IICptMillerII

As I mentioned before it might be best to try contacting BFC via private means about this first. After all at the very least it can't hurt. They probably are quite busy with the various things they're trying to get out the door right now, but I'm sure they would be willing to look into this once they get a chance, and if not have a good reason as to why. In the meantime are there any additional details you can tell us? For instance is SEOW only for the Eastern Front? Could it be used for the modern CM games or just the WWII ones? I watched the demonstration video of the integration with Iron Front and thought that it looked great. Hopefully something good will come of this for CM!

As far as I know, yes. I downloaded the new CMBN demo in order to play it with a friend and tried loading a US Infantry skin and it worked no problem. Same procedure as with the full game. Make a Z folder in the Data folder and put the mods in there, then load the game. Worked for me

This looks like it could have amazing potential. If someone were able to get just the map generator working with CMs editor it would be fantastic. If its really as easy as you say it is to integrate the SEOW system with CM, then it sounds like a good idea to me. Not sure if Battlefront has seen this or contacted you yet, but I would recommend emailing them about this. I've heard that they are very good about responding to emails from customers, and it may be best to discuss this with them via private messages first. Just my two cents. Looking forward to seeing what happens!

You know this could be a good idea. A friend of mine let me try out this game and it looks like it has a lot of potential. It does cover from WWI to modern (~2010) if I remember correctly. I know for a fact that there are a ton of WWII, 1980s cold war, Arab-Israeli wars, and modern wars in the Middle East, from the First Gulf War to OIF in 2003. There are also a handful of fictional what-if scenarios that look really cool as well, such as another Arab-Israeli war in the mid 2000s. Unfortunately for me, the version of the game I played was quite dated (none of the newer patches were applied) and the interface was dreadful to say the least. For those that think the base CM interface is bad, TOAoW III will break your soul. However I still think this could be worth looking into for the modern CM games. Maybe, just maybe, by the time you get around to pumping out your 1980's cold war game, Battlefront will have made CM Fulda Gap! I can dream can't I?

Damn is this a cool screenshot! It really makes the Panther look like a scary armored behemoth, and there is little Pvt David with his sling. Awesome picture!

These screenshots of the North Africa mod are fantastic! Keep em comin! Really love the feel they have. It doesn't look like a sloppy reskin at all, rather it looks like the closest thing we are getting to CM Afrika Corps for the near future.

@choppinlt The tag worked this time! Really liking the video presentations! I think they're a great way to show off all the progress that has been made in a neat little package. CMPzC is a very good system to use in the meantime while we await Theater of Operations. When ToO comes out I think it will be the best system for WWII. However we still don't have anything for the modern CM titles. I'll give Vassal a try again as well as look around a bit more for another possible system to use. @Stele's system for Vassal looks very promising. If anyone else has any ideas for the modern titles, let us know!

This looks fantastic! I especially like the thumbnail picture for the YouTube video. Really captures the feel of North Africa for me. Well done! I'll be giving this a chance as soon as I am able. In the meantime, where are the other community members screenshots? Post em up!

Apologies all for the late response, I've been travelling. @Stele The system you made in Vassal looks pretty good. I think for the WWII Combat Mission titles I'll stick with PzC as it is a completely pre made system with beautification mods and all, as well as complete OOBs already cooked up. However I think that your Vassal system has a lot of potential for the modern CM games. As I mentioned earlier I've been looking for a way to simulate an operational level in CMSF and CMBS. If you ever end up making a Vassal system for those games, please let me know! I would be very interested in seeing it and I'm sure others here would be as well! @choppinIt I have been very interested with what you're trying to do, and I've been following the project for some time now. I would love it if your project comes to fruition! I'm mostly interested in how your game and CM integrate, so I've mainly been following the updates via the CM forums, although I have visited your forums before. I'm pretty impressed with the progress you've been able to make with limited resources and funding. As I hope you can tell from this and other threads here on the CM forums, there is interest in your idea. Be sure to keep us posted on any progress you make! @kohlenklau I've spent some time lurking on the FGM website before. Lots of great info and AARs there, for CM and other titles as well. In ever did find any posts on how to go about putting on an operational level game (nuts and bolts stuff) but it seems like a great resource nonetheless. I'll have to ask around there and see if any of the systems they use there can be used for the modern CM games. @SLIM I've thought about using HOI in the past but I think it's just too big. HOI is very much a strategy level game, and while it does have some operational level aspects, I think it's scale is just too big. I also looked into using the Gary Grigsby games, but I ran into the same problem. However, I did find that these large scale strategy games can be great for giving you viable alternate history scenarios. For instance, to create my CMPzC scenario for Sicily I used HOI to simulate a what if, where Germany had more manpower to spare in 1943 and decided to fight it out on Sicily instead of conducting a fighting withdrawal as they did in reality. I'm very pleased with the scenario so far. I think that scenarios that occur in HOI could be great inspiration for creating operational level scenarios in PzC. Plus, with the excellent editors present in both PzC and CM, and crazy scenario you cook up in HOI can be easily translated to PzC and CM (granted they fit the correct TO&E and timeframe) I'll encourage those of you who do create operational scenarios (by whichever means you prefer/are able to make work) to post some of the results and happenings from those scenarios. When I return home I'll be sure to snap a few screenshots of my Sicily operation and share them with everyone. My main inspiration for actually getting my hands dirty and making my own scenario was reading through the excellent CMPzC threads here on the forums, headed by the great Kohlenklau. Plus, it's really cool reading through what others have done and seeing it all play out!

If you'd like, post up your results! I've looked around in the past for a way to simulate an operational layer for the modern CM games and dabbled with Vassal a bit but as I mentioned before I couldn't seem to get it to work for me. I'm still looking for a way to make it happen for the modern CM games, so if the system you made in Vassal is working for you then maybe it'll work for CMSF/CMBS. I'll be sure to let you know! I know that there are still some CMPzC campaigns being run right now on the forums by Kohlenklau, and there are more campaigns coming in the near future. They're always recruiting for various positions, so give em a look!

I believe I understand you're question. What you do is, when making the tactical battle in the CM editor, set the headcount to the percentage shown in PzC. So for instance Company A/1/115th Inf Rgt was at 88% strength after the battle. So for the next battle it is in, you set it to 90% headcount in the CM editor. The reason it is set to 90% is because the CM editor goes by percentages of 10, from 90 to 50. You have to round down or up depending on what percentage strength the unit in question is at. So, where it says Headcount Full, simply change it to 90% or whatever percentage your unit is at. Trying the Mius 43 demo sounds like a good idea! I think CMRT should have all the equipment that you'll need for that. I know that CMRT can be used for Kursk reasonably well, so you shouldn't have any significant problems. Let us know how it goes! As always if you have any more questions feel free to ask!

As I've stated earlier, PzC meshes extremely well with CM. This means that the terrains, units involved, scenarios, and game mechanics for both compliment each other. Primarily, the scale fits, they are both realistic aimed games, and they both have powerful editors that allow for creating custom battles/scenarios. For me the only real drawback of the Tiller games is that there isn't one that covers any of the modern conflicts covered by CM. There are Tiller games that focus on more modern warfare (Modern Campaigns they're called, 3 games about a Cold War gone hot and 1 covering the Arab Israeli wars) but none that cover either Syria in 2000's or Ukraine post 2010. I tried using Vassal to simulate an operational layer for CMSF and CMBS but I didn't have any luck with it unfortunately. I would recommend giving it a try yourself, especially if you have some experience using Vassal or Cyberboard. Theoretically you could create an operational layer by just having a hex map and unit counters and leave all the mechanics up to CM. Let us know if you come up with anything!

I haven't used Panzer Battles. If I remember correctly Panzer Battles Normandy was just released a few weeks ago. Just from looking at screenshots and such, it looks like it would work. The scale is more fine (appears to go down to the platoon level) but all the other base mechanics and such seem to be the same. So you could probably adapt the CMPzC rules to it rather easily. I imagine much of the rules would carry over. If its what you prefer theres nothing stopping you from trying it out and making it work. As Blazing 88 said though, there are much fewer Panzer Battle games that cover a lot less of the war at this point. One of the benefits of PzC is that there is a game covering every major operation of WWII in Europe, so you can play any CM game alongside its corresponding PzC game to have an operational layer. With Panzer Battles you are limited to Normandy or Kursk (which can be kind of simulated using CMRT) One of the problems I see with using PzB is the scale. Because its more fine (PzC is 1x1km hexes. I don't know what it is in PzB but I know its smaller. 500x500m?) you're going to find that you'll have to fight out a lot more battles in CM, and that you'll need a lot more maps. You'll either have to create a bunch of custom maps, or make a master map of the area you're fighting over in PzB and then cut the map down for specific battles. I myself am starting to run into this issue in my Sicily campaign in PzC. Anyways I hope that helps. I understand that the Tiller games can present a financial issue. At first I did not believe they were worth the asking price for what I was planning on doing with them. I can tell you however that it was worth it for me. Aside from just being an operational layer for CM, the Tiller games are a lot of fun to play on their own, and the OOBs that they come with are very comprehensive and can be a lot of fun to pour through. Quick example, Audie Murphy's unit (Company B, 1st Bat, 15th Inf Rgt) is present in my Sicily campaign. Company E, 2nd Bat, 506th PIR (Easy Company) is in PzC Normandy. There are of course other famous units as well. I think its really cool seeing how these famous units fit into the whole picture of the war. And as mentioned previously the Tiller games come with OOB and scenario editors which greatly increases the value in my opinion. I'm sure the PzB games come with similar functionality as well.

Good point Michael. A little more digging got me this: Gives good descriptions as well as shows that the font itself changed a bit, 832 being a good example of that. Also seems to give a font, under 745. DIN 1451 Font. Here's another image that comes from Flames Of War: I used this image of a Tiger Tank: to look around on dafont.com and I think I might have something that could work: http://www.dafont.com/stencil-cargo-army.font?text=231&af=on&back=theme It lacks the outlining that seems to be somewhat prevalent, but otherwise I think the font is pretty close. DIN 1451 seems to be on dafont.com as well: http://www.dafont.com/hun-din-1451.font (There are two samples, but one of them seemed rather squished so I went with this. A simple search will get you the other if you want to see it though) Let us know if this works!

This looks fantastic! The image evoked some flashbacks to Call of Duty 2, the North Africa missions with the British Army. Good times... Can't wait to see more of this. Keep up the good work!

I did a little bit of digging for you and while I wasn't able to find a specific font used by the Germans (the reason I kept reading was because the numbers were hand stenciled on, and changed a lot as the tank transferred around between units and such) I was able to find these two websites that might help you: Downloadable German Fonts: http://www.germancorner.com/fonts/ More German fonts with examples: http://www.morscher.com/3r/fonts/fraktur.htm Hope this helps! Note: I did not download anything from these sites, so I cannot confirm if the downloads work or are virus free.

Definitely do! Just be aware that CMPzC is a big time sink, mostly because its loads of fun. Once you start, its hard to stop. "Just one more battle..." No problem! As I said I've yet to give Command Ops a try, and I've never heard of anyone using it as an operational layer for CM, so your work was cut out for you if you went that route. As an added afterthought, there are some great texture mods available for the PzC series of games. They overhaul the UI graphics as well as the map itself. I personally prefer using the mods because I think it makes the game look less dated (the vanilla presentation is very Windows 98-ish) and the map has better detail when you zoom in. For future reference, here are the links to the two websites where you can get the mods: MapMod: http://mapmod.hist-sdc.com/ Volcano Mod: http://www.volcanomods.com/ There are some alternative OOBs and scenarios that come with the mods as well that are fun to play around with.

Thanks MikeyD! I know I read you giving this analogy elsewhere on the forums and thought it was perfect, but I couldn't remember where exactly on the forums I saw it. My bad on that one. Regardless whether or not you think the controls are good or not, they work for the majority of people here who play CM and are not a reason not to play the game. If they can learn/use the controls and enjoy the game, why can't you? +1000 In all seriousness, I completely agree with Baneman here. The whole point of CM is for it to be a tactical level simulation of combat. This meaning that realism is at the core of what makes CM what it is. Arguing against this in any way is useless. If you have ever taken a debate class in school or otherwise, you'll know that you cannot debate the Constitution as part of your argument. Consider realism to be the constitution of CM; its not debatable. If this analogy is lost on you, I apologize. My point is that CM will always be a realistic game at its core and no amount of debating that on the forums is going to change that. As far as the rest of this review goes... where is it? At this point all you've said is that the camera controls could be better and you would like tooltips in the game. Two things many others want added/refined, including myself. But you have yet to really review the parts of CM that make it what it is. Its representation of combat, the physics behind it, the spotting mechanics, the damage model mechanics, its presentation and atmosphere, etc.

As I stated earlier I have not gotten a chance to play Command Ops2 so I'm not sure of its full potential. However having played and learned the CMPzC system I can say that I have no reason to look elsewhere. CM and PzC mesh extremely well, and you get everything out of each product. There is little extrapolation or abstraction required. Plus, the technical bits really are quite simple. As I said before the only real hassle is choosing a map and setting up the battle, but I imagine this would not be an issue if there was some kind of random map generator included in CM, and its also worth pointing out that a master map can be made of the whole area of operations, and then cut down into chunks for the battles. This is how Kohl has been doing it with his CMPzC series here on the forums. Lastly, it will be a lot harder for you if you decide to try and develop a whole new system for a different operational game, because you'll have to pioneer the entire thing from scratch. One of the best parts of CMPzC is that there are already a handful of people who play it, know how it works, and have proven that it works and its fun to play. I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't try another system, or that CMPzC is the end all be all, just that its probably going to be the best place to start. I would recommend giving the CMPzC system a go. I think you'll find that its easy to learn and once you get the hang of it, you won't be disappointed or feel its lacking in any major way. If you have any more questions about it feel free to ask!

First off, I think its worth pointing out that most strategy games nowadays utilize an FPS style control scheme where the player manipulates the camera using the WASD keys and the mouse. World In Conflict, the Total War series, and the Wargame series to name a few. Personally I prefer this method of camera control. Many others seem to as well, because if they did not the control scheme would not have been used by high profile 'mainstream' RTS games. The only thing I would change about the way the controls handle in CM would be to refine 'looking' (pressing and holding right-click and moving the mouse around) to be more smooth and responsive. I'd also like to rebind that to middle mouse button, but I'm not sure if thats possible. (If anyone knows, let us know!) Regardless, this is a very small gripe on my part and in no way affects my play or how I feel while playing. I mostly play WEGO, so I can spend all the time I want pausing and rewinding to find a good angle, and for those that play real time, they can pause as well. So for these reasons its not really an issue, more a preference. Lastly, there are a lot of reasons why many people do not want to sit down and play CM and would prefer to stick to their 'mainstream' RTS's. If CM had the greatest controls and interface in the world, I don't think you would see a massive boom in sales or CM propelled to "most played strategy game of all time." Many people are turned off by the "hardcore realism" of the game, and the extent that everything is modeled. I'm personally fascinated by all the stuff I still learn as I play, but most people want to be able to watch a YouTube clip of some gameplay, blow through a 4 minute tutorial and know everything there is to know about the game. Plus, anyone who is too lazy/unable to learn the controls are going to hate CM anyways. I can hear the screams now; "Why do the Germans have so many MG's?!?! Its impossible to beat this mission cause my guys just get pinned down. I quit. Too hard." In another thread somewhere on the forum someone compared it to driving manually vs driving stick. CM is a stick shift. Most people don't like driving stick because its not as mindless as automatic. Thats not a slight against those who drive automatics (hell I'm one of them) but a simple analogy meant to illustrate the inherent difference.

Glad I could help! Hopefully it doesn't come across as too intimidating or anything like that. It really is a simple and easy to use system once you get the hang of it. I've never played Command Ops2 but I've been thinking about getting into it for some time now. The reason the Tiller games work so well is because of the OOB and scenario editors, and the scale that the game goes down to. Without the editors I'm not sure how you would be able to use CM for tactical battles, but then again I'm not even sure if Command Ops has editors or not. Would be worth looking into however. Maybe someone with some experience with the game could chime in?

I'm in agreement with PhilM and would recommend you just go ahead and dive right in. Without sounding like too much of a fan boy, in my most humble opinion CM is unmatched by anything else out there. Based on your stated background, CM sounds like exactly what you're after, and mucking around with anything else in order to 'build up' to CM is just selling yourself short. The only real caveat to CM is that I would not consider it a 'casual game.' Its not the type of game you come home to after a long day of work and just 'turn your brain off' to. In fact its quite the opposite. Not that that is a bad thing, just a fair warning that if you are hoping for some mindless entertainment in a genre you are interested in, then CM is not what you want. But if you know that you want a high fidelity, thinking mans simulator of tactical WWII combat (and modern combat, they have that too) then there is no equal to CM.

Part 2: Combat For simplicity sake, I'm going to use the scenario I made and showed above to illustrate how combat works across Tiller and CM. Company A/1/115th Inf Rgt moves down the road until it bumps into an Osttruppen unit (1/Ost.439) however the company no longer has enough movement points to assault. I end the US turn, and for simplicity sake during the German turn, they decide no one is moving or firing at anything. So the beginning of turn 2 looks like this: You'll notice that company A now has all of its movement points back and is ready to assault. Company A assaults the Osttruppen, and the battle begins. Before we can dive into the CM side of this, we need to take down some important details. The hex coordinates of the hex being assaulted (shown in the bottom right) the type of terrain (shown in the upper left when the hex is selected, under the unit portrait) the units involved and their status (who they are, how many men do they have, their quality/current state of morale/fatigue) including any fire support that is in range and you decide to commit to this battle. The final bits of info are the time and date (shown in the lower right hand corner) and the weather conditions, which is shown by clicking 'Info' at the top and then 'weather.' Once this information is collected, you can jump into CM. In CM the hardest part of this process is finding/creating a map that will work for the battle. If you want you can make the map yourself in the editor, or you can find a QB map that is a close approximation. The latter is the method I would recommend for now. For this battle I chose the QB map called Attk Large Open QB-015. Once you know the map you simply orient it correctly (US attacking from West to East) create the set up zones and place both sides down on the map. For this battle its relatively simple, just a rifle company per side. Remember that Osttruppen were of very poor quality. I set their morale to low and their experience to conscript. Remember, this scenario is not meant to be challenging, its supposed to teach you the ropes. (Note: For Osttruppen I like to use the Grenadier Ersatz, but you need the Market Garden module for these units) One last point, if you decide to commit your howitzer battery to this fight, then go ahead and add 12 105mm howitzers to the US side as well. If you use them in the battle, then they will not be able to be used in another battle this turn. Now that you have the battle set up, you finally get to the good part and get to play it out! (Note: I find that its easier to just play the battle in Hotseat against yourself than it is to bother with creating AI plans) I don't recall the exact numbers off the top of my head, so I'll make up some battle results here: US suffered 8 KIA and 14 WIA - Ost suffered 27 KIA 38 WIA 8 MIA. Again, for simplicity sake we are going to just add up the casualties for each side so we have a simple total to deal with. So company A suffered 22 casualties total and the Osttruppen suffered 73 casualties. Note: I would highly recommend using this battlefield career recorder to track casualties for a scenario you play out: http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=2990 Its really cool seeing the data as the scenario plays out. There are other recorder programs you can use but they're more technical. This one is more than adequate. Thanks @Ithikial_AU ! Translating casualties from CM to PzC is a bit technical, but is easy to get the hang of. The first thing you want to do (and should have already been prompted to do) is save the PzC battle. Call it something like "My CMPzC Test Battle" or something else that you will be able to instantly identify. You should now have a save file in your PzC folder called My CMPzC Test Battle.btl. You now need to convert the .btl file to a .scn file. The good news is all you need is Notepad ++ (free for download if you don't have it already) Open the .btl save file with notepad ++ and simply Save As "My CMPzC Battle Test.scn" and you're all set. Now, open up pcedit.exe (the Tiller editor located in the main folder) and scroll all the way to the bottom of the scenario list to find your save file. Open it, and use the editor to subtract casualties from both units involved in the battle, as well as to move the Osttruppen out of the assaulted hex and move the US into the hex. Simply save the file and close the editor, then head back into PzC Normandy and open the battle back up (via the scenario selection menu) and you'll see all of your edits have taken effect and you can continue playing! Hopefully this quick and dirty run-through is enough to get you and others interested acclimated with the basics of the system. Once you get the hang of it it is loads of fun, and you can start making your own house rules to fit your style of play. If you have any questions please feel free to ask! Also just want to give a bit shout-out to Phil (Kohlenklau) for getting me started, and the other forum goers who helped pioneer the system!

No problem! This will be a rather rough crash course, so if you would like anything clarified please feel free to ask! To start I would begin here: https://sites.google.com/site/cmpzch2hoperations/home This is a sort of rulebook that was made a while ago by a forum goer that I used as a primer to get myself acclimated. Note: Some of the rules listed I discarded/tweaked and some of the information is dated (specifically how to track casualties) Despite that, its a very good place to start as it lets you understand the general idea behind everything. After you get a basic understanding, you'll want to decide which theatre of battle you want to participate in. Are you fighting to get out of the Normandy beach head? Maybe you're part of Monty's drive on Caen. Sicily, Italy, Normandy, Holland, the list goes on. Choose whatever suits your fancy. After deciding which Combat Mission game you want to be using, its time to find the John Tiller game that covers the same events. For instance, if you decide you want to fight it out in CMBN, then PzC Normandy '44 is the Tiller game you want. This link will bring you to the John Tiller website where you can view and purchase the game of your choosing: http://www.johntillersoftware.com/ Just be aware that each Tiller game is in the ballpark of $40 USD. Now that you've chosen both the CM and Tiller game, you'll want to learn the basics of how to play the Tiller games. Luckily, its quite simple. I was able to pick it up pretty quickly, and they are pretty fun to play on their own. Now its time to marry CM and Tiller. The Tiller games are optimal for this marriage because each game has a lot of overlapping depth. The hexes in the Tiller games cover a 1x1 km chunk of ground, which is a perfectly sized battlefield for CM. The units represented in the Tiller games are small enough to fit the scale of CM. You generally are working with Company sized units across the board. That unit size also translates perfectly into CM. The biggest mismatch I've found is that the OOBs for CM and Tiller are slightly different. For instance, in CMBN an American Rifle company is 160 men all told. In PzC Normandy, the same company is 193 men. This discrepancy exists for most company sized units unfortunately and requires some minor OOB tweaking. All the Tiller games come with both a scenario and OOB editor, so its relatively easy to do, just a tad tedious. However, you do not have to modify the OOB for the first test run you do. I would recommend learning the ropes first as is, and once you get the hang of how it works you can edit the OOB to be a 1:1 match with CM. If I were you, to start I would chose a small scenario that ships with the Tiller games. Something that is roughly 10-12 turns long and only has a handful of units on either side. This will make things more manageable. One of the great things about Tiller is that you can play both sides of the battle. This is especially useful for testing things out. Here is a very small scenario I used as a test when I started out: It involves a few companies from the 115th Infantry Regiment (29th ID) pushing their way Westward towards Isigny. They have 1 battery of 105mm howitzers as fire support, and are opposed by a few Osttruppen companies. (Note: This was one of the first scenarios I made for Tiller, and its lacking a few things, such as objectives for either side) The goal of the scenario was for me to figure out how to move my units around, how to initiate combat, and how to fight out a battle in CM and then translate over the results of the tactical battle to the PzC Normandy scenario. These scenarios are extremely easy to make using the Tiller scenario editor, but if you would like I could provide you with this or another simple scenario. This is a brief overview on how Tiller and CM line up and the general idea behind CMPzC. In my next post I'll show you how combat is done.

This might be able to hold you over until BF gets around to it: Check out the thread. Its come a long way in just a few weeks of work. There are screenshots and a video or two and it looks fantastic. I believe it also covers Operation Compass (Italians vs Brits - If I remember the Op name correctly) which sounds like exactly what you're looking for.