PeterNZer

VOTE THE FICCUS hehe couldn't resist. PeterNZ (Mike Moore worshiper) (yes we get him here in the UK)

I have, as a non-US type, (I won't say American.. it really pisses of the rest of the continent I hear haha), always found it a little odd how the UN was seen as some evil overlord.. I'm not sure much of the rest of the developed world thinks that way at all. Still, as my ancestors in North England would say "There's nought as queer as folk". Anyway, to the topic at hand, Min Joe. You have to accept that the govt will probably ask you to do things you don't like the idea of at least a few times in your career in the forces. Doesn't really matter where you are serving in the world I would say that is the case. Happen in civy-street as well, but we generally won't die if our bosses get it wrong As for the UN, of course it's flawed! The US started it, (kidding ok!). It's flawed because it's a huge-ass organistion running on no budget, (seen UN in brussels? I've been told it's a grotty building/etc) trying to help as many people as possible. BUT, and here's a really big one, it DOES often do things that are pretty darn fantastic. 90% of the time you would never ever hear about it. For example - Cambodia - East Timor, (with reservations I'll admit, but those problems stemed more from other areas) - Mediation and peacekeeping by AFRICA in africa, there's some good success here. - border monitoring all over the world There's more, but who wants to bore you all with details. If the US was to abandon the UN, the UN would quite literally, come undone. No argument there, the US is an extremely important member of the UN. Without a sense of the UNs worth, many countries would stop listening to it and stop using it as a forum. That would be disasterous in my mind. What the UN does really well is offer another channel for a country to put its point forward that isn't war. In history, if countries had problems they would talk back and forth until either it was resolved or there was a war to resolve it. The UN provides an extremely valuable public forum for countries with issues and it allows these problems to be voiced, heard and then dealt with through the MANY UN mechanisms. You never hear about this stuff, it's not exciting enough for the press. I mean, how many of you would find it interesting to know that two unheard of states had a border disagreement, were considering mobilising, took it the UN and eventually hammered out some agreement or Fiji agreed to send 500 peace keepers to monitor their border, (One of Fiji's biggest exports is PeaceKeepers, earn a lot of good foreign money haha). You certainly would hear about it if it reached a war where the neighbours got involved, followed by others.. and so it goes. The UN also does a lot of valuable work in aid, development, environmental affairs and so on. I find it disapointing that so many people seem ready to throw the baby out with the bath water. The UN isn't perfect but it's the best thing we've got and the world would be a poorer place without it. PeterNZ

I have to go to work now, so only a quick comment and no chance to read the thread yet.. The UN is made up of its members, one of the most powerful, if not THE most powerful memeber is the US. It is EXTREMELY rare that the UN ever 'forces' anyone to do anything. The UN can't have 'power' over the US beyond what the US agrees with. More than a few times the US has pissed off most of the UN by totally going counter to common world opinion. If I were you, I would be much more worried about your government sending you into Colombia for the 'war against drugs'. Where you could fullfill the role of a 'military advisor'... more than a few of those have died recently in action. PeterNZ

For the work involved with programming it then the necesary patches and AI tweaks, I really don't think its worthwhile. I mean you'd see it, what.. once in 20 games if you were lucky? Mind you, that seems to be my luck with damn air support in games PeterNZ

One thing we've forgot to mention is that CM is based on history, stuff that happened. He may not be aware of that. So to him, it's just grey and green and explosions and stuff, but what it represents is greater. I guess a simple history lesson would be usefull.. Pull out an atlas and show him the US, show him Europe and describe how the Germans took a lot of land and there was lots of war all over Europe.. pictures and maps might make things a bit easier. If you have family history, tell him that too 'see that tank', 'your grandad drove one like that in the war'. Hell, take him to a museum so he can see one right up close. I think realising that although it's a game, it's based on real life stuff would provide enough food for thought. I think 'good guys' and 'bad guys' is a good idea for now, .. to a degree. Shades of moral grey and pretty tricky for kids to pick, (there's lots of studies that show this, eg. most kids under 8-10 will say that someone who steals to feed their babies should go to jail because stealing is wrong.. kids getting older understand that there are sometimes factors which make those decisions tougher). I read a REALLY interesting article by a child psychologist and ordaned priest, no less, who had come to firmly believe that some form of child gun/war/etc play was bassically natural and beneficial to kids. He and his wife had long followed a 'no weapons' policy for their son who was about 6 or 7, but a few things got him thinking First a kid came into his practice who was 5 and a right terror at school, disruptive, unnatentive.. and generally naughty. In the psych sessions with a co-worker, this kid would just play with a toy gun in the room and go 'bang your dead' to the psych and the psych would go 'egad' and pretend to die, and they'd do this for just about an hour solid a few days a week for a few weeks pretty much! After this.. the kids behaviour improved tremendously and was essentially 'fixed'. the write obviously was puzzled by this, and it set him off thinking. Nothing really came of it untill halloween when his own son, who was a very timid boy, asked to be a Knight for fancy dress. The writer and his parents agreed, but of course, said 'no sword', kid was very disapointed. Well the author started thinking. His son was very timid, as I said, didn't like the scary parts of books and cartoons, they really freaked him out more than is usual, and he wouldn't have them read to him.. didn't like witches stories.. all that stuff.. O i remember now too, didn't like Star Wars, found Darth Vadar way too scary Anyway, the kid constantly asked to be allowed to have a toy sword for halloween. And the author started thinking 'maybe he knows what is best for him'. So talking to his wife they agreed to let him have a plastic toy sword. Kid was over the moon and with his parents they played games of him being a brave knight rescuing the damsel and killing the Dragon. Kid was very happy, and very happy on Haloween and proud to be a Knight with a sword and so on. The doctor also noticed that one day his son and other kids were playing a 'star wars' game and that the kids 'killed' Darth Vadar in the way kids to -whack whack you're dead-.. and so a kinda light went on in his head. Well he thought: Kids see things in black and white, good and evil. Lots of stuff is pretty scary to them, they are small and generally powerless, (I remember as a kid being annoyed I wasn't grown up so i could do what i wanted!). They use games and play to reasure themselves and make things less scary, and to give themselves some power. The kid who shoots the 'bad guy' isn't doing it because the kid is violent, the kid is doing it to reassure the kid that the bad guy can be defeated, that the child has a way of doing it through their sword or gun or something. Children know they can't do it on their own strength, so these 'tools' become important in the battle. What he was seeing in his son was a disempowerment, he was unable to defeat the scary things and felt powerless against them. With creative and controlled play using the sword etc (instead of say, just beating the jones son over the head with it for half an hour hehe), the child was 'empowered'. Despite the flashy PC words, there's a basic truth there I think! He came to think it wasn't a good idea to dumb-down those old fairy stories either. Kids have a black and white view of good and bad. If you're a bad giant and you steal something you get punished, (head cut off or whatever!). Often stories blur this action-punishment action-reward situation and in his opinion just didn't give kids a clear 'do wrong you will be in trouble' message due to a desire to have a PC happy resolution, the naughty giant gets told off and let back into Happy Land or whatever. Anyway, I'm rambling now. As always I found that article really interesting and from what i've seen of kids I agree with his thoughts on kids using play to reasure and teach. Anyway, I think you are lucky to have a smart son, and I'm sure he will grasp the difficult historical concepts in some form, I guess just explain it simply and with aids from maps and pictures.. perhaps tell him that the SS did bad things and even grown-ups find the SS scary... i dunno PeterNZ

pretty damn snazzy PeterNZ

Yeah, I love it too, like how the forest and open tiles kinda.. blend into each other Makes everything look very natural and ooo sexy. Speaking of which, those who are bored should check this out. Very childish and silly but hey http://www.zthing.com/zthings/oops.html PeterNZ

gawd damn, we have grass grogonards here, what has the world come too! PeterNZ

I'm happy to help you proove you're the best =) I'm sure JohnS and Titan would also join int! PeterNZ

Do you mean Game Commander? No hit i've noticed, it's pretty sweet PeterNZ

I'm currently playing a game where on turn three a distinctive 'buzzzzzz' was hear.. definately plane-y However, by turn 4, it had gone! I was teasing my opponent too! "Ahha! Soon the mighty USAF will strike down your Stug, mwuahaha".. and the bastard buggers off?! Is that right? ... arg! Will he come back?! What a waste of points PeterNZ

Well, I'll try and help some more Cpt. S (a point by point breakdown follows) - Size of map and pts: well BTS increased the pts more for multiplayer than any other reason, I guess there was some demand there. Think of the ability to use extra points as an optional mod. Just like in Quake or many other games, there's all sorts of stuff you can use and tack on, doesn't mean the game was designed to have those things there. It does seem you have encountered a sitation which the AI doesn't handle well, that is of huge forces on a huge map. I guess you could conclude the AI isn't to well suited to this scale of operatoins, and I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. The game is supposed to simulate at most.. what.. a Batalion? So generally that's, waht 2 or 3 companies of infantry, some heavy weapons support and maybe a platoon of Armor. With up to 5000 points the AI can have the option on a lot more stuff and much bigger forces. Now remember, The tac-AI works fine, that's the AI for handling in-turn stuff if i recall correctly. That's the shooting, firing etc etc. What you seem to be saying is that the strategic/operational AI bit, the 'big plan' AI isn't working so hot with larger troops. Really what your post boils down to is "It seems the operational AI can't handle the larger maps and forces? eg..<insert examples> Any comments BTS?" And i'm positive if you posted like that you'd have got some worthwhile reply. However your post was pretty jumbled, so the question got lost amongst the vitriol. Anyway, where was I. Well you have two choices really. Play with huge points and maps vs' the AI, or not. I'd suggest you try 'not' and at the same time, ask politely what's going on or if you are missing something. If you're playing with the default points in a scenario, well you have to expect some odd things to happen. If you are playing the scenario exactly as it is listed with no tweaking, and STILL facing trouble, well you have a legitemate concern. Meanwhile, I suggest you try a couple of smaller maps and point values and see how the AI does. I've always found the AI to be pretty sharp and much much better than other games I've played. What I like best is I will see other players in multi-play make mistakes the AI would -never- make. That's pretty cool. - ICQ: Well I've had icq since it was released and not had a single problem. If you want it, just get the latest version, turn of 'show ip' turn off 'publish to white pages' or whatever it is, then the only people who will know you are online will be those who are already on your list. If PC security is a general concern then you need to pick up.. black-ice or whatever that program is.. it monitors all ingoing-outgoing traffic as well as pings, fingers, malformed packets etc etc.. and is very effective at stopping crap happening. Even without ICQ you are VERY likely to be probed. I could sit my PC for an hour and find up to 20 probes from all over where the script-kiddy has run probes over thousands of random IP address. So, moral is, got **** you need to save and keep secure, either get a firewall or BlackIce. If you haven't got those already then installing ICQ would be like adding a pinhole to a piece of swiss cheese. (cool metaphor huh?) (o, i'm in london by the way, was in Auckland). - PBEM: I dunno why you find it so annoying. I like to surf, get a turn arrive by ICQ autodownload, go play, pop back, surf some more and send it. It's pretty relaxed I think one thing I'm not clear on is whether you are using the default points or not? If you're not, well, you have to expect odd things to happen. Perhaps if you could clearly outline the scenario, pts per side, and AI's actions, we can then all compare our own results. eg 1) Whooping o' the Asses pts. 4000 each result: ai creamed my pasty butt on turn 3 At the moment it's .. well it's bassically really hard to decipher what you're getting at from your posts. So a few clear examples and we'll see. If it turns out others are seeing much the same thing we have a pattern and Steve/Charles can pop in and say what they think. If it's a case of you being the only person who is seeing that problem. Well who knows! Or if it's an intermitent problem, well you can't have everything. I don't think a better game AI has been written. But feel free to try yourself. PeterNZ

If he's using icq he will get a prompt saying 'incoming file' he should select 'save as' then find the PBEM directory, 'save' and there it goes, woosh, into your CM pbem directory. Then he goes into the game, (easiest just to leave it running, and alt+tab back into it, this game is EASY the most stable game for tabing in and out of), he selects the multiplayer, load email option, finds the file 'shatterVSfriend.txt' or whatever you've called it, and dbl clicks, enters his password and voila. Then he just plays his turns, or views the movie and sends the file back. PeterNZ

Capt S If you're playing all your battles with very very large forces I would say that is your problem. Try a smaller battle of 1000 or 1500pts. They are actually a lot of fun and you have to be carefull with each squad. I've also found the AI to be much more interesting on this scale. With a huge map and huge forces the AI can't help but move slow, it has to check every hedgerow and every thicket and be confident you're not hidding in there. The AI deliberately doesn't rush forward, it has no knowledge of starting lines, guessing how far into the map you are or any of that stuff. As a rule, it seems to have a great deal less info than the player does, as a result, it plays 'realistically'. So, go try a smaller map with smaller forces. And you should try PBEM to teach you a lesson in humility. I'd suggest finding a partner with ICQ. Setting each other to auto-save makes things pretty quick on the turn around. And TCP/IP is in the works PeterNZ

just had a guy come to my door. Sold me ADSL for 40 quid install and 20 quid a month! Via HomeChoice.. it's pretty damn cool, will be installed within a week. If you're in the UK, drop me an email and I will give you his number and he can tell you about it, or you can contact first choice. PeterNZ dynamo@pobox.com

Hey, want a job as a voice actor in Combat Vision films? email me :0 dynamo@pobox.com PeterNZ

how do they both work with different sound cards? I have a fairly unimpressive on-board card.. PeterNZ

I'm only interested in blowing other people's stuff up PeterNZ

O silly me! I knew the reason for the war in the pacific, (could hardly forget it eh? ) but forgot that Germany declared war on America. Silly Hitler eh. Well anyway. I just like blowing stuff up in games, can I go home now please? PeterNZ

Mr Brian I apologise for incorrectly spelling your name, I misread. I would like to have credit for having a better sense of humor than to find merely deliberately miss-spelling someone's name amusing and somehow insulting. If I wanted to insult or deride you some how I'd probably be much more open about it PeterNZ

I also would like to add a few points to the post above, because I'm just generally annoyed at the jingoism Mr Brian espouses. First off, the allies didn't fight to "stop the masacre of the jews" or to "stop the holocost" (sp), or anything like that since people didn't know about the atrocities till well into the war. - The French were at war because the germans invaded, same with the Poles etc - The English went to war because of the broken promises, treaties, whatever - The American's went to war because the Luistania (sp?) was sunk and whatever other complex reasons. In the end, we can agree it was for the best that they did, and that they won since it ended a regime that revelled in blood and rhetoric on a mass, modern scale never seen before. As for the germans etc etc. My grandma tells me interesting stories of her childhood in Germany during and after the war. She still talks with amazement at what Germany became in the 30s before the war. Only perhaps Korea changed so much so quickly in the last century, (quicker than japan and germany after ww2, since Korea after its war had almost no industry to even start rebuilding, the other two did to a degree eh?). Suddenly in Germany there were jobs, there was -food- to eat, roads, cars for everyone. Take all this in the context of the times. Start by forgetting everything that happend after 1938. Up until then Hitler was -widely- admired both by Germans and people outside Germany. Can you blame them? I honestly can't. Until then, the true nature of the nut hadn't really shown itself I don't believe. After 39, it all went downhill. My Grandma rememebers hushed conversations between her relatives, her father and his brothers, they knew it was only a matter of time once America entered the war and Russia wasn't conquered. Also by 1942ish the rumors of what was happening to the Jews had just started to circulate I think my Grandma felt. She didn't find out for sure till 1945. She was shocked, amazed, horrified as anyone would be. As a teenager they were told the Jews were offered transport to America if they wanted it, "since that's where all the jews live anyway", as the Nazi party said. She was a naieve schoolgirl brought up in the Hitler Madchen (sp) and so didn't question it. I'm sure her father and relatives thought something else was up however. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this now. But it just annoys me to see someone be so black and white in their thinking. YES Nazism is bad, YES the hollocost was terrible and insane, the first mass-production of murder, and penultimate industrial age experience as I've read it described, but did all germans feed the fires and push the jews, homosexuals, deranged, gypsys, enemies of the state in? No. Did they all know about it? No. Can we blame all of Germany for what happened? No. I think in this age of mass media and mass communication we overestimate how hard it is to cover things up from you own public. Put yourself back in the 1940's or 1930's. You live in a small town, press and the media is state controlled. You hear news they want, read news they want. Your world becomes very isolated. Ok. I'll end it here. There's bad stuff on all sides, all the time. I could have a few things to say about the 'drug war' as well, (yeah, lets kill those peasants in colombia good!.. and no, military advisors aren't serving soldiers!).. but this isn't the place or time. Of course, the Nazi period was a -particularly- bad period, a dark terrifying spot in our history. Terriying because it happened and noone seemed able to stop it or even to fully fathom it, both while it happened and after.. Terriying because we all fear it may one day happen again. This I believe is the real fascination for most people. How did it happen, why, what was going on in people's heads? War, conflict, mass psychology do very strange things to people. I met an ex-iranian lt. who told me that during war "rape isn't rape, it's just one of those things that happens".. What can i say? Humans are weird. It's a wonder we haven't blown ourselves up. anyway. when is my damn air support going to arrive in those damn pbem's I'm playing! Better go check! PeterNZ

For goodness sake. Mr Brain, so far we've seen three threads started by you, one has ended in flames and a lock, I'm certain the other two will eventually end in the same manner. Can you sense a pattern? Quite frankly, it is annoying to see someone post such vitriol on any topic he chooses with as much frequency as you do. The only positive thing I can bring out of this is that we've seen this kind of posting style before, and invariably the postee leaves the forum within a week or two. Seen it before, will see it again. PeterNZ

Nope, because there's no finns and no ruskies in the current game. I imagine you could substitute the west front nationalities and equipment.. but it would be a bit messy really. PeterNZ

--------------- | Don't Feed | | The Troll .. | |__________| . . . | | . . . | | ___\/\/\/___ PeterNZ [This message has been edited by PeterNZer (edited 08-25-2000).]

You're not a prof right? certainly not a history prof. PeterNZ