sorry but they have to choose and just because they don't choose yours does not make them wrong. Nothing moves as quick as you might want - just accept it. And above all make sure you are not being rude. I know tall order for humans

Yep - aka a hissy fit. I suspect you are referring to me - don't flatter your self I don't really care enough about your hissy fit to be offended. I just think you are flat out wrong and off base. And no your contributions have not created a productive discussion. We have had lots of productive discussions on the subject of managing units in this game and this is not one of them. The thread that was linked earlier contained a productive discussion. This is just an odd statement. You might not like the games a company produces, you might not like the quality a company produces but a company that has been around for 10 years must be doing something right even if that something is something you don't like. Guys I think it is time to stop feeding this guy. I don't think we can really call him a troll because he has not been insulting but this stuff is so far out in left field what is the point?

Because you are throwing a hisssy fit because *your* favourite feature has not been implemented. Just because it is important to you does not make it the top priority. Sorry. There have been lots of improvements in the game since CMSF just not the one that you really want. Steve has mentioned before that he plans to do a major UI improvement push at some point and so has been intentionally not making a lot of UI changes in the mean time. We all just have to be patient and see what he comes up with. Then you can throw another hisssy fit because it does not do some other thing you really wanted

Again already good answers - slow down guys you keep beating me to it I will simply add that when you have troops who are pinned (when you select them the word pinned appears on top of the suppression meter) using the evade instant command is much more likely got get them to move than just issuing a move order from the menu. You are correct any unit lock you had in a previous turn load is lost. The camera view presets just move the viewing height and angle to a preset location. The difference between 2 and 4 is like suddenly climbing to the top of a tall tower - if you keep looking forward you will no longer see the ground at your feet. If your camera is locked on a unit then you adjust the height then the camera location also moved back or forward enough to keep the unit in view. Also you made reference to <ctrl># and <alt># those are for saving and restoring a camera view locked to a selected unit. I wish they were useful in WEGO but they are not saved between saves so it makes them nearly useless. I wish that were saved between turns in PBEM and with saves for regular play. That should be number four on my top three most requested features. I personally watch turns once on camera level 3 or 4 (depending on battle size) and then re-watch things with the camera on level 1 or 2 and often locked on particular units.

Indeed they are just more archive formats. I know I often wonder why we need more formats but if is what if is. I believe that the latest Winzip also handles these new formats too. Once you have a program that understands then just treat them like they were .zip files.

LOL yep that's how you end up with a few thousand posts Looks like you have good answers already. The two things I would add are when you have a way point selected (that's what we tend to call the pyramids and spheres) and you give a target order the line gets drawn from the unit not the selected way point. This is normal, strange but normal. We hope one day that will get charged but for now just don't worry. Once the target order is given the target line does the right thing. Secondly you really should have documentation with your installation. There are two really important docs with each title, the game manual that talks about the units and the training campaign, and the engine manual that talks about the features like way points and command stacking. Also there is a really good scenario design guide for the future when you want to start down that path. I am not 100% sure if you get that guide in what you bought. I recommend asking for some help from support to figure out how to get access to your manuals.

Fair enough. I will definitely give it a go. Thanks for the detailed explanation, even if it could be intimidating if would be worse to get part way through and become lost.

LOL can I sit at the kids table?