Disaster

I had problems with this system: 400Mhz Celeron Asus P2B-F mobo 256mb SDRAM Creative TNT2 Ultra 32mb AGP Aureal Vortex 2 sound card running Win2k Professional *all newest drivers Problem: It would lock up after a few minutes of play, only resolvable by restarting. Solution: I went into bios and lowered the AGP Aperature size to its lowest setting. So far have played two missions on the demo without freezing. A marked improvement!

After seeing the decent terrain engine and the nice turn-based game play engine, I think that it would be well applied to a Napoleonic warfare game. That could lead onto ACW (though that market is quite saturated already), pike and musket, all the way to ancient warfare. That is (with all due respect to the maker) if the code lends itself well to modability. I'm sure it wouldn't be as simple as changing the graphics library, AI and tables.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sailor Malan: Thus the two imperatives, of combating the inaccuracy of the musket, and defending the firer against horsemen, lead to line (or strictly close formation)tactics (true line tactics is a whole different discussion)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I hope you make the distinction between a line formation and line tactics. As any Nappy commander would tell you, a line was the among the most vulnerable of formations when threatened with cavalry. If they had time, they would have met cavalry with a square (or oblong) or, if they really had to move in the face of cavalry, a dense column. As you have noted, any open formation was inviting a cavalry charge. Cavalry were important for exploiting breaks in the enemy's formations, for harassing, scouting and screening. Only truly desperate or stupid commanders would launch their heavies against a resolved body of troops. Rather, they would wait until the enemy was shaken and not as eager to meet the charge of a formed body of big guys on big animals waving big swords. As with many things in warfare, cavalry taking an active role on the field was due more to its morale effects than its actual lethality. That is why we are human, yes? <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>On the subject of lining up and blasting. References I have quote effectiveness of a musket shot in battle conditions as 0.2-0.5%. At Vittoria (Spain) 3675000 musket balls were fired. 8000 casualties were caused by all weapons, so ignoring the cavalry and artillery inflicted ones, you get one casualty per 459 shots. As the artillery possibly caused 1/3 of the casualties... It isn't like facing MG fire!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Here is what Rory Muir has written on the efficiency of arms of that period as compared to the ACW. Admissions to the Invalides in Paris in 1762. 68.8% to small arms 13.4% to artillery 14.7% to swords 2.4% to bayonets. If one can assume that the number of wounds being treated is a subset to the number of deaths caused, then we see that musketry even at that time is the more effective weapon. He later writes that wounds caused by rifles in the American Civil War had caused up to 94% as compared to 2.4%! <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> (BTW, don't get me started on the depiction of automatic weapon lethality in modern action movies!) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Indeed! Even having sat through that terrible Patriot last week, the memory of how Hollywood can trash reality is still evident in my head. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Final aside - English longbows were a better weapon than any firearm until the mid nineteenth century - more accurate, quicker rate of fire, lighter etc. A Lt. Col Lee (44th Foot) proposed reverting to bows in 1792! The only reason why muskets took over was training time. It takes a day or two to train a conscript to fire a musket. It takes years to make an effective bowman.

That's too bad about Combat Mission being pirated. Here's a similar story. My brother was a producer on an Electronic Arts game. The day after it went gold, he jetted off to Hong Kong with his then fiancee to enjoy a much needed vacation after months of intense work. He was stunned to see copies of the game, the correct version, in the correct packages (except for a minor size issue in the box) the day after he woke up from the being jetlagged.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Pillar: Well, part of it being a matter of warfare and not politics is that you target people with the ability to command forces. Hitler was terrible at managing military forces and Rommel was excellent, so Rommel is the target.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Certainly if you could wave the magic wand and have their best commanders disappear, then go for it. I'm more inclined to believe that assassination is a crap shoot. Certainly doing away with extraordinary men has effect, but these same men rose up through the ranks because their predecessors left their posts for one reason or another. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Even if a society is equal politically, and the statesman is just "the first among equals", such is not true and never will be true with human nature.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> What I was trying to argue is that there are types of political and cultural systems where the blow of assassination falls softer. Democratic institutions have fail safes. Assassination may cause temporary disruption but this does not guarantee longterm harm. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Much like attacking a forces supply is more effective than attacking them directly, so it is true that attacking the mind of the enemy is more effective than attacking their arms.

Others probably have their favourites but I do most of my quick design in Dreamweaver. It's up to version 3 now but I make do with 2. That's for web layout design. For graphics I use a combination of Photoshop (newest version is 5.5) and Fireworks for optimizing. As for reading, I never really found any single book useful. Just puttering around in Dreamweaver was good enough and also looking at other pages' code. The trouble with those books is that they're out of date by the time they come out. Go to the library and you'll find a bundle. Work through the examples. I found 'how to' web pages more useful. There are many dozens on the web, all giving good up to date advice. Go to Yahoo and you'll find hundreds.

We're coming close to agreement here I wouldn't say that assassination is totally beyond the pale. But it certainly is tricky not just in execution (excuse the pun) but in picking the right target and at the right time. Killing Hitler when he was a painter might have done a lot of good but killing him in the hours after the Allies landed at Normandy might have bad as it may have given the German commanders a chance to bring professionalism back to the wehrmacht at a critical time. In a society where power is centralized on one person, blasting that fellow's head off might be effective. But if that fellow is merely the the 'first among equals', then it might not make a difference. Actually, both Sun Tzu and Machiavelli share the same opinion on assassination. For Sun Tzu, assassination was allowed and, if effective, was better than having many killed on the battlefield. This was part of a suite of tools that a general could use to trick, coerce or mislead the enemy without facing battle. You can probably guess what Machiavelli thought of it. As for force never changing anyone's mind, well, it certainly is effective for changing their behaviour when that force is present.

Well, you certainly widened the scope now to include 'all of Germany's staff' etc. This is different than simply assassinating the titular head or the mouthpiece of a country. Yes, it does matter of what quality the leader is and also timing. But, as I laid out in the superpower confrontation situation, it could still be a bad thing when many levels of authority have the ability to launch devices that could lay the world to waste. How many assassinations do you have to plan then? In modern times, North Korea wiped out most of the cabinet of South Korea in a bomb. However, this didn't do much to change the situation in North Korea's favour as many other factors were involved which were cultural and geopolitical. Let me also point out that during the war America did lose its president but his successor continued the struggle.

On assassination (I'm enjoying this thread if you haven't gathered already). One theory behind why assassination is not considered kosher is covered by the old adage: "better the devil you know than the one you don't know." That is, if you kill off the leader of your enemies, who are you sure to deal with when the war is at a close? This theory is given even more weight in the event of a confrontation between superpowers. Imagine if Kennedy had been killed at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis instead of later when things had cooled down. Every time a Russian premier mysteriously died of a cold what was the question on each foreign policy expert? Who will succeed him? Someone worse? Finally, it should be noted that we're not talking about superheroes here. Simply assassinating the leader may not do any good as the leader is only one part of the government apparatus. It may even firm up the resolve of the enemy who seek revenge.

I read in an earlier post: "Clausewitz formalized what good generals have always known: the key to victory is the destruction of the enemy's forces. Destroying their "will to fight" is part of the process." I would reply with a quote from another gentleman on war: " To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill" - Sun Tzu This is what Sherman understood when he made the major contribution toward ending the ACW. Sherman's war against the South's industry and soft belly won the war as much as the destruction of Lee's corps at Gettysburg. His gains were strategic rather than tactical. By destroying the south in their homes, he made more desperate their situation in other theatres. It could be argued that Lee might never have committed to Gettysburg if his army hadn't sorely needed the supplies in that town, supplies he might have had already if the South was not so sorely pressed in its industrial disadvantage. Thus, Sherman 'subdued the enemy' without 'fighting'. Even in the time of Napoleon, which was when Clausewitz wrote, a younger Napoleon himself understood what it was to win campaigns without risking everything in a battle just to destroy his enemy. His Italian campaigns against Austria were brilliant lessons in strategic maneuver. He split his forces, took towns in the enemy's rear, flank, each time forcing his opponents to withdraw from key positions not because Napoleon defeated them in battle (though he did many times), but because of his maneuvers. It was a much older Napoleon who became much more wasteful with his armies, seeking pitched battles against opponents who had learned his tactics in earlier campaigns. Waterloo, for example, was his bid to smash his way to Brussels when he could have extended his 100 days by falling back on his depth. The famous victories of Napoleon were more the capping of weeks or months of marching, forcing the enemy themselves to meet him at a place of his own choosing. Waterloo was picked by the allies. How many more wars were won through better strategy, rather than simply bleeding more of theirs than ours?

I've just finished a book that would probably go far toward educating us all on why men stood in lines and blasted each other with muskets at close range (something which the excerable Patriot fails to explain at all). I highly recommend reading Rory Muir's "Tactics and the Experience of Battle in the Age of Napoleon". One thought which I haven't yet seen seen expressed is that compressing fire into volleys has a shock effect, whereas seeing men randomly drop from sharpshooters isn't so morale degrading. The metaphor might be: getting splashed in the face by a bucket of water vs being drizzled on for five minutes the same amount of water. Which is more surprising? Since morale was so important, as was pointed out in previous posts, facing such a fury of fire, smoke and comrades dropping all in the same instant must have been totally frightening, especially to raw recruits. Rory Muir writes that there is evidence that in a standing fight, the average number of controlled volleys was two, as men's psychology took over and each sought to fire and reload as fast as possible without waiting for the order. At this stage it would have been difficult for any officer to maintain control. Also, it should be added that (unlike the Patriot), melees were not common. Rather, the most cohesive force after the exchange of gunfire and the one with the better timing, would scatter its opponent who would rather flee rather than fight hand to hand. The bayonet was primarily a psychological threat as no man likes the idea of being skewered by a length of steel even though a bullet would have taken you down just as easily and left a much nastier wound even if you survived to be carried off the field. In that regards, having men in formation provided the same advantage over guerilla tactics as it has over the ages. Charge them and then let numbers and fortitude decide who left the field. I've read that Braddock would have won over the French, Canadian and Indians if he had only charged with most of his men. Instead, he provided little direction and his men were picked off from the woods. If he had simply chosen a direction and kept his men together, the 'guerillas' would have only been a relative irratance.

I think I can say that lowering the AGP aperature size in Bios is a successful fix. I've played two games now without problems!

Oh I feel I have to mention: the Asus user forum boards are the slowest, most painful to navigate user forums I've encountered in quite some time . First, their english boards are still hosted in Taiwan. Secondly, they operate in tiny frames. Thirdly, they have the most curious, restrictive navigation scheme I've ever encountered in a user support forum. Never mind that there seems to be no actual responses from the manufacturers. Ever feel the need to see what I'm talking about? Go here: http://www.asusnetq.com.tw/

Thanks for the education again! I did previously turn off the PNP OS thinking it would do exactly as you said, however, ACPI will *still* reassign IRQs! Anyway, I suspect I will have to figure out how to reassign the IRQs manually still, as it doesn't seem to help out my Half Life: Counterstrike problems. I played 20 minutes of CS just now and locked up. That's not so bad as I just switch to D3D anyway for CS. I haven't yet had a chance to play the Combat Mission demo again to see if it was just a fluke that I made it through an entire mission without freezing.

First, good news. Was able to play an entire game without crashing. I'll reply to the IRQ info first for the edification of others and then tell you how I solved it. (BTW Your explanation on the IRQ is the first plain english description of the IRQ sound card / video card conflict that I've read. Thanks, it underlines other information that I've found.) For those of you who use Win2k, you may encounter an IRQ problem that is unique to it. Win2K fully embraces APCI, which automatically configures each and every of your devices. While this is a nice improvement on previous Windows installations, it also has a consequence for IRQ. If you didn't install W2k *without* APCI support, W2k will always choose an IRQ for you *regardless of whether you set it in BIOS or physically move the PCI Sound card location*. In my case, W2K automatically chose to assign IRQ 9 to both my sound and video cards. The first thing I tried was to manually assign IRQs in the Asus BIOS. Ha no. Then I physically reseeded the Vortex2 in different slots. Again, W2K assigned the IRQs as previously. Needless to say, frustrating. After much searching, I found a document in the Windows2000 pages at Microsoft telling me, yes, you will have to reinstall W2K without enabling once of its key features, APCI. Ha ha .. I refuse to go through the pain of reinstalling. What did I do? I did what someone else suggested and severely reduced by AGP aperature size to minumum (4). Well, right after that I played an entire game without freezing. You know what, I don't have a clue what AGP aperature size means. Maybe it's just voodoo (the magic, not the card). Anyway, I will play a few more games and see if that really did solve it. Then I'll play some HL: Counterstrike (where I also freeze a lot - in OpenGL tho).

It's good to know that it's not the motherboard / graphics card combination. No I am not overclocking anything. One possibility I've tried to track down is if there is a conflict between the TNT2 and the sound card. Can you tell me Schull* if your video and sound card's share IRQs? My TNT2 is AGP and the Aureal is PCI but they both share irq9. Acc. to Windows docs, PCI should sort the IRQs out without a prob but I've read elsewhere that it doesn't do as good a job of the sharing as it should.

I hope that the game I ordered doesn't lock up as frequently on my computer as the demo does. My stats: Celeron 400mHz on Asus P2B-F board 256mb SDRAM Win2000 Creative TNT2 Ultra <- latest creative drivers Aureal Vortex 2 sound card - all latest bios and drivers Problem: I can play 1-2 rounds and in the middle of ordering my men around the video will lockup (sound will keep on playing) and I will be forced to restart my computer. This happens even when I lower the resolution from 32-bit to 16-bit and 1024x780 to 800x600 I am interested in helping solve this in the interest of being able to play the game I ordered and not using it as a coaster, since, I imagine, I won't be able to return it. ------------------ --- I am Legend