sttp
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Posts posted by sttp
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16 hours ago, JoMc67 said:
WOW !..You are Super-Fast with your turns Orders...It usually takes me twice that, and I only play up to Reinforced Company size Engagements.
Joe
Yeah, I can easily take 30 minutes or more per turn, even on medium sized battles. More than half of that is spent watching the replay though.
Just last night I finished the Le Grand Hameau scenario from the Road to Mountebourg campaign, and it took probably a week to play it.
That kind of time expenditure is not a problem, in my opinion, since I know and expect that. When I want to play a scenario in 3-4 hours, I do less replay watching, and give just very generalized orders. And the results are usually a bit worse than when I take my time. It's all a trade-off though, and it's great that we have the option to play how we want. Play in real time and make your orders instantaneous, or... take your time and micromanage and sink a week (or more) into a single battle. It's all good to me....
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Interesting. Maybe worth a few tests in the editor? I know that can be a tedious undertaking, but you just never know what kind of other seemingly unrelated variables might be in play.
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1 hour ago, Erwin said:
Hmmm... You mean like they just landed on a new planet and have no maps or aerial reconnaissance??
How good was their recon though? They didn't even know about the bocage.... So there are obvious information gaps. There are well-known (and some unknown) limits as to what the intel people could conclude from aerial photos and low-detail maps.
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9 minutes ago, Erwin said:
However, those ideas could make the game unplayable.
Good point, but you wouldn't have to play in that mode. It'd just be an option during replay phase, like toggling movie lighting or whatever,
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I owned it for about a day when it first came out and spent a handful of hours with it, but ended up getting a refund. I feel like the advertisements and reviews were a little misleading, as to the level of realism... or maybe it was just my expectations. Not sure. The game, good as it is though, just felt shallow in comparison to what we're all used to in these CMx2 titles. The lack of any kind of turned-based mode, plus the greatly accelerated action, was a huge turn off or me. The action could be slowed down, as the advertisements say, but... only in very rough increments, none of which matched true-to-life speeds. If they fixed that, I'd consider re-purchasing.
The positives: Steel Division's graphics were really really good, IMO, and that made a bigger difference in my impression and enjoyment than I might've predicted. And it had several nice minor or peripheral features that could probably work well in Combat Mission.
I'm sure that many people who play Combat Mission could find lots of hours of enjoyment in Steel Division. It's a good game, by almost any objective standard. It just didn't fit my particular tastes, that's all.
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Another idea, as I jump back into the CMx2 games after a 6-month hiatus....
In reality, advancing troops usually wouldn't know the details of the upcoming terrain until they actually got there and put their eyes on it. (Depending on the level of prior intelligence, I suppose.)
So how about a game mode -- if feasible, for CMx3... and even if it only appeared at the Iron difficulty level or whatever -- where the terrain types and terrain elevation changes, the layouts of towns and buildings, the upcoming cover and concealment locations, etc., did not appear on your map until your advancing units actually spotted them?
I'm sure this is not the first time such a thing has been proposed, but still, I think this would add a whole new recon aspect to the game. But again, as a hardcore option only. I personally wouldn't want it to be something that was imposed on every player in every scenario.
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How about a graphics mode where the emphasis is on catching the action in its purest and most realistic visual form, i.e., no red crosses for casualties, no transparent buildings when occupied, no intrusive orange TRPs, and so on. Maybe even getting rid of the UI and expanding the 3D view down to the bottom edge of the monitor? A view mode that could be toggled, like another ALT- shortcut key. Thoughts?
I've noticed that the quality of YouTube video AAR's keeps increasing, and it seems like this could be a useful feature that (hopefully) wouldn't be incredibly difficult to implement. Well, I guess the true 'fullscreen' video thing could be a ton of work, but it seems like the other things -- suppressing the red crosses, TRPs, and transparent buildings -- would be pretty straightforward. This would be a nice addition to engine 5, in my opinion.
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4 hours ago, Combatintman said:
My bold ... there is a scenario editor ...
Do you think 3rd party designed missions are as generally well done as those that come with Battlefront's official products? I don't. Nor do most people, if we take them at their word.
I have all the respect in the world for scenario designers, I've spent a lot of time with the editor myself, and it's obvious it takes a long time to get good at it. But the overwhelming majority of players simply don't have the time or incentive to create missions with as much richness and depth as can be found in "official" scenarios.
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I chose "better graphics" even though I'm fine with the graphics in general -- landscape, buildings, etc. It's better and more finely tuned soldier animations that are needed, IMO. Seeing your troops moon walk, run in place, rotate on their heels, etc., can get a little old.
Other than that, more missions / expansions / vehicle packs gets my vote.
And I don't know what "Finer-grained simulation of combat" really means. Increasing the density of action squares, like making them 4 meters instead of 8? Because that'd be at least 4 times the load on the PC. Next game engine, maybe?
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1 hour ago, George MC said:
You already have shoot and scoot in CM. Place fast forward waypoint to where you want to fire from - pause for 10-15s - then place a reverse waypoint back into cover. Pause depends whether your unit knows enemy there. If they know there, shorter pause, if not longer pause - 15 s is long enough though...
That sometimes works, yes. But I think it's pretty unreliable, overall. All sorts of things can happen which would cause an AT team, for example, to either not spot or not fire upon a tank when they're at that 'pause' waypoint. Who hasn't been in this situation: you look on in horror as the last few seconds of a pause command tick away, and your soldiers leave the perfect spot without taking the shot. Such a helpless feeling....
One thing I do during WEGO battles is try to make sure that critical events like this won't happen 'til the last 15 or 30 seconds of a turn, so you have some options for the next command phase. Sometimes that kind of intentional delaying is just not possible though....
I do like this shoot and scoot idea, and it'd be great to see it implemented. But on the other hand, I can think of some other new movement / targeting commands that I'd like to see even more.
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5 minutes ago, Erwin said:
Is it correct that when one adds a new wav file for an existing sound, one has to change the original wav file from <sound.wav> to <sound 0.wav>???
It's been awhile since I messed with all of my gun sounds -- I spent days doing exactly what it sounds like you're doing right now (plus made a bunch of my own by combining my favorites from a ton of other sources) -- but, if I'm recalling it all correctly, yes, I think that you do have to change the name of that first gun sound to "[original name] 0.wav" if you want "[original name] 1.wav", etc., to also be an option. It might seem like a pain to have to rename the first sound, but that naming convention could actually offer a few advantages, too... like when testing.
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1 hour ago, Placebo said:
Sometimes they do an AAR but not always, and the fact that they planned to launch it early Jan makes me think the first we will know about this is it is going on sale. Anyway fingers crossed still a few working hours left of working time in the US.
That's good to hear. So yes, fingers crossed indeed!
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2 hours ago, Placebo said:
Is today the day???
Don't they usually start a 'showcase' AAR a month or two before a major release? Or have there been exceptions to that?
I would love to get this CMFI module in my hands, since Fortress Italy is still my favorite ww2 title. But for some reason I'm just feeling like it's still going to be awhile before we see this one. Not sure if I'm alone in that sentiment or not. Fingers crossed, though, that it'll be out soon.
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I really hope I don't sound "anti-CMBN" here, because I'm not. Definitely not. Both titles kick butt, and I don't think you'd be disappointed with either choice.
But... I think there's one more thing to consider, that I haven't seen explicitly mentioned: all those old CMBN maps were designed with old versions of the engine, so they have AI plans -- missions, campaigns, and all the quick battles -- that don't use the improved features of the newer engines. (Triggers is one big feature that comes to mind.) And, to me, the AI just seems better in the newer games. It could be the placebo effect, I suppose. But the thing which suggests to me that it's probably not is that I get that same 'Final Blitzkrieg' feeling (richer, more complex battles, with bigger maps) with CMBN's newest missions in the Battle Pack, too. So... yeah.
Maybe the terrain types / environments / weather should be the deciding factors for you? Hedgerow fighting in Normandy is much, much different from the snowy, rolling forests of the Ardennes.
If the CMBN Battle Pack is included in the bundle, that might be one thing that could swing it towards that title? And even if the Battle Pack is not included, I think it's only $10 or so. There are plenty of missions in it to keep you busy for awhile. (I'm playing one of them now, actually -- "Drop Zone Charlie"... and it's fantastic.)
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One of the biggest advantages of WEGO is the fact that you can save recordings of all the action and watch it over and over. I personally spend more time watching the previous turn than actually giving orders. Not trying to push you towards any play style, but just pointing out one of WEGO's big advantages. One that may very well intensify your addiction.
Keep having fun regardless of play mode. I still remember my first battle, and my god it was so cool. I'm pretty sure we can all relate to your enthusiasm.
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I'll take it another direction.... As the engine's capabilities have improved over the years, so has the quality of the maps and the AI plans. There are almost 5 years between CMBN's release and CMFB's, if I recall correctly. So, unless the CMBN bundle's price has come down to where it's about the same as Final Blitzkrieg's, I'd go with quality over quantity and get Final Blitzkrieg. Just my opinion.
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Nice! Thanks
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I just saw this album (132 images) from Anzio '44, and there were lots of pics of German armor that I had never seen before. Thought some of you would enjoy it also.
(Note: even though it's tagged NSFW, there's really nothing too graphic in there -- a few bodies, but no gore.)
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"SCREEN EDGE PAN TOGGLE: Tired of trying to fine tune a camera position and then messing it up by touching the edge of the screen with the cursor? Using the hotkey ALT-E you can disable camera panning by touching the screen edge with the mouse cursor."
It's a Christmas miracle! Dreams really do come true.
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I had a similar problem for awhile***, but mine had to do with sound mods. I was trying to change some modded CMFI sounds, but no matter what I tried in the Data\z folder, I couldn't get a few sounds to change. And then I discovered that there's another folder where you can mod your game: UserData\Mods. No idea how I missed that info....
So there's the standard mod folder you always hear about:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Battlefront\Combat Mission Fortress Italy\Data\z
But there's also:
C:\Users\[username]\Documents\Battlefront\Combat Mission\Fortress Italy\User Data\Mods
I didn't know about UserData\Mods folder until a few days ago. (!!) I have no idea how a few modded sound files got there without me knowing. (I probably just forgot. Aging sucks.) But apparently the files placed in UserData\Mods will trump any files of the same name put in Data\z.
*** Within the last week a certain little utility has made finding files and folders on my PC so much faster and easier, so I can't avoid mentioning it. It's called Everything. Whereas Windows Explorer search is a PITA, this utility's results are basically instantaneous, even if there are thousands of them. And it takes up few resources. On its first run it went nuts, cataloging my ~22TB of drives (which ended up taking only about 10 minutes), so at first I thought it was gonna be a system hog. But nope. It now just runs in the background, using only ~150MB of RAM. (For me at least.) I just found this program last week, and I'm ecstatic. For years I'd been cussing how slow the search function within File Explorer/Windows Explorer had become. Now that's irrelevant.
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The quality of maps and missions keeps going up, which is not a bad thing at all, but my hunch is that constructing convincing AI plans has gotten more time consuming as the series has progressed. Not sure, but that may be part of the answer.
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Beautiful pics, Heinrich. Burning armor never looked so good!
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That really is a nicely done map, with the railroad bridge and tunnel and the steep hills and all.
Could you maybe post some screenshots of your postcard scene? It sounds great.
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As someone else mentioned, the quality of the maps and battles keeps increasing with each new CMx2 release. For that reason, you may want to consider putting CMFB at the top of your list.
Additionally, with a new Fortress Italy module on the way, CMFI may deserve to be up there as well. Just depends.... Fortress Italy doesn't get the attention the others do (I suppose mostly because of the less celebrated theatre?), but the environments there have a really unique look and feel. And the Gustav Line module has, in my opinion, a few of the best scenarios of all the WW2 titles.
Request: Mortar ammo dumps in next version
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
Or at least more mortar rounds on the jeeps / trucks... assuming that's realistic.