WendellM

Tom Chick is a reviewer I respect, because he knows his stuff. From my experience with the SC demo, he's on target - SC is a (deliberately) simplistic game, and AI has always been the weak spot for strategic games. I don't view this as a failing of SC - it's just par for the course for all such games (so far). That said, I do plan to buy SC in the not-distant future (waiting to see if any fatal flaws present themselves/how mod support shapes up/and, most importantly, for a breathing spell in my always-overworked financial structure ).

Why not just consider the game as costing $35, with free shipping worldwide....

CM (both BO and presumably BB) indeed has (for now) a unique Turn / Real time system. I don't know about that being a "politically correct" term, but it is a great way to describe the exciting innovation that CMBO dropped on us wargamers when it came out. The board game, Star Fleet Battles, had pre-plotted movement with simultaneous execution back in the early 80's, and the late 80's PC game, Patton vs. Rommel, had a similar system with simultaneous movement and combat after a plotting phase, but CM:BO brought it to a point where it was even more effective than these earlier pioneers. So, I agree with Battlefront in describing this system as "Unique." While there certainly have been similar systems before, none were *exactly* like this one.

They (rightly) seem happy to charge a higher price for non-US-citizens (after all, non-US folk didn't pay for *whatever* survey in the first place). My apologies as a private US citizen: we can barely keep a cap on governmental mistakes and bull**** on a local level - I apologize to anyone having to deal with such on an international level: good luck! Oh, and what about maps, please . Wendell [ July 04, 2002, 06:31 AM: Message edited by: WendellM ]

To those ordering: please reply here on the map issue when you get your copies. I'll almost certainly order for the wealth of text information (well worth it), but the general lack of maps in books/other media bugs me (I've read way too many military history books with no maps at all - a familiar experience, I'm sure ). I have a pretty good collection of map-only books, but the inclusion of maps covering the specific actions discussed in the text would be great. So, please post here about whether maps are included on the CD-ROM once you get yours - thanks. And here's another "thank you" to Frenchy for mentioning this! [ July 04, 2002, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: WendellM ]

FWIW, I'll mention that Traveller (a late-1970s/mid-1980s SF RPG) mapped planets onto what amounted to a 20-sided die. As long as you don't mind 12 pentagons mixed in among your ~480 true hexagons, it's quite do-able: The "flat-planet" view (~90K) The "rounded" view in 3D (~16K) Note how the "half hexes" along the large triangles share the same color as their counterparts across the ignored black areas and are, in fact, halves of the same hex. Also note the "missing slice" hexagons in the tropics that are actually pentagons. Lastly, please note the polar sections that form north and south pentagonal poles. More-detailed maps are also possible, of course (and would be needed for something at SC's scale). The above examples are just from the planet model that has actually seen use by Traveller gamers for about two decades. [ June 28, 2002, 02:55 AM: Message edited by: WendellM ]

OMG, this is all too funny . I've been away from CM for a while, but all these great references ("Fahnenwerfer," "Unlike MG's, one or two men should be able to transport a VF rapidly, and even run with the VF," "How many times must BTS explain that while MVF (Mobile Victory Flags) WERE used, their use was strictly limited to a STRATEGIC role and simply don't fit within the scale and scope of CMBO. Despite the SPECULATION of others on this thread ('Oh it shouldn't be too hard' ... 'Why I bet one man could carry a couple' ... 'I once carried a soccer corner flag for two blocks')," "the dreaded Legion Ex Machina, who always master the battlefield at the start of every battle when one sees that machine grey fearsome '?' flag [...] only to be heard occasionally as their grey and with red '?' vehicles drive back and forth...") had me howling and remembering the good ol' days. I've gotta start playing it again! And I'm now waiting for CM2 as impatiently as all of you. Thanks, guys!

Thanks, Major; it's handy to have all of this so nicely consolidated. I found the included Chinese equipment interesting.

As for who has the right to mod what... The License in the front of the CM manual states: "The enclosed Software and manual are copyrighted. [...] No duplicate part of this Software, CD-ROM, or manual may be copied or stored concurrently in more than one place at any time, including a second hard disk, duplicate CD-ROM, Internet site, or any other means [...] You may not reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software." OK. Clearly Sentence One means that BTS has the legal right to everything on the CM CD. Sentence Three expressly prohibits any mods, since the bitmaps and sound effetcs are part of the Software. And Sentence Two states that there can only be one CM CD on the planet. So, only Steve or Charles may play (not both) and everyone else must destroy their CD's. Aren't copyright laws fun? Tongue mostly in cheek (where not prohibited by law and where no duplicate tongue exists ), Wendell

Heh, if that's a left-to-right photo caption, "Steve" (or is that "Stevie"? ) is a reasonably good-looking chick, and into wargames besides - what's her number? More seriously, that's a great photo (really cool - love the whole era look, including the pipe) and "caption"! (though, sorry to say, the link initially supplied seems broken) Update: the link isn't broken if you remove the trailing ")" that appears in your Location line when you click on the link. [This message has been edited by WendellM (edited 02-11-2001).]

FWIW, I've only seen one game that does "refueling": Chessmaster 7000.

I like CM and enjoy it as a game. However, to get serious for a serious issue: I'm not a pacifist, but I do hate war. If you don't hate war and instead truly enjoy it and all its related human suffering for its own sake (we're talking real war, not abstract simulation), please do the entire planet a favor and fatally shoot yourself right now. Thank you. That said, I quite enjoy studying the tactics and strategies of war. It's arguably the most life-altering man-made activity ever devised, and thus deserves a great deal of attention. To remain ignorant of such an important matter is almost to do a disservice to mankind. As fascinating as the concept of war is, however, I try never to forget how horrifically costly real war is. In my opinion: 1. Those sons-of-bitches who aggressively inflict it on their fellow human beings for their own gain deserve universal disgust for taking the easy way out by forcibly taking over something that others have built, instead of building for themselves. 2. However, those who want nothing to do with the military arts and who deliberately remain weak invite military destruction by others and deserve what they get. Thus, I view warfare as something necessary to prepare against but never something to prepare for (except, if you're so inclined, to stop another party who is waging war for his own benefit at the expense of others). - an unusually somber Wendell

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If I were manning that gun and I had a choice of targets such as you described, I would aim at the one shooting at me.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If you had a choice (no orders and thus acting on your own initiative), that'd be fine. However, if your superior repeatedly gave you a direct order that you kept disobeying (as in the case Commissar described), not so fine.

There's one page at http://www.askam.com/croberts1/m22.htm with a photo, specs, description and usage ("Twelve of the tanks were landed using the giant Hamilcar glider during the Rhine crossing on March 24, 1945. The British airborne crossing of the Rhine river, called Operation Varsity, utilized over 50 large Hamilcar Gliders delivering airborne tanks and other equipment for the 6th Airborne Armored Reconnaissance Regiment, Royal Armored Corps, of the British forces."). It sure is a cute little tank .

If you have a video card with video-out (like a Voodoo 3, among several others), you can use a VCR to save the footage. You could use this to put together an entire battle for viewing on your TV. If you have a video-capture card (basic models such as Pinnacle Studio DC10 Plus are <$100), you could import and edit the videotape into a polished presentation and save it in a digital format viewable by others on their PCs/Macs. I've done this for other PC-generated "footage," but not for CM.