Seahawk-vfa201

I feel I have to intervene on that. CM proved to myself that is not true. I believe from experience that CM just counts heads, not fighting ability. If it was as you said it would be muche better but it is NOT. I had on a PBEM of mine a VF going neutral because my opponent got two mortars with no ammo units and a sharpshooter with no ammo unit close to the VF near a wood. My suqad of fully armed, no LOW ammo, still fighting capability was counted as equal by CM. Result? I lost the VF (not the battle though) which turned grey because some uncapable zombies reached the flag through the woods and there was no time left for my units to notice them, react, eim and shoot and kill those zombies: BANG the world has ended in the last 60 secs of the last turn and the flag was neutral. Silly and I wished CM would have computed instead FIGHTING POWER not mere presence of soon dead unarmed people. Unless this is a bug I believe CM should compute fighting power instead.

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Bruno to me CM got it the wrong way: right now crews and no ammo units CANNOT hold VF but they MAY contest (i.e. grey out) VF. It looks to me that the opposite should instead be true: You may hold it but not contest. That is if no enemy is nearby then the flag is your because of those units but if a fight capable enemy units approach you CANNOT contest his/her controling the VF. Just a thought...

Keep two working systems where to run CM! PS I feel your pain

Nope, you REALLY must be kidding, or else you are coming form a parallel universe! Of all the Windows/Microsoft absurdities I have ever heard this is HUMONGOUS

Same answer Juju: send it in. I'll gladly install it. I have the Germans flags MOD with the svastika but no marker. Is there a different MOD around?

Amazing. Audace, you did a great job, outstanding. It really looks like a picture. I am impressed. Same here: if you do not have a place for the MOD please send a copy to seahawk_vfa201@yahoo.com We'll be seeing some others too from that precious book of yours? Audace: congratulazioni. Come primo risultato è eccellente. Difficile immaginare cosa può venire fuori dopo con più esperienza!

hi there, I'd like to add my name to next tournament roster. I promise tough battles and no gamey stuff!

D all hi-res available

All very nice posts, really. Having read through I still think - and agree with otehrs - that the random lenght would be a very welcomed feature. On an aside matter: another CM friend did some tests. Could someone explaine me - tests outcome - why and what is the rational behind the fact that crews and unarmed units cannot hold (i.e. capture a flag, i.e. turning it into your side's color) but allows the same units to revert to "?" if the flag is instead hold by the enemy? Either I am able to capture, hence able to contest the area, or I am not. This way looks like I can but cannot at the same time (or cannot but can at same time: chose the version you like). PS The fact that CM simply coun presence in the VF is not an answer.

Mac G3 at home, Powerbook G3 anywhere else, and incoming Powerbook Titanium G4. Sorry, do not take what follows as flamewar. Just some facts, for the leisure of relating them. Read last week on PC week: "The battle of OS: Microsoft engineers on panic: they are up again at catchup with Apple" (PS: PC magazine) Apple is not going to die. Innovations come from these people. If you will be able on PCs to even burn CDs and DVDs directly on your driver and see/listen to them with any commercial CD/DVD reader in a year or two (OK, already available on Macs) is because of Apple. Digital imaging revolution? From Apple. Do you think a giant like Microsoft ever needs to invent anything to keep going? Its share of market makes him totally unaware of comsumer needs. He just follows what other have to invent/innovate to maintain their smaller share of the market: Even Windows OS was not invented by Microsoft. Sure, Apple is a niche but it is a solid niche and people buy Macs for professional reasons not because there are more games available for it. IF Apple was dead PCs (borg, closes) would still be at the stage they were in 1980s: no need to improve, no real competition, why bother. I have been (am) on both world: Intel (clones, borgs, whatever boxes), and still have colleagues around using either PC or Macs. Do you know how many times PCs have to reboot? Dayly. Macs? hardly noticed. Again, no war flames here: PC can be nice machines but then they are not cheaper, at least not the crap ones: configure them EXACTCLY as a high end Mac and they cost the same, sometimes even more. Get the best Mac configuration and most PC clones can't even allow you to fully reproduce it. Here goes them being cheaper. Why computer graphics professional are >90% on Mac? Toy Story 1 & 2, Star Wars, Phantom Menace, GMI, and other hollywood special effect companies: why are they not on PCs since they are supposedly cheaper? Because tose people do not care about games or availability of thousands of useless software (from surveys more than 98% of most used (professional) software does exist on Mac too) and go for the facts. Tell any computer graphic professional to switch to a PC: he will change job instead. Linux? owned by PCs or Microsoft? Gates secretly (not really so) hates Linux and Linux runs perfectly on Macs. Try that and you have a perfectly stable machine. Apple OS X? it is BSD Unix V Kernel: now, if that is so important to you, I would not count the number of applications that run on Unix that will be compilable and linkable on a Mac platform. I would need a computer Again: what is the need to know that there are thousands of crappy applications available on your PC if you will never dream (nightmare) of buying them? Nonsense. Any game would run wonderfully on both platforms and be perfectly crossplatform too. How? Suffice to it not use proprietary Windows OS tricks to run or go online. Remember the monopoly trial? Why X-Plane (which uses OpenGl) is perfeclty available on both platforms (same time releases and versions) and have no cross platforms problems? Because it is not needed to be that way! Know the difference between X-Plane simulation and Fligh Sim 2000? If you do you would regret if you had bought FS 2000. How to really now cut it short. Simply: never bash on any machine, each fits perfectly its own customer. Macs simply have higher thresholds that leave some customers unhappy and viceversa. Finally, sorry for the blah blah, it is not the place for doing it but after all this writing what can I do if not posting it the same? As pay-off I will accept any unbalanced CM scenario taking the weaker side for your pleasure to make me pay for these words

I am open for some PBEM. Promise at least a turn a day. Am serious CM player and hate gamey things/stuff/tactics from the depths of my guts.

Unless I will clone myself 10 times and have all of them spending their time reading Peng threads I have a hard time trying to follow evena single one of those threads. Guess I have to enroll in some speed reading class.

one of his rotten body holes as a food storage for less fortunate days. In the meanwhile a gas eruption was building up inside his decaying body and...

Beware Lorak: Who is talking about dancing, ballerina? You sweet-meat right-coaster (There, looks like a good entrance in a Peng thread!) Lorak, anything is acceptable, everything is manageable, what about a scenario? even unbalanced. Take the strong side.

LORAK: looks like this is the place where you hdie your corrupted butt. I have sent you several times (one, two or more does not count) for a battle but you always dug in shamelessly. Does that mean you only reply to Commander who openly expose you and your stinking rotten body holes in public? Come out of your smelly pit and fight!!!!! <There, I guess this is a decent entrance to the cesspool>

Let's see it from another point of view. If my enemy is so desperate that the only forces he is able to try to get toward the flags are unharmful zombies then I - effectively - have crushed him and CM should keep this into account. The fact that he can only oppose to my armed squad(s) ONLY zombies in the last 60 seconds gamey resort push to (try to) grey out as much flags as possible tells me in a realistic situation those men whould have backed off from the battle long before since they lost the confrontation. Their push forward in the last 60 secs is to profit from the fact that CM engine just counts for presence in the flag area not fighting power, which in my opinion should instead do (somehow). In all respect, those suicidal act has a meaning ONLY because it is conducted in the last numch of the last 60 seconds of the last turn. Performed in ANY other previous moment of the battle the only conclusion would be more corps on the ground. I cannot see how this could pass any *realism filter*.

Of course I agree with Tree. Let us not forget one point here: realistic behavior. Tree looks like has clearly explained what unrealistic situation the simple headcount brings in in the last 60 seconds. Also, the case I was discussing was not of rifle company (which never go out of ammo: NEVER) with LOW ammo. The case discussed was two mortar crews and on sharpshooter. I think this is a little different case. Also, try it it works: with sneacking and with certain terrain setup you could end up advancing to meters close to the enemy without being noticed. I also had cases where an hiding FO was quitly sitting near two (TWO) enemy squads who have been camping near him without noticing the guy for the entire game (he was not firing of course). Whatever perimeter you may provide around your flag (and does that mean you forgot to have units AT the flag?), depending on the terrain configuration enemy troops could still be able to sneak: there is no such impenetrable perimeter. Now ask yourself: you have a perimeter, you have squads around the flag, few mortar crew memebrs sneack through and grey out the flag at the last turn or so. I fully appreciate and love this game (see I know i is a game) still this is something that is bound to happen now and then and does not look realistic at all. It is a game but this is not FLAG FOOTALL, where a desperate move could get the strip and have you blocked. Here - I think - CM is aiming at warfare simulation. In the simulation there are cracks where the engine alows for unrealistic behavior. I think this is one of it.

The close assault range firepower comparison looks very promising, maybe even ideal. That really tells whether a push forward to challenge control is foolish and gamey or might indeed have chances of success. Having a flag (it only bothers me because of unrealistic issues involved here) contested only because your - how small it could be - fully armed squad is matched in the area by an equal number of zombies ready to die makes all comments of the kind "if you do not control the flag you do not deserve the points" totally out of context and irrelevant. Those zombies have no place in a realistic situation. I hope we are nailing down the issue here: it has nothing to do with winning/losing or having more/less final score. Also the random ending factor (+/- 1 or +/-2 ending turn, or 0 if old style) sounds also appealing to me and could be added as a welcomed feature to many players.

Sorry guys, I see I have too many typos and should read again my posts before hitting submit. The idea of a random ending (30 +/- 2) for example would certainly ease things up. Although the discussion here is reasonable it lacks to focus on one point, having unarmed units advancing toward a flag - notice: not armed and fully active units sneacking with the intent of regain control - in the last seconds have a value ONLY because CM just count presence not fighting ability to assign a flag to one side or the other (or at least it looks like it is what it does). This is done only because the player knows the battle is in his last 60 seconds and because it is only the presence of units - not their fighting ability - the decisive factor to decide which side controls an area. IMHO I control an area if the enemy cannot force me to leave and is bound to die till his last man if he tries to in the next minute which follows his advance. The very fact that only because there are no more seconds alloed to me to kill him THEN the area is bound to become suddenly neutral this is unrealistic. Borrowing from Lt Bull style: Sarge: "Lt. Are you serious? I and my men have no ammo, most are wounded and you want me to get as close as possible to that enemy squad to regain control? Are you crazy? We are bound to die as soon as they realize we are closing in." Lt: "No worry Sarge, the war is over in 60 seconds from NOW! if we put enough men in a 20 meter range up there God will come down and claim we have denied the enemy control of the area and our Generals will be happy and you'll get a medal not a bullet on your head. They will not have enough time to realize you are closing in AND react AND start firing at you! So wait 30 secs here then get as close as possible: bullets will be stopped in mid air before reaching you and I swear to you you will no die and will have instead challenged control of the hill. Go ahead my brave!" If that does not sound silly to you than silly are all people asking for more realism from a CM battle. If the player does not KNOW before hand he is playing the last 60 second he will not move unarmed units toward ANY flag because the odds of having them slayed without mercy would be too high. CM should count fighting capability in the flag area not just counting heads. Right now is what CM does. Claiming this is instead the right way to do allows for having last 60 seconds of battles to become the silliest 60 seconds of a great fighting - that might have lasted 50 minutes - and which leave you with a bad taste. PS I won that game still it was like all of a sudden the only reaction to the game was: BLEAAHH, what a silly thing to let happen and to do.

I certainly have not been clear. I mentioned small flags (contrast with big flags) and no, the greyed-out flag did not change the outcome of the battle. Still it looks weird that a squad with 9 men and still in their full aremd efficieency is deemed to be countde as equal - toward controlling an area by CM engine - as two empty mortars units and one sharpshooter with no ammo. I think you are turning the question upside down. I think this shows that controlling an area if decided simplistically, i.e. on the sheer number. I deemed reasonable that by controlling one should ratehr favor the concept that the enemy CANNOT force you to leave. It does not mean that if in the last 20 secs moving toward the flag you are not abe to kill them all or notice them in the last seconds of the last turn THEN you have no more control of the area. Claiming that this is your duty , and all the other - still seemingly reasonable thoughts - does not take into proper account the fact that by sheer number of unarmed units you do not ceat control of an area you simply create dead corps in a few minutes. If those few minutes are not there because the game ends it is simplistic to claim that the enemy have been able to contest the control of the area.

I certainly have not been clear. I mentioned small flags (contrast with big flags) and no, the greyed-out flag did not change the outcome of the battle. Still it looks weird that a squad with 9 men and still in their full aremd efficieency is deemed to be countde as equal - toward controlling an area by CM engine - as two empty mortars units and one sharpshooter with no ammo. I think you are turning the question upside down. I think this shows that controlling an area if decided simplistically, i.e. on the sheer number. I deemed reasonable that by controlling one should ratehr favor the concept that the enemy CANNOT force you to leave. It does not mean that if in the last 20 secs moving toward the flag you are not abe to kill them all or notice them in the last seconds of the last turn THEN you have no more control of the area. Claiming that this is your duty , and all the other - still seemingly reasonable thoughts - does not take into proper account the fact that by sheer number of unarmed units you do not ceat control of an area you simply create dead corps in a few minutes. If those few minutes are not there because the game ends it is simplistic to claim that the enemy have been able to contest the control of the area.

Well, Lt Bull certainly is not wrong but I do not think he is right 1005. In CM control of flags allows for gamey tactict for sure. I had small flags turned into '?' by enemy advancing mortars units and sharpshooter both with NO AMMO toward a squad of 9 men, with enough ammo. They sneaked close and hid nearby. Flag turned ? and I discovered the trick was effective to turn the flag ? on the AAR: till the last second the flag was shown as control in the movie. Now you could well claim again that if I could not kill the sneacking enemy I really did not control the area but unarmed sharpshooters and mortars? How were they supposed to contest my armed 9 men squad in the small flag area?