Iconoclast

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by deanco: Hi Iconoclast, Thanks for taking the time to post. This is the kinda feedback I need. The 3D fonts I can dig, the red background I can understand too, but do you find the lettering in the main unit info area hard on the eyes too? Thanks. I will look at the 3D font thing and the red background again. Thanks for the feedback. It's hard to distance yourself from your work, and see what's right and what's not. DeanCo--<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> DeanCo, I just went your mod again, both before and immediately after running the original. My nits with yours (and that's what they are--again, it's a GREAT idea) *do* seem to boil down to the 3D fonts you sometimes employ more than any other single factor. For example, at the bottom of the opening screen, the BTS name and your credits both look fuzzy because of the font chosen. In terms of the main unit info area--certainly the one that gets the most eyeball time--I find the font used for the word AMMO a bit fuzzy, and the fonts used to denote unit morale tend to make the letters blend into the background color. DON'T change the color--watching that go from green to yellow and red is a great visual cue-- but make the letters of the words like "OK" and "Alerted" stand out more starkly by getting rid of the faux 3D highlighting. The only color change per se that I would suggest is that you consider something other than the dull red (muted brown in the original) that fills the box around choices like "Scenario Briefing" and "Done" on various screens. BTW, I run CM at 1280 X 1024 on a 19" screen, so some of these comments may stem from the fact that I use 'itty bitty' letters and therefore notice when they're fuzzy more readily than someone with less visual acuity or running at lower resolutions. I'm glad you're genuinely open to feedback--lot's of folks say "tell me what you think" but mean "tell me it's perfect".

DeanCo, I LOVE the changes to the unit interface in terms of their ability to convey unit info more readily, but honestly find some of the lettering hard on the eyes, both because of the contrast between the letters and their non-black background, and because of the "3d"-type fonts chosen. Examples of this are the titles like "Attacker", "Defender", "Help", the "Allies/Axis" labels, and the scenario description lines (in red letters) on the scenario/ops menu screen. Maybe it's just my eyes--I've got better than 20/20 uncorrected vision, and see glare/monitor imperfections that don't bother most folks--but I'm not sure I could use the current lettering/color combinations for very long without eyestrain. Any chance you'll do a more subdued version? Regardless, it's a great idea, and I'll certainly test it further or maybe add it to my "alternate BMP" folder to see if it gets easier on my eyes with more use. Jim

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by -E: Thanks, that works. Too bad it won't stay at a higher resolution if I subsequently reset my desktop. *sigh* (I like games at higher res, my eyes want every-day text at lower res *grin*)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It will if you use an old shareware program called QRES. QRES allows you to set the display properties for each program independent of the desktop setting. When I load CM, the monitor changes resolution to my CM setting 1280 X 1024 and then switches back to my desktop's 1024 X 768 when I exit. Do a search in the technical forum for the URL for this program. The only side effect I have seen is that I can no longer task-switch if I'm running CM in a higher resolution than my desktop--it terminates when I switch to a lower resolution application or the desktop. No more background downloads while I play CM, but it seems a worthwhile tradeoff for ultra-high display resolutions in the game! Jim

Has anyone else had a vehicle decide to target through a nearby building, fire, and destroy itself when the round impacts on the building? The situation was thus: I had a Green crew in an armored car that I had placed with one flank practically touching a house to give it some cover (ya can't do enough to help those poor quality crews survive long enough to get off a shot!) As an enemy vehicle approaches, I try the "next" target command, which produces the customary red targetting line between the A/C (a German 234/3) and the intended target. While the LOS looks to my eyes like it may be intersecting the building, I know there have been "issues" with LOS and building corners, so if the program says the crew can see the target, I assume that is correct. In the ensuing execution phase, however, the A/C proceeds to slam its 75mm shell into the wall--I guess the LOS wasn't clear after all! The crew blithely reloads, fires and hits the wall again, and this time abandons their vehicle with one of their number a casualty. I've got the game file--does this sound like an LOS bug I should send to BTS, or can poor quality crews really be so bad as to fire at an obstructed target--more precisely, with something almost literally touching the muzzle and presumably blocking the gunsight! Jim

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV: I killed a Sherman this very morning with a side shot, at about 80m, from the 75 IG. It blowed up real good. It then engaged one of the Sherm's comrades in a head-to-head duel at about the same range. Spunky bastard bounced 2 rounds off the Sherman's front ("no serious damage") before being knocked out.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> In a QB last night I wasn't as lucky, alas. I managed to bounce FIVE rounds off of a Sherman II--upper and lower side, upper and lower front hull, and front turret--before the tank knocked out the gun. My 75 only had HE and smoke, and the HE's paltry 19mm penetration didn't suffice even against the Sherman's relatively thin side armor. Fortunately for me, my infantry went three-for-three with their panzerfaust shots, taking out all of the AI's AFV's... Still, the moral of my story is if you don't have any shaped charges in inventory, you'll have trouble killing tanks with the 75 IG even by taking side or rear shots... [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 09-01-2000).]

OK, so I'm being somewhat facetious, but I find myself and my opponents playing a known "meeting engagement" a bit differently --and less realistically-- than the other scenario types. Both of us tend to lunge for the objective(s) near the map center, consistent with staying out of lines of sight to the opponent's map side, knowing that the way ahead is clear and that forging ahead with undue haste is advantageous since it is better to defend the objective than to have to attack it. The success of thi tactic is magnified when playing against the AI, since it is loathe to try a gambit like this and therefore ends up attacking into my guns on the objective. I have to question how often WWII commanders had the luxury of knowing with virtual certainty that they had a "free ride" to their immediate objective, if they only moved fast enough. But calling a scenario a "meeting engagement" has this as an assumption, and it is hard to ignore it even if you decide not to advance rapidly because it is "gamey". Meeting engagements are seldom designated as such at the time they occur, and I think the op orders a commander would receive under those circumstances are more likely "probe" or "advance to contact" than something called "prepare for a meeting engagement." In wargames they are typically used to model fluid situations where both sides are mobile and the forward edge of the battle area is unknown or in flux. The meeting engagement is largely an accidental by-product of both sides having advance/attack orders. Like those in the thread below on random quick battles, I'd like to see greater randomness to simulate the fact that frequently you don't know much about your opposition and have little control over the circumstances of your battlefield (terrain, weather, time of day, etc.) I'd like to combine this with the ability to make meeting engagements something that just happen, rather than are deliberately entered into. I'm still grappling with how this could be implemented--much less how much code impact it would have. <g> The first idea that occurs to me is revamping the scenario setup options for each side to the major categories of "attack, probe, defend", possibly with sub-variants like "assault" under the "attack" selection and "delay" or "hold at all costs" under the "defend" choice. These would tell the player how ferociously he is to attack or defend, with probe being a weak attack. The Quick Battle generator could be set so that if the first side generated produced attack orders, then the other side would be defending, and vice versa (although it might be interesting to allow "probe" as an alternative for the opposing setup to simulate spoiling attacks?). If the first side produced "probe orders" the other side would either generate some variant of defend or probe- and probe vs. probe would produce our meeting engagement. Unlike the current situation, though, neither side would know it in advance. Am I the only one to see a problem with the meeting engagement scenario type, and how would you solve it?

Mike, I suspect the exiting units mechanism may need a bit of polish in general. Besides the problems you and tom w. point out, in 1.01 I'm virtually certain that units eligible to exit that were killed instead yielded both their basic casualty value *and* the "failure to exit" penalty to the opposing player. Talk about double taxation! Jim

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kraut: Well, it doesn't seem to be "modelled realistically" to me, whatever the hell that means. MK<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think it's the accuracy that's off. I'm in the early stages of a PBEM on a maximum sized map (1600m wide x 3200m deep), and the only casualties my advancing force has suffered so far are to armored cars that appear to have been picked off ON THE MOVE by medium mortar fire. I'll see one or two craters appear in the vicinity of the target vehicle, then BOOM. I've started zig-zagging and varying my recce units' speed even more than usual (though I hate using "fast" when contact is imminent), but it's better than losing these vehicles to "death from above". When we're farther into the game so that it isn't a leading question, I'll ask my opponent if he can confirm that those vehicle kills were indeed inflicted by mortars. Jim

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MadDog0606: I wish now that I had kept the games from the SPI magazine I use to get when I was a kid. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You and me both! I had a lifetime S&T subscription, even though it hurt to pony up the $300 as a high school student. When SPI went belly up 4-5 years later, I soured on them and sold most of my magazine games. I've still got 4-5 moving boxes worth of others, including little gems like an unpunched "Campaign for North Africa." Just to get this thread back on topic, I wonder if anyone else ever played a tactical WWII game called "H Hour" mad I believe by Balboa Games. I got it at Origins II back in '74 or thereabouts. It featured 15 geomorphic maps at a scale of 2m per square (not hex!) that could be arranged in a variety of fashions to make typical European towns. Each building on a map section consisted of a number of squares complete with windows, doors, and interior walls. What was TOTALLY unique about this game was that it featured upper stories for the buildings as well! I found a way to mount these on soda straws that could be put on the map, and thus was able to create a TRUE three dimensional village complete with a seven story bell tower on the church. It was visually awesome, even if it took several hours to assemble! Jim

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joe Shaw: Actually my first "wargames" were probably Milton Bradley quasi wargames. I remember one about WW1 Air Combat that used cards for manuevers. Joe<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'd forgotten all about that old gem--didn't it have plastic airplanes (with spinnable propellers) you put on stands reflecting each plane's elevation? Sure brings back old memories... I'm not sure if I discovered that game before or after AH's Tactics (that was the one with the cards for attack and defense options right? I seem to remember the "hold at all costs" card with the little guys shaking their fists at the giant general in the background.) Another oldie from the late 60's was "Feudal"--a kind of cross between chess and a wargame. You had an army, deployed your forces behind a screen for hidden setup, and then 2-4 players went at it. Pretty much fun for a bunch of ten-year olds. What a stroll down memory lane... I wonder if my own son will wax nostalgically about Doom and Jedi Knight 30 years from now?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Highlander: Is there a specific formula in calculations for victory when it comes to exiting troops vs holding a victory area? ...what is a flag's relative worth? Scott<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I wish I knew, but I suspect the penalty for not exiting troops is pretty steep, based on my experience. I was playing a scenario where all of my force was eligible to exit. I pushed 25-33% of my units off, using the rest to hold the two small (100 VP each) flags and fight my equal-sized opponent. It was a toss-up on casualties--each of us lost over half of our starting forces (it was a dark and stormy -err, foggy--night...), and as I've said I had undisputed possession of the VP locations *and* and exited a reasonable chunk of my starting force. Both of us felt that my guys had won, yet the program scored the battle about 70:30 in favor of my opponent. The only unknown factor I could think of is that the penalty for not exiting is fairly steep. I'd argue that it shouldn't be imposed against dead units, though, since they've already yielded victory points to the opponent and charging them for failing to exit smacks of double jeopardy! Jim [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 07-23-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV: Grenade? Is the unit credited with the kill?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I haven't yet heard back from my opponent, so I don't know whether the unit is credited with a kill or not. No explosion was observed, and I don't *think* crews have grenades. That same turn, four battered engineers took out a 251/1 (15mm frontal armor) with three M-1's and a Tommygun. Again, no grnade or satchel chargeexplosion, the halftrack was in good morale, and in fact had the engineers driven prone by the volume of its incoming machinegun fire when my crew suddenly bailed out. It wasn't a good turn for German light armor, especially since those were my last 'tracks! Time to go onto the defensive...

I've been playing a PBEM game that seems to have had more than its share of odd combat results--like armored cars following a Hunt command that continue to advance until they pass alongside their target and mutually strafe each other to death--but I just saw my oddest result yet! Unless my opponent tells me differently, it appears that the two-man crew of a destroyed jeep managed to take out a 251 halftrack from the front at 15 meters range with their pistols. Now, the .45 ACP is a wonderful sidearm and I've fired many a round though one over the years, but military ball ammunition couldn't penetrate even the 10mm of upper hull armor on the halftrack even on a good day! Neither halftrack crewman was killed, so there's no possibility of a casualty suffered through the open top. The crew were Regulars and hadn't broken or suffered any morale setbacks to date, but the only explanation I can come up with barring a revelation from my opponent of a secret fire source is that they opted to abandon the vehicle because of the incoming pistol fire. Given that they had been machinegunning the snot out of the jeep crew for a minute or so prior to the bailout, I find this ironic, to say the least! [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 07-20-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hakko Ichiu: IIRC, Foyle's is no more. I heard that the owner died and the family didn't want to run the business any more. Can anyone corroborate this? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Foyle's was still in business last weekend when I was in the process of buying a reasonably large stack of military history books. (Had to have some good reading material for the hop back across the Pond...) The cashier pointed out that one of the Foyles was walking around the main floor and passed just behind me, so I feel confident in saying it's no only still in business, but it's also still a family business!

Andy, I'm three turns into a double-blind PBEM game as the Germans. My one suggestion would be that you consider detailing at least the initial reinforcement schedule in the player's briefing/op order. While I find it realistic that you might not know what is available to help you out within an hour should you get into trouble--which of course is the premise for the scenario. However, it strains credibility to think that you wouldn't know what is a mere 3-5 minutes behind your vanguard on the road. Knowing what I'll have to work with in these initial turns makes a difference in how I set up and operate, and I was (pleasantly) surprised at what rolled onto the map on turns 2 and 3. Just a suggestion for a 1.1 revision. Will let you know how our duel turns out--first blood went to my opponent, but that's mostly because I'd decided to push an empty halftrack forward until it died, so I'd gain intel for the forces following on its heels. Gaining good intel is expensive--but not as costly as ignorance turns out to be! Jim

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by KiwiJoe: Ive got 4 games on the go right now and every1 uses different methods to name their files. KJturn1a Kj/xt1 turn1 turn1a t1_kj etc I was just woundering if any1 has come across a "standard" way to do this so its less confusing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Wow, what a mess! It makes me glad I do all my PBEM in "friendly" games on the double-file exchange system. Instead of something that looks like a particularly nasty chemical compound, complete with embedded numbers, we get to use plain ol'Anglo-Saxon words. If I'm playing Fred, I'll always send him "View me Fred" (so he can view he turn I executed) and "Play me Fred" (so he can execute the turn I plotted). It doesn't get much less complicate than that, and the turns zing along smartly. For standard PBEM play, though, I suspect you're doomed to a complex nomenclature, especially if you're trying to save all the turns of a game. (I don't, or my scheme would get more complicated, too!) [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 07-07-2000).]

I agree--a PII 400 doesn't have enough horsepower to do justice to a GeForce1, let alone a 2. I'd stay more in the high end TNT2 range, as Compassion suggested. Are you trying to speed things up, improve the image quality, or both? If you're already planning on adding memory and buying a new graphics card, I'd think seriously about upgrading the CPU at the same time. Do you have a motherboard that accepts faster processors? It could be as easy as swapping out the PII for a new Intel or AMD offering.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tom Callmeyer: Hi. Just built a K6-2 550 on a Gigabyte Super 7 board.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Tom, As has already been pointed out, your K6 is actually slower in throughput than your PII-400, due to the CPU's architecture. I don't think the difference should be so dramatic, though, and certainly the K-6 should be outperforming your P233MMX, all other things being equal. Have you tried running any benchmarks, even another program besides CM (gasp! rank heresy, I know...). I'd be curious to see if the pokey video output shows up elsewhere. I think something is amiss in your video setup, and the usual suspect is the video driver. Have you tried the reference driver from the manufacturer of the particular video chipset featured on your Xtreme 2000 (sorry, I tend not to track those details unless I'm in the market for an upgrade). Besides the driver, motherboard bios settings like AGP aperture, video bios shadowing, etc. can affect performance. I'd check your ATI manual.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pillar: Just out of curiosity, what was the conclusion?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Jeez, that's asking me to remember pre-history--that *was* the punch-card era! As I recall it, the winner was someone like Nepal-- some state with a strong martial tradition (think Ghurkas), low manpower costs (think Third World payscales), and low infrastructure costs (i.e, armor or airpower). It was a pretty limited study, intended more to prove mastery of SPSS than definitively "prove" a theory.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Marty: CM allows one to design scenarios that provide extra points by exiting figures off a given edge of the table. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There actually seems to be an extra "gotcha" to the "exiting figures" dilemma. Page 101 of the manual says that, not only do you get extra points (amount unstated) for each eligible man you exit, but your OPPONENT gets some (again, unspecified)amount for each eligible man you fail to exit. Sounds fair enough--except I think in practice your casualties wind up not only yielding your opponent the standard value for their destruction, but also giving him the bonus points for having failed to exit, if they were eligible. (Well yes, technically they didn't exit--at least not under their own power... because they're dead/wounded/shell shocked! Isn't this double jeopardy?!) I'm not 100 percent sure of this, but it is the only explanation I could find for the screwy score in a PBEM match of one of the release disc scenarios where we essentially tied on casualties, I had undisputed possession of the victory point locations, and I had exited 25-33% of my eligible force. Instead, the score was 70-30 in favor of my opponent. Apparently the 66-75% of my eligible force that failed to exit--the bulk of them because they were casualties--outweighed both the value of those that did make it off and the 200 pts for possession of the victory locations. If this is correct, designing a scenarion and setting forces as eligible to exit is a double-edged sword. I think that, just as you only get points for exiting "live" units, your opponent should only get points for eligible "live" units that fail to make it off! Perhaps in 1.03???

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pillar: I'm trying to learn how the US Military today (or other modern forces for that matter) plan stragically and tactically. I'd like to know what the "doctrine" is for waging war and the combination of arms. I also would like a case study analyzing actions from a strategic and tactical point of view in modern warfare. For that, I've been told I should check out "Into the Storm".<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Most of the Dunnigan titles will give you the kind of overview you're looking for, shorn of jargon and lucidly explained. OTOH, you probably won't find a detailed case study in most of his primers--the examples are brought in and expounded on for between a couple of paragraphs and couple of pages, IIRC. Way back in grad school I did a cross-national study of the cost-effectiveness of the world's militaries using the data in one of his books. This was back in the days of computer punch cards... <g>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Seanachai: That Dunnigan? Man, I remember SPI, I still have about 30 SPI box games tucked away here and there in various closets. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yup, the same. Besides writing his "How to" books he seems to spend a fair amount of time as a consultant in Washington and I think he popped up on the "talking head" television commentator circuit during the Gulf War. I oughta' get him to autograph my unpunched mint copy of "Campaign for North Africa" sometime. <g>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Historical_Kev: the game (and computer) locks up after a few minutes. The sound is still playing and the mouse still works, but everything is unresponsive to input commands! The only thing I can do is reboot. Help! My stats are: Gateway Pentium II 400mhz 128 mb of RAM 16mb Velocity 4400 3D card (with latest drivers) DirectX 7 <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Had a similar problem with my STB 4400, even running the latest drivers. Switching to the nVidia TNT reference drivers cleared everything up. Hopefully it will do the trick for you, to!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by lillyman: First of all i like to tell you what type of system i have.A 450 mhz AMD K6-2,A viper550 3d card with 16 meg memorey AGP,latest drivers installed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmm, Viper 550 is a TNT-1, right? Try running the nVidia reference drivers instead of Diamond's customized ones. (It helps to set your card up as a plain vanilla VGA before installing the new drivers.) The STB 4400 Velocity is the stablemate to the Viper 550, and switching from STB's drivers to the stock nVidia ones has cured a host of CM video problems for a number of gamers here.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by nounet: Hi Just DLded the demo, but it keeps crashing right when I try to launch it... I have a PII Celeron 400(128k), a TNT 1 with the detonator 5.22 drivers, and direct X 7 is installed. Out of despair, I even reinstalled Win98, to no effect (except that the first address changed in the crash window). No, I won't format my HD! Nounet <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Two Suggestions, Nounet: 1. Are you overclocking your Celeron? CM seems to have a problem with some overclocked Celerons, particularly 300A's being run @450mhz or higher. If you have a "soft bios" adjustable motherboard, you might try booting at a lower speed to see if that helps. If it does, you might try the original speed again with a *fractionally* higher core voltage--and I mean the smallest possible increment (a tenth or five-one hundredths of a volt, if possible). I've seen memory lockups of the type you describe on overclocked machines, especially when the RAM couldn't keep up with the higher front side bus. Suggestion #2. Try running the NVidia reference drivers instead of the customized Detonator ones. Good luck!