A Canadian Cat

LOL no oops I'm totally fine with that. Are you going to publish your Soviet icons - you have a couple of takers already from the sounds of it.

Yeah I am with you on that. If I had heard about these games when CMBO came out I would have been playing them this whole time and not just the last few years. A friend and I started, and nearly finished a large 20 000 point battle. You can read about it here http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=105660 which includes a document I wrote on how we set the whole thing up. Note yeah I said nearly finished. My friend has been "too busy" to play any more. I keep hoping he will get his priorities straight but alas he seems more intent on working than having fun. What can I say I am sad too. Good thing I have met other regular players and have lots of people to play. Not sure if any one else is crazy enough to do a battle this big though Before you take on something big like this make sure you have played plenty of smaller battles first. You can also play in hot seat mode, where you play with one computer and take turns in front of the screen.

The German icon in the back there looks like one of mine from here: http://cmmods.greenasjade.net/mods/5153/details But the Soviet ones are not. @Der Alte Fritz did you roll your own for the Soviet side?

You can setup a scenario where your unit has multiple ammo dumps near by maybe you could. When I discovered the no wrap feature of the target briefly command I wondered how long someone would rack the time up. I only went for a few minutes but I knew someone would go longer than that. Congratulations, I think you are the current champ

We have such a command: Face. What is expected to happen is the face command would direct the squad to position themselves in the terrain so they could best fire / see that point. Which in this case is along the top of that ridge. Quite frankly the Face command works pretty well the majority of the time. This just isn't one of them. Already have it, so it is fixable. What ever design path you choose there are compromises and you inevitably have defects / make mistakes. BFC have demonstrated that they know what they are doing and that they work towards making the game better. I see no reason that making this better could not be one of them.

Me too (dare I say "us" too and speak for others:-). So we are on the same page. The thing is, the way the game is designed these are not separate things. We get realistic combat results because we have each solider represented. So the ones standing up and moving are more exposed than ones with their heads down because the bullets are being tracked and hitting them - or not. So we all need to take a step back and realize that the detailed graphics representation is not a frivolous add on. It is part of the way the game works. Granted we could get the results if the soldier models did not have animation and were just greenish coloured like plastic toy soldiers. So, I guess you could argue that they wasted time making colours and uniforms etc. Personally I am happy with the balance they have struck in that regard. Others can feel differently or course. Back to the topic at hand. To fix this kind if issue the Tac AI needs to handle positioning of the soldiers differently. It would be like you are the section commander and your guys are sitting on the down slope instead of peaking over. If it were RL you would chew them out and get them to move up. In this game we only get a certain level of control and the Tac AI squad leader deals with this part. What we have is a situation where the Tac AI squad leader is not doing the right thing. Similar to toops not looking around corners. So call it what it is - sub optimal troop placement for this situation. Hopefully this will be something that can be looked at and make it onto the list of work to be done. Anyone care to comment on that - does BFC feel this should go on the back log?

Humm interesting ideas. When I think of small scenarios I usually don't think that small. But I see your point. Considering the sniper idea, with five AI plans available and triggers now present it could be possible to make the short scenario very re-playable. After my first platoon sized scenario I am working on a bigger one. Frankly I would rather play than design but spending some time designing is fun. I will keep this thread in mind...

That is an excellent idea. I never really did that when I was first learning I just drove to the disasters end and tried again. Wish I had read your post years ago. I have to say that once you get some experience it is one of the joys of this game to suffer a disaster and find a way to regroup and succeed in the end. So glad to hear you are heading towards that. Next time you feel the urge to mulligan instead thing "now that things are messed up is there anything I can do to salvage this situation". I sounds like you are already heading that way so koodos to you. Sometimes that salvaging the situation means really changing your objectives. For example sometimes the defense is just lost and there really isn't anything you can do to win. When that happens I usually switch to "I'll take out one more of his tanks before I go down". As an example.

This how I view things as well. We know from the historical record that tanks were very hesitant to just drive around where there could be enemy infantry - without their own infantry. We need this kind of abstraction to keep that balance. The reduced ability for tanks to spot infantry certainly helps but I think that currently it is probably still to easy to drive tanks wherever you like. I don't think there is a modeling issue though it is more of a command issue. We, the god like player, are happy to order tanks to go off ahead of protecting infantry but real life tank commanders would be less eager to do that. Not because it was likely they would get immobilized or killed but because it could happen. We have the same issue with our command of infantry. We, the god like player, are happy to tell our squad that just lost two guys - keep going you guys I need you to get to that next objective. Where as in real life the squad leader and or platoon commander would be less inclined to just keep pressing. Again we have rattled and broken morale status to help mitigate that so it is a command issue not a modeling issue. It is after all still a game and we need to have fun.

I read John's post as meaning to put a short cover arc on the sniper team so they will not fire and let them observe for a while before letting them go. I am not totally sold on that advice. I tend to set my snipers up in a good place and let them do their thing. Sometimes when I see a sniper team rack up some kills I will hide them for a turn or two. Just to help keep their location a secret. I also might change floors after a while just to make it harder for speculative fire to mess with them. Yes, they are better in recent versions. I am not sure if there is anything new in CMRT. I think they tweaked that behaviour in the 2.0 upgrade for CMBN. I agree with this. I have to say I am a sniper fan - I just find them fun. When I am purchasing in a QB I always pick up a sniper team or two and usually crank them up to the best they can be. The cost could go from 21 to 26 points but that is cheap. I favour them on defense. On offense they are harder to get into a good position. Find a place where the have good visibility to somewhere. I have had success with positions where they can see a large portion of the battle field but the down side is once they get spotted they can take fire from all over the battle field . Or give them a place where they can see a key avenue of approach but nothing else. You don't want them to have choppy LOS they tend to want to watch the enemy moving forward and then strike (I have no idea if they are really coded this way but it sure feels like it). They will strike out to 600m and you defiantly want them to be observing an area further away than usual infantry rifle ranges 200-400 is a good range. Also position them away from other units of yours. Nothing crazy but for example the third story of a house can be a good spot for snipers but then don't put an MG team on the second story. All that will do is draw fire on the MG team which will certainly effect the sniper team. One of my favourite things to do is position them in a good church tower and have them switch floors from time to time. There is nothing more satisfying than having a sniper team move from the top floor to the middle floor just before some tank starts shooting up the top floor. A few minutes later your sniper is being a pain in their side again. In many games my sniper teams come out with only a handful of kills or even none. But sometimes they will score 20 - that keeps me coming back. That is excellent philosophical advice. I know you were looking for some "do this, don't do that" advice and you got lots of good stuff. This might be the best "keep this in mind and you will be happier" advice you can get. If you keep thinking your guys will be perfect you will be in for a frustrating time.

Probably better asked in the support forum where the support guys can give you a proper answer. I can say from experience that in the past I have upgraded a video card and I did not need to reactive the game. What I don't know is if that is always the case and nor can I speak with any authority on what other component changes might or might not trigger.

I like your past work. Do you have any preview images - or did I miss an earlier thread. It is a bummer that the repository only lets you upload images after it has been approved and announced to the world. Oh the repository - sigh:)

They look very run down. Nice work.

As, @ASL Veteran says Steve has talked about this a few times. The issue with LOS checking is how much work it takes the computer to do. So having a list of locations that can possibly see another location means they can not waste time checking if your guy in the valley can see an enemy in the next valley. The idea is to reduce the amount of checking and only make the computer check for the units that could possibly see each other. Even that takes a lot of computing time. To make the game run on a wide range of machines not every unit gets to check what it might see every second of a turn. That is where the 7s spotting cycle comes from (someone spend a bunch of time experimenting to find that number but I don't think that it has been confirmed by the programmers although the concept of only some units get to check for new things they can see at each opportunity has been confirmed). Even that cycle has been tweaked to help with some of our spotting issues. Steve has said that there is now code that gives some priority to units in close proximity to the enemy so your guys near the enemy will get more opportunities to see if they spot something new. We are not sure of the precise cause of what @Lt Bull is seeing in this case but it sure fits with what Ken described. So, several of us are not speaking with actually experience of the inner workings but from the explanations of Steve and his staff over the years. He cannot be here and answer every post so some of us try to help out with the explanation part. And Ken and I think @ASL Veteran have tester status (I hope I am right on that and not outting anyone) so they can take saves from us and test things out before submitting defects to the developers.

Agreed is is too bad but the good new is you are incorrect - two turns will do it Disembark - one turn split scout team, scout team mount HG - two turns

Sorry to hear of your catch 22 situation. That is a drag. I can assure you that the Vista patch for CMBB will work on Win7 while I played on Vista two of my friends played on Win 7, using that patch, while we waited for CMBN to arrive. I am sure your problem is as you suspect - video card, mother board, OS not liking each other. I hope you can find a resolution of some kind.

Regarding CMBB I picked up CMBB and CMAK back when CMBN was in beta. Since I was new to the series I bought the version that was patched to run on the new OS (starting with Vista) but could it be that you need the $5 upgrade that makes the older games run on newer OSes? I suggest asking support that question too. Or read up on it here: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=51&Itemid=90 The route you can take is to find a used card for sale. You should be able to find a card of the right era and that may solve the problem. Yeah I know buying used computer components does indeed sound sketchy but I think that might be your only hope. Yeah, I love computers and I still hate them most of the time

The Blitz is still running two scenarios per month. The plan is to rotate which family the scenarios are from. In the future I will post on the matching forums instead of all three. Sign up for the May (yes we skipped April) Scenario of the Month has started over at the Blitz. This month the scenarios are: CMRT: The Passage CMBN: Bloody St.Omer Capelle Form post for sign up Sorry for being tardy but sign up has been open for a while so be quick...

Sign up for the May (yes we skipped April) Scenario of the Month has started over at the Blitz. This month the scenarios are: CMRT: The Passage CMBN: Bloody St.Omer Capelle Form post for sign up Sorry for being tardy but sign up has been open for a while so be quick...

Sign up for the May (yes we skipped April) Scenario of the Month has started over at the Blitz. This month the scenarios are: CMRT: The Passage CMBN: Bloody St.Omer Capelle Form post for sign up Sorry for being tardy but sign up has been open for a while so be quick...

Well there are several gaming clubs that forum members are members of. I, for one, am a member of the Blitz. Which reminds me I forgot to tell everyone about the scenario of the month. I better get on that...

Am I missing something here? The game does not use Direct X and could care less about it. It uses Open GL for rendering. I certainly agree that the video card could be the limiting factor. I upgraded my video card back when I started playing and it took the game from just barely playable to not to bad considering how old my machine was. And that machine is a 4Gb AMD running Vista. The new game takes way more resources to operate than the CM1x games (CMBB et al). It takes more memory and more CPU as well as a better video card. If you could find a video card that would work you would still find yourself keeping to smaller maps. Ack!!! Edit: I wrote that thinking you were running this on a Windows 2000 machine. Oops. The GeForce 5200 has 128M of memory you say? Yeah you want to get a better video card - something with 1 or 2 Gb of memory.

They look great. Is that your bike in those pictures? I looks like you took some snap shots while out for a ride in the country.

Oh man and I cannot edit the post anymore. I suppose it will not be the only spelling mistake of mine immortalized for all to see in the internet.

I don't think so. The two HMGs had keyhole LOF to the German end of the bridge. So I think their performance was better than I expected given that they had a small area that they could fire on the enemy. Let me make something clear: the assault I forced the Soviets to do was insane. The TacAI did not want to cross that bridge. As I said the first company was totally useless it was not until the best placed MGs were mortar'ed that the other two companies managed to cross. But again the Tac AI did not want to cross. As soon as they came under HMG fire they hit the deck and or ran back. If those HMGs had better LOF they might have beat the attack back totally. I think the main reason that you are not seeing 20, 30 kills for each HMG is that the Tac AI does not want to run into the bullets. The soldiers are trying not to. If I were to properly command that Soviet battalion I would stop sending guys over the bridge until I had a plan to deal with the MGs and I would deal with them one or two at a time as I found out where they were. I could have taken on those defending Germans with fairly light casualties but it would have taken longer then 20 minutes. Actually I can say and I forgot - oops. That blocking squad had one MP40. It opened up once the first Soviets started trickling over the bridge and he hit between 3 and 5 guys over the course of less than a minute until he was killed. I think that one HMG well positioned (mine were not that great) could have done so - until the attacker dropped HE on its head. The lead elements of my initial assault were all turned back without even making it to the bridge. If I were really trying, no more of my soldiers would have tried to cross until those MGs were dealt with.