A Canadian Cat

Sure Paint.Net http://www.getpaint.net/download.html(beware the ads that have a download button in them) Why web site owners allow that kind of crap on their sites is beyond me. Heck even better Windows Paint can do it. Unless you have transparency going on then you are out of luck.

Yeah I agree the UI leaves a lot to be desired but one you figure out a few common tasks it is very useful. Actually every time I fire it up I sigh quietly because that UI is so bad - and intimidating.

Which is where that rename utility I mentioned in post #12 comes in handy...

Question for you - did you issue a target command for any of your squads? There is not command to prevent firing of Javelins but you do have some control. If you manually issue a target command to a squad that includes a javelin launcher they will use a missile if they can. So, don't do that. You can either split the AT team off the squad so you can issue a target command to the bulk of the squad or you can just let the full squad choose their own targets. Having said that they still might decide to target an infantry position with a missile on their own. In general they save their AT assets for enemy vehicles just not 100% of the time.

Yes, these effects are modelled in game. When units are taking fire or HE is exploding near by the will duck down and take cover. This means the spot less well and do not return fire as often either. Once it stops though they will recover their wits. Harassing barrages have a pretty low rate of fire. I usually consider using them to create a place where the enemy will not want to go rather than actually effect the enemy that is already place.

I just reported it so it is in the queue.

Sorta. I attached the output file for scenarios and campaigns. For scenarios the Year shows up as invalid, the battle type shows as invalid and both the game and region are listed as unknown. The campaigns seems better but sill has no idea what game it is. CMx2ScAnCaDeOutputForCMBS.zip

Sure once in a while. It took a huge amount of ammunition though so not something you want to be doing a lot of in game. I do remember once having to do it twice in CMFI. In both cases the objectives were so tight I could not get my tanks in close enough to bring fire on the entrenched enemy. I did take two buildings down in order to succeed. That is the only time I have ever fired for the sole purpose of destroying a building. Plenty of buildings go down during games but in those cases I was firing at the occupants.

Just to clarify: normally you have two choices for when your infantry disembark their vehicle: before the truck moves or after it stops. If you give move orders to the truck and move orders to the infantry that they are carrying the infantry will disembark once the truck stops moving. If you make sure the truck has no move orders and you give the infantry a dismount command then you can give both the infantry and the truck move orders. In this case the truck will wait for the infantry to disembark and then both will execute their move orders. Note: the dismount command cannot be cancelled.

Where as I tend to leave the soft factors on Typical and tweak the results a bit to shave few points of or fill out some remaining points. I prefer to play with a force that does not have uniform skill level. So, in your example I would go into the force and either drop a platoon here and there or drop the skill level or leadership for various units to get back on budget.

I imagine there are a few - sometimes we even see them make a final appearance on this forum Same Hummm I don't know about that. If they are having good success with their niche market why not just keep rolling. I think that if they tried to dumb it down they would risk spending time on things less important to their niche customers. I guess that would be OK with them if it mean making more $ but I don't think that is their whole goal here. The upside of a niche like this is we players stick around and play the games for a long time. Heck there are still active players playing the heck out of the original CM1x titles. Not to mention all of us. We will be playing these games for years. The type of gamer you are talking about might spend some time on a hypothetical game like this for a while but they move on and find something else after a while. Yeah, it is a thing of beauty to watch. At least when they are doing the right things it is

That observation actually runs counter to what I believe - that suppression is tracked per solider. If what you are seeing is true the I am flat out wrong. Which is certainly possible it has happened before I have not observed such a thing but I have also not been looking for it either. I feel a test coming on (if I can only find some time)...

Try Whose Turn Is It? It does not automatically detect newly installed games - you have to tell it where the .exe is and where the game files directory is but after that it will allow you to select the game when setting up a PBEM and if you have a turn that you have not sent to any one it will show you that too. Plus once you have setup your opponent by name it will show you when they drop a brand new game into your shared drop box folder. Check out http://www.lesliesoftware.com/products/WhoseTurnIsIt/gettingstarted.htmlfor how to get it set up.

Yeah, we had a few games end and found that no one could log their games. Don't worry it is getting fixed and there are people playing. Even two AARs on the forum - cool: http://www.theblitz.org/message_boards/showthread.php?tid=67636

Wow, really I have been hitting both T90s and M1s with precision rounds regularly and very few actually are destroyed. Sure some are but my kill rate has been more like 15 to 25 percent. Mind you I did not do the math.

No, you have not missed anything. You have to enter a vehicle to acquire ammo and gear. And it does take a few turns to make it all happen. There has been various discussions over the years of how to make a more robust inventory management system and perhaps one day we will get one. In the meantime while slow don't forget that in some ways it is faster because you can get just the right magazine or belt of ammo all ready to go, which in real life would take even longer depending on what your men needed.

I have used this problem to rename mods after deleting or adding variations. http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

OK two collapsed 14 story buildings later and I can tell you that targeting the first and second stories brings it down. So does targeting the 9th and t10 stories. In both cases the buildings came totally down. In both cases the teams on the 14th floors did not survive. In both cases the rubble was pretty much the same as if it was a shorter building.

+1 to Elite - it also adds less information for you about the enemy. You cannot tell the difference between a scout team, a LMG team or regular infantry (unless you actually see and analyses the equipment but the UI shows less and the icons are generic infantry icons. I'm not Chris but I can give you a definitive answer: the timing of indirect fire and CAS goes both ways.

I hear you guys but my experience with fixed points broken up between various types of arms has some negative feelings. Especially in smaller battles. Basically often I would run into situations where I wanted to play with tank type X and found that with the points being specifically assigned like that I could only afford a tank and four fifths. Grrr why could I not have just a few more points towards armour so I could get my two tanks. So, I am happier with the current implementation of mixed.

It just occurred to me I had this happen to me once and it turned out the objective was not contiguous. I thought there were two separate objectives - there were to areas of green highlighting - but it was really one. So, what I thought happened was I owned on objective and the other one was contested but in actual fact I was out of luck. Is that possible here? I do not recall any stock scenarios with such a setup. Just searching for possibilities...

You know I never actually tried that - hummm. Collapsing upper floors taking the whole building down is pretty likely in lots of cases but I have no idea what the game would do. I fired at the first and second floors to bring it down. I was a long time back in testing so I should not comment but try it again and report back...

Oh I think you are quite right - unhorsed tank crews will withdraw as a default in real life. I play with several friends where we have a house rule that we will do this. The only exception is HQ crews get to find a radio equipped vehicle and climb in (not as good as kicking another tank crew out of their tank but good enough to restore C3) or otherwise stick around to provide some level of leadership.

So, did you guys get your PBEM game going in the end? That red error dialog box is scary but so far (crosses fingers) each time I was able to try again and have it work. It is very important to give the QB some kind of unique name otherwise it gets hard to figure out what turn to play. I use things like "QB ian attacks bahger 001" or "QB ivb 001" depending on what pops into my head first. Also watch out for the odd surprise in the way the first few turns play out. When you play a scenario instead of a QB you will both likely experience a turn where you thought you would get to setup but instead only have to set your password because there is no force selection step but the game does the same routine internally. Then if you ever play a scenario that has early intel you can have a turn where you were expecting to do the setup but do not get to. That is so your opponent can do theirs first so the game can give you your early intel FOW icons. The bottom line is the game is setting things up so you can get to the normal routine of "view turn", "issue commands", "save file" - repeat.

I'll chime in and add that I agree. I don't personally play much QBs against the AI but after reading various complaints over the years about force selection I made a point of testing the AI force selection in CMBS. What I did was use the tiny meeting engagement for most of my testing on the theory that it would be the fastest to show things being off. Each build I would try a few and log defects whenever I got strange choices. I kept doing that until I did not see strange choices any more. To be frank the force selection John describes would not have triggered a defect from me - I would have just been happy with it. I think Mark is correct CMBS does the best job of selecting forces so far I have since had several fun battles just using automatic forces selection.