Bulletpoint

In layman's terms, I guess that means the planes were getting old and that cracks had formed in the wings from many years of use. It is odd that they didn't check for that. Metal fatigue is a well known thing.

Actually I'd say neither of those scenarios is going to be very interesting, since the game is unable to mount a credible attack, and even the best scripted AI plan is going to be very limited. That's why I love defending in PBEMs. Because the human opponent will actually make a sensible attack. Well, usually

Yeah the buildings are way too resilient. I'm playing a game right now where my opponent fired three 150mm howitzer shells directly at a building without even causing scratches. It was a big building, so I didn't expect it to collapse, but at least a wall should be blown out. However, when he fired on a tall free-standing wall, one hit made a huge hole in it, as expected. So either tall walls are too weak against big HE, or buildings way too strong. (another point is that he also fired a quad flak gun at a similar building, and two bursts of 37mm flak removed one of the building walls, which is about what I would expect. So the issue seems mostly to be with big HE guns that fire single shots)

I'm not totally sure, but I think that having more troops in total means also having better force morale overall. So those reinforcements would greatly bolster morale, even if they are not used...

Would make an interesting decision of balancing holding terrain for as long as possible versus saving your force.

I wanted my scenario "Contact Front!" to have a reasonable difficulty. Then a tester asked me "I have all the objectives now with 30 minutes to spare, is there anything more coming?" Now, people tell me the scenario is too hard.

On the topic of Combat Mission, I wonder if such ordnance differences are reflected in the game, or if all 81mm mortars are made equal?

I can't believe it's Friday evening and I'm spending it watching a docile old German documentary about farming. I could be out barfing in an alley somewhere. There's a spot that goes un-barfed because of you, Kaunitz. Anyway, on topic: Notice at 1:36 a good illustration of the point about houses being very close together in that old village. No modern suburbia with isolated houses each surrounded by their own garden and driveway as we unfortunately see in some scenarios. Buildings away from the town cluster are mostly farmsteads, with several buildings, again very close together, and mixing houses for living in with barns and production buildings.

Would US farmers really go out of business if they left a 100 foot border around their field? Or is it more a case that their profits would be slightly smaller?

I find that if I adjust a tough scenario in order to beat it, I don't really have fun with it, and it leaves me with an emtpy feeling.

I've seen the driver of a Pz IV get killed by spalling caused by 50 cal fire.

It was tongue in cheek I haven't read the book. Thought the story was interesting.

How lucky for the Germans that they had an author in their ranks to win the battle

One issue is that the attacker will always have optimal forces for attacking, and the defender will always have optimal forces for defending. I wish the automatic force selection could be relied on to provide a reasonable force but a bit unpredictable and also with a few curve-balls... And that the game could lock both players to go with the automatic selection.

It was used for all people whom the Nazis considered to be sex offenders, including heterosexual male rapists. According to the wiki, the category was primarily homosexuals though. Another clue that pink was associated with feminine traits back then (at least in the US) could be Daisy Duck, who first appeared in 1940:

I agree with everything else in your post, but wanted to comment on this. Definitely it's true that a realistic landscape can be boring to play, but the problem is not that it's *too* realistic. It's that the wrong slice of reality was used to make the map. In my opinion, all good maps are realistic, but not all realistic maps are good (for gameplay).

They did put a pink triangle on the gays in the KZ camps though.

I remember once reading something about how fun in games basically boils down to making meaningful decisions that lead to other meaningful decisions. So in a shooting game, a choice might be to shoot or not shoot in a particular moment, and in a racing game, it could be to steer left or right. If it doesn't matter if you shoot or not, or drive left or right, the game is not fun (unless there are other choices that you make that make up for it). In CM, maybe we don't call it fun, we can call it tactical appeal, because we are very serious people But it basically comes down to the same thing: presenting the player with meaningful decisions. (There's of course lots more to be said on this topic, but I think this very overall idea is very useful to keep in mind...)

Very well said all of it. Out of curiosity, what kinds of issues did you run into with the Ardennes map? AI pathfinding? Balance? Did you scrap the map or just change it to make it playable, and if so, where can I download it?

Interesting point and you might be on to something. With a gently rising canopy of leaves, this should be impossible, as the leaves -not the micro-terrain on the ground or tree trunks - block the lines of sight into the wood consistently. I think the point is that the canopy leaves don't actually block LOS 100% - it's more of a modifier. So that on a slope, incoming LOS might only have to pass through one or two canopies (33 pct blocked?), where on flat ground, it might have to pass through 10 or more = completely blocked.

No, the End or Destination Point is linear. Three AS for a full squad. Two AS for a squad that has detached a Scout or AT Team. And there are NO intervening way points. Ok, interesting. I rarely move full squads around, and when I do, it's so far behind the lines that I don't mind if they jump over the fence a couple of times. I am hoping they'll fix it for moving single teams.

Well, that's why I posted it here in the "improvement suggestions" thread...

If you mean making a long string of waypoints along the wall, yes it keeps them on the right side. But it also slows them down immensely, because they have to stop and regroup at each waypoint.

Creative stuff, but: 1: They are cumbersome Rube Goldberg-methods that reduce immersion 2: It doesn't work for artillery or air support as reinforcements 3: It won't be possible to apply to quick battles. Someone had the good idea that forces could be purchased at a discount in quick battles if chosen as reinforcements - the longer the wait, the bigger the discount.

Have infantry stay on one side of a low wall when running along it. Right now, they jump back and forth over it. Also often affects hedges etc.