kump

killmore, My priorities are where I wish to place them. Do not attempt to tell me what is a wise use of vacation or other plans. How I choose to spend my time off from work does not have to fit your definition of "vacation planning" or life priorities. This response of yours is way off topic and wishes to raise issue with how I choose to manage my own life. Did you have an opinion on whether BTS should make more delivery options or not? Please leave my life out of it. ------------------ Garry Kump

1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..... I know that I will eventually get the game, but here is Wednesday and no CM. I am now cancelling my vacation I had scheduled for tomorrow, ready to cancel it for Friday too. What angers me is folks who had their credit card charged a day later than mine have already received their copy Monday and Tuesday in the local area, and I'm now struck with the prospect of my copy is tangled up in the USPS limbo somewhere, and I have no way of finding out. But some of my anger goes directly to BTS. No, its not BTS's fault that things may go strangely with USPS, but it is their fault for forcing me only one delivery option. I've had bad experiences with USPS in the past and found it unpleasant to be forced to do it again. As an internet purchase only game, we the customers have already had one option taken away, running down to a local retail store and getting immediate satisfaction. I applaud the BTS internet only purchase and their direction, they have a gem of a program that may lead to great success. But BTS needs to step up and provide more options for delivery for their products. I would have gladly paid $20+ for a guarenteed and trackable delivery option. BTS, I love what you have done and CM is huge! You are now and will probably remain my #1 wargaming heroes. But I'm angry because my anticipation was very high and I find myself infuriated because I can't track the status of my CM delivery. That is BTS's fault, not USPS. PLEASE provide more delivery options in the future!!! ------------------ Garry Kump

Before any more USPS employees post to defend their honor, please take a moment to understand that your caring and your job is not being attacked. Yes, USPS is the elephant compared to the ants, but that is exactly the point. Its cheaper and handles the bulk of packages in the US. But bigger don't make better. USPS may have a pretty efficient way of doing things, but there are a lot more chances for things to go wrong. Customers should have the OPTION TO CHOOSE, regardless the extra costs. BTS may have gone the USPS route only due to reduced amount of administration for their package handling, but I think they should look into increasing the delivery options, for this is an internet purchase game only. ------------------ Garry Kump

This is the game I was looking for every time I opened up a new WWII computer game during the past dozen or so years, but could never find. It definately feels good to have finally got one of these WWII computer wargames and have the "Oh my God, this is it!!!" reaction. A "buy on internet only" game usually means sub-par on things like graphics and sound. But this game has it all and the attention to detail leaves me breathless. CM is better than multi-million dollar projects that had staffs ten times the size. What really impresses me is how a group of folks stuck by their beliefs as to what a good 3D WWII tactical wargame should be and saw it to the end, never compromising to the pre-development big budget offers from major publishers. By keeping total control and not rushing something out to make stock holders happy, BTS has performed a feat that we can only hope others will attempt to emulate. I'm hoping CM sales exceed BTS expectations, pulling in folks who aren't even typically wargamers. This game is going to be good for the entire computer wargaming community. There will be converts, and BTS will deserve the credit. ------------------ Garry Kump

Redleg, Your basing you judgement on past RTS experience with other titles. You've assumed that CM is attempting to fit the same mode. Sorry, it ain't going to happen. This is no prototype. This is a new way to presenting WWII tactical wargaming, giving us real time combat in a turn based format. It attempts, and in my opinion succeeds, in giving us an up close and exciting experience of tactical combat. If this "new" way of wargaming that BTS has implemented succeeds to capture the hearts and minds of "wargamers" everywhere is yet to be seen, but I think it has a good shot of doing just that. However, I don't care if it pleases the RTS, FPS, RPG, or whatever the general masses of computer gamers is hot for. Its not targeted for them, its aim is on pleasing the wargamer crowd. Hopefully, many will find CM an experience of a lifetime and transition or adopt computer wargaming as a new avenue to computer gaming enjoyment and let some other more shallow titles gather dust on their shelves. CM is history in the making, not a prototype attempting to slowly become something you can recognize as a true RTS game. CM is making its own definition of a good wargame, and up to now, its like a King Tiger (BTS CM on turret) nose to nose with a lone M8 Scout Car (Other Wargames). Oh yea, and I'm behind that King Tiger bowing to the ground saying.... "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy" Sorry, I can feel the CM revolution starting and my undeniable edging to CM fanatic.

My first game of VoT I played the Germans. My Panther arrived and I manuevered it in hull down position. First shot fired by a Sherman hit the shot trap!!! Got a message that upper hull penetrated by this frontal shot (such as I can remember). This is the FIRST tank shot I had experienced in CM, my very first game! Imagine my shock and surprise. I was ready to go on a jihad against CM gun calculations. How can CM have the Panther so weak!!! I played again, and again, and again. I found the Panther was actually quite tough up front, gun damage and immobilization being the worse results. Never saw the frontal shot trap again, and hope I never will (unless I'm doing the shooting). But a Sherman can take out a Panther on front armor, as I can testify on my very first virgin round ever fired at one of my tanks. OUCH!!

YES!!!! My panther appeared hull down and a Sherman fired on my front armor and WAM, the shot trap occurred and my Panther was OUT!!! Imagine how I felt! It was my first experience with the Panther in CM and it was taken out with one Sherman round! I wanted to scream foul and say the Panther was not tough enough in CM! So there you go. Those are the breaks of war, luck can rule the day. The panther should be tough to the front. Get to the sides and rear. You got the numbers. Have artillery drop smoke when you find a panther at range. Don't slug it out frontally at range. Smoke and get out of the way. Manuever to flanks. Rush it and show that numbers count. That Panther turret is really slow. Come at it from multiple sides at the same time. You will be eating Kitty in no time. PS: Don't you think "Bug" in the title is a little over board for such an issue? Regardless how the gun calculations are programmed, its working as intended. You may wish to debate the merits and details, but calling something a bug because your tanks experienced an all too often occurance in WWII is a little out there. Okay, you were just trying to get attention and I'm frustrated because no CM yet, but hey, at least you now know not to go straight at the Panther, learned some respect, and next time will apply lessons learned. ------------------ Garry Kump

Up the opponents side? Well, I would have sir, but this was my first time with the Americans and I was... well... a little nervous. Hmmm... guess I forgot about the advantage of good intel and familiarity with the field of battle! Its now time to do as you say. Max it out and watch the lead fly! But I sure hope tomorrow I'll be watching different lead from another scenario!

Sorry, I mean, knowing the dispositions is unfair, not unfare, whatever that means. Nothing better to do but wait and proof read my posts, and hope one day I'll post enough to become a true member....

Oh so sad, no CM delivered today. What should I do? Play the Gold Demo of course. I've never played the Ami in CE, so lets have a go. Unfair though it be, my intel knowing the Germans composition, I still played it with no advantages to either side... My digital GIs looked at me with long faces. "Oh no, we got to fight this again?" was the murmur through the ranks. I demanded no complaining and setup my green clad warriors. Moans floated down the ranks as run orders were given to all. The battle started with my troops in position first, most aimed at the church and a platoon covering the wooded hill with the victory point area I concede to Germans for start of battle, tanks all lined up ready for some fun. The germans started to appear and to my delight, the entire line opened up!!! Now that is what I call concentration of fire. When the Stug's showed, the result was two brewed and one knocked out with no Sherman losses. Oh boy, its going my way now. After obliterating forces approaching the church, it then shifted to that wooded hill. I was prepared. The three 60mm mortars opened up (spotting by HQ units) and the woods caught on fire (first time for me)!!! When the reinforcing platoon arrived, it was brought up to those woods with two other platoons, then a mighty charge of tanks and infantry occurred. WOW, what an impressive sight. Lines of infantry with tanks just behind firing their guns. The end result was 99 to 1 score. Tally of losses: Germans 3 StugG 199 casualties (51 KIA) 32 captured Americans 8 casualties (2 KIA) Knowing what the other side will do was unfare. I need some new meat. Give me my full version! Please be here tomorrow!!! Slowly I turn to face my digital GIs. "Oh No! Here we go again! Geez General Kump, give us a BREAK!!!" Once more into the breach! ------------------ Garry Kump

Charles, Thanks for the reply, and I agree, that is pretty dang tough! Thanks for speaking up and clarifying for me. Its what I suspected and been experiencing, the gun calculations in CM are pretty accurate. So the Tiger I is no dog, just watch out for those nasty 17 pounders. Pop the smoke and kick it into reverse, for the British are coming.

Isn't the issue here is to whether CM's gun calculations are simulating the toughness of the Tiger I's armor realistically? Even 44-45, the Tiger I was a challenge, though the better late war Allied guns found it easier to handle. Still, is the box shape (no angle) of the Tiger I, as being calculated by CM gun algorithms, making it a little too easy to take it out by hits to the its front armor? So far, I've been very impressed with CM results. I don't want to read too much into someone's complaint of the survivability of the Tiger I, but I would like to keep hearing testimonials on the CM accuracy of its gun calculations. The Tiger I was no dog in the late war years, though not the almighty king it was in 42-43. It continued to be a substantial threat throughout the war. ------------------ Garry Kump

First, does anyone know how to use rifle grenades? Also, does anyone know if infantry can kill tanks by storming them? They fire automatically, and yes, assault tanks, but only a real close ranges. Not recommended. Will not be as successful as AT units of course. But a tank with lots of enemy infantry at less than 100m with no supporting infantry is not a good thing. I'm sure someone with more experience can fill in more info here. Can you collect ammo from dead people? No what do the three different numbers under a Sherman's ammo stand for? a - armor piercing round (AP) h - heat round (HE) s - smoke round c - shaped charge round t - tungsten round Is there a way to watch the movie of the whole battle at the end? No how is the withdraw command different from run? The withdraw will be acted upon immediately without the usual pause, while the run command requires a pause. However, there is a danger that this may break a unit, especially one that has previously broke. Not recommended if you see that red explanation "!" on the unit. Your call. once you split a unit, can you recombine it ever? Move the split units together. Leave them and they will join. I've had several split units join back up this way. ------------------ Garry Kump

Project coming to close, just supporting test. Eat lunch. Maybe.... Jump in car and drive 12 miles home. Damn, no package. Go in and play VoT for half an hour. No package. Drive 12 miles back to work, where I should be. Maybe later this afternoon... Looking at clock at work, 4:10pm. Maybe another 12 mile trip home is warranted? I'm totally worthless at work. A true sign of a CM addiction. Never had it this bad before. I've got to see one of those Pz-IVE's in action! Its now 4:15pm. Wonder if it will be there if I drive those 12 miles back now? I hope this doesn't last too long.....

CM2: East Front CM3: Mediteranian Front (includes North Africa) CM4: Early war, 39-40 (Poland and France) CM5: Korean War, Vietnam CM6: Modern Combat (Post Vietnam) CM7: Pacific Front (result of continuous blasting by Pacific Front fanatics). CM8: Scrubbed, was to be Star Wars, but Steve and Charles threaten to walk out, title canceled. ----- Combat Command (CC) (by this time, no one remembers that other CC) then introduced, bigger, badder, meaner, able to support multiple parallel processors. You can almost smell the smoke... CC1: West Front, Even More Beyond Overlord CC2: East Front CC3:.....

The V5 FSAAx4 is really fantastic with CM. I got the card primarily for CM and only CM. And I wanted FSAAx4 at high resolutions with good performance today, not hopefully tomorrow. As for lots of smoke slowing down the performance, that is only in FSAAx4 mode, not in the other modes of V5 operation. When the smoke gets really heavy, I usually turn it off to see what is going on anyway, even before I was using the V5. The only time it gets bad is when the Americans smoked the entire village in VoT with artillery. When plotting, who keeps that smoke on? You can hardly see a blasted thing. I do turn it on for the action. Those brewed up wrecks sure have pretty smoke... Regardless of capabilities for now or in the future, what card supports what, what will most likely be the best next year, and so on, all I cared about is what was best for CM now and the rest was noise. FSAAx4 was what got me to shell out for the V5, period. If a future version of CM introduces more enhancements to use some new 3D card capability that I find I got to have, then I'll buy a 3D card again. What is money when compared to increasing my immersion factor with CM? But for today, its FSAAx4 + CM that makes the winning combo for me. Which ever card delivers that combo with the best performance and appearance is the best choice for me for this year. PS: I never had the install blues with V5. I got lucky and ignored the initial drivers on the root directory on the Install CD. I stepped down through the windows directories manually and installed the more up to date driver, being rewarded with no headaches at all. I did setup Win98 with a generic VGA driver before removing my old boards and putting in the V5. I think I got lucky... ------------------ Garry Kump

The V5 5500 runs very smooth in FSAAx4 (makes CM look so good) at 1152x870 resolution on my 500 PIII. Only slows up with lots of smoke on screen, but usually shift-I to turn smoke off while ploting anyway. Once you play CM with FSAAx4, you'll never go back... As to problems, only one. On going to a new static screen, if you move the mouse, it displays the old static screen in a block where the mouse used to be. It only shows up in the initial entry screens and does not cause any problems at all in the game itself, the 3D battlefield. Apparently they are going to fix this in a new 3dfx driver, but I don't find it bothersome at all. ------------------ Garry Kump

Waiting for delivery, going crazy, getting a little wacko.... -------- I would like to see a Tomb Raider Lara Croft Mod for CM. Imagine the capabilities of your Lara Croft squads! The following abilities, Tac AI, Command options, and animation would have to be done... 1) You can switch weapons for your Lara squads during each orders phase, selecting pistol, M1, M1919 MMG, .50 Cal HMG, 60mm Mortar, flame thrower, or bazooka. 2) You can set the evasive manuever for Lara squads when they come under fire. You can set jump and flip right, left, back, or forwards. And they should be able to fire while in a mid-air jumping manuever. 3) Lara squads can enter and drive any abandoned vehicles. 4) Lara squads should be able to squat and pull buildings back or push buildings forward, but only the one story ones, two story buildings are too heavy. Imagine a batallion of Lara squads advancing behind a row of buildings as they push towards the enemy lines. 5) The Lara squads should have some additional polygons added to their graphics. I'll leave it up to you as to where to place them... -------------- Sorry, I'm getting way too anxious for CM to arrive..... ------------------ Garry Kump

I finally replaced my Quantum SLI V2 board with the voodoo 5 5500 AGP after reading about the full screen anti-aliasing (FSAA) discussion here on this board. $299 to make even CM look better was worth it in my book, CM must have the best. My PC runs at 500MHz (not accelerated). 1025 x 768 was the resolution I stuck with. 1) I looked at FSAAx2 and FSAAx4. Incredable. The screen shots referenced earlier on this board don't quite do it justice. Vehicles look better up close and far away. Its hard to describe or show in a screen shot. You have to see it. Not having those jagged lines really does make a difference. Even the unit bases and move/target lines looked so much better. I was very impressed, and even more excited about getting my CM order, if that is even possible. 2) My V2 card had blocky smoke for high quality smoke. Not any more, the V5 handles the high quality smoke well. 3) Someone complained about the mouse pointer graphics in CM using the V5. I saw no problems with the mouse pointer, flags, etc.. Everything was looking perfect. 4) Performance in FSAAx4 was fine. No change. I did notice a slow down in a lot of smoke, which improved, but not much, in FSAAx2 and then without any anti-aliasing. But this only happened when I had a lot of smoke in the same location (smoke area fire, five + rounds). Less smoke was less noticable in slow down. This is also when you are panning the camera. Usually not the case when watching the action. I was not disturbed. Overall, I was very happy with the purchase and only one thing left to do. Wait for that mail man... ------------------ Garry Kump

Two nights ago (VoT vs AI) I had my full strength platoon (3xsquads, 1xHQ squad) of engineers occupy a two story building in the village. First squad entered and went to the second story and positioned itself. Platoon HQ came and positioned in middle of first floor. Second squad came in and walked to corner of first floor, but while doing so, a hidden german squad on first floor of same building magically appeared beside my engineer squad and opened up! OUCH!!! Obliterated my HQ unit and shot up the 1st floor squad down to one man. But the amazing thing was while it was shooting at the 1st floor engineer squad, it tossed a grenade up to the second floor to the other engineer squad!!! Double OUCH! And then the remaining engineers on the top floor responded with a satchel charge, which really got german squad's attention. My third engineer squad finally entered the building and chucked grenades and fired point blank at the now pretty shaken german squad. One surviving german finally routed away, but that ambushing squad cost me plenty, one eliminated HQ squad and one and half engineering squads. That is 8 lousy bush wacking germans for 23 american engineers. House to house is dangerous!!! I LOVE THIS GAME!!! ------------------ Garry Kump

I take offense!!! I'm not that stupid! I think the CM folks have done a great job with me, thogugh I stillll have m-m-m-my faults. Besides, I've already kicked some newbie butts, and that only in the Demo! So watch who you calling stupid, for I've got some surprises waiting up my sleeve.... errrr.... algorithms that will truly show you what for! And besides, no matter how good you think you are, I'm always waiting to take you on again, day or night, anytime my fleshy bag of water pal!!! AI ----------------------------- Sorry, couldn't resist. I agree, victory conditions can be described in scenerio briefing if current VC is not acceptable, especially in two player games. Garry

Initial reaction was amazement at detail and graphics, but real time nature, interface, and plotting moves left me a little disappointed. Oh well, maybe a nice diversion to SP.... Then I played a couple of games, got used to the interface (found it much better then initial impression), became familiar with how things worked, and BAM!!!! The CM Gold Demo is the BEST thing ever to plant itself on my hard drive. Its the best wargame ever. Well, actually, much better than that! Its just not the graphics, its the details and entire atmosphere of it. Looking at my American infantry charging across a valley with tank support from the enemy's perspective left me dumb founded. I must have worn out the rewind button on that one. My eyes even got watery. Man, let it be Russians and T-34s and I'm really going to flip. I mean, flip a second time. So yea, I have to say I am quite HAPPY with CM and how it has turned out, judging from the Demo. Nothing comes close to it and I have a feeling, nothing will for some time to come. ------------------ Garry Kump

Visiting TGN Website for the latest and greatest on SP series and Battlefront games, I stumbled on Wild Bill commenting about CM in the positive. Well, if Wild Bill was impressed, I must dig some more... Checking out TGN's CMHQ page got me hooked, then a visit to Battlefront.com clinched an order for CM. This is without playing the demo first. Then playing the gold demo proved the order was well worth it, and a strong desire to pre-order CM2 developed. ------------------ Garry Kump

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>This thread raises the question for me: What sold you on CM?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The sound caught my ear. The beautiful graphics caught my eye. The game play caught my brain. Graphics made me take note, but its turning out to be the sum of all of CM's parts that is delivering what I have always wanted most in a wargame. PS: The real time nature turned me off initially, but I'm a convert. Okay, I admit it, I'm finding a system based on sequential turns to be a load of fun, sprinkled with a hefty dose of anxiety as one hits the "GO" button to discover if the last plotted movements lead to satisfying gains or all too often horrifying surprises. ------------------ Garry Kump

Thanks for the replies. $30,000 for CM2? I better start saving now I have to admit I'm a tank person. I'm not buying CM for infantry combat, I'm enthralled with the armor. CM delivers in spades on this aspect as well. Those CM vehicles look awesome. But the CM infantry combat has captured my attention. Manuevering those "useless" two legged units around used to be of little reward, now in CM its a joy and pays off in big ways. Finally, I can now use and appreciate the unarmored variety. ------------------ Garry Kump