Reverendo

Fionn, Aye, I guess I should be a bit rough sometimes... Anyway, I agree with you... El Reverendo

Whoa, I hadn't read the last thing Royston wrote. The 'second infringer' thing is just ABSURD. Remember Adam Smith? Aye, the almighty good fellow who boosted industry. Thanks to him, we ken that if nobody bought drugs, nobody would sell drugs. That's just an example. What I'm saying is that if you buy pirated copies, you're telling pirates to keep stealing and selling software. You're supporting their affairs, you're supporting them. I do not ken if there are legal actions against 'second infringers', but from a moral point of view, being a 'second infringer' and trying to justify it is far worse than actually being a pirate. Since you ken they do wrong and you say it's their fault. NO!. You're on the wrong side (the pirates) and you're even BETRAYING THEM!. You're a double deceiver. 'Second infringers' are the source of the five hundred poisons, laddy. And I can tell you if I heard that somebody raped my girlfriend and I heard you lad supported it, I don't ken if the judge would care about you, but I would surely hang you with barbed wire. It wouldn't make any difference to me. And I DO think it DOESN'T make any difference to ANYONE but YOU. To put it simple: a) By buying pirated copies, you're giving pirates a job. Pirates ruin software companies' budget. c) Ruined budgets ruin workers' lives. d) Therefore, ruining lives is the pirates' job e) So supporting their job is being guilty for ruining lives. If this was the middle age, a thousand peasants with torches would be at your door claiming vengeance. I do not have anything against Royston (yet) but I think he SHOULD think twice. See, if things get worse, I offer you to buy TWO copies of CM. I keep one, you keep the other one. Yes, I'm saying I would BUY you a copy. But please don't buy a pirated copy. If saving BTS is worth 100 bucks, I will gladly pay 200. And I'm SERIOUS about it. Mail me if you want to talk about it... aradigales@mad.servicom.es

Why to argue? Piracy is bad, and so is rape. If there's a way to justify it, it's beyond my ken. Perhaps some people may not find piracy wrong, as few people may not find rape wrong (the ones who actually rape, I say) but the fact is that, from an objective point of view, it is illegal, therefore bad. If you do it or support it, you're against the law. And it isn't that I don't want to hear the way people have to justify that, it isn't that I don't want to hear any reasons to say it is wrong either, it IS that I don't NEED them, and I think none of us do. Sometimes people argue about nothing at all. So, if I was to make a brief summary... Piracy is illegal. Doing illegal things means being a criminal. Therefore, pirates are criminals. That's enough for me... :¬) Now, have we had enough of this little chat? P.S: every crime may get worse. Piracy is bad, but pirating a game like CM is... BLASPHEMY! (please check 'FLATTER AT WILL, MEN!' thread to see what I mean)

Ok. I'm sure we all have things to suggest to the lads at Big Time Software. I'm sure we all want to get a custom game. But, what about what has already been done? I started this topic just to claim Combat Mission is the best wargame I have played. It's not only the best wargame. It's the best strategy game, it's the best simulator, it's even the best movie (most replays should get an oscar!). It is a masterpiece, and those lads should be worshipped for it. That's exactly the point of this topic... I want you lads to tell Big Time Software they're doing damned good! I want you to tell them they're the best game makers in the whole world! Getting your job done is often easier and more comfortable if somebody tells you you're doing it alright. So let's cheer them, they deserve it! Long live BTS! May the Lord be with you! Shall other companies know they have already been surpassed! P.S: I'm a Mac user, and I have to tell you that the whole Mac community is grateful. We want to make a toast to you. For BTS! For CM! For the future of wargaming! For the independence of Scot...! ...er... For you! P.S2: how the hell do you put smileys on your messages?

Well, I don't quite ken what to say... The thing is that Doom has a high level of blood and guts. And Close Combat also does. The main difference is that if you remove blood from Close Combat you get a bloodless strategy game, while removing blood from Doom leaves you with nothing. Blood is often some game's core. Sometimes it's even some game's whole. And I don't feel attracted by such 'games'. Ok, fair enough. The concept of Combat Mission is also good enough to sustain without blood and animated violence. I would even dare to say that if you made the game as bloody as war actually is, I wouldn't buy it, since it would spoil the whole game. Violence is NOT what I'm buying the game for. But removing EVERY kind of violence would be quite like making rifles sound 'pop' and explosions litter the ground with flowers. Well, it WOULDN'T quite be the same, but I guess you understand what I mean. I'm not talking about making soldiers blow up as they did in 'Saving private Ryan'. Actually, if you did, I would cancel my order. I don't want men to burn, I don't even want men to bleed. Anyway, the computer handles OK when all of my army is pinned down by enemy fire. So it IS able to handle prone soldiers, lots of them. If you just were to make combat incapable soldiers to look like prone soldiers, it would increase both feedback and confusion, therefore adding, in my opinion, realism, and respecting both framerate and real-life soldiers. When we played with toy soldiers long ago, we left some soldiers lying to represent casualties. And we're not maniacs or serial killers today. I want to say that doing the same thing in CM (using normal soldier graphics but making then lie on the ground) wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings, at least not mine, and assigning it a hotkey so you can hide them would just fix the whole problem. It is a humble opinion. P.S: if you want to remove violence, then edit the detailed unit info so it says 'hits' instead of 'kills'. I think writing 'This MG fellow just killed 4 men' displays far more violence than drawing 4 lying men...

Ah, and the answer to the last message is definitely YES (no good game should miss it)

aradigales@mad.servicom.es

I do think the whole thing is much simpler than that. Things have a price. Sometimes they're worth it, sometimes they aren't. In my opinion, Combat Mission is worth its price. I would buy it iven if I had to pay twice the amount they're asking for. If it is not your case, then don't buy it. Anyway, if you were to play without buying it (that is, by piracy) then it's illegal. Perhaps you really want to do illegal things. Perhaps you want to be a criminal. Then, let me tell you something. For criminals, it is really a bad thing to claim the crime to everybody. What I mean is that you could be far more stealthy. Writing your piracy intentions on a software company's message board doesn't only tell us you're a pirate. It also tells us you're not even a good one. Regards El Reverendo P.S: I'm buying the damned game, for the Devil. It's only 60$, don't think you'll have to sell your car to afford it.

I think the current system is realistic enough, but there's a little flaw: you said a correction of 100 m takes about 1 min. Suits me, but whenever I tell my spotters to target (and I don't say 'target wide') they sweep an of, more or less, 90 meters radius. Do you think I can expect any effect if I tell them '10 more meters to the East'? Does anybody have the same problem? I don't correct arty fire because it is too unaccurate for me to make the difference. I usually asign two or three spotters to the same area and start bombing until I hit something (after tracing its outline with craters, though) 8( ------------------ Regards Reverendo

Er... Aye, you're right! Noticed some weird effects sometimes, but I thought it was just a screen redraw problem. Now that you say it, it really seems to be the houses' floor...

I have also played Last Defense from both sides, and I have to tell I wasn't too impressed with the hellcat's armour piercing ability. As far as I ken, we're no longer talking about a 2D game. Top armour is very thin indeed on most tanks, and the Hellcats start at the top of the hill. I have got a pair of upper turret and even top hits from there. It is right that, due to the angle, is easy enough to see the shell ricochet. But if it doesn't, it will surely pierce the tank's top armour. Even Shermans are good tank hunters when firing from the top of a hill (Remember the British Gammon Bombs carried by the paratroopers in Market Garden?) ------------------ Regards Reverendo

Alright laddy! Every weekend I play the demo with my Brit helmet and my Kilt on... I can hardly wait for the full version. A friend of mine, who was born in London, is about to buy it too so we can play by e-mail... Anyway, I understand that we're talking about a complicated, extremely realistic game that requires all of the player's attention. Part of my mind is asking for 'dead soldiers' graphics, but I ken it would be a mess ('Move it out, maggot! Ooops, sorry, didn't ken ya were dead!'). And the tanks thing (the fact they get out of the battle so discretely, isn't a big bother, but I guess it will be when we play larger battles... P.S: are artillery spotters supposed to hit something? I managed to set a tank on fire with three spotters dropping tons of HE shells on it, but at first I was just outlining its silhouette with craters... :¬) ------------------ Regards Reverendo

Allow me to say first that the game is very impressive indeed. Actually I'm pre-ordering it tonight (hey, you actually made a Scotsman PAY for something!) Anyway, I have a pair of tiny suggestions: a) Feedback. While burning tanks are easily to spot, sometimes I suffer casualties beyond my ken. Labels help, of course, but I would expect some text message telling me when my tanks or infantry teams are taking a pounding. Apart from the strategical advantages, it would be good to make it far more spectacular sometimes. Disappearing infantry teams is way odd, but what surprised me the most was the way tanks get out of action. Sometines, you just hear a 'chunk' and the tank stops moving. I'm not saying it should always explode, but it would help. We can't say this is a problem, but just an idea. Units can get out of Command and Control, right? I think units out of Command and Control SHOULD report less intel. Let's say, you can't see how much ammo they have left, or how many casualties they suffered... something like this. What happens to american soldiers in WWII movies when the radio doesn't work... ------------------ Regards Reverendo