Neutral Party

Phillipe and Gordon Thank you both very much for getting back on this one. Phillipe you mentioned the possibility of CMBO being in a weird place. Well how weird is this D:\CMBO ? Maybe I should try uninstalling and reinstalling in the default location C:\Program Files\CMBO. I'll do this and let you know what happens. As to the rest of the points raised - the machine is a PIII 600MHz laptop (Compaq 1800), I dled CMMOS from Combat Mission HQ and it is v3.02.001, CMBO is original BTS version patched to v1.12. Let me try the above and I'll get back. Joe

As we're on the subject of installing CMMOS. I haven't been able to install it at all. When I double click on the .exe file I see an unpacking animation but then it disappears and nothing comes back. When I look at the W2000 task manager I see a ntvdm.exe process taking 99% of the CPU effort - this continues indefinitely and I have to end the process manually. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the CMMOS installation looks in the windows registry for CM so if the CM directory is moved after CM installation it goes belly up. I did uninstall/reinstall CM and tried CMMOS again but had the same problem. Any advice appreciated. Joe

Well I'd like a piece of you Fionn - maybe a leg and a little breast. We did almost start a game a long, long time ago when there were still snakes in Ireland. Maybe you could slot me in down the bottom of the list somewhere. Although I want to learn I also want to see you at your most feral so don't be gentle with me Cheers Joe

I agree that tanks firing smoke when you really want them to fire HE vs. infantry can be frustrating. One work around is area targeting. If your target is inside a building then area targeting the building will ensure HE is fired. Ideally you should target just behind the infantry. A similar approach will work against infantry in trees. One problem about doing this is the tendency for the infantry unit to "grab" the target focus but most times you can target pretty close. However if your target moves you may find you're left targeting an unoccupied position. Of course this approach is not applicable to afv targets. Joe

Review Don't know if anyone's posted this yet so just in case. They seem to quite like it. Joe

Apart from some of great suggestions already made I would recommend "With the Jocks" by Peter White ISBN 0750927216. It's the newly but postumously published journal of a platoon leader in the 4th battalion King's Own Scottish Borderers - part of 52nd (Lowland) Division in the British Second Army. The book covers the period October '44 to wars end and details the battalion's progress across Europe from their first action at Walcheren Island to Bremen, where they ended up. There are no great descriptions of major battles just the day to day account of a junior officer caught up the maelstrom of war. It's available from Amazon.co.uk but I don't know about the US sites.

If you really want a 100:0 win you'd be much better playing hotseat with yourself. Just take a bunch of VT artillery, a bunch of TRPs and few sundry units to accept surrenders. With your other side choose just infantry and get them all to stand on the the TRPs then blow them up and once they're all dead or broken offer them chewing gum and cigarettes and they'll surrender. Don't do this at night though or you may get your own troops shooting at each other and that would spoil the score.

I'm afraid you just have to live with all these gamey things. Unit selection people can agree about (if they want to) prior to starting but the rest may or may not happen and there's bugger all you can do about it. The more I play this game the less likely I am to do some of these gamey things simply because I don't get much fun out it. Oh yeah and I don't care about winning. It's just that if I lose I cry and throw my monitor out the window but everyone does that - right? The only way to get rid of the suicide-type gaminess would be if the game consisted of a long succession of battles where forces carry forwards. Then I'm sure folks would stop. But the game's not like that so they won't.

I think that the graphics in CM are satisfactory. In principle, it would be nice to improve them with all features suggested above but I don't think this will be a major priority for BTS. The problems would be: 1. Game becomes unplayable for the majority of those likely to enjoy it. 2. Limited resources in terms of graphics coding. 3. Higher priorities such as historical research for Eastern Front OOBs/TO&Es, new vehicle modeling, improved AI etc, I don't know about anyone else but I have never found myself saying during the course of a game - "damn I wish there was dynamic lighting". However I have found myself screaming "take the f*****g shot you stupid ****" and then having to go drink a very large Scotch. Joe

Knock knock who's there? Fritz Fritz who? Fritz a grand old team to play for ....

I have also written a song inspired by Combat Mission. It goes something like this. Chorus Oh I'm a fallschrimjaeger and I'm ok I sleep all night and I hide all day I'd jump off planes If we had any left But failing that I like ambushing best. I wear high boots And a funny hat I like to shoot wild Brits I put on spotty clothing And you can call me Fritz Chorus I've lots of pockets in my coat They're full of bombs and stuff I wanted to be a gerbil But I wasn't baad enough Chorus Whatcha think? Joe

Abbott Everyone agrees that you should not be able to issue orders and then watch the movie on the same turn. What is being discussed is whether there is a more time-efficient method of achieving this. Joe

I think it would work OK in principle but would involve some recoding. Player A sends an unseen movie to player B. After watching the movie, player B inputs his next order set then sends effectively two files back to player A: the movie and the next command turn. Player A watches the movie, inputs his orders, processes the next movie and sends it to player B without seeing it. The difference to the current system is that every turn each of the players would watch a movie AND issues orders. chrisl is correct that all movie generation is done on the same computer but so what? Joe

What are they?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: There's a good lad! What is that like. Have not had that one yet, mostly because of the unpronouncable name...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Andreas it's almost completely phonetic except that bh in Gaelic sounds like v in English. It's another Islay malt, quite smoky but not so much as Laphroaig or even Lag. I prefer the Lag myself but got this bottle as a gift so whose complaining. Joe

I will take this as a sign and go pour myself a bloody big Bunnahabhain.

It has come to my attention that BTS sucks. Had I known this before spending 45 of my hard-earned dollars on this product I would never have spent 45 of my hard-earned dollars on this product. Not only that, I have also spent an inordinate amount of my precious time playing this game. This time I now feel could have been better spent composing long, self-important and delusional (my speciality) diatribes on how I feel I should be treated having spent 45 of my hard-earned dollars. When I spend 45 of my hard-earned dollars on a product I demmand a level of respect and obseiquiesness comensurate with my status as a major investor. Why only the other day when purchasing a large bag of shopping from my local food emporium I had cause to advise a young man on the fact that his hair was absolutely filthy. Once I had instructed him in appropriate personal hygiene he was most appreciative and suggested some rather interesting, but unfortunately anatomically challenging, sexual techniques for one person that I could perform. This advice I would be more than happy to pass on to those individuals seeking only to ensure an appropriate level of servility from the lower orders, if only I could remember how it went. Keep up the good work. Tally ho.

Damn you Steve Clark why did you have to go and prick my bubble (ooh err missus!) idioted fer speling [This message has been edited by Neutral Party (edited 08-30-2000).]

AFAIK the major difference between the various encounter types, apart from point balance and availability of fortifications, is the position of the VLs. For a "probe", the VLs are close to the enemy-side of the set-up zone and for "assault" they are much nearer the friendly map edge with the "attack" in between. This has the effect that for an assault you may have to penentrate a defence-in-depth to get to the VLs whereas for a probe you don't. Joe

Maybe a way round would be make it that if some arty is called for, you are commited to a cetain minimum duration of barrage. This would simulate the delay in getting the FO to get a cease fire and shift target message through. Don't know - just thinking aloud. Joe

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by David Aitken: Engagements in Combat Mission tend to happen at shorter-than-average ranges.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No offense David but doesn't this strike you as a statistical paradox ? Joe edited to correct my atroshus spelling [This message has been edited by Neutral Party (edited 08-11-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Juardis: Joe, or anybody else for that matter, for whose purpose is that spotting round? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey Jeff. The point I was trying to make is that the spotting round itself is irrelevant - unless it's something ridiculous like 14". It's rather the reduced time to FFE that is the advantage of the approach I described, especially for a long primary targeting delay. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>So long as no spotting round has landed you should be able to move it without using up an ammo point. Otherwise, move it and lose it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> But isn't this just a matter of timing over which the player has no control. If a spotting round lands 45 seconds into the turn, is that so different from one that would have landed say 75 seconds later but doesn't because the targeting point gets shifted ? <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think it gamey and the spotting rounds should be included in the first barrage. If a human does that with me (drop spotting rounds all day long), I would never play that human again. I wouldn't hold a grudge or get my panties in a wad though, I just wouldn't play him again. JMO.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's your right of course, but unless it's really heavy arty the spotting rounds are unlikely to have any significant effect by themselves. The effect they may have on the mind of an opponent may be more substantial. Joe (still master of his domain)

I take the point but consider this. If you've got a green FO, time to FFE can be several minutes - 6 minutes is the most I've seen. What I do in my nasty gamey little way is set a target for a fire mission early in the game. Then when the arty is due to strike, adjust the target point. New time to FFE is 1 minute - repeat as required. That way you stay 1 minute away from FFE rather than 6 or whatever. Do you think I should not do this ? Now 14" is a different story because of the damage a spotting round can do. However, I can't think of how such a tactic could be hardcoded out as you would then lose the ability to adjust fire. Eeh it's a dilemma Gromit! Joe

How fast a tcp/ip game takes to play will depend on how fast the humans play it. I would guess it won't be much faster than icq. The nice thing about the AI is it is bloody quick.

I have thought long and hard about this subject (for the best part of 30 seconds) and I have come to a number of conclusions. It is blatantly obvious that the game as it presently exists is fundamentally flawed - but hopefully it can be fixed. Here are the first batch of my instructions to BTS on how to accomplish this. 1. Enemy weapons accuracy is too high. Please ensure that all enemy weapons accuracy are reduced so that I can advance my platoon of Morris Minors with impunity. 2. Friendly weapons accuracy is too low. I demand that my crews be allowed to close-assault veteran gerbiljagers using their quad pocketpilchardchuckywaffe. 3. The AI basically sucks. It should be reprogrammed to warn me about tactical oversights and should constantly monitor my decisions and provide a list of 5 best moves to win. 4. AI does not alert me when my FOs are smoking fags. This is definitely a game-destroyer for me. I know I speak of behalf of everyone here when I say that sometimes I forget where I put my FOs. I think they are sneaking along behind my schwereMorrisMinor Company but when I want to call down some heavy artillery I find the bastards are standing around smoking fags at the start line. Come on BTS what gives. 5. Astrological OOB. It has proven irrefutably that the positions of the planets and distant stars hundreds of light years away at the time of birth basically determine the entire course of one's life. I think it was a gross oversight of BTS not to include an OOB that contains complete astrological data on the individuals that make up our forces. Picture the situation - your veteran pilchardgrenadiers are attacking an enemy strongpoint. 50% of your forces are still milling around the set-up zone smoking fags thanks to the useless tacAI. Will your assault succeed. This is where the astrological OOB comes in. Simply click on your unit and you will find out that their zodiacal sign is Taurus with ascendant Reginald Maudling, their lucky color is red, they need a new challenge in life and should consider a career change. Now that is damn useful intel. Please ensure that these instructions are carried out promptly. Joe