Tom Callmeyer

Hi Just set up TCP/IP on 95 to 98 machines. Peer to Peer. No problem connecting or starting scenario. Game turn is processed on host machine, then gives a very fast message about transferring data. I believe the client also gives a similar message. Game then proceeds normally on host. On client the clock will only read :60 or :00, by clicking Start and Play buttons. Can't watch battle replay on client. Minutes do advance simultaneously with each turn on both machines. Game on client seems normal in move phase.

Actually, real Field Commanders and for that matter Grunts, usually do not have the luxury of seeing exactly where every shott that hits their men (or themselves) came from. If minute-by-minute you have a complete assessment of the status of every soldier under your command (which we do in CM) you know a lot more that the average field commander does in the real world.

Anyway - Andy can't spell

I have a rule. No new Strategy/Wargames without first reading at least one authoritative history on the war represented by the game. For CM, which concerns my second "favorite" war, this was not a problem. (ACW is my number one historical concern.) Had to stretch that rule for Shogun Total War though. Had never read any Japanese history before I was introduced to Shogun TW. I have now made it about 1/4 the way through my history of Japan but have been playing the game with regularity for about 2 months now. So, a new ACW or WW2 game is not too likely to generate a new reading "assignment" since I have already read up a bit on that one, but for more arcane battles, I might have a new reading assignment. Does this explain why I don't go so much for sci/fi and fantasy games? No histories? Mebbe I should read novels for those games eh? Another thing. I heartily second M. Bates' endorsement of second hand booksellers. There are a lot of volumes Amazon and B.F. Dalton do not carry - like ANYTHING out-of-print. Plus it saves you money, keeps your options open, and supports small local businesses to buy from the used booksellers!

1) Oh please not another dead bodies thread! 2) I'm not interested in upgrading my K6-2 550 - 160 Meg RAM - 32 meg No-Name (Apollo Actually) TNT2 based Video Card machine until the 1-Gig P4 or whatever equivalent Athlon processors have become last generation processors - just to run a game I'm already enjoying. 3) My other big timewaster is a 3d real time game and great fun to play (Shogun Total War). I hope I have been succinct.

I like to keep my spotters in cover and to the rear till a tough enemy position has been developed by my infantry or Inf and armour. Then I bring my spotter up just behind the firing line, still in fairly good cover but able to see the enemy positions, or at least a with a clear view to patch of ground immediately adjacent to the enemy's position. Of course you may also be able to come up close behind a leader in direct view under these circumstances. Then you can let loose with good control over your arty.

"He who defends everything defends nothing" I'm pretty sure that's Sun Tzu, but I may be mistaken Hmm. and I had always thought it was Napoleon. Is no one here certain of the identitgy of the author of this quote? Anyway, I look at the terrain and my forces first. Defeat the enemy miliarily and you can sometimes walk into the victory flags later. Concentrate your forces in one area and you may be able to roll up the enemy and take the flags as you go. I do adjust my read of the terraion to be sure my attack/defence considers capturing/holding the best combination of flags, but only after considering terrain and force.

Too Many Halftracks

Well I already bought my "next game" after CM. It's Shogun Total War and it is very good. Yes it is realtime combat. And Yes I have sat back and chuckled at the real timers who come into the CM forum and try to convince us True Beleivers that the only thing wrong with CM is that it is not real time. Nope CM is CM and it is a great game. And I am convinced as we all are that CM is revolutionary, immersive and just a real blast BUT Shogun is also a great game. The real time model is very easy to use, and does not usually deteriorate into a click fest due to very intuitive and flexible unit control. (You control formations, not individuals, but individuals within each formation are modeled and fight and die individually). Anyway there is a pause button so you can use it to gather yourself up and give your units orders before you unleash the hordes upon one another again. (Not really so different philosohically from turn based ed eh?) The ambiance of the game is incredible. Stormy weather on a battlefield includes such nice touches as rain squalls, clouds or fog banks that roll accross the field during the fray, affecting visibility, then blowing away and revealing the enemy's new position. FOW is great too. You have a semi-free camera in a fully modeled world. You can see the whole terranin from the area of your army, but the camera can not move very far from the position of your army, so you can see everything that the units can see, from the perspective of those unit's position only. But the 3d world of Shogun is not enough by itself to make it a great game. Shogun has a very nice 2d strategy layer too. You develop structures and technologies of your provinces, somewaht like AoE, but in a 2d turn based map. (Maybe a bit like Lords of the real 2, remember that one?) You also develop cerain personages too, generals, ninja, emmissaries and other straegically important individuals that play a role in the development of your empire. Once you are ready for some action, attack a province and you jump into the 3d world for a rousing fight. I must admit though, that Battle of Britain air sim looks mighty tempting too. So many games, ...you know the rest.

Well first I have to agree that Keegan, Shelby Foote and Barbara Tuchman bring something very special to the topic of military history, even though Tuchman is not specifically a military historian. One of my favorite single battle accounts however, is Prange's Miracle at Midway, a real detailed and authoritative account of that pivotal battle, that reads as easily as a novel. And let's not forget Shirer's classic, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

An OT post in my ACW Gaming Club's message boards. The guy said HEY CHECK IT OUT! I think that was over a year ago. I did. The rest was history. Or at least a great simulation of history.

My 2 cents Air. I loved 1942 Pacific Air War. The game had a serious fault in the stall model, but you could work around it. The best part was the carrier game module that integrated an opertaional strategic map with soome control over a task force (direction, speed, launching scouts) which would then jump to the flight simulator when the action started. You'll have trouble finding it but it should be cheap. Definitely patch it if you do or the enemy AI tends to commit suicide. I seem to recall it being finicky about memorry management too (ah the good old days). I also REALLY like Jane's WW2 Fighters. I like the flight model and the look and feel of the game when you are in the air. Very engaging visually. The missions themselves can return odd victory ratings though as you are really locked into objectives including where to land and strict adherence to waypoints, but this is a small matter. Panzer Commander is fun for a quick shooting match with enemy armour, though I only really enjoy playing from the Commander's position. The gunnery takes too long to get good at. You'd have to really commit to the learning curve to be a good gunner. Still, for a fun 20 minutes of white knuckles, it's good. Naval sims are tough. The best cionceptually were the Great Naval Battles series from SSI circa 1995. They were buggy though and were best at simulating surface combat though a valiant effort was made to simulate the carrier battles of the Pacific War. This is a micromanager's dream (damage control, fleet and ship navigation, formations, gunnery, down to the ability to crawl inside turrets and torp mounts) and included scenario editors and strategic campaigns. This also had strict memory configuration requirements. Definitely patch 'em if you get one. I'd recommend GNB2 if you find any of these. It seemed the most stable and best play balance. Fighting Steel is kind of the sucsessor to the GNB series and is fun but limited. SSI seems to have said the h**l with the air combat with Fighting Steel and concentrated on surface actions. The game is not nearly as detailed as GNB and is not strictly a sim as you don't really virtually climb aboard the ships like in GNB, but control from a position somewhere between Fleet Admiral and God. Still, it is fun and you get to fight at sea in a 3d world. Silent Hunter was a great sub sim and I could reccomend it as a dated yet thoroughly enjoyable game. Then again, you might want to wait for SH2 to come out. Some of these older SSI games can sometimes be found in game bundles. Used to like the Steel Panther series but why bother now that CM is here. The Panzer General Series is also ww2 land combat at an operational to strategic level, so you can get the scope of large scale operations, but the gaming model is a but passe by now.

Does no one have an opinion about which tanks are best in CM? I was hoping to hear some opinions on this topic when I wandered into the thread.

1) This tactic is not typically employed by soldiers in the field. Even if you can find some precedent for it, it's ahistorical. Most engagements were historically not opened with little fast unarmored units wizzing through enemy territory 2) At least use a recon unit.

Yup. This is a real life honest to goodness bug,seen only after upgrade to 1.5. Works like this. Run a turn. Full one minute of action, nothing seems amiss. Now try to replay the video and watch the action a second time. So - Hit START. Time goes back to zero. BUT, units do not return to their starting positions but just sit where they were after 60 secods had expired. Hit PLAY. Time changes to a wierd notation, lools something like 0.024034e45 and slowly counts up at he last digit of the wierd number. Units that had movement orders continue on ahead. Some opposing units do weird things like run in circles. Many units just sit still, no firing from anyone. Definitelt not a reply of prior action. Fortunately, to fix this all I have to do is hit BACK twice and time returns to Zero and the replay is executed normally. After that the replay runs OK. Happens every turn since I upgraded. Anybody else sen this??