quakerparrot67

I hope 'ire and rubble' was a deliberate cheeky play on 'fire and rubble' and not a typo. Either way, you should keep it that way.  

on the lookout !!!

super !!!

I've got permission from BFCElvis to post about something a little to the side of this content.
Fixing the Hedgerow Bug
It's perhaps most prevalent in CMBN given the abundance of hedgerow maps/scenarios but applies across all titles for infantry behind hard cover. You may have noticed my Green troops in this battle have not been running away or into the streets towards the enemy during these firefights with the Soviet infantry.
This whole DAR has been using a version of the F&R beta that includes some tweaks to the TacAI to address infantry bolting from cover when coming under small arms fire. Infantry that come under small arms fire are more likely to seek cover and 'cower' rather than displace, even when pinned/rattled. Infantry are more likely to bolt when under attack from high explosives... (which let's face it makes sense. )
The changes I've noticed:
- It becomes very hard to dislodge infantry already set up in a building or behind a wall. Even when you lose LOS/LOF there's a good chance your opponent is still there. (I've joked it's going to take naval shells to dislodge Veteran troops).
- Getting the jump on the enemy while they are moving / before they are set up and ready to seek cover still causes morale to collapse very quickly. Case in point: like when most of my Pioneer platoon evaporated under SMG fire within 30 seconds.
- Infantry taking persistent casualties will still suffer morale damage over the long term. Like my Volkssturm surrendering after a solid five minutes of constant rifle fire back and forth.
- Expect longer drawn out firefights in urban and hedgerow maps. That also means watching those ammo counters more closely.
- High explosive and flame options just became a lot more valuable in urban combat. Close quarter AVRE or M12 GMC anyone?
 
Still being tested and subject to change but there are positive signs among the beta testers so far.
All for now.

The reason of the lack of response is, because we are speechless!
 
I think it is well made. Good work!
 
I wonder, if it is possible to issue special wishes....(for uniform mods...)

Ah, Berlin Alexanderplatz, fighting in the streets where Franz Biberkopf once trod. For younger readers, ask your Media Studies teacher.

LOL! Thanks Rob. Sorry about that man! I knew I was onto something when I started tweaking the bocage. When I got fed up with that not giving me the results I wanted I moved to the trees, then flowers and weeds - starting to sound like a child of the 60's ... oh wait I am a child of the 60's. All this nature has me wandering around maps looking at the scenery and admiring the view now. 
I'm going to release this in a couple, possibly three weeks. I have about half of the doodads left to work on for the general release, then I'll probably do a few extras like crops and such for a second pack. I am also thinking of doing some ReShade ini's for various climatic conditions. The one I use at the moment is a kinda sunny hot dusty look, quite harsh light with some atmospheric bloom and distant haze, along with some DOF effects and framing for the screen shots.
 
Thanks Harry. I test this without ReShade as well to make sure it's gonna work, the colours are quite strong, but that's what I see when I look at nature, it's definitely not washed out in our cooler northern climes. Actually I test it with your excellent tweaked War Movie shader much of the time, which saved me a bunch of time trying to reinvent that particular wheel. That is partly where I started from with this mod, and why ended up with no social life at all! 
I've been occasionally following along the amazing things that @Aquila-SmartWargames has been up to with 3D models and did wonder if there was something I could do with the bocage. When I've released this mod pack I may download Blender and see what I can do with it, though to say I'm a 3D virgin is an understatement, it'll be a steep learning curve fo' shizzle.

Thank you kind people! I'd be really happy to get this to you all tomorrow, but alas it's a bit of a slog trying to correct some of the oddly distorted original textures. I had to get a calculator out and exercise my maths muscle to figure out some of the strangeness. I guess that @Battlefront.com had their reasons when the game was released, but I think with modern PCs, GPUs,  CPUs etc we can afford to push things a little.
@3j2m7 pretty much most evenings now I find myself wandering around the battlefield looking at the view, fighting just a distant memory ... the calming effect of nature no doubt. That and being locked indoors for several months pining after a vista or two.
The hit on your GPU is only really felt if you go the full monty on ReShade. With most of that off these textures are not too heavy. They are mostly enlarged to 250% of original scale (don't ask why 250% - I don't know anymore why I chose that odd number). My gaming PC is fairly modest, just an i3 9350KF and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660, couldn't justify much more and I only play CM. With the heavy effects like DOF switched off in ReShade the game is perfectly playable. I'm going to release a few ReShade ini files for different conditions and I'll try to optimize what I can with LUTs to help with frame rates. Otherwise, a tweaked WarMovies shader like @RockinHarry's or @CarlWAW's also gives good results. I design my mods on an iMac - my work machine - and they work well in game on that as well. My main grumble is the way that the Radeon GPU / Apple handles things like mist / rain / snow - simply not as good as the Nvidia GPU in my PC ...

Hello together!
In this screenshots it looks like the members of the Volkssturm are wearing their armbands as cuffs.
I am very sure that the men of the Volkssturm were marked with a moveable armband that could be slipped over every coat or jacket and it was worn on the upper arm for better visibility. -> Like today's captains in a football/soccer team. It was not a tightly sewn cuff/bracelet like e.g. with the SS uniforms. Here are some photos, that support my statement:
https://imgur.com/WTLCT1S
https://imgur.com/qvNtDAr
https://imgur.com/yZ7ay4S
https://imgur.com/V7ejAX1
https://imgur.com/kgpmlAK
 
 

The Eagle has landed. I repeat: the Eagle has landed. 😀

Sent to Bootie, finally.

 
 
Goumiers Mod Readme
Goumiers Mod for CM Rome2Victory.pdf

Very nice job MJ this mod is a must in CMFI,  we cannot download at the moment the real one but soon... the pictures are saying already a lot, I like very much the job from the typical sandals and the mixed helmets, this give a touch of reallity,... impatient to donwload it !
Pity, that this mod slept so long on a hard drive forget...
! !   but now now all together from the forum  ! !
Bootie bootie bootie... ! !

Thanks Fellas, I'm actually happy with this one as well. I'll be working on modding the US and British into goumiers so that you will have a lot more scenarios to use them in.
One thing I forgot to mention in the Readme regarding mod tags: although as stated I didn't use any of my own mod tags in this mod (I will use "goum" when I do get around to adding them),  I did use all the default mod tags BFC uses  for the faces (skins),  because without doing so, I couldn't get my skin  mods (bareheaded and with turbans) to show up in Quick Battles. 

Spent hours yesterday squashing bugs, or rather, finding the bastiges. Don't ask.  Doing the readme and the marketing photo-shoot this morning, and should go to Bootie this afternoon--well, by midnight, anyway.  I will see if my Dropbox can hold it and if so will put it up there for a few days while Bootie gets it sorted. 
See why BFC doesn't give us availability dates, lol?

This weekend for sure. I sort of went the way of BFC with CMSF2 and Rome to Victory and kept adding options, tweaking bits and pieces, or finding new ways to do things at the last minute. I decided to use tags after all, but still need to check all the texture names, tweak a few more textures, and we’re good to go. I mean it this time, lol!

As we eagerly await the coming of CMFR, here's a quick status update:
I'm picking up the project again after a super-long break and am pecking away at what I can do without the new module materials. The later release date means that I may or may not make release of my project in 2020. My hobby time is much less than it used to be, but I'm still hopeful and dying to get this baby out. Currently, I'm focusing on updating all the building internals to what I have identified over time as the best design for tactical play and user-friendliness. I'm making good progress there. I had forgotten how detailed some of the early pics I posted were, and so have decided to go ahead and post a current shot of the master map from the same angle as that which started this thread. Enjoy. 🙂

Hey @RockinHarryman where can we have yours textures, these pictures is wonderfull seem so real  like in " the Pianist" movie this is the Berlin aspect that I would like to see in the new FnR...

Hey guys, the uniforms and other stuff are done, but due to RtV naming/tagging conventions and general overload of uniform possibilities, coupled with the effect on uniform selection due to weather and time periods, I need to spend some quality time on figuring out how best to package everything. This is what I've been dreading all along. Without boring you, simply put, the djellaba is just a modded greatcoat, and greatcoats only show up in winter months, and depending on French, US, or British ones, certain time periods. So I need to think this through, especially because I made various options for weapons and helmets, etc., which adds more complexity.  Btw, I don't intend to use tags, cuz then you'd have to go into the editor and put the tags in yourself for any scenario you'd want to play. Anyhoo, I should have everything sorted and get this to Bootie by Sunday.
My head hurts.

I am surprised the Syrian version of Slim Pickens wasn't riding that bad boy.
 
Mord,

Great video .... Thank you for sharing.
it seems that the map can be printed - that a feature I would like have in an easy way - bouth for set up  and during a game.
 
best regards 
Morten
Copenhagen - Denmark

Why is the Matrix/Slitherine logo shown, but not BFC's?  I know the dstl have worked with the Command devs at Matrix for a while now.  Just seems weird they show all CM clips, but no mention of BFC.

The bug is known and has been addressed. A fix will be released when the fix is tested thoroughly and is shown to work. Said testing is currently in progress. 

The project is now LIVE at CMMODS IV.
Darknight's CMBN Magnum Opus

I've been doing a lot of playing around with the AI recently, and I thought I'd bore you all, and insult the developers, by describing what aspects of the AI I think work well, and what could be done to improve it.
A: Static defence
Firstly, in certain respects, the AI works extremely well.
For example, the simplest way to set up an AI plan in an attack/defend QB situation (Probe, Attack or Assault), which is the type of game I play the most (and therefore the type I am most interested in learning how to produce), is to set up several AI groups, and for each one paint the entire defender setup zone (or a big part of it), and then select a different behaviour for each group...
For example:
- group 1, ambush 1000m;
- group 2, ambush 300m
- group 3, cautious
- group 4, normal ...and so on
In an attack-defend scenario, this will give you a very good static defence, and with a suitable map, will give you a fun and challenging Quick Battle. The AI will allocate the groups very intelligently and will create an integrated network of defensive positions, there may be interlocked fields of fire, AT guns will be well sited, avenues of approach will be covered, and it may place units as bait. It seems to have an excellent 'understanding' of the relationship between terrain, objectives and setup zones.
It's incredibly easy for the map designer and works very well. As a map designer, it will also surprise you. Since all you're doing is painting big swathes of the map and inputting the full range of behaviours, you can happily play QBs on your own maps without any foreknowledge of what the AI is likely to do. Marvellous.
For years I avoided using the AI, because I thought the map designer had to think out all the strategies and (a) I wasn't confident in my strategic skills, and (b), what point would there have been when I wouldn't be able to enjoy the maps myself, knowing in advance what was going to happen?
But I was quite mistaken about just how sophisticated the AI is, and how easy it is to use.
If you do something as simple as this:

...you'll get a really good defence from the AI, but it will be a static defence.
 
B: Responsiveness
Planning an active defence, with displacement or counterattacks, or a realistic attack, is far harder. With QB maps, I've seldom seen either one work well. Occasionally they're quite fun and somewhat challenging, but most of the time - with QBs at least - an attack plan or active defence is a turkey shoot.
The reason for this, and the area where I would like to see improvements is in the AI response, or lack of response, to the actions of its opponent.
I have read comments over the years that programming a truly responsive AI is a Holy Grail that is more or less impossible, but (and this is the point at which I insult the developers), I wonder perhaps if that is true.
I can see the reason why it is so hard...
Imagine a map of 2000m2 - that's 62,500 action squares (250 x 250).

To calculate, at the level of the action square, what was happening on such a map (lines of sight, lines of fires, enemy presence and so on) would involve around 62,0002 or nearly 4 billion combinations of action squares - once a minute or more often.
But if the AI were to react in a more general way - say perhaps it 'observed' enemy movement on the level of 5 x 5 action squares...

A 2000 m2 map would comprise of 2,500 such 'AI action acres', which would mean around 6 million combinations to calculate approximate LOS and LOF.
Given that the AI does such a fabulous job on static defence with the under-the-hood algorithms it has, if the AI were just to react in a general way to the presence of enemy troops on an 'action acre', in a similar fashion to the way it incorporates objective zones and terrain in a static defence (seeking to mass fire on the enemy for units designated 'active', or backing away from massed enemy for troops designated 'cautious, perhaps), you would get a fantastic responsive AI.
The AI already has the capability to produce interlocking fire, keyholes and so on, but it would then be orienting these towards the player's units. Major movements would still be provided as an AI plan by the designer, but the AI would no longer be operating blindly or by clockwork.
In fact, seeing how well the AI produces an integrated static defence with the simplest of designer plans, it only needs to respond fairly generally to the presence of enemy units - anything more would be too much. If the AI were to continuously respond to enemy movements down to the level of the action square with the sophistication it uses to produce static defence, the game would become too difficult to play.
 

Good thing about these is they can get wet and still work, and they never suffer from bad batteries. 

What you get when you set your equipment quality to Poor.    (Because this is the internet -> That was a joke).