A Canadian Cat

Correct it is not possible. Given that only a handful of units have both I doubt we will ever get control as a player. I feel like the game is consistent in using one type of ammo first but I have not tested that.

Yeah I don't think so. Have you looked at the definition of racism? Not shopping in China town because you are afraid of being contaminated by something that is not present in any population in Toronto just because the look of the skin colour of the people in that area matches the skin colour of the people who are suffering with the outbreak of this virus sounds like a match to the definition to me.

There is no solid consensus for OOB size vs map size. There have been a handful of threads discussing it over the years but it very much depends on what you want to do. A scenario where the fighting has already started or is about to start would not need as much room as one where you have to find the enemy first. For sure - if you want there to be manoeuvre between forces or recon to find the enemy then yes extend a way.

Yes, tree trunks factor in to who gets hit but I'm only talking about the protection effect from being in a certain type of terrain. Lets say we have a two man team taking fire from directly ahead. They are in a light forest AS with some trees. If one man is at the front right of the AS they will likely have no tree and just a small amount of the light forest between them and the incoming fire. If the second man is at the back of the AS behind two trees he likely has 6m or so of light forest between himself and the incoming fire. My understanding is for each incoming round the models of the tree trunks and the men will be hit tested. That means straight up the front man already had a higher chance of getting hit because he has no trees blocking the LOF of part or all of his model. For each hit that the models and round tracing indicates the front man gets a chance of the hit being ignored, this is to take into account the micro terrain we have been talking about. If it is open ground between the team and the shooters then he is not going to get much of a chance but it will be something for those small depressions that he would no doubt be hugging the ground in. The rear man will have 6m of light forest between him and the incoming fire so he will get a higher chance of the hit being ignored to simulate the small depressions, stumps and the dead tree branches etc that are between him and the incoming fire. None of this is some miracle saving values or anything but they do give them a chance to not be hit even if their model's return a hit for a given round. And yes I was assuming prone soldiers if they are kneeling or standing that matter too. I have no special knowledge of the code, no idea how big these effects are or exactly now they are calculated, I am just regurgitating what I have learned from reading comments from @Battlefront.com over the years.

You are correct. @Attilaforfun, Shock force does have a civilian density setting that simulates the effect of civilians being present. Set high it makes the non uniformed enemy units harder to spot. This means if the enemy move in non threatening ways they can remain unnoticed for longer and get closer. Spys in particular benefit from this. Edit to add - you may well have already been aware of this but for completeness for other reading...

I found another cover image: That's a Hungarian Flag so probably still not the Russian game cover. But I found it as the icon for this page: http://wiki2.red/Combat_Mission:_Barbarossa_to_Berlin Also did you guys know there was a book that covered strategy written for CMBB: https://www.amazon.com/Combat-Mission-Barbarossa-Berlin-Strategy/dp/B0063T9GZC I didn't - cool!

LOL - do you think it really was a copy of your game? That cover doesn't even classify it correctly - says it's and FPS.

Any soldier. Clearly a squad occupying multiple actions squares will have more diversity but even for a single team. The guy at the back of the light forest tile will get more protection from incoming fire than the guy at the front. Nope HE too. I don't think that every piece of shrapnel is tracked but the same thing applies - after the "are you hit" check your terrain gives you a protection modifier. And it matters if the HE exploded above you are on the ground etc.

No. There is a factor of protection given to the soldiers - that is the only thing that is similar to CM1. Unlike CM1, CM2 tracks rounds and uses model based hit testing. CM1 was all abstract level of fire and abstract level of protection and each square was what it was. CM2 is very different. As a starting point each soldier model is used as a hit test for rounds. Anyone who gets hit then gets some kind of adjustment to the chance of becoming a casualty based on the terrain they are in. And this highlights another difference - in CM2 a team can have soldiers in various terrains while CM1 cannot. So, the one guy who is outside the light forest area is treated as being in the open, his team mate 6m away in the woods gets more of a chance of not become a casualty. CM2 starts with rounds hit models and then performs a few adjustments because the 3D model for light forest or heavy forest doesn't really render all the various things in the way. So, even open ground gets some adjustments for those less than 1m terrain level changes that if you were really in a field you would seek out if someone was shooting at you.

Ack - I forgot this was a campaign. Yeah that would be very difficult - for those of us that don't have the campaign parts. Do I have it correctly that this is from @JonS's campaign in the battle pack? I'll have to put this on my list of stuff to look at - man it's getting long.

We had a bug during the development of CM R2V where a motorized battalion did not have enough transport for everyone (that was by design) and whenever you added them to a scenario and played it the transport for each platoon would be filled and anyone who didn't fit was just gone. When you deployed the units everyone was there. When you played the scenario anyone that didn't fit was just missing. Which teams were left out seemed to change randomly too. What you are describing sounds similar to that bug. If you can reproduce it with a new scenario - buy a motorized force and remove a truck or two from each platoon. Deploy to see everyone. Play to see if anyone is missing. Then we can only log it for a fix one day. If you can only reproduce it with the old scenario then the issue is the problem is baked into the scenario. This is possible and the fix would be to go into the unit editor and remove the formation that is having the problem. Add it back and the problem should be solved. You will have to make careful note about which parts of the formation are supposed to be removed, which AI group, which unit objective and which reserve group they are part of.

I don't understand what this means either. Can you elaborate a bit? How exactly does it calculate microterrain? From what I can tell, the game engine only gives a "cover bonus" to units that are directly behind hard cover like trees or buildings. The underlying terrain tile (whether it's rocky, bushes, open, etc) does not seem to have any effect at all, which is what I was referring to before. So rocky terrain doesn't give your troops more of a bonus than open terrain does. Am I wrong about that? I'm not @IICptMillerII but he is correct. The game does not directly model the smallest of terrain features* but it does give a fudge factor to the hit calculation to simulate it. Walls and trees do not give a cover bonus - they block incoming rounds and shrapnel until they are damaged and can no longer block stuff. Buildings too - although they are more complex because the internal structure is abstracted so both things are going on there. Terrain definitely does have an effect. Heavy forest provides more protection than light forest which give more then just grass. *Terrain features such as what @JulianJ are referring to are modelled by the game - but they have to be added to a map. Some maps don't have enough and the very first QB maps from CMBN were frequently like that many do. Find those features and use them - it make a difference.

I just shared my backup scripts and how to use them here:

Since backups came up in another thread I thought I would share my backup scripts. I thought I had done this in the past but I did a search and came up empty. I wrote these scripts years ago and have been using them for scenario design, mod design and programming projects. The basic principal is to zip up a directory and copy it to a backup location (keeping old versions) and a second location. This lets me know I have the last 10 versions and the second copy allows me to move my work between computers. I used to use a USB stick (hence the command line option "portable") but now I use drop box. I hope others can benefit from these scripts feel free to modify and enhance them as you wish. Dependencies: Winzip and WinZip Command Line Helper. I currently use WinZip 20.0 and WinZip Command Line Helper 4.0. I have used older versions so my scripts do not need the latest but they do need those two things to be compatible. Changing to use a different .zip utility would be a one line change for the command line and two other lines to make the batch variable name match a different tool. With those in place you can unzip the backup command and an example usage from here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ifzujn77afk1ei3/BackupExample.zip?dl=0 In there are two .cmd files. The first is BackupToZip.cmd It is the generic backup utility that preserves the last 10 versions and optionally makes a second copy of the most recent backup. When you run it you see the following command line usage guide: C:>p:\BackupToZip.cmd BackupToZip zipname backuppath pattern [-portable path] [other zip options] Press any key to continue . . . zipname is the name of the file you want to create backuppath is where you want to place the backup copies pattern is what to backup portable path is an optional location to place a second copy other zip options lets you pass other command line options to winzip (or what ever other .zip utility you might swap in) these are passed as it to the winzip command Rather than typing a complex command line every time I want to backup my work I create a project specific backup .cmd file. An example of which is included in the above .zip file. This is the script I used while I was working on the Lanzerath ridge scenario: @echo off call P:\BackupToZip LanzerathRidge P:\Backups D:\Users\IanL\Documents\Battlefront\COMBAT~1\Bulge\GAMEFI~1\WorkInProgress\LanzerathRidge\*.* -portable D:\Users\IanL\Dropbox\ScenarioWork -x*.class What that does is copy the entire (*.*) contents and sub folders of my WorkinProgress\LanzerathRidge folder to a .zip file named LanzerathRidge in a Backups directory (also saving the last 10 back up .zip files) and make a second copy on Dropbox under a folder named ScenarioWork. The -x*.class is a left over from a java project backup script that I copied to create my LanzerathRidge backup file. Oops my bad. Just ignore that. If you cannot ignore it here is the explanation: it serves as an example of passing additional zip command line options through. I never backup .class files in a Java project since those are the compiler's artifacts and there is no value in saving them since they are derived from the source files. I create a WorkInProgress directory under the Game Files directory and under there I have a sub folder for each thing I'm working on. Then I create a Backup<ScenarioName> command line script to back it up. Under that sub directory I have all my notes, links, briefing text files and graphics files as well as the scenario itself. You might have noticed that I am not using paths with spaces this is simply because I never did the work to support that. In my development projects I never use spaces in directory names and this backup script was initially created for backing up programming projects. There was just no need. When I moved to use it for Combat Mission purposes I just didn't spend any time changing that since I can just feed the scripts the old 8.3 directory names. Yes, that looks sucky. Yes, it means you have to do an additional step when you create your backup script No, I'm not going to be changing that - but you could if you want You can always find the 8.3 directory name by using these command line arguments with the dir command in any command shell: dir /X

Agreed. I have some thoughts on this: I wrote a backup script a long time ago that I still use for scenario work - it zips up a directory and copies the .zip file to a backup directory and keeps the last 10 of such backups. No version numbering required. I still do put a version number on if I send the file to someone to test - so they know they have the latest version. But I do that to a copy of the file. So, if I was working on test.btt and I was ready to send a test to someone I would make a copy and name it testv2.btt and send them that. (someone reading this who has received test files from will will likely be confused by this - yes it is true I am not at all consistent - :-) I have no experience with campaigns but George's advice from above seems very solid. If you chose to do you backups of your work by just tweaking the version number you can continue to do that if you copy the testv4.btt file into the campaign compile directory and rename it test.btt (deleting the old one first).

Yes, do this. They are the ones with the answers. That is not my impression. Having said that I do not know one way or another - and neither does @IMHO - The game doesn't really use UI widgets from either OS it gets a full screen windows and uses Open GL to render everything - the UI the models and the environment. There would be little need to have a UI compatibility layer to port a Windows app to the Mac. The simplest way to go would be to write a small OS specific shell that can find the files and resources it needs and kicks off the main window and then have the exact same code make the Open GL calls to render the game UI and environment. But that is only my impression. Perhaps @IMHO recalls a post I missed and can set me straight - please.

Yikes dude. One the one hand yeah not may people have died so lets keep a perspective for sure. More people die from the garden variety flu every year. Heck we are still below the world wide deaths from measles this year (I think I didn't look the numbers up but even if I'm wrong it will be close). But come on new viruses that are deadly are kinda scary. And given China's past track record of actively lying and covering up cases of previous diseases we should be paying attention. Just not hysterical. The coverage on the CBC Radio and Pod casts has been excellent - not over the top and talking to actual disease experts and public health officials so good information and no overly dramatic stuff. We should all stop watching the 24 hour drama headline stations and pick programs that spend the time actually look at information and bring in people who have experienced previous outbreaks and are actually in the business of managing public health.

I am not sure it is possible. Check out this thread which may be enlightening: https://superuser.com/questions/318748/force-fullscreen-games-to-in-window-mode

If you have a copy of CMSF1 that you bought then you should qualify for the special upgrade price. I recommend contacting support with you info and see what the process is.

You cannot. You did not do something to your CMBN install. CMBN was created before MS changed the rules around writing to the Program Files folders. Once they restricted apps from writing to their own install folders the other games were tweaked to place the game files under the user's Documents folder. CMBN was *not* changed and instead installs to a location outside of the Program Files directory so it can continue to write to its own install directory. Here are a couple of other threads to read:

What a bad ass.

I had to read that a second time - my brain read "And nobody's wearing pants" and I was imagining you, Steve and the testers so tired from CMFI R2V that we were just not bothering with pants any more. After all there is no office to go to so we *could* get away with it.

There are no change to the contact markers. Irrespective of the bug that @Bulletpoint pointed out the time the stick around has not changed and the bug he mentioned is not new. Do they have solid contacts? Taking fire will trigger the stop of movement but that does not automatically mean they have targets to shoot at. If they stop moving and see nothing to shoot at - no bug. If they stop moving and see solid enemy contacts and do nothing - could be a bug (its still possible to have LOF issues at the margins of LOS) That is suspicious.

I second this. I was formulating a post just like that as I was reading your request and then there it was the very advice I was about to give. I have on so many occasions watched my guys deliver some hurt and then get lots of return fire and I have said to my self I'll leave them there just a couple of more minutes. Now I don't do that because it rarely ended well. The corollary is that when you setup your defence think about their avenues of withdrawal and what their secondary and tertiary positions will be. Some basic advice is to setup so that your guys have some cover and concealment and their kill zone they are covering has some restrictions on the attacker. What you want is to maximize the number of times the attacker has to expose small percentage of their force without having support nearby friendlies. That may mean not using some positions because while look good the entire attacking force can bring fire on your position - don't use positions like that. Or use them only OPs that you abandon as soon as you have some intel on the enemy. In a city or village that could mean having your guys in the second row of buildings not in the first. That way your enemy has to actually enter the town to engage you and when they do they loose the support of the entire rest of the attacking force. In a forest similarly stay back from the edge - other than some scouts to keep watch. Also look for elevation changes where you can position forces to hit the enemy coming over the hill without exposing your guys to the rest of his force.

Yep and I was reading the summary and found this: So, it will not have an effect on an OpenGL game like CM at all.