Mikester

Sniperscope, Have you defined the setup zone in the map editor yet? I believe it is the 3rd rectangular button under the terrain mode and elevation mode buttons. You should be able to define the set-up zone so that it is a band all the way around the map edge. Whether, or not, the AI will use it "randomly" I cannot say. That is probably a Charles question. Mike D aka Mikester

Bravest thing I've seen so far. In a quick battle I played about a week ago a green US infantry squad in foxhole right behind a stone wall spends 1-2 turns getting hammered. There are only 3 guys left in the 12 man squad and they've ducked down out of sight. I send a King Tiger up to the wall along with another one off to their right to overrun these guys and there adjoining pesky squad mates in the next foxhole over. Tank comes up to wall and "stops" right at the end of the turn. 3 dudes still are keeping their head down. I decide to stop the tank's movement temporarily during next orders phase. Next movie starts and about 15 seconds into the turn these 3 guys decide it's time to do something. They jump up and lob 2-3 gernades (maybe one was rifle grenade?) at the tank from 5 meters. They knock out the tank. The full 5 man crew bails out and a small firefight breaks out. The 3 US infantry guys kill all five of the crew. Next turn they come under heavy fire and run for the rear. 2 of them are taken out in the process and one guy finally makes it to safety. Mikester out.

Hey Moon, Thanks for the info. Yeah I was aware of the +/- nature of the bonus. Right now I think the Germans need the plus part of it. I played the scen. against the computer and only came up with a minor victory (58-41) as the Germans. I held all victory locations (as I recall about 1200-1400 VP's total) and had exited about 75-80% of the elegible forces (in terms of unit costs) from the map before the end of the game. Given that, how much of a bonus should I give? +25? +50?, +XX??? Thanks. Also, I'd like to know how exiting a unit that is worth 100 unit purchase points corresponds to holding a victory flag worth 100 VP's. In other words, in a game with both VP flags and units elegible to exit, EXACTLY how is the victory calculation made in order to come up with the 58-41 score that I got above for example? Mike D aka Mikester

Hey all, How do I know how much of a +/- bonus to set in the scenario editor for the Germans in order to balance the scenario? It is not readily apparent to me how one determines how big of a "bonus" might need to be given in a given situation. Thanks, Mike D aka Mikester

maxm2, A private company (no public stock) has every right to not publish financial or sales figures. And most of them don't. I worked for one a couple of years ago w/ over 20,000 employees all over the world. They never made public their financial information. So why should BTS? It isn't anyone else's business but theirs so long as they don't have any stockholders. Mikester out. [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 07-05-2000).]

Hey Kevin, How's it going? I've seen my name. I was a bloody German truck driver. Ha, that was great, but at least it's there. Mike D aka Mikester

PK is right. You also have to go to the map preview to move and place the numbered reinforcement markers for each side that control where each reinforcement group enters the map. Assuming, that is, that you've put any reinforcing units into the appropriate slots on the UNIT screen. Mikester out.

Hey Toad, I asked for this capability a long, long, time ago. Along w/ timers for TCP/IP play. Steve said they were going to consider it and decide later. I know they are likely going to have the timers based on recent things Steve has said in a few other threads here. But I really havn't heard if we are going to be able to switch back in forth between play modes once a game has been started. I certainly hope the answer is yes. Steve, Charles? Yes? No? Mikester out.

Rob, I've had just as much fun using the scenario editor and map maker the past few days as playing the game. Got my first scenario about half done right now. Man, maps take a lot of work if you want to make one. But even that is kind of fun in its own way. Mikester

Just install it into a "new" directory. I.e. create a new directory that you want to install the game to. That way you don't have to worry about whether the files will get mixed up w/ old one's etc. When installing the game just select the alternate directory (I think it's a button called browse next to the path it shows you that it is going to install the game into) and it will be installed where you tell it to go. Mikester

Hey Stoner, Did you read the readme file? It tells you precisely what to do. Basically you have to put the wav files into the wave directory, etc. I just opened the zip file up in WinZip, got the extract file list showing me what was in the download file and then opened windows explorer to the CM directory. It's then just a matter of highlighting the wav. files for example, and then dragging them over to the wav file directory under the CM directory and dropping them in there and they will be copied in. Copy the new CM.exe file into the main CM directory. Mikester

Hey OGSF, Good to see another comrade from Colorado. I'd like to start another game right now, but my dance card is getting kind of full at the moment. Unfortunately, much of my time has to be devoted to school and in this case, getting ready for my next class that starts in early July. Got a ton of reading to do. Tell you what though, my buddy Joe down here in Littleton would probably be up for another email game right now. Send him an email at mighty@attglobal.net and ask if he's willing and tell him I sent you his way. My guess is the answer will be yes. If I talk to him later today I'll give him a heads up you'll be contacting him. Have a good one and I'll take a raincheck on the PBEM game for now. Let you know when I'm not so busy and have more time. Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 06-22-2000).]

Rookie, No, no wall mounts for free. It's hard to tell by reading their sales blurb. But when I went back and read it you only get those if you order two sets of speakers. The free shipping is cool enough deal though in my book. Mikester

Rookie, Just purchased from Klipsch Store base on yor recommendation and two sparkling reviews I read online. Thanks for the link. I couldn't find them anywhere else either. Dell had them, but same price ($250) and had to pay shipping. Little more than what I wanted to spend, but what the h***. Says I should have them by June 28th which is next Wed. Thanks again for everyone's advice. Mikester out

Rookie, Thanks. Found Klipsch's page. But main page is not working right now. Got a direct link to the promedia page and did see the option to buy there. Heading over to check out Dell's site now. Mikester out.

Great! Thanks for the 1st hand info Rookie. Where did you get yours? Online? I was looking at buycomp.com where I've bought many things in the past, but they don't carry them. Does the Klipsch package come w/ any rear speaker stands? Thanks again, Mikester [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 06-22-2000).]

Rookie, So you have the Klipsch speakers? Are they the Promedia V2-400's? I just found these over on gamespots review page for sound cards and speakers at: http://www.gamespot.com/hardware/sound/speakers/ Sounds like a really cool toy to have. Does anyone have or has heard the Creative Labs DTTS-2500 Digital Surround System? "Sounds" like it's supposed to be pretty good to. Amazing thing to me is that these things don't cost $300-$500 for high end digital system like I thought they did. Mikester

Thanks for all the advice guys! Let's see, in general I'd say I'd not want to spend anything more than $150-$200 (US). Although I've been working hard lately and feel like buying some new toys so I quite easily might spend $50-$100 more than this. I had an Altec Lansing (model A300 or something) set of speakers some time back. Two satellites and subwoofer, but the thing went belly up kinda early in life (fuse keeps blowing out no matter what I try to do including getting that slow burn fuse or whatever it is they call those things). So I havn't been real happy w/ AL's speakers (although the sounded pretty darn good). What are the real audible / technical advantages of digital speakers over "standard" ones? Better sound quality? Higher signal to noise ratio? The digital speakers still have to transfer what I assume is a digital sound wave form coming out of the sound card back into an analog waveform (I assume there is a digitial to analog converter in the speaker itself somewhere?) in order to drive the speaker itself, so I'm not sure I understand what the advantage of the digitial speakers are. Guess I'm trying to understand whether the extra cost to get digital speakers is worth whatever the benefits are that they offer. Thanks again, Mikester

Jeff (and Manx), Good to see another CM site going up. I'm working on my first single battle scenario as of last night. Hope to be able to have something out on it within a week or so. Will definitely need to do some playtesting, tweaking, etc. w/ it before I upload it anywhere though. I don't believe in just posting "junk" all over the place when it comes to developing scenarios that others will be playing. Mikester out. [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 06-22-2000).]

Steve, Thanks for the candid and honest response. I was more curious than anything since there seemed to be several descrepancies between when people ordered and when they actually got (or havn't yet gotten) the game. I can understand it is probably no easy thing to process all those orders. Escpecially first time out the gate w/ new company and all. And I'd hope that everyone here appreciates that you did the best job you could. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester

I was assuming you were trying to select your forces? But like CrapGame inquired, are you letting the computer pick the forces? If so, I doubt that you'd see a King Tiger all that often for example. Go purchase the units yourself and see what one costs. They don't come cheap. And I'd assume if you let the computer pick the units it probably picks them based on some type of probability where the unit cost is factored in which partly accounts for "commonality" of how often that AFV actually ever showed up on the battlefield in real life. Mike

killmore, Very, very strange. I did same thing last night and all German armor was available. Did you choose something besides Wehrmacht, SS, etc. Some the the German troop settings like Falschrimjager have a very limited number of AFV's available because those armed service branches of the Reich had only a limited, if any, standard assignment of any AFV types. I think all you need to do is set your type to Wehrmacht/SS and you will be all set to purchase your armor and all types will show up on the pick list. Then if you want to have platoonn of Fallschrimjagers like I did, just set the setting to that and purchase your infantry. That's what I did in the scenario I created last night. Mikester out. [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 06-21-2000).]

Hey Shep, I'm in HR too out in Westridge off of Wildcat Reserve Parkway. My buddy is up in Littleton, just off of Broadway. What part of HR are you in? We'll have to get a game going at some point. Talk to you later. Mike D aka Mikester

DrD, Sounds like a pretty interesting idea. Maybe a bit too restrictive perhaps, but then again maybe not. Perhaps w/ right degree of chained C and C that you are proposing and conscript / green troops a fairly accurate model of how Soviet troops acted / reacted in the early part of the war at least. Give them a ton of these guys and about all you could do with them is what they did in real life. Mass them and move them forward to be mown down by the MG 42's and the artillery of the Germans. After enough of the massed human waves had moved forward and gone to their deaths the Germans ammo would be mostly used up and the next wave would hit and it would be hand to hand from there. I understand that's the way things went any number of times during Russian attacks on the Eastern front. Even as late as 1943 and 1944. Although they had generally gotten much better at formulating and executing attacks by then and gotten away from the massed attack approach. Mikester out. [This message has been edited by Mikester (edited 06-21-2000).]

Did you run the setup.exe found on the CD to install the game? What are you trying to unzip? None of the files on the CD are zipped to best of my knowledge. Or are you talking about the patch? Mike D aka Mikester