Thewood1

Its not the worst comment about a game, but its easily the worst comment I have seen from an unofficial team member towards any part of an audience.

I think there are a lot more people out there like landser than anyone cares to admit. Look at the number of people on Steam that said the owned the games, but hadn't played them in years. For BFC and its "fanbois", its a shock to have the state of the market rubbed in their face. Reputations don't get built in a vacuum.

Holy cow. And this type of comment is exactly why BFC and its beta teams have such a poor reputation. Exactly this. Unfortunately, there was a period of time where any negative comment was virtually set upon by people on this forum. And it was condoned by BFC though inaction. Because of that, this forum became its own little insular world. But the internet has a long memory. And exposing BFC to the Steam masses gives those previously aggrieved a forum for revisiting past issues without BFC being able to control the narrative. As soon as BFC made the Steam announcement, I knew what would happen on both sides. But to see thjis kind of comment and general degradation of people who just don't happen to like the game, BFC, or maybe Steve, sure exposes the worst of this forum. And this comment is worse than any I have seen on Steam...ever.

Matrix was about an hour behind from posting its up to activating Steam numbers. Generated a little friction. I find the most interesting threads are the Steam ones with people being shocked at the frame rates.

Holy Cow! No huge fan of Slitherine, but you think they, as a company that needs to employ people and make some some money, should provide charity for games? Its some kind of wargame social justice? This is one of the craziest comments I have seen on any wargaming board. If there is some great social responsibility for wargames, I'd suggest developing one that you think is needed for the greater good that can be released for free to the general wargaming public.

CMSF1 was theoretically playable. But it had so many issues on release that to call it playable as a realistic tactical level game is a stretch. BFC did a great job eventually fixing it up. But it took a long time and a lot of gnashing of teeth. There are still people on this board that refused to say there was anything wrong until years later and they will now fess up it was released too early. I still look at CMSF1 as a beta that led to CMBN.

Is 25m the arming range and 300m the gathering range?

Thats all well and good, but Ukraine and Syria both have areas where long LOSs are relatively common. Not sure Western Europe is very relevant in modern CM right now.

Outside basic defensive positions, I use them as long range overwatch for other advancing units. These units exist in both CM and Steel beasts. I find them much more useful in Steel Beasts because the maps are much larger than a typical CM map. But they can still be useful in certain maps in CM. Some of the older ATGMs, like the AT-3, need between 200 and 500m for the launcher to gather in the missile's flare. That's not much larger than a lot of the maps in CM.

Does CMFI have all the patches loaded in the installer? I though it was missing one.

One thing I have found as an amateur is any suppression is good suppression...on the enemy. I used to spend an entire scenario working MGs forward into a perfect LOS position on a building, fortification, etc. What I found through experience is that if you move the MG forward through woods, stop as soon as you have a shot at any part of the building in range. I then fire on that part of the building with area fire. Eventually, unless they are crack troops, you'll have enough suppression on them, you can move rifles forward to add to it. Then, you can move the MG into a better position to hammer on the enemy. Several assumptions here: 1) Against the AI. The AI won't fire back at your MG unless it has a clear and targeted shot. 2) No flanking fire on your MG 3) Enemy troops are veteran or less. May be a little gamey because of AI/area fire thing, but it works.

Being a graphic only mod seems to go agsint the whole point of CM's attractiveness as a wargame. That is historical accuracy in units, actions, and OOBs.

But are the JTS mods just graphical? And btw, The Heaven and Earth mod is only graphical, right?

Yeah, but I suspect multiple buys just for modding is not common. I own three copies of CMBO and its not because of mods.

But part of the question has to be...how much extra money did the devs make off of that longevity?

That's not a bad way start. Steel Beasts is heading in the same direction.

Go look at the sordid history of modding in the Harpoon PC game universe for how things can go horribly wrong and basically end the game. Its an extreme example, but is a good point in the favor of a closed database. The only thing good that came out of that fiasco was one part of the splintered community went out and built Command: Modern Operations.

In your situation, there is a problem in either how you bid the job or in project management on the DoD side of things. None of the project managers we have worked with on Army projects would have allowed any of that to happen. Every change, whether agreed to verbally at first, had to documented. No payments went out without a change order signed by project managers on both sides. Revenue recognition was completely based on that. Our customer would never have paid any final bill without documented and signed change orders. And we as the supplier know not to do anything without the project manager and a change order. Were there exceptions? Yes, but they were escalated and negotiated by procurement, as needed. Thats is why you have so much paperwork and overhead on DoD projects. To avoid that stuff. Even people on this forum complain about the paperwork in DoD work. But your story is the exact reason for it. If they are billing you for changes, they either have documentation or they don't. If they don't, its an easy case. If they do, then someone on the DoD side screwed up.

That is why you have option switches. When you are new to the game, you would want more of that into. As you gain experience you shut it off.

btw, my comments also reflect back on why it is somewhat favorable for BFC to be working with Slitherine on the MoD contract. Slitherine has already done a lot of heavy lifting upfront to create an on ramp for companies like BFC. It sounds like they have very competent project management process.

I have worked on a lot of government bids and contracts. You pray for mission creep post-award. One thing the US government is good at is handing out paid change orders. In reality, its how smart contractors make a lot of money. You bid on the bare minimum requirements, plan on making almost nothing on the original bid, then make all your margin on the change orders. Been that way for a long time. All the work is up front getting into the procurement queue and winning your first contract. And there are good reasons for doing it that way. The key is having a very good project manager who can be disciplined and force discipline on your customer without pissing them off. If anyone is complaining about not making money on a government contract, they are either being short-sighted or doing it wrong. Also, if the government is asking you to do things you didn't agree to, you better look at the contract and SOW you signed. That's your fault as much as their's.

I also found that if I turn on "Controlled folder Access" under Ransomware protection in Windows Defender to on, you get this warning when trying to run CM: By default that protection should be off in Windows Defender. But some high security and/or privacy settings turn it on. When turn the protection off, the issue goes away.

I went to try it on my laptops and forgot I haven't installed them because I ran out of activations last year. Might have to bite the bullet and get a couple more. If I can get it running, I'll play around with settings for Win10 and Defender and see if I can break CM.

Hey Erwin, Saw this on the CMO forum at Matrix... "I believe I have found the solution after doing some deep research and testing. It basically comes down to Windows Defender and a section of it called Controlled folder access. To navigate to it, simply type defender into the search bar, click windows security, scroll down to ransomware protection, click manage ransomware protection, then disable controlled folder access. I have tested this numerous times and I am now 100% sure this was the problem. You might want to add this to your help section :)" He was having issues with CMO starting. No one else was having the issue. I suspect it has something to do with Windows Defender and maybe default security or privacy settings. Its either something got changed by the user by accident, a new deafult setting for Defender, or some combination of general security or privacy setting. Maybe that helps.

Is that on topic? And really...explain how I was supposed to know which statement was me to interpret?