Sgt Schultz

BTW ... Much thanks to Sublime for the testing in v1.0 that helped me in my H2H design. Taught me the 'minor' difference between indirect and direct on-map mortar fire, as well as the power of the Ami .50 cal halftracks. --- For those of you unfamiliar with ver1.0, or the way I design... This is like a Beer&Pretzels field exercise to screen for Lt Col. You have a complete combined arms force... with on- and off-map mortars, scout vehicles, armor and enough troops to recover from an error(without becoming unwieldy). Some platoons are customised, with some squads removed and teams added. No accidental re-combines(where did they go?), less morale hits from split squads, and you know at a glance what the unit is for. The map, force and tactical situation are designed to make things as equal as possible. Not historical, but it means the best man usually wins. Number of mortar tubes and amount of ammuntion for each tube has become one of the prime drivers of my design work. I will work at making sure that artillery in all my battles is the frosting... not the cake. Your pixeltruppen will have to work for a living in my world. We all push our boys hard. I design for this. Most of your units have 'high' motivation. This means they will still more-or-less function even when tired, wounded and/or rattled. I lean more to Vet/Reg units to keep the action going as well. The only -1 leaders are the ones randomly generated with a split or casualties. Same for +2, with few exceptions. I like +1/0. "Named" units. They are my easter egg bonus units. You'll see. ---------- This force is close to an Armored Cavalry Recon Troop. You are the ham in the armor battle sandwich. The sandwich battles are in progress... stay tuned. ---

Is it getting either lighter or darker outside? I have noticed flicker in dawn or dusk battles as the sun breaks the horizon.

Back on the highway for some H2H-only action. Fictional Company-level Meeting Engagement for control of an Autobahn interchange. ---- Changes from v1.0 - Terrain adjustments for increased concealment/cover. Adjusted number of mortars, and ammunition amount for same. Replaced American .50 cal halftracks with M3 for balance. Re-organised troops by replacing American armored infantry with regular infantry(plt radios), and same for German force(grenadier). Adjusted troop reinforcements. Adjusted American squad headcount in some areas to match forces. Both Overpass bridges destroyed due to pathing issues. Americans have less mortar smoke than Germans(due to HE ammo balance), but more 'personal/vehicle' pop smoke. Terrain Objectives adjusted. "Destroy" points now awarded for destroying enemy troops and vehicles. Pyrrhic victories are not recommended. ---- Mortars can affect the battle but not dominate it with the ammo counts available. Gated Hedge and Low Bocage tiles in wooded areas make for interesting options. Having both bridges down and rubbled turns the center into the Melee Pit. ----- Enjoy! ---

Terrain means a lot in this. Designers should be aware of the spotting properties of the terrain they use. VT Grass, Crops 2 and 4 are your pixeltruppens' friends for open terrain. Troops can disappear completely by dropping prone. How many troops are in this pic? I guarantee the tank doesn't know. Answer ... short platoon... and the schrek team just fired from a prone position.

Testing destroy points in a H2H match against myself. Epic fights when you can set them up. One burst .... Four kills... one in front was first burst from same leader. MP40 FTW!

I noticed a request in a general forum thread re: better rubble in buildings. ask and ye shall receive .... ---- more on the way ... but you get the idea. EDIT --- More .... This one could be locked one or two levels down and look like rubble in a basement... ----- Many permutations.. and I bet they make life hell on earth for pathing, but ooooo the battles. Personally my response would be .. "Nuke the site from orbit ... it's the only way to be sure." Cause you're sure not getting me to go in there.

Please tell me I am not seeing things here ... ----- Thanks for the excellent mod. Great work! --

Maybe you have to have two or more locked together to maintain orientation. Will need to test this...

SPOILERS ------------------------- Into the second battle. I chose 'keep together' and 'attack fom west'. Minor critique time. 1. Two battles in a row I clicked the red button 5 times until troops show up. There is no incentive to push soft vehicles down a road in the face of a known enemy without an infantry screen. It feels like a test to see if I am impatient/foolish enough to push on without support. You didn't catch me. Maybe start the battle with a single recon platoon on-map to get things moving. 2. Wad of softy vehicles plopped down. I love the map and understand the tactical limitations you are designing towards. However, it is still a 3-5 minute evolution to get everyone sorted and reverse the softies to the exit zone. The ground is wet. I am assuming mines on the road somewhere. Why soft vehicles? I have more than enough time to scour the map on foot, and must do so anyway to find the dreaded invisible hand VL. It seemed like another 'primrose path' test to see if I would push soft vehicles into a battle zone. Not gonna happen. Loving the campaign though. onward!

Finally got the first mission done. Loved it. spoilers -------- I waited until I had almost everyone on map before doing much of anything. I wanted infantry to lead, and that paid off. Extremely lucky duel with a 57mm gave me an edge. Sending a force down the bocage road and blasting my way down my left side got me the dairy farm with no problems. Amis surrendered with almost 30 minutes left... ... on to the next one ...

One should also consider that review/base copy graphics have little to do with our reality. The community does the graphic polish to suit their wishes, which is better than having to take what a developer gives us.

I miss being able to grab a waypoint and drag it over a wee bit, especially with roads and vehicles. I plot points, then look from another angle and see an error. Instead of a quick tweak, it is back to the start. Not a major concern, but if it can be put (back) in without too much trouble, I would like it. As Erwin stated, one can put a LOT of orders into a 60 second WEGO turn, and as the battle size increases, small annoyances like this tend to become larger impediments to the fun of watching cr@p blow up.

The buddy aid issue you see is sometimes caused by a tile edge from what I have experienced. If you want to make the unit nearest/parent unit aid a causality... try using the "Face" command to another direction. You will see the active destination tiles light up, and I bet one of them will cover the un-helped unit. Acquire does take a while in WEGO, so make teh most of it and plan ahead for where you will need it.

I like that suggestion. Maybe make it minimise to a small bar when not in use, for even more screen showing.

Being locked in a metaphorical closet with a wonky AI since 2007 is not good my friend. Send me a setup... the healing starts now. --

1. If you make the AI buy in a certain way, it may make for more fun games. Allowing it to spend all its points in any area and the AI selections can be pretty wonky. 2. Rather than resurrecting the ghost of Fionn's Rules, setting percentages in "Mixed" allows more balanced ladder and other H2H QB play. 3. It is like CM1 combined arms with a more interactive twist. EDIT - Just on the off-chance you were serious with your question ... or if future viewers are unaware.... the differences are... CM1 'Combined Arms' QB purchase restrictions only allow a certain percentage of the total allowed points to be spent on any single area(artillery, troops, vehicles.etc). CMBN 'Mixed' allows ALL points to be spent in ANY area. Once I grasped that I realised why the AI chokes so often. --- re-edit --- I saw the beta tester tag and erroneously assumed you would know the difference ... then i noticed the cmsf ... my bad

+1 to that. I will do so on all future versions and scenarios to come. A real forehead slapper of an idea. "i'm like 'durrr why didnt i thunk of that'.

+1 to player-defined points percentages for QBs. 5% increments for each category... must total 100%. Then we could have scores of threads on which combination is 'best'. ------ Additional related request --- Put ammo allotments in QB purchase screen as well as scenario design screen. -

Both of mine are designed for H2H, but it took a long time for proper player input, so they need adjustment before re-release. No Exit ver 2.0 should be out this weekend. Valley of The Shadow will take another week or two. Tweaks involve less mortar ammo, adjusted scoring, better buildings, and better concealment along treelines. All future scenarios will be H2H as I am taking a break from AI plans for a while, because they increase development time by a large factor. Give me until Sunday.

I don't take issue with the game attributes. BFC is known for doing their homework and testing. There seem to be a lot of folks who are having a somewhat/increasingly negative response to CMBN mortars. I've been on the receiving end of Ami 60s and on-map 81s. They hurt. My opinion is what we are currently experiencing is a synergy of factors. 1. Although I think we have accurate modeling and TO&E, how many actual real-world units went into battle with all their support? Mortars/artillery fall behind quickly all the time. 2. Full ammo count. Again, probably taken right from the field manuals, but who EVER has all the ammo they are supposed to be issued when in the field, in a war zone, at the end of a logistical tail? 3. Price Structure. Balance is balance. If you price units in a certain way evenly, then it turns out the resource-heavy Allies get all they could ever want. In the field ... probably not so much. 4. Still early enough that counters are not in use. Counter-battery stories will start popping up soon enough from on-map duels. Infiltration of Scout Teams to take 'em in the rear. Early smoke use to close range to kill mortars. More sniper team use for dedicated anti-mortar fire. ------ Once the front lines get more dangerous for the mortar teams, they will go back to indirect fire, with the resulting delays and inaccuracies. Scenario design makes it easier to allow mortars to affect a battle without dominating it. Limited Ammo is my personal favorite at the moment. 35/36 HE and 3/5 smoke for either side for on-map 81s. Off-maps get 60+ HE and some smoke at Limited. Average 35 rounds per tube or so. Enough to smack someone/place hard once or twice, but not feed a steady stream of ever-changing death all over the map. Different Ammo allotments could be allowed for QB purchases to allieviate the casualties there in that world. My design parameters for artillery - Medium+ size battles. Feel free to use these in QBs with agreements. All Mortars, both on and off-map, get Limited Ammo(not possible in QB ). No more than one 60mm team per every three(3) Ami Infantry toons. No more than two 81mm on-map per side, per Company/3+ toons. One 81mm off-map or one 105/120 off-map per Company/3+ toons. This way, everyone gets to blow stuff up... just not the whole map. I may not make 'historical' battles, but I try to think "realistically". Stop the mortar madness, buy less. EDIT - I learned these lessons the hard way after releasing two scenarios. Expect them to re-released very soon with proper adjustments to mortars.

Life is just the downtime between Washington Redskins games. 3-1 1st in NFC East Three(3) incredible running backs Even with a shaky QB, the character and ability of the rest of the team make them playoff materiel. If Grossman hits his stride, the 'Skins will shock people. If he continues as is, they may squeak into the playoffs. -

Again, here is an editor tweak rather than a mod. Use XT grass around buildings to hide bases. It's the middle of a war, so I doubt the grass is getting mowed much. I try to use regular grass as little as possible anyway. Running across a billiard table is harmful to pixeltruppen. This is XT Grass and Low Bocage ...

Who was this guy Norm French that screwed up our language?

Here is a non-modular with hedge in strategic places... As long as the building edge/corner aligns with tile center, you can place walls or hedges along or around a structure. I see what you mean about bases TaL, it looks like designers may want to just hedge/wall wrap when they can for best effect. You could also tell Steve & Co you will do their next set of buildings for them if they remove bases.