Pirate Bill

So I'm sure you all remember Fionn in the early days though. It's really too bad that he lost his temper and got banned, he used to be (IMHO) the most welcome poster on the board. Heck, I thought he was a BTS employee he knew so much about everything CM! And by the way, dont you guys think that battlefront should give everyone who posted during the beta days and is still posting now a prize? One of those nifty posters I didn't get cause I didnt preorder, maybe (-;

How many of you guys were around when the CM board first broke 10000 messages? Or when the beta demo came out? God, has this thing come a long way or what... - Pirate Bill The guy without a signature

Any idea why an M-26 Pershing costs more than a T-26 Super Pershing? And on that topic, how did BTS decide how much each vehicle should cost? By usefulness, or by how available they actually were, or what? BTW - I always thought Jagdpanthers had good armor, but they dont even have 100mm at the thickest point! Mine got blown away by frontal hits from Sherman 76s (not easy-8) at >500m in a quick battle. Dug-in Jagdtigers... that's the stuff (-;

OK, I live in Southern California. I ordered CM the day before it sold out. Does anyone have any idea why the heck I dont have it yet? Does anyone else in the NORTHERN HEMISPHERE not have it yet?

And I ordered it days before stock ran out! And I'm in the continental US! ARRRRRRRRRRGH!! Someone's playing a cruel joke on me :-P

My mistake, that wasnt very clear. You can see the shell hit the hull or the turret, or it hits the side of the tank if you shoot it from the side, what I'm talking about is direct hit vs. glancing shot. Specifically, are there glancing hits, or is every hit right on the bullseye?

I've noticed that when AT shots (tank rounds, bazooka rockets, IG shells, etc.) hit a tank, they always hit it dead center. Is that the way it's supposed to be? It would seem that outside of the "gee that's wierd looking" factor of seeing a shell hit the same spot every time, that a shell hitting the edge of the front of the turret would have a much different effect than a shell hitting the base of the gun.

Can a .50 cal HMG do any damage against a wooden bunker? After sitting there pondering how really really big one of those bullets is, it looks to me like you could at least send some wood chips flying through the thing. Especially if you hit it from the front. BTW - The AI finally did the first human-like move I've even seen it do since the beta demo came out! A few platoons ran out of the woods in CE and rushed my overstretched positions near the wheat field. Luckily, they stopped about a third of the way across no man's land. All of them :-7

While playing Valley of Trouble as the US, I noticed a wooden bunker being abandoned, even though it hadnt even been fired on and the closest US squad was a bazooka squad about 400 m away (on its flank), although a mortar barrage was about to start on it in about 20 seconds. So, did the AI actually notice that there was a bazooka team running at the bunker outside of its arc of fire, or did those guys just freak out?

OK, StuGs dont have a turret, but they have a turret armor thickness, and I've seen them killed by 'front turret penetration.' What gives?

I've got a mac with a 12MB voodoo2, and after getting the 3dfx drivers it works fine, cept that it's limited to 640x480 (It should be able to do 800x600, right? Fix for this?) There's a few bugs, though (these don't show up on a RevC iMac) 1. Numerous small artifacts, usually 1 pixel. Seem to be randomly colored. 2. Whenever text is displayed at the side of the screen with a command line (AKA Sherman 105m, visibility blocked), it goes totally nuts. The text is displayed as white-and-green horizontal lines across the screen, and everything goes incredibly slow. Once I move the mouse so the text is all on the screen (and the program finally registers it), everything goes back to normal.

In a totally unrelated design question: Can one x,y location have multiple heights? For example, a bridge going over a road, with the lower road still passable?

I remembered someone suggesting I play a scenario without reading the briefing (to even the odds with the AI,) so I did. Turn 21, the Krauts surrender, Allied total victory. I took major casualties (116 down, 33 KIA) but the Jerries lost 206, 60 KIA, 41 captured. In the battle of the big dudes (tanks,) I knocked out all 3 StuGs for 1 Sherman. They did the up/fire/smoke/down thing, but with a lot more smoke/down than up/fire. They only got off 3 shells at my one hapless Sherman (knocked off a track, then the gun, then put one straight into the hull, after which the crew ran like hell,) plus one more from their last StuG at my W+ in a face to face standoff (it missed.) I approached very slowly for the first 5 turns, then realized it was empty, so I charged. Got there with 2 platoons by turn 8, no Germans. I thought it would be a walkover after that, so I sent my one remaining platoon supported by the 2 Shermans I put on the left flank to clear out the woods and heights. Bad idea. If the 4th platoon hadn't arived, those guys would have been wiped out. By the end of the battle, I had sent 3 platoons and all my armor against the Germans in the woods. One platoon was basically destroyed, and another was so shot up and panicked that only 2 squads with 10 men were still firing. The third one had its HQ annihilated by a lucky close range shot by ONE GUY WITH AN MP40! Ahhhhhh!

I really love this game, and it unquestionably has the best AI I've ever seen, but I have to agree with BDW (even though I have a feeling there's nothing to be done about it.) So far my record is 11-0, 10 of those wins being Total Victories. Now, about half of those really didn't deserve to be called total, but the others were complete routs. The AI is smart enough to usually do manuevers with a minimum of a platoon, instead of the CC 'every man for himself' philosophy, and is usually pretty good about following up on breakthroughs. But that's about all I've seen it do, strategically. Its attacks seem to amount to a mass charge, of which all but one or two squads will stop halfway or panic. Its squads don't seem to have any goal other than 'walk around and shoot anything that moves.' The AI is also incredibly cautious. For instance, in the 4 times I played Last Defense as the Allies, the Germans only reached the town once, and that was on the right flank (looking from the Allies' side) with one squad. Almost all their men set up in the woods and blazed away until they ran out of ammo. Third, the tacAI on both sides seems to drastically underestimate the threat of enemy tanks. I've had German squads with 2 or 3 panzerfausts and a Sherman about 20-30 meters away (and in LOS) decide to fire at a rifle squad at 200 meters instead, even when I specifically targeted the tank. Tanks and AT guns also seem much more willing to fire at infantry than tanks, if they have the option. Anyway, that's my take on it. I still think CM is the best tactical wargame I've ever seen. I know my victories were largely luck (especially since Panzer General usually beats me in the later levels,) but these were just a few things I noticed. [This message has been edited by Pirate Bill (edited 11-14-99).]

There goes my streak. On my 9th game, I got a Major Victory instead of a Total Victory. Moral of the story: Dont get too overconfident and think you can get away with stuff like putting your Shermans toe to toe with panzerfaust-armed Volksgrenadiers.

OK, I reduced resolution, and now it works great. But my card can only support 640x480! Doh! By the way, doesn't CM support glide on PCs?

I just got the generic drivers from 3dfx. The game will run now, but only in software mode! What the heck?!

OK, this is already in the drivers thread, but it was totally lost in the other stuff. Mac with Voodoo cards get blank screens on startup, and a type 2 error if they can somehow get to the actual game. What they do to get it working, outside of playing in software?

I've got a mac w/ a MicroConversions Voodoo2, and I get the black screen at startup too. Force quitting works. I tried manually setting the resolution, it doesn't help.

Man, am I lucky or what? I've played 4 games of the demo, and got 4 total victories! I played Last defense as the allies twice and as the germans once, and Riesberg as the allies once.

AI and turn calculation is blazing fast on my Rev C iMac, as in each-one-finishes-in-under-5-seconds fast. I can't wait to test it on the UltraKludge (G3/300, Voodoo2, 112 MB RAM) However, one of my friends was running it under Windows on a very powerful system (Fast P2, Voodoo3, 200+ MB RAM) and said that turn and AI calculation was 'painfully slow'. What's everyone else's experience?

The Fog of War in CM kicks all ass. I've never seen a game that identifies a unit as 'infantry sounds?' (-: The only thing I was expecting that I didn't find was misidentification. A unit might be identified as 'tank?', but if it says that, it's always a tank of some sort. If it says 'StuG IIIG', then you know it's a StuG IIIG, it's never misidentifies as a StuF or anything. Also, if someone thinks they see a unit, there's always a unit there. You never get an enemy marker that turns out to be nothing. Just adding my two cents to a million-dollar game

pirate_bill@hotmail.com

How bout the Mac demo? Aren't all the problems currently on the Windows side? Maybe it's not good form, but releasing the Mac demo now will prevent at least 413 cases of scitzophrenia [This message has been edited by Pirate Bill (edited 10-26-99).]

I agree that the bazooka and panzerschreck should still have smoke trails. But, it's a minor point. The important thing is that you did what we suggested, instead of ignoring us (AKA everyone else)