Bulletpoint

My opponent suggested I install version 1.5, and it seems it's working now... fingers crossed.

Just started my first H2H game, and using CMhelper. When my opponent plays his turn, CMhelper immediately sees the file in dropbox and copies it to my game folder. But after I do my turn and exit the game, nothing happens. If I then go to right click and "edit game", I can then browse to set an "outgoing" folder, and point it at the dropbox folder. Then immediately, CMhelper copies the file. But next turn, the same happens, and the "outgoing" folder reverts to blank. Is it supposed to work like this or what am I doing wrong?

I'll reply to my own question in case anyone else ends up here looking for the same thing. I found there's a scenario called Le Desert that comes with the game, and it looks good. Will be quite a challenge for me as the US side I think

I forgot to mention that I only hav ethe base game (but updated to version 3)

About to start my very first game against a human opponent, and I would like to play as the US on the defense (because I played single player so far, and nearly all maps have the player as the attacker, I would like a new challenge). My opponent says there are almost no maps like that though, and he recommended Barkmann's Corner. But I don't think that mission is what I'm looking for, really.. I'd prefer a smaller map, mostly infantry but maybe with a bit of armour support.

Yep, fully agree that the shot should be able to go right through it, but not without a penetration message and a decal.

AT gun shot goes straight through M8 scout car, kills a crew member, but doesn't say "penetration" and doesn't leave a hit decal (neither entry nor exit hole) Following 2 shots both hit, give penetration messages, and leave decals. Savegame available if anyone's interested.

The editor would really benefit from a general overhaul. AI plans are just one of many convoluted aspects of it. It would make me personally more interested in doing more scenarios, and I suspect I'm not the only one who might be interested in doing more, if it were made more accessible. But one thing is learning curve and accessibility. Another is basic features that make better and more realistic scenarios possible. Such as a facing command. The important thing is not so much facing itself, it's that troops end up on the wrong side of cover. I'm surprised a "take cover towards" command at the end of a movement order hasn't been implemented yet, surely some of the volunteer official scenario designers must have needed it, especially now that we have a simple AI-trigger system that really begs to be used for fallback plans. It wouldn't need to be a 360 degree command like in the game, a simple drop-down menu to select a general compass direction would be just fine. (north, northeast, east, southeast... etc).

Yes, they can be set up to hide. Yes, they can then be given a move order when an enemy enters a trigger area. Yes. No to all of these. The unit will just end up facing in the direction of travel. I wanted to do the same as you, a triggered fallback AI, but it's useless because the AI will not be able to take advantage of cover. If you order a unit to fall back to a wall or a hedgerow, they will end up on the wrong side of the cover, facing away from the enemy. You can, however, order infantry to fall back to foxholes or trenches. They will then sit there facing away from the enemy, but reorient themselves quite quickly once the enemy appears. Still looks dumb though. There's a workaround possible where you give troops two orders - first an order to move one square behind the hedgerow, then another order to move up to it. Then they will end up on the right side with the right facing, but this is a bit bothersome to work with. Also it means the fallback takes longer to complete. If you want a tank to fall back, it will always turn and expose its backside.

In my experience, even the wooden bunkers are now invulnerable to indirect fire from anything smaller than 105mm artillery, and I'm pretty sure not even the 105mm will do anything. Direct fire 75mm will still take out wooden bunkers though, after a couple of hits. Concrete bunkers seem extremely tough, but played very little with those, so can't say exactly how tough. All bunkers are still quite easily spotted. Not sure if they are less easy to spot now than back then - I had not discovered the game yet back in 2012 when you did your tests.

You don't set arcs like in the normal game. What you do is to change the "stance" of the unit group to for example "Engage 200 metres", either at setup or at the end of an order, and it means the unit group will only open fire at targets within 200 metres - effectively working like a circular target arc. The downside of this is that you can't give such orders to individual units unless you assign just that unit to a specific AI group. In my small scenario "Crossroads at Pierrefitte-en-Cinglais", there are only few Germans, but a lot of various AI groups, allowing me flexibility of setup and orders.

I might be wrong about this, but I suspect that during the orders phase, you might need to do the face command first, then click the pop smoke button. If you click the smoke button first and the face command afterwards, they'll throw the smoke before changing facing. This advice is just based on my general experience with the game, I haven't done any testing. I don't have my CM computer with me right now, so can't do a test of this.

As I understand it, a squad's Leadership modifier is only based on how good their leader is. If he gets killed, the whole squad loses his bonus. But the squad's Motivation modifier is based on all squad memebers. If the leader gets killed, the rest of the squad retain their motivation (or lack of it). So, if you have low motivation troops with a great leader, they may perform well until their leader is killed, at which point they'll suddenly turn pretty useless. On the other hand, experienced and motivated troops with a poor leader will not change much if that leader is lost. I've never seen any squad *increase* leadership modifier if their -2 leader is killed. You'd think if your crappy sergeant (and team leader) got shot, there would at least be a small chance some random squaddie would take command and show just a bit more talent. But no. Never happens. This makes me believe that the game assumes that the worst possible leaders simply provide no leadership bonus at all, basically same as being absent. So, a -2 leader doesn't provide a negative modifier, he just does nothing. In reality, I suppose a really bad leader might actually be worse than having no leader at all.

But probably what actually happens in the game is that the player just rolls up his tank and starts area fire on the location of the at-gun, not waiting for the tank to spot the gun itself.

Your problem might be your mouse driver. Try updating it and if that doesn't work, uninstall it and use the generic windows mouse driver.

Same as I would handle it in single player: tracks only visible to the player who makes them. No spotting issues.

It goes without saying that in the end, it's BFC's decision... I'm just a random player with a lot of ideas, and I like to share them. That doesn't mean I demand anything from anyone. Everybody is free to disagree or have other ideas. But it seems to me that many times, ideas are dismissed by players on the forum simply because people think they are too difficult to implement *perfectly*, when a limited implementation would still be very nice. Fire is one such idea. Vehicle tracks is another..

Would be great to have vehicles leave tracks.. and to avoid FOW problems, you'd only see the tracks from your own vehicles. Problem solved

I think you're arguing about perfect fire or nothing. But it really wouldn't need to be a perfect fire simulation. A little goes a long way. Let's say you fire a flamethrower at a building. That should make the building catch fire and become impassable and un-enterable. This would be compatible with the current AI. Why? Because we already have such effects that make a place un-enterable. Top stories of houses can be ruined and impossible to enter. Big bomb craters cannot be entered. Blown bridges cannot be crossed. So, what's to prevent BF in making a fire animation that continues to create smoke, marking the building as impossible to enter, and that's that? Would be great for immersion... feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Based on my bug report from October? If so, then I'm happy to hear it was confirmed. I'll have to stamp a little kill mark on my mouse when they fix it

Impressive work.

I hope to see the Brazilians with their pipe smoking snake insigna. When they fire their mortar they should sometimes shout their motto about the smoking snake.

The BAR is useful not so much for the total amount of bullets it puts out but for its bigger effectiveness at longer ranges compared to the rifles. In my experience that is. Haven't tested it.

For armoured infantry, it's a range game. Each support element should be used at the proper range. Up to 300 metres you can engage with rifles but they are better at less than 200 metres. Up to 5-600 metres you should use your light machine guns. Up to 800 metres you use your heavy machine guns. For distant AT guns or important enemy positions behind non-flankable bocage you use your mortars. Resist the temptation to spend their limited ammo on the first target that pops up. Save them for things you can't kill by regular good tactics.

Just remember at guns can take huge amounts of small arms fire and still shoot when armoured targets appear. When using mortars you need either at least 81mm or loads of ammo if the gun is in forest. My rule of thumb is to use double ammo if gun is behind bocage, three times more ammo if it's in forest with few trees, and probably five times more if in heavy forest.