Quintus Sertorius

I think I'd rather have this one: I don't think that's true. If you try playing with the no crosses mod, one of the things you notice is that you can't just zoom over the enemy lines and see them taking casualties, not always.

My advice would be to take some time to master the camera controls. Find a setup for them that feels comfortable to you. That was the biggest stumbling block for me at first. The camera controls are actually pretty good (these days I zip around the map at will without even thinking about them), but I think it's important to be come adept at using them so you can focus on more important things.

I'm a self-proclaimed helmet mod connoisseur, and these are very good. Well done.

But why should you know? You wouldn't necessarily know IRL, either. Angels and demons could work, like the ending of the movie Ghost. Your guys get the Patrick Swayze treatment, while the other guys...

Yeah, .45 ACP packs quite a punch a close range. Have you ever fired an M8 Grease Gun? I've always wondered how that compared to the Thompson. They certainly continued in service for a long, long time after the war.

Just wanted to thank Mord and Rambler for this simple mod. It makes a significant positive difference in how the game plays, both psychologically and practically.

I've had fun with the German 234/1 armored car with the 20mm cannon versus the Staghound. The 234 fires dozens of rounds which may or may not penetrate, while the Staghound fires much more slowly but almost always does serious damage if it hits.

Yeah, nice job! Really helpful to anyone who makes, or even just uses, mods.

Thanks for all your work Aris! I use many of your mods. The new half-tracks look great, much improved over the old ones you did (even though those were pretty darned good to begin with). I think my personal favorite is still your smoke and dust mod. It looks amazing in the game, no matter how big the cloud.

I just bought the Market Garden module a couple of weeks ago, and, not having played for some time, I immediately noticed many fixes and improvements. I'm sure there are many more I haven't noticed yet.

If you're looking for something more general, I liked The Second World War by John Keegan. For a large volume it's very easy to read.

I re-read Greg Boyington's autobiography, Baa-Baa Blacksheep a few years ago, and liked it even better than I did when I was a kid.

My point is true, but preferred by "few people." It's still true. Personally I'd like significantly more micro-control, even if I seldom use it. Real-time adds nothing for me, and I wouldn't miss it for a second.

Better for me too, in almost every way. The only negative difference I've noticed is the map editor in the scenario editor, which seems very choppy unlike everything else.

In the interest of shameless self-promotion, I snagged a few more images. These are a bit larger than the previous ones.

There's room for much greater control complexity if you dump real-time. The existence of RT puts a hard ceiling on the number and types of commands you can issue without overloading the physical limitations of the human player. FWIW, I had the same experience some others have mentioned concerning the camera. It turned me off the first couple of times I tried it, but once I figured out a way to use it that worked for me, it made all the difference.

My new favorite toys as of Market Garden are the German 37mm and 20mm fixed AA guns, so I nominate them.

As I was finishing up my Luftwaffe infantry uniforms, I noticed my Company HQ unit had no senior officers, just a radio operator and two privates. Prior to MG, it had two senior officers with peaked hats. NCOs and junior officers appear in both infantry units and gun crews, but perhaps not in sufficient quantities if one goes by the ranks displayed in the info bar.

I wonder whether that episode is on Hulu or something...it would be nice to have a link for reference.

That's actually just Aris's superb PaK texture made quite a bit darker and a bit more brown. I generally like my heavy metal dark. While I was researching the luftwaffe uniforms, I also noticed that, at least in the west, lots of German equipment had green and brown painted over the factory sand color. I found plenty of pictures of PaKs, Panzerschrecks, mortars, and vehicles that were mostly or even all green. That's been a little side project of mine, making less yellow and more green and brown because it fits the terrain.

Thanks for the tip on the mod, Mord. I'll check it out. I'm thinking I may make my own mod that replaces the cross with a big sign that says "Rest In Pieces!" in flowing neon script. EDIT: Apparently that mod removes all the crosses. In a perfect world I want to keep the crosses for my soldiers, but get rid of the ones for the enemy. Still, thanks.

Posted over at GreenAsJade's site. Putting them in the pipeline here as we speak. Here are a some little shots:

For Iron and Elite difficulty levels, this should disabled for enemy troops. It's not a big deal, really, but why should you get a definite indication of a kill? There's no realistic justification for it, IMO.

FWIW, I've definitely seen the occasional NCO among the Luftwaffe infantry I've been working on.

I agree with you on these points and I think you'll be happy with what the new ones look like. I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide about this. I tried to find color pictures of soldiers in the field and examine how the wear and tear affected their uniforms, and my conclusion was that the longer the uniforms are in action, the more the color fades toward the color of dirt. Eventually everything ends up sort of dirt-colored. I will reiterate though, that I've found a few pictures of (clean) Feldblau items that are really, really strikingly blue with only a hint of grey. I think there was considerable variation. I've noticed a lot of reenactors have tan & water items that are very light...almost straw colored. I still think those are faded and too clean. The picture you posted seems about right, but I've found several that are darker than that too, plus there's the dirt to be considered. Anyway, it shouldn't be too long. I might have had it done today, except that my neighbor got his 18-wheeler stuck in a muddy field and I spent some time helping to get him out! Heh.