Midnight Warrior

Two things I think would be neat for the map editor is: 1. A copy and paste function so that you could copy portions of a map from one map to another. If you also could roate them by 90 & 180 degrees then you could recreate the effect of the geomorphic map boards in ASL. This would also be nifty if you are building a map that borders or overlaps on an area that you already have a map. 2. I think it would be neat if there were a hybrid manual map builing and auto map generation mode where one could manually build the key features, like rivers, bridges, etc and then have the auto map builder fill in the rest of the map. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

1. TCP/IP with chess timer 2. Gun camera view from attacking aircraft. 3. Paper Map Dispaly (Level 5 View minus units) 4. Map annotation capability (John Maden (sp) pen) 5. Level 1 only playing aids. e.g. combned + and Tab button, compass, etc 6. Free text box for each unit to record orders, notes for acter action reports) 7. Roster 8. Copy and Paste capability for map builder (gan build adjacent and overlapping maps 9. Copy and past unit roster (with causalties) RPG playing aid. 10. More Buildings & Terrain Features Any of the above would be great for 1.04 ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

Heree are some oldies. Sink The Bismark The Man Who Never Was The Movie about the Dam Buster (can't remember its name) Caine Mutiny Newer Glory ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

The chess timer offers a whole new dimension in play. If you set it for a short turn it might add a bit more realism to the game in that the practice of micro managing your units would be penalized. If BTS implements this feature so that different length time values can be set for each player then the timer could be used as another way of balancing play. Also, it could be used to simulate the effects of training, leadership, communications ,etc capability in that the side with better training/comm, etc gets a little longer timer setting. This could be one way of modeling the difference between the Germans and the Russians in CM2. For example if a tank has radios this gives the palyer a little longer timer setting than if it doesn't have radios so that the player without the radios must do simplier tactics simply because he doesn't have time to do otherwise. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

Red Dawn is gotta be near the worst The battle of the bulge was bad but watchable but the tank battle in the desert was bad even by hollywood standards There was old made during the war movie called Bataan with Robert tailor that you have to see to believe. Midway was just poor imitation of Tora Tora Tora (which was excellent) I saw an Italian move called Battle Of El Alimien (sp) which was pretty low budget but actually was kind of interesting I thought the Longest Day was a good try but even though it fell a little short. One of may favorite war movies (non WWII) is Glory (ACW). I thought U571 was really bad (though the hardware was neat) Some of my favorites: Sink The Bismark The man who never was The really sad thing is that there are so many great stories to be told and Hollywood drops the ball. I think it may be the same phenomina as with wargaming. Maybe someday there will be a BTS movie company that makes quality war movies. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

This is from an EMAIL I got today. Enjoy. Ever wonder how the trend of replacing human customer service representatives with computers could affect the military. Here's the result. Picture troops under fire, desperately needing artillery support, making a phone call and hearing the following: Thank you for calling the 26th Division's automated artillery support request line. Please be assured that we will attempt to assist you with all available resources in the shortest time possible. For air support, please call the U.S. Air Force at 1-800-BOMBNOW. [in enemy language: If you are a member of the [enemy country] army, we will not be able to assist you. Please contact your own army's artillery support request line at 1-800-DIEYANK.] If you are attacking a fixed enemy position, please press 1. If you are engaged in mobile defense, please press 2. If you are defending a fixed position, please press 3. If you are setting up a hasty defense or are about to be overrun, please press 4. If you wish to cancel a prior fire mission request, please press 5. Press the star key at any time to return to the main menu. Please select the type of fire mission you would like. If you would like 81 mm. mortars, please press 1. If you would like 105 mm. howitzers, please press 2. If you would like advanced munitions, such as fuel-air explosives or scattering mines, please press 3 to speak with one of our soldier advocates. If you would like to request the use of chemical or nuclear weapons, please press 4 and hold the line. The Secretary of Defense will speak with you as soon as possible. Enter the map coordinates of the target you would like to strike, followed by the pound sign. Please remember to verify your coordinates and remember that your request may take several minutes to process. [beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep] You have entered co-ordinates 323451. If this is correct, please press 1. Thank you. Please enter your battalion pass-code, followed by the pound sign. As soon as we verify your pass-code, we will begin processing your request. If you have forgotten your pass-code, please contact 1-800-WE-FUBAR to get a temporary pass-code. Please enter your passcode now. [beep-beep-beep-beep-beep] Thank you. [Pause] Your pass-code has been verified and your request will be processed. We strongly suggest that you and your comrades take cover as soon as possible. Thank you for using the 26th Division's artillery request support line ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

I read in Alan Clarks "Barbarossa" that in the early war the Russians would attack as division in line with no modern battlefield tactics to speak off. Troops would ride in their trucks toward the Germans until the truck was destroyed. The Germans were astounded in in how primitive were the Russian tactics. But unlike the armies in the west that would surrender after being blooded the Russsian would fight tenaciously and soldiers would even play dead and wait to take a German with them. After example upon example of this the Germans begin toi get a bad feeling about what they had gotten themselves into. I don't know how one would model this but it will be interesting to see how BTS does. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

Republic Of Texas ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

Perhaps there is a compromise solution to this isuue. If the game had a step function similar to the +/- that would step between HQ units that skipped stepping through the subordinate units then one could use this to quickly find a unit. For example one could step from A0, to B0, to C0, D0, etc. Then either use the point and click method of finding the subordinate unit or use the +/- key to find it. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

I have done civil war reenacting but not WWII. It really is a lot of fun, but wargaming is still my first love. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

I thought it might be neat to have a site devoted to upgrades. Hardly a day goes by where there isn't sombody posted their wish list for upgrades for a CM patch, CM2, or beyond. I thought that it might be cool if there was some way to organize these ideas into categories and let the CM users vote on which ones they wanted the most. For instance the categories might include Map building, scenario building, new vehicles, new terrain features, new Command & Control rules, multiplay, networking capabilities,(eg. TCPIP), weapons effectiveness mods, ect & so forth. The players could rate them say 1-5. The web page would tally the scores and you could see what at a glance what are the 10 most wanted upgrades. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

<This sounds really cool. I've never done a <RPG but am eager to give it a try. P.S. I prefer to play the Allies if possible.

This sounds really cool. I've never done a RPG but am eager to give it a try. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

I have been doing a lot of level 1 play. It is great fun but is difficult at times. A real handy aid (that shouldn't be too hard to program) would be a magnetic compass display. The current compass rose on the map is usually not viewable. Another handy playing aid would be to have a text box for each unit where one could attach text. This could be used to attach notes such as orders, units historical designation, notes for AAR's, or whatever. A command that does a both a "+" and a "Tab" at the same time would be nice. A "paper map" display with annotation capability would be really neat. The paper map could be as simple as highest overhead view devoid of any units except for the freindly starting positions of each HQ drawn in standard military notation (i.e. ala cardboard counters in most war board games). The annotation ability could be simplay a pencil like drawing tool and a text insetion tool. This would allow for the player to map out a battle plan on the map. This would be of great help in level 1 play and would allow a player to see the whole battle area without giving him a unrealisticlly high situational awareness. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

Can someone tell me how to save a screen shot on a PC as a bit map? Thanks ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

I started out with D-Day in the mid 60's. Been hooked ever since. I love the computer games today but you know there is still nothing like that thrill of opening up the box of a brand new board game and seeing the map and counter sheets. Don't miss having to read zillions of rules though. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

The idea of a level 1 only game (at least for me) is NOT to convert the current 3rd person game into a 1st person shooter game! Rather, it is to enhance the realism of the present game system. This is combat in the 1940's not the 21st century so the command & control whether you are Pvt, Sgt, Lt, Capt, or Maj all you have is your own eyes and hear with your own ears. At best you may have a radio and/or a paper map. Currently the tempo of combat is INHO way to high. By tempo I mean not the speed in which units can move physically, but rather how fast they can observe their environment, orient themselves to it, decide on a course of action, and act. With the God's eye view of the battle and unlimited time to observe, orient, decide, & act the result is a fast tempo. The level 1 only view would slow down the tempo of operations by degrading the players ability to observe and orient himself. This wouldl consequently slow down his decison making time which in turn will slow down the rate of carry out actions. The other advantage of level only 1 play is that it can cause the player to practice more realistic tactics and proceedures. For instance basic map reading & navigation skills becomes a challenge at level 1 where not worth bothering with at all level play. Finally, there surely will be a never ending number of potential games enhancement that would support level 1 only play (just as is the case for all level play). I suspect though that this is largely a "have your cake and eat it too" condition in that most of the level 1 only play enhances would benefit all level play as well. And even if BTS never implements any of the level 1 only enhancements, it is still fun to dream. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

I think it would be neat if BTS would add this as a enhanced fog of war game option. The option would permit views 1 & 8 in setup and only view 1 during the game. For view 1 the mouse scoll would be inhibited and only the unit step allowed. This I believe would lead to a more realistic tempo of operations. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

Oddly enough I justed uploaded a post in the TOAW forum on this same topic. I thought that Talonsoft's TOAW would be a good high level game to interface with CM. Also, I thought that John Tiller's Normandy 44 would be a good game to use in conjunction with CM. I am repeating the post in the TOAW forum below: http://www.talonsoft.com/cgi-bin/WebX?230@96.HxwnrAaI^598738@.ee6eb82 Games with open systems architectures Both the consumer and the computer industry have benefited by open systems arcitecture and other standards that allow importing and exporting files generated form one computer platform and/or application to another. Think of what it would be like if one couldn't past a bitmap image into a text document or if everyone had their own proprietary wav, video, text, etc formats. However this kind of opens systems approach has not to date filtered into the war game comunity. In the wargame comunity all the files and applications are proprietary instead of open. What I would like to see is the open systems archietcure paradigm being adopted in the wargaming comunity. This could be done by developing standard interfaces that allow exporting/importing the forces, maps, scenarios, etc from one game into another. This could be done both between games at the same level (e.g. division level) or at different levels. The Import/export functions would be able to rescale game elements between games. For example one division level game may have one day turns and another one week turns. The rescaling would interpolate the times form one game to another. In a similar manner the rescaling could be done between games at different levels. For example if a division level game force structure was imported into a regimental game the file conversion software would create regiments and assign them to the divisons. If the exporting game provide this info then the importing game would use this info. If not it would generate its own regiments using rules that could reflect nationalites and etc. If all else failed it would arbitrarily fill in any missing data. For example if a game map were imported that had a 2.5 km hexes (sound familiar)[TOAW smallest scale] to a game that had 20m sqaures (e.g BTS's Combat Mission) the exporting game could characterize its hex (e.g. forrest with town) and the importing agame could auto generate the higher resolution map using the high level characterization as patrameters. What this capability would do is permit games being played at a higher level to be exported down as scenarios for lower level games and in return the lower level game results being imported back into the higher level games as combat and movement results. This would be much like the battle boards in some of the legacy borad wargames such as AH Midway. The difference is that the higher and lower level game if built with open systems could be made by a different comapny and without any collaboration beyween the two comapnies other than adhereing to the open systems file standards. Another benefit to open systems is that it could allow 3rd party suppliers making accessories for games such as scenario and map builders, planning aids and statistical plotting packages, combat result calculators, extra equipment, alternate combat tables and historical references. This would allow the game companies to focus on buiding the basic game engines (which wouild be proprietary) and allowing other developers to build enhancing components. I think that TOAW would be an excellent platform to try such an experiment. This could initaily be applied to other Talonsoft products such as West Front/East Front as a semi open system but what would be really cool is that Talonsoft would publish its file structure as a way of creating a defacto open system standard. Also, it would be great if game controls could be part of the open systems where an extern application could call on a game engine via an open interface. This would allow for 3rd paty developed to develop playing aids such as planning windows that can tap into the game engine of another game. For instance a TOAW could call a West Front to compute an expected combat result in lieu of its own engine. Finally, I think that if done judicously this could be a benfit to gamer, large game companies, and small game companies all alike just as open systems architectures have been in the computer industry at large. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

After-all, wasn't it better from the western perspective for Communist to die killing Nazis than Brits, or American. Rough you say.....now this was when politics was REALLY a blood sport! I don't think the West was that coldly calculating. Marshall & Eisenhower were very fearful Russia would drop out of the war and leave the West to face Hitler alone. The reason for the long delay of starting the Western front was just the reality of the situation at hand. It took that long for the US to build up its ground and naval forces to a level that could challenge the Germans forces in the West. Eisenhower pointed out in his book, Crusade into Eurpoe, that at the time of Pearl Habor, the US army was smaller than the Polish army was in 39. Churchill said (if I remember right) it takes about 2 years to convert over from a peacetime to a wartime economy and about another year to build up a sizable forces. That is about what happened in that in 42 and 43 the US went over to a wartime economy and by 44 this econmy had procduced a warfighting machine up to the job of going on the offense in France. The West was able to fight with a different paradigm than the east. In the east there was little recourse but to spend lives for vistory; in the west spend $'s for victory. In one sense WWII was a war of philosophies (Demcracy vs Fascism, vs Communism). And even though the physical realities are common (shell sizes, and armor thickness, etc) I don't think that you can completly seperate the day to day warfighting from the from the underlying cultures that produced the fighting forces. For this reason I think it will be very interesting how BTS handles CM2. Will it be just a CM1 with Russian equipment added or will it capture in some ingenious way the brutality of the colossal knock out fight between two rival totalitarian societies in a contest that was so savage that it tends to boggle the western mind. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

Yes indeed! It brings back pleasants memories of my youth where many a valiant cardboard warrior fought and fell on those sacred gemomorphic battlefields! It will be neat to have revist these so very well known places again and see them in a new light. And yes... A cut and paste and flip horizonatl, rotate right, etc capability in the map builder should would be nice! ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

Granted the Russians suffered incredably and bore much of the brunt of the ground war. But there is a poetic justice here. For if Stalin hadn't abandoned his alliance with the western democracies and signed the non agression pack with the Nazis then Hitler, dreading a two front war, would have been hard pressed to launch the war to begin with. And the reason Stalin abandoned the West and cozied up with the Nazis is because the West wouldn't go along with him gobbling up the Baltic States. Churchill pointed this out to Stalin several times when Stalin was demanding a western front. There was a western front! it was called France 1940. Where was Stalin then? Sending congratulory telegrams to Hitler upon the occupying Paris by the the same "celebrated army" that one year later was to be unleashed on them. A month before Germany attacked them, Stalin was busy exploring with Hitler on how to divide up the British empire. However, I think the real victim (and hero) was the average Russian peasant. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

I wonder if it is possible to build a macro that would do all this PBEM typing stuff light zipping, selecting folder, typing password, etc automatically? If so this would be a nifty enhancement for PBEM'ers.

Rather than add a "ignore unit" command I would rather be able to enter a target point. The target point would be selected much like an ambush point. You could use the target point as a proxy for a real target. If you target the target point then a tank would keep its tuurent pointed at the target point until a real target comes within a certain distance (or perhaps angle) of the target point. This would inhibit firing on low threat targets. The target point could also be used with the Hunt command to achieve hull down positions for area targets. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns

This sounds like a great idea to me! Perhaps also they could be traded in for victory points if not called in. ------------------ March To The Sound Of The Guns