sttp

Love the tournament , but can we do it right ? mirror games do not work unless you can change the location of the mines or any unmovable fixed emplacement (like an 88AT) out side a setupzone  , can we please alter the setup of Dawn patrol? or any other scenario that has unmovable fixed emplacements? makes the games  more blind and competitive.

I wanted to have a better understanding of the effect of weather conditions on CMBN's clear (blue line) line of sight ranges. I created a map that was perfectly flat, had only short grass and no features. Then set up a U.S. rifle platoon on one edge and drew target lines down range under various conditions for both day and night. Attached is a pdf showing the results for your use. Measurements are not perfect but good enough.
This is very helpful for me when creating scenarios. I find the night-time range for overcast conditions to be hugely excessive when compared to veteran's accounts.
CMBN LOS Weather.pdf

Today I was busy re-installing all my old CM games in Steam, transferring keys from BF to Matrix to Steam.
I run them on a laptop, and because of my old eyes my laptop displays default 1920x1080 at 125%, but this gives very bad rendering especially of the UI text.
Going to the CM.exe properties -> compatibility tab -> change DPS settings -> ignore system scaling, gets rid of the bad character display in the UI caused by the 125%, but it makes the text too small for my old eyes.
So I edit display.txt to "1366 768 0" (choose a resolution that is possible in your windows display settings, otherwise it doesn't work).
Now I have decent quality graphics with large UI text.
I had done this successfully for CMSF2, CMRT and CMBS, but when I tried to do it with CMBN, I got a video driver error at start, because I had forgotten to modify the cm.exe properties, and the video card couldn't find a valid resolution.
Just posted this here so it may help some other poor soul.

Oh lets not exclude the King...lol

It's still hit and miss and the AI doesn't know what real time period weapons are ie, Sherman tank, but you can get some ok stuff, the engines regularly ad a fifth finger, and other strange things but it is getting really good, I personally would never try to pass off a AI image as real but AI does have it's place, in illustrating images for articles and blogs etc... 
I made a set of British Infantry from WW1...

Look at that expression and fear...

Getting movement...

Again the face of what is about to happen...

Make the viewer think how bad it must have been????
 
But the AI really shines for me in producing images from another age, before photography existed?????

Viking warlord...

First Punic war...

And on a lighter note..

Guess who?
 
So the quality of the AI images is in the prompts the better the prompt the better the image, love or hate it it is here to stay.... Very scary on a grand scale and this is just the beginning?
 

Hi all,
Just wanted to say hello and I hope I get to play some PBEM against some of you when I get better.
I'm a huge history fan, and also a fan of Graviteam Tactics: Mius Front, but it never quite did what I wanted. Games like Gates of Hell: Ostfront, looked gorgeous but were tactically shallow experiences that in no way represented the battles I've read about in books. The closest I could get was warg ames like War in the East 2, which still were fairly abstract. 
I found out about these games a few weeks ago and...Well, with the Steam sale I've purchased CM:BS, CM:SF2 and CM:BN, plus all the respective DLCs. I've been wanting games like these for years. Can't wait to start building the hours. I've clocked up 30 hours in two weeks which, for me as a 37 year old with a job and girlfriend, is fairly extreme.
 
Cannot believe I didn't try them sooner. 
 
Nice to meet you all

Given the entire encyclopedia of unknown unknowns at the heart of this thing right now, we should perhaps get back to thinking about how Ukraine wins this war regardless?

Ukraine needs to make hay with this to drive the wedge deeper.  Humiliate Putin. Contrast Zelensky staying versus Putin running.  Start a whole bunch of memes
Who is faster Putin or Zelensky?  Putin, Zelensky doesn't run.

Lots of open questions for the days ahead
 
 

Can you guys please consider not including a hotkeys file with the updates? It's a little annoying having to replace the hotkeys that come with the game every time, they're awful.

I guess if you're used to them for so long they're good, but I came up with some that I feel are better, and allow me to make sweeping movements on a couple axis at the same time. Yeah I just swap the hotkeys from a different CM game and that works, but I always forget where to place it so I have like 5 hotkey files per game folder.

A wee something I put together.
This video showcases content from the Combat Mission Red Thunder Battlepack 1 released by Battlefront.com.
It's a brief overview of each scenario, what it's about and the main intent; it also covers the campaigns (including a brief summary of the main campaign branches).
There are NO spoilers in the video chapters.
https://youtu.be/wyrRX4bP2mM
 

Bénouville et Ranville Master Map is now finished. Size: 3248 m x 2128 m. Condition: Pristine, no German or British fortifications or modifications. Fully populated with flavor objecsts. Looks best when used with all available building, wall, flavor object, foliage and terrain tile mods. German fortifications and terrain modifications will be included in subsequent scenarios. Map will be posted without deployment zones or opposing forces so that it can be used for your own Quick Battles.

I don't think stacking two waypoints will blend the movement modes.
What will likely happen is that you move QUICK to some location, then the unit gets a HUNT order, but it's to the same location they already are, which means it's immediately seen as achieved, and the unit then moves on to next order, which is again an order to move using QUICK. The result will be the same as simply chaining two QUICK moves.
Maybe with a chance that the unit will spot an enemy in the very brief moment where it considers its HUNT order, in which case all further movement orders will be discarded.

The aerial images I ordered from the Italian archives were made available to me last night. And they're perfect for my needs. The first thing I needed to do was place them into QGIS. Unfortunately, the images are not geotiffs so I would have to manually place them myself. Here I used the Georeferencer tool where you pick points that are common tn the image to the map in QGIS. This enables QGIS to rotate, move and warp the image to the precise location.

and voila! I now have period detail to work from. If you look closely, you can see the tree shadows and pick out the olive groves. I've already adjusted the railway.
While I was waiting for the aerial images, I ran a test of the osm data I had to see how the town would look. I ended up manually selecting the buildings so they would more resemble the actual ones. However I did notice that the slope is too steep, so I may have to manually adjust that as well.

This but more. I was playing a massive PBEM many years ago and noticed I had a whole platoon routed and couldn't figure out why. I loaded up the last few turns and watched just that platoon until I could see what happened. 
I had smashed one of my opponents units and then sent in a whole platoon to go clear them out. Rookie mistake but I sent them all to move at once figuring they would cover each as they ran, no need to area fire to keep the fleeing enemy fleeing. As my platoon was filtering into his postions, the squads got a bit bunched up. One enemy stopped fleeing turned and fired a single shot. It hit one of my guys who was about to throw a grenade. He falls, the grenade bounces into the pile of friendlies. It goes off and down go a bunch of my men, including two others who were also just about to throw grenades. As they fall, their grenades also land at the feet of their comrades and a bunch more guys drop. One single bullet and he took out half a platoon.
I watched that single turn so many times because I just could not believe what I was seeing. Had we been playing real-time I would have missed it but instead I was able to go back a few turns and see what I had missed. WEGO only ever since.

Yep... the fall of 1999 and the fabulous three stooges! Never looked back. Truly addictive and there is no cure but more CM!
 
Just looked up my first post: 
"One or two moves a day...more on the weekends and I try to keep four games going at a time....I have suffered only minor withdrawl symptoms at that rate.
  All Hail Marx & Lennon
Forum Member #347"

My first six months with the Combat Mission WW2 titles were almost definitely the highlight of my PC gaming life... and I started gaming a long time ago, like the Doom and Falcon 3.0 days in the early 90s, with DOS bootdisks, etc., and there've been several addictions along the way. CM was the most almost out of control addicted it ever got. 
In fact, I remember taking a secret trip / vacation when I first got CM (2014/15 for me) and locking myself in a hotel room for eight days just so that I could play it constantly and scratch that overwhelming itch. It was bliss! Hope it's that for you as well.

I thought I'd create a thread to document my efforts in creating a map of Orsogna, which was the site of some fierce battles between the 2nd NZ Division and German troops of the 26. Panzer-, 65. Infanterie-, and 1 Fallschirmjager- Divisions in December 1943.
Orsgona is in the province of Chieti in the Abruzzo region, 17km (10 mi) southwest of Ortona. It is situated on the edge of a plateau with a steep drop-off to the south and a large gully to it's north.

For my first attempt, I decided I'd base it on the area of 25 Battalion's attack and subsequent German counter-attack on the 3rd Dec:

I'd trace the contours using a screenshot from Google Maps:


The result wasn't too bad:

I was going to carry on with this, then @Butschi released his tool..
..and it's a game-changer. This is the same area but generated in the CMAutoEditor using data from a geotiff:

Similar shot from Google Earth:

(to be continued)

Hi All, 
First post here, I'm a 44-year gamer who plays a bit of everything but my main interest is anything WW2. I've been playing Gary Grigbsy War in the East, Steel Division, Panzer Corp, Hell Let Loose, and pretty much anything related to WW2.
Took me until 2 weeks ago to actually hear about Combat Mission (probably did but never took note). I took the plunge and picked up Battle for Normandy and have already clocked up 120 hours and barely seemed to have scratched the surface. 
I am so amazed at how low profile this game is considering how addictive and rewarding it appears. I am already installing mods and now pay little interest in graphics, UI, and presentation. It really takes me back to a golden age when you actually bought a good game, book, or film and indulged yourself in it, and keep going back to it! 

Back for this game for long time with engine 4. I am pure ”hobbyist” gamer for these type of games.
Now trying to play CMBN ”Panzer Marsch!” Campaign and scenario ”Le Dezert” I believe. I do not think I can finish it. Try to make vechiles move rationally in narrow roads just make my head explode.
I really wish for and miss simple order I could give as army transportation NCO back in the day: ”Follow that vehicle”

I know I sound crazy. I care about the franchise and maybe you guys dont see it but I do, constantly trying to turn younger gamers onto this, half who are not amateurs by any means (like fly dcs constantly, etc not war thunder types) - half immediately nope out because its A 2006 ENGINE AND YOU CAN TELL..
And its NOT just graphics, there are some glaring issues for example that show up in MOUT
 
I know this wont change **** - theyll just churn out CMx2 titles until it dies but god I wish I was wrong

yes thank you for summarizing that, Im not good at that. Yes itd realllllllly help me
But again, Cmx1 to  cmx2 was 7 years. Cmx2 to --- ? is almost 17 years. BFC please I love you guys, dont die on this hill just churning out CMx2 stuff.  Its fine for the old heads but the new gamers... even ones who I got to like ur games, they all... were constantly bitching about the graphics. And the fact is graphics DO MATTER.  And  plus the engines just ancient at this point
PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST STOP AND MAKE CMX3. MY OPINION ONLY, BUT F EXPANSIONS TO ANYTHING ELSE, ANY NEW TITLES, CMX3, THATS THE FUTURE.
Anything else you'll grow more and more niche until this dies

These are really only useful when playing in real-time. They don't have any effect during WEGO playback, and in WEGO the player has more granular control than these buttons during the orders phase.

This is correct. To be a bit bland here, Battlefront was lazy.
ATGMs rarely can be fired on the move, so what Battlefront did, to check if a vehicle is on the move or not, is to check if the vehicle still has waypoints available. And if it does, then the vehicle counts as on the move, and it will not fire it's ATGMs.

@Brille describes the work around perfectly, this is how I would do it as well. You can get berm drill with an ATGM vehicle, if the shooting cycle is at the end of the turn, and you just reverse at the beginning of the next turn.