A Canadian Cat

Yep, that works fine too. What @Baneman meant was you can create a nice long linear bombardment between the two TRPs. For example to cut a town in two or drop shells on a really long tree line overlooking the objective. Use two TRPs when one will not do. Actually if you have four or five you can create a network of interesting bombardment patterns if you want. My recollection of trying that was that the adjusted mission reset the delay clock to 15min again each time you adjusted:eek:. Need to test that to see which one of our memories are correct:)

Oh I totally agree and that's what I told my opponent at first. It was not until solid contacts disappeared and were replaced by nothing at all that I became suspicious. I have tested this from both sides and on basic training skill level there are not ? contact icons.

I just tried it SHIFT+ESC is the magic key stroke. That is just awesome. I have been taking movies and then taking screen grabs from them to avoid the paused message on screen. Thanks for the tip.

Actually I don't think that was Sir Paul singing - the crowd sang most of it:D Note: We thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony at our house - including the parts that Paul sang.

They will come back from being in a Shaken or Panic state. In CM2 guys that are broken are not useless just fragile. I forget the names in CM1 but when you could not give orders to your squads and your guys ran around out of control are now Shaken and Panic. Recovering from those states (aka rallying) works better when your men are under command. In fact I often see teams Shaken during a turn end up rallying before the turn is over - more often if they are under command. Guys who panic take much longer to rally if they run away from command. In fact I have repositioned HQs just to go get squads that ran off. Once they are in command again they often rally pretty quickly.

Note that @BigDork pointed out that the Sherman was Stationary when it spotted the PzIV. I was wondering what AAR you were reading when you wrote that:) Also note that the on the move firing issue is well known by Battle Front and they have stated previously that it is a limitation that we need to live with for a while. There is non trivial work for them to do to make it work better. Read http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98346 Specifically post 25 http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1290189&postcount=25 I have seen more threads before but that sums it up. Which is a good thing:)

I meant to say "the *best* thing about..." No, Scenario test skill level is not available for PBEM. I verified what I am seeing using a single player against the AI. I never see ? contact icons. Is this a bug?

Is that right? A friend of mine who is just starting out with CM2 (he gave up the last time over frustration with spotting) has agreed to try again. He surprised me by sending me a turn and we stared playing but there are no ? spotting icons. It all just feels odd and wrong. I am defending so at first I did not notice. I got solid contacts on his guys and opened up. He complained that his guys were getting killed without knowing where from. I was surprised! I figured he should have sound contacts at least. Now I am seeing movement of his guys but when the leave my LOS there is no ? contact icon. By now there should be lots and lots of ? icons. Confused, I fired up a game against the AI using Basic Training. Sure enough no ? icons - ever. Is this to be expected? The manual only says that all enemy units that are spotted are spotted by everyone. BTW I would never have selected Basic Training skill level (the test thing about CM2 is no "borg" spotting after all).

You know I don't split squads as much any more. I do it when I need to such as putting teams on different floors of a building for example. Or when I want to scout or keep the bazooka team from lighting up the fields 200m away. Much of the time they are together. It makes herding the cats much easier. I have never seen morale get restored. Doesn't happen. The best thing you can do is keep your guys in C&C - they take less of a morale hit when they get shaken that way. If your guys get Rattled they will still fight pretty well but they are getting close to being broken - make damn sure any rattled teams are in command. Once they are broken don't discard them - sometimes you have no choice. They will provide fire support and behave OK if they are not taking any enemy fire. So, if you keep them behind the guys in better shape and be patient with them running away lots you can get some extra bullets down range that will help your other teams make head way. Yeah, this is a challenge. Hopefully someone will find that link for you - I remember reading a few helpful threads on the matter. I usually put my self in the teams shoes and think would I be able to hear the boss in the house if I am standing over here? Big help I know - but after a while I think you will find you can get pretty good at it. And once your guys are in place the next turn you can tweak the HQ position and a team or two and get everyone all sorted. Yes, this is a bit of overhead. I am using Target Linear more and more - short ones feel down right elliptical even. But you do *not* need to have visibility to the whole line just the end points. But a word of caution spotting rounds could fall anywhere along the line so it is not recommended to have no visibility for large portions of the line. But if your spotter cannot see the ground for most of the line but if they can see the explosions from spotting rounds you are good to go. For example if you have a line that goes through a town and you can see the end points but there are buildings blocking most of the line - this is not going to work well because the buildings will block a view of the explosions. But if your end points are along a bocage line but you cannot see the ground for even large parts of the line your spotter can see explosions over the bocage and you will be just fine - ish.

Interesting. I never considered that the VL locations as making a difference like that. Any one else noticed - since I cannot try until tonight:)

Indeed it was a take on a long line of sic fi that hinges on a dsytopian future were corporations have taken so much power that corporations have their own armies and do what corporations want. Wait did I say "future"...

So, it is a good thing you are thinking about a back story - cause I'm not That would be soooo cool - wait no, it would not. That would be boring.

When I heard that BFC were doing a Shock force 2 I was hoping for just that time frame. Back in high school (in the 80s) I started playing Assault with my father (hex based war game set in the 80s). At the time he was a former mechanized infantry officer then working in HQ so right up his ally. He spent a good part of his military career getting ready for a hot war in Europe that, thankfully, never came.

That was my first desire to. But if BFC want to do modern - I'll give it a try. Entertaining movie. I still giggle when I hear them say 'unobtanium' - it is just silly. LOL Brilliant spin on the back story. But won't BFC need to include dead cows for that to work. Ooops sorry did I just ask for dead cows:D

So true. We don't even need a grand back story it could even just be a Nato Brigade group in country doing training when all hell breaks loose. There would still be plenty of CM sized scenarios to work with. Excellent point @MikeyD. One I had not thought of - mind you I also have not relay paid any thought to any back story at all really:D

Excellent - that is the kind of AI plan I want to face. And eventually program myself; but lets face it first we all want to fight one made using it:D Time - which ran out:) Still what you did get done looks good and valuable. I look forward to working with it.

I looked it up the scenario I played that used stars was "Chance Encounter 2.0 CMBN". It was confusing.

The trouble with doing that is it spoils the scenario since it will also reveal all your opponent's forces. The most fun I have had playing this game was playing a good scenario double blind (i.e. neither player had played the scenario before).

I have always been more like 95% PBEM and 5% vs the AI (I have too many games on the go and therefore I have very few moments where I am waiting for turns )

Yep, I agree. I tried but just could not get over that bar. I had all these grand plans to create scenarios - even had several ideas and tried to execute two of them. But *I* just could not get past the PITA aspects of the editor and gave up. No low quality scenarios from me:) And those changes have me jazzed up again to try it. This time I am going to start small and see where it takes me. With the biggest road block I faced removed (no map overlay to help create realistic contours) I am ready to try again. We will see if I can get over the bar this time:-)

LOL that is pretty much says it all. My RT play is limited but I have tried it. Here is my take on the difference: RT does put a more realistic time pressure on commanders. The trouble is that since we have to play the role of Battalion commander, company commanders, platoon commanders and NCOs the time pressure is actually more then it should be. I have only played RT at the platoon level for infantry or the company level for armor and there are too many roes to play even then. WEGO elevates some of the time pressure but since you have so many roles to play you need that time. I like playing RT for small battles and only against the AI. My real problem is I cannot count on even a solid hour to play. I get bibs and bobs here an there so the only way for me to play is via PBEM which means WEGO for me.

This touches on one of the things that I love about this game - you are in the roll of battalion commander down to the squad leader as you give your orders but you never control an individual. That means that when the action starts you have to trust that your men will do their best to do what you asked. This is the way I think of it: the platoon commander gave the orders to coordinate the assault across the street. The NCOs took that order and ordered their teams to lay down suppressing fire and stagger their break into the open and cross the street. During that order phase you played the role of the platoon commander and his three squad leaders to set up that assault, but once the action starts you are just the company commander in the next block hearing the shooting and the radio reports about what is happening. That for me is one of the best parts of this game. Yes, as a gamer sitting in our chairs we could envision that rifle man doing a better job or running across the street or be braver and hold his ground or what ever. Forget it I don't want to take that level of control. I want to be the Platoon commander that has to deal with the fact that his guys, on this day, are freaked out and are not going to run out into the open. I want to figure out another way to get my platoon across the street. I never played ASL until after playing CMAK and CMBB (nostalgia game night for a couple of my friends - guess what we agreed we liked CM better). And I did play a scenario translated form ASL to CMBB and it sucked. The map was very flat and boring. It was like playing on a billiard table. That experience plus games on some of the poorer maps have shown me that the quality of the map is really really important for a good game experience. I came from a miniature war gaming background and the big trouble was always spotting. If you think that ambushes are hard in CM they are nearly impossible in miniature gaming without an umpire and extra over head to manage who spots whom. Later I played Assault (another hex game based on modern era) but the same problem of spotting exists there too. Similarly with ASL. None of the solutions were very satisfying - someone or both always knew too much. I for one am very pleased that you guys looked at the task and decided not to just let the computer manage the rules overhead of ASL but instead looked at the problem with fresh eyes and let the computer manage what you thought it should manage. When I started playing CMAK and BB the spotting was sooo much better. Even the "Borg" spotting behavior was light years ahead of any other spotting solution I had worked with.

I do a similar thing: looking at each field and getting a sense of where the natural depressions and rises are and how you would go about getting across. I have noticed that very few fields are billiard tables and that no two are exactly the same.

I was wondering how to get your guys to stand at the back wall and face out too. I see that JohnS told us how later (stand outside looking in). Very clever I would not have thought of that. Looking forward to trying that out. Actually I am playing Sticking it out right now - could come in handy once the fighting gets into the village. Oh that is sooooooo hard. I cannot count the number of times I have stayed too long. I keep listening to the voice that says "that went really well, why pull back, stay there and keep hurting them". Gotta stop listening to that voice.