Chupacabra

I suppose I fall somewhere in the middle on this. For various reasons, I'm not the fastest PBEM opponent out there (as the folks I'm playing can probably attest, with more colorful language to boot). Living on a different continent than most of my opponents doesn't help, nor does an unreliable ISP or a busy schedule. In addition there have been times when I've had (again for various reasons) to take breaks from playing altogether. However, I've always tried to be as accurate and as honest as possible when telling my opponents when I'll need to break off, and if possible, for how long. I've always offered to send in a ceasefire/surrender if my opponents were bothered by the enforced wait. IMO it's not acceptable to leave people hanging. It's not acceptable when dealing with personal acquaintances, so why should it be any more so when dealing with email acquaintances? I'm not sure I'd use a Deadbeat List, as I play very few people outside of the 'Pool anyway, but hell, if it makes things easier for folks, why not? Just make sure that the accused Deadbeats have some way of clearing things up if it turns out they did have a valid reason for not responding. **** does happen, after all. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nathman: Now if we would re-instate the draft....<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> ...college enrollment rates, emigration (legal or otherwise), civil disobedience, not-so-civil disobedience, and a whole host of other goodies would skyrocket. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus: I don't really consider any nationality a problem. But what I do have a problem with is ecomony styles. I have an extreme problem with Socialism, not to mention Communism. Socialism is the sufficating of its people by giving them free this and that with nothing to back it and then jacking the prices up on everything else so that the free stuff can be free. You know the reason they pay around $4.00 for a gallon of gas (3+ liters/gallon). They're paying for Joe Smoes heart medication. Giving free money to people for just having children is a great way to lower the currency value. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Maximus - that's not really the point of socialism, nor are the specific examples you site exclusive to socialist countries. For example, gas is quite expensive in England as compared to America, and England isn't what I'd call a socialist nation (although some Tories do). Most (if not all) Western nations these days are social democracies, which attempt to incorporate ideas from both socialism and capitalism. They differ in their specifics, but the general ideology is the same. There certainly aren't any pure free-market capitalist democracies around anymore. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hiram Sedai: Be careful. Elvis likes to use the "b" word in his emails. Try not to be offended. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Booby? Heh. Booby. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

Howdy, vermin. Maw and Paw Cabra are in town for the week, so I'm trotting the folks around. The old bums are wearing me out - it's amazing how much energy they have, and how little I have. A lot could be attributed to the amount of alcohol I drank for Sweet Baby Jebus. Fear the four day hangover. I like the FAQ thread. Mostly because it gives me the chance to tell people to go FAQ themselves and such hilarity. Hee hee. Hiram. It's nice to see you've finally grown a pair. Did Santa give them to you for Christmas? Shame about Audrey, but think of it this way. She made a lovely Christmas dinner for some poor, unfortunate homeless person. Tender. Mmm. Pity she didn't scratch you more, but them's the breaks. I'll have to ram the proverbial Zulu PBEM javelin through your hairless girl-boy jowls one of these days. Shabandadoodalananorf. Tell you what. You take my parents shopping while I send you your bloody precious turns. I will get to you when I am freakin' good and ready, comprende Paco? Whatdya mean no speaka de Ingles WHAT THE HELL YOU DOING IN MY COUNTRY BOY I OUGHTA KICK YER WETBACK GREASER HALAPEENO-EATING ASS BACK TO TIJU... Err, what? Sorry, flashback to my days as a Border Guard. Ta. Berli. No fire for you. I'm gonna run you over like I run over boxfulls of adorable newborn Collie pups, boyo. Scrota. Um, yeah. What the hell's happening in our game again? Oh, right, the 8th AF is strafing your sorry Hetzer ass back to Berlin. Machu Piccu. The remainder of your armored force rests in the shining bosom of Allah. Whereas my Stuart gunner will spend eternity receiving mind-blowing oral sex from the ghost of Betty Grable. I hope you all run into a bunch of raving '2001 is the Real Millenium' freaks and get painfully nagged to death. I am very tired and I hate you. Yes, you. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jarmo: I nominate Germanboy and Chuparababa for their general helpfulnes and tss for holding a divine knowledge and sharing it with mortals.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Wow, I'm helpful? Heh, all this time I figured I've been an insufferable jerk. Whadya know... Thanks, I appreciate it! ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: But translating it twice is not quite fair (sorry, I live in England, where that is an argument) - if you give a text to a professional translator, and have it reinterpreted by another professional you will be very surprised by the very loose connection between the second translation and the original. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> True, but I was using that as an example. FWIW, when I put your original English paragraph into Babelfish it returned some awfully mangled German. I've stopped using Babelfish altogether. Pretty much the only German I need to read anymore is for schoolwork, and I simply can't afford to take a computer program's word for it. I'd rather haul out the dictionary and do it myself. For simple, non-technical translations, Babelfish is fine, but I'd be very wary of it for anything with any complexity. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jasper: A not too subtle attempt to turn CM into a FPS (First Person Shooter) or RPG (Role Playing Game)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Buh? Where'd you get this from? Relative spotting won't do either, it'll make CM a more realistic wargame. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mr. Clark: I Can't remember if Sharpshooter ammo is per round, like mortars, or abstract, like Squads.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It's abstracted. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Germanboy wrote (in Babel speak): Depends on, which you would like to do - I use it at the work, in order to give to my colleagues a fast overview of interesting material anderwohin one more to a large extent, and they can return then, in order to ask me for a better assertion, if they are interested. My time protects. I did translations themselves for work, and it is strolls for decently doing. It is not only poetry, is lost in the translation..., Rommel22 - it was not an acceptable stating line Churchill the at the beginning, but you believed to you must lack it and then to charge it still it? Even Churchill earns better. He said ' communists ', if I know, but he certainly did not say republicans and was constitutional monarchist.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If that's close enough, go for it. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

Babel fish is pretty poor. Honestly if you don't read German you're probably better off finding a friend who does and bugging (or paying) him to translate. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

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The Interplay boards seem to down, so I can't confirm this, but according to one guy I've spoken to, FT will include a pause option for Continuous Time mode, which would solve most of the issues I have with it. As long as I don't feel unduly rushed to crank out orders, I'm happy. As for TB mode, apparently the developers are considering tweaking a few parts of it, including my big gripe above. If they do so, I'll happily plunk over my $40 for this game. Apart from my gripes, it looks nifty. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ezmartini: i just want to know if I can play reisber and last defence on the gold demo.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No. It's two different versions of the game code. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

I don't recall offhand, but I believe that the number of APs required was displayed in the center of the hex you were plotting a move to. In any case, it didn't hamper the first two games, because the first two games' combat was so stylized. Put on the Mark II Powered Armor, bust out your trusty Plasma Rifle, and you didn't need to move. But in a game which emphasizes tactical combat, it really is an inexcusable omission. In a game like this, it's necessary to know if you'll be able to make it to cover by the end of the turn, or if you'd be better off going prone and popping off a couple of shots. Like I said, I realize that it's a demo, and it's anyone's guess what they'll change between now and the gold code. But I'd be quite disappointed if this issue wasn't addressed. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

My take on the demo - Just a little background first. I love Fallouts 1 & 2, and I've got nothing but fond memories of the Fallout world. Mutant scorpions, Raiders, Bloodclaws, it's all good. I also love the XCom/Jagged Alliance games. In fact if I had to choose a favorite genre, I'd probably say squad-based tactical. Which is why the demo, so far, has been disappointing. It leaves out the best bits of both Fallout and JA/XCom, and all you're left with is the soggy residue. They've gone with a quasi-maybe-sortof turn-based engine. It's not really turn-based but it's not really real-time either. It feels like one of the developers said, "hey, turn-based is good," and then the producer said "but real-time is what sells, so do that. Oh, and colored lighting. And do it like you mean it!" The result is the Continuous Time system, which boils down to all the frantic clicking fun of Diablo times however many squad members you've got. Some commands are hotkeyed, but I found the hotkeys completely unintuitive, and at least for the demo, you can't remap them. Of course, you can issue all of your orders by mouse, but A) this is a slow process in the best of cases and the game is quite finicky, so you have to be pixel perfect in selecting characters or buttons, most of which are quite small in 1024x768. So instead of laying cunning traps for unsuspecting baddies, I found myself pounding my keyboard and mouse mercilessly while my characters blundered into Bad Guys With Big Guns. I really found it quite difficult to use decent squad tactics. The above rant should've been baseless, seeing as they've included a full turn-based combat mode in the game. Trouble is, it doesn't work very well. Like most turn-based games, your characters have a limited number of Action Points which they can spend every turn. For example, if a character starts off with 10 APs and fires a gun with a 4 AP cost, he'll still have 6 APs left to move around or do whatever. The key to mastering this type of turn-based combat is to remain constantly aware of how many APs your characters have left, and how many APs most common actions require to execute. Which is what makes the designer's decision to not inform you how many APs it takes to move a certain distance so baffling. Everything else is simple. The AP cost of weapons are listed on your display, the AP cost of changing stances or using a stimpack is a constant, but you're given no indication of how many APs it will cost to move from here to there. I constantly found myself running out of APs nowhere near to where I intended to be. Which is unfortunate, if where I intended to be was out of the line of fire. Again, this made it extremely hard to implement decent squad tactics. I realize that this is a demo, and oversights are bound to happen, but I have to wonder if any of the designers actually tried playing the game in turn-based mode. The demo isn't bad otherwise. The demo looks and sounds good, and the scenarios are well-designed. If the designers overhaul the combat system before the final release, it could be a fun game. But currently, as a tactical combat game, it can't stand up to games like Jagged Alliance 2. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<font size=3 color="purple">Yes Stensch, html tags do work.</font> Edited to find a less annoying color. Gack. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super [This message has been edited by Chupacabra (edited 12-23-2000).]

Is that the Blair Witch in the upper righthand corner? 'cause if it is, Bill Mauldin was into some really weird ****. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Screamineagle: I do have a sound card (ATI Rage 128, doesnt do fog, but works well with everything else) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's your video card, actually Click the Start button, select run, type dxdiag, click okay, and click on the Sound tab at the top. That'll show you what model of sound card you've got. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

Hrm. I'm not really sure that MacArthur is a great example of thinking ahead. The man did want to nuke Manchuria - probably not one of the most insightful ideas in military history. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

Just a wee Christmas bump. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

What you're asking for is called relative spotting, and it's been often requested. BTS has stated that it's a major change to the engine, and as such won't be going in until CMII (the next-gen engine, not CM2, the Ostfront game). A search on 'relative spotting' will probably explain the issue better than I could. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rex_Bellator: Peeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!! You picked up the ball to 'lob' it, FREE KICK. Probable Yellow Card as well. If you're playing soccer, why do you have Americans involved? Last time I saw the World Cup they were beaten 12,943 to Nil by the Inner Patagonia Reserve B team. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hrm, at least Americans can coach their own national team ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Samhain: Plus, graphics that are competitive with the best of the best of today's 3D games, be they shooters, flight sims, or RTS's. E.g., depicting all soldiers in a squad, dynamic lighting, deformable terrain, vastly higher poly counts on troop models, lens flares--the usual that we've come to expect. Since I hear the 3D engine won't be revised (substantially) for CM2, I guess this applies to CM 3 and 4. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> To be blunt, that's not going to happen. Take Q3A - how many polygons do you reckon it has to display on screen at a time? I bet CM has just as many, if not more. I can run the original Unreal (which still looks pretty spiffy, IMO) on my computer with all the bells and whistles without any slowdown, whereas with anything over 2000 pt. battles CM turns into quicksand. BTS has stated before that today's fastest computers wouldn't be able to handle a 1:1 representation of men without an unacceptable slowdown. That's fine with me. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

I was just doing some thinking regarding command delays, and something struck me. The command delay for extremely complex orders is no greater than that for extremely simple ones. This came out of a recent thread in which I gave the example of an American batallion CO ordering one of his companies to capture a ridgeline. As far as I can tell, this is a 4-step process. 1)Batallion CO gives the order to Company CO. 2) Company CO gives more detailed orders to 1-4 Platoon COs. 3) Platoon COs give even more detailed orders to 1-3 squad leaders. 4) Squad leaders disseminate orders to the grunts. Even assuming that all the links in the chain have unbroken radio contact with each other, I'd imagine this process would take anywhere from a minute to 10 or more minutes. On the other hand, imagine that a little while later, as 1st platoon climbs the hill, one of its squads is pinned down by machinegun fire. One of the other squad leaders sees the machinegun's position, and orders the BAR gunner to provide a base of fire while the rest of the squad charges the machinegun. This order probably isn't going to take any longer to give than it took me to type. But in CM, quite complex orders involving moving multiple companies coordinated with armor and artillery support don't take any more time to issue than extremely simple "Follow me!"-type orders. There seems to be a disparity here. My suggestion therefore is to have command delays partially dependent upon either the distance moved or the number of waypoints issued, or a combination of both. I believe this would force players to think ahead even more than now, which IMO is a good thing. I think that the current command delays are a good start and are quite realistic for squad-level movement, but it doesn't feel right to me to be able to coordinate grand maneuvers in ten seconds time. As always, feedback is appreciated. ------------------ Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super