A Canadian Cat

I don't know. In my opinion Windows support for symbolic links is not particularly strong. It could work I would personally not try it but that shouldn't stop others. If you do let us know how well it works.

Also didn't someone find out a while back that if you lower one of the game's quality settings you get less variations? I cannot find that post and I cannot test myself at the moment.

Great thread everyone - I have nothing to add - lots of good advice already. I am glad I am not your opponent in this one.

They certainly can: Actually getting a hit with WW2 artillery is difficult and some luck helps but there are some examples posted. Yes, this is a much more likely outcome of a large area barrage on enemy tanks. The hit needs to be pretty close but I definitely have seen and experienced it. Oh yes that happens for sure. The button up faster in later versions of the game but if they are looking out when the shells start it can happen. Heck yeah.

Just to add a comment on the contact icons that hang around. If you have no units selected the enemy contact icons you see are a big picture combination of contacts. It combines the knowledge of everyone on the map. If you select a specific unit the contact icons will change to those that that unit knows about. How does that relate to this situation? If you watch for it you will see this happen frequently. Your platoon has cleared the objective and knows there is no one there - if you select the platoon elements there will be no contacts on the objective but the higher level combined intel picture still has contact information - usually that was passed up the chain of command. As @Warts 'n' all says those fade over time as the intel gets old. If your platoon elements have a contact in a building that is part of the objective you can move them to that building and the contact icon will go away (or turn out to be an enemy unit :-) *for that unit*. Once your unit shares its intel with the HQ it should go away from the HQ's intel picture too. If the contact was passed to other elements of the platoon they should update their picture too once the sharing passes. For that to happen there has to be C2 between all those elements. Sometimes this takes a while to clear up.

Hummm. My icons work with fine with 4.02 - I'm using them. When you say splash screen do you mean the main screen with "Battle, Quick Battle, Campaign, Saved Game..." listed? I have the Cat's icons and "Juju's TweakedUI v4 (final)" mods but not the Patton screen mod. I also have a bunch of other ones too. This kind of UI issue (assuming you mean the main screen - see above) is usually caused by an incompatible string file. The most popular mod that does that is Vin's animated text mod. If you have the wrong version of that you definitely have these issues.

No, you cannot move them. CMBN is different because it was developed before MS changed the file access rules. Leaving that game the same avoids people loosing track of files.

Do we get to see the result? Speaking of which I wonder if they can hit each other and bounce off. I have seen a throw go awry and not make it over a high wall but I'm not sure if the game would track a collision between two grenades.

There are a couple of big companies that pushed for more time and seem like MS is going to support Win7 for them for longer under a program they call "Extended Security Updates" https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/4497181/lifecycle-faq-extended-security-updates the above FAQ seems to say mere mortals cannot access it only corporations with site licenses can and it will include only security fixes. Things to consider: 1) Does it matter? If Win7 is working for you keep using it. Its not like MS was fixing issues that most end users where actually tripping over anyway. Most of the applications we use to connect to the outside world (our browsers for example) will still be updated and will still work with Win7. So, maybe it is no big deal. 2) Why not go to Win10? If you are worried I cannot think of a reason not to. OK that's not true I truly hate the forced update "feature" in Win10 and the "when we reboot will try to bring all the apps you had running back". But those are solvable problems. There are several apps that restore updates to be under your own control and you can turn off the goofy app restarting feature. Day to day usage is great the transition has been easy and I don't even remember what was that different. Now windows 8 - that was something worthy of hate

Oops yes, I meant an armour cover arc so the Tank, Gun or AT unit will not fire on infantry. I fixed my original post to BTW to avoid confusion.

Assuming a PC here. If you are using a Mac this will not apply. Having said that if you are using a Mac you are not likely to be adding an SSD so seems like a safe assumption. The game install itself can be moved just as @StieliAlpha suggests - just copy them over. But the Game Files directories *cannot*. All the game content under your Documents folder (saves, ema files, qb maps, scenarios and campaigns) are found by the app by asking the OS where the current user's documents folder is located. If those are the files you wish to move then you must do it using the OS's feature to relocate your Documents folder. The only exception is CMBN which uses sub folders of the game install for the Game Files. For CMBN you can just move it and you are good to go.

Oh that's a really important thing I forgot. I do this too. For tank and other guns I'll set a circular armour arc that covers the entire map. What I said before stands - arcs are for preventing units from firing. In this case you want them to not fire on infantry but you do not want them to ignore any enemy they spot so make sure the entire map is covered. For WW2 infantry AT weapons this is not necessary since none of them would fire at 300m anyway. So, for those I usually set the circle to a distance that is a little longer than I would be comfortable with them firing. That way they are free to act as they saw fit just not shoot at some random scout that comes around the corner. Oh that is a good idea - nice. I'll have to add that to my list of exceptions. But I would do things slightly differently: if the target is at 2 o'clock I'd set the arc as close to 11 to 5 o'clock as practical and extend over the entire rest of the map. The last thing you want is a surprise as you get close to the corner and have your tank just ignore it.

Usually the difference is that the LOF of the weapon system is not the same as the spotter. For example the opened up tank commander can see over an obstacle and the gun cannot. There are a few times where there doesn't seem to be a clear explanation. Normally those are pretty marginal LOS situations in the first place so people just caulk it up to a limitation. Frequently you can shift the position of a tank or change the facing of an infantry team and someone will get LOF. Yes, only use target arcs if you want to prevent your unit from firing. Seriously if you want them to shoot the enemy don't use a target arc. And that is exactly why. Their reaction time and some of their spotting ability depends on how the unit is oriented but target arcs do more than that - they also stop them from firing on things outside the arc. They do not improve spotting inside the arc. If you use the face command or have the final way point placed to orient your unit the same way as the target arc would have done the only differences is with the target arch they will not shoot at targets outside of that. Do not use the target arc if you want your unit to fire. The only exception to this is if you want to have a tank turret facing a different direction from the way the tank is moving. Even then I would only use that during movement and I would use 180 arcs that cover the extent of the map. I would double check that the arc was removed before the final way point.

Welcome back. The manuals are placed in the root of the game install - on my PC anyway. So in C:\Program Files x86\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Shock Force2 or something similiar. These are the instant commands. The clock is for pausing a unit or letting it resume. In real time you can use that to quickly stop a unit. In WEGO it acts as a short cut for pausing a unit indefinitely or cancelling a pause command you put on them in previous turns. The second button cancels all commands the unit already has. The third button is the evade button it picks a point for the unit to retreat to. In real time they immediately starts executing that command. In WEGO any existing commands are cancelled and the retreat command is plotted and you can add or adjust it. That's the pause command under the special menu. You can add pauses to any way point. The instant command button mentioned above only effects the unit itself not the currently selected way point. You don't need movie mode - play in "looks like real life" mode As you can guess I don't use it so I have no idea but all short cuts are visible if you use the Menu | Hotkeys command. If an infantry unit is in a vehicle or near an ammo dump the Special Acquire command will be enabled. One good way to look for what ammo to acquire is to look at what they already have which is in the panel towards the left under rank information. That will list the first five types of ammo the unit already has. Things get tricky if a particular type of ammo has run out but the unit could use it so it is not a bad idea to familiarize yourself with what kind of ammo goes with what weapon at the start of the game. You can use the face command to face them away from the balcony. If you do it slightly away but not 90s from the balcony they can be positioned along and end wall - as long as that wall does not have a balcony too. You can get a similar effect with target arcs too by giving them an arc that does not include the balcony at all. I would use the arc method to prevent them from firing too soon - place the arc away from the balcony on the final way point. Once they are done moving you can change the arc to be circular again. But if you want them to be weapons free the use the face command to point them away from the balcony. Yes. Take a unit and plot a move order to one location. Then select that way point and use the target command to measure the distance. Don't forget to cancel the move order and don't be freaked out that the target line is drawn from the units current position and not from the way point. The measurement is still being done from the way point.

I seem to recall a test at some point. My own experience has never show the opposite to be true. Note, I am not saying anything about the level of protection other than troops are safer in a fox hole than not. I personally would never undertake such a test because I have never seen any indication that they don't offer protection. You and I both know that wouldn't help

I'm not sure exactly what you mean is gamey. Yes, foxholes help protect the crew. Before someone else adds their 2c (who am I kidding they will anyway :-) yes there are people who don't like how foxholes protect soldiers. A debate has been ongoing about how effective foxholes are / should be. The bottom line though is soldiers in foxholes are better protected than those that are not. That goes for AT-gun crews as well.

Shhhh you are not supposed to talk about the horrible bug that Steve uses to win all his games. It's carlw so who knows. Just put him on ignore and you will not see his next hissy fit.

I agree. We also have to remember that CM has to balance a lot of things and sometimes the balance is more important than accuracy. While it is challenging to close assault a tank in CM as @Freyberg says it is likely easier than in real life as @SimpleSimon points out. However don't forget in real life, tank commanders would not just run around the streets or through the woods on their own with no support. But we players sure would if we could get away with it. Making close assaulting tanks a little easier in CM makes our use of tanks in tight spaces more realistic and the balance ends up pretty good. IMHO.

Not so much a reason as a practical limitation of the game. There are two reasons for a crew to flee their gun. One is to take cover near by and return when the shelling stops and the other is if they have to withdraw and cannot take the gun. For the second case they would disable the gun. BFC implemented case 2 but not case 1 and instead you can place foxholes under the gun to give the crew some protection. It's not ideal but it was the prioritization decision that they made. I have no idea if they ever seriously considered revisiting this or not. There are some underlying engine things that make AT guns - shall we say - unique / challenging. My impression is that to do this is a fairly large amount of work - certainly more than we think - and they have decided to not do it. It is an often asked for feature and I agree. It would be nice.

I don't have to do anything. The game looks for the user data folder by asking Windows where the current user's Documents folder is. So, if I have a version of CMFI (without the latest patch) on the C Drive and another version (with the latest patch) but both run fine and both look to my D:\Users\Ian\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Fortress Italy folder for the scenarios, QB maps and mods etc. It means I have to be careful about which .exe I start before playing a turn because newer games can "see" older saves and upgrading may not be what you want to do. No, you cannot. Each game looks for a specifically named folder under the user's Documents location. Since you cannot control that you cannot make such a change. The games are absolutely not designed to share resources between them so just playing games with the directories is not enough anyway. At least not enough to do safely.

Glad you are working - no need to fix what isn't broken... But that doesn't seem right. Here is now my home machine is setup: C drive is a 256Mb SSD with the game installs like this: C:\Programs\Battlefront\CMFB202 (which contains the game .exe, .brz files in the Data folder etc plus a z folder I put in the Data folder for release specific mods) The D drive is a 1 Tb HHD with the game data files - because that's where my Documents folder is located, like this: D:\Users\Ian\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Final Blitzkrieg (which contains the Game Files folders and the User Data where I have my main mods that can be shared between all versions of Final Blitzkrieg that I have running - which is currently two 2.01 and 2.02) I also have test installs on that D drive as well like this: D:\Programs\Battlefront\CMSuperSecretTestInstallThatYouAllKnowWhatItIs which is where the game .exe and .brz files are but the Game Files Directory is on the same drive as my Documents - which is the D drive too. So, the game .exe and .brz files can go anywhere you like but the Game Files *must* be under your Documents folder.

I have my machine setup in a similar way to what you want - game .exe and resources in a place of my choosing and game files in my Documents folder that have been redirected to a different drive of my choosing. It does work. I used the method you linked too. As to why its not working - I'm not sure. I would suggest uninstalling CMFI and deleting any folders that are left. Verify that you only have one Documents folder and it is the one you expect (in File Explorer if you click on the Documents entry of the Quick Access entries that should take you to the place you expect) Test that other apps like Word for example correctly save to your preferred folder by default Fix any issues with that Install CMFI again and see if that fixes things.

Yep, pretty sure it will be the same.

Same, I've been on Win10 for a long time now - no issues. I have had graphics driver updates cause issues but even that has been rare and fixed quickly. If you are updating an existing machine it is possible that the CM DRM will be displeased and you will need to reactivate your purchases with your keys. I don't know how high the likely hood of that is though.

Glad to hear it. Now be careful with your new power and don't delete anything you actually want to keep