Iconoclast

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kazom: I have the exact same problem no night graphics or fog, but smoke, snow, rain, transparent buildings all work. My system is: Gateway Pent II MMX 400 MHz, 128MB Ram My video card is: STB (Velocity 4400) NVIDIA 16MB Op Sys: win 98<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Kazom, Try the NVidia reference drivers instead of the STB ones. I have an STB 4400 and cured random lock-ups that way. Although I *think* I always had fog and night graphics, switching from the STB drivers to the generic reference ones has fixed the fog/night problem to yours for at least one other CM'er here (kgsan).

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kgsan: Iconoclast, I took your advice and the Nvidia drivers did the trick. Now that I've got my sky and fog working I can finally get the full CM immersion experience. Many thanks for your help. kgsan<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Glad to help out a fellow CM'er, kgsan. I had no end of trouble getting the gold demo stable--a combination of an overclocked Celeron and the STB drivers. The original TNT cards like the STB may be a bit long in the tooth now, but they still back enough memory and pixel-pushing power to do justice to CM even on a large monitor.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pillar: What would I get out of reading it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Dunnigan was the President of Simulations Publications, Inc., the dominant wargame company throughout the 1970s, and almost certainly has more game design credits than anyone else in the industry. IMO, his books read like extended sidebar articles from the old "Strategy and Tactics" magazine, shorn of most of the interesting historical examples that were there to explain the specific game at hand. Dunnigan's books tend to take a systems analysis view of combat, showing the interaction of the each element of combined arms. Most of his stuff tends to be written in a "layman-friendly" tone that some grognards find off-putting, in my experience. I've got an academic and professional toehold in both the military analyst and military historian worlds, thus some of Dunnigan's titles are on my shelf. If you're looking for something that will specifically help your "strategy" and tactics for CM, I'd recommend Michael Doubler's "Closing with the Enemy" over any of Dunnigan's titles. OTOH, if you want an overview of everything from what blue water/power projection navies to do how non-lethal technologies can be used in current peacekeeping operations, Dunnigan's stuff is the ticket.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wild Bill Wilder: As to PBEM, I think the scenario still tends to favor the US side IF the US player uses the right strategy. Here it is a matter (as in most battles) of who gets the objectives first and then let the enemy come to them. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Wow, Bill, that was a fast answer! <g> Both my opponent and I were left scratching our heads over his victory, especially since I *did* take the objectives first, in strength, and mounted a defense in depth. The manual does say that units eligible to exit that DON'T do so yield points for the other side--although the amount is not specified. I'm speculating (a semi-WAG) that the penalty must be non-trivial, since I should have been even in terms of points based on the casualties suffered (about even) and some 200 points ahead based on my undisputed possession of the VP locations. The sole countervailing factor I could think of is that "only" 25-33% of my eligible force exited. Now the bulk of those that didn't were casualties, which would require a George Romero-esque fix in order for them to get them off the map, at least under their own steam. <g> I wonder if BTS might consider tweaking the VP calculation so that the penalty for failing to exit an eligible unit only kicks in if the unit is still alive at the scenario's end. Otherwise it smacks of "double-counting". [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 07-04-2000).]

Hey Bill, What's the best you've heard a German player score or perform in double-blind PBEM of this one? It certainly is gut-wrenching to play--it takes the normal Hobbesian nature of modern combat and cubes it! (Life for my squads stumbling into contact with the paras certainly was 'nasty, brutish, and short'--the predominance of SMG units in the German OB didn't help as much as I would have expected!) I started a separate thread about penalizing dead units for not exiting--the scenario in question was actually Fear in the Fog. Since I held both VP locations, the butcher's bill for each of us was staggering but marginally in my favor (160+ casualties for me, 170+ for the US, with all vehicles destroyed), and I'd exited some 4 platoons worth of infantry complete with a company C.O., I'm curious how well the German has to do to actually win? If the penalty for not exiting troops is as steep as it seems to be, the German may be better off conceding the on-map VP locations and sprinting for the mapedge, devil take the hindmost...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dirkd1976: 5 Shermans and a crapload of infantry were all dead thanks to the well buit Panther!!! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I must have had your Panther's evil--or rather, unlucky--twin! In my first PBEM game of VoT, my Germans were on the ropes but I was hoping the Panther could turn things around--if I didn't use it as aggressively as usual (i.e., charge down the road and duke it out with the massed Shermans). Instead I tried to play it smart, hunting forward over the hillcrest to draw first blood --killing a Sherman 75--and then reversing to put myself out of LOS. I circled around the hill to the right and emerged in hull down position ready to engage the Shermans one at a time as they entered Plomville. The sweetest part was that the first victim into my sights happened to be the Sherman 76, and he was so busy whacking my infantry in the village that he didn't even see me start to target him. Mr. Murphy intervened when at that point, when 58 seconds into the turn a US MMG 436m away shifted fire from the retreating infantry it had been harassing and put a burst across the Panther's exposed turret. You've guessed it-- at a range of a quarter mile, this single 5-6 round burst killed the Panther's commander. The survivors buttoned up and went into shock, which of course carried over into the next turn. While the crew is busy wrestling the commander's body down and onto the floor, the Sherman 76 spots the Panther and hits it twice while the crew is still paralyzed by shock. Both rounds cause spalling but no serious damage. My crew finally comes out of shock and re-targets the Sherman, only to have the main gun damaged some two seconds later! Since they were in a hull down position, it took 4 more hits the next turn for the Sherman to finally put this star-crossed Panther out of its misery. So I'm glad to hear that someone got my Panther's quota of good luck as well as their own!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by grunto: hi has anyone used the t8 as a truck? it looks like it can carry a half squad. so for 13 points with transport ability and the machinegun armament it's pretty tempting for a cavalry force. in light of that i think that the trucks should be something like 10 points. maybe a large truck could be 20 points and carry two squads. it's just a thought. andy<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm starting to think the T8 is almost the US equivalent of the Pupchen in terms of cost-effectiveness. It costs half of what a .50 cal HMG team does while packing slightly more than half as much ammo (25 units vs 40). Throw in decent motorized speed (40 mph), armor substantially better than a halftracks (~50mm at its thickest, IFRC), and it is an incredible bargain at 13 purchase points! It's gamey as heck, but if you were willing to break your squads down into teams, you could mechanize an assault force for 2/3s the cost of putting them in M3A1 half tracks. Maybe I'm so fond of them right now because I'm still taken with the way a DYO mtg engagement against the AI turned out last night because of a heroic T8. It managed to take out 2 Marder III's, a 234/1 armored car, a 251/9 recon half track, and a single hapless grunt before running out of ammo. I'd run the T8 into the village dominating the map on turn 1, and from this vantage point it started killing light armor as if it were armed with a Bushmaster 25mm instead of a Browning fifty! The Marders had been giving my own advancing light AFV's grief, so I was perplexed to see them abandoned and knocked out in two consecutive turns when my main force hadn't yet reached firing position. It turned out that the T-8 took each of them out with a single burst at ~200 yards! The 234/1 took a few extra bursts to kill, as did the halftrack. Bottom line: count me as an enthusiastic T8 user! (All smilies that attempted to infiltrate this post were summarily executed by .50 cal HMG fire) [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 07-04-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kgsan: I have checked my drivers and they are the latest, although not very recent (March 1999), so I don't know if there is anything else I can do other than buy a new graphics card. If anyone with more expertise in this area (which is probably just about everyone has any suggestions or advice on how to remedy this problem they would be much appreciated. My hardware specs are: a Gateway Pentium II 450Mhz w/ STB Velocity 4400 16MB video card. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmm, I'm running an STB Velocity 4400 16 MB card as well, and I've got fog as well as sky and all the other graphics goodies. You might try loading the Nvidia reference driver instead of STB's. I used to have intermittant lockups when the game was initializing at the point when the DirectX 7 driver problems seem to cause problems. My lockups went away when I switched to the Nvidia reference drivers instead of STB's "customized" versions. It's worth a try, especially before you plunk down money for a new graphics card!

I just finished a double-blind PBEM match of a release CD scenario that shall remain nameless because I don't want to make this a spoiler thread. While I try to play "realistically" (i.e. execute my Op Orders) and avoid "gamey" tactics, I was more than a tad confused to be declared the loser in this particular scenario. My opponent and I bled each other white (~50% casualties), I exited about a third of my starting force (which was my objective), and I held the on-map victory locations. He won a tactical victory, and the score was 70-30. Having opened the scenario up with the editor, all I can conclude was that, since my ENTIRE force was eligible to score points by exiting, my opponent must have scored more points for the ~2/3 of my force that didn't exit than I did for the third that got off. Since the bulk of my forces that didn't get off-map were in fact dead (surrounded by a slightly greater number of the enemy), am I correct in thinking that my opponent got points first for killing the units, and second because they didn't exit? That's the only explaination I can think of for the lopsided score in the "wrong" direction.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PvK: The beta demo worked fine on this machine. DirectX7.0A installed, Celeron 450MHz, Guillemot Voodoo Phoenix Banshee (video works fine in orders & placement phases). Any tips? PvK<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I had the IDENTICAL problems with an overclocked Celeron--the Beta demo ran fine, and the Gold demo would lock up during the "AI thinking" phase at intervals between every turn and every ten turns. My Celeron 300A has been running rock-steady at 504mhz since 1998, so I suspected drivers, etc. as the cause first. Updating everything didn't do the trick. Prior to setting the CPU back to 450, I opted to increase the core voltage another 0.1v --since that sometimes helps clear up O/C lockups--and it worked like a charm. It didn't even raise the operating temperature appreciably--I guess having a total of nine fans in the machine counts for something. Anyway, the Gold and release version of CM seem to have problems with at least some overclocked Celerons--possibly it's dependent on the particular model of motherboard involved. I've got an Abit BH6--how about you?

I found the same thing--apparently spotters can't Hide while they are calling in fire. In fact, as soon as you issue the targetting order, they get up from the ground. My way of coping has been to give Jerry plenty of things to shoot at all at once. <g> He's usually too busy shooting at things that are overtly threatening (squads, etc.) to bother the F.O.'s

Live in Leesburg, VA, on the outskirts of the Balls Bluff Civil War battlefield.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dar: Basically, Player A sends the film for Turn N to B. B sends the film back and his orders for Turn N+1. A can't see the films he generates until B has seen them so security is in place. A generates the films without needing to send orders to B, so they only need two emails/turn instead of three. End result: Two emails/turn. Security is still in place. Like I mentioned, though, BTS seemed agreeable to getting this in, but not in the initial release. Dar<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> These days I only have time for social (vice ladder-style) play with long-standing (i.e., trusted) opponents. Given these conditions, we've been using the "field expedient" version of this idea in which the two players exchange passwords (I favor "A" and "B" for simplicity). After player A plots and executes, he saves the file with a name like "View me," then loads it as his opponent and runs the view. If you're careful to avert your vision and only look far enough up the screen to be certain of hitting the "Stop" button on the movie, you can exit your opponent's view phase without seeing anything untoward. You save "his" file, load it, plot your turn, save it as "Play me", and then send your opponent both files. He loads "View me" to see the preceding turn execute, then loads "Play me" to plot and execute the turn you just plotted. He then makes his own "View me" and "Play me" pair to send back to you. Is this a kludge? Definitely! Would I use it in ladder play? No! Is is secure? No way! Does it work? Damn straight. We call it Blitz PBEM, and it's great for my needs--playing relatively slow-moving matches against trusted opponents.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ol' Blood & Guts: So here's what you do if your experiencing lock-ups. Lastly, if your video card has an over-clocker, turn it off (or down to 1X). Apparently, CM doesn't like overclocking. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> CM doesn't seem to like over-clocking in general! I had a *terrible* time getting the demo stable on my system--a Celeron 300A running at 504mhz. At random intervals--anging from every turn to every ten turns-- it would lock up during the "Computer player thinking" phase, sometimes requiring a hard reboot and other times responding to Control-Esc. I updated all my drivers incl. Direct X, reinstalled and even downloaded the game again (a non-trivial task w/ a V.90 modem), all to no avail. I finally began to suspect a 128meg SIMM I had recently added, since the rest of the system has been rock-stable since I built it in late '98. My last option before opening the case, however, was to go into my bios and increase the CPU voltage by 0.1v, since this sometimes helps stabilize marginal components at the cost of some extra heat. This worked like a charm, and I didn't pick up enough heat to measure. (Nine fans count for something, I guess!). But CM is the only program I've encountered in eighteen months I've had this system that required this tweaking. Any other CPU overclockers out there with problems might consider this!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ralph D: Try out the mailing list: HPSlist@egroups.com. You'll find the TOPII/PITS hardcore there. I PBEM'd this over almost 3 years, but alas, I'm too absorbed with the CM demo (PBEM) and Smolensk '41 to throw down the gauntlet. Regards<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ralph, if you remember PitS and ToP2 against "Jim" (does "The Green Hell" PitS bocage scenario ring a bell?), drop me a reply and we'll chat off-line. I wondered what happened to you. (Sorry for going off-topic there, folks...)

Steve and Fionn, Thanks for having taken the time to address my concerns. I liked the system from the first turn of the demo and had already recommended it to my usual PBEM opponents. I was motivated to write because my "antennae" had started twitching in the Reisberg scenario after seeing numerous squads that had already been reduced to 1-3 survivors mount "fresh attacks" (defined as charging from cover across 50 m. of open towards known hostiles, not merely lending fire support to others) throughout the final ten turns of the game. Beyond this behavioral anomaly, I was concerned that the "bottom line" casualty count for the US was roughly double the point at which a typical regular company would have broken off the attack. In a nutshell, those are the concerns I was trying to raise. After your responses I'm convinced that the ahistorical result in my Reisberg games came from changes to the loss tolerance in the beta to make it more playable and do not represent CM's treatment of operations. I'll go further--if the current code can generate unit behavior like that in the detailed readout of Steve's Airborne defense post, I'd say the psychological modelling in the game system is as strong as the rest--i.e., state-of-the-art. I'll be trying the Chance Encounter scenario later (I wasn't aware of its existence until this thread) but will try to avoid generating any more time-consuming posts at a result! <g> Steve, it's been a pleasure discussing this with you; your open-minded attitude towards "your baby" reminds me a lot of Scott Hamilton of HPS in the days when he was a one-man shop (from coding to order fulfillment and customer support). Enjoy the rest of your holidays! [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 12-28-99).]

Steve, Thanks for taking the time to post the lengthy reply. Most of what I posted I said a priori were impressions (the AT/Reisberg issue, which I said in my second post was probably a range/silhouette issue--although I still wonder about that first round, carefully aimed P(h) or "wish list" features that are conveniences rather than "deal-breakers". The morale issue I'd put in a different category, but then as a professional military analyst I suspect I'm in a minority with respect to tolerating having my units taken away from my control for the duration because they've become "demoralized". Given a choice between simulation accuracy and game playability, I take the former every time, but realize you've got a market to consider. I look forward to seeing the released version. Thanks again for hearing me out.

My thanks to all who've taken the time to reply. I'm encouraged by the thought that some form of TO or roster may be in the final version. On the AT gun sighting/vulnerability issue, I'm inclined to withhold further fire (no pun intended--I think!) until I see the published version. Reisberg and its 600-800 m. engagement range is pretty close quarters for something like an 88 AA gun that by rights should have opened fire at double or treble that distance to avoid effective return fire from its target. As I write this, though, I'm struck by part of what bothered me at Reisberg--it's the thought that the probability to hit for an 88 opening fire from ambush with ample time to aim and no incoming fire is just too low! A gun whose optics were designed for use against relatively fast-moving aircraft at 10,000 meters would have a very high first round P(h) against a lumbering armored vehicle at a tenth that distance. If the target dies--and we already know that the P(k) after hitting is pretty high--then the survivability of the AT gun rises, especially if there are no other nearby tanks to observe the shot. (I assume spotting of fire is not automatic--having a crewman on another tank looking in the right spot at the right time is not a given, especially if the tank is buttoned up...) On the morale issue, I'm not talking about large units, large timeframes, or the defense. Both the reasonably extensive literature on combat behavior (both psychological studies and operations research works like Jim Dunnigan's or Trevor Dupuy's) and WWII small unit histories suggest that a CM-sized force of regulars should stall and go over to the defensive--or pull back--well before the casualty levels typically sustained in the CM betas when the computer attacks. Even a low global morale didn't stop the inexorable and ahistorical assaults I saw, since the computer continued to attack in one case with a global value of ~18 and 80 percent casualties. (The casualty statistics--as represented by the "KIA" to "other" ratios-- track very closely with the observation that 1 out of 4 casualties for most combatants in WWII were 'prompt fatalities'. Good modelling of the weapons systems at work here!) Part of the issue is a squad-level one, though, that I don't have the sense from the replies seen here is addressed in the post-beta code changes. That is the case where squads falter after losing the bulk of their manpower (accurate modelling), then frequently rally and press on to their doom (questionable modelling). Sure, the surviving man or two would be motivated enough to do this once in a while (that's what makes heroes and wins Silver Stars, after all) but the normal reaction for a trooper or two who are the last alive in their squad is to lose your enthusiasm and go on the defensive--or retreat. This is *your* squad, after all. You KNOW what happened to these guys--as opposed to at the other end of the battlefield--and according to the literature on combat motivation, were fighting for them more than some abstact value like patriotism. Fionn, I'm not sure if I followed your note. Did you request BTS modify the Beta code to allow bloodier attacks (perseverance in face of casualties), but the published code will not behave like this? I hope that's what you meant, that will make me a happy camper. While I'm here, has the vulnerability of open-topped vehicles to mortars as illustrated in The Last Defense been fixed? Seems kinda' silly that an infantry platoon's best killer of enemy halftracks is its 60mm. mortar. I don't really care about victory conditions--being of the "you know if you won or lost" school of tought-- but will probably have to search the BB on victory conditions to try to better understand the relationship between victory locations and casualties. (I just finished my first game as the German in Last Defense with a "draw" despite undisputed possession of the victory locations--and the entire town, for that matter. All seven AFV's had succumbed--damned mortars!--but the US casualties were twice my own and they had fewer remaining effectives. Doesn't sound like a draw to me, unless those AFV's count for beaucoup...) [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 12-27-99).] [This message has been edited by Iconoclast (edited 12-28-99).]

I've played CM a half-dozen times in the week since I downloaded the demo, and am generally very impressed with the Beta code. Great job! Still, I've got a few items on my "wish list" of features, plus one major and one minor reservation that--at least to this grognard/military analyst--seems to seriously undermine the fidelity of the game's representation of small unit WW II combat. First, the wish list: 1. I'd like to see an LOS button added to the hot keys as it is to the unit menu. I've seen the argument on this Board that this capability is "gamey" and you should drop down to view #1 and check things out manually, but would counter that it is much faster and more efficient to be able to check out the LOS from sites of interest without "doing a flyby", and if the function has been restricted to further the first-person immersive "over the shoulder" perspective, then the LOS function doesn't even belong on the unit menu--make the gamer check manually through the squad leader's eyes! Frankly, though, it is a useful tool, and one I'd like to see consistently available. I've also seen a few instances in my handful of games where an opponent--usually armor--seemed to be glimpsed through obstructing terrain but could not be targetted (and in fact the LOS button from the unit menu revealed that the sight line *was* blocked.) My point here is that the "over the shoulder" view can be misleading, and you ought to give the player the choice--which he currently doesn't have *except* from a unit's location. 2. A hot key pulling up a table of organization/roster of the units would be nice, especially during the setup phase. I'd also like to see it available as a hot key or at least from the company commander's unit menu during play as well, to facilitate tracking the status of my forces during play without looking at each squad one-by-one. While you could argue that this omniscence is "gamey", you can currently get the information manaully. Consider the in-game summary version the equivalent of the C.O. asking for a sitrep from his platoon leaders--certainly this would be happening during a 30 minute engagement. Now for the niggling problem: This is more of an impression than something definitive, but at least in the Reisberg scenario, AT guns seem awfully vulnerable to both spotting and subsequent destruction by direct fire. Granted the 88mm Flak guns in this scenario have a large silhouette, but they are supposedly at least partially dug-in (I assume that's what the "foxhole" represents). At 700-800 meters, I find it hard to believe that a single Sherman shooting on the move can nail one within 3-4 shots. (Yes, I know about gyro-stabilization in some Sherman models, but I believe this was relatively primative.) What I find troubling from a historical perspective is that a single Sherman appears to have about an even chance of taking an ambushing AT gun out at moderate (500 meters+) range, and a pair of tanks are virtually certain to triumph. Read the unit histories--whole platoons of Shermans succumbed to singe AT guns under these conditions, with many of the victims never even spotting their attacker! Now for my major area of concern, morale. Having let the computer play the attacker once in each scenarios, I am seriously bothered by the historical plausibility of the result. In both cases, the computer continued to mount vigorous attacks through the end of the scenario, despite the fact that in Reisberg his casualties were over 80 percent, and in "the Last Defence" over 66 percent. Operations research literature and WWII unit histories suggest that a regular unit typically lost cohesion and the ability to continue the offensive after 30-40 percent casualties, with green/ill-trained troops bagging the attack after as few as 10 percent losses and elite units sometimes persevering despite losing the majority of their manpower. Given my experience that CM forces routinely exceed this loss level, I question whether the self-preservation behavior touted in CM's documentation is working on on a number of levels: 1) TACTICALLY, where squads already decimated down to one or two men not infrequently launch themselves across known fire-swept open fields --often the same ones that had already claimed their squadmates. While squads and fire teams historically were "wiped out", this was usually by forces beyond their control (i.e., defenders overrun or attackers caught in the open by effective fire) rather than the ETO-equivalent of banzai charges. A battered pair or single survivor of a squad arguably would have little interest in continuing to attack,regardless of unit quality, yet in the CM demos such a unit will frequently march back into the heart of the fray. A similar criticism applies to the AI's tactics of throwing HQ teams in as line units--"leading from the front" is taken to the extreme in the AI's tactical model, with command elements doubling as shock troops rather than a base of fire support. 2) At the FORCE level, I find it troubling that company-sized forces continue to take the offensive even after suffering overwhelming casualties. This was especially problematic in the Reisberg scenario, where the computer launched vigorous attacks all the way through turn 30. Even elite troops --let alone Regular quality troops as in this scenario--were hard-pressed to continue to attack despite such overwhelming casualties (that's why behavior such as the FJ first wave at the Maleme airfield in Crete became the stuff of legend), but CM's forces seem to be willing to utterly annhilate themselves in the attack. (To be fair, the squad-level morale model may be keeping this late game attacks from being effective--but my point here is that a company which has been effectively annihilated would no longer be attacking at all!) 3) This is more of a wish for "CM2", but I wish there were some way to link morale to the scenario's objectives. In Reisberg for instance, the US objective is described as "unremarkable and strategically "unimportant". Any US company commander who persisted in executing an unsupported attack against such an objective in the face of demonstrated strong enemy resistance to the point of losing over 200 men would arguably be court-martialled, and therefore would have broken off the attack short of this casualty level. Similarly, a company on the defense should not fight to the point of annihilation, unless the scenario sets up a "last ditch/hold-at-all cost" premise. Otherwise, a defending unit should be expected to resist until its position has been compromised/penetrated, then displace in a fighting retreat. In CM, the defender will hold on--or counterattack--until he is destroyed. Bottom line: I really like game and find it unique. What I don't find, however, is that the outcome of the two scenarios in the Beta tracks with small unit results from WW II's ETO. I'm prepared to be persuaded to the contrary, and have already placed an order for CM, but I'd like to know if I'm all alone in feeling that there's something awry here.