A Canadian Cat

Details, details . I just mean a faster CPU has a significant impact on game play.

Yes, I do it often when I am testing something. Yes, it is turn based only. Yes, any moving is less efficient than being still. Note I am not saying that you cannot spot stuff when you are on the move I am just saying that doing recon spending time just observing is a good thing. Use one of the FOs or for the Russians an air controller. As an example a US platoon has a fire support team and a Raven as part of it (or perhaps the Raven is at the company level I forget) but the point is if you use the platoon fire support team from 1 Platoon to launch a UAV mission once the UAV spots something the fire support team will get a solid spot on it. What you will notice is that pretty quickly the rest of 1 platoon will have ? where the fire support team sees an ememey tank. If you wait a little longer the Company CO will see the ?. If you wait some more members of 2 platoon and 3 platoon will see the ?. After a while the battalion commander will have passed on the information to the tanks in D company. etc. Unbuttoned means the vehicles commander and on some vehicles someone else will have their head out of their hatch. Buttoned means everyone is inside with the hatches "buttoned" up (closed).

That pretty much sums up his style - Attack!

Yes, indeed you are correct. I know this thread has focused on future stuff and clearly adding multi threading in the future will help. I am just talking about things as they are. The way the game feels when played on an i3 processor will be worse than on a machine with an i5 processor which will be bested again by one with an i7 processor even if they all have lots of memory and the *exact* same graphics card.

I'm no graphics expert I know there is Direct X but it does not work on Macs (or am I missing something). What else is there that runs on Macs and PCs? I think the mistake people make is thinking that the graphics card is the most important part but CM is really CPU bound so faster processor is important. Whoa yikes - the harsh mean reality of it all. See "Options" page 12 of the manual. By default the settings are pretty easy on the computer and not nearly as nice as the can be. After you read that section crank up the settings and see how it looks / plays.

Well I'll take a shot at answering but don't be offended My opening position is "observation bias". Your are noticing the times you don't see the enemy and they see you. Other possibility is you are doing it wrong (but don't worry you can figure it out). OK harsh reality / meanness over: what can you do about it? Here are some suggestions: Play some of your troubling scenarios in hot seat mode and see just what both sides are really seeing. Give your guys more time. If they are on the move they will not spot as well. Don't rush too much. Consider the terrain very carefully. If your guys are in the field and the enemy is in the treeline in front of you - guess what they will see you faster than you will see them. Don't forget to turn on trees from time to time to see what things really look like. Use UAVs. Your guys will spot the real enemy units faster if they already have an idea of where they are. If the UAV starts seeing ? or real contacts and the information gets through the C2 net both you, the order giver, and your soldiers will have a better idea of where the enemy is and they will spot them for real faster. Note they still have to get into line of sight to actually spot them but the point is they will have a hint as to where to look. There is not difference between your soldiers or the AI's soldiers. They behave under the same TacAI with all the same rules. There is no difference - just you and a small amount of luck. You will be able to figure the game out - just keep at it. But always recognized you will see ? more than you will see units no matter how good you get. No hot keys, your soldiers will do a good job at using their gear (well the Veteran ones will do better than the Green ones but that is to be expected). Actually with the most modern vehicles you should *not* unbutton the commander. Someone has posted a list a couple of times on which ones you are better to keep buttoned and which can benefit from being unbuttoned (but be careful not to get your TC on the casualty list doing this). Staying still and letting your guys observe can really help. So can looking at the terrain and finding places where you can see better and places where you can be seen less are really good things to look for and utilize.

No chance of a save from the trash can or recycle bin?

Oh right I think I did both to work around the problem.

This is more work than you expected - there is hope for me yet then

Its a good habit to have! The number of times a Windows update has caused many minutes of trouble shooting is only eclipsed by the number of times iTunes has lost its mind after an update.

Yes, I forgot about tank riding can do that too. So if the HQ tank crew don't have a tank any more they can ride on another one and get back in control of the platoon. I would rather them be in something a little further back from the pointy end but with the Soviets that might be your only choice for a radio equipped vehicle.

Yep I took out the occupy objectives. There are a few that I could not eliminate but they are set to zero points. And a unit objective was added for both c3k and DMS. But those points do not quite cover the agreed victory conditions.

Brilliant names. I totally love Display Only on the Company CO's tank. You gotta love a good sense of humor. Indeed I had to look it up - tricky

Looking good to get guys in town. Did you beat him there? Did you find the easter egg I left you? Hint I will do my part to lead you men to victory

Excellent - I am ready to lead from the front! You know if you win I'm going to take credit, and you know if you lose I'm going to blame you. I believe that's my job as Company commander. And if I die I am going to totally blame you

Nope, I was a reservist for a while. I experienced that one first hand.

But, but, but I can only read comics. Real books are to hard Seriously though, why not it is kinda cool way to do things and if he is having fun that's good right?

Same here - hey how come I cannot read the topo lines on the maps... Oh yeah that damn red filter on my flash light. I'll just wait for the sun to come up to make plans.

Even if he starts you still have to avoid picking anything from the vehicle pack....

Good to know. Testing that out was on my TODO list - it just keeps getting longer. I think this is first patch that did not change that text file though so I think you are safe with your original text.

It really is a PBEM only issue. One thing I have done in the past if @Vanir Ausf B simple save method does not work try this instead: Open the map and switch the setup zones to match the way you want to play. The bug seems to trigger when you have made an attack / defend choice opposite to the maps original setup. So if the map has red as defender and blue as attacker but you want to have blue defending then you can circumvent the bug by creating your own version of the map and manually swap the setup zones. If the objectives are not symmetrical then you will need to adjust them too but often they are in a QB - just check to be sure.

OK this is seriously cool. You must stop this right now! No one is going to be able to meat this bar again for shear graphic presentation so you are hereby not allowed to put the rest of us to shame any longer. I'm kidding in case that was not obvious

Speaking of metal bands I just heard about this: Black Tongue singer steps out of a moving bus Now that is a serious commitment to the life style

This nice little technique is also very useful if a tank platoon or company HQ tank crew loose their vehicle. You can get the crew over to a vehicle with a radio and get command back for the remaining tanks you the formation.

Does the service provider you are using have any supported download helpers they provide? It just seems like something they might actually offer - He says hopefully.