Neutral Party

I need a fix - anyone want to pbem ? Either scenario, either side. Joe

Apparently you do not exist Connection to knoggin.com. failed. No Ip address found from email.msn.com-207.46.181.19 brainboy@knoggin.com Server received Winsock error Host not found. Is that the right email address ? Joe

I am looking forward to the random scenario generator, endless hours of humiliation and getting electronically fragged by my own troops. Joe

I have had no transparency effects with ati rage pro turbo 4MB on desktop (Sony PCV E205 PII 333MHz) or ati rage mobility 8 MB on laptop (Presario 1800 PIII 600MHz). In the preferences setup on laptop I can see the 1024 x 768 panel but can't click OK because the cursor is inoperative. Have to use 800 x 600. Don't know about you guys but the idea of swapping a graphics chip on a laptop fills me with dread and, much as I love CM, ain't worth it for transparency effects which I can live without. For the desktop I just bought a voodoo3 2000 PCI 16MB and now get transparency @ 1024 x 768. I would recommend this route for older machines that have integrated agp graphics on the motherboard but no swappable card. Joe

Upper East Side 89th & 1st Let's get it on Joe

"Beastly Beastly Luck!" a. Germany First shot from a Sherman 105 plonks straight through the AT bunker slit - "Goodnight all" Panther selection (played 3 lost 3): 1. main gun damaged by first shot - "Au revoir et bon chance mes amis" 2. abandoned during arty bombardment - "You rang?" 3. shot trap kill by first shot - "Right lads let's kick some ... whaddahfuh!" The wonderful products of Assorted Artillery Annihilations Inc., "what happened ?" b. US Bunker Blues including Uberbunker - 6 tanks for no wickets. "There's something wrong with our bloody tanks today!" Marmelized by Machine Guns - "OK everyone arrange yourselves on the barbed wire before I count to 10" Infantry Gun apocalypses - "How did Pete get up there?" Joe - Get your lucky rabbits foot here

This would be nice - although it would mean that church towers become #1 priority targets. Joe

I was playing VoT as US vs. AI (and doing badly I might add). All my armor was smoking before I even saw the Panther. So I was a wee bit worried and plastered it with 105 arty. Must have rattled it's brain because it came charging down the hill, did a pirouette and shot off up the lane in reverse towards the US map edge eventually getting popped up the ass by a bazooka. It was sort of like it was trying to get away but in the wrong direction Most strange. Joe

I've got a Sony PII 333MHz 160MB RAM with a 4MB ATI Rage Pro Turbo (scoff) video card. This is one of these sucky machines where the AGP graphics board is soldered onto the motherboard and is not upgradeable. To upgrade I would have to get a PCI card - which cuts the options down quite a bit. The gold demo runs fine but I do not see any transparent effects such as buildings or smoke. AFAIK I have the most recent drivers-bla bla bla. I've read in a few messages here that CM has problems with ati and voodoo cards and/or their drivers. I had been thinking of saving up my pennies and getting a new Voodoo 4 or 5 as these will be available as PCI. Maybe the new GeForce2 which will also be available as PCI. However I have got to resist the urge to get a better video board than my computer deserves - otherwise it may get ideas above its station. Joe

Hey man if you can get some high quality smoke who needs a stinkin' voodooo 2.

I am a hopeless dribbling wreck and I can't stop twitching. I'm now going to go and lie down. Goodnight Joe

you ****er i'm downloading the OLD demo boo hoo wail! Joe

Need to calm down here gentlemen. Some observations: 1. Bottom Line - it's BTS game and they can do what they like with it. 2. By their previous conduct they have shown beyond all doubt that they are willing in principle to make major modifications to the code. This phase is now (temporarily) suspended because the game is coming out - duh! 3. Almost every thing that can be thought of is infinitely complex. This means there is a constant danger of disappearing down a very deep hole of argument. The urge to follow this path should be resisted. 4. From the point of view of the non-initiate, operationally there is no difference between saying "I have objective and irrefutable objective proof of statement x but I'm not going to show you it" and "statement x is true because I say so". If the object of the exercise is to make the non-initiate feel excluded then this approach succeeds admirably. 5. There is a phase of scientific peer review when only a small handpicked group get to see the data. This occurs when a paper is sent to a scientific journal or a grant proposal is submitted to a funding agency. Only later when the work is published openly do a large number of individuals get to pass judgement on it. P.S. Some really crap papers get published and some really good ideas don't get funded. 6. IMO most people have neither the time nor the interest to research these minor details and will only care if some weird thing happens - like a plattoon of troops getting wiped out by a n-waffe from half a mile away. 7. It's a ****ing computer game. Are we there yet ? Joe

OB&G Let me see if I've got this right. A chicken company is coming to your town - so 1. all the kids get the day off school 2. the whole town turns out to welcome the chicken company 3. the chicken company doesn't turn up By any chance was your local bank robbed that day ? Joe

Hey Ron Had you not inserted 3 platoons of SS panzergrenadiers up my bottom and twisted them very painfully, I would say that you had a sense of humor. But to paraphrase Steve - just because something occurred doesn't mean that it actually happened. Joe

Seeing the old guy with the panzerschreck (CMHQ POTD) made me wonder if a volksturm squad will consist of a bunch of old guys or a mixture of old and young. Will their running speed and/or time to "tired" be affected too. Do we have to kill him or can we just kick his panzerschreck away? On a similar(ish) theme, why are the CM guys (i.e., the ones in the game) so ugly? They all look kind of fat and grumpy - are they based on the beta testers or the seven dwarfs? Joe

The wargamer website, never let it be said that it is slow on the uptake, has finally reviewed the beta demo of Combat Mission - no not the gold demo - the original demo we've all being playing for months. http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/combat_mission_preview.asp Not only that, but the reviewer was, how shall we put this, not tremendously familiar with war games in general and WWII in particular. Over the course of the review we discover that the sound and graphics are not cutting edge, tigers can drive straight into buildings, groups cannot be commanded together "in the style of Command & Conquer" and that the game is not leading-edge in terms of the mainstream market. In my opinion the review is disappointing in terms of its timing (with the imminent release of the gold), in its failure to note that this is an old beta and that many things have improved, and also in its utter superficiality. Maybe the old adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity has some truth in it. I am constantly amazed by the seeming lack of interest and definite lack of coverage of CM on the Wargamer site. I really cannot understand why they are not more interested. Joe

It was my understanding that it was a "feature" of the beta that foxholes could be spotted even though the troops in them were still hidden. Did your opponent area fire at the foxholes or did he target your squads directly ? I also believe (although God knows I could be wrong) that this "feature" is longer be available in the "gold" version. Death to Smileys Joe

latest version 7.0a is available from evil empire website http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/R423/V31site/default.htm?page=productupdates Remember it's easier to get rid of genital herpes than directX 7.0 Joe

133 MHz - luxury. I'm playing CM on an abacus. It takes 354 years to set up my forces. By the time I get my stug moving it has been zapped by a orbital X-ray laser. Damn R&D. Joe

Hey I could have swore I saw my Uncle Peter in Last Defence - it was a bit foggy though Joe

Steve You are the auto close up thread feature Joe

Hi Rick Seem to have started a new thread here - quantum mechanics in action Well Fighting Steel is a sad story of what may have been. I bought it of course - couldn't help myself really. But I knew by that time what it was and what it wasn't. IMHO the lack of a decent campaign game was one of its biggest problems. I thought the graphics were actually pretty good (for a naval sim) but it depends what you're used to I suppose. Gameplay was quite good but there were a few frustrating nit-picks like lack of control over torpedo firing. The game was basically released unfinished as I think someone said in the other thread. I'm sure everyone who reads this board is familiar with BTS release philosophy. At times this can be very frustrating, but the example of FS shows that maybe BTS have got it right. With the latest patches the game is now stable but IIRC DBZ went belly-up before the functionality could be improved by patching. Funny thing is my FS CD had been sitting gathering dust somewhere for a number of months then I heard about the Java application FSNA (Fighting Steel North Atlantic) that Michael Emmerich has written http://www.german-navy.de/games.htm so I dug it out again. FSNA is an attempt to provide a campaign game similar to GNBNA I for the fighting steel engine. It's still at an early stage and is pretty "cluncky" but I think it has potential and I will be following its development with interest. Joe

The "Dreadnoughts" game I remember was almost exclusively WWI fleet actions and included Dogger Bank, Coronel, Falklands and of course Jutland. It was developed by Peter Turcan and had a nice system for controlling squadrons of battleships etc., I used to play it a lot and really liked it. You can download it for free from the Underdogs website http://underdogs.gamingdepot.com/ Joe

SPW@W is free because they can't charge for it. Same story for the updated Pacific War and War in Russia. AFAIK the copyright for these games belonged to SSI and is now the property of Mattel and apparently its too much hassle for these guys to set up a licence deal. Again AFAIK any new games developed by Matrix will be commercial products (i.e., you will have to pay for them). So who says you dont get something for nothing I'm especially looking forward to the updated WIR. Joe