Other Means

Steve, as more possible middle ground, in that it would help in most situations, is there some form of *group* AI? The classic example is 20 PzII's hail-shooting a KV1. Will something like that be possible? I'm expecting a resounding "NO" as I've a fraction of an iota of a glimmer of an idea of how hard it would be to do. But if the gas has been turned up under Charles' jar, he might have cracked it - any chance?

Oh sorry, I'd missed that in all the noise. 2nd mod CW please. So nice to have a firefly.

Brilliant news. So will you be focussing on a specific operation or what? I guess the US front is kind of a given.

In that case, do you have a rough time between CM:SF release and CM:WWII release? Personally I'm thinking 2 - 3 years starting CM:SF release, which places it around 2009. If it's shorter than that, please tell us.

Good to see Oddball making an appearance.

All I'm saying is, the guys who play PBEM are the ones who would buy every single module released and every single game that uses the CMx2 engine. But honestly, all I want now is to buy the damn thing. Hurry up and finish it, be a mate.

I've had a thought. I've gone quite giddy . If you're playing WEGO, you introducing a command delay of up to a minute on any actions you're doing anyway, which kind of removes some of my support for pause-able orders. I'd still like to see what happens in the beta testing* though. With the PBEM issue, I'm very glad to see it should make into CM:SF, it really was a big deal to me. I think you're underestimating its importance Steve. Not to your initial sales but to sales of add-on modules and games using the same engine. From what I can tell it gives a game, or series of games, greater longevity and a wider (older?) loyal fan base. OTOH, I'm sure you've got some Garner stats or something that back up your calls and at the very least are quite bored of being asked to justify them by people who aren't getting paid out of the money it will earn. So good luck with that *feel free to send me a copy Steve - I'm an information architect by trade and I'm used to analising and defining process interfaces. Ahh, go on.

There is no way around this at all, except by taking the player out of the loop entirely or giving him such a tiny number of units (like 1 or 2) that it isn't noticable most of the time. Therefore... People that have trouble letting things go will not like RealTime Mode in CM, just as the likely don't like it in general. There isn't anything we can do about it. At least not fundamentally. Giving people the ability to issue orders during a Pause is exactly what WeGo is. So if that's what you're after, then play WeGo and leave RealTime to people who want to play it that way. </font>

Steve, permit me to copy this from one of my posts in the ToW forum about pausing in RT {quote} The arguments go.. Against pause: Could you do this in real life? Not with the amount of co-ordination you have, therefore you should not have a pause and you have to give orders to each unit. For pause: Could you do this in real life? Not with the amount of co-ordination you have, but yes, you could give orders to the section leaders to do something at a specific time, and each man thinks for himself so you don't have to give everyone orders. Therefore introduce a different mechanism to ensure real-life results. I'm in the "for pause" camp, as I think although we're in an un-natural situation by being in a gods eye view, limiting what can be done by how many units you can click in a certain time is a bad counter to it, so another mechanism should be introduced. If it was a perfect world, this would be limited by the command net, or by being able to make a plan where you have all units do certain things at specific game times, however, this may not be a fun dynamic and is already too complex for the player and game system. So introduce command delays for units, based on the units morale and experience, while allowing as many orders as you want to be given by having a pause. And of course, this means you can get another beer or have a pee. {end quote} So my basic point for ToW and CM:SF is that the mechanism of not being able to give orders when paused being *also* used to create a command delay for your units is an artificial conflation of 2 very different things. You can't give orders becuase you can't assess the specific units needs and needed orders fast enough, i.e. clickfest And The real life situation of the unit not knowing what to do within the time frame. It leads to situations where a real-life unit would know *exactly* what to do, but you as the player cannot do it as you're doing something else. It does depend an awful lot on the AI, but programming an AI for a dynamic system is extremely difficult, you know this better than us. Therefore, there should be a mechanism to assess and give correct orders, while introducing a mechanism to ensure the real-life time-frame for order propagation is in place. IMHO Of course, you're goign to play test it and follow the path you've described anyway, but please keep this argument in mind. Cheers.

What's the AFV? If a Tiger, Panther or JS2, back up in a open "L" shape so you're moving before the turn. If anything else with reasonable ROF but relatively bad armor, stay and shoot.

I'm just <strike>talking out of my arse</strike> hypothesising but I'd imagine if you can get WEGO & RT going then any point in between may be possible - so set your own, maybe even vary the length. OK, maybe not vary the length but certainly agree a length in the setup.

Oh right. Fair point.

Could I ask why?

Cool on all 3 counts. Now, new TV or new PC? Decisions decisions...

Cool - good to see a bit of randomness thrown in. I wonder to what extent these things are being modelled. I'm looking forward to this game more and more.

Light flak is the best (gamey) way to deal with impenetrable fronted tanks. In CMAK I've had 1 20mm Oerlikon take out 2 Tigers, with the last one coming within ~170m of it. I've had another 2 take out 2 Brumbars and a platoon of Hetzers - total spent 32pts.

Does the strike angle make any difference to the penetration of modern projectiles vs. modern armor? Obviously if it's highly oblique it will but will I be looking for steep hills to put my Abrahms on etc?

Are harnesses included? </font>

Somewhere in this post there's a reasonable point. He does his best to hide it; it sneaked in anyway There IS an issue with breaking the player out of the immersion created by implementing a pause button - true. However, there's a balance to be drawn between playability and immersion. You could say giving a unit an order breaks immersion, command lines break immersion, being able to save the game breaks immersion - in short all the calls the devs have to make to make the game playable. The introduction of a multi-player pause key is another such call. There's a chance it will reduce the depth to which the player feels they are taking part in a war, but it will make the game a lot more playable. Also, we may need one anyway - simply for its beer & pee functionality. I'm open to suggestions on restrictions of its use to avoid mis-use but I definately think it needs to be in.

The engagement ranges etc aren't really the issue. The issue is how many units you have to give orders too at any one point. That's what makes a click-fest. If you have 3 Shermans in overwatch you want to start firing, you want to start a mortar barrage while starting rapid-fire on a section of line with 2 companies and you want a a flank assault with another, you're going to have problems unless you can pause and give orders. The arguments go.. Against pause: Could you do this in real life? Not with the amount of co-ordination you have, therefore you should not have a pause and you have to give orders to each unit. For pause: Could you do this in real life? Not with the amount of co-ordination you have, but yes, you could give orders to the section leaders to do something at a specific time, and each man thinks for himself so you don't have to give everyone orders. Therefore introduce a different mechanism to ensure real-life results. I'm in the "for pause" camp, as I think although we're in an un-natural situation by being in a gods eye view, limiting what can be done by how many units you can click in a certain time is a bad counter to it, so another mechanism should be introduced. If it was a perfect world, this would be limited by the command net, or by being able to make a plan where you have all units do certain things at specific game times, however, this may not be a fun dynamic and is already too complex for the player and game system. So introduce command delays for units, based on the units morale and experience, while allowing as many orders as you want to be given by having a pause. And of course, this means you can get another beer or have a pee.

</font>

I usually manage turns as fast as my opponent can return them. The real trick is getting a setup out of me, I tend to take WEEKS doing them.

I've got a 1.5G PIV and 2 small children for sale.

In the bottom right hand corner of the initial screen is the version number. It should read 1.03 for your version.

In the bottom right hand corner of the initial screen is the version number. It should read 1.03 for your version.