David Aitken

SPOILER * * * * * * * * Thanks for the AAR. Obviously giving the AI an experience bonus maybe wasn't the best of ideas, as its troops were already high quality. You also seem to have allowed it random setup positions, which would change the scenario somewhat. I agree that the PzIV's aren't in keeping with the Fallschirmjäger concept, but they are intended as Army reinforcements to the paras, not part of their force. I think by the nature of the scenario, the AI has a good chance of pulling a victory.

In the words of the fine Mr. Thom Yorke: Come on Come on You think you'll Drive me crazy, well Come on Come on You and whose Army? You and your Cronies Come on, come on Call your Roman Empire Come on if you think Come on if you think You can take us on You can take us on

Hmmm, let's see... You are not welcome to the latest incarnation of the infamous Peng Challenge Thread. This is an ancient CM tradition which has been taking place since the dawn of time... or about 10 months or so, depending on whom you interrogate at gunpoint. There are no rules, and these include: f) Challenge someone to a game. 61) Not just anybody, pick someone and address them personally. A) Be humourous, or humorous if you're a bloody Yank. x) Don't be too polite, but we don't appreciate potty-mouths, or all-round morons called Panzer Leader. 4.4) Expect to be treated like Panzer Leader until some time after the release of CM 69: Beyond Adolf's Wildest Fantasies. g3) Get lost and don't come back. Thank you for your cooperation.

I just had a look at CM in 1920x1440 resolution, and all I have to say is... I... want... my... RADEON!!! AAAAHHH!! I want a G4!! I'm gonna strike out all the pages in my diary for the next ten years!!! F**K that was incredible!! Who needs a life??

All of you gits desperate for a bit of my Flat Screen Trinitron O' Doom can just hang on a bit longer, because the nice chaps and chapettes who were supposed to be delivering my ATI Radeon have apparently used the fact that I wasn't doing any work to duck out of the "next working day" stipulation I paid for when it was despatched on Friday. You wouldn't want to play me right now, I'm pissed off and I might actually cause some damage. Pff.

So can we have a feature in CM2 where the fine, upstanding forces of capitalism and their low-res Shermans face off against the evil, modded-up commies in their T-34's at the gates of Moscow?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Berlichtingen wrote: with a bi of the postman thrown in for good measure.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> And there was I refraining from making immature jokes about the kid's parentage. Leave it to the old ones...

But I still can't fit this page without expanding my browser full-screen! Gorbacheov's Harmonica, fix or do somefink!! edit: How ironic, now we're onto a new page. But I shan't forget! I've got your name!! [ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

Ohboyohboyohboy. This monitor is so big and flat, it seems practically wrap-around compared to its predecessor. It's going to take a wee while to get used to this. Now all I need is the Radeon, and I may resume kicking your bums in glorious Technicolor™. Heeere, couricouricouricourier... I hear Elvis has spawned a new Peng Thread poster and PBEM processor. Once the wee one is trained up we can expect more than his "Wankers" contribution once-threadly, and double turn rate.

I would expect nothing more from an inveterate git such as yourself. Remind me to kill you once my new monitor arrives.

The only occasion I've had troops fire smoke when I ordered them to fire HE was with 3in mortars against a Tiger. Your gun maybe fired smoke because it felt vulnerable.

According to the Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, an escarpment is "a more or less continuous line of very steep slopes, formed by faulting or erosion, especially around the margins of a plateau. 19c: from French escarper to cut steeply." This isn't exactly a cliff, and would not necessarily be rocky, but I can very much envisage it being a common characteristic in the desert.

Lenin's Grand Piano, you fool, can't you turn that URL into a link, or break it up or somefink? I'm claustrophobic enough as it is with my monitor in tunnel-vision mode, without having the whole thing devoured by the Peng Thread Page From Hell.

It's entirely possible that such a texture will be included with CM2. The subsequent engine rewrite will cater for all sorts of goodies, so I think what you ask is the very least of what you can expect for CM3 and beyond.

This is a similar concept to what I call terracing, which I discussed in my urban terrain super-thread. I now have a link to it from my webpage. However, cliffs can be very closely approximated in CM by placing two adjacent tiles of greatly differing elevation, and using the 'rough' terrain on the resultant slope. [ 06-10-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Redmow wrote: What is in the favor of the Scots? Muddy ground, fog, dug in positions, and it is 2300 hours...night. Oh...and the terrain is wide open except for gullies and drainage ditches. A couple of hillocks are also strewn around.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> What's the scenario called, East Kilbride On A Saturday Night?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Peter Panzer wrote: in my view, an abbreviated list of elements to avoid while drafting this project would begin with - cluttered, uninspired "collages," garish "military" lettering, images that focus on machines rather than men, the trite use of flags etc....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh, some of Rommel22's offerings would have fitted the bill until you said that. You may be interested this fine specimen of my own concoction.

Some of us don't use any mods at all. I play with a high monitor resolution, but I'm quite happy with the textures as they are. With the exception of this weekend, as my monitor is malfunctioning. Tomorrow, I shall return with a vengeance!

Anyone desiring some hard, fast, military axxion is directed towards my new scenario, Can't Stop Now. Featuring hardened Germans in uniform and inexperienced Brits with big guns. About 20 hours to my new monitor...

...and Windows computers.

This is my third urban scenario and also an interesting little battle. British troops are required as reinforcements elsewhere, and must break through a small but powerful force of German airborne troops defending a bridge on their route, and get off the map as quickly as possible (within 15 turns). Available from my webpage. Let me know what you think! [ 06-10-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

Hooray, it's the Return Of The Hardware Bigots! And trust Maximus never to miss a good argument, especially about graphics. Here are the most recent two threads where we had this argument: CM Graphics - Room For Improvement BTS - Is it time for a separate CM II forum? Of course, this thread isn't really meant to reach a conclusion, so reading the previous runs surely won't reduce anyone's inclination to chip in with their hardware specs and attitudes towards computers and money. Carry on!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>ParaBellum wrote: I don't want BTS to include the history of WW2 into the manual. My point, sorry if that wasn't clear, was that the manual of CM, as fine as it is in regards to game mechanics, lacks IMHO some points that could improve the atmosphere,make playing CM more comfortable and perhaps give new players an easier approach to the game.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> How exactly could you improve the 'atmosphere'? The manual isn't supposed to have an atmosphere, that's what the game is for, and the game has it in bucketloads. The manual tells you how to use the game. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I don't understand why it's ridiculous to expect game programmers ... to also give us information about all the various things they modelled. Why? And as I mentioned in my first post, they're many people on this forum who could contribute to such topics.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Because a brief background to the subject matter of the game is not something you can just drop in. As soon as you start saying something, you have to make sure you say it properly. Otherwise people will immediately either be confused by your synopsis, or annoyed because they know that it's innacurate. Where do you draw the line? And as for photos, you can't just magic up a few pictures and stick them in – you have to find them, get permission to print them, and maybe pay royalties. Adding a section of this kind to the CM manual would be akin to publishing a short history of the war or the campaign in question, and this is no simple undertaking. And at the end of it all, you simply have, as I have said, a poor substitute for one of the many, many thorougly researched and professionally published books on the same subject, which are readily available. Keep in mind that those writing any synopses for the CM manual would simply be taking their information from these books. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'm really not sure if you understood my post.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I understood it allright, but I don't think you understand the concept of the CM manual. It is a publication telling you how to play CM. It is not an effort to tie CM in with the war. It is not BTS's business to educate you about the war, there are already thousands of people who have published work for this purpose.

I would call this gamey. The purpose of a smokescreen is to blind the enemy, not to conceal your own forces. On the battlefield, you drop smoke in front of the enemy in order to allow your troops to close the distance. Dropping smoke as a path for your troops to follow would not work in reality, because every unoccupied enemy gun would be blasting that path and annihilating anything moving through it. One of the problems in CM is that the AI may catch a glimpse of your troops moving through the smokescreen, but won't do anything about it once they've disappeared again. In reality, a single glimpse would be enough to tell the enemy where your men are and where they're going, and everyone would have a good idea where to aim their weapons. The AI in CM cannot function on intuition, and even a human player cannot control their troops' fire orders to that extent, so a smokescreen effectively becomes a wall of steel instead of a wall of vapour.

In my opinion, it is ridiculous to expect game programmers, on top of creating an extremely realistic and historically accurate game, to also give us information about all the various things they have modelled. There are thousands of people out there who have painstakingly researched the Second World War, the battles, the armies, the equipment, and all other aspects, and written detailed and exhaustive books on the subject. If you want some background to CM, get out and find some of these books, instead of expecting programmers to summarise it all for you at no extra cost. That way you will get much more extensive, accurate, interesting information, and learn about many related subjects in the process. It's not as though the subject matter of CM is purely BTS's creation, and we need them to tell us what's been going on in their minds as they've conceived the game. Do yourselves a favour, and use CM as a starting point for a bit of self-education. I can assure you, whatever aspect of the game which interests you, there are books out there which will tell you all you want to know. Hearing a brief, second-hand, all-encompassing summary from BTS would be a very, very poor substitute for a bit of proper research – and 'research' is by no means a chore, it requires only a bit of motivation, and will do you a lot of good. This strikes me as another case of 'give them an inch, and they'll take a mile'. BTS could, in keeping with the policies of many other games companies, have provided a quick run-down of the basic controls and let you get on with it. Instead they provided a large and exhaustive paper manual. Now that people have come to expect this standard, they inevitably look beyond it, and expect more for the next version. BTS could package CM2 with an encyclopaedia of war on the Eastern Front, and people would still expect something better for the next version. This is why so many companies do no more than necessary to please their customers – because the more they give, the more the customer will want. Teach the customer to expect poor products and no service, and the smallest concession will seem like a big improvement to them, and they'll be happy. Do your best all of the time, and the customer will become disenchanted through your lack of improvement.