Brian Rock

The pics at http://www.history.enjoy.ru/destroyed/german.html are pretty phenomenal. I was particularly taken with the shot of the King Tiger killed in Hungary by a 57mm side shot to the hull. King Tiger drivers beware! [This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 02-02-2000).]

Obviously I am culturally deprived, but what the hell is MST3K?

Oh well, I guess re-registering gives people something to do while waiting for the game to come out.

German: Panther The Tiger is overrated. Tactically impressive, but strategically and operationally a dud. US: Sherman Tactically inferior, but operationally and strategically brilliant. (Now *those* should promote some debate...)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I am using the default windows cursors (I think).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It's probably worth doublechecking. I had what appears to be the same problem, and it was because I had loaded a theme cursor. Drove me nuts for a week or so.

I guess I was one of the few people who seemed to use the timer feature in TacOps. Maybe the only one... Although I accept the argument that players have to play a number of roles throughout the chain of command, I still think time limits add to a simulation's accuracy. It adds a greater chance of things going wrong, which gives more realistic outcomes. Currently the chain of command always has perfect comms - time limits are one way to simulate the delays, missed orders, etc. Bear in mind that the time limits don't have to be 1:1 either, nor the same for both players. A two or five or fifteen minute turn might be an approptiate time given the level of experience being simulated. Personally I like putting in time limits to add additional pressure to the command process. This is something I find challenging, although clearly many people hate it. It was nice to have an option, although I never used it exclusively. It did give the game a different character. The other situation where I like time limits is when playing online or on a LAN. I once played a TacOps scenario where the Blue player was taking 15-20 minutes a turn while on the defense. It drove me nuts. As for the coding problems, I didn't realise how much was involved in programming this. I wondered why it seemed to disappear. Now I know.

41. It was like an ambush. It just snuck up on me when I wasn't watching. I knew I should have put scouts out... In any case, remember this: there are a lot more dead young privates than dead old generals. Now shut up and leave me alone.

As long as we're being silly, something I was sent last year... Study shows 139% of studies misuse statistics. 1st April. A three year study conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics has revealed that more than 100% of government agencies misuse statistics in official reports. Study coordinator James Roberts says "We found that 45% of agencies employed careless sampling techniques, 56% did not correctly analyse results and 38% drew unfounded conclusions from their results a total of 139% in all." Roberts cites a recent Internet poll as an example of misuse of figures. One of the questions was "Do you or your family own a computer?" 93% of people answering the survey ticked "yes" to this question and from that the researchers concluded that 93% of people owned computers. "Wrong." says Roberts. "Clearly they did not poll everyone who owns a computer, only those people who did the poll. Since surveys have shown that only 5% of computer owners have ever done a survey on the Net. That suggests a figure of more like 459% of people own computers." Robert blames the situation on poor number skills. "We've found that whereas 96% of 11 year olds are studying some form of mathematics, by age 19 the figure is only 8%, a decrease of 11% per year. This means that by age 20 people are receiving minus 3% mathematical education." Roberts' team concludes that by age 30 people know less maths than when they commenced school and by age 40 know less maths than a streptococcus bacillus. "Multiplying an 11 per cent per year loss by the population of Australia gives us a total decrease in mathematical skills of more than 200 million per cent per year and that's an unacceptable situation" says Roberts. Other researchers have challenged the finding but Roberts says "We're ninety percent sure about ninety percent of these results. That's 90 multiplied by 90 or 8100% certain. That's pretty convincing."

(Post of tangential relevance follows...) For what it's worth, I'm playing a game of CM right now on a LAN at the uni I work at. (My opponent is currrently trying to fight off my assault in Chance Encounter). Currently we need to use a workaround, using PBEM and a shared file. Clumsy, but workable. The point of this is that this game is going to be *really, really* fun when the tcp/ip is in. I mean, taunting on email is fine, but for a real hoot nothing beats doing a happy dance when your shreck teams have ambushed their second Sherman, and your opponent is swearing because he *still* can't see them.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>2) If you look at the situation tactically, without any knowledge of approaching armor, is that position one you would take over 50% of the time?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Generally I'd suggest it's a good idea to keep Tiger's back. Range is the Tiger's friend: the effectiveness of the 75mm & 76mm drops off considerably over range, while the 88mm still keeps quite a lot of killing power. Generally I am loath to lead with tanks. I prefer to advance with infantry as infantry AT weapons are quite lethal. It does depend - if the area is clear of zooks the German tanks can get pretty much to point blank and raise some real hell. It's trickier with Allied tanks as so there are so many more tank killing weapons on the German side. I tend to be even more careful. PS If you really don't want to loose tanks you could try tightening them... (*ducks*)

Proximity is a big issue here. I'd expect the concussion to cause a bit of damage at 10 cm, whereas 30 meters wouldn't worry me a great deal. You need to bear in mind that with infantry units, the graphic essentially indicates centre of mass. The actuall troops in the unit are dispersed around the immediate area. So when Eridani says "right up next (like 5-10 meters from)", this could be anywhere from virtually adjacent to the gun to maybe 20+ meters away. As a general rule I'd expect the latter figures, as most GIs would have enough sense not to stick their heads next to an 88. Finally, from a coding point of view, I expect that troops killed or seriously injured by concussion would be a very rare occurrence, and not worth modelling.

The dreaded double-post strikes again... [This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 12-23-99).]

I think there is a bit of confusion here. If I understand killmore's original suggestion, he was proposing users only create 3D models, not actually code the data for them. BTW would then have full control over the stats, and they would be the ones to actually put the model into the game. So the idea is not to produce a pile of hacks, but simply to outsource some of the graphics coding on a volunteer basis. Is this right? If not, can you clarify. (BTS's answer may well be "no", but it's helpful to be clear exactly what is being proposed.

There is also zillions of actions in Malaya, New Guinea, the Phillipines, Burma (ok, not the Pacific, but more-or-less the same theatre), and a nice combination of one-sided (Japanese and Allied, depending) plus some hotly contested fights. I think the CM engine would do the job brilliantly.

Bullethead has a point. A linear pattern can do wonders on a road column for example. Currently it's possible to specify open sheaf or closed shear. Personally I think it'd be nice to be able to specify target's length & width and attitude, but I suspect this would be bothersome to most players. (Note: attitudet refers to angle/dirction of fall of shot, not to the mental state of the target)

I still play HPS games occasionally. I'm looking forward to POA II. This looks like a seriously hard-core sim, although I hope the interface is improved. I'd be even happier if they would ditch hexes, but that seems unlikley. Their new operational level game, Panzer Campaigns: Smolensk '41, has received a good review at Computer Games Online : 4 our of 5 stars. www.cdmag.com [This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 12-16-99).]

Lesson #1: don't trust the old man. Do you guys like picking on your kids or what? "Gee, Billy, your whole squad got wiped out, huh? Just send the next one up. Go over the top of the ridge this time, it's faster..."

Under certain circumstances a nun with a blowtorch can kill an M1A1, but it's not probable. Unless the Tigers are behind the M1, in optimal terrain, and with surprise on their side they are scrap metal. Anyone remember Desert Storm? If T72s couldn't scratch an M1A1, a piece of technology built with WWII technology doesn't have a hope. The M1A1 has superior range, better armor, better guns, better fire control, faster everything. The Tiger crews would have a life expectancy measured in minutes - unless they had the good sense to bail.

BDW and Bill Carey do have a point about balanced scenarios. It is true that most games will have balanced scenarios, because most games are designed for PBEM as well as against the AI, and most gamers want a fair chance of winning. Of course it is also true that Real Life is full of uneven battles, and uneven quality commanders. Fortunately CM will ship with a built in fix: the scenario editor. I fully expect to see dozens of scenarios (hopefully hundreds, but we'll see), some balanced, some biased towards an Allied win and some biased towards a German win. This will allow players a chance to get a challenge out of the AI no matter what their standard, and help put superior players on an even footing with less experienced opponents. It will also help fix the "I've played this scenario to death and know how to optimise my placements" problem.

Dumbo, I agree that the best "test" of the AI is the first game, with minimal knowledge of the terrain, enemy OOB or deployments. Those are the nail biters. I tend to agree with Fionn on the tank communication problem, only more so. Situational Awareness in a tank is terrible. I read a piece written by a tanker with tips for how people in civilian life could get a sense of what it's like being in a tank. Things like paint all the windows of your car black, except for a tiny little gap in the front windscreen. If you have a sunroof you can drive while someone hanging out the top screams directions at you while he kicks you in the head. And so on. Plus, even when you know the badguys are out there, they are using terrain trying not to be seen as well. Radios can and do drop out of comms. Infantry and tanks were on different nets. The inside of a tank is hot and noisy. You probably haven't slept for more than few hours a day. And then for an additional distraction there's that eveybody-on-the-other-side-is-shooting-at-me thing. If anything the fact you can give orders every 60 sec is far too generous. However I concede that for most players if you take that out the game tends to go away.

The expansion for EF2000 had two ways to play the campaign game, "realistic" (your mission has as much impact on the campaign as any other mission) and a "consequences" model (your mission had a major abstracted impact on the war's progress). The original version only allowed the "consequences" model, which I seriously hated. No offense to people who like that sort of thing, but I found it... well... to be honest - silly. In that context. (Note qualifier) (Even more annoying was DI's Apache, where you could take a flight out, destroy a battlion or six of tanks, APCs, ZSUs, and then lose the campaign because you landed to hard when you returned to the FARP. Sure.) I'm not trying to be a game snob here - there are some very good games where this kind of thing works. It depends on the concept behind the game. It's just not remotely realistic to expect that a single company or battalion could have an impact on the scale you're suggesting. I know some people enjoy that sort of thing, but it doesn't really fit with Combat Mission's design concept. There is nothing to set up a series of campaigns that do play part in larger operational or strategic concept, either your own solo system or with others. In fact I think there are a few people on this board planning linked campaigns.

I'd like to hear opinions on what aspects of CM took the most getting used to, mainly from a gameplay point-of-view. For example: • Did anyone have trouble learning to navigate the battlefield using the camera views? Learning how to do this quickly? • What about calulating/juding line of sight? • Interpreting the unit figures, especially infantry? • Interpreting terrain - eg distinguishing between different types of woods? • Giving orders? • Understanding how the command and control system works? If so, which aspects: range to leader, impact on delays, or whatever? • Getting used to units doing their own targetting? • And anything else. In short, what are the areas that you think might be helpful to explain to someone new to CM?

It all depends on what you mean by "historical" or "historically based". One of the common problems with a scenario that is to close to a historical situation is that the commanders start with too much info. You know this is the action where the Panthers shredded the Shermans just before the P-47s showed up and slaughtered the reserves on the other side of the ridge, and the Germans were only saved by the last minute arrival of six Stugs, two Marders and an artillery barrage... If the players don't know the details beforehand (eg obscure actions) this is less of a problem, of course. A big database of battles will help here. If "historically based" is interpreted a bit more broadly to refer to a type of action (eg a typical company level assault on a village) than the problem goes away. I suspect I'm in the minority opinion here, but in a sense this is a more realistic protrayal of the type of problem most COs had to face: patchy knowledge of what was up ahead in terms of terrain and enemy. In that sense it's a more historically accurate simulation of COs mental processes - more on discerning opportunties and problems on the spot, less on after-action analysis.

Something else to bear in mind is that once you get the full version you can always handicap yourself. Give the other side a few extra assets, downgrade the quality of your troops, change the victory flags. Plenty of ways to tweak the scenario. Still, I agree with Rod. The real challenge is the first game of each scenario. The fog of war is at its greatest the first time around (how many real life COs had the chance to replay a battle?) My first-ever game was defending Reisberg. It came down to hand-to-hand fighting in the last building, and I only managed a draw. Yeah, sure I have done better since - but that was the game I was sitting on the edge of my seat over.

And he fought for the Rangers in Operation Market Garden.