DougPhresh

Thank you. The quality of life of the series as a whole has definitely improved which makes me very happy.
WRT to the changelogs, there are readmes in the doccuments folder, for example CMFI with all modules:

It would be nice to have one document with all changes over time on the forums somewhere for reference, especially for discussing bugs or changes .
One last quality of life suggestion, especially since I know you guys are probably hard at work on documentation for the new modules - Some manuals include dates of availability and formations equipped. That's really handy and I wonder if we could see that format applied to all manuals.
For example,
Fortress Italy ❌

Gustav Line ✔️

Rome To Victory ❌

It's a fairly small thing but is very helpful.
On a more comprehensive note, The Black Sea  Formation Encyclopedia was absolutely outstanding.

I realize this would be a fair bit of work to retroactively add to all of the WW2 titles, but the dizzying array of formations in those titles is why I think it would be so handy. Please consider it for future modules though.
I know most people on the forums are wargamers and amateur historians and so on, but a layperson would not reasonably be expected to know the difference between Heer Fusiller and Grenadier battalions or what the difference is between StuG formations:

Whereas the Formation Encyclopedia does explain this kind of variety in Black Sea:

You may propose anything you wish, and I doubt you'd be surprised you're far from the first to propose something with the IDF. Politics may indeed have something to do with it, but I think it's mostly to do with the BFC team's interest and the sales potential.

Italians would need a huge revamp for an Afrika Korps title.
What I would gently suggest is a major pack for Fortress Italy filling out the Italian roster in Sicily, then moving on to add Partisans, RSI and Co-Belligerents.
This way all of the work needed to bring the Italians to North Africa is done in advance and the pack is at least making money in the meantime during the very long development time needed for maps, scenarios, campaigns and TOE and OOBs for the other nations.
All of that Italian content needs to be created anyway, why not put it in an existing product line rather than sit on it until the base game is ready for release?
 
 

I found the post. It was Chris "NormalDude" ND when he had Elvis's job, not Steve, and he did state in all caps it was subject to change:
 
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/121562-2015-christmas-bones/page/6/?tab=comments#comment-1646080

*Coughs in Romanian, Bulgarian and Hungarian*
*Coughs again in Romanian* 😉
(And apparently again in Bulgarian too! Did anyone know about this ?)

That's a deep cut.

I've maintained that with Polish voice files already in CMBN and CMFI, at the very least I'd expect to see the First Polish Army

Well, exceptional was in the context of something other than an attack. They were still expected to bound to the target - "Assault" should be SOP for them. The combination of fire from the LMG and (really importantly) massed Brixia fire is how that's supposed to actually achieve anything.

Fortifications need a fix. They're annoying to place to the point of widespread un-use in QBs, and the objects themselves and how troops interact with them could be improved. I can't imagine the poor scenario designers right now working on The Seelow Heights.
Can you imagine trying to place this in the editor? In QB?!

Yes, I'm having that as well.
I think C2 across all titles could use some revisions. Modern radios, ones that are rated for distances much, much larger than CM maps are failing even with point-to-point LOS (which you don't need for many modern military radios anyways)

I had really thought the tide had turned on the hardware obsession that used to plague wargaming.
For all of the StG-44s, King Tigers, Jets and camouflage, the Germans lost the war. The Germans themselves accomplished more with the lowly Kar98k, Panzer 38(t), Bf 109E and feldgrau than they ever did with any amount of wonderweapons.
The Red Army that flew the flag over the Reichstag or the Allies that smashed German army after army evidentially had good enough equipment to win the war.
 

I just wanted to say that this thread is the gold standard of what I am looking for in future scenario and QB maps. The latest batch of large maps for RTV were good, and I think a step in the right direction. I want "huge" maps, sure, but I want them to have what you would reasonably expect to find in an area of 4000m x 4000m.
Black Sea really suffers for this where on one map of a few thousand square meters there is a dam, several large bridges, a prison, an airport, and a "town".
Realistic terrain plays so much better than the Disneyland Main Street USA. I think someone here made the comparison to mini putt courses and they are exactly right.

I had really thought the tide had turned on the hardware obsession that used to plague wargaming.
For all of the StG-44s, King Tigers, Jets and camouflage, the Germans lost the war. The Germans themselves accomplished more with the lowly Kar98k, Panzer 38(t), Bf 109E and feldgrau than they ever did with any amount of wonderweapons.
The Red Army that flew the flag over the Reichstag or the Allies that smashed German army after army evidentially had good enough equipment to win the war.
 

I think the Recon Fennek's MMS may be modelled at least in part, they are insanely good at spotting stuff.

+1  Would also be great to have an AI that can handle many of the human player chores eg:  "Go recon over there" (and the teams act realistically and not suicidally to locate enemy); "Go resupply"; "Go tend to WIA"; "Follow the leader" (road convoy etc.)...  

Maybe take a look at how Graviteam games do it.  The explicitly model cable and signal people in defensive setups.  And they use colored smoke as a signaling method also, especially for offensive operations.  The games have a pretty tight C2 representation, that might be a little too detailed, but they have various options you can turn off.

If it were a toss-up between 'Feldgrau/Panzergrau' & IS-3s, I'd take the early war every time.....But then a small part of me would begin to hanker for Dicker Max, Sturer Emil, KV-220 & the SU-100Y to become available, regardless of their actual rarity.
PS - The inclusion of the PZ.II Luchs in ALL of the WWII titles always amuses me, it was only ever intended to be an interim type and only one hundred were made.....IIRC only 4th & 9th Pz. Divisions had a full complement in their recon battalions.

It would appear not.  Is it why BF are focusing on late war instead of starting at the beginning?  Maybe.  To me it would have been so much more interesting to do the games chronologically so we could experience for our selves the immense changes that occurred in equipment.  As well as understand that part of the war that never changed... 

I had really thought the tide had turned on the hardware obsession that used to plague wargaming.
For all of the StG-44s, King Tigers, Jets and camouflage, the Germans lost the war. The Germans themselves accomplished more with the lowly Kar98k, Panzer 38(t), Bf 109E and feldgrau than they ever did with any amount of wonderweapons.
The Red Army that flew the flag over the Reichstag or the Allies that smashed German army after army evidentially had good enough equipment to win the war.
 

Well I don't think the Pershing was too little too late as the Allies won the war. Just as more Panthers would have been better than the King Tiger, lots and lots of the reliable Shermans was an excellent strategy. Tank vs Tank duels was only a small part of what Tanks were used for. Even vs the Panther the Sherman the had the advantage of at least being more likely to get there when you needed it. I think people underestimate how much maintenance has to be performed on heavy tracked vehicles.

Indeed. Devil's Descent and Kampfgruppe Engle for CMBN are two that come to mind that I really liked. There are plenty more when you consider all of the Combat Mission titles. And frankly, my issue stems more from quantity than quality, which, combined with limited replayability and the fact that not all campaigns appeal to me ( regardless of quality ), leaves me with little to actually play.
Some are simply too big for me, some too urban, some may lack appeal for others reasons, such as weather or night battles, etc etc. These things don't make the campaign bad, but perhaps make it unsuitable for my tastes. As I said, I feel my tastes are fairly broad, but certain things are in my wheelhouse. For example I like what I call reinforced company sized campaigns. A force centered around an infantry company with an appropriate amount of support, perhaps a platoon of tanks, a battery or two of off-map artillery and some heavy weapons teams. I like rural type maps with elevation changes. I like good weather
These aren't requirements per se, but just the sort of stuff that appeals to me the most. If I then filter available campaigns by these type of things, the list grows rather short doesn't it? So instead of playing the sort of things I like, I also play campaigns which are not my style, simply because they exist. I'm thankful for that. I'm grateful that community members take the time to do it, and more than that, make them available for us to play ourselves. But as I plod through another battalion + sized campaign I can only wish for ones that are more suitable or more my style.


I made a post here last year pledging to put my money where my mouth is. I am willing to pay for it. But a handful of eager players doesn't make it profitable necessarily. Paper Tiger spent, if I recall, around 800 hours making Road to Montebourg. This is a good one. But 800 hours is a massive time investment for just a single campaign. So one issue is that the tools don't exist for streamlining the process. What if in 800 hours 10 campaigns could be made? 20? 40? Time is money.
So while I would support such an idea, it misses the mark slightly in my view. Players are still tethered to the supply chain, getting their playable content from others, relying on their productivity, enthusiasm and skill. On one hand I'll take what I can get. Beggars/choosers. On the other, I still feel the way forward is a way for the players to generate it themselves. And I have two axes of advance on this matter....
I'm not a programmer, and as a result cannot know of the technical requirements of the things I propose. And partly I hesitate to write it at all, as by definition it is critical of the fine work done by Battlefront, or maybe more accurately, what they have not done. But this is a wishlist type thread after all, and I want to see the series evolve. And I want more suitable campaigns to play.
The first one is have something akin to the QMB interface that generates something akin to Operations from CMx1. Since the post I made a few days ago about this matter I decided to go back to operations. I bought both CMBB and CMAK, as I built a new PC without the foresight of knowing an optical drive might come in handy, rendering the disks I've held on to all these years impractical
Imagine we could generate these ourselves, by setting each parameter. Number of battles, force type and troop quality, map details, weather, reinforcement probability, resupply and so on. I envision an endless supply of focused suitable content to play. A huge map, persistent forces, dynamic front line.
The second one is more ambitious, and I think like CMC was supposed to be. At it's core, it would be an operational level map not unlike what we had in several of the Close Combat games. The player has a number of battlegroups (selectable scale) as does the enemy. These units are moved on the map. When two forces enter a sector on the same turn a meeting engagement occurs. If occupied for one previous turn, an attack. And if the enemy had been there longer, an assault.  Tactical battles fought in concert with a larger operational goal.
It should include resupply and logistics, reinforcements, a support pool and so on. Lines of communication can be cut.
These ideas aren't new, but it's two possible ways forward. As I said earlier, it would all require a new AI which is another matter entirely. I know it's easy to throw fairy dust and wishes around, and that it would require hard work and time and money, none of which are mine. But it sure would make me happy
 
 

I can't speak to this particular weapon, but I know firsthand for mortars, once the tube is hot and the baseplate is firmly in the ground, it takes a while to be able to break it down and strap it on your pack. Packing ammunition and fuses back into the tubes, disposing of charge bags if using separate QF ammo, those can all take time as well. I'm not saying that is true for this artillery piece in particular, but anything hot or removed from packaging on the gun position is going to take longer to move.
Regarding the LOS, I believe I've seen the muzzle flash originate from lower down on the model somewhere down on the tripod. I'd have to take another look but this mismatch might explain the issue.
Finally, I found a very interesting write-up on Elefants in Italy. Kudos to the OOB team for getting this so right. I can't imagine trying to figure out the rarity of 11 vehicles in an entire theatre of operations!

Limbering a gun can take a while depending on how dug in the spades are. Usually we fire one round at full charge to get the spades dug in deep when setting up the gun but it can take a lot of shovel-work and manpower to roll the gun out of that hole.  Also a pack gun probably takes a while to break down into loads.

Fortifications need a fix. They're annoying to place to the point of widespread un-use in QBs, and the objects themselves and how troops interact with them could be improved. I can't imagine the poor scenario designers right now working on The Seelow Heights.
Can you imagine trying to place this in the editor? In QB?!

First off, let me say that for the most part I'm satisfied with the fortifications in the CM series. I think in scenarios the fortifications are great (although some Osprey titles could be more closely consulted in designing historically appropriate set-ups for given nations, formations and terrain). In QB, the AI defenses are generally okay, although with obvious and understandable limitations.
However - the placement of player fortification in QB is tedious. It would be time-consuming enough to manually place obstacles, but they are scattered all over the map!
Not only do I have to place all the wire by clicking individual pieces, but unlike units which are intelligently grouped at the bottom of the map, I have to pick the wire out from the clutter of the mines and other fortifications spread everywhere, and either place one piece at a time and then find the next or place them all into a pool where at least they occupy the same place on the screen, though I still have to place them, move the camera from where I was looking, click a link and then place it.
An infantry team occupies one foxhole, with a section occupying between 2-4 so to have just a company dug-in results in a huge amount of foxholes scattered all over the map, and sometimes an hour or more of set-up. It's very very frustrating and time consuming.
I think there are a few ways this could be improved:
The first, and I think single most important would be to place foxholes like CM1 titles and SPWW2. When defending units are placed in the set-up phase of a QB, their foxholes are automatically placed under them. For trenches, mines and wire, ideally a system like SPWW2 would be used where fortifications other than foxholes would be purchased on the purchase screen, as now but would not appear on the map initially during the set-up phase. Instead, they would be placed with a click, maybe from a tab like air support and artillery. This keeps everything organized, there is no clutter on the map, and no on-map item needs to be located to place a fortification. As above but with click and drag placement of wire and trenches. From the tab suggested above, a "place line" option would appear. This would act exactly like linear fire missions - On-map the cursor would appear with the "strike target" cursor used for artillery maybe with the fortification symbol in the middle rather than the crosshairs. Clicking would draw a line, terminated again with a cursor reading "set end point". Once the line is set, trenches and wire objects would be placed along the line by the game. If this can't be done during the set-up phase, placing the lines and having the fortifications appear during the start of the battle would still be great, so long as the glowing lines remained viable after placement, like when selecting the FOO of a linear fire mission so the general layout of fortifications would be visible while placing units. If these suggestions are too difficult, at the very least grouping fortifications by type and placing them together at the  start of the set-up phase would be a big improvement over the random scatter.