medlinke

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Commissar: My current specs: AMD Athalon 650MHz processor 64RAM 7 gig HD Riva TNT2 video card <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I have similar setup (Intel PIII 700r w/ 128 megs of RAM) In any case, I had the same Video card as you. I couldn't run anything above 800x600 without slowdown. I switched it for a Voodoo5 5500 AGP and I now run the game in 1240x1024 and it's smooth as butter. Everything looks and runs amazingly well, even in the biggest scenarios. However, you only have 64 megs of RAM. Update that first. Go to www.pricewatch.com and click on RAM. You'll find like 128 megs of RAM for around $55 shipped. Then, CompUSA has Voodoo5 5500s for $199.99, a recent $100 price drop that is well worth it. 3dfx is basically coming out with the Voodoo5 6000 or something like that I'm not sure, but it has 128 megs of RAM to it. With those two updates, you should run anything really easily. Keith

Okay....I gotta stop you guys. I got a beta of this game to review before I left The Wargamer and it was terrible. So much so, that my system (a fairly new Dell) couldn't run the game long enough for me to get through one scenario. So, yes the game stinks on ice. However, it's uninformed morons, like the people at Adrenaline Vault, and elsewhere that think this is the official computer port of ASL. As a fan of ASL I was originally really ticked about the prospect because ASL is so good as a board game. Besides, any code to model the massive rulebook would take 20 years to code....not to mention an AI that can understand the rules... I e-mailed the developers and asked them during my review if it was in fact an ASL port. I got an emphatic no. To which I replied, "how come almost every site on the internet mentions that this game is related to the board game in some way." They told me that they had no idea people where posting that information and that it simply isn't true. So, long story short, it isn't the developer's fault. Hasbro made the call on the name, and that was their stupid call and their deceptive advertising, not the developers of the game. Believe me, I was mad too, but after talking to them for a bit, I found out that the online reviewing people made more of the game than there actually was.

Okay... Here is the deal. Here is my problem and the solution, so people who are having the same problem can fix it. PROBLEM: I installed the new Voodoo card and deleted my old CM prefs file. I then ran CM and was only offered 640x480 Software mode! SOLUTION: Downloaded and installed Directx 8.0 Downloaded and installed the latest 3dfx drivers ran the CM program and voila! 1280x1024 resolution and everything looks and runs smooth as silk! SYSTEM SPECS: Pentium III 700r 128 Megs of RAM 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP w/ full install on CM If this helps anyone out, but if it does, good! Enjoy

I was in Normandy last summer. I stayed in Bayeux. It is a really nice town in a great area. The Brittish Cemetary is about a 5 minute walk out of town and that has cool things in it like Monty's beret, and a TON of newspaper clippings, uniforms (probably 2 dozen from all nations) and vehicles / equiptment in it. In fact, they even have a crashed Hurricane! Seriously, they took the plane and the ground it crashed on, lifted it up and put it right in the museum with a little bio on the pilot (who lived). There are about 2 - 3 tour companies in town that range from about 30 - 50 US dollars in cost. They are pretty good. Ours went the the artificial harbor at Arromanches and the Arromanches museum. This was awesome since my grandfather was involved in the sinking of some of the merchant ships that became the breakwall for the harbor. However, there is a 360 degree theater in town as well that is really awesome. My tour didn't go there and I wish I had gone because others who have gone said it was the best theater experience in Normandy. I don't doubt it... Next the tour went to the American Cemetary. This was the most moving place I've been in my life. Especially when you read that the cemetary could be 3 times as large if all the families had allowed their loved ones to be buried there. After that you actually go to Omaha beach. Which, much to my chagrin, is a recreational beach! I couldn't believe it! That is sacred ground and there are families all over it playing in the surf where bodies washed up for months after the invasion. However, in their defence, why did the people fight there? So it would be safe for people to use it like a beach. It's a catch 22 I guess. Next we went to Pont du Hoc. I couldn't believe this place. They left everything as it was in 1944 and that was really amazing. I had always heard the naval guns left massive craters....but...well they were right. It was amazing to think that the bunkers (which look invincible) were taken by a mere men! It is really amazing. I would suggest renting a car and just giving yourself a tour. There are many books and services you can find that will aid you and all the major sites are all on the same road basically. This is highly recommended if you want to see things like Ste. Mere Eglise. There is so much to see and the people on the coast (sur la mere) are really still so grateful (or at least they put on that atmosphere). Also, the place is crawling with vets. They love it when you walk up, shake their hands, and say thank you. It does mean everything to them. I saw a little kid no more than 5 hug a vet and the vet broke into tears he was so moved. It is really so much more than you could ever imagine. I wish I had been able to spend more time there. if you have any questions just e-mail me! medlinke@msu.edu Keith

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SS_PanzerLeader: Hi Dalem, What scale do you use the ASL conversion for? I have a tun of 1/72 scale stuff Haven't found any rules I like yet <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually there is no conversion nessisary for ASL. What you need to do it though is measure the distance on an ASL Deluxe board from center point to center point to find out what 1 unit of movement is. Bypass, gets a little tricky, but hey that's why they developed deluxe ASL... The scale for ASL is in the back of the ASL Rule Book. The only other thing you need to do is get some AFV cards from MMP to keep track of the information about your AFVs. These are sold by nationality and are pretty hard to come by...But i bet if you ask someone on the ASLML they could tell you what info is on those cards so you can make some homemade ones. Then ya just use the informational counters like you would in the boardgame! No problem! Keith

Actually this is the real deal. The Sega Corp has developers working on a similar product for their dreamcast KEith

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by von Lucke: This made me wonder if you could do this in CM? I've seen several POTD's that show up to four 2-story buildings all clumped together. Do you have to go out into the streets and re-enter the building next door from the outside?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> How would you enter a building otherwise? Through the sewer system? Seriously, don't you always have to dash across a street to run into a building? I mean in CM you can get into a building from any where on a wall. How much more could ya want? Keith

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn: As you can see it is very easy to see what is what in the map. BTW each yellow grid is 100 metres by 100 metres. This makes estimating range (and drawing from maps) much easier than it might otherwise be.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> So does that mean that there is a terrain editor as well for drawing in the elevation changes? How detailed in that (ie what are the increments of elevation change?) Is there a list of different tile types that will ship with the game. Something like 8 tiles of open ground, 5 dirt road tiles, 2 beach tiles, 3 paved road tiles. SOmething along those lines? Thanks for the scale information as well I really appreciate it! You must be able to design so seriously large scenarios with 100 x 100 tiles! Thanks Keith

Is the picture from overhead with the grid a pic of the editor? If so that seems pretty comprehensive. Also this suggests that the system uses tiles as well. Another good thing. It will lend itself well to updated tile graphics and the like. ie: making forest floor textures for fall have leaves on them, or in heavily contested areas putting "scraps" on some versions of tiles. This could really be much more dynamic than I ever thought! Great work! If I'm wrong...Oops! Keith

"Several years in the making, Combat Mission will soon be ready. Battlefront.com hopes to finish the game in time for a February release." -------------------------------------- hehehe...February release...hehehe a pretty good preview overall, and its nice to see the mac users getting in on the action!

Would be a shame to lose this forum. Would also be nice to keep the momentum going to CM2..CM3...CM4...??? I just think that out of all the forums that have been created, this is something special. OK - sometimes it goes haywire - but generally it's a plus rather than a minus. Will it be kept open ? For how long ? Will we still post ???? ---------------------- I won't be posting...I'll be playing. maybe when I come up for air I'll post. hehehe lucky you guys eh?

you need to press ALT+ PrtScn to get the screenshot. Then open up Paint and press alt+v to paste it! There ya go! Keith

basically because some games won't run with a Direct 3d card, and I didn't want to buy a new one, plus I had this one around, why throw it out?

oddly enough the army uses Starcraft... I kid you not. They use it to practice command structure. One person holds the mouse while there are others on their team who call out decisions for production (logistics), Air units, ground units, armored type units... Its over at cdmag.com I think. Pretty neat article and I think it shows how abstract games can really be used to simulate some real world type problems. CM would be good for this I believe. Having one person in command with the teams only getting say 3 minutes to put in all their orders for the next turn to one person where each person controls 1 unit. Sort of like the CPX TacOps stuff, but not double blind. What do you think? Keith

I have a Pentium III 700r, 128 megs of RAM, 32meg Riva TNT2 card and an old 4 meg Diamond Monster 3d... This game will not run with this config. I did everything in my power, but ultimately had to say goodbye the Monster3d and uninstalled it. So if you have any problems with this or similar. I hope that this helps you.

so when will brains and guts be splattered all over the place again? Just kidding... I think the current incarnation of dead bodies is a good idea. Sometimes you can't see the entire battlefield and to see where people died is a good reference. Do the dead bodies provide any cover? Hey! Dead Cows were used as cover... Keith

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt: I have seen several instances (in the demo even) of terrain tiles bursting into flame due to Artillery or HE fire. Its rare, but it does happen. AWESOME!!!! Keith Madmatt <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What about Arty setting the woods on fire? I mean there is a chance yes? If a tank can set a building on fire by exploding why not 5-10 shells set the woods on fire in a localized way? Keith

Okay... I have to interject here. I work at The Wargamer. I put in for this review when we got it over 6 months ago. I was denied the review and it went to "Spike" who apparently had dibs on it. Fine. Spike wrote the actual review of this game and completed it sometime in Jan. A lot of the information we have now on the game, wasn't availible then. Therefore, it isn't his fault the review is out of date. As for his reviewing skills. That is a matter of personal preference. I liked the review when I peer reviewed it in January. Everyone at The Wargamer signed off on it and we thought it was fit to publish. I think it has a lot of merit to it. From the information at the time that Spike got, he was I think ill-informed initially about the product and some of the misinformation and confusion in the review stems from this. I knew a lot about the product having followed it now since it's inception basically way back with Avalon Hill / Monarch Games. What you need to understand most about why this review is tardy is this. 1) We are moving to new servers so our HTML editors are working hard to do that instead of pumping out HTML conversions of reviews. Not that this is an excuse, it is merely the reason why this one was a little tardy. 2) I think that Spike lives in the UK so it took a while for him to get it because it went from battlefront.com to our press manager, to our webmaster, to Spike overseas. This process took quite a while as I remember. 3) Peer review takes about a week on most reviews. 4) Finally, Wargamer is going through a process of updating the format of our website to include more comprehensive reviews and this review I think got caught in the old review format and had to be converted to the new format. This was unforsseen, and not preventible either. So it isn't Spikes fault the information is old. That was all there was when he reviewed it. A LOT of unforseen disastors happened to make this review get slow to the public. There was a lot of competition to get this review at Wargamer and we love the game. I think Spike's review was excellent and if he had known what we know now...I think you would have seen a totally different review in terms of content completeness. [This message has been edited by medlinke (edited 04-30-2000).]