ASL Veteran

LOL. Simply filibustering the bailout bill to cause it to fail isn't enough since the majority of Americans are currently opposed to the passage of a bailout bill for the automakers (something like 60% opposed). Nobody knows what will happen for certain if GM files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy but we do know for certain that there will be some job losses. We don't know how many, but the dems are already saying ridiculous numbers like three million. If you get enough slanted or one sided articles like this one http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4BB04B20081212 and if after Chapter 11 bankruptcy public opinion swings to a pro bailout position after seeing thousands of hours of NBC newscasts showing poor autoworkers who have been laid off while the government spends billions to bail out those fat cats on wallstreet or to pay for an unpopular war then it could hurt the Republicans at the polls. So the risk is that Chapter 11 causes enough job losses (doesn't have to be three million, but a couple hundred thousand would be enough) to give the dems and the UAW an opportunity to feed all sorts of stuff to the sympathetic press about fire and brimstone falling from the sky, dogs and cats living in sin, etc. Sure the dems and UAW are already blaming the republicans in the senate, but will it stick? Nobody knows for sure.

I would guess that since the UAW can give close to 100 million dollars to various democratic campaigns in the course of a year that they have a pretty significant war chest for keeping their members happy during a strike. Considering that GM is asking for money right now and guessing that the UAW has as much as several hundred million squirreled away in case they need to strike then they are probably confident that they could outlast the corporate leadership of the automakers if it came down to a contest of strength. The UAW could just refuse to work until the automakers cried uncle. This is just my speculation though.

This doesn't have anything to do with the banking 'crisis' or the 700 billion bailout. This is a completely separate issue. This deals with hedge funds and how they aren't regulated and things like "dark pools" that various wallstreet firms use. The fact that these things exist and are used for large transactions are the problem. If you make a trade on the open market (NYSE, AMEX, OTC, etc) then it's all above board and open. Large investment houses though set up 'pools' for their investors to trade in that are not connected to the open market. It's like an underground stock market in a sense and it's not regulated very much if at all. If this individual was running a Ponzi Scheme then he could have used the lack of regulation and oversight combined with his reputation to get people to invest in his scheme. It's an old trick. The unregulated hedge funds and dark pools just gave him cover because he never had to actually reveal what he was doing. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5345051.ece Here is some info about hedge fund regulation from back in March of 07 (It's not a new discussion) http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1679 Here is a little bit about 'Dark Pools' http://www.nysun.com/business/dark-pools-threaten-wall-street/64598/ This won't be the end of the hedge fund as some are predicting, but it may very well be the end of the unregulated hedge fund and the dark pool is probably toast too.

No way a Commie can make tea. As General Ripper (Dr Strangelove for the reference impaired )noted 'On no account will a commie drink water. Vodka. That's what they drink." or something to that effect. No doubt the reason for the poor tasting coffee or tea has to do with the commie conspiracy of introducing flouridation to everything we eat and drink. That all started sometime in 1948

The UAW doesn't feel it needs to agree to anything. All they have to do is keep the Big Three (mostly GM) going until Obama takes office and the new congress is sworn in and they can get whatever they want. Now it's a matter of whether the Republicans will blink first - they don't want to upset all those Michigan voters either now that this whole thing has become a political circus act (McConnell has a stake in it too). If the Republicans can somehow get GM to file for Chapter 11 without giving the democrats an opening to pin it on them then we might see Chapter 11. If the Republicans will be painted as 'letting GM fail' and for causing fire and brimstone falling from the sky, dogs and cats living in sin, etc etc, then the Republicans will blink and you may even see some money coming from the 700 billion that was passed for the financial markets. The dems know they only have to get GM through to February - after that it's all gravy. For those non Americans looking on with fascination, the UAW has enormous power and the issue with the UAW even goes beyond the wages they are earning. Here is an article about a new state of the art manufacturing plant that was built in Brazil (completed sometime in 2007 I think) http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070822/AUTO01/708220407/0/SPECIAL It's a magnificent facility by all accounts, but you will never see a super efficient plant like that here in the US because the UAW won't have any of it. Here is a video about the same plant. http://info.detnews.com/video/index.cfm?id=1189 The big three are also profitable in overseas markets ... well at least Ford is (which is probably why they are in the best shape) http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5726456.html You might ask yourself - "what's the difference between Ford overseas and Ford in the US?" The UAW (a weak dollar helps too ) I also feel the need to point out that there are a lot of non union workers working at the big three. Engineers, accountants, ad reps, etc. This is a popular site for those guys (an old high school friend of mine is a brake engineer at Ford) and can give you a little insight about what they think of the whole thing http://www.autoextremist.com/ from his Dec 10th tirade His opinion of the auto bailout package yeah, they aren't too happy about the bailout either.

You must not have read the fine print for the Employee "Free Choice" Act. Basically, every employee is given a card where they indicate whether they want to join a union or not. This is not a privately made choice - this card is marked in full view of everyone involved so the Union bosses (and management) know exactly who has decided to unionize or not. With a system like this in place it doesn't take much of an imagination to see various Union Organizers making house calls on those employees who decided not to select unionizing. In fact, there are documented cases where Card Check has been used where Union Organizers visit employee homes so often that the employee ends up joining the union just to get the organizers to leave them alone. If you are thinking "well management could intimidate just as much as unions could" then you may want to also wonder why Unions want this piece of legislation so much. It's all spelled out in the last two articles I linked to.

I just wanted to expand a bit on the previous post. Here is another article that touches on what might happen when this bailout takes place http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/the_washington_stock_market.html I just want to highlight this bit right here This article here from the Cato institute is a little over the top, but basically talks about what an elimination of competition would mean for the auto industry. In other words, if, in an extreme case, you had the big three all being run by congress and you could somehow make the competition a little less ... ummm ... competitive then you have the potential to do all kinds of ideologically driven stuff. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9834 Yeah, it's a little over the top but make no mistake about it; big labor and the democratic party are not 'free traders'. That camp believes in protectionism, tariffs, etc as a means of keeping domestic companies solvent (and pumping out 'green' vehicles). So how do you make your competition a little less competitive? Here is what I am personally looking at. First, you can raise tariffs on imported autos. The problem with that is many foreign automakers have plants in the US. An unfortunate addendum to that as far as the UAW is concerned is that these foreign auto makers employ non union workers. Auto workers who aren't members of the UAW. The frustrating part is that those auto workers don't seem to want to join the UAW either. What to do? Along with the auto company bailout coming in January this little baby is headed to a non unionized foreign owned auto plant near you: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/efca_brief.html That article is from the Center for American Progress. It all sounds pretty good doesn't it? Who would be against something called the Employee Free Choice Act? Look at all those positive things they list in the article. The only thing they don't explain is actually how this act would work, although they strenuosly say that it's democratic. Here are two articles that offer a counterpoint to the article from the Center for American Progress http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/bg2175.cfm Here is a PDF file that goes into even more detailed study of the issue http://www.unionfacts.com/downloads/report.cardCheck.pdf It's a fairly large document but it has some interesting stuff in there. Yes, I expect that once the Employee Free Choice Act finally passes (Obama is already on record as saying he will sign any legislation that has that in it) the UAW leadership will all pile into a Chevy truck and drive on down to South Carolina and pay a visit to the BMW plant.

Here is an article that the UAW sympathizers should love. This comes from the Center for American Progress which is as far left as they come: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/uaw_concessions.html I honestly think the debate about 'whether' there should be a auto company bailout or not is really pointless (and who is to blame). With the dems in charge of both houses of congress and Obama coming into office in a month there is no question that the auto companies will get bailed out. The UAW is a big dem contributor and there is no way the dems will let a bankruptcy judge determine the UAW's fate. The part I'm watching is what will happen when the bailout does take place. Even though the article from the Center for American Progress discusses the Unions and how they are blameless for the big three's problems, the operative bit in the article is this bit Emphasis added by me. A small and innocuous statement in that article perhaps? Let's look to these two articles to see how to interpret that code http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/11/commandeconomy_bailout_would_h.html This article also discusses the issue of what the dems would like to do with the 'Auto bailout' http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2164.cfm He then follows that up later with this bit For the record I'm all for the big three filing for chapter 11. It isn't going to happen because the UAW has too much political clout with the democrats in charge and the CEOs don't want to get canned as they doubtless would be if the big three file for Chapter 11. This article is a counterpoint to the arguments against filing for Chapter 11, not that it will matter one way or another. This isn't about what's sensible or logical. This is about politics influence, and constituencies. If the Republicans still controlled congress this debate wouldn't even be happening. The Big Three wouldn't have even bothered to fly to Washington to plead their case and GM would have filed for Chapter 11 by now. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2165.cfm

Incidentally they just added two more articles about the auto bailout on the Heritage Foundations website for the interested. This one also speaks directly to the issue raised by DieselTaylor and the 70 per hour wages: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2162.cfm One sample quote in the article because I think someone raised an accounting issue The second article speaks to the economic impact of the failure of the big three and the "millions of job losses" etc stuff being bandied about. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2160.cfm another sample quote from that article The article then goes on to discuss the various ways of calculating economic impact. Once again though, the Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank so you won't find too many 'pro' bailout articles on their website

Well the volume is important because if you are a hedge fund and you really like this stock, when you place your order for 200,000 shares you may take a hit because if you can't find a seller large enough to give you the stock in a block trade your average price will go up with each dinky buy. You will literally move the market with your one order. Low volume generally means big spread too because the market maker doesn't want to get stuck with a bunch of lousy stock, so if the spread is say 40 by 45 then if you can get your entire order filled at the ask (45) then you can't unload it for anything more than the bid (40) if you need to unload it in a hurry. So by default you are already losing five bucks a share on your buy. Multiply that by 200,000 and you are risking a million bucks out of the gate just by buying that stock. In some cases you can't even find enough buyers if you want to sell a large enough order and you get stuck with it (effectively making it worthless if you can't sell it). I'm sure someone like GE has their knife and fork out and are watching pretty closely. If the technology looks promising enough GE will eat them. You will know that rumors are out for something like that when the volume steadily spikes up because everyone will want to get in on the ground floor before the acquisition. Once GE starts looking at these guys with a hungry appetite then you will know that they are on to something. If GE (insert big turbine manufacturer here) doesn't care about it, then nobody else will either.

Looks like it's still pretty speculative to me. It's hard for me to get decent info on it because it doesn't trade on the NYSE, but from their own website's investor relations sections you can see that there isn't much volume on that sucker and the trend has been down. You can go into the press release section and compare the press releases to certain ... I guess call it 'higher volume' days (up to 300,000 shares). Most days though almost nobody is interested in this security. I'm sure that you are just excited about the technology, but the market is telling us that it doubts whether these guys can pull it off. If this was the next huge breakthrough in power generation the stock price would be skyrocketing and the volume would be tremendous. Apparently 23000 shares traded today in Europe and the market there is closed by now - compare that to a mature company like IBM that trades over 11 million shares in one day or GE that trades 107 million shares and you can see that 23000 shares is practically not trading at all. I've personally placed orders in the millions of shares (not for me personally of course )The spread on that baby is probably huge, but they don't have the spread listed on their website and I can't tell what currency they are using or what it means in dollar terms. If the spread is like a couple of bucks though I wouldn't be surprised. Buy at your own risk.

Diesel Taylor, in fact, in the first Heritage Foundation article I linked to the author directly discusses what you linked to and rebuts it. Basically the entire second half of that first article addresses what you just posted about. You may want to read that first article a little more closely. Here is one of the key parts in that first article about it There is plenty more about that though and I wouldn't want to make a giant post just to quote about what's in the article already.

My intent is not to get into a discussion about this issue, but I have to mention that in the first Heritage Foundation article the compensation is broken down into base wages, health benefits, and all other benefits http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/images/wm2135_table1.gif The base wages on that chart come to 29.15 per hour which is consistent with the base wage the unions are claiming in the article you linked to. Of the eight articles I linked to for general reading I don't think any of them exclusively 'blamed' UAW wages, but they do consider it a major factor (well, except for the two by Brookings Institute - but they lean left so I would expect that - the two Brookings Institute articles counterpoint the other six I linked to). Anyway, I just wanted to post here for clarification purposes only.

Having finally fired up a PBEM game for that city fight on the demo vs my friend I've also discovered that ... hey, the game works without the CD in the drive when playing the regular game! That was kind of wierd. The PBEM file swap has been improved too - now it just takes two file exchanges to get through a turn rather than the three it used to take! Very big improvement and a huge time saver. I'm taking the Syrians in the town fight from the demo and my friend is cautiously advancing down the road alongside the market .... right towards my IED . I've got some artillery lined up to come down on him pretty soon and I've got several AT missiles in position for after the IED blows up. Steady boys. Maybe I can avenge our terrible loss in Metal Grind where I literally had one man left firing a pistol (and the scenario still didn't end ). Unfortunately for me my friend set up the game with the basic difficulty so the borg spotting is still enabled - huge disadvantage for me.

Asked and answered ... lol. Back in 2002 an almost identical issue was discussed for CMBO http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=259 there might be some interesting info in this old thread about mines for those who are curious.

German soldiers living on Beer and Sausages!!?? I find that incredibly hard to believe!!

I just wanted to pass through here and provide some extra reading material for those who are interested. Three articles from the Heritage foundation (leans right): http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2135.cfm http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2137.cfm http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/WM2133.cfm Three articles from the Cato Institute (leans right): http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9804 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9787 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9783 and two articles from the Brookings Institute (leans left) http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/1127_detroit_selloff_crandall_winston.aspx http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/1202_automakers_burtless.aspx

The worst part of it is that the App Data file is apparently a hidden file, and all files in it are also hidden (thus making it so I couldn't find it during my file search). I was wondering about that because when I wanted to attach the PBEM file to my e-mail I tried to go down the path to get to the file and the App Data file wouldn't come up - yet I was looking right at it in the search box!! I did create the desktop short cut, but then I also went into the properties for the App Data file and took off the hidden file status and .....ding ding ding ding ding - there it was. Wow, I mean, have this file that is active and that a lot of files default into, then make it a hidden file so nobody can find anything after it goes in there. Brilliant!

Yes, this is where the file was, although it was extremely difficult to find. A regular search ended up with no hits at all (for all locations). I had to do an 'Advanced' search and check the box to search for non indexed, hidden, and system files before the file was located. I then had to figure out where it was because when it located the file it just had the individual file pop up in the search box, but not where the file was located. I eventually figured out how to get the thing to tell me where it was. I found several other files that I had 'lost' previously too. I've actually lost entire games on Vista. I still can't find Civ 4 BTS . I haven't had any real problems with Vista since I got this rig, but wow, they sure made explorer difficult to navigate (hard to believe I'm sure for those who aren't on Vista). It seems like games exist in several locations at once. Accessing this file location for every PBEM turn is gonna be a total pain in the ..... beeeep.

I'm afraid that you are mistaken in your comparison. I can assure you that the individual terrain tile in CMx1 is 20 meters square not 10 meters square (I'm 100% positive of this). So it's a comparison of 8 meters square in CMx2 vs 20 meters square in CMx1. I am less sure of the elevation, but I seem to recall that it was 2.5 meters in CMx1 not 1.25 meters. A quick check in the scenario editor would clear that up though. I was just passing through and have no intention of getting entangled in a Jason C thread. Nothing to see here, everyone just move along.

Hmmmm, well I just looked in my outgoing mail folder and it's empty. The original file he sent me is still in the incoming mail folder and when I go into 'saved games' I can load it. I do get to the part where it asks me for my password, then I put one in and it goes back to the main menu screen. I then go into Program Files and my outgoing mail folder is empty. I do a search for the file and I just find the original file he sent me and not my saved file. The wierd part is that every time I try to save the file after putting in my password it continues to count up - in other words he sent me file XXX vs YYY 01 and I save it as XXX vs YYY 02, then nothing is in the outgoing mail folder and I repeat the process and it defaults to XXX vs YYY 03 etc. Yet no file is present. I'm using Vista with the Nvidia 8 series card (so CMx1 doesn't work anymore) - maybe Vista is doing something funky with the file and storing it somewhere that I can't find.

I am pretty certain that at one of the bridge crossings fought over in Normandy by the US paratroopers there was a castle nearby - and that the Germans attacked out of it at some point. I wasn't really thinking in terms of fighting inside the castle, but rather that a castle building could be placed on the map rather than the placement of some generic large building if the building that was there was actually a castle. Chateau building types would be interesting too though - didn't even think of that!

Okay, after getting Shock Force and the Marines Module over the weekend and messing around with it a bit (along with the demo) I just wanted to make a few observations. I talked a friend of mine (off and on CMx1 player) into downloading the demo. He downloaded it and played the scenarios a few times. I then offered to take him on in one of the demo scenarios “Metal Grind” as the Syrians. I was unsure if multiplayer is fully supported in the demo and he tried to send me a PBEM file but I couldn’t make it work. Either PBEM isn’t supported in the demo or I’m just incompetent because I managed to access the saved file he sent me and it asked for a password, but it never went into the scenario from there. I then offered to take him on in Real Time and he agreed. So after setting up, about two seconds after hitting the ‘Go’ button my Anti Tank missile launched and toasted up a Stryker. My boys then fired off another missile a few seconds later and toasted up another Stryker. Unfortunately that was my AT team’s last official act and the scenario went badly downhill after that. I attempted valiantly to keep my T-72s relevant through fancy maneuvering, but things were just happening way too fast. When my reinforcements arrived I basically had to stop messing with my original tanks in order to position my reinforcements. Even though I was constantly clicking and giving orders non stop, there was just no way to have any sort of an action plan and I was feeling a little overwhelmed. The thing was that the Syrian forces really need to be babied in order to survive because it only takes about a two second lapse in judgement and your whole force has been smoked like a cheap cigar. It’s really difficult to get more than one vehicle into firing position at the same time without getting the first one smoked before the rest get into position, although I tried pausing the first tank etc. My friend didn’t really have too much trouble as he just had to hunt with his M1s and just let the M1s do their thing. Eventually my guys basically just sat around as his tanks ran up to them and smoked them one by one. After the battle we were joking about the game and my friend admitted that he had a little jolt at the beginning because my missile hit him so fast. He said “yeah, I just turned my head for a second because my kid asked me something and I had two smoking piles of wreckage.” Anyway, I think that scenario was probably a bit too big for me in Real Time. It was fun and interesting playing as real time, but I was having trouble just keeping the one original tank platoon alive and fighting, let alone all that other stuff that was entering as reinforcements. One thing I probably should have done in retrospect was to plot more movements from the setup phase than I did and that probably would have helped. It did leave me a little curious as to why the We Go TCP / IP option isn’t available in Shock Force like in the original CMx1. I can understand that it could be tedius if you were playing a large scenario We Go TCP / IP as there would be long delays, but a scenario like Metal Grind is probably just a little too big for me to handle in Real Time, but small enough that We Go turns would go pretty quickly. I experienced a few pathing issues with the second scenario from the CD. I don’t remember the name of the scenario (began with an A) but there were several buildings with high walls in front of them that were located just on the other side of a highway embankment (very nice looking and playing scenario – well done). Apparently, even though there were gaps in the high walls in front of the buildings my troops (blue) didn’t seem to be able to negotiate those gaps and would end up running down the street instead of running through the gaps. I used a demo charge on one of the walls and they passed through the hole blasted in the wall, but it didn’t seem like a charge should have been necessary there. I also played …I think it’s called “Allah’s Fist”. I had one M1 that was positioned opposite where a horde of T-72s came on, range of about 2000 meters or so. My M1 was duking it out for a while with shots detonating and bouncing off all over the place. Eventually though they knocked him out (My M1 must have taken over ten hits in the front minimum) and I was just curious if the make up of modern armor is such that repeated hits will weaken the armor? Nothing was penetrating at first, then two hits went through in quick succession – one immobilizing my tank and the other smoking it. My friend seems to really like the game so I think he’ll get it eventually. The one thing he mentions the most is the battle sounds. With each soldier individually rendered the sound of battle is a lot more energetic and full than it was in CMx1 and he really seems to like that. He even said the game reminded him of “Close Combat”. Heretic I say! My friend also had a little difficulty adapting to the new spotting during our real time game because he kept saying “my guys are blowing stuff up and I have no idea what they are fighting”. I told him it was the relative spotting, but it’s probably not practical to not be clicked on an individual unit when playing real time. One thing that I personally find a little annoying is when playing We Go it always comes up after each minute where it automatically starts to replay the turn again. I don’t always want to replay the turn and when I do it’s usually from a different perspective than the one I’m at when the turn ends so not only do I not like that pop up coming up and forcing me into a replay, but it sticks the screen in place so I can’t maneuver into a new spot before the replay starts if I do want to watch a replay. Is there a way to turn that ‘feature’ off? I figured out that I can just hit the red ‘done’ button when the replay starts, but I would rather the default be no replay than to have a default replay.

I have to say that after making something like 60 scenarios in CMBO and CMBB that nobody ever heard of, that new map and terrain editor totally blew me away!!! The choice to go with 8 meter squares seemed kind of odd, but as long as the number is easily divisible into 40 meters then I can make it work . The elevation editor took a little getting used to, but after about 20 minutes I got the hang of it for the most part. It's much much better. I can remember hours upon hours of placing individual elevations on my maps trying to smooth things and make small undulations, but with the map basically auto calculating the elevations after the designer puts in the contour lines it's a pretty big time saver. The things you can do with buildings now is absolutely spectacular! The variety is almost endless with the different doors, windows, and exterior choices and combinations. I also found it interesting that the buildings don't necessarily need to be restricted in placement by conforming exactly to 8 meter squares. It really makes it possible to put the buildings close to the road if you want to. All the new doodads are really cool too. I mean, traffic lights and park benches! I was just using the map editor in the demo though as I'm waiting for the game to come in the mail. Even so, I can tell that the map tools for scenario designer are at least .... 8 jillion times better than anything that could be produced in CMx1. There also seems to be a lot of flexibility with the scenarios too in regards to the victory conditions. The ability of the designer to assist the AI with some guidance for how to fight is pretty tremendous too. There were cases in CMx1 where a scenario was virtually unplayable vs the AI as a certain force because of it's limitations. Now, since the scenario designer can code in some behaviors for the AI ....!!!! I'm very impressed. I can't wait for the Normandy title to come out so I can really dig into that editor full force. I don't know very much about modern stuff - I may tinker around in it, but I can't see myself making something for public consumption with Shock Force. With the existence of the repository though - ya never know. It would be nice if there could be a 'castle' building set added for Normandy. Just something basic like a curtain wall and some generic towers. Maybe a gatehouse building too. Nothing fancy - but would definitely add spice to some maps. I'm also curious if, when you knock out walls on the buildings, you could do something like knock out the bottom two floors on opposite sides of a three story building and after adding two similar buildings on opposite sides make a little thing whereby vehicles could pass under a little 'building bridge' into a courtyard or something if you follow what I mean. Anyway, kudos on the new scenario editor. It's 8 jillion times better than anything we had to work with in CMx1

(excited dreamer mode on) It would be so much more efficient if it were possible to have the titles interact with each other though (drooling) . Think of the possibilities! Also, if you were able to really just think of the titles in terms of a 'terrain set' ..... then the possibilities are virtually endless and you wouldn't even have to make very many 'titles'. I mean really, take Shock Force for example. You already have a 'modern' desert terrain set with Shock Force. If you wanted to do the Arab / Israeli '73 war you would just have to make an Israeli '73 TO&E module and then an Egyptian '73 TO&E module. You could add some '73 Syrian stuff in both the Israeli module and the Egyptian module. These modules would then just be part of the 'modern desert terrain' set and you could simply add these '73 war modules as options for your Shock Force family. Switching to Western Europe .... just think if you could take the two Western Front terrain sets (Normandy and Over the Rhine - my own names for them ) and use them to interact with an early French forces module. The French forces would simply be added to the 'Over the Rhine' family for that title because they could use that terrain set. There would have to be new coding for the French forces because of the one man turrets and radioless AFVs naturally, but those bits of coding could be included in the module maybe (so you wouldn't get that coding if you didn't need it)? So really the number of total titles would be limited to the number of different geographic areas and time frames that needed new map and terrain elements and then the modules would be tied to those titles based upon what terrain was appropriate for those modules. You could then have the player / scenario designer just select which title / executable to go into in order to make their scenario map (as the different map elements would be specific to each title, but the TO&Es would not). Any 'force specific' coding for .... like one man turrets or Japanese fanaticism for example, would be specific to the module that had them in it, otherwise if you didn't have that module you wouldn't need that coding. The evil part of it would be that if a player really liked the series of games, they would still have every other title and module at their disposal to get if they choose. Any new player would have an incentive to pick up every title and module out there so every new customer could pick up one title, then if they liked it and you kept all the other titles and modules current, they would want to buy the whole series. Instead of a new customer buying a 45 dollar game and then discarding it when it's old, you would have that new customer buying the 45 dollar game and that person would then have an incentive to purchase ALL the other titles and modules that you have made up until now - so if you have three titles and six modules made ..... . There is also enough material out there that you could easily keep making new titles and modules without ever really revisiting the material that you have already done before. This might even serve to boost modules and titles that don't sell as well as the others since players with the more popular titles would have a motivation to experiment with other modules if they liked the system. For the Bagration title, for example, the German TO&E would more or less be already done - if you could just port that TO&E over from the previous western front titles ......... !! (excited dreamer mode off) Okay, I'll need to wipe all the drool off the floor now . I don't know what's technically possible or not, but it seems to me that if what I outlined is something like what they had in mind .... !!!!!! Hey, a guy can dream can't he