Col Deadmarsh

Homba, I see your point. I've come to accept though that I need to be near a vl in order to hold it. I don't have a big problem with that but I can see why others like yourself would. After all, you start off with that vl, why shouldn't it be yours at the end? I guess it all comes down to how you look at it. If you accept the abstractions, then this kind of thing wouldn't be much of an issue. If you look at CM as a game with absolute values instead of seeing the big picture and what the area in CM is supposed to represent in relation to that big picture, then yes, you have a good argument for a change here. If BTS should change this in the future, I wouldn't oppose it. All I'm saying is, I've come to appreciate the abstraction of what these vl's stand for and don't have a big problem with the way things are right now. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Abbott, I think it would be a good idea to somehow identify those on ladders which are historically-minded grogs from those who are recreational players. I don't think a seperate ladder is in order though. For one thing, it suggests that the non-historical/gamey ladder is non-legit. Secondly, it would only lead to everybody being on both ladders because inevitably you will want to play a friend that is on the other ladder and then what will you do? There's no reason why a historical buff couldn't play a friend who just likes to play for the fun of it and have it count in the ladder standings on one ladder. No, having two ladders is not the answer. I think you simply need an icon next to that person's name on the ladder site which would denote that person's preference and make it easier for other's who are in the same group to find opponents that play the game for the same reasons. If somebody were to go to Yobobo from T-House and present him with this idea, it could probably be implemented before this thread reaches Page 2 on the forum. It seems to me it would be a simple checkbox or two in the "edit" section of one's profile on how one likes to play the game. This seems to me to be the easiest answer here. Edited to make the PC happy...PUKE! ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young. [This message has been edited by Colonel_Deadmarsh (edited 03-14-2001).]

ROTFL!!!!! Exactly what I'm saying! ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Welcome to the forum Homba. This is how I see this thing...You can view CM just like other games where points are given for simply taking arbitrary positions with no real importance or you can view CM as a game based on reality where points are awarded for holding positions that in real life would be guarded due to their importance. So, I have to disagree with you because if I approach this game with the latter method, I am viewing these vls' (important positions--fuel depots, overlooks, etc) as positions that need to be guarded. In real life, a squad would not abandon an important objective like that, even if those men could be used elsewhere. To claim that piece of land, you must be reasonbly near to it, if not on it. I agree with you that if you have that vl in your field of fire, then the vl should be yours and it will be awarded to you in CM if you're close enough to it. But expecting to be given ownership of a piece of property that you're guarding with a mg team from on top of a hill from 600m away is not grounded in reality and this is how most of us approach this game. When I first came here, I based everything on what I learned in CC2. After ducking all the rotten vegetables thrown my way, I soon realized that my idea of reality had been distorted by what I saw in Close Combat. I no longer expected houses to be titanium-reinforced strongholds and all the other things in CM that seemed so different and somehow wrong to me suddenly made sense. You see a vl that was yours at the beginning of the game and if it's not touched by the enemy, it should remain yours. Others who view this game like I do see a valuable fortification, an abstracted value of something else not known to you, and and are told that you must defend that fortification from inside or nearby to assure its safety. Even though the actual value of that vl doesn't come into play, one must view it as so and when you do, CM becomes much more enjoyable to play. It all comes down to how you view the game. I think with a little time, you will see things in a new light like the rest of us. It took me months to convert and to "unlearn what I learned from other war games." Anyways, that's my opinion on this. Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta get back to our game and do something about that invincible Puma of yours in my rear area. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

That's cool. Kinda like the German's answer to the AVRE. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

I don't see how this game could possibly deliver on its promises. Even if it does though, it will be more like a Massive Multiplayer Sudden Strike. PUKE! It's not they're gonna have the same kind of realism as CM... ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

I'm using Win 98 2nd Edition. With my purchase today, I'm now running 512MB of RAM. At 256MB, it was slow on large maps, especially in View 1. I can honestly say that I do see a noticeable improvement. There were times before on large maps where if I were to turn the camera at ground level, the camera would stop moving for a few secs. That was a little frustrating. Now on large maps when I turn 360 degrees at View 1, I get 1 slight slowdown per revolution. That's pretty good for only a 500mhz system with an average graphics card. I'm not sure if it would be worth it for other players though, even when RAM is so cheap right now. I mainly got the extra memory for web design. Those programs use up a lot of memory, especially Photoshop which is a memory vaccum. This is where the extra amount will really come in handy. The only downside is, my motherboard is somewhat old and I've been told it won't recognize 133mhz speed for 256MB sticks--only 100 when you get up that high. Your mileage may vary. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

BUMP--Excellent question and relevant to a present game I'm playing so I'd like to know the answer too. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Just got me 256MB of PC133 today. Man, even with my rickety old Voodoo 3, the frame rates are much better. I can go on a large map now, down to view 1 and turn 360 degrees without hardly a hitch. Couldn't do that before. Had slow downs all the time. Not to mention that I can now run Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamcleaver...uh I mean...Dreamweaver at the same time. Probably my last upgrade until I buy a new system but money well spent. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

David Aitken said: I can't beleive that PC Gamer gave this game their highest rating ever. Although there is a huge technology tree, it's just like you said...it's nonsense. What really turned me off of that game was the graphics. I know that Sid Meyer isn't famous for eye candy but the graphics in that game were pretty bad. Something you would've seen 10 years ago. In addition to this, it had the most dreadful colors I've ever seen in a game. Just turned me off from what's probably a pretty good game but in no way one of the all time classics which PC Gamer thought it was. I wonder if anyone other than the reviewer liked it nearly as much... ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young. [This message has been edited by Colonel_Deadmarsh (edited 03-12-2001).]

My system is AMD-500 Mhz with 256 MB of RAM-133 already installed so I think that I can only get the 133 stuff. My local PC club computer outlet was selling 256mb-133 RAM for $89 bucks. Pricewatch has a lot of Generic stuff I see...some name brands but I'm still skeptical about buying from some no-name dealer. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

LOL! I remember that all too well. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Who knows of a good dealer or better, a site which lists the cheapest RAM deals on the net?

Hey Yobobo, when are we gonna see the new chat installed? ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Because after playing cc2 for 4 years straight, I never thought I'd be able to even play a turn-based game, let alone have it be my favorite, and now I like this even better than CC. Part of my fascination with the game is due to the 3-D world you play in. I can't believe how much of a difference it makes and how it completely changes one's strategy. Sure, in CC2 there was elevation (if you could call it that) but completely different than what we're dealing with here. Another thing that I love is the realism factor this game brings to the table. It makes me look at all the other WWII games out there with shame. I've always been a WWII buff but never before have I been so fascinated with armor thickness and little bits of information that the average person wouldn't be interested in. This game has really given me a thirst for knowledge about WWII. Other things I love about this game are the camera, the scenario editor (which I have yet to really dive into), the bitchen looking tanks, the sounds, and the fact that I can take however long I want to devise my strategy for the next turn. I relate this game to a superior version of chess except that it's "wego" and not "you go, I go." All the above is what makes this game magical for me and keeps me coming back for more. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

I just had my Hellcat shoot at my opponent's Hetzer and put a round through its side and the report was, "Upper Hull Penetration." I was happy as a clam until my opponent told me I didn't kill the tank. I didn't believe him until I saw the Hetzer reverse into some cover on the last turn. What's strange is that my Hellcat took 3 shots at the Hetzer's side without the Hetz turning to pivot which it obviously has to if it wants to shoot since it has no turret. I thought if it didn't move, I at least immobilized it but that's not the case. So, what the heck happened to it? Homba, give everyone the damage report on your Hetzer. You know it's gonna get brewed up sooner or later by my cat. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Bitchen. Sounds like da zone. I hope it's easier to navigate through than that Java chat up there now. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Some random thoughts since there are so many people I want to take quotes from and yet I'm too lazy and have too much real work to do to actually do that. First of all, Seanachai brought up the question of whether CM should model real world combat or should it act more (in my own words here) like a game of chess with no such things as random events. Now, I agree with him that I like the randomness of these things, except of course when bad things happen to me . The question is, do these random events happen too often? Are they more a product of bad AI or are we being too judgemental of the AI, expecting our carefully calculated moves to be carried out in full so if something does go wrong, we are the only ones to blame? As much as I'd like to believe that the things that happen in the game can be attributed to real world circumstances like a tank commander panicking and giving an order to stop and shoot when his initial orders were to wheel around the enemy's flank, I have a hard time doing this. Maybe I should start to look at things in a different way but half of me views CM as a 21st century version of chess with JagdTigers playing the part of Queens and infantry acting out the duties of pawns. When I look at the game this way, I expect randomness to occur once in a blue moon which would be just enough to remind me that there IS luck involved and not every command I issue will be carried out to a "T". Unfortunately, there have been more than several random encounters which cause me to become furious because I no longer feel I have control of my men and make me question why I even give out orders at all if they are not going to be carried out the way I issued them. I've had mortar teams refuse to fire smoke when I told them to, I've had tanks stop in one place for 10 seconds at the end of a movement order before turning, even though they only had to slow down to complete the last one, etc. There are more than a few of these occurances and this to me is not randomness, but problems with the AI. Now, I'm not exactly bagging on CM's AI. Coming from CC2 land, this is way better. But sometimes I think the people on this board try to chalk up AI screwups to real-life situations and this is just not modeled in CM. Of course, if fooling yourself into thinking this gives you peace of mind when playing this game, go for it. Maybe I should look into it too. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Can you tell me when the $20,000 CM tourney is gonna be? Quitting my job to play this all day has made me broke. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Do any of you people have lives? I mean outside of this forum... I wondered in here hoping to find some intelligent converstation going on but as usual it's more talk about rodents. If you people are that desperate for sex, go rent a prostitute. If you don't have the money for that, go buy a sheep. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

I found out through the CC2 chat room on da' zone. Not very interesting, is it? Okay, lemme tell you how I got my CC2 buddy, Homba involved... Homba was a CC2 addict. He would play as much as me and I'd always see him on...that's right, da' zone so I told him of a new WWII game he has to check out. I told him it was half turn-based and half real time. Him: "But it's not full real time like CC2." Me: "No, but you play turn-based board games, don't you" Him "Well, yes." Me: "Ok, then. Try it out and see what you think. I know you'll love it." Him: "Hmmm...maybe after I get bored of CC5." Me: "Try it now. You won't be disappointed." ------------------------------------ Flash forward one month later after he gets the game.... ------------------------------------ Me: "I see by looking on the ladder you haven't played much CC2 lately." Him: "Yeah, been playing this instead." Me, trying hard as hell not to say, "I told you so." I hope he's not reading this right now. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Still looks down to me. No daily results shown. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Olle said: No, they shot and hit going full speed from about 280m out. Then the Panther swiveled it's hull and turret to try to lock on. The cat took a shot at me and missed. Then, my Hellcat took another shot on the run and missed. It was then that he stopped, on a dime, and waited there as the Panther took it's second shot and hit my side. Even if he was at the end of a movement order and had to change direction a little, he shouldn't have come to a complete stop like that. The Panther was on a hill, had the advantage AND the next shot, plus my Hellcat didn't turn around to engage which would've made it harder to hit from the front. It kept its side perpendicular to the Panther before it got knocked out so it didn't seem like it was a decision to just fight it out right there. It seemed more like the AI seizing up. I should also point out that my Hellcat didn't have Tungsten so its success at killing the Panther from the front while at a lower elevation would be slim. Jasper said: That's pretty funny. It's possible the TC realized that the Hellcat wasn't fast enough to flank the Panther in that situation and so they decided to take their chance right there. It still doesn't explain why they didn't turn to face the Panther to decrease the silouette. It would've been interesting to see what they would've done if that was a Tiger up there with a slower turret. That they could've gotten around easily. I still believe though that my opponent knew what I was up to and rotated the turret while I was beginning my flanking manuever so as to help out the cat a little in turning to fire. Those things have slow turrets and shouldn't be able to turn that fast in my opinion. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young. [This message has been edited by Colonel_Deadmarsh (edited 03-05-2001).]

Yeah, I would think that a tank on top of a hill would have a somewhat significant advantage over a tank which was 500m away and 20-30m below it. What I'd like to know and what I haven't found in any searches yet is what are these general value changes? For instance, how is the armor slope treated on the tank below when struck by a round from a tank 20m above him at medium range? It would seem to me that the armor slope of the tank down below would have significant changes to it as the degree of trajectory from the round has completely changed. Could BTS please comment on this? What if I promise that Maximus won't make any smart aleck comments for an entire week? Would that do the trick? Seriously, I'd really love to hear from BTS on this but others are encouraged to chime in too if they have a good understanding of math and physics and stuff like that... ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.

Thanks Jeff, I didn't bother to look at these old posts because I didn't think they'd have the info I need but apparently they did. Here are some quotes by BTS from that thread... ...The simple fact is that a tank tipped at x degrees and tilted y to the shooter makes a HUGE difference. ...in CM height AND angle are taken into account automatically. If you are 10 meters in front of a 2 story building, and someone is on the top floor shooting down at you, this is extra bad for the unit's state (mostly morale, but also pinning and such). ...Another example of why this 3D is important to troops. A unit behind a wall is protected only to the degree that the height of the wall, friendly distance from the wall, enemy distance from the wall, and enemy's shooting angle say it is. If the shooter is down hill, then the unit behind the wall is in an ideal spot. If the shooter is above, then perhaps being behind the wall offers NO protection. This is in addition to the age old problem of "which side of the wall is the unit on" in hex based wargames. In CM there is no confusion. You are behind it or you aren't depending on where your unit is in relation to the enemy's. No ambiguity. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young.