Kevin2k

Quick Battle map: Village (624 X 784) 257a1.btt has no terrain objectives. I suppose at minimum it should have 1 blue terrain objective, for the scoring system.

Yes it sucks, and I hope one of these days auto-mix force selection can actually be trusted to make for an enjoyable game. But for now it is like this, as written earlier in this topic already: *start quote* Yes, obviously for some factions this is mandatory. *end quote* Never seen that before. weird.

Yeah that is a never ending loop indeed. Funny.

Ah. The difference is that with a 'tiny' force the AAV formations are never selected. With a 'small' or larger force they are. So when testing such the force size has to be considered.

I cannot really determine from your screenshot. But I do know there is one typical thing about some CM updates: The setup extracts some data from the setup executable and after that it copies any .brz data files that reside in the same folder to the destination. OR it copies just anything that resides in the same folder to the destination. So if the upgrade patch is NOT started from its own subfolder, you can get the situation where it starts copying things that nobody intended to get copied.

Nice find! Indeed when looking the ground-mini tiles, like a 64x64 pixel one, it seems to hold a pattern of 4 by 4 tiles of 16x16 pixels each.

Another bug about US infantry: US infantry seems to have at least three detail-levels, in their 3D models, and the second detail level is bugged. The soldier's feet are tied together with some bad polygon or something. In other words: when you look at these soldiers from an intermediate distance their feet are like an oversized brown patch.

Let me add this example: In CMSF2 Quick Battle I was flanking the main enemy force (computer) on the side of a hill. Now the enemy force was also split without my knowledge, and enemy vehicles came over the top of that hill, onto my position there: Surprised me. Caused havoc. But the computer then drove these vehicle 30 meters further and waited there with their backsides facing the survivors of my force. My survivors could acquire some AT weapons and finish them off one by one. AI plan was to go to that spot apparently. It found that spot more important then my survivors. I don't really expect scenario designers to be able to solve such. It seems more like the Tac AI is reasonable when troops are in a position, as it considers nearby cover and opposition. But when moving between positions the computer's behavior about that movement is simple minded: Keep going and shooting until dead or until you can't take it anymore. Would love to see that aspect of the AI get smarter. Would also love to get the auto mix force selection get smarter. Glad to see the v4.03 patches finally making the Engine 4 Tac AI on defense get smarter. I suppose it is all about when the programmer has the time, skill and inspiration to attend to it. But then smarter may also mean more complicated, more entangled and therefor prone to undesirable side effects; bugs.

Here are some links. The first one; "QB map pdfs", is just that. Previews of the stock QB maps. The other links below contain posts were MarkEzra explains things concerning the Quick Battle system and its maps. MarkEzra created and converted most Quick Battle maps in the Combat Mission games. Finally, here is small table I made outlining the different game and map types in Quick Battles. Tiny quick battle CMFI v2.02 total points of both sides = 2347 or 2348 Attacker Defender Meet 1174 1174 Both sides have similar setup zones, Terrain / casualties VP ratio = 400 / 600 Probe 1389 959 Attacker setup zone is way smaller, Terrain / casualties VP ratio = 500 / 500 Attack 1442 905 Attacker setup zone is way smaller, Terrain / casualties VP ratio = 650 / 350 Assault 1496 851 Attacker setup zone is way smaller, Terrain / casualties VP ratio = 750 / 250

Good to have that in proper perspective. And glad to hear that the Italy base game was a success (commercially I assume). Seems it makes for three winners: Battlefront for a successful game, The investor for eventually getting 3 Italy based games instead of 1, and the normal customers for also being able to play all of those for customer pricing.

Yes, obviously for some factions this is mandatory.

Darn. Now I find the game still does this very regularly. Fielding loads of AAV's without infantry.... Confused...

AFAIK QB plans are more limited then what is available for scenarios. As Mark Ezra explained a while ago, and as I found out by making a QB map: You can lay out plans of successive objective areas for the computer force. I would say for a good map you would need at least three different sets to keep things unpredictable. In the QB the computer force will follow a random set. It will also randomly decide to follow the set as a whole, or stop and defend an objective halfway through. The computer can also randomly decide to split forces and have each group take a different set.

Interesting fact indeed. ( I remember such a funding arrangement being behind another game: a WW1 flight sim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Eagles:_The_Great_War_1918. ) The timeline of release suggests this funding was for both the CMFI Base Game and Gustav Line as well. But I am wondering whether or not the Rome to Victory module was still related to this funding, or was it Battlefront's own initiative to complete CMFI to the end of the war?

I played about a dozen or more scenarios as well, and maybe one CMSF1 campaign back then. No PBEM though. All good stuff anyways. It is just my personality that I tend to put my time and thoughts in these sandbox-type randomized games for now. At least it is relaxing. Maybe it will lose its appeal when I figure the computer out, to such a point that I always win. But I am not there yet.

Mystery Novels sounds good. I never played CMx1, now maybe I should... I play CMx2 Quick Battles mostly. There is no way to really replay a game there, unless you save it beforehand at the start. So on my next try I will use the same map, but will just let the computer opponent pick forces randomly again and deploy them differently. I guess that is only fair, because knowing everything beforehand is not quite right either.

Since the above mentioned issue was fixed so nicely. Maybe have a look at a similar thing for the UK forces. It is not as bad as the it was with the US Marines faction, but the game logic spends like 90+% of its points on scimitar recon vehicles in 'sabre troop' armored formations. With QB auto mix force that is. For now I just have to enable 'human' selection of forces and click 'suggestion' until the sabre troop entries diminish.

When terrain modding CMSF2 I accidentally dropped in some tree models of Black Sea. Result with that was: no trees in CMSF2 at all. This made me suspect this: That the trees in CMSF2 are the old CMSF1 models and that they are incompatible with the usual tree handling of the later games. It is just a suspicion. But it would explain that there is no easy fix for the tree display modes, since it would require adjustment of all the tree models in CMSF.

Any news on this one? In CMSF2 I cannot use the tree display mode 'only trunks nearby, full foliage in the distance'. While that display mode is available and working in all the other CM games. It is like that in the current release CMSF2 2.04. It was also like that in the initial release v2.00.

Note that I am not advocating a public bug tracking system. Don't really care about that. But what I find really questionable is that whenever a bug is reported by an ordinary forum user, and there is a reply with a request for a screenshot or save file. Then that ordinary forum user cannot directly attach it due to the forum policy on attachment sizes. For me that means I will explain a bug in writing no problem, but principally will not put in any effort to transfer any image or save.

Can you attach such screenshots directly to the forum here? I am still in the stone age with a 2 MB total upload limit for for all posts combined....

Nice to know. What is the reason to conserve this difference among titles? I would think with the E4 upgrade, they could have chosen the optimal size compromise, and just apply that to all the E4 upgraded games. I suppose the 16x16 tiles are the washed out terrain for in the distance. Though I remember it sometimes renders all terrain 'washed out' for a brief time, whenever there is a framerate hick-up or something. Sounds like manual mipmapping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mipmap.

Thanks akd!

I loaded up a saved game. Retreated all other units to prolong the mission. Seemingly delaying the enemy surrender another 12 minutes. But at the end no reload of that .50cal MG was done.

That vehicle has room for three people, but only two were inside.