maxm2

Not only were there beaver squads in Russia, but I have the translation of one of their marching songs, supposedly written by Soviet Hero Seventh Class Buki Bivernov: "Brusha brusha brusha, Here's the new Ipana, With a brand new flavor, It's dandy for your teeth." The "new Ipana" referred to was the 20mm over/under chain saw with night scope. I've got a picture around here somewhere...

Mace, I believe your tag line (Dolly: baaaaAAAaaa") should read: "Dolly: BaaaaaaaaaDDD" shouldn't it? Or maybe even "BleeeEEEt"? Back on topic, I was thinking that perhaps the CiMs could get into some real CM type action if there was a "Deathmatch Arena" where you could send you CiM after arming him with armor (his heaviest tee shirts, layered, and boxer shorts soaked in starch) and special weapons (clusters of pre-shaken beer cans launched with a vacuum cleaner; a computer mouse with razors to be swung over the head with devistating effect on all who come close). Or what about "The Grog Pit" where the grognards engage in historical bean-counting conflicts until one falls asleep or has a heart attack upon hearing a particularly horrible misstatement of "fact:" "Cog wheels on 1942 Shermans made in California in Lots 2271 through 2277 were NEVER more than thirty centimeters wide, you moron!! I can't believe your stupidity and your--uhhhhhhh!" >plop< I'd pay to watch it, anyway. Wait a minute...I get to watch the Grog Pit for free!

Philadelphia Pennsylvania USA--home of basketball world champion 76ers! except that they didn't get quite enough points but would have if more of their shots had gone in.....

I thought I was doing well because I could remember my favorite color.....

TeAcH, >maxm2: not sure I follow you. This is off topic and my last post on this, but using a tag line like: "Blaming crime on guns is like blaming spoons for Rosie O'Donnell's being fat." sneaks in an off-topic political opinion which is not as likely to get locked down as if it were stated separately. For example, my tag could be: "Killing criminals to show that killing is wrong is like beating up your kids to show them that they shouldn't be violent." How annoying would that be to some people? I just think funny or interesting tag lines that stay away from gun lobby propaganda (or any political agenda) are more appropriate for this forum. --Max

Thanks AussieJeff! --Max

Is this a work-around for off-topic messages? ------------------------------- "Blaming the hundreds of injuries and deaths caused by kids getting hold of adults' non-child-proof guns is like blaming a car manufacturer that doesn't put seat belts or airbags or safety glass in a car for injuries and fatalities."

Great work, mosques or not. Wonderful rocks. Are the rocks a new tile or a reworked tile? If new, how do you add new tiles??

Looks really nice from a distance, but it's so teeny-tiny! Will we have a bigger pic on your site?

Then hop on over to http://sfi2.com/ and go to the WWII Online forum. Read any three posts and not only will you have a smile or two, your current problem with indirect targeting of 105 rounds from church steeples on trucks fording rivers in thick fog (or whatever) will fade into insignificance as the screams of the damned from WWIIO ring in your ears!

Wouldn't the vehicles look more realistic if they weren't all tan or green?

Joe to Willie, hugging the ground during an arty barrage in one of Bill Mauldin's WWII cartoons: "I can't get no lower, Willie--my buttons are in the way!"

Thanks very much to Schrullenhaft and Kmead. As for restarting, unfortunately everything I've tried has been unsuccessful. I know what you mean about a suddenly transformed garbage graphics screen--had them, and they usually don't survive a restart of the program or reboot at worst. The thought about the .dll sounds promising--I didn't know CM was accessing Window's files to draw the load/save windows. I do have a PC--PII 400 vanilla Gateway model. Haven't had this problem with any other program, though, so it seems to me it must at least be an interaction somehow. As for DirectX, maybe it's possible that installing another game did something to DirectX (they all have their own version they want to install, it seems). Anyway, thanks again to you both. If I find an answer, I'll add it to this thread for others to see.

I wrote about this a while back; Madmatt started a correspondence with me but apparently (I'm guessing) couldn't reproduce the problem. Whenever I go to save or load a scenario that I've designed, the graphics of the save & load screens are messed up: multiple images, if you try to move the window it replicates instead of moving, etc. Had some time this weekend so, using the CD, I carefully uninstalled and then reinstalled. Even before updating to 1.12, the glitch was there. Upgrading to 1.12 doesn't help. Have never had this problem with CM--any ideas out there?

The T#-a-b-m (or "ABM" or "TAB 'em") method of file naming is so obviously superior that it boggles the mind how some players of CM can be so seriously and sadly misled. Moreover, Tab 'em has been supported as THE protocol of choice by: 1. New England Journal of Medicine ("CM File Naming Protocols in Inpatient Settings: Significant Advantages for ABM Approach") 2. Scientific American ("New Mathematical Proof of ABM Superiority in a Conflict Simulation System") 3. The National Enquirer ("Love Child of Elvis and Liz Taylor Reveals Secret of Ancient Telepathic Aliens: "ABM RULES!") So there, Johan.

Thanks to both Madmatt and Schrullenhaft for their replies. I am sending all my non-functional files (I tried saving it in many ways to Matt) In case anyone else is having the same problem, I'll reply to Schrullenhaft: Did you accidentally save it in "Tournament" mode? A: No Have you rebooted your computer since (in regards to the corrupted "save file" dialog box)? A: Yes I can only assume that the final draft became corrupted during the save process. Hence the problems trying to load the file again. A: I suspect you're right, but it is troublesom that there was a corruption of a "load file" window graphic routine seemingly involved. In addition, despite rebooting and erasing then renewing my CM prefs file, the Load window continues to not display properly, even though I can load other saved maps with it. Have you been able to recreate the map without problems (with all the same elements) ? A: I have loaded a previous draft of the same map, altered it, and it saves and loads fine. I have not yet replicated my exact adjustments on my final "bad seed" draft since I made too many changes over three hours to remember. Did you have any other programs open at the time you were attempting the save? A: Always. And if the game didn't play properly with other programs open (unless we're talking virus protection or some other traditional pain in the neck background program), I would consider that a bug. If there was anything unique about the size or elements of the map, it may be possible to recreate the problem. However I fear that this may be one of those occasions where a fluke happened at the worst of moments and Madmatt will most likely be unable to duplicate the problem. A: In which case, no terrible harm done. I'm going to save frequently from now on (always good advice...just never heard anyone talk about crashes in the editing program before) and if it happens again, it'll be more data.

The skies look very good, the building I could see well with the stone base looked good. BUT. 1. No damage to the buildings. I wouldn't get a mod that didn't show damaged buildings. Adds immensely to the atmosphere for me. In fact, Magua's buildings are the one mod that has had more impact than any other in my enjoyment of CM's look. 2. It is impossible for me to tell from the small screen shots what the differences are, except as described above (maybe the hedges?) Can't answer fairly without either larger screen shots or comparison screen shots. I would not jump to get the new mods based on the limited visual information I have.

In my search, it sounds like there have been some similar problems. However, nothing quite like this: I am working on a map which I've saved twice and was able to reload it. I finished the "final draft," put in start zones and landmark names (but no units), and saved it in the "save file" window that always comes up in the map editor (saves in saved games folder, I think?). I then immediately attempted to reload the map/battle. CM disappeared and I was dumped to desktop. When I tried to load it again (from both the "saved game" folder and the scenario folder), the graphics on the "load" window were screwed up with file names overwriting parts of the window. My previous saves of this map would load, but not the final draft--trying to load the final draft file again dumped me back to desktop. I ended up deleting the file and starting over with an earlier draft. Earlier drafts of the map continue to load and save normally, but the "load map" window's graphics are still overwriting each other. I have reset the preferences with no change. Nothing else in the game seems affected. Is it possible that after I specified start zones that the program converted it into a "finished" scenario and then thought I was trying to edit a saved battle? This cost me several hours of time and much frustration. I have had no other problems from many months of playing CM, so I know my platform is stable under a variety of conditions. I would appreciation a reply from BTS. Thanks in advance for any help. --Max Molinaro [This message has been edited by maxm2 (edited 02-27-2001).] [This message has been edited by maxm2 (edited 02-27-2001).] [This message has been edited by maxm2 (edited 02-27-2001).]

All comments on all topics in this thread (I started) have been helpful, interesting (loved the WWI stories) or both. Mark Ezra is correct: my sniper shot down his one-man squad from well under 100 meters. I don't think there was any other unit in los (remember, this is a night game) which could have whacked his squad. Of course, the Ami may have commited suicide when he saw my highly trained sniper. Besides the one-man squad incident, another of my snipers foolishly fired at a Hellcat from about 30 meters, resulting in one dead sniper. HOWEVER, I did a series of tests with German snipers and Allied small troop units (snipers, MGs, zooks) and found that none of the snipers ever fired on any Allied unit, no matter how close they were, or what orders I gave the sniper. Hey CM, couldn't you just tell us what the AI instructions are? I don't agree with the idea that a sniper with a rifle (even bolt action) and a pistol would never fire on any other close-by unit in any circumstances. If a sniper enters a house and comes upon a zook team and the team sees him and pistols or knives are pulled out, what's the sniper going to do? The enemy will probably try to use their firearms, so the stealth element is gone unless the sniper can cut their throats before they can fire. It seems far more logical to assume that a sniper with nowhere to go would use any weapon available to survive (I sure would), but the AI seems to prevent that, even in the "sudden encounter" curcumstances described, in 99%+ (?) of the cases. As for sniping at large units from, say, 50 meters--that sounds suicidal and I assume snipers never did that. As a side note: my father was scheduled to go to army sniper's training in '44, but they found he knew some German so he was sent to translaters' training instead, and ended up using his German abilities as a GI in the Heurtgen Forest area, in the end stages of the Bulge. To this day he can ask you auf Deutsch where the anti-tank emplacements are! Even though he was practically killed in some other ways, I figure I owe being here to play CM to his language ability. Snipers didn't have a high rate of survival. --Max

Since Spear doesn't have an email address posted, I gotta say it here: the woodchuck with the zook is the funniest picture I've seen in a long time!

Randomly-generated scenario against a human opponent: night, cloudy (so maximum los of about 60 meters). My German snipers, which I use (realistically or not) as scouts have been: 1. walking (move command) right by Allied troops in tall pines or woods--within four meters sometimes; 2. refusing to fire on Allied troops as close as four or five meters away, even when the allied units are only spotter or anti-tank teams, and after I have targeted my snipers on the enemy units. This has happened repeatedly in this game. I can see the troops occasionally not noticing each other in woods areas (especially if they're all sneaking or crawling), or my sniper being afraid to fire on a squad, but the distances seem to me to be too close, and the refusal to fire at "small" targets too scardy-cat by snipers who fire on tanks the next minute. I just have never seen this kind of AI behavior so consistently and (I think) unrealistically before. --Max

Randomly-generated scenario against a human opponent: night, cloudy (so maximum los of about 60 meters). My German snipers, which I use (realistically or not) as scouts have been: 1. walking (move command) right by Allied troops in tall pines or woods--within four meters sometimes; 2. refusing to fire on Allied troops as close as four or five meters away, even when the allied units are only spotter or anti-tank teams, and after my snipers have targeted the units. This has happened repeatedly in this game. I can see the troops occasionally not noticing each other in woods areas (especially if they're sneaking), or my sniper being afraid to fire on more than one soldier, but the distances seem to me to be too close, and the refusal to fire at "small" targets too scardy-cat by snipers who fire on tanks the next minute. I just have never seen this kind of AI behavior so consistently and (I think) unrealistically before. --Max

I wanna get GI Combat Squad (GICS--sounds like the noise you make when something sticks in your throat) because it sounds like it's going to be a REAL first person shooter in addition to the frantic Warcraftesque action. You'll be able to jump, as TS put it: "into the trenches with a single steadfast dogface." I can't wait to hear the authentic GI bull sessions: "Say, that guy Willie in the fifth platoon--is he steadfast, or what?" And crates. I hope we can have lots of crates. And powerups. And a BFG that your steadfast dogface can find..maybe even inside a crate! And aliens--wasn't there a rumor that SS stood for "Star Ship" because the toughest Aryans were really blonde aliens? Then they could have distorter rays and tear you to shreds with their teeth in hand to tentacle combat. Doodz! This will be too cool!

Please help this struggling cartoonist! (Awww...) Yes I did a search, but I still don't get where the roof .bmp's are. The posts seemed to imply that they were attached to some of the walls, but I don't see this in the wall pics. Also, wasn't there a list of bmp's showing the location of all the various tiles at some point (like 1208 = US arm)?? Thanks in advance. --Max

Very funny & too true, Chupacabra. However, let's keep this on CM. I was playing a new scenario called "Nadir's Raiders." It was the Nazis v. the Allies, with Commander Nadir as the head of a local partisan group who had no hope of winning and complained that both the Nazis and the Allies were unresponsive to "the people," even though both armies groveled to the electorate with focus groups and polls. So, since it "didn't make any difference" who won, who was in the supreme court, what national policy on abortion was, how wealth was redistributed, etc., etc., Nadir's forces shot at both the Nazis and the Allies, but since the Allies were closer and easier to hit, the Nazis won. Whew!! What an interesting scenario! CM is an incredible game, huh?