ianc

Count me as another that would rather see the POV pivot around an axis than a cylinder... Ian

WWI flying epic: Dawn Patrol. Great story starring the incomparable Errol Flynn, David Niven and Basil Rathbone. B\W; made in the thirties with some great aerial shots. And how about Europa Europa!? The story of Solomon Perel the Jew's induction into the SS and subsequent battles on the eastern front. Quite good, Ian

Hmmm... That makes sense; I hadn't thought of saving a copy of the file. You guys are certainly on top of your cheating. Thanks for the response Steve! Ian

Sorry... Err, what I did was post before searching. I think that would actually be the opposite of the way it should be done. Yes. I found Fionn's reason for this posted: "Why is this done? To stop CHEATING.. Some players would simply replay the resolution phase until the MOST favourable results possible came up and then send it off to you. By not allowing them to see the results of their orders until you see them first no cheating can occur." I think this could be solved by making the first play-through of the turn unstoppable until it finished. After the first run-through you can rewind as often as you like, you'll just redisplay what was initially generated. Hopefully BTS is still considering some type of streamlining feature for these exchanges. Best, Ian

Greetings all and BTS, I've just had my first opportunity to engage in an email game with a friend. In exchanging the first few turns, it seemed to me that the sequence in which turns are exchanged is a bit unwieldy. With emails indicated by the dashed lines, the current sequence is: A - Setup --------- B - Setup B - Orders --------- A - Orders --------- B - See Playback --------- A - See Playback A - Orders --------- B - Orders And the sequence begins again. To decrease the number of emails required, I'd like to propose the following scheme: A - Setup --------- B - Setup B - Orders --------- A - Orders A - See Playback --------- B - See Playback B - Orders Note that the game is in the same state after both of the above sequences. Letting whomever is last to complete orders for a specific turn view the playback immediately cuts out two emails that delay the prosecution of the game. The proposed sequence has B always giving first orders for a turn (rather than the existing alternating scheme), but this shouldn't cause a problem, should it? Sorry if this has been dealt with before, but I'm just wondering if this had been considered already, and if there's some logic I'm just not seeing in it. Thanks for any info, Ian

Hawk, I've heard a bit about SP4, but not for months. Not to get off topic, but is there any new info on it these days? Ian

Happened to me too. Tiger had the main gun damaged but no casualties. I gave it orders to target some infantry a few turns later, but it just sat there doing nothing for two or three turns. Finally I decided to have it try charging the infantry to see if that would cause it to fire. Unfortunately a Hellkitty popped it in the side before it got there... Ian

<<Really? I don't see the Hellcats as any kind of threat. Sit your Panzer 850m away and pick them off like pigeons while their shells shatter on your armour.>> Hmmm... Don't be so sure; I tried that strategem on my last attempt. The Tiger bounced one of the Hellkitties, missed the next one, then promptly got its gun knocked out by a turret hit. Be careful. That led to a curious situation. This mishap killed\wounded no one in the tank, and at least one MG was still functioning. When I tried to use the Tiger as a mobile MG pillbox, it was very recalcitrant about paying attention to my targeting commands however, and pretty much just sat there. Anyone seen this? Ian

Thanks for the response guys, I'll buy it for the infantry, but I'm a little iffy on the AFV part of it, particularly since I think of lot of future scenarios, probably included, and certainly user-created, will involve lots of tanks, and their survival will be crucial to success. Entertain this real life scenario: The commander of a Stug has a treeline in front of him and another to his left with a gap where the two join. He'd like to drive to the gap and fire through it without actually driving through. He can see the treeline directly in front of him and immediately knows that he can't see through it, thus his flank will be secure, so he completes the maneuver. In CM, the tree graphic makes it appear that he can't see through from where he is, but since he's not actually there yet, he can't check it. The most he can do is gamble that it might and take his chances. Last nite at my house, this bought him a Hellcat shell in the side unfortunately. No more Wiener Schnitzel for our friend... The LOS tool works great, but it can only be used from your current position. In real life, a glance at an obstacle in your immediate view will be sufficient to tell you whether it's cover or not, but in CM where the tree graphic doesn't represent an actual tree, this is more questionable. Getting good firing positions is critical, but if you can't evaluate them properly without actually assuming them, it could be a problem... Thanks again, Ian

Hi All, I'm a bit confused on checking LOS from various points that your units might be at. I've noticed that there is partial blockage of LOS from such terrain types as woods, scattered woods, and from within bldgs. Picture this, I want to advance an infantry unit through a bldg or a patch of woods to take up a firing position. I'll give them a crawl order, but how far should I order them to crawl so that I know they'll be able to see and fire out? If I don't order them far enough, they may not be able to engage when they get there until I order them forward again the following turn. Meanwhile, I've suffered a turn's delay without their firepower. If I order them too far, they may be needlessly exposed to the fire of more units than is necessary. Same thing for vehicles. I might want to order an AFV to take up a position and am wondering whether a tree line behind which it will be will be sufficient to screen its flank. I can check the LOS from the vehicle in its current position using the LOS tool, but since it's not in the new position yet, I can't check it there. I can move the camera to the new position to have a look, but the viewed LOS might be blocked by a tree graphic which actually doesn't present an LOS obstacle when the vehicle gets there (lost a Stug. like this last nite). I realize these questions may be dismissed as being too gamey by some, but it seems to me that in real life, it should be fairly obvious by inspection whether a particuar spot is exposed or not. Could be pretty important in MP... Any tips or tricks on these sticky conundrums? Thanks all, Ian

Bravo Tango Yankee! Maybe we're getting enmired with the 'STATUS' part of this whole debate. As I've said before, I don't care how many rounds of what type of ammo each unit has left, all I want is to have a picklist thingie that I can use to see what's still alive and get to it quickly. This would be a perfect compromise as far as I can see and would neatly sidestep the excessive intel arguments presented. Also, I'd just like to say that even though Charles and Steve are without doubt highly-gifted designers who have done a SUPERB job in conceiving and executing this masterpiece, to imply that the suggestions for improvement on this issue offered here are of no value does not sit well with me. The only reason they have been offered is out of love for the game. We are not selfish dogs trying to make life hell on everyone else and easy for ourselves, but are truly interested in seeing a better game produced for the good of all. No flame intended and, I hope, none received. With nothing but best wishes for all, ianc

Just a few thoughts on another thread that was getting pretty long: 1) I agree with whoever said that it would be more convenient during the setup phase to drag a unit where you want it to be rather than pressing 'm' and moving it. The forced choice of rotation at that juncture is annoying also. If I want to rotate it after placement (usually not), I can do it manually. 2) The hot keys are a great idea and I use them constantly, but I think a perfect complement to this would be the provision to remap them. I'd love to use the arrow keys for fine movement control as recommended, but they're on the other side of the keyboard, so I've either got to take my hands off the number keys (for the views) where they almost always are, or off the mouse to get at them. If they were remappable, everyone could come up with their own preferred configuation. 3) When assigning waypoints, it would be nice if you could just keep clicking to place the same type of movement markers rather than having to keep pressing the appropriate hot key to do so. Seems like I read that this could be done, but I can't for the life of me discover how. Is it in there already? 4) The two up or down arrows are nice, but haven't proven very useful to me. I usually spend the game switching between camera 3,4, and 5 with an occasional 1 and 2. I'd rather see these arrows pivot the camera up and down, performing the same function as the shift-a and shift-z functions. Someone else also mentioned that the camera can be stepped down 10 notches, but only up 2. This is true, and not so good if you want to look uphill. A smooth scroll with a remappable key combo would be better. Don't worry, I'll keep 'em coming... Ian

Hi all, Just a couple of quickie questions: 1) I'm a bit confused by tank's behaviour when maneuvering in and around woods. I notice that in areas where there are trees, the ground is discolored in a patch. Does this entire patch signify forest which is impassable to tanks? I've plotted routes for my tanks through apparent gaps between trees only to have bizarre circuitous routes displayed the following turn when I click on the unit to display its orders. If a route is impassable and the computer wants to select a different route to get to my endpoint, that route should be displayed immediately instead of later... 2) After an FO calls down fire, how much of a delay will occur before the fire actually falls? Is this variable? Thanks for any help the old hands can supply, and thanks for a great demo Big Time! Ian

Hi Folks; long-time lurker joins the fray. I've played the demo (after checking in here every day for what seems like months to see if it had arrived). I'll post some other comments elsewhere after a few more games, but I have played it three or four times and I've got to jump on the bandwagon in support of the unit order screen. Scott Clinton makes some excellent points in support of the screen and I'll add my own here. One time when I really miss this screen is during the setup phase of the game. When you start, you just see a bunch of units on the map. You don't have a good idea of what you've really got without clicking on each and every unit, then trying to form a picture of your force's overall composition. All you see are a bunch of men. I'd like to use the screen to divvy up my forces to allocate tasks to each team that I want to create. I'd like to use it to track the relative strength of each unit so I can see how they're doing without having to click on each and every unit to find out. While playing Reisberg as the Americans, I went to look for my FO's one turn and found that they'd disappeared. Damn, now where the hell did they go? I reviewed the last action phase's playback looking for them, but couldn't spot them. I pressed '+' and scanned through every unit on the map but no go. A screen would have given me that information right away. I'm not particularly concerned with finding out the exact status of every squad and what they're doing at that particular point in time and how much ammo they have left etc., but I'd just like to have an organizational tool that I could use to keep track of units and help me to navigate to them rather than scanning around the battlefield to find them, then clicking on them. This would be a very useful tool and a feature that a lot of gamers would appreciate. Some of the arguments counter to the screen almost sound religious in nature. If you don't like the screen or you prefer not to use it, then just don't. It's that simple. But don't think that just because you've managed to get used to playing without it that its inclusion wouldn't be appreciated and welcomed by alot of people. In a game of this nature, there's alot of information to be assimilated. If, perchance, you happen to miss some important event during one of the replays and can't go back to it, the screen would let you know what happened straightaway. It also makes navigation a hell of a lot easier. Want to go to that Sherman? Just press the hot key to bring up the screen and click on it. Bam, you're there. No more panning around and switching camera views until you find it... Steve and Charles, you personally may be able to get along fine without one, but I count this as the number one flaw I've found in the game thus far. Please include it as a playing aid for those of us who are organizationally challenged. Thanks for your consideration, Ian