Lots of Combat Mission News

[junk2drive]

BFC has announced an Italy version of CMx2 with an upgraded 2.0 engine, pay for upgrade to CMBN, East Front and Modern in the next 12 months and so on.

[LongBlade]

Sweet!

[Sir Slash]

WAHOOOO... X-mas comes early! Thanks for the heads-up.

[MikeGER]

... with an upgraded 2.0 engine

Great 8)

J2D, THX for the head up  :)

[MengJiao]

... with an upgraded 2.0 engine

Great 8)

J2D, THX for the head up  :)

It all looks pretty promising. 

[undercovergeek]

modern day NATO sounds promising

[Grim.Reaper]

wow...what a surprise...can't wait.

[ArizonaTank]

It's not Russia....but oh well.  Interesting it is a stand-alone.  And using a new 2.0 engine....

From Moon's post on the forums:

"So, what does this mean in concrete terms for you right now, playing Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy and enviously gawking at the Combat Mission: Fortress Italy feature list? It means that once CMFI is out sometime in August, we'll work on an Upgrade 2.0 for CMBN. You will be able to buy this upgrade (the price is not yet determined), install it and voila, you will have Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy v2.0!!! The upgrade will automatically work for the base game and the Commonwealth module."

[GJK]

They're going to nickle and dime every little "update" now, aren't they?  Wise move I suppose after they realized how they gave away the house with CMBO/CMBB/CMAK that covered entire fronts in one package.

[MarkShot]

So, what is CMx2 v2? I am still playing CMx1 v2, myself.

Speaking of nickel and dime. So, what's its going cost to own all the CMx2 WWII stuff?

[ArizonaTank]

They're going to nickle and dime every little "update" now, aren't they?  Wise move I suppose after they realized how they gave away the house with CMBO/CMBB/CMAK that covered entire fronts in one package.

So I noticed that the Brits and minor allies are absent from the force listing for CMFI.  So if BF think they are going to sell me a Brits expansion for CMFI, after I have the one for CMBN....they will have gone over the line in my book.

Of course if the game engine wasn't so darn good, I'd flame all over the place and walk off in a huff.  As it is...compared to my recently acquired Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) habit, CM is still relatively cheap. 

[Nefaro]

So...

What, exactly, would be the advantages of "upgrading" (aka purchasing) a 2.0 update?

[MikeGER]

So...

What, exactly, would be the advantages of "upgrading" (aka purchasing) a 2.0 update?

CMx2 Game Engine v2.0 Upgrade features

These features are part of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy, and will also be included in the 2.0 Upgrade for Battle for Normandy! And we're not talking some measly bug fixes, these are features often requested by the player community. Without further ado:

Game User Interface Improvements:

- Waypoint dragging. A waypoint can be clicked on and moved by dragging it to a new location.

- Hotkey Unit Groups. Select units and assign them to number keys for quick navigation during gameplay. To change the camera's location press Alt and the number of the group you want to navigate to. The camera relocates and the highest level unit of that group is automatically selected. In Iron Mode, only HQs can be assigned to hotkey unit groups.

- Grouped Spacebar Command system. Instead of getting all of the commands in a big list when the Spacebar is used, instead you get four groups of commands: Movement, Combat, Special, and Administrative. Selecting one of these presents the Commands specific to that Commands Group. The existing graphical Commands Panel now mimics this same behavior. This new feature not only makes it easier to find the Command you're looking for, and keep straight which ones are can be co-assigned to a Waypoint, but it also allows for more than 9 Commands per Command Group (a v1.0 limitation).

General User Interface improvements:

- New Load New Game dialog screen. The list of scenarios can now be sorted by size, length, or alphabetically. Details are presented in text form instead of icons.

- New Saved Game dialog screen. The list of scenarios can now be sorted by newest file, oldest file, or alphabetically. You can also filter between single player saves and PBEM saves. Save games can be deleted from this screen instead of having to flip back and forth between the game and your desktop.

- Visual Hotkey binding. A new dialog allows you to specify and view key assignments. Players can still manually edit and exchange Hotkey.txt files as before.

- Special Equipment icons enlarged for better readability. The enlargement reduces the number of icons from 12 to 6. Multiple items of a single type of equipment are now represented by a single icon with a number specifying how many of that item the unit has.

Editor Improvements:

- Auto-Assemble linear terrain tool. Roads, walls, fences, and hedges can now be automagically drawn across the map instead of placing them one tile at a time. The old manual selection interface still exists to allow tweaking specific Action Spots.

- BMP map overlay. Instead of having to create game maps by freehand you can now trace over a real world map within the Editor. Four different levels of transparency make the process easier by adjusting for different needs as work progresses.

- More AI Groups. The number of AI Groups available has been increased from 8 to 16. This allows for greater fidelity of AI Plans and their assigned units.

- Copy and paste AI Plans. Create a solid AI Plan, copy it, and paste it into an unused AI Plan slot. Once done the copied Plan can be modified to make a unique variant without having to build the Plan up from scratch.

- improved terrain elevation/contours, smoother and more intuitive.

Gameplay improvements:

- Target Armor Arc Command. Instructs units to engage only armored units within the specified arc. As with nearly every Command, outcome varies greatly depending on unit quality and battlefield conditions.

- Target Briefly Command. Tells a unit to fire all it's guns on a designated spot for 15 seconds, then cease fire. Conserves ammo and reduces the need for player management when short suppressive fire is the desired outcome.

- Expanded floating icon categories. New unique icons have been added for Ammo Bearer, Recon, Engineer, Air Controller, LMG, Light Truck (Antitank), Light Truck (Heavy Weapon), Light Tank, Tankette, Infantry Gun, Shelter Bunker, AT mines.

- FoW floating icons. FoW floating icons. Instead of getting a general area "?" icon and then immediately progressing to an accurate 3D representation, now there is an inbetween stage where you get a icon that represents the general category of enemy unit and no 3D representation. This tells the player "you know roughly what the unit is, but nothing more specific than that."

- Canister rounds. New game code properly simulates these special anti-infantry munitions. Although not very commonly seen, they are extremely effective when used properly.

Multiplayer Improvements:

- Pausable RealTime option. A player can request a Pause and, if the other player agrees, the game is Paused until both players request an end to it. Pauses can be "Playable" (Commands can be issued/modified), "Viewable" (navigation is allowed, but no Commands issued/modified), or "Locked" (no navigation, no Commands issued/modified). The different pause types reflect the different reasons for requesting a pause.

Graphics improvements:

- Improved rendering. Normal and Bump mapping allows for more texture detail while using less system resources and improving the pressure on framerates.

- Expanded Soldier details. A completely new way of assigning models and textures allows greater flexibility and variety of how Soldiers look in the game. It also allows for more flexible Modding possibilities.

Last Updated ( Friday, 22 June 2012 )

i underlined my favorites 

....and if its worth to buy the 2.0 update, i will test in the Italy stand-alone game released in August
(i hope its not the end of that month ;-) )

[Grim.Reaper]

Well, they got me to pre-order again:(

[jomni]

Keep it coming.  I'm still waiting for the ultimate bundle.  That's how I got CMSF.

What does modern mean?  Isn't CMSF modern?