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deanco

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Posts posted by deanco

    CM, backgammon, and luck on the battlefield

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    I compare CM to another game I like a whole lot, backgammon. Why?

    In backgammon, sometimes its better to wait til the right, telling moment to kill (read : attack) your opponent rather than shooting at everything that moves.

    In backgammon, your opponent can make a very bad move. Yet, depending on your roll of the dice, that same bad roll can suddenly become a deadly, game-winning move.

    And finally, this is the part I'm wondering about. In backgammon, a very good player will usually win against a very poor one, but not always. Luck plays a big part. It's not like in chess, where a certain difference in ability means the other guy doesn't stand a chance in heck of winning, even if they play 100 games. My question is this : How much do you think luck plays a part in winning at CM? A lot, a little, none at all? Common wisdom states that the game backgammon is 80% luck, 20% skill. I'll throw those numbers out as a starting point, just so everyone can have something to disagree with. smile.gif Finally, in one of the first books I bought on backgammon strategy, the author prefaced each chapter with a quote by Clausewitz. At the time I wondered why...I don't anymore.

    DeanCo--

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    Biggest flaw in INITIAL release...

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    You know what...speaking of that...maybe this is an idea. I turned a friend on to CM and he had the same reaction when he recieved it...no CD inside. It's true, we are used to getting jewel cases with our games. I had to warn him specifically when he ordered it. Here's the idea...put a piece of paper with "CD INSIDE" on it and include it on the outside of the book. Or... easier and cheaper (but perhaps less effective), warn people when they get their confirmation email that there is no jewel case, that the CD is in the book.

    DeanCo--

    [This message has been edited by deanco (edited 09-03-2000).]

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    Steve/Charles tcp/ip update please..

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    I'm looking forward to TCP/IP not because we can play a whole game in one sitting, but that we can play a good chunk of a game in one sitting. This assumes there will be a 'save' function, of course. I can't imagine there wouldn't be one, given the length of the games. I play better against the computer (lame excuse coming) because I am more in the flow of the action. I'm hoping to get this same feeling with TCP/IP. And I always want to know what happens quickly, it drives me crazy waiting 2 days to find out if my ambush succeeded. In fact, it's still hard for me to not click on 'GO!' right away when I have a tense situation somewhere. I have to conciously think, 'no no, move the rest of your guys first'. Ooops, OT again. Anyway, I too would like to have some official word on how it's coming, even in vague terms.

    DeanCo--

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    Another 'post your email for PBEM' thread

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    In Half-Life, I'm the guy named "Player" with his pistol pointing feebly at the ground;

    In Age of Empires I'm the guy who gets all his farms geometrically placed around the Town Center about the time my opponent shows up with 8 catapults;

    And in CM...well, you'll find out, but I am currently 0-4. I don't know why I waste my time, but I truly suck at all video games. Not more than 1000 points, otherwise I get confused. Other than that, what does it matter, I'm gonna lose anyway. Ah well, I tend to come up with good self-depreciating jokes when I'm losing, so all is not lost. Ask PeterNZer.

    deanco@cybercable.fr

    ICQ : 7227124

    DeanCo--

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    Game System

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    OWWW!! THAT'S GOTTA HURT!!

    Pham911, ya did it again. Gotta hand it to ya. I'm gonna start doing a search on your name when I wake up in the morning so I can start my day with a good laugh.

    jonp,

    Yeah, it occoured to me too. We just have to convince gamers that giving orders to your pulse laser tanks at 60-second intervals, and ONLY then, is a feature, not a bug. It's do-able, I think.

    DeanCo--

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    FIONNS IDEA FOR GUIDE FOR GAMERS ETHICS

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    I like the comment, 'treat your men like they were real people'. I was playing "Meyer's Revenge" (no spoilers) and at the end of the game the situation was tense. I used a crew that just happened to be there to attack and distract an enemy tank, just long enough for my engineers to get close enough to close assault it. I felt like I had treated my guys realistically. The situation was desperate, and I had to balance the loss of the crew against the possible elimination of the tank. As I said, he happened to be there so he was pressed into action. My usual MO however is to leave the crews where they land if they are behind the front lines, and send them rearward if they are in the line of fire.

    DeanCo--

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    An observation about sound in games

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    You said it!

    Sound is the great unsung smile.gif hero of video games. Who says, "Great sound!" when talking about a new video game? Hardly anyone, it's always great graphics, great gameplay, etc. HOWEVER!!! If 1 sample is a bit too loud, or a bit too repetitive, or a bit too far up in the mix...it can ruin the whole game, can't it? Hehehe... Yep, the graphics guys are gettin all the glory, while the humble sound is sloggin' away, steadily, surely, takin' care of business, making sure that you enjoy the OTHER PARTS of the game to their fullest, while calling very little attention to itself per se. Selfless devotion to duty...that's good sound. You can say what you want about Diablo 2, but I think it's a masterpiece of video game sound engineering. Not only does everything sound good, but it's perfectly mixed too, which I think is as great an achievement as making the original samples.

    DeanCo--

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    to remap or not to remap...

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    I asked for the same thing about 2 months ago, and got about 1 guy who said he agreed with me. It didn't even generate very much discussion, which is what really blew me away. Apparently people here don't think it's that big of a deal. But anyone who comes to CM from an FPS background knows that WASD (left hand) scrolls the view and the mouse (right hand) is used for selecting things. Anyway, I've given up on seeing it in CM, maybe CM2 will have remappable keys. Let's hope so, it's a minor flaw in an otherwise great game IMHO.

    DeanCo--

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    BIG ASSED UPDATE PART-1 on CMHQ!!!

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    Wow...these terrain textures are great!! Just adding the red tile roofs has already added a lot of visual interest to the game, not to mention looking a lot more realistic! Other things I like : Woods and tall pines are really dark now, which makes it easier to see them from views 7 and 8. And the wheatfields now look as if one could hide in them. Before I really felt I was sending them across open ground...I knew I wasn't of course, but there is a subtile psychological difference now.

    I would like to second the request for a gridded version of these new terrain textures, BTW. The grid really helps you see terrain elevations from views 3 and 4.

    Beautiful work, really. Congrats...and thanks on behalf of the community.

    DeanCo--

    0

    Dr. Brian is right

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    Pham911 said :

    So, I'm suggesting that CM2 be reworked as Ethics Mission, where you chair a panel that holds a non-binding debate on the relative merits of pretending to kill make belive people in a quasi-historical setting.

    You're scored on your ability to make nobody happy with your "everyone's happy" solutions, and how long you can talk without having any information leave your mouth.

    ------------------

    Ho, thanks for that one, man! Best laugh I've had today!! I 'bout fell off my chair, I was laughing so hard!

    Oh yeah, I forgot : I'm only interested in good video games.

    DeanCo--

    [This message has been edited by deanco (edited 08-26-2000).]

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    Question for CM veterans/experts...

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    Hi Apollo 11,

    Man that's a tough one. I got the same problem. I ain't an expert but I can tell ya what I've read here. Some people hit the + and - buttons to scroll through all their troops, every turn. That's the only SURE way to not forget anyone, but I agree, it's a pain in the butt. There's been a lot of discussion about that already here. Me, I get around it by playing small battles for the most part. Another way is to break your guys up into Army Group A, B, C, etc. on the map and give each one a goal. You tend to remember better where each guy is that way, at least I do. But I still forget dudes from time to time. There are some other ideas, do a search on 'roster' to know more. Hope this helps.

    DeanCo--

    0

    Who wrote this "fuzzy logic?"

    in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

    Posted

    Thanks, holdit, for reposting that. So in game terms (if I have understood correctly, I'm sure I will be corrected if I haven't) could this be expressed as another 'layer' of a Combat Results Table? Like you would roll to see what state the unit was in, (no enemy spotted, under heavy fire, etc.) then that result would be used to determine the roll for combat resoultion? The article says that after all 'states' have been taken into account, the outcome will still be expressed as a probability, which for me is a dice roll. Is this right?

    PS : If we could get this thread back on topic it would really be great. Thanks in advance.

    DeanCo--

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