HAL

I would have to say the best Panzerschreck Team I have ever had was in VoT near the end. My Panzer had showed up and taken out 4 of the 6 Shermans, but then got whacked. There were 2 Shermans left pounding the hell out of my guys. I quickly pushed 3 squads forward with 2 Panzerschreck Teams. The first one never got off a shot the Shermans took them out, but the second killed the Sherman that took out the first Panzerschreck team, lost a man to Tank fire, and on the next turn took out the other Sherman with the last round they had.

I kind of enjoy the fact that at times the AI doesn't quite target the way that you told them to. I makes it feel more like real life, where nothing ever seems to work exactly like you plan it . I do have a suggestion though. Charles you said that you made some tweaks to make units stick a little more to assign targets, but that you don't want to take it to far (I agree. Maybe you could tweak say Veteran troops to stict to a assign target more then Green troops. That way when you assign a Veteran unit a target you know that they are more likely to stay on target through out the action phase. I think this correlates with real-life. Just a thought.

When you assign a target for 105 artillery fire you can see exactly how long it will take (by clicking on the 105 Spotter if you aren't already) in the unit information screen located at the bottom of your screen.

I while back (a long while I had asked Steve if they could allow for more then 2 player multiplayer. He explained that the coding involved would be quite extensive (which I should have known, but a man can hope can't he . Lately I was thinking that though it isn't possible at this time to increase the number of players in a Hot-seat game without a lot of work, what about in PBEM? I think it could work without a lot of extra coding you would need a small amount of interface coding (one to add a way for the overall General to assign troops and of course changes to the way the text file is created). When a game begun the Commanding General from both sides would assign troops (with a password similar to the way it works currently in PBEM games) for the other Generals in the game (say up to 3 others). The commanding General would then email the file with the appropriate password to the other Generals whom would load the turn. When they entered the password they would be able to issue orders to only the troops that the commander assigned to that password. Once completed they would email the turn back to the commanding General who would run the turn to process it in the normal way a PBEM turn is processed and send it to the opposing force. I know that they are holes, but I wanted to spit it out to see what everyone else thought. I also know that it would me a lot emailing back and forth to complete one turn, but I think it would be worth it. I as mentioned before I think one of the biggest things in a game like Combat Mission is need to coordinate with subordinate commanders to accomplish a battle plan. Now mind you I know that this feature probably wouldn't make it into the game at this point, but maybe as an add-on. Hal

Ok, I have to go with my wifes birthday March 12. HAL

Thanks Richard, thats the Driver update that I have been avoiding. I found it a couple of months ago, but it just didn't seem worth doing all that un-installing and installing for 1 update. I have a GForce on order, but I found out today that delivery has been delayed until the 18th . So I guess I will have to breakdown and finally update Thanks again

I don't mind that the ESC is used to take you back to desktop, but to tell the truth Bill Gates has me well trained so I find myself using the ALT-TAB key to accomplish this, not the ESC key. Speaking of which, I figure it is a driver problem, but I will ask anyway. On my work computer I have a Monster II card and I can ALT-TAB (or ESC)back to the desk top and back to the game no problem, but at Home I am using a Viper 550 and every time I try either ALT-TAB or ESC I get the black screen of death.

Here is a work around that I found. If you hold down the Left-Mouse button you can pin point exact locations without the jumping problem.

Actually I think I have figured it out. When I was clicking on a unit to lets say issue the MOVE command I would move the mouse pointer to a location and it would jump around, but I fould out that if you hold the left Mouse button down while moving the pointer you can pin point any location on the map without it jumping around.

I will test it next game I play, if that is it (which it probably is, I am always hitting that damn key when I am going for the TAB key), then boy do I feel like an IDIOT . Thanks

Just currious has anyone else gotten a DRAW? My second game that I played I got a DRAW. I haven't heard anyone else talk about one, so maybe I am the lucky one . Now if I could only win a game. Love the game, never said that I was that good at it .

Ok, I have a small problem, wondering if anyone else is having it also. When I select a unit, then an order like move or hunt, is seems in some locations no matter how hard I try I can't place the end of the line in a specific spot. For example I will be trying to move the little box at the end of the line (love the technical talk and it will just keep jumping pass the point where I am trying to place and as a pull back it will jump pass the point again in effect creating a “No Landing Zone”. The “No Landing Zone” can vary from several yards to over 100 yards. Occasionally I can place it on either side of the “NO Landing Zone” then zoom, right click on the orders box and move it to where I wanted it in the first place (a little frustrating though), but other times I can never get it there (very frustrating). I have tested this all over the place just to make sure that I wasn’t trying issue a command to a place where a unit can't move, but it happens even in Open ground. Also it happens on both my work computer and home computer.

Hello Frank, just a suggestion, but if you press SHIFT-L for Labels and leave them on every time you view the Action Phase you can get most of the info you are requesting. The Label command shows any units that are having problems, low on ammo, gun knocked out, etc...

This one is strange, at least I think so, and it happens on 2 different computers, so I know that it isn't a specific computer related problem (at least I don’t' think so, never say never . The game will start out fine, but at some point the SHIFT hotkey commands will reverse themselves somewhat. For instance, instead of SHIFT-S to change the sound settings, it will now be ALT-S. To say the least that one makes it difficult to save a game since unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way (SHIFT-S) to save a game . Even more strange is that not all the SHIFT keys will change to using the ALT some will just stop working altogether. At the same time some of the single key command’s used when a unit is selected stop working also, like M for move, but yet the O for facing still works. See I told you it was strange .

I LOVE IT!!!, it is pretty much everything that I have been waiting for, for a very long time. I have been following this game since it was first going to be published by Avalon Hill and I kept hoping that it wouldn't be a disappointment like another game that I have been following for awhile Napoleon 1813 by Empire Interactive (though I still have hopes for that game when the patch comes out). Hey Charles, Steve, every thought of using the Combat Mission engine to do a Napoleon game

Ok, after playing more last night (a lot more , I have to agree with Steve, Charles, Fionn, and Moon. I got used to it and I love the Interface just the way it is.

Well it's me again, whatever was causing the ear piercing high screech sound at the end of the Action phase & when I ended the game has stopped. Now at the end of the Action phase & when I quit the game, it is the correct sound being played (at least I think it is). Not sure why it seem to correct itself, I didn't change anything.

Damn, your right Mike, forgot all about that , and I used it a lot when playing to. I guess the only excuse I have is that everytime I hit TAB, I hit the 1 key right after it to go direct to the unit view . So I didn't think about the fact that pressing tab alone does just what I was talking about

My take on the Movement Interface: I use the mouse to click on the on screen arrows to move left & right & forward & back in a hurry. I use moving the mouse to the edge of the screen for pretty much everything else. I find that the mouse movement is pretty smooth. About the only things that I could think of that would make the movement interface a little better is to have it so that if a player right-clicks to select a unit it would automatically center the cammera on that unit. Left click would stay just the way it is, selecting unit, but not centering the cammera. It would help when you are selecting a unit across the map that is a good distance away. The other one is if a player turns the NUM LOCK off (with the NUM LOCK on, pressing the numbers changes the camera view) pressing the 7 & 9 keys rotates the camera, the 4 & 6 keys moves side to side, and the 8 & 2 keys moves forward & backward (currently I don't believe that you can rotate the camera just using the keyboard). That way a player can choose to use only the keyboard. If you are a shortcut key kind of guy, not having to use the mouse much is a big plus. Still overall I thing the entire Interface is one of the easiest I have every used. As a test when I first got the demo today, I didn't read any of the instructions. I think one of the best test you can give an Interface is to see if a player can pick it up on the fly. Well this one passed with an A+ [This message has been edited by HAL (edited 10-29-99).]

Well it isn't a Video confict, actually beside the 2 instances it isn't a conflict at all, but the sound that is played at the end the action phase and when I quit the game is just a really high pitched squeal (I mean hurt you ears kind of squeal . My guess is that isn't what I am suppose to be hearing. All other sounds are fine. In fact, better then fine, there Great! Configuration: PIII 450, 196 ram, Viper 550 (16 ram), Sound Blaster Gold 64 (ISA), Cambridge Soundwork speakers Any ideas Steve? If you need more config info just let me know. Thanks, PS: Love the demo so far, great job guys!! and to release it on my day off, life is good [This message has been edited by HAL (edited 10-28-99).]

No, I am not talking about just multiplayer (I know that has been discussed many times before in other threads). I am not even talking about Combat Mission as it is, but instead a completely new project similar to EverQuest or Ultima Online using the Combat Mission engine as the core of the game. Imagine if you will logging onto a server where a persistent war has been raging for over 100 days with a couple thousands people participating. The war would be broken down into a series of small battles with a server hosting only a part of the total war. The entire war would actually be spread out across a server complex (ala Ultima Online). Using the Combat Mission engine with its ingenious turn system as the core of the game would go a long way in minimizing the latency problems found in a lot of the current Massively Multiplayer games. I know it would take some clever designing to work out all the issues out and make the persistent world work, but it could be done (hint I would love to design it, or at least be part of it . What do you all think?

I would also like to express my appreciation for all the hard work that Fionn and Moon put into the AAR's. I enjoyed them immensely. The only drawback is that they are causing me to go even more crazy then just reading the board was with not being able to play it myself (just keep telling yourself that Steve and Charles say the demo is just around the corner .

Quick quetion (loved the review, by the way Moon), it mentions that CM will only be available by download off the Battlefront site. Don't you mean only available to to purchase from the Battlefront site? Not that I am against downloading the game (with a cable modem even the big ones don't take to long , but I imagine people with 56K modems would find downloading the entire game and manual rather difficult. Just currious HAL

Just thought I would mention that one of the game compaines they I used to work for used a copy protection scheme that worked very well for them, and didn't cost a lot to implement. They required the CD in the drive, but to get around CD/R's they wrote the part that the program uses for validation to look like bad sectors on the CD. Most CD/R's won't copy bad sectors so the Burnt copies would fail the copy protection check. I know this is a little vague, but what do you want I am a Producer not a programmer HAL

Hey Fionn do happen to know the URL for Wings Simulation? Psygnosis doesn't have any references to Panzer Elite on the Web Site anymore. Until your post I was afraid that they had canceled the project. Sorry to go off topic. HAL [This message has been edited by HAL (edited 02-23-99).]