Samppa

First I have to say that only play against AI, so these rules don't affect me in. Anyway, I have a couple of questions. First, if there needs to be a rule to stop people from using the heaviest armor and arty available in the game, doesn't this implicitly mean that the cost of heavy armor is too low ? In the games that I have played I found that sometimes it would be nice to have a King Tiger, but sometimes I would rather have two cheaper tanks. So, I haven't really found heavy armor too cheap or expensive for its worth. In any case, any unit can be killed, so even the heaviest ones are not invincible. As I said, this is just my impression from games against AI. Maybe against humans the heavy tanks and heavy artillery are more worth than their cost. If this is really the case, I hope, in CMBB their price will be increased to reflect this. So, are these rules used only because the pricing of units in the game is wrong, or is there some other reason ? If the pricing is ok, why would all games end up Super Pershing vs. King Tiger duels or heavy artillery barrages, when all other units are just as useful (for their price) as the big ones ? Second, Fionn pointed out that when using the rules, the games are very balanced. My question is, how about without rules ? Does either side have an advantage then ?

I agreee with this. The manual and the game texts should be in English, but I would really like to hear proper Finnish when I play them. I wonder where BTS gets their original Finnish speakers, but I really hope they can find someone. The most important is the proper pronounciation of letter "r", which is especially strong among the officers in the army. Even more important is the Russian:"URAAA!!!" as their human wave rushes towards axis lines. It should be done so that if you watch it from 1st person view from the axis line, you just want to run away from the computer

I think that the LOS problem would not be as bad as JonS says. It would involve only casualties resulting from indirect fire. Every casualty from direct fire could be safely put on the map, because if the troops were able to see the target, they would be able to see the casualty too. Most of the casualties (at least in the demo scenarios) are caused by direct fire, so this would not cause almost no extra work for the CPU. Another thing is that once the casualty from indirect fire is detected, it would stay on the map permanently, because it doesn't move. So, as the bodies pile up and the units move, the CPU requiremnet would not become unbearable except in some rare cases (a lot of artillery in a thick forest terrain). The problem with the current system is that you hear the shout: "ich bin verwundet", and thus know that they took a casualty, but without any markers you have to keep track of every casualty in your mind or on paper. You also have to watch the movie several times from several spots, if you want to detect every casualty that you caused. With some markers (I would prefer dead body sprites, but small crosses that someone suggested would do as well) it would make playing a lot less tedious.

Ok, I did a search and found a very long posting by Fionn Kelly about all the bad things that happen when dead bodies are modelled. However, the only thing he (and BTS guys) said about the sprites was that "sprites look ugly". Well, aren't the craters and trees sprites ? Why don't they look ugly ? I can understand that 12 sprites marching accross the field look uglier than 3 polygons, but I still don't understand why a bloody body painted on the ground would look any uglier than a shellhole. Another point that was raised was that CM could not be sold in Germany, if there were blood (or whatever). Is this really true ? Isn't CC sold there ? Third point that was mentioned was that it would be difficult to pick a squad with a mouse among the dead bodies. Why would it be difficult ? It isn't difficult to pick a squad among craters. Fourth point that was mentioned was that they would not add anything to the game. I disagree strongly. CM claims to be a very realistic wargame. Has anyone seen a war where there are no dead people lying around ? In my search I found a message where Fionn Kelly argues strongly that leaving out prisoners would be very unrealistic. How on earth leaving out prisoners would make game unrealistic but dead and wounded are of no value of realism ? I also found that in the future, BTS will concentrate on refining the details in the units that are in the game already (tanks, soldiers) instead of putting in the dead bodies. I find this odd considering how well done they are at the moment. If the next in the series is situated in the east front, I would much rather see hordes of simple soldiers running and shouting "uraa, pobieda" instead of extremely good looking troops, each representing 5, doing the same. Ok, this did not involve the dead bodies, but it is closely related to it.

I understand the reasons for not showing 10 or 12 soldier squads, and I am not much bothered by it. What I don't like is that the dead soldiers disappear completely. So, it is possible for a MG team to kill 100 enemies in the open, but it still looks like a nice place for a picnic. Placing dead bodies on the ground at the same time as the squads are being butchered would help the player to follow the action too. Sometimes, you haven't spotted the enemy so well that you would be able to know how many soldiers there are. The only way of knowing if your fire is effective is to listen carefully for the cries for help etc. If you could see dead bodies falling down, you would know that your fire is effective. Now, it can happen that the enemy rushes towards your position, your troops open fire, but it seems that nothing happens until they reach your position and you see that there are only three soldiers out of 12 alive. If the graphics is the problem (requires a 1 GHz machine), why not making the bodies very simple bumbs in the ground ? Or make them as simple as the shell holes are now. They don't need to move and can be "permanently painted" on the ground.