A Canadian Cat

Yeah, those bugs are the worst kind. I am happy to hear that this is likely behind us. All the wishing that this worked different or that feature got added pale in comparison to spending time working out some new orders for your guys and having the game forget about them. So, thumbs up. I look forward to pressing the big red button without a care in the world:)

Yeah but things are all iterative. Yes, it is true, once you think you have a releasable build there is a finite time between when you make the call to ship it and when it is available. But part of that time is final testing. And if you find something you want to fix before releasing... It has to be investigated... Then fixed... Then some testing of the fix... Then a new build... And then the clock of "finite time before shipping" it starts all over again. And trust me you don't want them to short change that final testing process. LOL good point. I guess I am not helping either:)

We don't know the list of changes in 1.1 yet but Moon did throw us a bone saying that the list of changes would be out this weekend: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1344604&postcount=3 OK more like he waved a bone under our noses for us to smell and beg for:)

Yep I have lost lots of Shermans too. Flanking is the way to deal with the German big cats. And as the German player you want to prevent that. So, you will lose a lot of Shermans but if you keep the threats to the German tanks coming from many angles and simultaneously you can come out on top. Of course that is easier said then done some times.

As a software developer myself I cannot count the number of times we have put the product "to bed" Friday which caused the poor testing team to spend their whole weekend testing. What happens the next week totally depends on what the testers find. If things are well then they get a few more days to make sure and we ship it. If things are not we have emergency fixes over the weekend or at the beginning of the week. If things are really bad we end up starting over again. Often putting the next build "to bed" Friday again:D This is a tricky time during a release. There is always a list of known bugs and someone needs to make the call as to which to hold the product for and which live with. Those are hard choices, especially when you know you have customers that really want the product:D In fact in my industry we *never* tell our customers when a new release is coming out. The only people clamoring for a product to ship are internal stake holders. I cannot imaging the pressure there would be if we had customers with shipping date expectations. Ian a guy, same as Ken "with NO knowledge, NO hints, NO communications from behind the screen, NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH"

Oh sorry I was not clear. Troops do *not* do this now. What I wrote was my suggestion to Battle Front.

True, that makes it difficult. But I think it can be done. Right now when you position a squad against the wall of the building they are in an excellent hiding position. I think if we add the ability to let the face command do a sensible thing we could easily get guys peaking around the corner. So, right now if your guys are in a building and you give them a face command outside the building in the street to the left they will position them selves such that they look out the windows on the left side of the building. Give them a face to the street on the right and they look out the right side windows. What I would suggest is make the face command for guys outside a building in the action spot next to the wall do something sensible too. If you give them a face command down the street on the left they then shift, along the wall, to the left and have two or three guys peak around the corner. Facing down the street. Same for a face command into the street on the right side - they shift right and two or three guys peak around the other corner. Now if you split your AT team off the squad they can be given the face command and now your two man AT team are peaking around the corner. Woe to any tank that comes by:)

Here is my 2 cents. First split the squad - split off the AT team. Send the team running into the smoke. Have them move through the smoke. That way they will stop once they are clear of the smoke. Give them a face command towards the tank on that way point then add a pause to that way point. I would vote for 10 to 15 s pause. I worry that 5s would be too short. Then have them fast to cover. The rest of the squad can help too. Try to have them flank the tank. If they can get far enough alone the side they can distract the tank and button it up. Plus of this goes well it would be good to have some available fire power to deal with any Rambo tank crews:-)

+1 as well

How about a note that will show up when it is available? Once it is ready to go there will be an Announcement at the top of the forum's list of threads. There are four up there now "And the winneris...", "CM: Battle for Normandy - Commonwealth Forces Module Manual", "CMBN Commonwealth Forces - VIDEOS!!!", "Crumbs! Commonwealth Forces preorders, books and screens!" The F5 monkeys are watching for that fifth announcement to show up...

Not sure about everyone else but I will be installing the base game into a new directory and then adding the module to it. I will be doing that because I have 5 PBEM games currently on the go that I will play using my current install. Yes, over time I will negotiate with my opponents to convert over to the new version but there is always one that does not want to and another one that will not convert. That is what happened with the patch (most opponents and games converted no problem). So, given that I will keep my current install (with all my mods) intact and then create a new install for the CW module. What I plan to do is make sure everything works sans mods. Then I will copy the various mods over a few at a time and verify that they still work.

slysniper gave you some good advice already. His point about the map design being a big problem is spot on. So is his advice. I will add two more possibilities - actively surround tanks that are on the move. If they survive the ambush you set or find a path that avoids them try to surround them. For example if a tank is moving down a street have your infantry move the other way on then next street over or a back alley or even building to building. If you can get behind the tanks from two sides then you can make them have a bad day. The other thing you can do is play hide and seek. The big problem tanks have in an urban environment is if they cannot see the enemy unit they will have trouble targeting them. This is another issue that I have experienced from the tank's point of view. When a tank is on the street and they cannot see any enemy units there is a good chance they will not be able to area fire HE against the buildings down the street. So, use that weakness and have your guys pop up in a window fire at the open tank and then move to a different floor and hide or slip out the back door into a different building and hide. If you keep your guys moving and hiding in the buildings down the street two things will happen. 1) the tank will be kept buttoned up 2) there will be so many ? targets and your opponent will not be able area fire at many buildings. I realize that many feel that buttoned tanks see too well - no comment from me - the fact is they see better opened up so keep them buttoned. If, on your opponents turn they have few or no visible enemy units they will not be able to blast HE at the buildings your guys are hiding in.

Suuuuurrrrrrre - true enough - but with a cover armor arc I do not have to roll the dice that the attacking armor support will not enter the kill zone at the beginning of the turn. Don't get me wrong. I am willing to roll the dice for an ambush like this. Personally, I will not roll the dice on my country's constitution but for an ambush in a game I'll roll the dice:) Right now IMHO the right thing to do is give the Stug a short arc and clear the target when armor enters the kill zone. It is the only way to prevent your ambush from being triggered by infantry. I actually try to set my ambush with a combination of MGs and AT assets. The AT assets get "hold your fire cover arcs" and the MGs are weapons free for the kill zone. I do this so that the infantry screen will come under MG fire which will in turn encourage the attacker to move up his armor support to deal with the MG threat. So far all that dice rolling has come out in my favour most of the time. Once we get armor cover arcs then I can set the whole ambush up to work just like I want with no risk that the enemy armor will show up just as the turn starts and cause me trouble.

Oh, man that's it we will not get the game this week:)

Shhhhhhh! if you say it out loud it will not work.

And there in lies the problem. With the 25m cover arch the Stug would most likely ignore both the infantry and the tank and *not* fire. Even if it gets fired upon it will still likely ignore the enemy outside the cover arc. It is true it will not ignore it forever or in all circumstances and it will depend on the training and morale of the tank crew. Bottom line though is as a SOP the cover arch is to be respected and if there is nothing in the arc no shooting. And in a WEGO turn this causes a problem because if you want to hold your fire against the infantry you have to have a short arc. But that also means you will not shoot at the tank that comes around the corner either. So your ambushing Stug needs to stay hidden for a whole minute before it can respond. Then you can clear the cover arc and choose your target. The advantage of having an amour cover arc is that you can set the ambush and watch the infantry come down the road and wait to fire on any following tank. If the infantry start getting too close you an clear the target and let the Stug shoot HE at the infantry.

Thanks - yes I ended up with a total victory. OK wow that is impressive. I lost a pile of stuff and my troops were in poor shape morale wise. In fact when I took the town I was unable to muster any effective force to send to help take the farm. I only ended up with the farm objective as well because opponent's forces were in worse shape than I thought. Funny thing is after watching the way my opponent played and the forces he had at his disposal I was thinking this should be very winnable by the Germans. My opponent showed a lack of caution when using his Panthers and I took advantage. I think that if he had used his StugIIIs to protect the Panther's flanks and was not so aggressive with the Panthers I would have had a much harder time. Huzzar! is my favorite scenario too. I really like how it was constructed with scouting built into the scenario and the map well it is amazing. As for the engine / game - I agree. Simply amazing work. There are things that I would like to see added and a few things that I would like to see addressed. In fact while taking the town in this scenario I ran into my biggest issue with how things work. I need to consolidate my thoughts and evidence and start a new thread on the subject. But as you said the game is great and none of this is show stopper stuff IMHO.

Wow that is close - who came out on top of that encounter?

I am sure that triggers could be used to create a mess and a disaster:) But they could also be used for good. Consider the OP's example. Instead of the AI guessing on a right flank attack they could instead have defenders left centre and right and hold a mobile reserve. Once the attack starts and the defenders start taking casualties (or similar trigger) the mobile reserve could react to that and move into position to defend against the attacker.

Agreed that we should enjoy what we have. And I do - very much. It is just at the end of some aniolation games I am left wondering about when a real commander would have backed off. I hope some day to try my hand at scenario design. I am curious if the current game's scoring can be used to encourage more realistic behaviour on the part of us commanders:)

Yeah I should have turned off the objective highlighting.

The tank crews company CO did pretty well to - but they are veterans so I expect it from them:)

I just finished Huzzar! and wanted to cheer on my favorite green tank crew. These guys were amazing. After loosing their platoon leader on first contact and the other two tanks shortly there after this crew proceeded to calmly follow my flanking order maneuver and take out all four StugIIIs that had shredded his platoon. Then this crew helped his supporting infantry screen take out a Panther. Hip hip hooray Hip hip hooray Hip hip hooray! the details: See green troops can be effective. I made sure they always had infantry support and they moved carefully around the bocage to get side shots on the StugIIIs. One of their support platoon's AT teams did pretty well them selves. After another squad's AT team immobilized the Panther (at the cost of their own lives) these guys flanked it and destroyed it. This was before they were broken and relegated to sentry duty.

The previous through and through and through again shots have all involved multiple half tracks. This one is unique. A stuffed toy sounds good. I can imagine a line of stuffed tank toys being sold along side the angry birds:)

LOL - I agree playing the game we have is the best way to spend your time. That or watching trunk monkey videos. I think trunk monkeys are more useful than refresh monkeys.