chrisl

Just to be difficult: How about some topo lines... I know this has been discussed, and there are plenty of reasons not to have them (major CPU hit), but would people claim that they're unrealistic? Most maps that I use have both topo lines and grids (and I sometimes add finer detail to the grids with a pencil). How about UTM coordinates? Would be very useful for discussing games, not terribly useful for much else-- I can already use the terrain squares to judge distance pretty well. Height is a little tougher (because I'm stuck with 640x480?). One thing that I've often wondered, and not seen here, is the availability of good topo maps of France/Germany in 1944-45 (to each side). Today we can use things like SRTM to map the entire plant to ~40 m resolution in about 2 weeks, and when I combine that with a cheap GPS I know where I am to within a few meters. Even with map and compass I can estimate pretty well where I am. If I had to do it every day I'd probably be very good and very fast at it. What was available then, mapwise, and in what quantity? Most of the maps I see in the US Army historical site are rough sketches, with no topo information-- are these things that were made later to figure out what rally happened?

One very minor thing that would be useful for bragging rights is to indicate the turn on which it ended. Right now the turn counter goes to "--" and if I want to show off that I won VoT as Germans in the first turn no one will believe it (not like I can do it anyway).

The two aren't mutually exclusive. There was one installment of MDMP released for the mac, and there may be a few other mods floating about, but they aren't widely publicized. If you're reasonably talented with some of the low level guts of the mac (resource editing, which isn't all that hard) and have time to spare in between CM games, you could probably contribute to the conversion of the newer MDMP volumes-- talk to MadMatt. As for your sanity, that's an entirely separate issue, and can probably be determined from the amount of time you spend playing CM and whether you yell at your electronic guys (and whether they yell back at you...)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by panzerwolfy: I seen some of the post about new explosion, where do I find it? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If you have 1.01 it will come to you. You may need to turn on high quality smoke (haven't checked), but it's in there.

Nice work! Now it's time to quiz you (because I wanna know how it works): did you do any fire effectiveness tests? My guess so far is that the firepower experienced by the subject is the firepower*exposure, but it's not clear if there's a distinction between exposure of reflected photons and exposure to absorbed lead, i.e the difference between concealment and cover. As an example, a hedge might offer virtually no cover, but possibly 100% concealment. Is this abstracted into a single number that reflects the reduced probability of directing the fire into the right place to poke a hole through the twigs and hit the target? My guess is that the answer is yes, but I haven't tried any tests. Maybe this weekend if you don't beat me to it.

My impression so far is that when one side is recommended over the other it's because there's some special thing that the other side has that would be a spoiler for you to already know about when you had to play against it. The pillboxes and panther in VoT are a good example. I think it's much more challenging to play the Germans in that one, but it's a big surprise to crest a hill and get popped by a concrete box.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn: Just wait until you see someone with one of those tanks on their back from which they spray insecticide. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> LOL - I have to pedal past guys with leafblowers on their backs on the way to work every morning. It's not quite a flamethrower, but it is a high velocity garbage thrower.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Henri: A possibly good solution proposed on the Usenet forum is to allow the Tiger to "see" the enemy tank for some time after it disappears from sight, so that it "knows" that there is a hidden threat. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Targeting is already pretty sticky - I just had a tank that was tracking an enemy unit at long range maintain lock after the unit was behind a building (quite a ways back--maybe 100 m the other side of the building). I had a unit inside the building, and the tank opened fire on the unit behind the building, striking the building and setting it afire. Really annoying, as my unit in the building was well hidden and could have remained so, but had to get the hell out and get shot by a whole bunch of nearby enemy units.

Wanna PBEM? I can do about a turn a day-- my email is in my profile. I prefer double blind, so either a quick battle (combined arms preferred) or pick a scenario and I'll tell you if I've played it (I've only played a few).

try showing topics from more days ago (popup menu above the list of topics).

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by toshiro: How do you turn off the intro movie? I bypassed it by holding the space bar. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> hold down shift right after you double click on combat mission to launch it, and keep it down until you see the main menu screen.

If you're like the rest of us you'll just leave the CM CD in your drive and remove it on those rare occasions when you want to do something else.

hold down the option key and move the cursor over the little tab on the end. It will turn into a hand and you can move it around.

That's a new one. Works great on my G3/300, usually only allocate 80 MB RAM Do you have a lot of other applications already running and are you using virtual memory? I could imagine this happening if something is causing a lot of disk swaps. There have also been some notes that with the G4 some (all?) people have to turn off the L2 cache. Works fine with the cache on with the G3. Try turning off the movie (hold down shift during launch) and see if that cures the problems with the game. Also - Charles has noted that OS9 does weird things. If you do a search for "OS 9" or something like that, there might be some details.

Have you tried turning off the movie? hold down the shift key during launch. You probably only have 2MB of vram in the 266 (maybe 4). I have a PB G3/300 w/4MB vram and all I can get is 640x480, but I get the full 3D effect with fog and all. Check out my thread "Major clue in mac quit to desktop bug..." for the set of drivers that works on mine. I suspect that Charles is looking for the cause for a later (1.03? fix).

We used to have a game like this when I was a kid, but we played it outside with sticks and running around the neighborhood through people's backyards. The graphics quality was excellent-- you could see every blade of grass, smell the dirt when someone tackled you and pushed you into it...

I do it all the time, but avoid running through the LOF. It also helps to have any vehicles providing covering fire unbuttoned. I don't seem to lose many, if any to my own fire. Don't try this at night, unless the assault troops are leaving from right next to the cover fire troops.

The ai doesn't know how to use boats. Don't know if there's been word on if it will learn.

Sometimes happens to me, sometimes doesn't. Easy solution: hide behind the house. More effective anyway if all you have is a tank assault-- they can't rubble the house on top of you if you're not in it. If it's a big bldg and you expect an infantry charge into it as well (like the church in VoT), hide one squad inside and the rest behind it and when the assault gets close, move the ones from behind into it.

read my response to the question on the Pause command in this forum (tips and techniques). I gave an example of how to time an infantry assault to come in right after the arty stops. Also, do some experiments in DYO scenarios to learn about arty patterns with and without LOS and different types of gun. There's a difference, and if you know the rough pattern you cna avoid shorts. Try different quality observers (haven't tried this myself). [This message has been edited by chrisl (edited 07-17-2000).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lawyer: I'm a dumb lawyer who cannot figure out how to string different commands together as mentioned in the CM manual. Somebody please tell me precisely what to do after selecting a squad to make it (1) run to a waypoint, then (2) sneak to another waypoint, then (3) hide when they arrive, and finally (4) target a specific vehicle or squad. The interaction between moving commands and firing commands when mixed together is confusing to me. Thanks for any help. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Select the squad. press "f" move the cursor to where you want them to run click the mouse button (I'm on a mac and have only one button) press "s" move the cursor where you want them to sneak click the mouse button press "h" A this point you should see two waypoints and it should say "sneak and hide" at the end. with the squad still selected press "t" click on the unit you want to target. If the unit you are targeting is out of LOS then the squad won't shoot until they're in LOS. If an opportunity target comes up before then, they'll probably switch. You can't control the timing of when they move and fire except by managing what lines of sight that they have and when through maneuver. The squad will do mostly what you order, but is always bent on self preservation and will fire when it thinks it's a good idea.

Yeah- I forgot to mention that. Here's an example of how to use pause effectively: You want to have a bunch of guys charge an enemy position right on the heels of an artillery (or smoke) barrage: (Assuming the barrage is targeted, and expected on the present turn.) Give your units a crawl order with a nearby waypoint and run order to where they're charging. Press "P" for each charging unit until the delay is as close to 60 seconds as possible without going over Press "GO"-- the arty will fall, at the end of the turn everybody will be crawling toward the target. Beginning of the next turn: Cancel the barrage, change all the crawls to "runs" and hope the enemy you are charging is still suppressed by the time your guys get close. If the arty is falling in an area that the FO can see (thus you get a tight, predictable pattern) and the charging units are just short of the edge of the pattern this can work pretty well. It can also be a disaster if the arty isn't effective.

Sounds a little different from the bug I observed--mine never dies on the calculations, only when loading the 3D graphics. Can you change the speed on your graphics card? I think there were some people with problems on their PCs when they ran the graphics cards at top speed.

I hate any US HT with a .50 HMG when I'm the germans, and love them when I'm the allies. They just turn the German light armor into scrap metal. With quad .50s it will be that much scarier.

Yep. It's good for timing advances so you units don't get all bunched up, or leaving one unit on covering fire while the others evac and then moving it out after, etc.