Bobbaro

Tracer, thank you. I see you all over this place being helpful. I am not sure about just what I want to do. I'll try to do an uninstall-reinstall like you suggested. Then I don't know whether I'll go for a deal like you mentioned or for a new card. I have a hesitency on cards as I worry about some other games I play and whether they will still work. But it is very comforting to have someone standing behind me like you have. I'll post on results.

Still can not find the key to this problem. A clue may be that the Directx trouble shooter display window indicates that the three accellerator catigories are NOT AVAILABLE. That is to say Direct Draw, 3d, and textue.I wonder what is with that situation. The Directx test of Direct Draw works fine. Directx says a simular problem to mine can be caused by entering a generic entry for monitor type, but all that I can find is specific to mine. I have upgraded the driver set for the video card. I hope I did it right.

The CMBB activates, then goes to a black screen, followed by a blue window with Directx test options of Accept or Skip to Next. Accept results in CMBB mode quitting and going back to the desktop. Skip to Next returns a Program Error message "Could not initialize direct3d Graphics" I have an Intell III 5OO MgHtz board and an ATI Rage IIc AGP vidio card. I downloaded and installed Directx 8.1 Same result with the Demo. Need driver update? More Advanced Vidio Card?

In actions I have read about, often some platoon leader would find out the loss and either take over or be assigned and one of his sergents would take his squad. I suppose even a member of the HQ group would step in for essential roles. This is perhaps represented somewhat by the assumption that losses in HQ units always leave the CO in command. But when they are all gone, then what. In the campaigns though, such a totally killed unit should be replaced somehow, by being in some abstract way concocted but there none the less.

A Reject bout interrupted - - My match with Vitalis is on hold as my mail server is down for refurbishment. I don't know when these guys are going to get their faecies lined up. Should have been by now. SuperTed, kindly inform Vitalis in case he misses this posting. I will send him an email as soon as I find the system up. Bobbaro Thanks a bunch there Ted, the elves in the system are now on track and I have recieved Vitalis' turn. [ 12-28-2001: Message edited by: Bobbaro ]</p>

Let no expression of praise go un-noticed. And let no negative report of residence go unpunished. NOT in Australia? You sound disappointed. Are there no sheep in the UK? How lonesome.

A very excellent idea. Also one of the constraints on design is that victory is so much in the hands of the game engines limited victory conditions. Along with such an injection into play as set out here lies also the possibility of a variety of ways for victory conditions to be enlarged upon. One way that already exists is to override the numerical results with conditions set out in the pregame briefing. If breifing were updatable that would be even more of an opportunity. This would not affect the engine evaluation at all, but like buying rules are player designed and selected, it would be a designer feature. Another way would be a take off on the idea of this topic, to have VLs designer updatable at predetermined points. An additional possibility is to set up IF THIS type conditions that would trigger further conditions. Upgrading replayability would be enhancee by sticking in VLs which are variable in effect. VLs whose values are can be designated would also place a lot more designing power into the editor. Locations that would be defended by the AI tenaciously, but not affect score would give design a stronger AI play. VLs with a value that would adjust to zero at games end might serve if VL values are used by the AI to make decisions. Such design options might make using the editor more difficult, but if placed under buttons designated "advanced play" they would be optional to designers. Its Christmas season, so what do you expect; turkeys to be empty and their fillings all savory?

Welcome Tex, are you domiciled under the Lone Star, or claiming some other connection?

Duly noted and acted upon. Thanks John.

Michael, I suspect that you are most correct. I also suspect that those who currently are thinking in mostly CMBO terms will find their time rather reoccupied when they get the new game. Just playing around with the new features and terrain and mapping capability will be just a mite preoccuping to say nothing about a rather different world of units. Besides, just think of all the flameing posts that arguing over grog details and minute game features will create. There may just be a detail or two that will deserve patching and ship load of posts as well. Crossing the Eastern Frontier line may just put Western Europe a little bit on the back burner for a while.

Too many factors at work for conscript vs professional to tell a tale. There is first the already mentioned attitude of "I'm here to fight" and "Crap lets get this over and go back where the sun smiles." Professional may mean set in ways and patterns that spell defeat as the fixation of the last war encounters the realities of the present one. Professional can mean doing it by the wrong book. Conscript can mean fresh and open to doing it as is obviously necessary unblinded by peace time poopery. Obviously a professional in fact as well as in the pro forma fulfillment of some admisistrative checklist is going perform as well as committed, trained and ready people can. Professional is too easy a tag to paste onto a person. But what meaning should it possess to mean what we would want in a soldier? Comittment to his country, to his cause and to the brotherhood of his fellow soldiers. Knowledge of his business. Expertise in methods, tools and uses. Practice in their application. An expectation of long service. A conscript may possess as much comittment as a professional. A conscript may gain knowledge of his business. Time and application may make it sufficiently wide and deep to accomplish all that the professional can. A conscript may gain expertise simularly A conscript may become sufficiently practiced to perform right along with the professional seamlessly. A conscript may become a professional. War is full of tales of conscripts, even privates who keep the faith of the soldier when a professionals fail, even officers. Yet, were my life to depend upon it, and who knows it may, I would prefer to have professionals out there between me and destruction - - provided that that professionalism is not a hollow shell. Or another way to look at it is that some are conscripted by the government and some are self conscripted. In a sense all are conscripts. War makes professionals of both. Or kills them. Peace is often the greatest foe a military faces. The politicians rise in rank and the warriors languish. War then rearrives and determines which army has been the most harmed by the peace. Rare men are rare, professional or conscript. They make the difference in the squad or in the general staff. It is a very great luxury to have a war to fight that can be handled by the professional soldier. That an enemy may provide that luxury by being small or by being confined should be greeted with great appreciation by the conscriptable population. It is not always the case and often security if not survival depends on it. Often it is not mere conscription that weakens a body of soldiers, but more frequently it is haste, sometimes unavoidable haste, and sadly too often unprofessional professionals failing to prepare their conscripts. A government may fail its military by inadequate support. Even "professional" militaries have their fresh and new faces to bring up to snuff and old ones to keep there. A professional cadre can fail, laying in comfort basking in the warmth of their last success with parades, shows, briefings, splashy training that does not train, pushing M1 pencils over fitness reports, converting barely adequate funding into private luxuries for their personal use and for their own class of soldiers while lower echelons live in straighted circumstances. "There are no bad soldiers, only bad leaders." This writting may be a rambling crock, and I am not satisfied that it adds much to the question. Perhaps the question could be better too. I am not so sure that the conscrip vs. professional question is the best expression of what is at stake. Surely a military requires a professional knowledge and practice at its core. But, when war comes, the dismissal of the conscript may be its costliest mistake. Dismissal of conscription has a likelyhood of converting the sudden need for warm bodies into cold bodies. The need is for the professionalizing of conscription. A nation owes its young men of warrior age a routine military background of sufficient professional quality as to make any sudden and compelling need find a body of conscripts already prepared to be soldiers. In those who face the enemy there is a great likelyhood of being killed, especially in a protracted campaign or especially campaigns. If we suffer as a population for having sent children to war and to die, then surely it is worse for them to die and for the enemy to prevail as well. Conscription forced by circumstances is far more likely to be rushed and unprofessional; professionalized conscription far better fills the ranks with soldiers with qualities that sometimes are the envy of professionals, if the so called professonals are doing their training jobs. Professionalism is a practice- and the better question is what is that practice; because, practice does not make perfect, it makes perminant right or wrong. I think on my company commanders. I never went to war with them. Some were showy and some were quiet. They were all "professionals". But did they measure up. I suspect they were all tested in battle. Surgeons must enter the human body and spill blood in becoming professional. For soldiers there is only battle itself. No experienced tutor standing at their right hand to take up the knife and show how it is done when he hesitates. He is an officer. He is expected to perform. He is a professional without having demonstrated it; at least until dead are buried, the wounded are evacuated, and the living are made ready for the next onslaught. That sergent at his side, who steadied the trimbling hand with his own experienced calm, he may have been a conscript as well as private seeing his first action a month ago, perhaps sooner. By the grace of God, the enemies misfortune, and a little luck we may have qualified a new professional. Now all that training and practicing may be of some use. Give it some time. Oh, do I dare push the button on this pile? Shall discretion make me wiser and protect me from the hellish flames of scorning distain? Or shall this find a kindly word to warm a quaking gut? Or is this muddled opinion of such little importance that winds of praise or damnation alter the slightest ambiant breath not a whit? That conviences me. I submit the damned thing. It was a satisfaction to say it, so not making any difference is beside my point and your point is if you have read it; you deserve it. Sensible people quit reading much sooner.

Weapon rarity might be better handled with fuzzy logic rather than buy points except in designer scenarios. One might REQUEST rather than buy certain types of weapons or units and the game engine handle whether they are available. Whether this thought might have wider application or indeed have any - - -

Read a news item reciently that stated that Intel had developed an improved chip technology that would allow computer speeds up to the neighborhood of 70 Gig hz. Now think what that would do applied to ram chips and what that would do to CM programming. It would probably create such a possibility overload that OSHA would terminate the game as a safty hazzard to programers as well as to the playing public.

Ah ha! Emperical reports on explosiveness. Should I try to retireve my former statement of expectations by saying that anecdotal evidence is unacceptable? But that is all that a double blind experiment secures, another anecdote. Just carries a little more weight. Seriously, these items are interesting to me. In my limited observation the substances under our spotlight here in small eraser sized quantities only sizzled around on top of the water emitting light and burning hydrogen. (K and Na are both lighter than water.) But, the demonstration may have been too gingerly handled so that the bits were not thrust under. Sodium itself is not unstable as nitro is, does not carry any oxygen generating properties as gunpowder does and is only active at the surface of the mass in contact with water. The action there is vigorous. The hydrogen could not ignite until it contacts air and there it could pop some as portions might make an explosive mix. As the metals are of rather low melting points, low enough for the heat of the reaction to reach, I would guess that melted metal could be splattered about in the right circumstances. Certainly the heat could generate steam as it boiled the water in contact with the metal. That could cause some forceful ejections. But, I would not expect anything comparable to a purpose composed explosive device. I would think that Willie Peter would be more effective in a harbor setting than sodium, as that latter substance would quit reacting as soon as it landed on dry targets. Any residual heat contained in the blobs would dissapate rapidly and only the most combustible targets might have a chance of catching fire. The WP would not burn as it submerged, but it would burn on dry target structures. So while rather spectacular appearing and possessing some dangerous properties such as creating caustic hydroxide solutions as well as evolving heat, steam and burning or exploding hydrogen it does not surprise me that the idea of a harbor bomb was passed by. As reported in the Forum it appears that more vigor than I had supposed takes place. Such is the nature of limited observation and only theoretical information. My highschool lab teacher told her class that an industiral donation to the school of a very large quantity of sodium before her arrival was viewed by her with horror. It was desirable to dispose of it, but as in belling the cat, the proposition posed a quandry. That was rather before commercial hazardous waste disposal. I don't know what happende to the mess. Just a few years ago the school burned, but I did not hear of any "unusual" experiences in firefighting. [ 09-08-2001: Message edited by: Bobbaro ]

I have had it happen to me as well. I am supposing that in the typing process an extra return somehow gets generated to sit unseen and only show upon posting. I have fixed it on occasion by editing. There I picked up on the likely spot, deleating until the words in the broken line joined, then put in a space and reposted.