BDW

Steve - just for the record, I have played both scenarios from all sides. My total games is 6 and I have had unequivocal total victories every time. (Only one of those games did I do a reload becuase I literally forgot to give my Tiger an order and it got iced for no good reason, so I quit and restarted to be fair to myself.) I guess I have been pretty lucky, if what you say is true. I hope that is the case, as I like a good challenge! And PLEASE don't get me wrong - this game is absolutely the finest wargame I have ever played. I turned my roomate onto it tonight. He is sitting here as we speak learning the interface. The spotting system confused him: "Hey that thing just changed into a flak gun!" So I had to explain... In any case, I guess I will have to play a few more games to see if the AI can beat me. I think I will be the defender a few times so they will go faster (less moves to coordinate). But Steve, if I get into the teens and still haven't lost then you'll have some explaining to do. : ) At this point I will withhold judgment and trust your wisdom in these matters. I will report back the results. So far: ME v. AI = 6-0. I am also getting request for PBEM - there is a good chance I will be humbled soon. But we shall see... [This message has been edited by BDW (edited 11-14-99).]

Hey Fionn and co. - don't get me wrong - I love this game. I just don't find myself really challenged by the AI. And that goes for the very first time I played each scenario, too. Yes, it said "Total Victory" - but guess what? it WAS a total victory. Each time I controlled EVERY victory location and I had wiped out at least 75% of the enemy forces while losing much less of my own (approx 30%). Of course, after playing each scenario, my performance has gotten even better. LAst night, I played the Germans attacking the town with the river scenario and I totaly dominated - so mcuh so that I had to do that not-very-well-thought through posting. I apologize that it lacked specificity and examples. I agree with all the counter-points in retrospect. But I stand by my position: the AI is too easy to beat. I guess I can't exmplain why except to say that I win - by a huge margin - every single time. And it is not just because I know what to expect from these scenarios, either. Ok - I really have to go now, but I will write this example. In the game last night, I kept all of the German infantry forces in the trees. I snuck my spotters into the edges of the treelines on the left, center, and right sides of the map. I raced my two smaller tanks to the dirt road on the left hand side of the map, next to the tree-line, one below the other one. I moved my Tiger behind the first house on the center of the map. Then I buttoned up my half-tracks and sent them up to the house with the cornfield and the stone wall. There they sat for a bunch of turns, flushing out the us troops with their 50 cal guns. And the AI decided to fire back, revealing it's postions. Then I'd move a tank a few yards to the left or right to get good firing positions at the known US infantry locations. The return fire from the infantry on the half-tracks was constant. Soon I knew the machine gun locations and I had a good sense of where the AI had positioned the US troops. So I used up one of my 81mm spotters on the area with the largest concentration of US infantry. The tiger was in hiding mode behind the house and had not seen any action yet. Then, of course, the us Hellcats show up and with two turns my halftracks are history. Fine. My other 81mm spotter can see the US tanks exposed up on the hill. Goodbye one Hellcat. Two US tanks left. One sits there, totally exposed up on the hill. Cleary visible by my spotters. So I back up my Tiger a few yards - bye bye US tank. At this point I move ALL of the German infantry out of the woods in a huge rush to the wall, the little farm house, and across the corn field. I'd use two squads to cover the others running, then move them up, etc. During all of this, my Tiger was sitting there, and I was letting it fire at will. Then the last US tank exposed itself on the right hand side of the map, up on the hill. One of my tanks on the left hand side of the map, on the dirt road, immediately took it out. Within the next few turns I had routed all of the US troops - they were on the run and I was literrally running (move fast) my German infantry squads from house to house, cleaning them out. The tanks were having a field day. (OH THAT REMINDS ME - and I will stand by this nest comment, too - the AI wastes it's bazooka teams with low percentage shots. I have never lost a tank to an AI bazooka. (although I have lost one to a grenade!) When I use my bazooka teams, I hide them and sneak/crawl them as close to the side/rear of a tank as possible. The AI doesn't.) In any case, in the above scenario, I noticed that the US infantry was moving through the rows of houses on the left hand side of the map, trying to get to the victory location there. Which was nuts, because clearly I had two tank sitting there. There was one insane moment when the AI sent a HQ squad dashing across exposed ground, without using smoke, to try to get to the "Victory Location" house. Needless to say, my tanks cut it down. Why was the AI spreading it's force thin, going on the offensive to get that victory location? That meant that it's fields of fire were all messed up and my mass of German troops could dash across the corn field almost unscathed. Well, the result was a true total victory. I actually messed up and exposed some of my troops that were hiding in the woods and fire was exchanged before I could pull them back and Hide them. That should have tipped off the US AI to drop some arty into those woods. That would have seriously messed up my plan - considering 90% of my infantry was in the woods across from the cornfield. But it never happened. And guess what? I never used my 105mm until the end, when it was more just for the fun of it. I dropped it all into the center of town to see if the buildings would catch fire or blow up or something. Nope. I have the saved games from that scenario if anyone wants to play it out and see if they can lose it. I know for a fact that I am going to love playing other humans, though. This game is truly awesome for that purpose. But the AI needs some help. My reaction to it is that it is not cunning or organized and it totally reactive. Yes, it may have been acting "cautious" by leaving its Hellcat sitting there up on the hill, doing nothing, but it was not the right time for it to be cautious! It had just helped to take out my halftracks and the guys down in town needed it's help! It was useless sitting up there on the hill exposed like that. And exposed it was. I backed up my tiger a few feet and it was history. The AI is just not playing a smart game. Its reactions to the situations I present it with are totally ineffective and it just gets its ass kicked every time. There is something missing. I don't know enough about war/coputer programming/tactics to tell you what it is, but I KNOW something is missing. I am convinced that this AI can be improved. Isn't there anyone out there who agrees with me who can better explain why? I'd appreciate it becuase I want this game to be the best it can be and I want the AI to be a real challenge.

OK - I have confirmed it. This game, as it stands right now, is too easy. Against the AI, 100% of the time, playing either side on either scenario, I get a Total Victory(without saving/reloading, either). The AI seems totally disorganized and totally reactive to what I do. What is worse, the AI never seems to figure out how to even use the firepower it has available. I have seen it's tanks just sit there for turn after turn, doing nothing. AI infantry does not know how to cover it's own squads. It wastes it's arty and mortar fire on open fields where I barely have any units. It seems afraid to bring it's halftracks close to my infantry. It bunches up its forces. etc etc One thing it falls for every time: When I am the germans and I have htose half-tracks, I position them so that when the US tanks come after them, there is a German tank that pops out from behind a tree or house and kills the US tank. Why are the US tanks so aggressive towards the half-tracks when they should KNOW that there are German tanks out there. Does the AI not get the same intel that I read before the scenario? I could go on and on, but I have to get some sleep. I almost feel bad for the AI - it is like playing cards against a young child. BTS, please work on making the AI more pro-active. I know, this is a BETA, and also I know this is going to be awesome to play against my friends, but the AI needs an IQ boost. Does anyone else agree with me?

OK I think I understand why my floating numbers and LOS tool suggestions are not in the spirit of the game. I think I understand now what BTS means by "unlearn". I guess the only suggestion I really stand by is the terrain colors. In real life I can judge elevation much better than in CM. I don't think I am color-blind, either. I just have a real hard time making out the changes in elevation - no matter which camera position I use. I don't know what the solution is, but you guys have to admit that the elevation changes are difficult to make out. Unless this is done on purpose by BTS, then I think it is something that can be improved. Oh and some sort of confirmations for cancelling artillery, too. I stand by that suggestion, too. Pretty minor complaints. Pretty awesome game.

I used to post here in the "old days" when there was uproar over things like bad alpha graphics and the proper potrayal of burning men. Those were exciting times, and I have been eargerly awaiting this demo ever since. I must say I was mucho-confused and found the interface very awkward at first. The operative words here are "at first". After a few goes at it, and nothwithstanding a few techinical glitches, I realized this beta demo truly kicks ass!! Beta demo. This isn't even the REAL demo yet. Wow! What an awesome, subtle, and interesting game. You really have to think and plan and orchestrate your moves. I spend a bunch of time on the set-up phase and my initial order phase. Those way-points are so cool. I usually don't have to do anything for the first three or four turns - if things go according to plan, that is.... I am impressed that BTS has created an entirely new kind of game. OK - I have a few suggestions I'd like to add to the pool of suggestions for BTS: 1) I would like to see a feature that would work like this: when you select a unit, you can press a key that highlights all the enemy units that have a LOS to your unit. Even better would be if the LOS's were drawn from your unit to all the enemey units that are in LOS. This would be helpful when you are considering taking hidden units out of hiding and opening fire. This would also be helpful when deciding who to target in general. It would also help so you don't accidentally overlook an enemy unit that can see you. (of course, this can be done manually, now, by selecting your unit then dragging the LOS thing around, but that is kind of a hassle and when your computer isn't that fast, the LOS cursur has a tendency to jump around quite a bit. I would like to be able to select a unit, wait a few seconds for the LOS lines to enemy units to be drawn, then be able to survey the situation by moving the camera around) 2) I would like to see a yes/no confirmation ("are you sure?") before you accidentally cancel an artillary barrage by selecting another target before the artillery is fired. I won't do it againg - but it sucked learning that lesson the hard way. This happened to me after I had waited 4 minutes for artillery to fall. 3) I would like to see the unit bases be a brighter color - like during set up phase. The grey is hard to see from a distance. I would prefer bright red for one side and bright blue for the other side (or maybe you'd let us choose the colors?) 4) I would like to see a more drastic coloring of the terrain. I find it very hard to distinguish the shades of green and determine elevation. I would really like to see it go from lite green to brown, rather then from lite green to dark green. 5) I thought hand-to-hand combat fell kind of flat. Basically, the enemy guys walked up to my guys and then my guys disappeared off the map. I'm not sure what could be done to make it more exciting, though. 6) One thing I would really like to see is a little floating number over the heads of the infantry units representing strength. I really like the labels, and I think it would be very cool to have the option of having the strength/size number, too. I think it would be VERY cool to sit back and watch all those little numbers above the enemy units count down as I let them have it. It would be much more satisfying and easier to read then clicking on all the units or carefully looking at the represented number of "men" on the battlefield. 7) Tougher AI. (I think so...although I have only played twice - but I got a Total Victory both times. The AI seems to do stuff I find odd - like bunching up its units and changing it's mind. The AI seems to lack a pro-active plan. It seems too reactive to me.) Well, that is my wish-list for now. I'd welcome any comments from BTS (or from anyone else for that matter). OK time to get some sleep now - damn you BTS!

Will we be able to reproduce the original map boards that came with the orignal Squad Leader? Particularly, the "city" board that came with that game... It is kind of geeky - but I think it would be fun to see how some of those scenarios play out with CM!

The more copy protection the better! Seriously. I don't even care if it is that "What is the third word on the fourth line in the second paragraph on the 11th page of the manual" kind of thing. I absolutely HATE it when I BUY a game and then someone says to me "Dude, you BOUGHT that? You loser! I got it for free from this one website!" So I say load on the copy protection. If I buy something, then I want EVERYONE else to have to buy it, too, damnit. No matter how annoying the copy-protection is, nothing is more annoying then someone laughing at you becuase you obey copyright law. Just my two cents.

Thanks.John!.I.was.wondering.how.you.guys.stuck.those.links.in!. [This message has been edited by BDW (edited 05-13-99).]

I want to add something to the list of requests, for the fun of it! I know it is basically a novelty in CM and probably gets old fast, but how about showing us what happens when those battle-ship rounds land in CM? Or is that like giving away the ending in a who-dunnit flick?

Thought some of you would find this interesting/entertaining... http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/weapons990510.html

That is interesting. Hmmm... when I was watching the house burn my pupils must have closed up a bit becuase it didn't seem that bright and the neighborhood looked relatively dark. That makes sense. I suppose the deal with the starshell is that you aren't looking right at it, so it seems like it is giving off more light because your eyes have no adjusted to it. I think you should definitely post those numbers - especially because night combat has not been finished by BTS yet. Also, I think the sillouhette effect you described should be included in CM in some way, shape or form, as it seems pretty important. What do you think, Steve?

I remember watching a house burn down at night. Despite the intensity of the flame, it didn't exactly light up the whole neighborhood. Granted there was a lot of smoke, but still, the light from the flames was nothing like those starshells. So I guess my point is I won't be too disappointed if they don't have the VRAM to make the burning buildings in CM light up the areas around them. Of course, I think Steve should research the "lumens" (or whatever) given off by flame and compare it with the lumens given off by starshells. I'd be curious to see what the facts are.

By the way, Steve, the date is still wrong on the main "Resources" page. This sloppiness and lack of attention to detail certainly does not bode well for CM's "accuracy"! I sure hope someone is proof-reading your coded data...

Steve, yet another graphics question from me... I noticed in the "righthand" screenshot at the Mac site that the hill on the right hand side of the shot had patches of trees on it. I could tell it was a hill becuase the color of the "grass" was lighter than the lower terrain. however, I notice that whereever a patch of trees was placed, the grass under the trees was very dark. So what I am wondering is if you make a hill that is totally covered with trees if you will still be able to tell that it is a hill still? Wow. That was a strange sentence. Well I think you know what I am asking. thanks

Yeah "starshells" is what I was thinking of. I wonder what they will look like in CM, considering the fact that a while ago Steve said that shadows and other similiar lighting effects (like reflections of fire and muzzle flashes on the landscape) will not be included. So what I am picturing in light of that old info is a starshell that goes up and just kind of brightens a portion of the map (like turning up the gamma) with the appropriate level spotting markers popping up in the lighted area. How cool would it be, though, to have those shadow effects like you see in the old WWII movies of night combat? I've seen shots where the starshell is moving along really fast and the shadows on the ground are changing shape very quickly. It is a very spooky and diconcerting effect and looks really cool! Especially because the light to shadow ratio is so high with those starshells burning so bright. Very cool effect. Too much to hope for in a first release to be sure....!

What kinds of things will make light at night in CM? I don't know what you call them, but I was thinking about those "flare" type things that you see in war movies. You know - they shoot up in the air and then glow with that super bright white light and light up large portions of the battle field. Maybe they are even on little parachutes...? I am not sure.....just thought it would be very cool to have those things in CM to get a look at the enemy!

Hey Steve, a while back you guys said there would be scenarios where the objective would be to destroy a building or a bridge (or protect same). Is still planned? I thought a blow up the bridge scenario would be fun. Also, I just recently saw some old WWII footage from Europe and they ahd those HUGE concrete bunker things with those HUGE guns. I do not know what they are called, but it would sure be fun to have to take one of those big things out during a scenario. Or mayeb have it be the ultimate objective of a campaign.

Yeah I had this same exact problem. I realized that Mediaplayer was trying to open my quicktime files. So what I had to do was go into the "View" then "Folder Options" and reassociate .mov files to Quicktime 3.0. If you don't want to hassle with that, then open Quicktime movie player first, then choose file open and play the movies that way. hope that helps.

What about a Riva TNT card, Steve?

Those nifty lites aren't working for me anymore on this "new" board....what gives? And the folders are all the same color, too, so it is hard to tell which ones have new messages. (I know, the new ones go to the top, but still, I liked it the old way better - with all the pretty colors) [This message has been edited by BDW (edited 05-06-99).]

Steve, have you been holding out on us for a month, or is the date just wrong?

So what does it mean if you have an openGL card?

I like this idea. It is a double edged sword. I don't like the total randomness aspect of it though. I think the probability should be variable depending on other variables that I'm sure Steve can rattle off. In fact, doesn't CM already kind of simulate this with the reaction times of units?

Steve, that makes sense about the wind. Maybe one day when computers are faster...? Re: flamethrowers: Another point: how totally unsatisfying would it be to sneak up on a tank, bathe it in liquid flame, then have it shoot you down! What a let-down, considering how difficult it will probably be to even get your flamethower guy close to the tank. You'll probably have to hide and wait for a tank to drive by. So, I agree with you Steve - for completely untechinical reasons - that flamethrowers should be more than a "distraction". I just want to be able to torch tanks effectively! I don't even care if it is realistic or not - it will be FUN!

So if we see something burning in CM it is a fire that has consumed a significant area. Ok, so if a fire is that big, then it must be a pretty violent one, with lots of flame and smoke and energy. So that leads me to three questions: 1. how easily and quickly will fire spread? (It seems to me like it should spread easliy) 2. Will the smoke from the fire drift in the wind? (The way I see it, the smoke should drift with the direction the wind in blowing. The longer the scenario goes on, the further the smoke drifts. Will this happen in CM?) 3. Will CM graphically represent that hazy/foggy effect from the smoke? (I watched a house burn down on my street once. The entire neighborhood was enveloped in an eerie haze.) Don't mean to be so pushy for answers, but I am having a hard time visualizing the smoke and fire in CM. Maybe I should shut up until next week when the screenshots come out....!