David Aitken

Phillies Phan wrote: > What's it all about Alfie? I thought I explained that in my brief MAR (Middle of Action Report) above. If Meeks had been my enemy I would have kicked his farm boys all the way back to Iowa. But I thought he was just my gaming opponent, so he was able to influence my actions by pretending he had nothing left to fight with. Do you want that in pictures?

Phillies Phan wrote: > what does this mean? > > "There's a splinter in your eye and it reads REACT" ? It means what it says. It doesn't mean the R.E.M. lyric. I don't know what that means, ask Michael Stipe.

Phillies Phan wrote: > You could surrender. I have lost the battle, but I wasn't fighting a battle, I was playing a game.

Meeks has the dubious honour of being the first person to blatantly lie to me in the hope of resurrecting a lost battle. He had dropped all his artillery to little effect, lost his four White scout cars, and had an entire US platoon annihilated. I was aware of another platoon on my right flank, but it couldn't move as it was sheltering in a dip in the ground, guarded by my infantry and mortars. I honestly remarked: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Oh look, I have two uncommitted platoons with not a scratch on them, and my first platoon is being cut to shreds. Maybe I should get them all into action. But where would be the challenge in that?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This was while engaging the aforementioned platoon, an engagement which I won. Meeks responded: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What?!?! You have more troops?!?! How?!?!?!?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Maybe something to do with all those pyrotechnics you were flinging around? I suspect you also bought another plane and forgot about it again.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> So far so Meeks. But then, feigning honesty, he confided: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I am facing something of a dilemma. Should I just cease-fire now or charge the last platoon?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You need me to tell you how to lose?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Our game continued, but I was naïve enough to believe Meeks, and became complacent. When a few of his support weapons started to give me trouble, I wasn't too concerned. I proceeded with trying to clear them out while keeping an eye on his remaining platoon. Then I advanced beyond the central VL to kick out a couple of .50 cal machineguns, and WHAM! His remaining platoon rushes in to the VL, while ANOTHER platoon hits me from the left. Now, if Meeks were a serious military adversary, of course I wouldn't listen to him. But what are e-mail exchanges going to be like, if we're never sure whether our opponent is telling the truth? Of course, it's difficult to think of things to say without giving away your force dispositions or battle plan. If I talk about the battle in e-mails, I never give away any specific detail, but I certainly never lie in the hope of influencing my opponent's decisions. If I can't tell the truth about the battle, I won't talk about it. Lying in personal communications demonstrates a desire to win the battle at all cost, rather than enjoy the game for what it is. If we can't trust our opponents, there is no point in communicating, and an enjoyable game turns into a serious conflict. Meeks also reflected what he was telling me in his posts to this thread. Can we not even believe what we read here? No-one is obliged to say anything about battles in progress. I give PBEM reports here, but obviously I can only speak about the battle from my perspective, so I only risk prejudicing the battle against myself, and as such I never give away much detail – but again, I certainly never lie. No-one cares to hear lies, even in a humourous context such as this. I thought the Peng Thread represented people who enjoy playing for fun, not for credit. Of course, when we win we have the right to brag about it. But if we can't trust each other's words during a game, it ceases to be a game. If I'm playing a human opponent, I'd prefer not to regard them as a computer just challenging my tactics – but if they can't engage in honest conversation between turns, I'd prefer if they let me know, and I'll happily ignore them for the course of the battle. Now to decide what to do with Meeks's turn.

CM is a game. The Peng Thread represents people who play the game. The rest of the forum seems to represent people with nothing better to do than drone on about 1,001 new features they want to see in the game, when BTS already has more ideas than they can ever hope to address until something like CM III, ie. the second engine rewrite, or whatever comes after CM II (not to be confused with CM 2). That's one thread for players and the rest for grogs and hardware junkies. What is your problem?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Lorak wrote: I am a game whore. Thats why I bought a PC and not a Mac (no flame wars please). [ . . . ] My games.... I am either dying, fixing to die, or trying to pull off a draw.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think this speaks for itself.

My dear sir, If you think the Peng Threads make up as much as 5% of the traffic on this forum, you are mistaken. If you're bothered about the number of posts in the archives, maybe you should complain to the many people who refuse to do searches, and insist on rehashing old topics endlessly. In other words, the fewer people who use the Search function, the less useful it becomes. By your logic, at least. You might also consider that the traffic is much greater than it seems, as certain threads remain on the front page, while many many more quickly disappear, adding up to a heck of a lot of short threads in the archives which dwarf the Peng Threads in overall bulk. Anyway, suggesting that the Search function could be improved by removing threads from the archives which are being searched is ever so slightly bizarre. The fact is, UBB software is free, so it's no surprise if it doesn't cut it for this kind of high-traffic forum. BTS have in the past appealed for pointers to more robust forum software. The latest forum upgrade was supposed to better handle large forums, but appears to have had the opposite effect, in terms of the Search function at least.

Cubbies Phan wrote: > are you aitken (aching) to drob over dead sometime soon? That might have been amusing if you hadn't explained it and I hadn't heard better variants many times before, but I don't think so.

"midevil"? Is that somewhere between lowevil and highevil?

Yeah, geez, really. Why can't everyone take each other seriously, like me?

Wait, I've had a better idea. When you win, ask a friend/partner to open a word processor and type in big letters on your screen, "Congratulations, for your valour in combat you have been promoted to the rank of Major-General!". Then you can even print it out and put it on your wall. You might also ask them to award you with treats for your successes. You could have an attainment chart as such: Minor Victory: Chocolate bar Tactical Victory: Beer Major Victory: Beer & chocolate bar Total Victory: Double rations! For each loss you should deprived of equal numbers of the above, so you have to break even before you get any more treats. There will, of course, be a grog version: Minor Victory: No reward, clean rifle and eat rations Tactical Victory: Unit commendation Major Victory: Personal citation Total Victory: Two days' leave! Minor Loss: Ask friend/partner to inflict concussion Tactical Loss: Gunshot to arm or leg Major Loss: Bayonet wound to lung or intestines Total Loss: Gunshot and bayonet wounds and two years' internment By following the above rules, we can complete the immersiveness of the game and really start to care about our actions, as all armchair generals should! Your pixellated soldiers are depending on you!

And when we win a battle, can we have extra credits to buy our forces for the next battle? Or can we get access to more powerful vehicles? Like you start off with only bolt-action rifles and scout cars, and after a couple of wins you are allowed submachineguns and light tanks, and then you move up to machineguns and heavy tanks? And as you progress, your scientists come up with ways to make your soldiers stronger and braver and more alert?

Maximus can't seem to help but jump in to every single Mac-related thread on this forum and fill them with his ill-informed anti-Apple nonsense. The threads are nothing to do with the Windows vs Mac debate, but Max's posts invariably drag them into the same old argument. He has finally posted something which beggars belief in light of his convictions. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'll tell ya what turned me off of Apple-based computers. When I was a Senior in Highschool back in '91, I was in a Computer Science class. We had Apple IIe computers in there with those nice mono-chrome green screens & 5.24" external floppy drives. In the same year, I took a Business Computer class across the hall, as a matter of fact. They had IMB-compatibles in there, probably 386 machines at the time. They had color screens! I believe they had Windows 3.0 on them. Graphical Interface, wow! We would go back into the Computer Science class and write up a little BASIC program that did a loop which wrote "Apples suck" that scrolled down the screen infinitely. Teacher didn't care too much for that, but I think he knew it was true.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Anyone with even the most vague understanding of the history of the Personal Computer will see why his statement is ridiculous, and rubbishes everything he has ever said on the subject. The Apple IIe computers he was using in 1991 were about ten years old. The PCs had graphical interfaces, did they? Apple introduced the first personal computer with a graphical interface in 1984. Apple has always been far ahead of Windows in that respect, so for someone to form their anti-Apple sentiments on that basis is bizarre. I might add that this is the person whose idea of a credible performance comparison is to pull it out of thin air. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>So sure CM will run faster on a Mac will a majority of low-res textures installed. So what's your point? Load up a Mac with a bunch of hi-res textures and let's just see how fast it runs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is typical of the standard of his arguments against the Mac. I'm not interested in the Windows vs Mac debate, and if Maximus is, I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with, is where Maximus 1) posts inflammatory "Macs suck" nonsense in threads where his comments are totally irrelevant, and 2) quite obviously has no clue what he is talking about, but blunders on regardless and pays no heed to those requesting he either desist, or at least learn the first thing about Macs. Maximus now constitutes a constant nuisance to members of this forum discussing Mac-related topics, and as such I would request, if he will not cease to post to such threads, that action should be taken against him.

BTS's response to the issue was that tanks could indeed move through woods, but not under battle conditions. It would take too long and be too risky.

Babra wrote: > You are all quite silly. Uh-oh, I think someone's on to us.

Abbott wrote: > you realize you just made my future "Must play" list I'm not sure whether that's a blessing or a curse. Considering the most imaginative thing you've ever posted on the Peng Thread is "Post of the day!", I'll opt for the latter.

You miss the point. Do you think you're the only person who visited the OF forum, saw no-one had posted recently, and gave up? I'll bet you there are plenty more visitors than posters, so if you would only post, you'd probably find an opponent before too long. The more people who post there, the more people will visit, and so on – but if everyone thinks the place is "empty" just because there are no posts, no-one will ever use it. I just deleted ICQ, and I'm not available for a game right now, but I'd be sure to post in the OF forum if I were. =P

Ever heard of the Opponent Finder forum, you womble?

As discussed previously, Apple SoundSprocket 1.0 provides much better sound in Combat Mission than newer versions (1.7.1 upwards). However, I have finally put my finger on a problem I noticed some time ago. Essentially, sound sources at high altitude (ie. game height 15 as opposed to 5) are too loud, and when the camera is placed directly above them, they distort to unpleasant effect. This is nothing to do with system volume or speaker volume, it is in the game software, ie. SoundSprocket. As this is not only Apple software but old Apple software, I know the problem is neither yours nor even theirs. However, I just wondered whether when integrating SoundSprocket, you have a mechanism to set the sound volume. I am aware that you originally had the PC volume set to maximum, so I was wondering if you did a similar thing on the Mac. CM is the loudest thing on my system, but the interface sounds aren't bad – only the in-game sounds, ie. those handled by SoundSprocket. This issue may be redundant due to CM2 and Mac OS X, but I wanted to bring it up to ensure that you're aware of it. I'm not expecting an immediate fix for CM1. [ 04-22-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]

PBEM Report Well, umm, let's see... Meeks, after castigating us for not resending turns, is now castigating us for resending turns. Germanboy is still not playing, and is reportedly hard at work on resurrecting Hitler's plans for Operation Sealion. Elvis's Canadians are dying in our Rune scenario. He is creeping around in the dark, and wherever he steps, my jackboot is clamped firmly down on his toes. Leeo has chosen to play Germans again and, I imagine, has bought a Sturmkompanie with supporting marksmen. This is a rather large scenario with me on the attack, over rolling wooded hills on a sunny day. I have bought lots of nice toys to demolish him with. Ellros and I are playing quite a similar scenario, but of my choosing – and, as such, it is raining – and with only infantry. I don't have lots of different toys, but what I do have, I have lots of.

DuckyFondler wrote: > When the Whuppin' boy speaks, gather round and hearken well. Pain is humanities most eloquent mentor. Do you type that out every time you post? It's not in your signature, so obviously you make a special effort to put it in. Or maybe it's just a mental 'burp' that slips out every time your brain has spewed forth the torrent of witless inanity that disgraces our thread like a cup of tea spilled embarrassingly onto our collective lap. Presumably after your brain has expended its five minutes per day of constructive activity, you go into a kind of spasm, and your fingers hammer out that little phrase before you automatically press the "Add Reply" button and then slump, drooling, onto the floor to recuperate in time for the next day's post. And no matter how many times you post it, you still fail to realise that it should read "humanity's", as in the possession of humanity, rather than "humanities", being the plural of "humanity". Bah. In my day, all of the Peng Thread regulars had a basic education, and could even identify the business end of a tank within the space of half an hour, without consulting the audience or going 50/50.

My world is complete!! <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Big Time Software wrote: David, you are hereby dubbed "Keeper of the kipper" and charged with smacking anyone participating in a PC vs. Mac thread over the head with a reeking kipper. Deputy Moderator<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good news, folks. CM2 is off. BTS have gone insane, after reading the 58,302,124th thread on Russian conscripts, Jeff Heidman talking about abstract recon or Scott Clinton realising for the first time that vehicles can't cross fords. Now we can get down to actually playing the game without worrying about what all the drooling creatures in The Pit (aka the Main Forum) want to do to it. Oh, and I finally found the answer to the Running MG Team Dilemma and posted it here.

RIGHT! It's kippers at dawn for the lot of ye! Maximus wrote: > Oh com'on. you know I gotta get in on this. Like we also know you're a clueless drone whose sole function in life could be reproduced by a simple script along the lines of: see "Mac" say "Ha ha, Macs are rubbish" or "Well, the results of my thorough performance evaluation process (where I spend five seconds imagining how CM will run on a Mac) lead me to believe that Macs are rubbish" Anyone else who posts here will be molested with the operating system CD of their choice.

THAT'S IT. Somebody lock this, NOW. If anyone in the entire world REALLY has to reopen the extremely tiresome Mac vs PC debate, this forum is most certainly not the place for it. If anyone else posts to this thread, except to ridicule the content, I will come around to their house and beat them over the head with a kipper.