Demangel

Maybe some of your bad luck comes from the morale of your units? I meanwhen you loose a portion of your force quickly your overal morale goes down, which I think affects how well your troops do... It might explain why your tanks are having a hard time killing other tanks... As for other tanks holing yours seemingly more often than before, I have seen this too, and do not know what the reason for this is... Sometimes just like in a game of craps the law of averages is just NOT on our side I guess... -Demangel

Gunslinger... PLEASE email me when the new graphic files are complete! When I saw those pics on that site, I nearly s!&$ realistic colors! I salute you my friend as a fellow computer graphics wizard... also I would love to talk with you via email sometime concerning making/editing graphical things for mods... My email addy is: Demangel@realvamp.zzn.com P.S. Do you play counterstrike? the smiley with the gun, is Camper.gif and so far as I can tell the term Camper is mainly used in TFC or CS both of which are based on halflife... P.P.S. It's been a month since I last blew somethin up on CM (damn work... Damn hot girl friend LOL) and when those new graphics are ready... be sure I'll be putting work and sex on hold for a few days so let me know when they are ready ------------------ BTW I use Cm to train myself for my assualt on hell after I die... heh I mean damn, if you gotta go there might as well try at least once to take over right? -Demangel [This message has been edited by Demangel (edited 09-04-2000).]

Hey gunslinger you a Counter strike fan?

sure Send it on over... I'd like to see it myself... might influence me to try an make a few like em I think making a few based on movies would be great... Like maybe a larger scale mission similar to something the dirty dozen would do... Heh my email adress is: Demangel@realvamp.zzn.com ------------------ BTW I use Cm to train myself for my assualt on hell after I die... heh I mean damn, if you gotta go there might as well try at least once to take over right? -Demangel

Hakko Ichiu: This kind of thing happens to me a lot as well, ruined one scenario for me already, so now I check each new setting on each map I play... I also think it is just a little buglet that somehow crept in when designing this game...

Thanks for the tip wild bill, As soon as y girlfriend goes home, I'll have to wait to play as germans, but come monday afternoon till wednesday early morning, I'll be playing CM as much as always... I want to thank you again for such a cool map, So far it is one of the maps I plan to replay a few times... The only one of my own I like so much is the one I'm working on to somewhat simulate a medium sized battle in the audie Murphey, movie... it's for a lone farm house, and once you get it as allies you have to keep it... heh... just to make it fair I had to change some of (ok a lot of) the unit balancing, cuz I can't simulate a war hero like Audie Murphey in the game just by changing a setting... I'm also thinking of making a scenario from a bunch of other old movies like "walk in the sun", and a few lesser known modern ones, like Midnight Clear, when trumpets fade, ETC, heh maybe even a fictitious opperation or two to see what might have happened if axis had invaded britain!. Well Hope they can do justice to the films... Seeing how your scenario's (wild bill's) play out has helped me a lot... THANKS!

"It would seem that one reason the flamethrowers igniting parts of the terrain works out to be gamey is because the fire is so well behaved. In reality, depending on wind and other environmental factors, the flames would move about and thus be much less desirable as a defensive barrier in close proximity to one's own forces. The suggestion of burning the area behind the bunker door would be less attractive if there were a chance that the fire would spread to the bunker itself -- which would be one of the real world concerns. Maybe fires should be able to spread? A call for enhancement?" I totaly agree with you on this one tar. Adding a wind effect in this game could make it even more interesting... Your smoek shells etc would have to be placed differently, and fires would have to watched closely! ESPECIALY in very dry gournd conditions where a fire could start many meters from the first one!

I found if I get a AFV bogged, and I halt it's previus orders, and give them an order to rotate 90 degrees, or turn and move 90 Degrees off the current course, chances are about 50% better to get them unbogged... ------------------------------------------- excerpt taken from "Worked for me damnit!" by Demangel

No in the full version with elite tank crews this still happens a LOT! I have lost MANY MANY tanks to the tank AI getting all hot and bothered for infantry and crew... I hope they make a patch that gives you the option to make a defend area type command, one that will make it so that the tank or unit in question will ignore everything not inside the the defensive arc, unless it is life threatening... IE you point the defensive arc toward a corner of a building for a certain range, then anything that comes around that corner will be shot at, but anything not threatening anywhere else will be ignored... So that way if a tank or what have you comes into view in the defend arc you get the first shot hopefully, or if something big and mean pops up next to you, your not busy playing patty cake with a machine gun across the map...

Given the raging woody that the TacAI seems to have for dismounted vehicle crews, I'm not sure this would help. ------------------ -Doug Brother you aint just whistling dixie! Actually i was thinking about this lately, because sometimes the ai doesn't show off this woody, I wonder if the designers maybe added this to simulate some kind of need for vengeance of the victorious tank crew? I mean your in a dinky little sherman, and you manage to pop a panther after it craps all over your buddy from back home in the tank next to you, Are you gonna tell me you wouldn't have a major woody for the panther crew LOL regardless though it does happen too much...

WOWO I DO THAT KIND OF STUFF AL THE TIME!

Wild Bill Wilder YOU ARE THE MAN! Not only do you make some killer maps, but you could be a pr man for a presidential election... Great job dude... I might have a few for yah sooner or later... I am working on a map thats supposed to be a take of the scene in audie murphy the movie, where they have to take that farm house, and keep it Not all that historical, but from play testing it so far as ami's it's quite a blast!

I played this balanced. I'll have to try giving the AI advantage and see what happens. Probably won't be pretty. -- 19 Echo heh 19 Echo, let me tell you it aint pretty at all! :EEK:

Well I finally played it... I have heard so much great press about it, I had to give it a go, not that I wouldn't have eventualy anyway I will say I wish my computer support the fog effect (don't have an excellerator so I guess thats why) but it still mattered in how the game turned out... I think I may have identified three units! So anyway how did It go for me? I must say when the first enemy contacts began, I was realizing why it was called fear in the fog... My first contact of any kind was from some light armor sound contacts coming from the east. I had read some stuff about this battle and knew it would be a nasty fight... I played as allies, and OH MY GOD! Knowing it was going to be one of those fights where the enemy could be just about anywhere, I used more overwatch tactics than usual (leapfrogging) this meant it took me a few turns to get to the first objective bu hey it happens... So I hear a light tank or armor of some kind and with one of my platoons I snuck around the eastern side of map for a while hoping to spot a nice fat juicy armored anything for my infantry to kick in the balls... (I love using infantry to knock out armor... Heh it pisses the crew off a lot!) but to my surprise the first thing I ran into was about a company of germans... I sat for a turn hoping my guys could hole em off for a few turns so I could set up my defenses for the town. I foolishly got cocky with my sherman and just after it killed a halftrack a mysterious shot killed it from the east... I had spotted a stug III and was hoping to catch it with it's pants down as it was heading east when I last spotted it oddly enough... It took three or four turns before I realized it was a panther G! My lone platoon got it's ass spanked hard and I withdrew what was left to my now well protected town... I knew that one way or another that town was not going to be taken... I imediately began calling in arty in the suspected hidey holes and stuck to my fav tactics... find a nice spot, even when attacking and pretend your the defender for a while... a few turns later after disheartening losses of airborne troops, the panther began to push for the other objective to the north... ALLL ALONE by the time I got there to stop it, my guys where tired and now coming under attack from infantry, So what airborne did it's job, and the panther was tamed by a gammon bomb up the poop shute... Heh who needs armor! The fight in the norther forest was getting hairy, and I had to hastely set up a platoon in the woods on the northern side of the road of the objective flag. then the other comapany of reinforcements showed up and I spotted a nice fat 105 MM spotter in the pack... right to the highest building in town he went, and the northern forest became a blood bath for the germs... the stugg III tried to come to the aid of the infantry to the north, but oops, it didn't notice my nice little Bazooka team waiting for just such a manuever... first few rounds did jack, but thats ok, the Stugg III joined the panther in my long list of infantry armor kills (list is prolly bigger than armor vs armor!). The germans at that point had to deal with my hell on caterpillar treads Sherman from that point on, and had no idea how to take it out like I would have... By turn 25 it was merely mop up time... the final score was 18 (germans) to 82 Allies... about 273 casualties for the axis OUCH! about 134 for me... (heh lick em hitler!) Prolly the best part was the one unit I captured I moved into use as a human sheild for a house (yes you can move CAPTURED ENEMIES my 105mm was going off everywhere and in his attempt to move to the human shield position, he got hit directly by a tree burst! ROFLMAO (rolling on floor laughing my ASS off...) I must say this map was a HOOT and three hollers! I think next time I'm gonna play it as either Axis, or allies with axis having +25% to see what happens.... Or maybe just put the Ai experience up a notch or two... It coulda had me with a little more care for it's tanks... Since I was hurting bad till my reinforcements arrived... (gotta love big arty of any kind)...

I loved all or nothing, it was an all nighter for me... My only complaint also has nothing to do with the design of the map... It seems to me that when I play as germans the AI on the brit side is not agressive enough... If I hide my units right, and amubush more than anything else... Usualy till around turn 40 the brits just hang around in some dumb spots... Such as before the primary bridge or just after it (having taken the flag) from that point on I just have to hold them off... In fact the only balsy thing the Brit AI did was managing to get a halftrack past my big guns toward the scuffle finaly forming near the town... It made it onto the bridge and the driver musta been on crack cuz he was flooring it onto that bridge... The first few bullets from my men in the houses sent it running, my antitank team bounced a round or two off it somehow, and it backpeddaled all the way home... To heaven that is cuz my king tiger ate it before it got twenty meters... To be honest, if the brits had pushed at all toward the end I would have been crushed from sheer numbers... the brits didn't even try to take the route through the woods... On turn 73-74 I had so little worth shooting at I just blew up the wooden bridges... Figuring ok, well you didn't want it that bad so neither do I... When I checked the map after the battle the brits outnumbered me easily 3-1 so why did they just sit around... Maybe it's cuz I like to play with ambushes a lot when on defense, so the Ai doesn't have a threat to push against... But the flags don't seem to motivate them too much on my own dyo scenarios either... All i all the only thing I would suggest to the desginer is to say to hell with historicle accuracy... some numbnuts like me are going to blow the damn bridges right off and just make it a brit shooting gallery... Maybe if they where made of stone instead of wood like the primary bridge? Well whatever... my two cents is often worth less than face value

Heh I do know the meaning of the word frustration... When the CM gold demo came out, and Hotseat was finaly available (well I think anyway) i challenged my ding dong of a strategest friend to a friendly game of Chance encounter.. I decided I would play as the germans, and give him a +25% forces handicap so he would be able to have a fighting chance... Now I muist admit that sometimes, I play like a god, and other times like Private Pile... this time I was playing consewrvatively, knowing that in all the times I have played chance encounter, it is harder to keep an objective than take it... I also knew that with all those extra shermans of his, skill or not, if I didn't keep them at bay I would lose... So what happens you ask? I knowing the terrain a bit better than my oponent, place my stugs in very nasty hull down spots, the spots that get shermans killed a lot when I play as Ami's. So what happens you ask... One part dumb luck one part playing against a guy who has so little skil it somehow throws me off! His tanks come barreling down the road, and all turn sideways To move toward the objectives... So I'm thinking heh dead shermans My tanks hid just long enough, and began firing at will on the second turn after enemy armor contact... I knocked out two shermans, but was amazed when one got a lucky kill with it's first shot! My other Stug bit the dust the next turn because all of it's rounds either missed or did no damage... "Ok" I thought... no biggie just a little pride to swallow here... time to use infantry against tanks... At this point he had two shermans fully functioning, and one (the + sherman I think) tank imobilized in mud. My infantry at this point ahas seen so little action, I am still enjoying myself knowing most of his casualties are from arty and tank fire... i manage to sneak a anti tank team and two rifle platoons around his foolishly unprotected right flank (near the small victory marker). his sherman was right over the hill, and although was out of sight by any of my useful men, was still identified on my map (my guys hiding in the treeline did a good job of spying...) So I gave my three units the sneak command to get right up against the side of the tank... Just as they where about to see the pesky thing, one of his hiden units opened up and scattered my rifle squads... But they killed the hiding bugger... I tried again this time with the antitank team all alone... being covered on it's flanks about 50-100ms away by the rifle squads... I'm thinking, ok pal, here is where you learn that tanks are nothing against infantry with balls the size of grapefruits... My antitank team slowly (painfully so) begins to climb the small hill, and just as the turret would be visible to the team for some odd reason they suddenly break their orders and run for the small house near the church!. Aparently the antitank team figured the broken ami's in the house where the objective, and as they rushed in to take a pot shot at em, the tank noticed them and killed em firing squad style against the side of the house... I screamed i ranted and raved, I cried I hit my friend in the face with my mouse... the whole nine yards... At this point I was mad, and just punished his cowering Ami infantry he had in the big wheat feild, I guess he somehow thought this was the best way to defend from arty fire? he lost half of his men, and me all of my sanity before I surrendered, knowing I would win, but at a terrible cost due to a mix up in commands, and bad luck... Heh the funny thing was when he saw how many units I was about to rush him with, his jaw dropped, "I didn;t know you had so many men lefT!" I laughed, but was still pissed about how that damn anti tank team raced towards the house at the last second ruining an otherwise perfect plan. Well no matter, this is how it is in war, but damn... anti tank teams down go hunting broken units! So I know how it feels to look at a wierd moment in cm and think to yourself... how the f$&@! Anyway have fun!

I can't say I was ever in your position when I played the Cm demo, I had played a number of IGOUGO Tabletop WWII sims before, and had a basic idea of how to play the game to begin with... Though I must admit the first time I played I did get my ass handed to me tactically if not totaly... But this was because I wasn't sure how the interfaces really worked yet, and hadn't gotten a feel for how units would behave under differen't circumstances... All the advice given to you is of the best kind you will get... CM is the best War sim you will ever play until Cm 2 comes out, or they make another based on another era... etc... The guys at bts (big time software) put in everything including the kitchen sink in this baby, even the demo shows it off nicely... I would say you can play this game without knowing what every tank in WWII was capable of and looked like etc, but it helps a great deal, since everything was modeled in ways no other game has even tried to do as far as I know. So what is my advice to you... Think of this game as if it was real life and less of a game... When that building colapsed it killed a bunch of your men, well thats what would happen in real life... Don't put your stugs in a hull down position and even against shermans your begging to get spanked... Heres a tip for that scenario... The stug has a better gun that the shermans and I think the armor is a lot better too, but it doesn't have a turret, so you must make sure you are facing the target, this will enable you to get more shots off.... Also a stug is not the kind of tank you use at close range in this mission... pick a good hull down position, preferably one that has overwatch (can guard) over as much of the map as possible, while limiting the enemies methods of attacking you... keep your tanks supported by infantry, and your infantry supported by tanks and arty, and think of it as real and you'll know more than most people do when they start playing this game... Good luck...

Yeah diving planes could to a better degree hit most targets... but the cluster bomb would have been the best choice no matter how you slice it... I would imagine the cluster bomb woulda been fun vs infantry too...

Yeah I think It's all just the way Cm does the graphics.. they arn't supposed to be the end all be all of the actual sim... In Cm what you see is only part of what you get... I often see men I station just outside a house or something while defending, make a foxhole that looks like it is in the house... So figure that even if you have the scale set to realistic, it's still a bit bigger than it would be in real life... Remember realistic not real... Other than that, gun should be damaged or something... Regardless I thought a tank could crush through the side of a wooden house to an extent without risking much damage? I don't mean plowing through it, but kinda like open the side of it a little... I'm prolly wrong, seen one to many war movie maybe...

Ok got the tanks ordered, and the arty requested... oh and the men are in position... What did I forget... oh well *hits play* DOH! Ok the arty says it'll be raining down in 30 seconds.. excelent! I'll move my men appropiately... Three turns later... What do you mean you had to cancel the last firing order and plot a new one! why did you tell me it would be thirty seconds! ARGH DAMN GREEN SPOTTERS! Ok my three panthers have killed about 20 shermans no way more is on the way... Ok unt graber you and your tiger target the tank coming around the corner of the woods... NO NOT THE CREW OF THE JEEP! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Hi honey... no of course I am happy you called... hang on... (Damn allies) yes hon I DO love you... No hon that wasn't an explosion you heard from my computer... hang on... (Come on Panzer shreck FIRE DAMN YOU!) "Click" Hon? hon?

Hmm was the crew of the tank in question (the one hit) given a status ailment alla shocked? Or where they ok... cuz I know that if I was in a tank, and it got hit, the slug passing right past me, I would wanna backpeddle as fast as I could till I knew I was alive LOL... Course I could also see myself poking my finger into the hole and laughing for ten minutes too...

Ok that clears it up a bit for me, because I have seen a few times when the Ai makes some actually suicidial mad dashes for something... on that same game All or Nothing, the only balsy move I saw was a brit halftrack driving like he had just snorted some coke, and then spotted some super model on the bridge... I mean it was quite balsy if stupid... It died like the rest cuz everyone else was jerkin off in the woods... The morale thing makes sense since the figures at the end told volumes... I lost about 100 men and most of my equipment at the horrendous cost of about 2-300 men, and about 30 peices of mixed armor and vehicles for the brits but this all came toward then end when they just sat in the treelines getting hit...... But morale or not the Ai didn't even try... I mean if I was playing morale be damned when I know (well suspect within reason) my force is superior, I would have gave each unit a command personaly to get em to move in! if I was the brit commander I woulda felt like patton in the movie patton when the trucks and tanks got hung up on that dirt road (somewhere in/near italy)... most of the kills I got where because I just sat back and hammered the cowering brits... My arty came in slow, but dead on accurate that day too... All in all though I still feel the Ai I have been playing lately, is not agressive enough... I almost felt like attacking them to be able to really mix it up with something... But then again maybe thats what the Ai was planning? I mean it has done some seemingly inteligent things (like retreating and me foolishly thinking that since it's a computer it wouldn't think to retreat in order to draw me foreward into the open, But thats what happened it reatreated then moved right back in to surround my men... Well then again maybe I am just being silly since my usual tac is to wait and feel out my enemy before my real attack comes... I often repeat to myself... arty is our friend... heh nothing better than getting the enemy to attack you, then opening up with everything I got from the front and sides and then calling arty to the rear of the enemy so he has a wall of death no matter where he goes Any more thoughts from the rest of you...?

Yeah I think Pbs are pretty much ok, and about the machine guns being harder to kill this is also generally true as well even with the Wooden ONES! I had a wooden Mg bunker withstand about 5-10 shots before it just crumbled, but until that time it was fully functional and didn't lose a single man! So an 88 pilbox being killed first shot from 500m isn't all that hard to see happening... Cuz as everyone has been saying over and over... A pillbox is not meant to be a stand alone position... You need mines men tanks and other cool stuff to keep it alive... just like you need to keep your infantry close to suport a tank... A tank is a mean mother to infantry at range... but when just about any infantry unit gets close enough, a tank is no longer an asset but a liabilitY! Try setting up kill zones for your pillbox, Ie spots that it will get hung up, or be killed first in... or don't try to use the pillbox as anything other than a decoy! yep thats right a DECOY! Just have a decent antitank team handy, or a good unit with antitank weapons handy hiding near the spot where the enemy tank will first spot the pill box... chances are the tank will even ignore the men and go for the seemingly more deadly threat... Exposing themselves to a close assault with grenades, or rifle grenade panzerfaust/schrek... Works for me often enough, hard part is knowing where to put the team is all!

Yeah I think I shat myself when at first I didn't see the cd... My Hands where sweating and shaking so bad... I almost tossed the rule book aside to try and dig out the cd from the Priority envelope! Also you can't feel the cd in the book so after slightly feeling around the book I was ready to hit somebody... by the eleventh second after opening the envelope I kissed my girlfriend goodbye the evening if you get my point... have fun...

Yeah I just wanna add my two cents since I hope BTs fixes this, as it does seem to be a problem we have all encountered... I have lost a few tanks because they attacked a machine gun across the map, or crew hiding under a rock when I wanted them to turn a corner and fire on something they knew was there a minute ago, but lost sight of... So I think BTS has to include some kind of new command, be it an ignore unit comand (problematic) or the defend area command, or maybe an attack area command? Ie just like the defend area, but you will hunt as well... IE unless something big and nasty comes along or something small and nasty, your tank or infantry whatever, will advance along your waypoint thingy, keeping the area of interest toward what it should, unless it sees something truly dangerous... I mean your in a tank for gods sake... firing on infantry more than 100 m away when you know there is an enemy tank around the corner is stupid... ESPECIALY with radios, or if the tank saw the other tank... PUT IN A FIX PLEASE!