kohlenklau
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Posts
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Joined
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Days Won
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Posts posted by kohlenklau
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@ martyr,
yes, I am working on a coffee stain and some smudges and maybe a fold.
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JonS! JonS! Come on man, you are about to hit your 10,00th post. Post something, anything! This reminds of me watching the odometer roll over before digital odomters...
No, it is not what I wanted, thanks but maybe I tend to play down at the granular level. These nice clean maps look to be what the staff officers keep looking awesome for the Regimental CO or Division or Cripes sake way up at Corps HQ. I guess I think of the pointy end of the spear and the freaking town is right there and you didn't have a week to prepare a sand table representation.
The platoon leader and Compnay CO apparently only had these 1:25,000 scale maps. The website had 1:500,000 scale. I remember from navigation class during my long ago military training, small scale, large area and large scale , small area. 1 cm of those tactical maps is 250m. That is my entire map for this particular scenario! Ambush of a patrol...
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Just saw in the mods forum, LT Smash's WW2 style icons. They will be usable or I can try and make something look handwritten.
I mean how did they do it for real back in the day?
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Thanks for the encouraging words fellas.
I am using paint.NET and am learning to manipulate layers as we speak.
I guess this was from a map that I created and I never yet used the topo overlay tool.
I usually just custom create. I now clearly see the value of that new overlay feature Because just as agusto said it helps get the topo perfect.
I made my topo lines by laying curvy controllable lines on same elevation values on a screenshot of the elevation numbers map from the scenario editor. Last time I do it that way.
@badger 73. You are right. How do I show the objectives or other player expected items? Maybe I need to create some new icons or better yet utilize existing army symbology or WW2 versions. I think it is solvable.
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A few more tweaks, how does it look?
These are the scale maps that the WW2 soldiers used, correct?
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What do you all think? (tactical map 952 x 350 bitmap image.)
I used an ebay actual WW2 map to try and duplicate the fonts.
Work in progress, totally my 1st go in paint.NET as a total amateur.
Topo lines not actual yet. forgot the bridge, need to study what they really looked like. I want both a cool eyecandy thing as well as useful to the player.
balance between those 2 worlds.
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...a work in progress. Of course I get rid of the actual colored screenshot image layer. And I want to add a layer maybe with a coffee stain and some blood drops. Note it is not the actual topographic details, this is just my 1st go in paint.NET. For those guys cranking multiple PBEMs I cannot imagine they would like this or have patience for this but I am enjoying making it and if I can learn how to make them quicker and easier then I will go back and redo my other scenarios.
without the screenshot layer BUT not completed...
What do you all think?
I am sorry if I am doing any impolite thing to this thread but I just happened to see it when I had been making this...
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I guess I will take my own survey:
1. Strategic map: IMHO I think this is kind of low value for CMFI and CMBN.
Maybe later in CM2 East Front you will see where on the overall Russian Front you are fighting but still it is kind of goofy to see the little box within the Cotentin Peninsula or Island of Sicily. For my new campaign WIP I put in another image to say that I made the scenario, maybe that is even goofier?
Hey, maybe Battlefront could rent this space out for advertisements to raise extra cash for hiring a 3rd programmer!
2. Operational Map: so far to my lesser trained eye it always seems just like a different scale version of the tactical map. I am not a command and staff college graduate so maybe I just don't appreciate it yet. maybe soon I will.
3. I guess a 2D map is what the real guys used. I am now looking for US Army style topographic maps that I might somehow photoshop to make it really cool with handwritten looking arrows like you are out in the field. I'm no ARIS so we'll see. I like the boardgame style counters too. When someone does an awesome job at their tactical map it almost gives me a woody. Am I allowed to say that here?
4. Well, for the briefing when I have to try and do one this is like the term paper due in a month, then in a week, then in a few days and then IT IS DUE TOMORROW!! What a drag. I also do it in stages and refine it. Maybe my only published one would rate badly based on some of what you guys said. It was a narrative backstory type for CMFI "Salvate il Maggiore Rinetti" and it was kind of vague to show the short notice nature of the whole situation. I have studied the 5 part frag order but some of the stock scenario briefings are kind of dry. Doesn't get you too psyched to play the scenario. Meh
5. Scenario selection screen image. I guess this is mostly eye candy to wet your appetite. Definitely the little blurb below it should say the stuff about "best as Human Allies vs Axis AI or balanced for H2H play."
I sincerely appreciate all your feedback and am rolling it into my best effort to make a great campaign.
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I just wanted to gather some thoughts from others on what people like best for briefings.
I am trying to improve the quality of my briefings for some scenarios I am working on.
1. How important is the strategic map image?
2. How important is the operational map image?
3. For the tactical map, do you prefer a 2D style or a 3D in-game screen-shot type?
4. For the briefing text, what are turn-offs? Like perhaps too much wordiness or trying to tell you what to do?
5. What about the image you see as you first scroll through the scenarios? Is that important to set the mood or just indicate what side you might be fighting on?
Thanks for any folks who have the time to share some thoughts on this subject.
You can answer only some of the questions if you like or just make certain statements, no problemo.
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I live near Austin, Texas. I am sure I can find a biker bar where as we enter we see everyone else is already dressed like that. We'd mill about, wait for a table, shoot back a cosmo or 2 and then head home to download your mod. My wife has lots of bras I think even a pink one but usually skips the panties...
So looking forward to your mod! My brain is whirling with the scenarios I want to make.
I am sure hundreds of other guys as well.
Thank you Thank you
in advance.
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below meant in a comradely joking fashion
Now we'll all hover over every comment in every thread mjkerner posts in an effort to try to determine when the mod will come out. He'll subtlely dance around our guesses like some sort of Hannibal Lecter character toying with the police.
But I cannot wait until Bulge Anniversary 16 Dec 2013 for the snow mod!
Please mjkerner, you are the catalyst! Once it hits the streets I predict Aris will crank out snow mod vehicles and someone else will fart out gloved hands and all kids of scarves and stuff will come screaming towards the repository.
Alright everybody in unison loudly to keep him awake
WIN-TER-MOD!
WIN-TER-MOD!
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yep, confirmed by test. set to full and names stayed as renamed.
Of slight interest, the CO HQ group had 5 men if full and I HAD made it 50% casualties.
The renamed name always seemed to stay in there as I was editing the various scenarios.
I guess it either doesn't kill off the named leader or the higher number of choices for other guys to whittle away just had me always lucking out.
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I am doing my Sauvignon Sahara campaign and often in the editor I rename a unit to give the trooper a specific name but later in the battle even without starting the shooting, the name does not stay but a different one is there.
Uh oh, as i am writing this I just thought that I DO have 50% casualties selected. Maybe it randomly kills off the first guy I gave a specific name to and renames the survivor before battle even starts? I had wanted to have the casualties but have the survivor have my picked name.
I will test it later today by having no casualties and see how the names stick.
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Artofwar,
I just compiled my 1st campaign. It is not so hard. Tip: make a new folder in your scenarios folder. name it something like "Tweaked campaign X". In this folder you put your core units btt, all new scenario btts and your script txt file. Do all your changes in this. When you open scenario editor, click on scenarios and then click on this folder and then the btt within it you want to edit. Another tip maybe is to make a comment in the short description in the core unit btt so after a successful compile you go to campaign on the main menu of CMBN and click on your campaign and your comment will be there to let you know all is well. SInce you are just editing an exisiting campaign right? Or just rename the campaign. The mroe you mess with btt file names the more you need to rewrite the script file. Have fun. Hope this helped.
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I finished the first 2 maps and battles in the campaign.
so far so good.
1 more map to do for "Waco goes for help".
I will be rolling the dice to see if having sequential campaign battles on the same map goes badly in this case. The defense of the Chateau Le Bier Hacrombe all takes place over several attacks.
My thought now is that I will make a slightly damaged version of the same map for the follow on battles, mortar craters, wall damage, Not perfect but damage does not carryover like back in CM1.
I placed the fictitious campaign time frame at the end of the Falaise pocket August 20-21 1944.
Campaign location is of course fictitious but in the vicinity of the Falaise pocket.
The CW uniforms all look the same to me. I guess you have to super zoom in on their shoulder patch to see if it says Canada. I might flex the storyline and add a US Army soldier to Halliday's patrol.
Oh yeah, this campaign idea would probably go really well if I had the CW module for CMFI or MG module for CMBN. But I was impatient to make something.
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Hi fellas,
One of my favorite old war movies is 1943's Humphrey Bogart film "Sahara".
I am transposing the storyline with some changes to the ETO with CMBN CW.
I've successfully compiled my first test campaign in this project after seeing that the script text file did not seem to like an apostrophe in a battle name, at least the error went away after I changed the battle name by deleting that apostrophe.
Current battles in progress:
Lulubelle to the rescue
The chapel at Ausson Baronet
Feldwebel Schneider Aufklarung
Main attack at Le Bier Hacrombe
A 100-to-1 odds
Waco goes for help
Whittled Away
My campaign core units for allies is a British Engineer Company
Heavily deleted down in numbers
Capt Halliday renamed for CO
I added single vehicle US Army Sherman M4A3 for MSGT Joe Gunn
A Polish breach team stand in for Corporal Frenchie Leroux
I think a Canadian stand-in for South African Stegman
British units for Williams, Bates and Clarkson,
A British small unit for Sudanese SGT Tambul
Anyways, I am playing with this and having fun.
It will probably be short style battles against a single German battalion under Major Hans Ritter Von Falken. So, as you are able to whittle them down, less come at you in the follow on battles, at least that is the plan.
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mjkerner,
As Jim Morrison said in Roadhouse Blues
Do it, honey, do it!
I would so appreciate your hardwork for this winter mod.
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Give a man a mod, you entertain him for the day.
Teach a man to mod and you entertain him for a lifetime.
Thanks so much for putting this out!
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I sent in Salvate il Maggiore Rinetti version 1.0 for approval. Not sure how long that takes....
Hmmm....in that submittal page I did not see how to include a thumbnail.
I will check the FAQ and probably add a little screenshot in later as an edit.
15 minutes. Axis vs axis. Custom map. Fictional.
Germans are coming to arrest il Maggiore. His handful of loyal men provide cover as he makes his escape. You have an exit zone to get him to. There is a driver with a Fiat that can help. The clincher is that his exit zone is also an enemy exit zone.
The cover force has to prevent any of the enemy vehicles from pursuing him through the exit zone.
If you want it now, PM me.
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Ohhhhhh,
thanks!
I see now I was not in the proper general repository page.
I was in the specific CMFI page.
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I want to get my scenario Salvate il Maggiore Rinetti up in the repository but couldn't for the life of me seem to find the basic instructions on how to do that....
please somebody clue me in.
Grazie
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Uh oh!
----the word correct in a reply to Michael Emrys!
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umlaut,
I had thought of this "scenario design team" concept a few months ago and posted in CMBN forum for anyone who wanted to be my subcontractor for doing the briefings for a scenario I was working on "Bloody Aachen". I had only 1 nibble of a reply and it never really panned out.
Also, I started a thread about "How to make a QB map" and still do not see a step by step process written down. I admit I have not yet played with it myself to figure it out or reverse engineer it. I do not understand how the overall CMX2 program assigns max points allowed for purchase. Is it all triggered by map and battle size tiny, small, medium dropdown menus selections?
My CMFI scenario not yet released "Salvate il Maggiore Rinetti" is stuck in perpetual revision. I had some playtesting which really opened my eyes to how to make it better and now I just keep tweaking it.
I had another idea called the "combat quickie" with a series of very small, very short scenarios against the AI for guys who are busy and hardly get time to play a long battle where I admit I sometimes lose track of what the hell is going on and if I ever had a plan to begin with. My 1st one is called "DropZone Sicily" with small groups of paratroops causing mayhem along a road. Have not finished it yet. The AI always drives the trucks in weird ways to cause the scenario to lose credibility. But I have learned a few things sicne then and might reopen the scenario and add heavy forest to channel the AI vehicles, anyway...
I always enjoyed making scenarios in CMX1 for my own consumption and play against the AI.
The percentage chance of reinforcement arrival starting at turn X was my best friend. It allowed a big mystery to the scenario especially when you had not played it in a long time and forgot what units you gave the AI.
In the future I hope to get into HTH play but just haven't made the leap...
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Normal map?
Well, I guess I'd have my fences and walls all straight.
Nothing goofy and abnormal.
Then the trees, deciduous gotta be south of the Evergreens.
I think that about covers it.
I am so lost! Maybe I can lay a gustatori insignia layer on an existing helmet.
That is my new crawl before walking goal for mods.
Survey on what folks like best in briefings, tactical map..
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
Quintus Sortortius,
I will take a look at GIMP, thanks.
I dl'd paint.NET hoping to learn how to mod CMFI Italian gray uniforms to something like Africa tan. Sheesh. When you waste a few hours going in circles, you really respect the dudes who post such awesome mods on the repository.