Seanachai

Silence, Wildman! We wish this myth to continue. Yes, the Board was slow because of the Peng Challenge Thread. The fact that now it is fine, and that absolutely nothing different has occured regarding the Peng Challenge Thread is of no significance. Yes, your prospects in life have been severely curtailed by the Peng Challenge Thread. Yes, 'all the good ones are taken', and that is because of the Peng Challenge Thread. It's because of Cesspoolers coming here that good Outer Boarders can no longer find jobs! The economy is in ruins, and you all pay too much taxes because of that shiftless lot of welfare cheaters on the Peng Challenge Thread! Children wouldn't experiment with sex, and there would be no teen pregnancies, if BFC would simply close down that unutterable Cesspool! Religion in every nation is under siege, and the forces behind it can be found in the Peng Challenge Thread. We also killed John Paul I, and were outraged that his replacement did not choose George Ringo I as his pontifical title. Everyone wants to be named after the bigtime songwriters. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalpyse have been seen drinking beers and laughing in the Peng Challenge Thread. It is well known that every entrance into the Cesspool is guarded by some form of Hell Hound. In the final days, the members of the Peng Challenge Thread, all of whom have been numbered (gasp! have you not a number as well?!) will tear the very stars from the firmament in their revolt against all that is good and just, and perform juggling tricks and sleight of hand with them. However, in their defense, let me say this of we of the Peng Challenge Thread: THERE'S NOT A BLOODY MIME IN THE WHOLE LOT, AND WE WILL NEVER CALL YOU ON A SUNDAY MORNING AND TRY TO SELL YOU CELLULAR SERVICE, A MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION, OR A VACATION TIME SHARE!

Bah! I wave my hand at you. It is not that wit is lacking in some of the Peng Threads, it is that wit is sometimes lacking in the posters in the Peng Challenge Thread. And we'll put our halfwits up against the Outer Boarders any day. Helps keep them propped up, as many of them are dead drunk and wouldn't be upright otherwise. And we at least attempt wit. Bloody little of that out here. Show me one funny post by Rexford or JasonC! Not that they aren't fine individuals, mind. But short on the stand-up, certainly.

You must have to explain me that some day. I keep trying to find the thread where that happens to not avail. The Search parameters I've used can be part of some Book of Infamy...</font>

Actually, I've already answered this at some length, and the fact that you can't distinguish between this experience and the conditions of a column of vehicles in wartime doesn't speak well for your cognitive abilities. For that matter, it doesn't speak well for your honesty regarding normal traffic. So if some pillock had shifted lanes suddenly and caused an horrendous accident, you feel that traffic wouldn't have been slowed at all, if all the commuters had been issued a 'follow vehicle' order? Rather like vehicles on the freeways, eh? Or like vehicles troubled by varying road conditions, or vehicles poorly driven by nervous drivers, or vehicles concerned with having their arses shot off, or vehicles troubled by weather conditions? In fact, vehicles troubled by every sort of Real World™ condition except your UnReal condition of having nothing more to worry about than the vehicle directly in front of them and the orders you issued all of them en masse as a tactical command going into battle.

Well, I might be over-stating for satirical effect, but you're ignoring what the implementation of this command would be like in game play terms. If BFC were to implement a 'follow vehicle' convoy command, we would see trucks, tanks, ACs, HTs, etc, proceed precisely down a road, across a field, through woods, etc. (because how do you limit this command and make it 'realistic', eh?), and despite the differing rates of speed of all these vehicles, and capabilities on different surfaces, we would see them hold precise intervals, and not run into each other, even in a mixed column, and proceed precisely to their destination? Okay, perhaps you could put several of us into vehicles of vastly different capabilities, over different terrain, and then, what? How will you constrain us to know how to exactly proceed in different terrain? On a paved surface? On a muddy road? You're asking for 'precision flying', lad, whether you're willing to acknowledge it or not. Okay. Mr. Emrys is driving an HT, and I'm in a Pzkw IV, and you're in a kubelwagon (intentional slight, cope), and you have the con, lad. We're all supposed to proceed across a muddy field. My AFV bogs. What does your sodding kubelwagon do, eh? Or, perhaps, we're all three in AFVs on an unpaved road. Visibility is ****e. We start out, and should we proceed unhindered through the fog or snow, without an hesitation or moment of dilemma, as though we were in a 'precision air display'? You're not thinking this through. You're asking for a command that allows vehicles, on a road, one behind the other, without taking into account any variables such as 'quality' (as in Green, Regular, etc status) to proceed without fail, problems, or hindrance, to the destination you've set for them, and without regard to terrain. Your request not only strains the game engine beyond the possibility of performance, it ignores reality. In point of fact, I often drive bumper to bumper in traffic, a simple game of follow the leader, but the conditions encompass massive familiarity, good road conditions, and intense traffic control devices. And even then, I constantly witness, and am slowed down by traffic accidents, aggressive behaviour, and stupid behaviour. And with no more pressure than getting home from work. Your claim that any group of individuals could exactly maintain station and speed on well-paved peacetime urban roads isn't borne out, let alone the concept that drivers on bad roads during wartime could do the same. Also, you lot fail to address the concept of how this 'command' is to be executed in terms of the game. Only on roads? Only on certain roads? Only for vehicles directly behind each other (and how do you code that recognition?) Think about the coding. What prevents someone from telling the engine 'I want trucks/vehicles X, Y, Z to maintain precise intervals and speed across the map', and the vehicles are 100s of meters apart, and facing different terrain. Of course, you'll answer, 'well, we only want vehicles that are obviously together, and proceeding together, to maintain this pattern of chorus line precision'. How will the engine determine that? Your requirement is not logical within the game engine. Your belief that even vehicles that could be logically somehow 'grouped' together is no more representative of reality. You want to translate your ability to 'follow' a vehicle directly ahead of you in peacetime highway traffic that allows no other options than linear movement to wartime, varying conditions is fatuous. It's as simple as that. And, if you were to impose your 'peacetime, linear movement' model to Combat Mission, you'd all be screaming bloody murder the first time the ****e came down, and your vehicles didn't react as you'd expect them to react given a sudden, massive change in status, such as the vehicle in front of them suddenly exploding because they'd run over a mine field (Oh, look, TeAcH, the vehicle in front of you just died; no matter, we have our orders, proceed ahead), or they'd suddenly come under fire (hell, TeAcH, the front of the column is pulling 88 shells; no matter, our orders are to follow the vehicle in front of us). Real World, Game Engine. All these things lead one to believe that a command that instructs vehicles to precisely follow the vehicle in front of them isn't necessarily a good thing. Of couse, you could argue 'well, I want it to do exactly what I want it to do, until I don't want it to do exactly what I wanted it to do anymore, and I want it to know exactly when I don't want it to do what I wanted it to do, and I want it to know exactly when that is'. But that seems like a fair load to place on the AI, as opposed to letting the AI get on with coping with the unexpected, while leaving the player to cope with the desired.

Well, ya' see, without any special 'Groggly Knowledge' (which can only be acquired by sleeping for 3 nights on a bull's hide with a post by JasonC on your belly), I have to rely on 'common sense'. And 'common sense' tells me that, if I you were to take any 12 Forum members that want a fool-proof 'convoy' movement command, put them in a beat up truck on a muddy road in the middle of nowhere on a cloudy day, and ask them to follow each other down the road at exact intervals, but demand that they maintain a good rate of speed, and tell them that you might randomly give an equal number of Cesspoolers the right to open fire on them with heavy weapons, the lot couldn't make 50 meters befor running into serious problems. In the bickering that would then ensue over who needed to backup first, or drive forward soonest, I figure 5 of them would die before the rest went to 'flee in all directions' mode. Seriously. A 'follow vehicle' mode. Sort out your own tactical nightmares, you lot.

Done! Bags me the weird Philosopher Squire, then, and you lot can kiss me hand. Your seniour in the Bardic House is R Leete. He should be a Knight by now, but between finding a job (done), constant illness (hopefully behind him), and a completely daft project to build a drivable, working Tiger I model (ongoing), he hasn't enough higher brain function to feel comfortable with rising to his full potential. Treat him with utter contempt, but support him to the utmost against all the other lower life forms that might give the lad any ****e. Also, please to be so good as to introduce yourself to Lady Persephone and the Fair Emma (also known as Dame YK2). Do so with all respect, many sweeping terms of 'at your service', and with full acknowledgement of the fact that you will never be worthy of their notice, but, if they notice you, you will ultimately prove to be worthy. Finally, compose a couplet or so acknowledging the Justicar, Joe Shaw. Nothing fancy, mind, and feel free to play on the concept of 'Old Foul Joe', drinking watered down Lavacol, and Mormon Wives. Alternatively, do a brief essay on 'Peng: Myth, Man, or Monster'. Remember that he is, in fact, all three.

What have you done with argie you swine?! Everyone knows he and I weren't the same person!

Spoken like a Gentleman. But it's probably not enough. Cut off the tip of one of your fingers and present it to Grog Dorosh. Remember that he's in Canada, and send the package labeled 'gift', and declare the value to be under $20, or he'll have to jump through hoops to claim it at Canada Post.

Grog Emrys, you raise some of the most interesting points on this that I've seen discussed. Beyond the whole 'difficulty in programming' (which you detail rather better than people who simply assume this 'order' would be restricted and understood as only applying to vehicles that are already all in a row, and travelling over the same terrain), you hit upon the idea that 'convoys are difficult'. I've certainly experienced (lately, and despite my knowledge of the problem and attempts to avoid it) the phenomenon of vehicles coming to grief in attempting to move up a road in convoy. But why should the game model convoys moving up a road in wartime like the Blue Angels performing precision flying routines over an admiring crowd? Road traffic doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that in peacetime, on paved surfaces, and without any more concerns than if the HP have a car up ahead monitoring speeding. And no matter how many MPs are out there, and no matter how good the road discipline, there are, in the Real World, going to be stalls, vehicles bogging, drivers doing the wrong thing, or drivers being overly aggressive. If you plot your movement points correctly, keeping in mind all the delays, and pay close attention to vehicle movement, you're rewarded with good convoy behaviour. If you don't, you get the much more Real World™ phenomenon of everything going into the toilet. For those who don't want to have to 'micro-manage' vehicle movement: Neither did MPs, Security troops, and Road Wardens. But the idea that every convoy of vehicles proceeded down every road as though they were exercising a Busby Berkeley dance routine is completely other-worldly. Even on the tactical level, it took serious concentration of effort and attention on the part of TCs and drivers to keep things from turning into a horrible snarl (and dead vehicles, in combat). I think that a 'precision flying' command for vehicle convoys in the game would be not only unrealistic, but completely fatuous. Why further burden the AI and game engine with commands that are both intrinsically and realistically the concern of the commander?

You utter pillock! That's not Burt Reynolds! Clearly I've been afixed to the studly frame of Nicholas Cage! Now, if only Persephone could attach my own sorry self to his income, rather than his body... Be that as it may, I must say that I'd much rather remain as I am (although I wouldn't mind the income), rather than all this 'let's put Seanachai's visage on something disturbing' sort of fol-de-rol. While many men would doubtless flex and posture at the idea of being suddenly granted the muscular (and disturbingly furry) body of Nicholas Cage (as represented in Persephone's base slander against my own form), I know myself to be more than just some body for women to make dog noises over! You see, I have a mind. In fact, I am a mind. Perhaps the greatest mind of the Peng Challenge Thread. Or at least the most coherent and intelligent mind. I wish I could say more to my own advantage. Comparisons to you lot don't really do much more than damn with faint praise. Or rather, 'praise with faint damning'. But there it is. Now, on to the main purpose of my post. I wish to take the vile swine, Malakovsky to Squire. It seems meet. I read his posts, which go on and on, and while plowing through his verbiage, and puzzling over his odd constructs, I recognize in him the very anti-thesis of Berli. It seems only fitting that I should take him to Squire. Upon his acceptance we'll consider it, then, a done deal, and I'll introduce him to his seniour, R Leete.

Alright...that was funny. Didn't think the aging pillock still had any in him. However, Old Foul Joe, your cretinous aspersions regarding my ability to correctly complete the conditions for the match between Panzer Leader and Agua Perdido are not only unwarranted slanders, but reveal more about your own fears and inadequacies than they do about any imagined failings on my part. First off, your almost completely nonsensical quibble about the map being of 'Kursk' proportions, I laid to rest in no uncertain fashion in my email to you. I will not repeat it here, revealing your almost shameful inability to grasp distances greater than the distance between your refrigerator, your computer chair, and the telly. Clearly 'golf' does not prepare one for a world in which an 800 meter by 800 meter map does not equate to the sort of stage where continental drift is played out. Also, it's clear to me that you've had some sort of deeply traumatic experience with a map where the VLs were distributed more than 50 meters apart. Which, I imagine, covers just about every game you've ever played in either incarnation of CM. So your repositioning of the VLs on the map I sent you is easily understood as a longing to give to your Squire the advantages you never enjoyed; that is, to have the VLs so tightly clustered that you don't have to think twice about where to put your units. On the other hand, you've set the poor bugger up so that even an egregious halfwit like Panzer Leader won't have to devote much thought to how and where to target his arty, and where to make the main thrust of his forces. Well done, Joe. Yours is the superiour intellect. Normally to meet a tactician of your calibre, you have to watch old episodes of Star Trek and indulge in teary-eyed worship of that Panzer Leader quality officer, James T. Kirk. [ October 07, 2002, 11:55 PM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

Hey, Rat, Captain Foobar swung by the last incarnation of the Thread looking for you. Said it was time for you two to tussle again. Christ, how we laughed about that match. What was it, 8 months of sheer sodding horror that no one could believe you actually played to conclusion? Good times, good times. Let the Captain know where you are. We can hardly wait.

Yep. (Except for the Seanachai part, I cut him off)</font>

Steve, because of the high esteem I hold for you, and for BFC in general, I desire to make your life easier and less stressful. Since it is patently true that you will never be able to make all the people happy all of the time, I think BFC should adopt a policy of concentrating on making me happy. Once it is clear to everyone that the only changes and policies that will be acted upon are those that satisfy me, people will leave you alone. I may be deluged with emails and death-threats, but we both know how little that matters. So, give the word and I will prepare you a list of things that I'd like to see done, or changes I'd like made. You can then simply ignore everyone else on the Forum. There is no need to thank me, as having BFC cater to my every whim is thanks enough. On the other hand, if you did want to thank me, even if you did not choose to listen to me as the sole voice of customer feedback, it would be really, really great. Because then, you see, I could forever use the fact in conversations on this Board. For example: 'Well, I may not know that much about Tiger armour thickness in 1945, but I have been thanked by Steve Grammont, and what I think is... Or: 'I'm sure you're very knowledgeable, young man, but had you received the thanks of Steve Grammont, as I have, you would know...' And, while it occured to me that I preferred how mouse control of camera rotation worked in CMBO, and I find it slightly awkward in CMBB, I had long since resigned myself to learning to adapt to it. Especially after Berli derided and mocked me.

While you may have fantasies about the British Navy, the rest of us are not interested. Have at if you must</font>

Gaylord, when you work in rhyme, you achieve as much of your potential as you ever seem likely to achieve. Not that it isn't excruciatingly awful, but it's at least thoroughly you (as excruciatingly awful as that is). If you must post, as opposed to diving head first into a woodchipper, then continue to do so in the horrible idiom that I believe should be your trademark: hideously odd rhyming couplets that never quite rise to the level of requiring a letter writing campaign by Amnesty International, but that still infringe many of the clauses laid out in international treaties against acts of torture and terrorism. Also, I think it might indeed be fitting to make Panzer Leader your mentor. Or whatever. Not a Squire-Knight relationship. More of a...words fail me, and that is just about as unlikely an occurence as can ever occur on this planet. But whatever it would be, you probably both deserve it. Maybe it will turn out like one of those 'prisoners chained together and escaping against the odds while gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation of each other' type movies that were in vogue for a while. Or better yet, it will turn out like 'chained together escaping prisoners tripping each other up endlessly in a series of unbelievable pratfalls until they are finally and brutally gunned down by laughing rednecks and dogs rend and pee upon their carcasses' type movies that will, undoubtedly, come into vogue if the main roles are filled with a pair of utter lackwits like yourselves.

The one where for three days running your wife was changing soiled sheets and insisting you get counseling for your overly rich 'life of the unconscious mind'? Glad to hear you've got the game coming (since nothing else seems either likely or even possible). Looking forward to steadfastly attempting to crush you again in the near future. I'll have Andreas whip up some special third party battles for just that purpose.

Michael, to my certain knowledge you spent half the morning shouting at Europeans that had already reached the 'proto-lynch mob' stage of dissatisfaction. Now you're teasing responses out of Panzer Leader. These are not the pass times of a well or happy man. Come on over to the Cesspool, lad. Shout at some of our people, freely speak your mind about the Outer Boarders, and maybe even say a few generally vulgar things about life, the world, and everything. You'll feel better, and BFC won't have to follow you around to see if you're about to go all Timothy McVeigh on the Forum (although if you did, there's a number of utter halfwits on the General Forum who would staunchly rise to your support, because lunatic far right white supremacist neo-fascist religio-nutcase extremists are the last great hope for freedom in this country, apparently).

Nothing in favour of letting Panzer Leader off the hook of Grog Dorosh's febrile mind, but could we take a quick vote on how many people want to put the boot in on Dorosh to get him to stop randomly cycling through idiotic topic title changes every time he makes a pillock of himself with a pointless thread?

I'm failing to spot the difference here. You ARE alone in a room, muttering to yourself.</font>

Hmm? Stop pulling at my sleeve, lad. I have been taunting, Dalem. I have no time right now for your attempted drolleries. Go tell them to Gaylord. I'm sure you can hold him enthralled for hours with one of your quips against your betters.

What a limp performance. A true professional, Boo, does not need to be inspired by the target of his taunt. Inspiration is for making love, or painting flowers, or writing Combat Haikus. A man or woman taunts from the power that is within themselves, not from the power within their subject. I own you now, Boo. You've surrendered all the power to me, do you see? It lies with me, for you have nothing. You're as weak as water, you oaf! I suppose you thought you were insulting me, eh Boo? 'Ooh, Seanachai, I just can't find any real hatred for you! You're boring, I'm not inspired!' Gibbering little boy! Your mockery discredits you, and raises me up on the pedestal of your failure. Where would I be if I could only achieve a great taunt if given great subjects, eh Boo? In a room, alone, muttering to myself, that's where. For there are so few worthy of one of my taunts that if I were to wait for one of you quivering little lemmings to 'inspire' me to greatness, I would be the Methuselah of Taunting, and speak a great taunt but once a decade, at most. So, Boo, I cannot sit around, as you do, twittering to myself like a finch and waiting for inspiration to 'strike'. I make my own way, as would you if you were more than a loutish lump of clay mixed with too much ditch water. For, Boo, I am strong, Strong, STRONG in Taunting, as you are not. Mine is the Taunting, the Power, and the Glory, and yours is fluttering and weak smiles and mincing 'apologies' about simply not having any spark within you. In all that freakishly over-sized frame, all that grinning Ohioan, forelock pulling bumpkinish bobbing and posturing, there is nothing that you could bring forth, no rant worthy of a man who will live and die by the words that he can bring to espouse honour, and prove himself ready to stand against any foeman, armed with both sword and wit? Perhaps it is as well that you live in a land where the 'common' man is so unspeakably common. For there is this about Ohio. It is neither greatly hot, nor deeply cold, but a bland place where winter paints the landscapes in brown and greys, and, apparently, does the same for the souls of the inhabitants. Here in the North, our weather rises up and smashes us in the face, day after day, attempting to find that opening, that weakness, to bring us down to the grave. Go North, good Boo. It may be the only redemption left open to you. So, Boo, should we have a game, perhaps? Can you muster the energy for a little test of combat? Surely, after how little able you were to rouse yourself to give a taunt worthy of the name, you must have yet some energy for a little game? Something that tries you not to sternly, that does not press you to strongly, something within your lusterless little capabilities? I leave the setup to you, my footstool. Since you give me no taunt to make me judge you a man, you may do the little chores that any apprentice might take on to free his master's time for weightier matters. And that, Boo, is how you might have done it. Had, perhaps, 'inspiration' found you. Or had you gone forth and seized it by the throat, as do I.

Requests? Bah! I wave my hand at you! What did you want me to do, send him to Papa Khann? At least I was sending an SSN your way who can write complete sentences, hasn't gone on about thingies once, and hasn't loudly discussed his intestinal matters as the basis of taunting. And you will set terms, will you? You are the one who remembers, are you? Well, remember this, my good man. That you would not do me this favour. What of the favour you asked of me on the day of my daughter's wedding, eh? Did you not say that you would repay it and one day be at my service? And now you will deny me this one thing. In the old days you would have woken up with a horse's head in your bed. But those low-key days of sending a simple caution are gone. Saturday morning you're going to wake up and find Panzer Leader in your bed. The whole gibbering idjit, alive and already talking even as you awake.

My God, that thing is just obscene! Can't I for once be a svelte and muscular Gnome? And no one touches the belly...