Hi Everyone,
I thought I should finally inform the community that I am taking a step back finally from the mod's community.

This may be no surprise to a few, and may indeed be met with 'Good riddance' by most.

I look fondly at the distant past when members like Jumjum and Pajama Shark and Coca-Cola were the sort of fun forumers you could run into, and banter was sharply witted with running gags and a strong community spirit.

Von Mudra was the assertive one, believe it or not -- Lobo was dictator, Flippy Warbear burned people with his dry wit or a subtle but firm paw, and Dream-crushing was Lightning's magic.

When we made strides by maverick ideas alone to keep singleplayer alive and indeed get it up to being a respected part of the game. I may have only contributed in concepts and connections, but I was happy, and honored to have had a role (albeit minor) in.

I still see Typhoons fire rockets, Stuka's dive with horns blaring, tanks fire on the gallop and artillery plaster targets well out of visual range, and think "This was our finest hour"

I wish I had gotten out then, or perhaps when JumJum did. When Filefront collapsed. Perhaps the community, and especially the veterans, devs and beta testers would still view me as an informed contributor to the Game community.

you might still see me ingame as I still believe Forgotten Hope to be my favorite game of all time, and a thing of pride I was glad to have been a part of.

But after 10 years in the community, I don't have the nerves I once did, especially with the subtle and not-so-subtle racism. I fear I've becoming something of a curmudgeon among the community and time has marched on with me. 

I wish the younger, up and coming fans and players all the best in cultivating a vibrant culture and community I once enjoyed so much in times past. Let comrade veteran such as my friend Hetzenhauer take you under their wing. They'll give you a helluva squad game, I assure you.

There's no glorious last battle left to ride into and die in. So allow me to fade away like a warhorse put out to pasture.

Your Faithful brother in arms,
Djinn

Ever jumped on a server and realize your team is mismatched?

It usually starts with entering your first battle to realize that your side is on their last flag or take a defensive map and see your lines fold quicker than you can spawn.

If you answer yes to either of these, then you, my friend, are in a mismatch and you are on the side of the significantly more n00bish team.

Expect to see squad leaders who either ride around in an airplane, sit on mortars, spend the entire round waiting for the one super weapon in the main base or spend more time dead than alive.

More than a 3rd of the team are either new to Forgotten Hope or aren't sure what the buttons do, and haven't figured out that they can free-look in their spanking new Panther tank to prevent enemy infantry tossing explosive charges up their ass.

So is the situation hopeless? Do you need to play 10 matches before enough people leave and enter the server for things to matter? Are you doomed to have a bad playing session?


No.
Victory depends on you as much as it does on everyone else. And here's how to make that count:

1. Join the one half decent squad and play like crack troops.
You can find the decent squad by one of these:
- They are usually the ones using VOIP.
- Their squad leader is numbered and can be seen clearly holding the line while the rest of the flags around you are switching to enemy colors.
- Their squad remains at about 6 - 8 people. Because even n00bs get tired of following selfish or incompetent squad leaders, so while other squads keep being born and shriveling down to 0 squad mates over and over, this squad remains at decent count.

Now you've found the one decent squad. Join them as early as you can before someone else fills their ranks, and protect their squad leader long enough to matter. Be in front of him, and remain aggressive. Don't fight from his position, but create a defensive ring between the enemy and him. Choose the kit that is lacking in your squad and make it count. Be it an mg, an anti-tank kit or scout smoke.

Sometimes, the squad needs your advice. Try to get them to plug the lines. In a mismatch, the losing team is often doing one thing: Funneling their entire army into a bottleneck. Everyone is being reactive and attacking the most obvious point. The enemy is doing the less obvious thing and capping your tank  spawns, taking your flank flags and hitting you from multiple sides. Get your squad to be the monkey wrench, and blunt the enemy's strategy long enough for the coiled spring of your team to reorganize and start pushing back.

2. Give your team a rifle, one bullet, and point them the right way
Sometimes in chat, you'll see some really n00bish questions about how stuff work. You'll note a lot of TKs by your overly-eager artillery crew, and a lot more TKs from S-Mines.

For point A, Give people pointers on how to switch ammo on tanks, how uncommon weapons work. you'll be amazed how effectively people start to respond to enemy threats if they just knew what they were doing wrong.

For point B, give your arty team a decent spot away from your axis of advance, but of tactical value your efforts, have them sell that. Also, tell them to cut out artillery fire when your team is close to the flag they are shelling.

For point C, inform everyone what the skull and crossbone markers are so they avoid mines. Also, chastize mine users who put mines in stupid locations, like right at the spawn, or in commonly traveled areas by your own team. While many may be smart to crawl past a stupidly placed mine, like warfare, we are talking logistics. And scouts need to appreciate the fact that their mine needs to be safe for up to 50 other people, so one can't expect everyone to deal with a mine that is in the path of everyone.

Final note:
Find Team-killers (Tker) and out them ASAP.
Sometimes, one TKer is bad enough to prevent mates using crucial tanks and assets in the rear, or simply reduce your momentum by having people re-spawn over and over instead of actively fighting the enemy. If there are admins, report them over and over until they are kicked. If not, you may have to deal with them yourself... As a law-abiding player, I can't tell you to break the Law, but all I will say is, let your team know what they are doing, and calmly disorganize them... Many will get the hint and stop, or lose interest and quit the game.

It's not an ideal situation, but even if they turn on you for a while, at least they are not disorganizing the whole team.

I feel the current (and classic) Forgotten Hope background has become something of white noise.
Back in 0.7, I could get caught in seeing the whole video just to get myself in the proper state of mimicry
before getting ingame.

Now, it doesn't relate much. Partly, because it doesn't show what REALLY happens in FH2.

I feel with so much HD videos out now, higher resolution on most computers and a clear scope i.e. North Africa, Mediterranean and Western Europe, we should have footage from that arena, with focus on those from exact battles we capture.

We have Omaha, Gold beach... I think these could have some really epic footage we can put in, and lose the naval scenes altogether.

Also, perhaps we can try one of these songs,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nk4SGh9aJ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uye00xO9ZQo


Or for something faster, more epic, there's that theme from Battlefield 1942's Secret weapons of WWII, which is excellent mood music as you load up.

I think this could breathe some minor, albeit appreciated new life into the packaging of the Mod.

anyone know of some pack or patch that provides AI for maps like FH2 Midway and Seelow heights?

I once played all these on a sever side mod but the guy wasnt sharing the code. Any idea if there is one out somewhere?

Call this arrogance, but I feel that playing with certain individuals I keep meeting on the server allows us to have some really good squad play and this is lost to the rest of the Forgotten Hope community.

What I'd want to do is get volunteers who can record the game as we play so we can upload a series of our exploits on Youtube.

Choreographed gameplay and random funnies is good and all, but I'd like to contribute squad play videos.
Anyone know how to record ingame action from various perspectives, let me know and we can look to the coming weekend for a pilot.

I hope this gets stickied up eventually. What I want out of this thread is a running conversation about the highlights of the week on public servers.

Such as,
Which squad OWNED and how?
Which map was totally epic and how was that?
What exciting odd job did your squad get up to?
Who were the most notable players?
What were some frustrating scenarios and maps? Not the usual suspects. I want the specifics for this weekend.


So I begin.
Sadly, didn't note any outstanding players because I didn't play long.

Interesting yet frustrating scenarios were on Omaha, where I enjoyed my first ever first wave attack, and Tunis, where we quickly and coordinately took bases all the way to the market, then stalled at the last flag,
With squad leaders too excited to cap the final base and leading from the front into lafette mg fire OR like my particular squad leader, who had done a stellar job creating a forward spawn on the enemy flanks, decided to..., I dont know, go for a sandwich, and just lay in a door war, allowing us to spawn only one at a time, and watch our bleed from 450 down to 120 before we decided to create a new squad.

And yes, I TKed the guy before I created the new squad. im not proud, but at least I got him out of the doorway.m

On Omaha, it was similarly different. We captured the attack points easily enough, but seemed to run out of ideas capping the secondary bases and kept up the same failing tactic until our numbers run out.

Honestly, that map is easy once you stop the initial mgs, but there needed to be a clear strategy on a squad level that was lacking this time.

St. vith had a similar scenario. Can't understand why some squads just get created, have some odd guys milling around somewhere else instead of following the squad's attack, then when its time to repel the enemy they are standing in the rear contemplating their navals or something.


Odd jobs.
I had an interesting job on the 1st half of El Alamein, following my squad leader as a scout. We laid in the thin brush calling arty on Kidney ridge and spotting tanks until our armor coupd stewmroll the hill. It was like clockwork. The jerries did give us a bit of trouble taking the hill with infantry but calling in smoke and HE finally prevailed.

But like the past maps, our squad then decided to just stand around on the hill doing god knows what...

I faced a new experience today,
Where a guy trying to get the mortar from me would come up to me with a Gabeltladung as though he were going to drop it. I realized soon though, that he had no intention as he didn't want a negative score or to be kicked from the server.

After his action had no effect, he decided to simply lie on top of the mortar so i couldn't fire it.

I thought it was childish and figured he'd leave eventually, but he must have remained for 15minutes real time, till the map ended.

In the next map, same dude would follow me everywhere completely oblivious to dying, me TKing him or anything. Just getting in my way and preventing me from being useful on the map where ever he could.

And making a stupid snide comment anytime my name popped up.

Annoying as it was, the worst of it was someone deliberately preventing you from enjoying your time online.

I actually got kicked once for Tking him each time he succesfully get me to leave the mortar and he immediately jumped on it.

Is there any way to deal with such people?. His name, if anyone is interested, is Doctor Funkenstein.

This is one of those more controversial subjects that the community is very much divided on -- And there have been FH2 developers who believe this is nothing more than fiction.

Here's why I believe FH2 works, and how to use it more.

Assume that at any given time on the server, one side is better than the other; altered only by how well that team plays in attack vs. defense & the turnover of players.

To balance the odds, one must use teamplay.

Some basic tips in this respect:
Boycott squads where it is clear the squad leader is a n00b, or spends more time dead, manning a one-man vehicle or doing absolutely nothing of importance to the general strategy.
This forces the team to organically-reorganize itself into squads that have good or at least decent squad leaders, who lead from the rear, position their squads to make a contribution to the team effort, and are likely to base their squad's action on what the team is doing.

TAKE AWAY
- Good squad leaders lead from the rear, or at least manage to stay alive and push forward so their squad can.
-A player leading a squad with apparently no concern for being a mobile spawn, whether of not his squad can spawn on him/ her, and if the squad knows what he's about is usually either a n00b or someone not interested in squad play... So why waste a potentially-fun session of FH2 running alongside such a person.


There is a front. It's area transcended by the forward-most bulk of the enemy force(Isolated lone wolves don't count as they serve no strategic purpose).

Once you realize there is a front, you should next realize that front needs to be held and extended into the enemy domain. There is usually the main brunt of the enemy attack, where most of the squads are trying to push their way into your lines. Naturally much of your faction will react to counter the main brunt of the attack. Having your squad join the frey head-on simply adds to the bottleneck and frag-fest, in which individual player skill matters more than squad tactics-- And winning the skirmish depends more on  luck, and hoping your squad has better players than the other side. Under these conditions, expect to die often and for with least provocation.

The smarter alternative to this sort of game-play, is flanking and tactical use of weapons and positions. FH2 is all about logistics, and larger strategy. While dying you will, your ability to die less than the enemy and hence prevail is based on maneuver and position, (even if you don't realize that's what's going on) is what wins the day.

-If a squad remains to the flank of the main enemy advance, and can pick them off almost without becoming the main focus of the entire enemy force, it manages to weaken the enemy's attack altogether.

-If a squad holds a defensive position with good firing positions that overlook much of where the enemy can advance from, it depletes much of the enemy, and more importantly, their will to advance on that position. By comparison, a squad caught out in the open doesn't last long, and matters little to over-all strategy.

- Keep the defenses repaired and in position. Make sure each side of the defense is protected by enough people to push back the enemy or stop them in their tracks. Keep AT mines in positions and replace those that go off in order to deny the enemy a chance to flank you. Fix AT guns and mgs and keep varying weapon types defended by others e.g. An mg position needs to defended on the flank by infantry. AT a better positioned to the flanks, not the front of advancing tanks etc.

-If the enemy is manning a strong point, like the 20mm flakvierling on Point Du Hoc, it is stupid to attack enmasse in one direction. Recognize where the main attack is, and move on the flanks. Granted, you might be dealing with enemy on your own flanks, but move quickly, as they won't expect a serious attack from that side and will be focused more on trying to get to your main force, which they can hear and likely have already faced. Get to the flanks and destroy that hard point, allowing your main team to use that amassing of numbers to punch through the enemy.


Most players are logical people, so strategy against them is based on this.
If an enemy realizes they are dying meaninglessly against a position, eventually they will either change attack or bleed their side.

After any given attack to take a position, expect a counter-attack, because players will almost always counter-attack to take back a lost flag. After taking a flag, you are usually at your weakest, waiting for squad members to spawn and other squads to reinforce the area by spawning or using that safe route.

DO NOT move into the enemy right after an attack or you will be obliterated by an enemy, probably reinforced, and hence the newly captured flag vulnerable. Instead, dig in and blunt their counter-attack.

You can tell when their attack has failed, because enemy action would be in drips and drabs rather than full squads and armor. At this point, the enemy attack has been blunted, they have lost the initiative & it is your turn to take the field with a now reinforced squad.


FINALLY
Remove deadly enemy threats BEFORE dealing with the rest of the enemy force. If there is an mg present. Take it out fast, or it becomes a fire base for advancing infantry. This isn't neccesarily coordinated, it is simply the facts of warfare. While an mg is picking people off or preventing them from fighting more boldly, the enemy gets an advantage and will likely be moving forward under that mg fire.

The same goes for tanks. Remove enemy tanks fast, before infantry amass around it, using it as a rally point or worse, a base of fire to move in.


If this isn't proof enough that teamplay and tactics do exist in FH2, I don't what else is.