Bertram

As to the flag at the rear in Kommerscheidt, I did dig in some men there. I dug them in to close to the flag though, so my opponent just sneaked up to them, and the flag got 'contested' without a shot being fired. I didn't notice his men until after the scenario ended. The sneaky bastard. Bertram

For Real Guts I was Redekers opponent (I think). I did place the PB's with limited view. Big mistake. I was under the (wrong) impression that the Allies stil had to cross the river (for WBW, maybe you could state in the briefing that they had infiltrated across the river? Same goes with the Real Estate scenario. I think the Germans should know that the Allies had infoiltrated the village). The infantry on my side was a rude suprise. With that and the very agressive playing of Redeker I was finished (like in slaughtered) efore my reinforcements arrived. As a result he could slaughter them piecemeal (sp?). As for the Night game: Wade, the situation on your right flank was not as desparate as it seemd, the SP's were out of ammo/immobilized without a los. The infantry was not in a shape to take that house anymore. In fact the arty halfway took out most of that flank halfway the attack. Your defense on your left flank was doomed. I was a bit pissed at the CM angine in that one, I had that tank of yours surrounded, planety of 'fausts'left, and a Stug coming up, and then the game stopped, 4 turns short of the regular game time, leaving the flag contested. And just the previous tunr I had been debating if I needed to run or could advance carefull. I choose to advance carefull, since I could not get m troops to the other flank anyway. My comments on the engine stoiping the game are not fit for this board (not even for the Peng thread.) As I asked elsewhere: the 'No time' and the Dompaire scenario's promised air support (maybe). I recieved it in neither game. It was not that bad in Dompaire (lost that one, but I could have done much better I think), but in No time it really hurt. In fact once the German armor arrived I could as wel pack it in, there was no way my green and regular Shermans could advance against the German armor (as far as I could see). Anyone else got no air and made any progress anyway? Bertram

Hi all, It has been some time since I visited the board. Treeburst, thanks for the breakdown of the score's, quite a job, and very enlighting to see where I lack . It hurts, for while I might like beer, I love wine. Not to mention the dent in my ego. Got one question of my fellow RoWers: I thought the scenario "we can't wait" an excercise in futility for the Allied side (and my score reflects this perfectly). But then the planes that might come along never did materialize, so I was seriously outgunned (my opponent humbled my tanks crews by driving a TD right into the view of 2 Shermans and a M10, and killing all three of them, while the shells bounced of his armor). Did the other Allies get those planes? And if they did not, did they make any headway? Never got any planes in Dompaire to, do I do something wrong? Should I have promised some of the wine to the airforce? Nb.: I realized reading the post in the scenario that I should have posted there. Going to take time to read that entire thread. Bertram [ March 24, 2002, 03:28 AM: Message edited by: Bertram ]

Capt, Just send you a turn (and before I read this post ). I had to wait a bit for the Jabo's to show up . Seriously somehow I just recieved your turn this morning, (23th) while the timestamp on the mail on your side is the 16th. I did check my mail at least once each day. Computers <shrugs> Bertram

Treeburst, If you still need a replacement for the Nordic Wannabee.... I'll be gone from feb 2nd though, so turn rate has to be high. Bertram

Ah Treeburst, I at least have still to prove that reliable. I have yet to finish my AAR's *and* translate them in passable english... But there is hope, it isn't the 31th yet. Bertram Ps. Scot Johnson and me finished our battle. I haven't seen the score yet but I think he has won. (according to my FOW scores we were equal, but he should have a flag more in the end reconing). We were both a bit carefull the second half of the game, much to the relief of our troops no doubt.

This has been discussed before (but then what hasn't ). I remember because I was the one that started that one. It seems that is was, and is, standard operating practice for armored verhicles to use only the MG on infantry in the open (some RL tank commanders jumped in at this point and confirmed). This because: it is easier to hit infantry with an MG ('spraying' them, with an HE shell it has to hit the ground right next to them, or will usually pas without harming them); one has more MG ammo then HE; you might need the HE later on, on reinforced positions. So basically the choice in CM is correct. There are two issue's though. One is that all armor uses this rules. For small calibre (20 or 37 mm), fast firing guns this might be incorrect. Second is that the MG is, especially in this role, under modelled. This is dicussed elswhere, sufficent to say that AFV's, with usually plenty of bullets, which they don't have to take along on muscle power, and with a real loathing of infantry running past them to their blind spots, tend to use MG's in long(er) bursts. And exactly this use is undermodelled in CM. Consequence is that infantry in the open can very much ignore tanks, especially when you have several squads. You just walk them past the tanks. The tanks will target one squad, suppress it, and target a next one. Squad one will hit the dirt, and resume walking when the tank targets the next squad. Hopefully this will be fixed in CM2, when MG's will have a second fire mode for this kind of situation. Bertram

Twice now in a scenario (ROW, so they will stay unnamed for now) I have got the message 'Reinforcements have arrived' during the play back turn. Both times I did not get any reinforcements (and boy, did I look for them!). Both times I noticed that turn, or shortly thereafter that my opponents had got reinforcements (once I saw the next playbeack some tanks driving up to the front, the other time some trucks popped up during the same playback, on the edge of the map). It seems tome this is not on purpose, especially as it doesnot happen always as my opponent gets reinforcements. Could this, perhaps, be a real BUG?? Bertram

Didn't for me . I replaced the CMMOS 2.1 version with his one, but he has taken exception with the way the CMBO directory is registered. That means he won't run on my comp. Bertram [ 12-28-2001: Message edited by: Bertram ]</p>

Pixel has got my last turn, with a short history of the battle thus far. Awaiting the onslaught. Bertram

Treeburst, I just finished another game at the ROW. 4 down, 3 to go, and coming fast (except the Ted thing). If you need volunteers for the Nordic tournament, I am game. I have plenty of time these two weeks, after that I am limited to 4 or 5 turns a week. Bertram

Actually you can dislodge enemy tanks. This happened to me one time: Night scenario, an enemy M8 scout car is heard on a road, coming for my forces. I set up a road block consisting of a Stug and a Halftrack, further down the road stands a second Stug, miscacellous infantry along the side of the road. M8 comes barreling down the road. The Stug misses its shot, and M8 somehow manages to drive between the Stug and the Halftrack. Shoots the Stug in the back, defilades the Halftrack ,and races on, killing infantry left and right. M8 sees the second Stug to late, and runs straight into it. In closeup the barrel of the Stug sticks straigt through the M8. M8 bounces back, as does the Stug. M8 races forward again, and hits Stug again, both bounce back. The Stug is pushed into the rough on the side of the road, and is immobilized. The M8 runs around it and disappears into the night, non the worse for it's adventures. My opponent was rolling over the floor laughing, I was a bit pissed of.... Bertram

Status update: finished my game with JPS (or rather he finished me, I really hope the others that played that side in that scenario won to, or I am going to need some therapy). The game with Jon reached a stalemate, with each owning one flag, and is into the last turn. Greg has me down to my last tank, and send in his M8 scout car to get it dizzy (running circles around my Tiger, that turret will never catch up. I guess he is going to shoot the TC when he opens up to barf ove the side). Although the game is only in turn 17 of 25, he will have me finished soon. Regarding slow opponents and reporting: the game was actually running fast for the first half, then Ted excused himself, saying he would be busy for a month or something. That would have been no problem, as it was my furthest advanced game. Only now it has been two months and margins are getting narro. Even so, if we pick up now, we could finish it in maybe a week or two. Bertram

Seems I have had the last contact with Ted, december 12th. One before that was a few weeks earlier. And that was the one game I was winning (wel, not loosing, kind of, hoping). Most games I am participating in are coming along nicely, with exception of 'We can't wait' (irony) which has just started. The game that has the longest way to finish is 'Crisis at...' , and that one is at turn 21 out of 30. I have two weeks plenty of time now, will respond within a day to turns. I started 6 games directly at the start of the tournament. Not to smart, in hindsight, it would be nicer starting half, and finishing faster. The battles tend to blurr a bit together occasionally. Bertram

Thanks for the quick replies. I am off to do some experimenting. Bertram

Hello, I recently had to upgrade my system, and am now having some problems in CM. It does play, but performance went down (while I would have expected better performance). I had a P2/400 CPU, with a Voodoo3, 16 mb video card. Intenal memory 128mb, running under Windows98. Performance was good enough, only in the largest games with all weather and smoke effects on there was some lag. First switch was to a NVidia MX card. 32 MB memory. I got the latest drivers(22.40 currently?). First problem is that the night got real dark (that is my whole screen gets black), and only clears up if I turn of the wheather effects totally. Second is that now even the medium scenario's run jerky. Setting up a 2000 point battle is a chore, as the point of view doesn't scroll, but jump around. Second upgrade was a new motherboard and cpu (had to, the old one broke). I run now a Celeron 900. Added some memory as well, and got now 256 MB. Ran the latest 4-in-1 drivers. This change didn't help any, it might have made things even slower (but that is difficult to judge). I do run the game in 1000*800 resolution, and have some high res mods placed, but with my previous card that wasn't really a problem. Any idea's would be appreciated. Bertram

You are going to tell those others they are not special? Bertram

Regarding the scoring system: I liked the first option best, for various reasons. First it is simpler, something I am in favor of . Second, I have the feeling that the system that gives more points for scores diverging more from the average, though rewarding brilliant play, also puts more emphasis on one time results and unbalanced games. Though I have not made any real statistical analyses, this is based on the following: Suppose a game is balanced, and the opponents are also (and nothing freaky occures in the battle). Scores will vary closely around 50-50. So most people will get one point plus or minus. Enter various variants. One opponent really goofes (gooves?) it (he had a row with his girlfriend, or just a string of bad luck). The score is 30-70. They get plus or minus 4 points for this one, and the other players need a 'strange result'to, to be ever able to catch up. Enter one real bad player. All win against him. As a result the score against him will be on the edge of the bell curve for that scenario. This means that your score against him wil be 4 points, and playing against him will be important for winning the tournament. And finally some scenario's lend themself more to varieing scores then others. Winning a scenario where the score is (on both sides) between 0-100 (lets say a tank shootout, with a limited number of tanks, where you can get lucky, or have a string of bad luck) will be much more important then winning a hard fought battle where everyone scores between 45-55, even if you manage a brilliant 40-60 win. If I remember correct this is also the reason why bridge uses the order of points to give scores, and don't use the actual points scored in the carious games. Bertram [ 09-27-2001: Message edited by: Bertram ]

Now this is a difficult question to answer. I usually look in the morning and in the afternoon for new turn (and reply), and once again later in the evening (or I keep the mail running, and react to the incoming post). I usually have 4 to 6 games going at once, but not all require a turn a day, and some turns require a lot of time, and some require just the hitting of the 'GO' button. So in all I play maybe an hour, an hour and a half each day. One way to learn FAST is to visit the chat at Tournament House, and get a TCP/IP game going. Takes an evening (3-4 hours for a medium sized game). The fact that I seldom have time for this is another indicator of the amount of time I spend on CM. I visit this board occasionally, but after some time you have read the most issues before... Bertram

After a game where I was severely beaten because of the clever use of some AT mines, I decided to use them more often myself. As I had three tanks (Shermans I believe) and they ran in separate minefields, and got all immobilized at once, I was rather impressed with the effectiveness of the AT mines. In a recent game my opponent would feature a tank heavy group, so I decided to have some fun. You can imagine my anticipation when he planned a move with a colonne of two HT's, an Tiger, a Panther and a SP gun right through one of my AT minefields. Especially as right behind the minefield I had an AT ambush for the units that happen to avoid the mines (you got to love it when a plan comes together!). You can imagine my chagrin as one after the other the AFV's just rolled straight through my AT field. One of them must have flattened the warning sign, my opponent only realized the minefield was there after the battle was over. (the ambush, a zook at 40m, a 50mm AT gun and a 76 mm AT gun, then managed to take out exactly ONE HT between them, before they were all killed, *really* spoiling my day). Later on the remaining 4 AFV's rolled through the next (AT) minefield, and one (the SP gun) got immobilized. Elsewhere a single Stug got immobilized (and abandoned) when he tried the same. In an other game, just finished, I also used some AT-mines, and my opponent rolled two TD's through two different minefields. He won't even realize there were minefields in the battle at all (well, AT ones, his infantry managed to find some AP mines). My question is (and the search didn't work) am I just having very bad luck, is this normal, and what are the chances of getting a 'hit' with an AT minefield? Bertram

I would be interested, but I foresee a payment problem. Living in Europe, all dollar payments will cost me about double after the exchange rate and credit card charges are calculated. And this is for amounts round the US $ 45, the typical game price. For smaller amounts of money the actual payment might be even 3 or 4 times the price (I almost never order online for this reason). Bertram

And buildings aren't the only way to blow up yourself. I had a Panther hull down, when some infantry popped up before it. It blasted away with the main gun, but didn't clear the hill in front of it. The first 3 shots only hit the ground in front of the tank, the 4th shot blew up in its face and killed it. Bertram

The historical event of course is not copy righted. Copy righted is the version they made of it in their game. This is to protect the work and creativity that went in to it, like getting the maps, researching the OOB, and converting it to a scenario. For this reason the copyrights are more in line with books and artworks then with trademarks or things like that. So you can do a scenario on the Tractor Works Battles (for example), but you may not use (A)SL material as a basis for it. Of course, if they stayed close to history, you can use historical maps and OOB's, and come up with a comparable scenario. As long as you can point to the (historical and for this purpose free) sources you used you are ok. Even if you based your scenario on a ASL scenario, as long as you could get the same result using open sources you will get away with it. For this reason a lot of game compagnies made 'typo's' in things like place names and other small incorrections on purpose. You would have a hard time convincing a judge that you just happened to make the same mistakes independently. With Squad Leader the problem is that most scenario's are a 'real free interpretation' of the historical events. So any scenario based on them will clearly be based only on them, and not on the historical event itself. And there you will run into trouble. An other possibility is using the Squad Leader scenario's just as an source of inspiration, like Warholl used the Mona Lisa. This is allowed, but you have to add enough of your own to it to make the work separate and uniquely yours. This is much more of a grey area, and has to be determined on an individual bases (lawyers heaven!). So you can base your scenario's on the events portrayed in the Squad Leader scenario's, but you wil have to do some research of your own, or you can rebuild the scenario's so that they are altered so much that they are a separate and unique work (and not really recognizable and this of course would take away the fun). Bertram To slow, way to slow!! [ 08-18-2001: Message edited by: Bertram ]

Schrullenhaft, I updated to the new drivers (14.60), that did the trick (well, up to now, as the problem is irregular). I can recommend them (at least for the GeForce MX under Windows '98) Thanks for the support. Bertram (edited because I can't spell) [ 08-17-2001: Message edited by: Bertram ]

In a current game the enemy (Americans) drove their tanks (one M5A1, the other I don't remember) straight to the wood edge where 3 of my veteran squads were waiting, with 2 'fausts' a piece. A bit over to the side a M8 recon verhicle parked about 40 meters away, in view of a veteran engineer squad (also armed with 2 fausts and a satchel charge). I ordered my squads to target the verhicles, and sat back to enjoy. One of the three squad used a faust when the tanks were at 40 meters(a miss), the others just opened up with small arms fire. The tanks buttoned up of course (and fired back). Then all my men stopped firing. One squad was spotted, and drew all the fire (alternating between pinned and alerted). The others were not shot upon (rested and ok state). Next turn I gave all my men orders to target the tanks again. They kept the tanks targetted, but still didn't fire (kind of logical, small arms fire won't hurt those tanks), and didn't use their fausts. This while the tanks were sitting 40 meters away, not moving, an firing on just one squad. The fausts were the 100 meters range model, the weather clear, what is wrong with my men? And no, they were not even SS Hamsters! Bertram