Joe Shaw

That drove me crazy too Gashford, turns out it's mentioned in one sentence on pg. 118 of the manual, but the wording is a bit vague, IMO. Not knocking the great manual, BTW, it's one of the best I've seen. It's just very difficult to get everything right in something that size. Joe

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Nicht schießen! Gehe ich ins Bett mit meine schlecte Deutsch! =P<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Okay, hang on, gotta check Bablefish ... man if you insulted me you are SO dead. Brb. Joe Hmmm, Bablefish says "Don't Shoot! I go to bed with my {schlecte} German." Huh ... I guess you're off the hook ... I think. [This message has been edited by Joe Shaw (edited 07-29-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'm surprised ANY of the Yanks are able to hide, what with massive fluorescent green placards strapped round their ankles. German technology is seen to be superior yet again - their Ankle Placards were a muted grey colour.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Geeeze Fionn, you're right, the quality of this board has really gone downhill. David, Hello! Duh! Are you naturally stupid or did you have to study to get that way? Did you forget to read the rules or do they not teach reading to your grade yet? Are you at all familiar with "SEARCH" or does that mean what you do to your nose with your finger? You can TOGGLE THAT you idiot! If you'd bothered to read the rules you'd have seen that you can hit Alt Shift B and change the historically correct Flourescent Green ankle placards to the modern Woodland Camo pattern! But frankly David, that goes beyond gamey. I don't care if the game allows it or not, U.S. troops managed to win the war against the "vastly superior" Germans despite the handicap of shuffling their way to Berlin with 5 square meters of bright green placard strapped to their ankles AND SO SHOULD YOU. I could quote from Schurbohm's classic work of 1967 "Hiding Quotents of Various Armed Forces and the Placard Factor." but since YOU CAN'T READ I don't see the point. Joe (My guys ALWAYS use FG)

Welcome to the board Sami, and I know you'll enjoy CM as much as we all do. Be prepared, however, for a visit from the CM Borg Joe

You mean to tell me I got creamed by a bunch of OK signs and American flags? I'm so humiliated. Joe

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>People here would sacrifice their first born to get to beta test <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> COOL, where should I send him and when will I get the disc? Joe

Has it really been about two months since the game came out? I got mine on June 22nd and in that time I've: Played in 22 PBEM games With 10 Different Opponents (some of them VERY different ... you know who you are) Using 9 Canned Scenarios And 13 DYO Scenarios Resulting in 8 Wins and {cough} 7 {sneeze} losses With 7 games still in progress and 2 more setting up. A trivial enough scorecard no doubt compared to many, but mine own. HIGHLIGHTS: * My Jackson nailing that Tiger up on the hill. * My Sherman traversing PAST the Panther to nail the StuG in the butt and traversing back to the Panther in time to nail it too ... on the last turn of the game. * Those poor bloody Brit infantry charging up "Cemetary Hill" (my own name for it) and getting gallantly creamed in the process. * My Pioneer flamers torching two houses just as the Brit infantry occupied them. Lowlights: * George and Mark walking all over me in two deep valley defenses. * Brian killing an entire platoon of American paras in a single turn. * Bruce using his 8" Naval guns like sniper rifles. * Jeff showing me how to use StuGs. * Danno and Rob showing me how to set ambushes. * Gerry, who set his pillbox up ... 10 meters away from and aiming right where my platoon set up. * Dell, who's reminding me that 50 cals will murder German light stuff. * And virtually everything about my game with Andreas. Damn, I'm having fun Joe [This message has been edited by Joe Shaw (edited 07-28-2000).]

I wasn't talking about YOU Disaster, sheesh all you Canadians are alike, butting into all the discussions ... just like my wife ... who was born in Canada ... in Saskatchewan ... a town called Climax I always wanted to ask her dad if he went through Intercourse, Pennsylvania first but I never had the nerve. Joe

Jochen: We wish you were too. The Rest Of The Board: Where do these people come from? Joe

Ah Ethan, you've been talking to Andreas and figure you've found another easy victory Actually you could have been talking to just about any of my opponents. Shoot me an email will you? I'm at the office and can't email out and I will for sure forget about it by the time I get home. Joe

Truman told the truth about what and about whom? I'm afraid that not only do I not get what your point is but the quote seems incomplete. Is he talking about the French ... in which case they weren't our allies then were they. Or maybe he's talking about the Russians in WW1. And finally, what brought that topic up? Joe

The full story has been covered on many occasions. TCP/IP will be the subject of a future patch and was never intended to be part of v 1.03. There is no timeline, other than a few weeks, for the TCP/IP patch. Joe

Anthony, I thought it was a good, solid and well researched review. You've obviously played the game enough to get a good feel for how it works. While we might quibble a bit about the exact ratings you gave, we should be quite happy with the overall 9 out of 10 The only real question I had was about your comment dealing with close quarters combat. I believe you stated that you didn't feel like you had "control" over the action? I must admit I've never really had that problem, the different views that BTS has provided seem to me to be more than sufficient to determine what needs to be done. That does not, of course, mean that my guys will necessarily DO IT Regarding the replays, I find the ability ... indeed the necessity of running it from more than one viewpoint to be a plus. I don't always do it, but I find myself "saving the best for last", I'll deliberately set the viewpoint so that I don't see what's happening in the Tiger vs Sherman Jumbo duel while I check out the rest of the action. This is one of the few games that makes me as nervous as a cat when I'm watching certain replays. I'm at work right now and I just got an email from Kuntzler saying "I won't spoil it for you but ... " Now I'm dying to figure out what he's referring to. Did I do good and he's congratulating me on my good fortune or did he do good and he's happy about that. Stupid Game But again, a good review that was well done. Thanks for your support of this great game, we are already chomping at the bit for CM2 - Eastern Front and appreciate the additional buzz that good reviews provide. Joe

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stop this stupid discussion about the guilty - you all know the answer. ... I play CM, cause i´m interested in the fighting - this BIG FIGHT called WWII. I´m not interested in crimes, crualties... even if they are a part of every war.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Jochen, if you didn't want this sort of discussion then perhaps you shouldn't have posted a message with the header ALL IN CAPS OF "I AM NOT A MURDERER". Joe

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>but the halftrack still commited suicide <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, the poor thing was probably depressed because it wasn't fully tracked and kept getting teased by the Pz IV's it was hanging with ... try some Prozac in the gas tank next time. Joe

Gee Matt, thanks for the great AAR {urrrpppp!} but get better anyway, and thanks for the hard work on testing the patch. Joe

Oh hell Spook, I would too. I think that would, in fact, be the best way to do it. But as long as I get to see Napoleonic infantry, artillery and cavalry done decently and the combat modelled accurately I'm going to buy the game. I agree about SMG as well, there was a limit to a single player's capability. The multi was fun but I was never able to get a consistent 4 player or more game going. And after all, we can't even seem to be able to talk BTS into doing CM - Pacific, let alone CM - Napoleon But as someone mentioned, clones of the WEGO system are bound to pop up, perhaps there ... Joe

Runyon unless I'm mistaken you can designate ANY of the units in a scenario to be "Exit Worthy" (to steal a line from Seinfeld). As you purchase the unit there is a box under Edit that allows you to designate THAT unit as one that will gain/lose you points upon/without exiting. Perhaps you were referring to a different situation? Joe

Spook, while I'm totally involved with CM at present, I too have an interest in other wargames that might be good ... not much chance that they will be as good as CM but you never know. In that vein, I got a notification recently that the company that did the SMG follow on for Antietam, can't think of their name right now, is going to be using the SMG engine for Waterloo! Now that might be worth getting, despite the fact that Waterloo has been done to death. Joe

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"YOU STUPID DUMBASS, HOW COULD YOU MISS FROM 5 METERS AWAY!!!!"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I hope this gets fixed in 1.03, my wife actually thought I was saying that! I explained that it was just part of the complete immersion that CM provides. She asked why the Germans were speaking in English and I explained that during the Battle of the Bulge the Germans had specially trained commando units that spoke English. She then said that the Germans must be a lot more polite than the Americans she's heard in the game 'cause they usually say things like "NO YOU F***ING IDIOT, THE OTHER WAY." I explained that BTS's attention to detail and national characteristics is remarkable. Joe

Thanks Ben, I'll have to try it again. I will admit that I didn't play it through once I saw the Jeeps refusing to fire. Joe

I don't think you need to worry about sabotage as a cause for losing tanks The first and foremost thing to remember is that this stupid game does a very good job at recreating FOW. I can't tell you how many times I've lost tanks and had NO idea why. As events unfolded it became clear but at the time you just may not know where that round/mortar/grenade came from. That being said, it is possible that your tank that fired through the bocage had the round explode very short and it damaged your own vehicle, there have been threads on this subject on the main board. The tank that ignored your orders was either reacting to something it saw that you didn't anticipate or your orders may have been ambiguous ... or it may have just decided to go around the corner In any case, it may have looked like it ran down three of your squads but the game doesn't model vehicles causing damage to infantry by running them down. Finally, LOS is a tricky thing. The only true test is the LOS tool and even that can be "funky" on rare occasions. But I'd bet that all of your tank losses were due to perfectly legitmate causes ... that you just don't know about yet Joe

Hmmm, if a Tiger can immobilize or damage a Tiger, then why wouldn't the game let my Jeeps target the Tiger? I was assuming that the reason was that the 50 cal couldn't hurt the Tiger, but now I'm confused ... as usual Could it have been {gasp} a mistake I made? Surely not. Joe

Exactly Andreas, you and I (as an example) just finished a great PBEM game spanning many turns and while some events could use some additional scrutiny (your winning come to mind immediately)it seemed to go very smoothly and accurately by my reckoning. The same can be said for the other dozen or so PBEM games I've played since the game came out. Now I'll admit that I got anxious before I got the game, but those of us who have it surely have one of the least buggy and most carefully designed games ever made. To suggest that CM is "... a product to be fixed..." and one that is NOT "...in proper working order ..." flies in the face of all the posts I've seen and my personal experience. 1.03 is going to be a nice enhancement to a great game, nothing more than that. And as long as you have the game itself your weekend will not be adversely affected, IMO. Joe

Hell Jeff, that's nothing, I was trying to figure out a way to create completely unarmed troops so I could do Rorkes Drift from the Zulu Wars But the silly little people will still have grenades so ... And then there was the Snipe Hunt scenario, 6 Elite Waffen SS Snipers vs. a Green British Infantry Company on a tight time schedule. Not to mention the Surf's Up scenario ... Seriously, the scenario editor is very powerful and while it won't let you do everything you might like, it can be used to test some interesting situations. Joe