willbell

Looking for an intermediate level opponent for CMBN email games. Looking for smaller scenarios to begin with. Thank you, Will

I know, just wanted to throw my two cents in.

PBEM question: A But I would be crying, beating my fists on the screen, nashing my teeth. I couldn't read all the posts for the same reason I have to play PBEM so this might be repetitive. If you could just include being able to save the turn as an email type file I would play by posting it on an ftp site. Man, I can't wait for this game!

An operational level multi-player is not impossible. But it is a whole "nuther" game, with CM as its base. Along the line of Sag2's suggestion. I have confabed with some programmers and the idea is imminently doable (unfotunately, they are all working on other blue sky projects that they find more interesting). The toughest part is setting it up taking into consideration that you can't get a bunch of players to be all playing at once. But that can be dealt with using a GM type campaign AI. Notice that I never used the word easy.

As if all there is to CM is waiting for the next iteration! The last six months have been the greatest CM experience I have ever had. It's about playing the game, and who you play against. Guess what, I haven't played all the scenarios, or levels yet. Where is the last one? When looking at the volume of messages on this board I sometimes wonder what the focus of this group is, talking? Nothing I've seen out there comes even close to CM when it comes to the gaming experience. It's all just dressed up Unreal Tournament! Or even worse, a hex and counter game. When I watch the Band of Brothers game movie clips with infantry fighting at ten paces and blood gouting from shoulder wounds I realize that what we have here is FPS tournament designers that have decided to put on fatigues. I have given Steve some of my thoughts on what CM2 might have that would be cool, as have others. Now it's time to let the cooks do their magic. My bet is this, it will knock your socks off. And I'm ready for it, when it comes.

A proceedural, or algorythm (snicker) texture is one where the program uses fractal algorithms to create textures. The simplest is where you fill a certain space with one color, say green. But by using fractal algorthms you can generate cool, kind of psychadelic, patterns. By experimenting with various variables they have hit upon certain patterns that look like grass, rock, cloth, etc., textures. Then you apply these to specific places on your model. The advantage is that you don't have to have a library of model specific pixel art, which takes a lot of memory. You just have to run the algorithm on a certain spot on a particular area when needed. Not to throw a damper on your enthusiasm, but graphics like this don't impress me relative to CMAK. When they can do it on an entire battalion in motion in real time, on the fly, then I will be impressed. But as far as FPSs go, it's pretty cool.

Well then, it's aonther vote in support. Unfortunately, although I am an avid CM player, love the game and like to contribute ideas, I don't have the time to read all these posts. I'm just lucky to be able to keep some games going.

This has probably already been mentioned, so I'll throw in another vote for it. An expanded briefing where you can put in images and maps, make the whole briefing experience richer and more creative. After all, if it CM was just about the technical aspects of battle tactics they wouldn't worry about the cool graphics. But those details do matter, and I think a richer briefing would add to the CM experience.

This has probably already been mentioned, so I'll throw in another vote for it. An expanded briefing where you can put in images and maps, make the whole briefing experience richer and more creative. After all, if it CM was just about the technical aspects of battle tactics they wouldn't worry about the cool graphics. But those details do matter, and I think a richer briefing would add to the CM experience.

I would also like to repeat here a suggestion I had in another similar thread, just to make sure it gets out there. I would like to see a larger group game available, perhaps on a web site. It would be a larger campaign or theatre, there would be divisions etc, and some players could even be generals and such. But each player is involved in just a smaller battle, the CM battle, that is just a small part of the larger campaign. But the outcome of your battle effects the larger campaign. This would create a wider variety of situations, you wouldn't always have a balanced battle. You may even be confronted with a situation where the wisest decision would be to withdraw. I know that one problem to solve is that players are not going to always make muster? Well what you can do is have an AI that constantly keeps the larger campaign moving. If a CM player wants to play a battle they can log in and play it. If they are not available then another player could jump in and play it. But if there are no palyers to play it then the AI plays it. There would often be battles where the AI would be playing a CM battle against itself and the results of that battle would effect the overall campaign. It's kind of like the Sim City concept, when you stop actively playing the game it keeps going on it's own. Think of it as a whole bunch of CM battle maps that all fit together, and the larger campaign flows across these. Success at a division level is due to the collective success of all the smaller CM battles being fought. The overall commander would allocate division level resources to various battalions and that would ultimately effect what all your particular company has to fight with in a particular battle. So that's my idea. It is actually an additonal, larger game, but the capabilities woudl have to be programed into CMx2 in order to work.

Please don't misunderstand me on this point. I am not talking about an on line RPG where you develop a character. But, if you did have some kind of over arching war game going on where a lot of different palyers could participate in a larger battle or campaign, you could also command a company, or battalion, that changes in character over time. Some squads that start out as green would become vetran. Some leaders would grow in skill. The main focus would not be growing a battalion or company into some kind of uber force. There would be too many casualties and it should be modeled to avoid this. But you would begin to get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of certain units and the personalities of certain officers, and you could incorporate this into your tactical descisions. Is this a crazy idea? Hey, you asked for blue sky ideas.

I absolutely love the pre-mini-scenario idea for shaping the goals of the battle or campaign. I would also like a toggle so that you could lock the game onto ground level POV only. It would be challenging, and kind of realistic. It would be fun to play a game where your opponent was under the same restriction. I would like to be able to record turn movies. Maybe create a method for setting up a camera POV at a few places during the turn. Or it could record what you see on the screen as you navigate around during the game turn play. I would like to have a refined LOS so that if I get down at the ground level view and look around I will see only the stuff that is actually visible from that point. Sometimes you get down a tanks level, and you can see a tank through the trees, but only because some other unit sees it. I would like a choice of a view that shows only what that unit sees. Forgive any idea repeats here, I just don't have the time to read every single post thoroughly.

I absolutely love the pre-mini-scenario idea for shaping the goals of the battle or campaign. I would also like a toggle so that you could lock the game onto ground level POV only. It would be challenging, and kind of realistic. It would be fun to play a game where your opponent was under the same restriction. I would like to be able to record turn movies. Maybe create a method for setting up a camera POV at a few places during the turn. Or it could record what you see on the screen as you navigate around during the game turn play. I would like to have a refined LOS so that if I get down at the ground level view and look around I will see only the stuff that is actually visible from that point. Sometimes you get down a tanks level, and you can see a tank through the trees, but only because some other unit sees it. I would like a choice of a view that shows only what that unit sees. Forgive any idea repeats here, I just don't have the time to read every single post thoroughly.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm running them past my opponent now to make sure he hasn't played them before.

Steve, Answer me this. When you refer to not changing the old game. You don't mean to make CMx2 into a larger strategy game, right? Some kind of Tac Ops/European Command/CM blend? When you say think in terms of sky is the limit my reaction is to try to think of the ultimate tactical level/ battalion level game, modeled on the philosophy of CMAK etc. Am I getting this right? William