Bulletpoint

It was very close, around 80 metres if I remember.

Depends on what kind of game you like to play. For me, this is the best way to go about it, but I rarely ever play QBs against the computer any more. Anyway, for what it's worth: 1: Find an interesting map. I recommend the map pack called '57 quick battle maps'. It's on the repository. 2: Choose a map with as little bocage as possible. The more cover there is on a map, the better the for the human player who can maneuver and take advantage of it. 3: The less armour the better. Again, the human player can quickly get the upper hand to destroy the enemy armour and then steamroll the AI infantry with ease. Infantry only fights give the most challenge. 4: Pick the enemy force manually. Because automatic force selection gives bizarre results. 5: Choose an attack mission and give yourself 45 minutes max.

I doubt it - my tank skills are atrocious And I agree with you both. The problem about playing a defence is not so much that it's too easy (well, that too), but that it (usually) just feels like a turkey shoot.

No, they ducked down and the armoured car lost sight of them, then it fired another canister shot at another building where the troops were visible, then a third one at the first building when the troops there popped up again. Im just saying the general end result should be comparable, that's all. If a weapon is generally effective against a certain target in real life, then it should (generally) be effective against the same kind of target in the game. Of course there will be bad 'dice rolls' and all that, but the bottom line is that the TacAI in this situation chooses ammunition that is pretty much useless against builings, when it could use effective 37mm HE.

I'm sure that if you have a vision and design with passion (and plenty of patience), the result will be good. My comments were just general observations about attack and defence scenarios in this game.

I think the biggest problem with attack/defence artillery is that every player seems to have his own interpretation of what you can and cannot do. For example, my only personal rule is that as a defender, I will never fire into the attacker's setup zone, not even late into the game, because the thin setup zone usually represents miles of countryside behind the front where the attacker could have placed his assets. But I've played against people who say neither player may fire artillery on the first turn, and even some people who chose to not use their artillery (and air power) at all, even though they had it in the particular scenario.

I personally always design for only one side - the attacker. Because the only way to make a defence scenario pose any kind of challenge is to either customise the map to offer huge disadvantages for the defender and/or to massively overpower the AI attacking force. Both options make it pointless to then switch sides, since the human player will not have any challenge at all. In my view, the best way to balance a scenario for both sides is to simply make two separate versions of it.

They were in fact sitting up, that's how the scout car spotted them by the window. My question was not about real life, but about the game. If canister works against troops in buildings in real life, then it should also work in the game. And vice versa. And the TacAI should generally choose the right tool for the right job.

I don't think I specifically mentioned bridges, because there were no bridges on the map I was playing at the time. I remember it as being about flavour objects and some other stuff that turned bright white and stood out in fog.

I'm not on the beta team, but I've seen this full-brightness bug on various stuff in the game when there's fog involved. I reported it about a year ago.

I think going slow or fast has no impact on the risk of bogging... unless it has been changed in CMFB?

and the more you drink... the more fun you have, but the less you're able to do it

There is no AI that is "playing". It's a human designer who decides where the AI sets up and where it moves at what time.

If it's so good then why doesn't canister work against troops in buildings in the game? I just confirmed with my opponent, and he said the several shots of canister fired caused no damage. But one single 37mm shell took out four of his troops in a building just before that.

If that's true then I wish they would make the canister deadly against troops in buildings. It's not what I currently see. I think the game should reflect real life, and also give our pixeltroops a decent understanding of what munition to use against what target. Of course, if they want to make it so that inexperienced troops sometimes grab the wrong ammunition off the shelf and fire HE at tanks and AP at infantry, then that could be interesting as well.

Yes, it's very easy. Just move files and folders into the Z folder to activate, move them out to de-activate. Not sure why a mod manager would be needed for this game. As for gridded terrain, I can't help you - I never played with that.

I think the only thing they added that makes it easier to play the game is that you can now toggle on command lines (Ctrl+z), which shows a red line from selected HQ unit to its subordinates. It makes it a lot easier to get a quick overview of who is in command and who isn't. All the frustrations of not being able to see dips in terrain, never being sure where a unit can fire to and from, not really knowing what the visibilty is like because even pitch darkness is rendered as twilight, etc. etc. are still there. Much of the game is learning little by little how to interpret what the game shows you. But try out the demo of Red Thunder and see for yourself. It runs on V3.0.

One thing that strikes me as odd though, is that often tanks seem to spot extremely close infantry before infantry spots the tank. I've had several times when I knew a tank was in a particular location, then flanked it with infantry (who had received a tank contact marker for the location). Sneaking up on the tank from the side through forest terrain, when finally the tank pops into view of the assault team, often I find the tank has already turned its turret towards the infantry. Which means that it spotted them a good couple of seconds before they saw the tank. I guess everything is possible in war, so I'm not saying it's a bug or anything. Just odd.

Some time ago I reported a similar bug with German halftracks that got greyed-out machineguns for no apparent reason. Probably the same issue. The bug appears to be four years old. Womble first reported a very similar thing in 2012.

One of which would be yet another place where the player has an advantage over the AI. First of all, I am not asking to have complete control over what happens in any situation, I just ask that the TacAI will make sensible choices, just like it fires AP at tanks and HE against troops. Secondly, improving the TacAI decision making would also benefit the AI. Actually it would boost the AI more than the human player, because as a human, I know that I can just put down a direct fire order at a house, and then HE will be used. But the AI cannot do that. Which means it will fire ineffectual canister while I can fire HE. This is an additional handicap for the AI.

Reality is another thing, and I think you are thinking about American Civil War cannons. This is a 37mm gun, I doubt it launches thousands of golf ball sized pellets In this game, I'm not seeing canister do much against targets in proper buildings. Not talking about barns. I would say barns are soft cover, and I'm fine with canister being used against that. It's perfectly good against troops in modular buildings though. Needs a couple more shots to get the job done maybe, but that's no problem since it's faster firing and usually carries much more ammunition than the bigger guns.

There is one type of building where the roof level has one window in the middle that faces one direction, and two windows facing the opposite direction. When placing a team on that storey, giving a facing command towards the side with the single window makes soldiers split into two groups and stand next to the two windows. Giving a facing command to face the two windows, troops bunch together and stand next to the single window. So, basically they are facing the right direction, but they stand in the opposite location of where they should.

Happy someone got it

I noticed that scout cars with canister rounds will use their canister shot when they spot enemies in buildings close by. This is basically useless, as buildings offer hard cover. The chances of causing casualties with canister against targets in buildings is very low. In my opinion it would be better if the TacAI chose HE for these targets and reserved the canister rounds for targets in the open/vegetation/soft cover.

I'd like to see this, but not sure what it would be like, because I don't know much about that war. Stukas and early German tanks against rifle partisans? A campaign called 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'?