Mikeydz

Remember, the graphics are and abstraction of what the true battle (fought with deadly 1's and 0's deep in the heart of your CPU) looks like. That's why the shell looks like it traveled thru the tank. Now if you had missed, then maybe it's possible that the game engine would have decided the shell hit the Sherman. I know I've seen it where I'm shooting at a target near a building, and the miss hits the building, destroying it. The important thing is once it's determined a hit, it's a hit.

In nighttime battles, friendly fire can happen. (per pg 96 of manual, under "time of day" heading) Also, "friendly" aircraft can misidentify and attack friendly troops by mistake. (pg 85 of manual)

The Priests have Hollow© and HE ammo If it's using the C ammo, then it can penetrate your armor at any range. But the problem is that it carries very few of that type of ammo. I'm in a QB, with 4 M7b1 Priests, and 2 started the game with 1 C ammo each, one had 4 and the other 6. It's possible that the Priest that is alive is already out of C ammo, and is now using HE. To hurt you with the HE, it will need to get a turret hit, but it can kill you. Would I pull back and try to work for a more effective side shot? Yep, but I wouldn't get cocky just yet, if I were you.

I don't have a real preference for any specific side, but I sure do get a kick commanding the US, and my name as the commander of a squad, or a tank commander. I can't wait until I see Maj. Diaz leading an Infantry Battalion to victory. Man I love this game

Heck... 09-18-71 If I get a bad result, can I get a refund?

Well, in the situation you described, unless you screwed up somehow in placing your men, you generally should win that encounter. Did you make sure that your men were within command radius of your HQ unit? If not, that could explain why your troops broke and ran. In most of my gameplay, more often than not, you would win, but luck is very fickle. Either you screwed up the placement, or bad luck rained on your parade.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If the game can play a 60 second movie, why can't it play a 600 second movie? Please enlighten me. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now you want free programing lessons too??? Why can't we just leave this issue with the fact that.... This feature is on "The List" Not knowing anything about programming, I'm happy to take BTS at thier word that this is not something that they can program and throw together in 30 minutes, so when it does make it's appearance, the wait will be well worth it. Patience.......

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Now if the gyrostabilizer and nahverteidigungswaffe are modelled in the game in some aspect, why isn't the difference in optics? As John points out the Germans had an optical advantage over 1000m.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> IIRC, the reason BTS did not model the better German optics was mainly because how much better were they? 10%? 25%? more? less? Since they were unable to come up with any quantative figure they could use that could be backed up or verified, they decided not to make a guess and left it out.

Uninstall, then reinstall/update your soundcard drivers... Good luck

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Being a software programmer myself, I don't think that this would be too great a task, probably can be done in like 3 hours. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If they could have whipped it up in 3 hours, then it probably would have already been in the game. This feature is on the list of possible additions, but if it's planned for a later patch, or won't see the light of day until CM2, I couldn't say. There is probably about 20 threads alone dealing with this request, so if you seach you may find a more definative answer

The only scavenging in CM, is indirectly represented by the fact that your troops never run out of small arms/mg ammo. When your ammo counter indicates a "LOW" condition, that indirectly represents that unit conserving fire to save ammo/cavaging ammo. That's the extent of scaveging in CM.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Helluva leap from air rifle to the MP5! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hehe... yeah, just a lil bit... Actually I believe he is refering to Airsoft airguns. They fire small plastic bb pellets. You use them in wargames in the same way generally as paintball. Most airsoft guns are modeled after real weapons, which is where the MP5 reference comes from.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The rule book is published by BTS.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm glad you noticed this fact... The whole "gamey" issue basically goes back to honoring BTS design goals for CM. In making CM, BTS made a fevered attempt to stomp out or render ineffective as many "gamey" tactics as possible. The problem is that it is impossible to program a game that can prevent any and all possible effective gamey tactics. There are to many creative players out there that tinker to come up with tactics that can win, but violate the spirit of the game. My example of the Star Fleet Battles rulebook (those who have seen the thing know what I mean) was to show that no matter how many rules and subrules to but into a game, whether in computer games, or in paper and pencil board games, you can't create a rule to forsee every eventuallity. The way I see it, BTS has tried hard to prevent gameiness issues, so I'm gonna honor that design philosophy by not using gamey tactics, even if I could. If you choose not to honor that, then that 's your choice.

That sounds like some of the things I heard about in my Star Fleet Battle days. "Nothing in the rule book says I can't do this, ect.." And what happened? That "rule book" became a huge tome filled with rules, sub rules, and sub rules to the sub rules. And what did all those rules inspire? Rules lawyers looking for loopholes "in the code" to exploit to win. Winning by any means necesarry, including exploits or "gamey" actions, just seems hollow to me. Mikey

How many times did you run your test to validate your idea that crews can be effective? How many total men in the crews were involved in the attack. How many defenders? I ran a test of your theory. I created 3 5 man crews (Axis Panther Crews) to use as one attack element (supported by a platoon HQ). As a "control" I used 2 German squads with a HQ. For defenders in this test, I placed 1 US squad, and 1 Platoon HQ hidden in a heavy building (1 story). I ran each attack 10 times. The German squads with HQ (total 22 men attacking) suffered on average, 14 casualties, while inflicting 3 to the defending squad/HQ The crews with HQ (19 men total) suffered on average 10 casualties, while inflicting 1 casualtie TOTAL in the 10 tries at attacking the building. So, which group did better, the regular troops, who suffered approx 64% casualties, or the crews who suffered approx 53%? The troops did better. The reason that the crews suffered fewer deaths was because almost to a man they panicked, or otherwise ran for cover as soon as they came under fire, while the real troops in general braved the defensive fire to get close enough to do some damage. Without knowing the exact circumstance of what you encountered, it's hard to say how your crews survived, but more than likely, the defenders were also at a LOW ammo state. When you add that plus having them suppressed by the MG and intermittent fire from you low ammo squads, is probably the only thing that saved your crews. In light of this, I still believe that... A. Using crews in an attack in general is going to be foolish, foolhearty, and ultimately futile. B. Using crews to lead an attack to absorb damage that would befall your more effective troops is gamey. If you choose A in desperate measures, I would probably play you again, since your more than likely only increasing my margin of victory. If you choose B, then I probably wouldn't play you again. [This message has been edited by Mikeydz (edited 08-12-2000).]

Well, this has been discussed before, and mainly it's been a security issue, but another thing that probably comes into play is what's happened over at Matrix with thier SP-WAW downloads. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Our ISP says we are now using even more bandwidth on our FTP server. The expense to our ISP is over $40,000.00 a month and they can not allow this to go on. The game has now be available for 2 months and has done over 57,000 downloads and is still going. Because there is no end in site our ISP ask us to take down our FTP server. Instead we agreed to remove the complete SPWaW download but will be leaving all the patches and upgrade files on the server.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The cost of running an FTP server that could allow everyone to download the game at anywhere close to a respectable speed would be huge. So I doubt that even if they wanted to offer this method right now, that they would be able to cut the cost. They may have even had to charge more, to defray their ISP costs.

quote from cward <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I occasionaly have them run with other charging troops to draw fire. Only the AI will fall for this though.. it works great to get that turret rotating in the wrong direction<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Now THAT is the definition of "gamey". While you could try and defend using crews to fortify a defensive position, or even help in an attack, using them only because the can draw fire (especially considering the TacAI tendacy to target crews) to screen your regular troops is what being gamey is all about. Way to go.

I'm looking outside my window at the apartments next door, and I wonder what exactly would be in LOS if I was up on the roof. Since I know the area pretty well, I'm pretty sure what general areas would be in LOS, but unless I was actually up there, I'm not sure how much of the quicke mart parking lot next door would be in view, if the fuel pumps of the little airport across the road would be in sight, or anything else. My point is that the floating camera with multiple view angles gives you a good idea on what areas are in LOS of a given spot (even better than most topo maps, probably), but unless you have someone right at that pot, how can you know?

As far as number of turns, most games of average to moderate size will propably be determined sometime between turn 20-30. Ocasionally it might end faster to longer, depending on the style of play of the opponents, and the exact layout of the battle, but that's a good rough guess. As far as real time, it depends entirely on what you and you opponent arrange. If you agree to to 1 full turn per day, then obviously it could take a month. If you go full speed and turn around order/movie files as fast as possible, you might knock a game out in less than a day, or quicker. As far as ICQ, the turn files are pure text files, so they have no problem being sent via ICQ file transfer. And ICQ is already a popular method of controling the exchange of files for CM

I haven't had any problems so far organizing groups of vehicles down tight spaces such as roads. I always use the "Move" command since that is a constant speed for all vehicles (troop walking speed). So the only real thing you have to watch for is the command delay. As long as you don't expect your vehicles to be able to move bumper to bumper at full speed, then no problems. I usually have anywhere from 1/2 to a full vehicle lenght spacing between vehicles. Only problem that ever happens is when a pesky 88 round lances through the lead vechicle, then things get a littl chaotic, but otherwise, things go smooth

Gamey, yes... If your doing it against the AI, then who cares. If all the AI has left is 3-5 squads in some buildings, then why not shell the buildings to rubble with your armor. You will... A. Keep hier heads down during the shelling... B. Cause good number of casualties when the building falls... C. Won't be using a gamey tactic...

Can't download the demo, or can't unzip it? What version, Mac, or PC?

Not sure what the concern is... whether or not it's a kill or wounded, when it happens during while the game is playing out, it just means one less enemy to deal with.

To allow the ability to edit the unit attributes opens up the pandoras box to hackers. If someone feels that the data or values are wrong, then present the documentation backing up thier view and submit it to BTS for review. If BTS allowed the modification of unit data, might as well throw out multiplayer for me because cheating would run rampant.

The edge cuts both ways.... You know as an attacker that you can only be attacked from one side, but as a defender, you know if you defend the edge, you can't be flanked. I don't think it's that big a deal.