Graaf Spee

No, you were not the only one I remember downloading the beta to a ZIP disc then going home to install it. Started it on my old trusty 166Mhz machine with the increadible 2M VRAM (which I still play on, but now with a 3Dcard. Anything faster is cheating =). I took the german side and started. After a few turns one of my 88's got a clear shot and I heard what must be the most beautiful sound ever. One of the enemys tanks being knocked out I actually phoned my brother to let him hear it. Didn't even tell him what it was, just listen I said. But he understood /Kristian

Now that was a cool game I still remember the grenadethrowing bug. There was no rangelimit, but yor soldiers got VERY tired if you tried a 100+m throw. For those of you who haven' played it, it used the same WEGO system as CM does and you could play hotseat. Not bad for an early 80's game. /Kristian

Hi, the only thing that determine how well they are going to fight is their experience rating. No hidden bonuses for being SS/Fallschirmsjäger or whatever. /Kristian But I still think Volksturm should get a moral bonus when facing artillery. - You call this aartillery? You should have been with us back in good old WW1...

Very nice pic But it actually proves that three sources are needed. With three sources you get three LINES. But with two sources you only get one line. If you instead had four sources (which seems to have been the case in the real world™) you would hav gotten six lines. Here are two pictures two (hopefully) prove my point. The circles represent the soundwave which in both cases arrives a little earlier at sorce B than A. Trying to make it even more clear, this one showes the two cases overlapping each other. The pictures are not that good but I hope they will make it clear that you would get exactly the same timedifference in both cases (and not only from these two, but from an infinit number of locations...). So where is the gun? If you had an observer that could tell exactly from which direction the sound came from it would of course be possible with only two sources. But I doubt that a human being would be able to determine it. Mayne give the general direction, but that would only narrow it down a little. Can we all agree on this now? Two sorces is NOT enough. You need three and would like to have four. /Kristian

I saw an instruction film for new Panther crews which showed that it also had one. They where overrunning an infantry position and having missed an AT mine by inches the commander pushed the plug and stuck out his SMG to deal with some poor russians. I think the film was from 1943 just before Kursk, but I'm not sure. /Kristian ps The same commander also opened the hatch in the back of the turret to put out a Molotov cocktail. A brave man, at least in training. I wonder if anyone ever did that with bullets flying all over...

I might already have asked this question once but I can't remember the answer (IF Age++ THEN Memory--) . If the commander is killed, will the two man turreted tanks be able to fire the main gun? /Kristian

Originally posted by Big Time Software: Wasn't there a change in how the weapons and special ammo was going to be distributed between the two halfsquads? All smgs and special stuff to one, and the other got the longrange firepower. /Kristian edited because quoting is sooo hard [ 01-29-2002, 06:54 PM: Message edited by: Graaf Spee ]

Originally posted by Big Time Software: Wasn't there a change in how the weapons and special ammo was going to be distributed between the two halfsquads? All smgs and special stuff to one, and the other got the longrange firepower. /Kristian edited because quoting is sooo hard [ 01-29-2002, 06:54 PM: Message edited by: Graaf Spee ]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Kurtz: I noticed that it is possible to see which of my enemy's units that should exit for points. This is only possible when the units are fully identified. The information is available on the detailed information screen. This makes it possible to concentrate your efforts to primarily destroy those units that would give the opponent exit points. <hr></blockquote> Never noticed that. But why destroy them? You get your points by just preventing them from exiting. Just break the enemys squads that should exit and concentrate on killing those that asre NOT eligable for exitpoints. That should be even better. What I've never liked about exit scenarios is that for the player who should exit it doesn't matter if your units get killed or just can't exit. In the endgame you can just have them doing kamikaze rushes since it won't matter for your scoore what happens to them. /Kristian

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by KwazyDog: Hi guys! as for the latest date of entry...well thats a hard call. At this point the contest will end on the given date, but I could probably take texture 4 weeks or so after and still have them of use to me, as long as I knew they were coming <hr></blockquote> Four weeks! I guess that means the game won't be finished until (hopefully) the middle of april. Then add a couple of weeks to print the CDs and manual. So if nothing goes wrong we might (just might) be visited by Santa (mr Postman) in the middle of may. Please tell me I'm wrong! /Kristian

It's already in the game. This is from another rarity thread KwazyDog wrote: Actually it tells you that infomation directly in the interface Panzer Leader. It is displayed as a plus or minus percentage.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by tero: Other Scandinavian nations ? They understood our situation and we understood their situation. They were not scared away, they kept their distance for reasons all parties understood. <hr></blockquote> Interesting. I've always wondered what the finnish people thought about Swedish politics durng the war(s). When talking about the war with swedes I usually hear one of two positions. The first is that we were backstabbing cowards who didn't do anything. The second that Finlands supply line went through Sweden and that the Soviet union definately would have conquered all of Finland if it wasn't for that. Your position seems to fall in between. Am I right? Is it safe to discuss the war with finns or should I keep my big mouth shut? /Kristian

One thing in CMBO that I find a little irritating is how enemy units go from sound contact to tank?/infantry to M4?/infantrysquad to fully identified and then it stays that way no matter what happens. Did that make any sense? Probably not. I'll give an example instead: When you first notice that the enemy has tanks it's usually one sound contact that moves around the map somewhere close to the actual tabks postion. You know that there is a tank there because you can hear it coming and can take some precautions. But after you have seen it there won't be any more sound contacts from that tank. Let's say your evil opponent first uses it on your left flank. Long(?) before you actually can see it you have the sound cntact. But after that he backs away and cunningly moves it to your right flank behind a ridge. There you won't have any indication that it's going to show up until you actually see it since the 'tank marker' is still on your left flank where you last saw it. Now if he had another tank that was coming up on the right you would (probably) see the sound contact first and be warned. I'm not sure if it's possible, with the current code, to make an already identified tank to give away sound contacts again but it sure would be nice /Kristian

I have a question regarding two man turrets. If the commander is killed will the tank still be able to fire (at a MUCH slower rate) or is it in effect reduced to a mobile MG platform? Didnt't the T34 have a crew of four, so maybe he who is manning the hull MG could climb up and take over the gun. If so will the hull MG be useless? Questions questions... and the game isn't even out yet /Kristian

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Berlichtingen: No need. Macs can decode Base64.<hr></blockquote> That's what I've always thought. But it didn't work for me :-( Until my opponent changed the encoding to binhex. Like I said earlier it could be my email client that messed it up, still using Outlook express :-( /Kristian

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Mesk A. Lin: No. There should be no problems.<hr></blockquote> You are absolutely right, there SHOULDN'T be any problems. But... Not all PC users can open stuffit files. Solution: the Macuser sends his/hers files uncompressed or downloads winzip. Sometimes textfiles sent to me (I'm on a Mac) becomes corrupt. Not sure why, it could be the mailclients or the servers that screws them up. Solution: the PC user sends them zipped or changes the file encoding in the mailclient to binhex. There are probably some other problems that Ive never encountered but if you send compressed files there is never any problems. Unless the PC user cant open you files.. /Kristian

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon: It is actually the weight, in pounds, that an iron sphere of that diameter will be, <hr></blockquote> Are you sure that it's iron? I have always heard that it was lead. Maybe I'm confusing it with the shotgun calibers where 'they' use one pund of lead divided by the caliber. When I think about it it actually makes sense, shotguns use mostly lead pellets(?)but with guns you would want something harder. /Kristian

When the 'pursue and assault'-order was brought up before Steve gave a few reasons for not including it. One that has stuck in my mind is that if you can give an order to pursue someone then the other one must have a 'move away from pursuers'-order. If I remember correctly the previous dicussion was about infantry vs infantry but I think it also would applies to infantry and tanks. It makes sense to me but maybe it's not relevant anymore with the tank morale in CMBB. Regarding close assaulting AFVs. I'm not sure the time scale of CM is a good measure of how (un)effective they where. If the average CM-battle is 30-60 min the time in which your squads (after killing the escorting infantry) have to assault the tank is probably not more than 5-10 minutes. From what I've read (sorry, no sources...) just the time for your assaulting squads to move into good postions could take half an hour. But you are still able to take out a tank if you are (very) lucky, but that usually depends more on your opponents inability to use tanks effective. Thoughts? /Kristian

Something I've been thinking about is that the defender can't choose where he will defend. Some maps are great and some are just impossible to make a stand on. So how can that change? One solution is of course to use homemade maps in a QB. But what I've been thinking about is a little more random. Lets say the map should be 1.5km wide and 1km deep. The defender should then get a map that is 1.5km wide and maybe 4km deep. Then he gets to choose where on that big map the actual playing area should be placed. It's still random and you can get stuck with very bad terrain, but I think the defender would have a better chance. I also think that would be a little realistic since usually (but not always) he who defends would choose to make his stand where he would have he greatest possible chance of holding. Comments? /Kristian

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by wwb_99: I think the AI is programmed to avoid going upstairs in 2 level buildings. Up high is a bad place to be when shells start flying. WWB<hr></blockquote> I've always understood that the AI just can't 'see' the second level. But I might be wrong. It was a very long time since I read it. /Kristian

Does anybody know? /Kristian

Back to the original quwstion. Will the AI use the second level in buildings? /Kristian

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Kurtz: That's because the AI knows that there is no chance of getting the troops on the second floor out before the building collapses when your opponent brings up a Wirbelwind or a 40 mm Bofors gun. <hr></blockquote> So thats whats coming up next. After Ive finnished off those pathetic platoons of yours. Always nice to have smg squads at 100m+ range Or maybe you are just trying to trick me to leave my warm and comfortable church? Decisions decisions... But maybe you're right. It could just be some kind of compensation for the ease which buildings can be knocked down. /Kristian

Have you ever seen AI infantry on the second floor? Sure if the unit is locked in place in the setup, but never if the AI is allowed to place its troops where it want to. /Kristian

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Cpl Carrot: The delay functon only affects the movement. You can add your delay and the unit will happily engage the target. <hr></blockquote> Are you sure about this? If it was a TD with a turret then it would work. But I remember some problems with the german TDs without turrets and using pause. When I paused and targeted an enemy tank it wouldnt rotate until the delay was over. This was a long time ago so it probably wasnt with the latest patch, but Ive never paused a TD since that. Thinking a little more about it, something that could have influenced my TD was that it wasnt facing the enemy at the time I gave the orders. That might caused it to follow the pause order first. Dont you hate it when you units follow orders when they shouldnt :-( /Kristian