jim crowley

testing.

Recent aquisition - Athlon 950, 256 Ram, above mentioned radeon. Everything works superbly - except for fog! Put up a battle with fog or thick fog and the whole graphics setup falls apart; just a fuzzy mess of coloured lines, with a barely discernable background. Any solution? Cheers Jim

Madmatt and all, Once again, congrats on fine work. Jagdtiger is simply awesome. One possible fly in the ointment (maybe two)! On the winterised Tiger, a small portion of the drivers lower body is visible between the track-guard and the treads. Also the IVg is (in the info box) described as "has skirts", but the graphic obviously hasn't. cheers Jim

With regard to previous post which was time with haste. I refer of course to Qb’s

My own two ha’ pence worth. I feel that the main reason why AI seems to reach point of contact so slowly is because it appears to set up very far back in the set up area. Contrast human vs AI in a meeting engagment for example; human sets up close to the start up line and is therefore usually nearly already half way across the battle field. AI spends many turns to get into that very same position; once there, there is not usually too much of a problem in regard to agressiveness. Cheers Jim

First, a word of thanks to BTS and the playtesters for not only producing the finest wargame ever but also for demonstrating their ongoing commitment to excellence, through continual honing of the system (five patches already and still counting!) The greater majority of tweaks and additions, thus far, relate to game-play issues, as of course they should, but there are a few areas, which might be regarded as less important, relating to historical accuracy. Some, if not all, have been previously posted in one form or another, either by myself or others and all of them are based purely on my opinions and preferences; so feel free to disregard or disagree. 1. British (and Polish and Canadian, I think) ranking puts companies in the charge of a Major; battalions in the charge of a Lt-Colonel. 2. On battlefields the size of those found in CM (even the largest ones) it would be a very rare occurrence to find a mixture of Churchill, Sherman, Cromwell and Stuarts at the same time, as can easily happen in Quick Battles where the computer picks the units. This is not a problem with German units, as they tended towards ad-hoc formations and battle-groups, at this stage of the war particularly. However, the British armoured formations, divisions or brigades, were equipped with but one type of main battle tank. Thus you would only have either Churchills or Shermans ( with Stuarts and /or cromwells from the recon. Elements) but not both. 3. In the QB generator it is possible to choose, or have chosen, conscript troops in every category (including parachute troops, although the manual suggests otherwise). This seems to be highly un-historical. IMO no allied troops should be choosable as conscripts (“third line troops” with “little or no training”) at all, and only a limited number of categories of troop types should be available to the German player ( Infantry and possibly support troops and possibly only Heer troops at that). Even in the closing stages of the war, Germans would not have used conscript aviators, tankcrew or artillerists, who by definition, require training. Cheers Jim

For me; 1) British ranks: Company C.O.'s were majors; Batt. C.O.'s were colonels or lieut-cols. 2)In Q.B.'s ; at CM's scale Sherman and Churchill tanks (used in different brigades) did not fight together. 3)In Q.B's ; the abilty for a AI to randomly choose various levels of experience within a single side i.e. green infantry and regular armour. However there should never be conscript armour/artillery - unlikely that such assets would be allocated to untrained or sub-standard personnel. 4)In Q.B's; random choice for Type of Force and Battle Type. 5)Some sort of limiter on rare units. I don't think this should be through increased costs - IMO BTS have this right - costs should be geared to type and performance. However I believe that there is a need to reduce the availabilty of vehicles like the Hetzer flammpanzer (20 made) and the Puma A.C.(101 made) to name just two. 6)The Hetzer flammpanzer appears to have far more shots (or squirts) than it's historical counterpart (54 to about 24 I think) 7)The Piat seems to be too inaccurate and to have too little chance to obtain a kill. While not as good as the US and German rocket equivalents, it was still able to deal with most tanks of the day. 8)Still some 'clipping' with vehicles and roads that are 'slopes' and thus impassable. Cheers jim

Good points. However sometimes having skewed sides, with one badly disadvantaged, reflects the reality of many battles. And the choice of randomness is up to the user. One aspect where randomness does not work too well in QB's, is in the choice of British tanks when Armor is chosen. Quite often mixed types of MBT are picked (sherman and churchill) which simply did not happen at CM's level. British tanks were employed in Brigades which were equiped with the same type of tank. The only other tank types likely to be on the same battlefield were the light recon. tanks (stuarts) or medium tanks from recon.regiments (cromwells) This may apply to some extent to German units as well, although they tended more towards the use of ad-hoc kampfe gruppes. Not sure if this affects US units much, as most of the tanks would be shermans any way Cheers jim

The additional randomness added to the QB in ver 1.03 was very welcome but I wonder why the 'Type' of force can not also be 'randomized'. It would be nice to have the possibilty of facing a totally unknown enemy. In addition, having mixed 'quality' for each side, chosen randomly, would also add another dimension to play i.e. green infantry backed by regular armour and supported by veteran artillery, etc. Perhaps the randomness could even be expanded to include the map type,tree coverage and hilliness. Cheers Jim

Another glitch in the battle AAR's, albeit somewhat nitpicky, relates to the effect of 'catastrophic vehicle explosions' In a recent battle, a five-man crew sherman was knocked-out via a catastrophic explosion - no one got out (as you would expect). In the AAR, however, the number of KIA for the US side was only 4, which it could not have been if all the crew had indeed perished. Cheers Jim

Testing.

Great to see that BTS are continuing to refine their already excellent game engine through the 1.03 patch. The end of spiky hills (and subsequent spiky roads) is to be applauded but there still appears to be a slight problem with roads. In a quick-battle, the line of vehicles that I instructed to dash down a strategically placed road suddenly came to a dead halt and started diverting in all sorts of directions! The problem? The builders of this section of road must have been drunk; instead of digging in to the side of a slope, they just stuck it on the side. Result? An inpassable road tilted over at about 45 degrees (showing as a slope and not as a road). Cheers Jim

Ahh! At last. CM lands in the South of England. Yesterday in fact, but only had a chance to have a really good look today. First impressions: Manual; superb (file under ‘how to write a manual’) Editor; Wow, even I can use it, it’s got to be simple! Scenarios; not yet! I’m saving these for slow consumption. Nice mixture though. Battle generator; My favourite toy, excellent. Good mixture of units chosen by AI, lovely maps but…….. two problem areas to my mind. The first is that the set-up zones take up too much of the map area and are always set to a default. IMHO there should be some randomness here; sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, or split into sections etc. Should definitely be smaller though as a lot of the map is wasted. The second is that, when AI selects the units, it never, ever picks higher HQ’s. Even the smallest battles are nearly company-size and should, realistically have, at least, a Company HQ and/or Battalion HQ. I know this game is really only geared to platoon-level C&C (it’s only major flaw IMO – I’d like to explore this in another thread), but this puts too much pressure on platoon HQ’s – if one is eliminated, then there is no possibility of back-up. My feeling is that every force should automatically choose at least one company level HQ and sometimes a Battalion level one as well (to simulate an important engagement or whatever) Happy at last! Cheers Jim

Hasn't hit the south coast yet (near chichester) despite a pre-order last August and card being charged on 15 June. Starting to get a tad peed-off. Cheers Jim

Germanboy, The symbols I was referring to are actual "orders", not sounds (check-out BMP's 1600 onwards). Darwin, You're right, but what about "Scout"? Cheers Jim

While poking through the BMP folder (looking for some nice piccies for wallpaper) I came across the orders section (1600's) and found orders for Scout and Dig-in. I'm guessing that they relate in some way to the editor, as they are obviously not avaible in the orders menu on the gold demo. "Dig-in" is perhaps to allow tanks to be set-up as being literally dug-in, by the scenario designer, but what function will "Scout" have.Just curious. Cheers Jim

POSSIBLE SPOILER If there is a question mark in regard to the time taken to move/clear mines, I would also like to add another, in regard to proximity. In VoT, I had moved a half-squad of engineers into a small patch of trees near the road, adjacent to the 'Achtung Minen Panzer' sign. They came under fire, and replied and were therefore unable to get to the road to clear the mines (daisy-chain or buried - not sure; still haven't finished and don't want to spoil the scenario) I was surprised to see, after I think about three to four turns, the sign disapear (and presumably the mines). The closest that the half-squad was to the road - using the LOS tool - was 14 m and they were continuously engaged in firing. This seems somewhat unlikely and unrealistic, assuming of course that the mines were actually in the road. IMHO, mine clearing should not only be a slow process but should require very, very close proximity to the offending objects. As a matter of interest, just prior to Alamein, a team of Brtish engineers (three each of sweepers, markers and lifters) could, working at top-speed, clear an eight foot strip, two hundred yards long, in an hour (3.3 yards per minute) This would take longer with shell fire and much longer under machine gun fire etc. Cheers Jim Crowley

testing

Just wondering about some apparent gaps in the in-game weapons data. Grenades, whilst obviously being used, are not actually mentioned.Does every squad/team have them and are rifle-grenades factored-in? What is their blast-radius and, possibly, range? There is no specific info. relating to panzerfausts. Other than knowing that a squad has them, there are no details as to range and penetration, as there is for 'zooks and 'fausts. The Nahblahblah (close defence system) is not shown as being installed, so it's use can come as a total surprise (Maybe possible for the enemy but not for the owning player, surely)What AFV's have and what don't? Perhaps this info is to be included in the manual; it needs to be present somewhere. Finally, the one area I find exasperating is the 'blinking-out' of destroyed units. Would it not be possible to have an on-screen text message pop-up (like the armour damage ones)saying something like 'Bazooka Team elimanted' This would have no impact on graphics (as with dead soldiers) and as units are not being constantly wiped-out, shouldn't slow gameplay. It would be a positive indicator of something having happened, whereas at present, the sudden unannounced disapearance of a unit is very negative and easily missed. In the demo scenarios this is not too much of a problem, but I would think it could be in larger ones. Just a few thoughts. Merry Christmas to one and all and, whatever the New Year has to offer, at least it should feature CM. Cheers Jim

Just been looking at the new urban graphics -very impressive! Have the graphics for rubble altered from those in the beta-demo? To be honest they didn't convey rubble very well - just looked as if the building had vanished. In an urban setting (i.e. Caen, Arnhem etc.) rubble, especially from larger buildings, would tend to block roads. Can this happen in CM? Cheers Jim

Go on - ship it. Cheers Jim

Bravo! BTS is certainly demonstarting its dedication to its likely customers by providing another (and very good) scenario. Well done and thanks Jim

Hi Fionn thanks for the rapid reply. It was originally set at +1, but I've reset it to realistic and its just the same; the two vehicles are totally merged together. I saved it at that point and if I knew how to do it I'd send you the picture. cheers Jim

Steve, is their really no way that the inclusion of an alternative OOB in scenarios can be considered? I know you consider scenarios to be one or two shot affairs and that you were surprised by how much the Demo scens are being replayed, which is a testament to their existing reaplayabilty. But don't you think it would be so much more fun if there was an option to allow a random, alternate, designer-set OOB to be chosen as an option. Take the Last defence for an example. The default game would be as it has been set out, fully planned and play-tested etc. But by pressing a 'Random OOB' button(?), the computer would choose from, say, 30% chance of 1 Tiger, 2 Stugs; 35% chance of 2 tigers or 35% chance of 2 Stugs and more artillery. This could maybe extend to random reinforcements like Shermans instead of hellcats, and even randomised entry-time percentages. The mix of possibilities would mean that any scenario would be almost infinitely replayable, with the suprise element always present. There may well be scores, or even hundreds of downloadable scens on the net but the fact is that for every one that has been put together in a mature, knowledgeable way, well researched and properly play-tested, there will be ten that will be crap. I would much prefer to replay 'professional' scens than waste time with possible rubbish. Any Chance? Cheers Jim

Playing Last Defence as US. Turn 10 and the cavalry show up; crash,bang, wallop and one tiger, two Stugs and two halftracks K.O'd on the bend in the main road. Lots of hits on the tiger but (and I've watched this very,very carefully many times over)all the shots broke-up including the final one which hit the lower front hull; and it still knocked-out (not abandonded- veteran crew anyway, so unlikely) the tiger! Can a tank be knocked-out without any penetrating hits like this? Also, one of the aforementioned HT's was pushed out of the road by another HT but it pushed it INTO a Stug, so the graphics merged. Is this a bug? Seems unlikely that the two vehicles would squash-up together like that. Cheers Jim