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Alexander

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Everything posted by Alexander

  1. You make an excellent point and back it up with some well researced and extinsive data. I had to read it twice though to grasp all your reasons why you feel this way. And works on so many levels....
  2. Any one here who plays the germans more often care to comment on the chance to get a hit from a Pz IV on a fast move? Now that you mention it....PLaying an idle QB vs AI a few weeks ago and took out 2 differentCromwell 7s in a row at several hundred meters with a fast-moving PZIV. I thought, hmmmm, possible bug? Nah! (Right?)
  3. Something to keep in mind: German tanks during the war operated within a platoon structure, too. More flexible with their radios, without a doubt, but subject to contraints not present in CM1. Something else to consider; Russian Shermans, supplied thru lend-lease- were equipped with radios (and leather padded seats). What if you could only give orders to the pltn cmndr and have the other two tanks controlled by the AI with a bias for following the cmndr. I'm guessing that the CM2 will promote the #2 tank when the command tank 'goes down', probably sacrificing any command benefits (targetting, spotting, bogging avoidance, morale?) broadcast by the platoon leader. I also anticipate that it will be cheaper, per vehicle, to purchase a platoon than a single tank for a QB. Another guess: since it seems logical to suppose that radio systems were relatively fragile, CM2 will depict radio breakdowns, simulating non-critcal 'system hits'. BTS, make me a beta tester, now!
  4. Funny Coincidence; I have a sister named Deathdealer. It's a small world. :cool: I second that notion. Narrower maps would make those attack/defend QBs a lot more challenging- for the attacker. Also, while I'm at it, random attacker chosen by computer. Death to MEs! God, I hope I didn't screw up with these Instant thingies.
  5. I use pause often and never felt a lack of flexibility, but then again I don't look at the battle in terms of individual men and seconds to be tweaked and finessed at every opportunity. If you look at your force in terms of platoons and companys, in time blocks of 2-5 mintues, then a 15s pause is short and in the 'middle' of your current orders. It is a question of scale and what CM is trying to accomplish, ie company level battle, not micromanagement every 5s. Right. I like the fact that plotting mmovement is a bit rough around the edges. Too much fine tuning and it turns CM into Synchronized Swimming. That said, I think it would be cool to apply the 15 second delay to firing as well as moving. That is, if the unit has no movement pplot, the Pause command applies to non-opportunity fire.
  6. MS Intellimouse here. A joy to use but I had to trash my Lotus programs, like 1-2-3 and WordPro. It seems the optical mouse caused strange graphical corruptions. Not in Microsoft applications, however. No compatibility problems there. So I shelled out 100 bucks for Excel. Bill Gates and his company are a piece of work.
  7. At the risk of sounding dense, what is to prevent a person from simply taking the screenshot of the setup window and then changing it to human select after? Here's another dense rumination: My opponent and I agree to play a scenario PBEM. I select the scenario, say, Elsdorf as the Allies. Before sending the file, I open the scenario in the editor and distribute a few extra tungsten rounds to each of my tanks. Opponent receives the revised file. Who's the wiser? I could be mistaken, but there's no file comparaison(?).
  8. any other thoughts?[\b] Yeah. The Withdraw command. Right now it's basically used only for grunts. Make a provision that, on using this order, the unit (like mortars and mgs) relinquishes its equioment.
  9. A gun damaged tank should retreat when they realize the gun is unable to fire (this is not always obvious) Exactly. A Cm turn = 60 seconds of real time. I surmise a gun hit might not be readily apparent to the crew. At least not instantaneously apparent, as it is to the player. The crew traverses and try to shoot, fumbles with it, curses at it...THEN- maybe an intense minute later- they reverse out of harm's way. Bottom line, IMHO,- no new coding required.
  10. What other QB types have been suggested, or can you guys think of? A QB with Random Attacker. You notice, on the various ladders, that players are reluctant to defend because defending has acquired, rightly or wrongly, a bad rep. Therefore you end up playing those Meeting Engagements over and over and over. I don't know how this would be implemented, however. I guess it would require an additional email at the start.
  11. I doubt a real-life commander would choose to establish a line amidst the sparse cover that the default tree setting provides. And everyone I play seems to elect the default position for trees and hills. Nor does the computer help the defense by generating water obstacles. One interesting alternative might be to allow the defender to 'buy' weather environments like Mud or Heavy Fog. Now that would even up things in a hurry!
  12. I hope these suggestions are useful Jason, you make my head spin. Let me know when you've finished with that Perpetual Motion machine and wrapped up the Human Genome Project. We can do a PBEM. This discussion has for a subtext the striving for fairness and equality. We want our ladder matches to ressemble chess. The Meeting Engagement may be fun but but ultimately unsatisfying because we know it's implausible. At least it's rare enough to be unrealistic. And we want CM to be realistic. Very realistic. In my opinion there are, additionally, three reasons why defense seems so tough in CM: 1- For QBs, the computer generates a map that is wider than long. It's thus hard to torment the advancing enemy with defilade fire, forcing you, the defender, into a zone defense. I submit that, IRL, there would be greater, fixed firepower on the flanks. Narrower or user-selectable maps would help. 2- I doubt a real-life commander would choose to establish a line amidst the sparse cover that the default tree setting provides. And everyone I play seems to elect the default position for trees and hills. 3- The A/D ratios are not user selectable but fixed by BTS, e.g., at 4500-3000(?). The latest patch ameliorated but didn't fine tune the situation the way a heavy duty player could. Maybe 5500-2800 is mathematically more equitable. I know one can give the other a % force advantage but that's not quite the same thing. There is a way, IMO, which CM accords the defender an advantage: battlefield smoke. Although I was dissed on this before I believe there was, in WW2, more persistant smoke and dust than depicted in CM. Now, as the battle rages the field of fire degrades little. And, yes, I'm hip to the computational restraints.
  13. I'm going to read it! Where do you download this scenario? BTW, Jason, how's that Stars!Supernova beta shaping up? I'm counting on this being the Next Big Thing.
  14. I also did a quick test with 8 Jumbos moving back and forth over a DAMP terrain map. No bogging in MOVE or FAST mode. Didn't try HUNT. You have to give BTS credit for providing a simulation with open and testable mechanics!
  15. Just played a couple of snowed in, tank heavy scenarios and noticed a surprising phenemonon: absolutely no bogging in either one! One of the battles featured K. Tigers, Jumbos, and Pershings. Is this one of the, ahem..., adjustments, smuggled, like Lenin, into the game engine via recent patches?
  16. Forget it. It's not gunna happen Then it should be the domain of the scenario creator, like time of day and weather. It's not a big deal. Why should both sides risk defaulting the battle when morale descends below under 25%? My God, morale varied widely WITHIN national groups during the war. Outside of a few meat grinder-type battles, like the Huertgen and Aachen, American commanders weren't that spendthrift. Can someone correct me on this?
  17. Madmatt, it's not so much the legitimacy of the hothouse tests that posters have made so much as the well documented CHANGE in CA resolution apparent in recent versions of CM. If BTS wants to move on to other projects or the new routine reflects an unannounced revision in philosophy, well, that's understandable. But it's a stretch to claim that nothing has changed.
  18. I just finished a very sloppily played- by me- PBEM game of Elsdorf by Wild Bill. The computer defaulted me out as I was moving on towards the 2 major VLs in the town. Our Global Morale dipped below 25%. Nevertheless it was 'a close run thing' point-wise. In retrospect, the program was too kind. Due to a hasty setup and a nonchalant advance I managed to sacrifice 320+ men. I question whether even Patton would have been this free and easy with American lives at this juncture, in this war. Russians and Japanese, yes, for sure. Heavily indocrinated SS zealots, Hitler jugend, probably. Therefore, I prospose nationality specific morale levels. At least, variable levels that can be set at the discretion of the scenario designer. What do you say, BTS?
  19. Desultory testing here suggets the 'bug'- if it is a bug- crept into the game between 1.1b16 and 1.1. Of course, it could have been intentional, a minor adjustment, from BTS' POV, to close combat routines . They do seem more reticent on this issue than others that roiled the forum in the past like relative turret speeds or Jeep MGs. I'm confident their ultimate decsion will be the right one.
  20. I took the liberty Of downloading this well-made test scenario. It features 4 HTs- 2 US, 2German- a MK4 and a Sherman each surrounded by an enemy platoon segragated by hedgerows. My tests show a 50% higher survival rate for these vehicles under 1.12 than the earlier Beta. C'mon, BTS, it's obvious.
  21. Am I the only one who has tested with different EXEs? On my 20x20 deserted island my results, posted earlier in this thread, showed HTs lasting nearly 4 times longer with 1.12 than with 1.1b16. Haven't tried SPWs or other vehicles but it's clear-to me-that BTS seems to have replaced grenades with water ballons. I have to admit I didn't manually target the HT with the infantry in either version. NEWS FLASH: just reran the trials: old version HTs (versus platoon of Heer sans grenades) last , on the median, < 10 seconds. With 1.12 sometimes 120, even 180 seconds. The median is close to 60. Don't tell me I'm hallucinating I 've been drug free since the early 80s!
  22. FIRST OFFICIAL TEST One Veteran Heer platoon, fausts removed, vs Veteran M3A1 HT deserted 3sq castaway island: Version: 1.1b16Beta, 8 trials Avg life span of HT= 14 seconds Version: 1.2, 8 trials Avg life span of HT= 52 seconds As the French say, there IS an eel under that rock. God, this hurts!
  23. Tried the falling snow- no freeze. Maybe the rain .wav file is corrupted. Do you know the #? All drivers are up-to-date.
  24. Thanks for the quick response, Shrullenhaft. I have the Blaster AudioPCI(?) card and the Diamond S540/32m video card. I did a few more desultory tests and it seems that the rain is the culprit. Without the rain, no freeze. But the computer still only picks comonwealth troops- for itself or me. Now, THAT is strange.
  25. After weeks cruising carefree with my badass system- Athlon 850/256k/Windows ME- I'm suddenly suffering from lockups. It's always the same sequence: I load a quick battle with Allied random force, default except for rain. The AI always picks British troops (!?). A couple of minutes into the setup phases everything freezes and it's ctrl-alt-del time. The sound of droning rain, however, continues, unheard by the motionless troops. I had been playing only PBEM until last week so maybe this is a Ver1.11, QB problem. Any ideas?
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