Steve Clark

That, too, is an urban legend and as soon as the snopes.com site gets back up, I'll post the link. OK, here it is... http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/pugwash.htm [This message has been edited by Steve Clark (edited 08-30-2000).]

Let me add another dumb question. What exactly is the difference between 'Free to place units' and 'Stick to scenario default'? I read what the manual said but the difference seems to be subtle. How would the AI know how to place troops differently? I did a search on 'free to place' and 'setup' but didn't find any good answers.

That's a same question that I have. Once I get through the tutorials this week and play for real over the Labor Day weekend, I'm wondering what to start with. 101st said that QB allows more control over the battle setup, why is that a good thing? Wouldn't playing a scenario with its relative historical accuracy be more realistic? Regarding the scenarios on the CD, which do you recommend I start with? The small maps first? Or what if I want to play Overlord chronologically, how can I do that? Regarding Campaigns, they seem to be just several battle scenarios linked together. Overall, what would QBs give a rookie that scenarios don't?

One of the things I was trying out last week was all of the camera angles, hence Superman. A question occurred to me about POV. I did a SEARCH and found many discussion around first-person perspectives, god syndrome, and the following: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/007557.html My question is that you can play the game from looking over the enemy's shoulder, esp. in looking at movements and for targeting. Is this considered gamey and therefore, you don't use these views? Seems to me even with full FOW, it would be cheating(?) fight a battle from the enemy's perspective.

Boy, this is what I get for rarely being on-line on the weekends - 14,000,000 new posts! I'm shocked, but not surprised, that this debate kept going (probably a welcome diversion from WW2-era debates). Not to add anything to further this debate and since everyone is winding down, let me add my final say. Much earlier when I talked about the United States of America, I was not using this term as the antithese of the Confederate States of America. Officialy, the Lincoln administration never recognized the CSA government and I believe, wanted to preserve the whole USA more than anything else. He (and I) felt that Georgia was just as important to the nation as Maine. We (with me being a Union sympathizer) felt sadden by the breakup of the USA, including 4 of the original 13 colonies and would do anything, including going to war, to make the USA whole again. And I am glad to this day that we have 50 states in our Union. To my Southern friend Mr. Meeks - well said.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Before the North moved forces to stop the South's secession, there were more slave states IN the union then out.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> All of the states were in the Union before South's secession. Not a good point. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>seperate nations with the right to secede from the Union<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Once slavery is gone, the South is in the right in every other issue.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> First you say that this was not a true civil war and then you talk about the South as being a single entity. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The side that won that war is the side that created our current consumer state, with its massive corporations and its disregard for the individual<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> What a pile of rubbish (IMHO of course). You truly believe that if for some godforsaken reason the Confederacy remained today that there would not being any corporations in the Southern states and that it would all be a land of yeoman farmers?!?! The 'side' that won the ACW was the United States of America. The so-called separate Union states did not win the war no more than the so-called separate Southern states lost the war. The country as a whole won and because of what happened in the 20th century, that was a very good thing too.

Formerly...and the Confederate army did not fight some campaigns as if they were a war of aggression? Even though their primary directive was not to conquer, they still used similar blitzreig(sp) strategies to go after and destroy the Army of the Potomac.

OK, here it goes. The points made above are good, but simplistic. There is one distinct difference though - one fought as a civil war while the other fought a nation vs nation (or more accurately, a fantasy race against supposedly inferior races). That's not where the arguments lie, though. I contend that the Southern Confederacy should not ever rise again, no more than Nazism nationalism should. I have studied Southern Culture in grad school at UNC and know its history and culture. However, to say that there could be a Southern Confederacy nowdays is not correct, IMHO. And to say that one would want to fight to preserve or promote 'Southern ideals' is no different than supporting neo-Nazis wanting to preserve and promote their ideals within the German nation. The Allies fought against the Axis for alot of reasons, one being to fight against a very real and dangerous threat to their way of living. The Union fought against the Confederacy also for alot of reasons, one being not because the Union was threatened but that the United States of America was threatened. And that was worthy. Anyone that is interested in military history can study the Nazi German army as well as the Confederate army without believing in their ideals. But both fell for very good reasons and should stay fallen.

Well, that would just be a good argument for making CM real-time, eh? That way you can compress hours of battle time into a short time frame. NO, NO, I'M JOKING. I hate RTS games, I don't play 'em and I won't.

Academicians, sheesh. It's a classic case of making an erroneous connection (there's a word for that that I can't remember). It almost sounds racist to me. Like all French must be snooty because they speak as if they got their fingers up their noses. Or that all Orientals must not like to smell because they speak like they are holding it. No, such generalizations are wrong and to so that Germans are dour because of they way they pronounce certain vowels? Hogwash.

Actually, to clarify, there is some stigma in the computer game industry to a multiple patched game. Now, we all know that these updates are NOT so much bug fixes, but continued enhancements and improvements (and great ones they are). But tell that to some on-line journalist who won't read the readme.txt file and makes a flippant comment that 1) the game was released too early, thus 5 patches in 2 months and 2) it must have some problems out of the box, thus all of these patches. We all know these are wrong but you can't stop misconceptions of the misinformed.

paltry WW2?!? I bet that'll get a response around here. While we are all calling each other names...nah, I'll skip it for some other time. Since I've been here, there have been some good ACW debates (and probably many more before then). So if you want to start a thread comparing the rise and fall of Nazism to the Confederacy...

I love the committment and quality from BTS but don't you think 1.04 and 1.05 could've have been planned better? I mean, I doubt if there were enough time to adequately test these two versions prior to release. It seems that alot of folks were happy about 1.03 and would not have minded if 1.04 were 6-8 weeks out. That way, it would take care what we see in 1.05 and will see in 1.06 and 1.07.

Ah, the Capt. posted a link to one of my very favorite web sites.

Elijah, sorry, I did see the wink but I thought you were going to start a 'South Shall Rise Again' debate. I'm not well versed on WW2 histories but I am on the ACW. So if you want to start a debate, I'll put more than my .02 cents in...

Elijah...and what will you be fighting for, my friend? [This message has been edited by Steve Clark (edited 08-25-2000).]

Well, after a couple of months working on some other projects, I finally got around to start looking at the details of CM. My approach to playing major games such as this is different than others. When I get into a historical-based strategy game, I spend quite a bit of time reading about the history, watching movies and basically engrossing myself into its history. And when I start in on a new game, I carefully read the manual, listen to the discussions here and then study the tutorials inside and out. I admit it is an anal-retentive way of approaching a game, but that's just the way I am. Anyway, what I have been doing the past two nights is going through all of the hotkeys, and loading up several scenarios and QBs; all for the purpose of seeing what will work on my system and what won't. I have a 233 MMX, 96mb RAM with a 16mb voodoo3 running at 1024x768 and I am astonished to say that I can pretty much play with most of the details cranked to the max (except for the horizon). It becomes a little jerky with a huge map but I know I'll be focusing on a small portion of it and not flying around the battlefield like Superman. Smoke, fog, rain, snow, fire - no problems and look really good. I like using the +/- keypadss to go between the 3D views and the top-down 2D views. I played around with QBs mixing the various terrains and weather and I really like the variety (I sort of had the misconception that most everything takes place in rural, rolling hills). I also sort of was expecting to see some beaches but since I had not heard of nay being discussed, I figured it wasn't in the game. Next step is to play the tutorial/training missions and really learn how the game mechanics work. It is a slow way of getting into the game I admit, but it will produce a long lasting effect for me since WW2 had not been my favorite military history subject. I know this has been said over and over, but as a 20 yr veteran of software design and development (and playing computer games), I can honestly say that this is one of the finest computer games ever developed.

You guys should've been here in June when CM was first shipping and see all of the 100s of posts of people waiting VERY impatiently for the game. We even had one guy that threatened BTS, called them names because he cancelled his vacation to wait for CM. A number of us told him to get his priorities in life straight. Those were the days... But then again, I heard that was nothing like the gnashing of false teeths from the time of the demo last year to the actual release.

I was doing a search (no, really!) and found this extremely fascinating thread from last fall. I think it would provide a good perspective for those that are just now playing CM. http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/001137.html [This message has been edited by Steve Clark (edited 08-23-2000).]

In my general readings about WW2, I was reminded of the use of mounted horsemen in some WW2 battles. During Hitler's invasion of Poland, some cavalry units attacked the mechanized divisions and were annihilated. But in the Russian Front, massive Russian cavalry units were able to overwhelm the attackers. I'm wondering with the Poles, what in the world were they thinking?!? I don't understand how you would even contemplate going up against mechanized units with riflemen on horseback? What was it that made the Russians more successful at this? What is the weather, terrain, or sheer numbers? What were the tactics?

[i rather enjoyed reading about people's interest in CM2 and particularly the Russian Front. Before anyone gets defensive about this thread, let me say that I will buy at least 3 copies of CM2, 2 as gifts.] Let me play Devil's Advocate here about CM2. Apart from technical enhancements as BTS described, won't some gamers say 'been there, done that'? Because of the scale of the game and the small map area, you're not going to feel like you're invading Russia (as you would in a strategic/operational level wargame). It will still primarily be tanks/troops vs tanks/troops just like in CM1. Just because you got T-34s and other different unit models, they still fire ammos, and the tactics will still be nearly the same, right? CM1 could've been placed in the Outbacks of Australia and still be wargame of the year because of its revolutionary model. It has to be more than Russians vs Germans (for the most part) because at the scale of CM, it is still you and against them regardless of the name. BTS said that the units will be more balanced, but again, at the CM scale, anything can happen - weak can take out strong. CM2 will be a best seller no doubt but will it create the same buzz as CM1 or will it be the same MG/AT/AA/HE/etc. effectiveness debates over and over again but with different names?

Personally, I respect great software designs and products and just for that reason alone, I have been spreading the word about CM. As we have seen here, there are a number of reasons why people play a game like CM. Some are more interested in... the historical timeperiod, or the accurate modeling of the units, or the roleplaying aspect, or the nationalities, or the geography, or the WEGO system (because it's not RTS), or the fact that you got people shooting at each other, or a combination of all of the above. What I was more interested in finding out is why some of my fellow wargamers do NOT play CM. The main reason is not because CM is not a great product (they know it is) but they are not that much interested in WW2-style combat. Any one who is at least marginally interested in 20th century warfare will play CM (and CM2 and CM3 and ...), regardless of the theatre. But interest will vary in CM2 (that does NOT mean it won't sell more), it means for some, interest will be higher and others lower as compared to CM1.

OK, I did a search, I looked in the dictionary and even went to ask.com but I still don't know the term 'Amis'. From association, I conclude that it is short for Americans? Where did this term come about. Sorry to have interrupted this discussion. A good point was brought up about choosing sides. I believe for some players, that is a very big thing. I will find it very hard in CM1 to put myself in the role of a Nazi German soldier and in CM2, for either sides.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Elijah Meeks: I understand that SL won't have SS or swastikas and the squads will be multi-racial.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You're joking, right? In your link, that last phrase "..at least the demo" could be interpreted as the demo being better than the shipped product?

Another thought. All things being equal, wouldn't geography (terrain) has something to do with it or is the scale of CM such that you don't get a feel for the land? What I mean is that with CM1, you have rolling hills, forests, farmlands, rivers and such. Do those add to the gameplay experience? With the Eastern Front, I believe you would have more open terrain representing the Euroasian Steppes. With CM3, you would have a very arid (flat and rugged) terrain for N. Africa and just plain rugged for Italy. Apart from the tactics, which would be superbly modeled in all CM games, would everyone here play a tank battle in the desert just as you would play the Bulge or Kursk? [in my initial post, I didn't add the comment that regardless of the theatre, CM will be immensely playable. I thought that was a given.]