MOSwas71331

I certainly like the grid effect when I'm viewing from a low level. What I'd like to see from a high level is an overlay of lines of constant elevation, sort of what you get on a topographic map. I don't know how hard this would be to program, but it would be nice if pressing a key would replace the map with the elevation numbers for each visible map square and releasing the key would return the regular map.

When I posted the previous message, it was the last message in the thread. A few others came in while I was preparing the message, and I'd like to make it clear for whom the message was intended.

I'm glad to learn that my placement of the mortars and the heavy weapons platoon leader matches yours -- except I placed that platoon leader a lot nearer the mortars as I had no confidence his voice would carry that far. However, I'm still unable to advance anybody, much less a platoon leader with a radio, into a position from which he (or they) can get more than a glimpse of any Germans. As I said in another post, the BEST I've been able to accomplish (in six tries of the scenario!) is to advance 6 men from a 12 man squad into a clump of trees near the edge of a field, and the cost of that advance was the other 6 men of the squad AND the two Shermans which fired smoke to cover them. [some of my riflemen must have seen at least German muzzle flashes, because the squad racked up a few German casualties. My Shermans MAY have seen some Germans, but their return fire didn't hit any.] I wasn't a great player of CMBO-CMBB-CMAK, but I never did this badly with any scenario from those games. And win or lose, I enjoyed playing them; both the free trial scenarios and, later (when I had the funds) the full games. In contrast, CMBN has been total frustration.

In addition to the taxes on tea and the requirement to put stamps on all our property transfer documents, it's possible that Thomas Paine and Sam Adams anticipated that the Crown would someday tax games coming to England from America. (I doubt they were sufficiently farsighted to predict CMBN, but who knows?)

I understand you can fire on a TRP you can't see, but, there's little point in doing that if the TRP isn't on or near something of obvious value to your opponent. When the TRP is someplace I expect my opponent to move through or occupy, I don't want to shell it until my opponent's forces get there. If my leader with comms can see the TRP, he can call in fire on my behalf. In the situation with which this discussion started, I thought the TRPs were in open fields with nothing in view of the mortars. Even if I can fire into the field, what's the point? In the demo's "training" scenario, the US mortars seem worthless, because they can't see anything and I can't get a leader with a radio into a position to see anything and talk to another leader with a radio left near the mortars.

On defense, particularly when the defending force has been in the area for some time, they would have established ways in addition to radio to control indirect fire. Laid wire is an obvious possibility, and, if it's not severed by the attacker's prep fire, enables precise fire control. ["Left 200, drop 50"] TRPs visible to a defending unit which has flares, colored smoke, or colored panels would give less precise, but still useful, control. [A prearranged "On a red star cluster, fire for effect on TRP 1" or whichever TRP seems closest to the signaler.] On attack or in a meeting engagement, a moving force can lay wire as it advances, and it could also have registered TRPs on prominent terrain features. Again, intact wire would enable precise control, and flares, smoke, or panels at least would enable at fire on a TRP. None of WWII comms were completely dependable (radio and sound powered phones could be hard to hear even in the absence of other noise), but they did provide some capabilities. [i'm sure there were instances of "shell the hill when I wave my arms."] As to how this could be done in CMBN terms, wire could work just like radio. And, for backup, perhaps leaders could have a Signal action with the set meaning "fire for effect on TRP nearest to me."

Is there a mod that will make the markers for trenches, foxholes, and TRPs easily distinguishable? I've wasted a lot of time setting up the German defense in one of the demos collecting all the trenches and foxholes so I could position my units first and then place most of the trenches to attract wasteful US prep fire to areas where few of my units would be endangered by near misses. From one run-through of the scenario in which I simply accepted the initial German setup, the AI for the US attack spent the first five or six minutes shelling trenches without shelling much of anything else. As I recall QBs in CMBO-CMBB-CMAK, all of my units were lined up by type along "my" edge of the map, so it was easy to place my troops first and my fortifications second.

My US mortars have sufficient range to hit anything on the map. However, they can only see into the next field. They don't have radios, so the best I can do is to place a radio equipped platoon leader near them and then move another leader with a radio to some place where he can see a German target. I can only hope leader 2 can pass firing instructions to leader 1 who can then yell them to the mortar crews. Whenever I move US troops to positions where they can be seen, they quickly get shot up, usually (but not always) taking out a few Germans at the same time. In my half dozen attempts to play the demo, I've "ceased fire" in frustration after seven or eight minutes of losing men and getting only fleeting glimpses of German units. Can leader 2 pass firing instructions by radio to leader 1 to control the mortars near leader 1? [i've never been able to move leader 2 to a place from which he might see a German unit, so I don't know whether this will work. As I recall, similar actions worked in CMBO-CMBB-CMAK.] Is there some other way to control mortar fire? I've seen posts describing how to beat the demo scenario, and they make it sound easy. As I recall, one guy claimed he lost about a dozen men and eliminated around a hundred Germans without using any of his Shermans. Well my best result was getting six men (of twelve) from one squad into the trees past a hedgerow, and the Germans knocked out both of the two Shermans providing the smoke the men were using for cover. With the squad's survivors all cowering, I ceased fire to avoid their inevitable death or capture.

Thanks, obstler. Your 13:00 message nailed it. I spent a minute or two moving around the map, and it's interesting to see how useful those gridlines are. It's particularly impressive to see how the ground slopes down into the stream flowing through the farm area. I'm keeping this post short, because I want to get back to the game and use my much improved understanding of the terrain.

As I understood your 12:17 message, Sergei, I changed my folder structure from CM Battle ... Demo - CM Battle ... Game Files - - Campaigns - - Data - - - Z - - Incoming Email - - Outgoing Email - - Quick Battle Maps - - Saved Games - - Scenarios to CM Battle ... Demo - CM Battle ... Game Files - - Campaigns - - Incoming Email - - Outgoing Email - - Quick Battle Maps - - Saved Games - - Scenarios - Data - - Z I started CMBN again, and I still don't have gridded maps. By the way, there never was a Data folder or a Misc folder. I would never have deleted anything from the download intentionally, though I did move the CMBN demo game folder from my Apps folder into my Games folder within my Apps folder right after I downloaded CMBN.

Here is the folder structure of CMBN on my iMac. CM Battle ... Demo - CM Battle ... Game Files - - Campaigns - - Incoming Email - - Outgoing Email - - Quick Battle Maps - - Saved Games - - Scenarios The Scenarios folder has three .btt files, one for each demo scenario. The other folders in the Game Files folder are empty. I added a Data Folder to the Game Files folder, added a Z folder to the Data folder and placed all six downloaded .bmp files and the Thumbs.db file in the Z folder. I then restarted CMBN and selected the DEMO scenario. The map views were unchanged. What did I do wrong????

I tried that link right after your message. I'm still waiting for a response.

I'm obviously logged in as I'm able to post this reply. However, when I click on a link to the various mods, a new window opens which says I'm not logged in. When I try to log in from this new window, the window tells me I'm not supplying the correct password. Is there some way I can get to the mods thread without opening a new window? [i'm using the Safari browser on an iMac.]

I'd be a lot happier with the map if I could easily spot small gaps in a hedgerow. I've repeatedly tried the posted "beat the demo" instructions / suggestions, and I haven't found any places where a scout team could pass through a hedgerow. I've scrolled up and down the hedgerow next to the road without finding a single small gap. When I place a waypoint next to the hedgerow on the road side and the next waypoint near the hedgerow but on the opposite side, the unit will just move along the hedgerow to a wide gap, move to the other side of the row and then move to the final position. Of course that movement takes minutes rather than seconds.

I've got the pdf version of the manual, and I can't find that material in it. When I view the manual on-line, there's a big ?-mark in a square with rounded corners in the middle of each page. Printing the manual on my Epson color printer exhausted the Light Magenta cartridge after printing pages 91 to 200, so I'm missing the first 90 pages. (Fortunately, my printed material doesn't have those ?-marks.) As the ?-mark square covers a good chunk of each page, I can't find the info you say is there in my on-line file. Tell me what pages have that info, and I'll print them out when my replacement Light Magenta cartridge arrives. [i reported my problems with the manual in another thread.]

I'm not positioning my units all over the place. I'm positioning them at positions which appear reasonable and then I target from those positions to see what can be seen from the positions. Targeting scrolls the view, and, if I accidentally click anywhere, I have to spend a lot of effort getting back to the view I started with. I spend hours doing what I could do in a few minutes in CMBO-CMBB-CMAK. And, while we're speaking of maps and views, how do I find gaps in hedgerows my men can easily traverse? Large gaps are usually evident in views from above, but I can't spot smaller gaps when I scroll alongside a hedgerow. I've been completely unsuccessful in attempting to duplicate the posted "beat the demo scenario" instructions / suggestions.

Yes, those triangles do show you that there's a unit somewhere underneath the point. But there's also a round symbol on the map showing you there's a unit near the symbol. And you can select that symbol and easily locate the corresponding men. How does the triangle help? By the way, is there some manual explaining the various game controls and symbology? The on-line manual for the demo doesn't do it, at least for me. [A complaint I've made vigorously on another thread.] I suspect there's a manual somewhere for the contemporary games set in the Middle East, but I haven't found it.

When I place a unit, I try to see what the unit should be able to see by "target"ing around the map. When I do this, I'm told much of the map can't be seen from the unit's location. After spending hours fiddling in this way with the initial placement of my German units in "Busting the Bocage", I gave up and started the game. Without giving my units anything more than cover arcs, my PzShrecks in the first five or six game minutes knocked out two of the four approaching Rhino Shermans. I understand that not being able to see the ground under a Sherman isn't equivalent to not being able to see the Sherman, but my question remains. How can I pick good spots for units when the map interactions give me little useful information? During unit setup, I'm also spending a lot of time trying to reorient the map to the same high level view of the entire map, as my fiddling with one unit's position scrolls the view all over the place. Is there some way to return in one or two keystrokes to a favorite map view?

There seem to be around twenty downward pointing triangles at the top of the screen. When I select a unit, a box appears around one of the triangles, presumably the triangle corresponding to the unit. When I try to place my cursor on one of the triangles, the view scrolls rapidly -- which I would prefer not to happen. 1. Can I move my cursor to a triangle without having the view scroll? If I can, how do I do that? 2. Alternatively, if the triangles provide no useful information, how can I turn them off?

From the optimal play postings I've read, it seems there must be some way to open gaps in a hedgerow. I've read quite a few postings about the futility of tanks shelling hedgerows with HE to open a gap, so there must be some other method. Satchel charges seemed to be a good possibility, but the engineers don't have any. And emplacing a charge and detonating it are not among the squad's available actions. So, in terms of game mechanics, how does an engineer squad open a gap? Where must I direct the squad (or its components if I must split the squad) to go and what must I direct the squad to do when it gets there?

I'm finding the demo frustrating for a number of reasons. 1. I can't place units where I want them. I want to place a unit where it can see a Target Reference Point. I find a spot next to a hedgerow which can see a TRP on the other side of the hedgerow. When I try to place a unit there, the game sometimes places the unit on the wrong side of the hedgerow and sometimes places the unit in the open yards away from the hedgerow and with no one in the unit able to see the TRP. (I tried placing one unit in the same position six times, and each time the game placed the unit's men in different spots.) 2. In the basic demo, there's a US engineer unit sitting near what look like three thermos bottles (which I assume are satchel charges). How do I get the unit to pick up those charges? I see no command to do that (and there's no particular reason I should have to select which guys pick them up). Still, when the unit moves away from its initial position, the three bottles are abandoned. This is ridiculous. 3. I've tried to follow the instructions posted on a thread for winning the demo scenario, but nothing works as described. My scout teams get eliminated as soon as they step into open ground. My mortars won't set up. My tanks get hit repeatedly and destroyed or abandoned by their crews without ever being able to place smoke to shield the scouts. 4. Is there some "doctrine" which controls how units act? I can understand that some units might "instinctively" hide while others might normally try to get positions with better fields of fire. But everything in the game seems random and beyond my control. Units don't do what I tell them under any conditions. (Years ago I complained about CMBB not letting me order a vehicle to just follow a road. My control problems in CMBN are much worse.) 5. Is there some written guide to how to use the markers that appear on the screen? The demo manual doesn't seem to say anything about them. (The UTube videos show a lot of activity, but all the sound is game recordings with no explanation of what the demonstrator is doing. The activity on the screen jumps around so much, I get a headache just watching it.) 6. I'm a long-time CMBO-CMBB-CMAK fan, and I was hoping to enjoy this game. So far I haven't. Here's a spoiler: the German side can get a tactical victory every time in "Busting the Bocage" by selecting "Cease Fire" in the setup phase. I thought I could get some idea of game play by positioning the German defenders and watching how the AI attempts to achieve the US goals. Well, as I said in 1, I can't place the German units where I want them. It doesn't seem to matter where they are, however, because PzShreck teams hit Shermans they supposedly can't see. US artillery bombards empty German trenches to which no US unit has a line of sight. [A good game tactic is to place trenches in the open and let the Allied artillery fire off a lot of ammo at them.] If you're hoping to sell this game to a new bunch of gamers, I'd advise you to develop a video with a US squad engaging a German light MG, and have the narrator explain all the symbols and controls.

I find it difficult to see to which of my units I have given commands. The + and - keys don't always move me from unit to unit, and it's rarely obvious which units have been commanded. (I'm speaking of the demo version, of course. I haven't yet amassed sufficient funds to buy the full game.)

Unless you're designing a scenario, why not let CMBN pick the forces? Real commanders of small units can request higher HQs for particular support when those HQs give them missions to complete, but, if they get anything at all, it will be what those HQs provide. Consequently, I consider it more realistic to take what I get and make the best of it. Rather than spending a lot of time tailoring my force mix, I'd rather focus on making the best of what I've got. I well remember a QB German defense in which I received a group of six 20mm Flak guns. Those guns were able to cover all the approaches into my position and disable many of the attacking Shermans. Even though my defense was overwhelmed in the end, I enjoyed the hell out of that QB.

A few years ago I posted a request for CMx1 to provide AI assistance in QB setups. As the AI can quickly assess the terrain and the objectives for the forces of whichever side it controls, it could easily do the same for your side. It could then set up your forces for scenario start and allow you to adjust (you would hope improve) those positions. Would a feature like that take care of your concern?

Which makes me a real man, because I use a trackball -- a Logitech trackball on my iMac. Unfortunately it doesn't have a wheel.