Any tips on how I should play CMSF?

[HintJ]

I've been playing a good bit of CMSF lately. I'm discovering ways to increase my enjoyment. My point here is to ask if anyone else has personal techniques for further enjoying the game.

How I like to play currently:

I play in realtime w/the game paused maybe 95% or more of the time.

I use a gamepad (yes, like as in Playstation) w/a free version of Xpadder to reprogram the interface. I do this to limit my control inside the game, like in *Iron Man* rules. For example, I play nearest to the ground view as reasonable, and while the game is rolling, my point of view is fixed (tabbed) to the last unit I selected, and I cannot give orders; I can only look around and zoom from a single unit's view.

If I want to give orders, I must pause the game. Then I have free range with the camera and menus, but since I use "Iron" difficulty, if I want to select a unit, I must click thru a series of units w/contact, starting w/a command unit. If I accidentally deselect--and thus reveal too much info on unit locations--I quickly hit a hotkeyed F12 (select last unit) so I don't get much of a chance to look around.

I keep a notepad listing all my units, by name, to keep up with them and remember what is going on. While paused, I like looking around from each unit's point of view. It's like reading a book. I takes me forever to play a game, but I must admit, I love the C2 and relative spotting.

Maybe someone has a suggestion that would even further increase my enjoyment?

[Michael Emrys]

Here's a hint: Don't start two threads on the same subject and with the same title. The mods don't appreciate it. In fact, I can't think of anyone who does. Since you are new here, I apologize if that sounds harsh, but it's just a simple fact of life.

Michael

[Waaarg]

IDK if its possible to do on thread creation, but this sure looks like the double post was an accident.

[HintJ]

Here's a hint,

Oh, I hope it pissed the mods off! It would give me an opportunty to explain the problem.

Which is: I have to log on five or six times sometimes just to post, and a double post is a result of this.

I would apologize, but I think not. I love the tone this is taking. I've never been in a flame war, so lets go! Lets get this character Moon involved, who, by the way, is a significant reason why I haven't spent one penny on the development of this game since the original overpriced release!

Yeah, Michael Emrys, thanks for demonstrating a tone that has led me away from this game (along with a broken laptop) for a couple of years now.

I thought the genius of my original post would shine through. Oh well, your loss.

[undercovergeek]

wow - that went tits up fast!!!

If there was a pop corn chewing 'here we go' smiley - id have one right now!!

'Moon character' - lol

[LJFHutch]

I thought the genius of my original post would shine through. Oh well, your loss.

I got your sarcasm, though I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve.

[G B Scurlock]

Hey..well said buddy.

[Wicky]

wow - that went tits up fast!!!

If there was a pop corn chewing 'here we go' smiley - id have one right now!!

'Moon character' - lol

[undercovergeek]

i bow to your superior smiley knowledge Wicky - thatll do just fine

[HintJ]

I got your sarcasm, though I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve.

What I'm trying to acheive, is to learn about ways others play the game, so that I can increase my immersion, and thereby my enjoyment.

I'm not here to flame the game. I really am having some satifying time w/the current version, but I have adapted my playing style. I suck at realtime, but I think a full minute is too long for Wego.

I was just wondering if anyone else here plays by certain *self-imposed* rules or techniques to increase enjoyment, like the old "iron man" rules for CMBO.

[undercovergeek]

What I'm trying to acheive, is to learn about ways others play the game, so that I can increase my immersion, and thereby my enjoyment.

I'm not here to flame the game. I really am having some satifying time w/the current version, but I have adapted my playing style. I suck at realtime, but I think a full minute is too long for Wego.

I was just wondering if anyone else here plays by certain *self-imposed* rules or techniques to increase enjoyment, like the old "iron man" rules for CMBO.

i think from what youve said youre getting a lot more involved than most players - i think.

I dont point my troops at waypoint a and say go and dont get immersed, dont get me wrong, but at no point is there notepads, pens and ground view searching ro contact points - i play wego by the way

[scottie]

wow this is like watching a fight during school days , seriously though we are all adults here, no need for handbags. Most people on this forum are educated and have an open mind , im sure if your complaints are structured you will get some good responses to your issues.

[Moon]

Which is: I have to log on five or six times sometimes just to post, and a double post is a result of this.

There is no reason to log in so often. Once is enough. Here is how:

1) Use the login in the upper right hand corner.

2) If you log in at the login page (where you are redirected to after hitting the New Reply or New Thread button), then:

- enter your login details and submit

- if the page reloads and shows you the login window again (and you seem to not be logged in), click on the "Battlefront Forum" link in the top left corner. This will load the forum main page and will show you correctly logged in.

There seems to be some kind of redirect bug in this version of vBulletin which reloads the login page instead of sending you back to the thread. I will add a FAQ entry about it.

MoonCharacter

[hoolaman]

It just so happens that I just finished playing UK Sabres at Dawn, which our great Paper Tiger recommended to play in something like Iron mode and RT. It's the perfect battle for RT, but being too strict on Iron rules is unrealistic in itself and not very fun.

I played it in this way, playing Iron Man but not being too stupidly strict about it, and kind of roleplaying the various HQ units and not gameishly checking the positions of the enemy. It was the most fun I've had in CMSF for a long time. I haven't really played through a full mission in months.

I lost btw, but mainly through running out of time.

[Eagle2]

ack to the thread. I will add a FAQ entry about it.

MoonCharacter

Haha, just made my week:D Thanks for your hard work Moon

[MikeyD]

What I'm trying to acheive, is to learn about ways others play the game

I'm thinking of those people who claim total victories on missions that I struggle with. I sometimes wonder if they play the game significantly differently than I play, too. I notice the personality types those who just play for fun, those who play for the realism, then there's those who play to WIN! - Win by any means necessary. I gotta admit those dudes scare me a little.

[stikkypixie]

I play with restricted suppressive fire. I let my guys shoot at buildings where I suspect enemy units may be. But if one of my squads get ambushed by an enemy unit in a building, I will try to resist the temptation to have all my other guys spam that building until they get a contact marker.

But why on earth would you want to play with an gamepad? It's great for some games, but for CM??

[Erwin]

To learn the game it may be best to NOT start at the hardest level and in real time. Suggest you pick an interesting scenario and play it vs AI in wego. Save often. When something goes wrong, restart the saved game and try different things. Do that a bunch of times and you will start to acquire an intuitive sense of how the game system works. When you are good at it, only then try the higher difficulty levels.

[Federico]

Hi, when you say we go you mean real time right?

Tks

[HintJ]

I'm thinking of those people who claim total victories on missions that I struggle with. I sometimes wonder if they play the game significantly differently than I play, too. I notice the personality types those who just play for fun, those who play for the realism, then there's those who play to WIN! - Win by any means necessary. I gotta admit those dudes scare me a little.

For me, the experience is key, not really winning all the time.

For example, it is very satisfying to ambush Strykers, and then have the dismounting infantry get hosed down by a PK machinegun laying low nearby.

I also enjoy the sense of confusion. If I simply wanted to win, I would do everything to reduce the confusion, and kill the entire purpose for playing--at least from my point of view.

[HintJ]

I play with restricted suppressive fire. I let my guys shoot at buildings where I suspect enemy units may be. But if one of my squads get ambushed by an enemy unit in a building, I will try to resist the temptation to have all my other guys spam that building until they get a contact marker.

But why on earth would you want to play with an gamepad? It's great for some games, but for CM??

Personally, I love gamepads. I hate console gaming systems, but I love the gamepads.

I use the D-pad as W-A-S-D, the right stick for mouse and look around arrow keys, the start button for pause, the select-TAB, etc. I can lay back and play. I still use the Mouse and keyboard, but I can program the gamepad to restrict what exactly I can do.

For those familiar w/the "Iron Man" ruleset for CMBO, a player would be limited to certain keys. With a programed gamepad, these keys can already be set, and with practice become second nature.

I also use Glovepie for voice commands and custom Macros.

And Federico, I play realtime with the game almost constantly paused. It feels almost like a turn-based game. On larger maps I can easily spend one hour looking though the details on each unit for five minutes of realtime.

Perhaps I'm mildly autistic, but so what? This game is fun for me.

I also appreciate the other info so far from others as well.

[LJFHutch]

Right ok, I was thrown by your second post.

Personally I love just watching things unfold, that's what I do most of the time: set up a scenario in the editor and then just see how things play out, occasionally nudging my guys around to keep things going. I've always played on Iron too. I set up a rough approximation of the battle of 73 easting the other day, trying to get it to play out as close to the real thing as I could, got pretty close which was cool

I'm interested in the whole voice commands business though, how do you do that? I tried a while back with ArmA2 and [name of program forgotten] but couldn't get it working.

[Alan8325]

Winning all the time is easy! First, start the the scenario, save, and then immediately hit cease-fire and this will show you all of the enemy positions. Take note of where all the most dangerous bad guys are, like ATGMs, then reload the setup save and use artillery to blast those positions with pre-planned strikes. As you progress through the scenario (playing in RT), make sure you save the game just before issuing every order so you can take it back if you want. The more different saves you have, the better so you can go further back in time if you need to. Also, feel free to hit cease-fire at any time to see where enemy movement is and to check damage.

I don't really play like this but you really can scale the difficulty WAY up or down in this game.

[HintJ]

Right ok, I was thrown by your second post.

Personally I love just watching things unfold, that's what I do most of the time: set up a scenario in the editor and then just see how things play out, occasionally nudging my guys around to keep things going. I've always played on Iron too. I set up a rough approximation of the battle of 73 easting the other day, trying to get it to play out as close to the real thing as I could, got pretty close which was cool

I'm interested in the whole voice commands business though, how do you do that? I tried a while back with ArmA2 and [name of program forgotten] but couldn't get it working.

Well, let me first say that voice commands in CMSF seem rather superflous, since pressing hotkeys or the spacebar is quite convienient already.

I use Glovepie. I used to use a program called Shoot, but on my new laptop, Shoot isn't working right.

Something's wrong with the Glovepie homepage. It seems someone violated terms of service or didn't pay for the website hosting. You might have to look around the internet to find a 3rd party site hosting Glovepie.

There's some decent tutorials on youtube, for example:

I

[HintJ]

Also, with Glovepie I'm currently writing a script that attempts to make a *sticky selection*, which means I won't be able to de-select units. In iron mode, if no unit is selected, then the human player gets a borg-like view of the game--I think this is cheating.

I've also de-activated the ordinary use use the = and - keys, which I consider a cheat also. In other words, if a unit (group of units) becomes isolated from the commanding unit, they are lost! Interestingly, if a commanding unit gets isolated, nobody can be selected!

I'm thinking about using Glovepie for radio simulation. For example, I have a unit that I want to instantly select by radio when I say "Come in Bravo two," or whatever. Then I figure how many times the = key should be pressed to select it, and have Glovepie press the = key that many times when it hears me say "Come in Bravo two." Once selected, I could also have Glovepie playback a sound (.wav file in the Glovepie folder) that says something like "This is Bravo Two," or whatever.

That way I could send a recon unit ahead and lose normal contact, but select via vocal commands simulating radio contact.