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Other Means

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Everything posted by Other Means

  1. Yeah, after all this approach has worked so well for so many industries. That's why British shipbuilding, American auto manufacturing and the PC industry bestride the world. If you'll excuse me, I'm off out to hunt. The wife managed to find some tubers but we're all still on the edge of starvation and I need to run down an antelope.
  2. The real fun of this game is that it's Kriegspiel - you've got to extrapolate the enemies plans from what you can see, BUT you don't see much. So what the player does see, needs to be explained for the noobs - otherwise, they won't get it and will move on. We should expose, or abstract and expose, the underlying information that's powering the simulation, mostly by pop-up info under the cursor or by some kind of representative, attached icon. Stuff like: the firepower of the infantry formation selected the exposure of your men vs. enemies they can see the current morale state range of weapons - just the targeting line fading out is simple and gets the info over - a line from every man rather than the current composite one maybe? the penetration chance of a gun selected vs. armour under the mouse cursor the type of terrain going in to the path a unit is going to take - why can't we set a waypoint and have the suggested path drawn in real-time? the distance from, direction to and strength of command (command lines were brilliant for this) contextual spotting - "Tank Sargent!", "Enemy at 2 o'clock!" much, much more. An awful lot of this stuff isn't present - it results from the physics in the engine. It was in CM1, the sim was powered from it, for CM2 (now) it's not there but for new users to understand how interesting it is, it will need to be approximated. Absolutely. I'm not talking about being able to pay well with this info, I'm talking about the user seeing that this stuff matters and that's what they're playing, not the muddy field with a few grey sound contacts that's in front of them, but a rich tactical layer that currently we know because we've played it enough to fill in the blanks. That's what will give them the incentive to get better - because without knowing about this stuff it looks like a bad RTS game. ---- In addition to this, the game wrapper - menus, interface, etc. need some love. I'm picking stuff in a QB and even I know nowt about it. Again, the info is there but it has been low on the priority list for ever - so now we have to fight it to get to the game, again.
  3. CM is a brilliant concept wrapped in a terrible interface. We put up with the interface to get to the engine but if you don't know that engine is there, or don't appreciate what you're seeing, then it looks worse than most freeware games you'd get on an iPad because the information you need to understand what's going on is obscured. Unfortunately there's a large proportion of the BFC fanbase that wants the game to present exactly what you'd see if you were in a balloon above the battle* and, as Steve is of a similar mind but not quite so fundamentalist, what we get is a completely unapproachable for the vast - and I mean at least 90% - number of potential players. The marks it gets set against the devotion of its acolytes proves this - once you've struggled through to a H2H game, and have developed the habits and knowledge you need then it's amazing. Before then...not so much. In other words, if you don't know what's going on in the game it's no fun playing it. Tactical wargames have always been niche. Personally I reckon CM is good enough to appeal outside of that niche, but it's not getting the chance because of its iceberg nature, which is a damn shame. *apart from the massive amount of AA tracer arcing towards you, natch.
  4. Of course, the price they paid for such good floatation was mechanical complexity and so a terrible maintenance regime, which made them great AFVs but terrible weapons.
  5. Yep. There's the effects you could expect, like self-suppression but it's dependent on the size of the room etc.
  6. If you can, a late model Churchill supported by Achillies is a fantastic combination. The Churchill leads your attack and is close infantry support. It has so much MG ammo you can basically use area fire all game without worrying about it. They can shrug off enough MkIV ammo to make your opponent wary about approaching them with anything but his heavies and the heavies are vulnerable too. If it comes under attack anything that it can't beat can be killed by your Achillies, which are cheap for the gun you get - but you've got to be careful with them. As others have said the infantry don't have a great deal of firepower but what they do have is ammo depth. Use them to find the enemy and pin him, then use the organic mortar or arty to dislodge them. So it's the ultimate rock/paper/scissors army. Use the right tool and they're brilliant, but the tools are specialised and need to be used correctly. I've got a soft spot for the UCs. You start off thinking they're a waste of time and end up loving them. Zipping PIATs around, moving HQs or snipers - great fun. I actually really like the PIAT. Not as accurate or as powerful as the shrek or bazooka, but they are a lot more stealthy.
  7. I didn't mean the bored face (bordey?) wouldn't show when there was no turn, just that the application window itself isn't needed while we're waiting and it would show the smiley when the turn arrived, allowing it to be clicked to launch the turn. Is there any way to have the turn auto load, BTW?
  8. The latter, so it's a service running in the background. I'd have it start with the PC and when a turn arrived, the smiley would show. Not sure how cross-platform that would be though
  9. GaJ - cheers for sorting out my issue. As a rider to this thank you, could I slip in a feature request? Is there any chance of there being a minimise to notification window option so the window doesn't look like it's running but the smiley stays there and can launch the window on-click? That'd be zoooperkool. Cheers again.
  10. Still doesn't work for me. Maybe it's the repeated "Dropbox" is F:\Dropbox\Dropbox?
  11. Looks like it runs up against some W7 difficulties
  12. Exactly my point. We're 40+, know our armour thicknesses and what to use against them. But try it with a new player and they don't see the complexity. And it's the complexity of the physics that underpins the accuracy, and it's the accuracy of the simulation that gives the interest in the game. As far as new players are concerned, under the hood it may as we'll be health bars.
  13. I've tried via browse and pasting the path in. I'm doomed - DOOMED!
  14. Exactly. Why should players have a glancing interest in WWII? Or rather, why restrict your audience to people who will already know how to play the game? Imagine starting the game in front of a kid, and trying to get them involved? "Well done, you've spend 2 hours to set up an ambush on a German AFV column - I'll tell you what that is later - now, don't shoot at this lead one as it's an early version Panther and will have less armour defec - oh, you've...oh never mind. Yes, they do all look the same, don't they? Well, we'll have a better chance some time in the next year, potentially." Why play to an audience you've got and not try and get a new one? I could lose a few pounds, move a bit more and drink less. God help BFC if they're relying on me to pay their pension.
  15. Depends. If you want to make the game accessible, put as many play aids as you can in. If you want to keep selling to the same people, err on the side of realism and let 'em learn.
  16. That could potentially work but my mate already has it working and I don't want to mess it up.
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