Holien

Hi Bimmer, Yes if you can design one of the scenarios that would be great. The storyline would be excellent. We need I guess a fourth scenario for the final. Not sure how that will fit into the scenario overview? I shall e-mail the other designers now and include you on the maiil to see if they want to take part? If not we might be back at the drawing baord? Many thanks for this and I hope this can be used by other groups out there who want some mini tourney material. Cheers H

Yes Storyline to you. Ok so lets go with CMBB and say early war. How about something near the start of the Russian Invasion? As you and I are the only ones discussing at the moment that makes me lead tester and you lead designer. Can you come up with the scenario over view and general lines of approach. I will e-mail (tonight) the designers who have been in touch and see if they would do one of the battles. H

There have been a few designers e-mail me directly, what do you think of the above? Would you be happy to design something to a central theme as described in the framework once agreed? Which game do you prefer, I am open on either BB or AK. H

Ok so lets work on three small scenarios as described above, an attack, meeting engagement (probe) and then counter attack. So three maps required and three scenarios with a connected story line. Locking players into playing Axis or Allied through the entire tourney might be limiting. How players advance, or if you use round robin with aggregate points at the end determining the winner (I would use the latter) needs to be resolved. I am going to lock the players into one side. The way I want to balance and get the best player in the final is to find the best Allied Player and the Best Axis player. By having three types of scenarios each player will get to attack defend and meet. That should test their skills. To remove the imbalance of the scenarios the best Allied player will play the best Axis player in the final. That scenario will be played from both sides and be viewable before being played. It removes fog of war but gives each player a chance to choose how to play the game. Maps need not be physically connected to keep continuity of story line. In fact, having different maps keeps things more interesting for the players. Yes fair point they need to have a reason for being in the same area and perhaps a river or feature will provide the connection. certainly not jump between Desert and Jungle.. I.e. Same region. You are probably talking about smallish maps (to minimize approach time) and reinforced company size attacking forces. Limited armor is possible, but forces should be primarily infantry, as the loss of a tank or two in such small scenarios can be devastating (unless cheap, early war tanks or light armor are used). The trick is going to be to create scenarios that allow the players some real flexibility rather than just forcing them (especially the defenders) to line up and die. Balance would be great but not essential as we will be getting the best Allied and Axis player. I realise that we might have the stronger players all playing the Axis but I shall try and smooth that out by knowledge of the players and discussions before hand. It is not a ROW where players will be up in arms if there is no balance. As for the size that is spot on the scenarios must be playable in around an hour to an hour and half max. The units have to be managable and the action fast. Yet as you say there must be choices to be made. That is the hardest part of any design? While there is plenty of time, it is advantageous to get the scenarios underway ASAP, as even light testing will eat up time. Fair point and if we can agree the framework we can get started. Next is the game BB or AK? Then the scenario background. I would suggest that once this is decided we can get three designers each to work on a scenario that slots into the overall framework as decided here. I can then playtest as I guess I will not be allowed to play the tourney but have the fun of watching the guys play it. I prefer early war where light tanks can be used without massive imbalance. H

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Thanks Bimmer. I am trying to sort out my ideas on this, so bear with me as I am just typing my thoughts to see where it goes. There are a couple of different approaches we could try. 1. Tourney where people play competitive but where we find the best Allied player and best the German player. 2. Team play where battles are interconnected. Now the route I am thinking through is that I run a small tourney along the lines of point 1. Perhaps it would be just as simple as having 3 scenarios. 1st a Meeting engagement. Then an Attack for either side. I.e. I would group the players againts opponents and each pairing would 1st play the meeting engagement. (Same battle for each group of players.) Then depending on who got the most points in that they would become the attacker in the next scenario while the loser would become the defender. This means the designer only has to do two maps (interconnected.) They would have to do three games with forces on those two maps. I know the defence map is a bit of a frig as in reality there should be two different maps but in terms of game play that helps keep it balanced. In fact thinking this through more clearly you could just have two designs and frig it further by having the loser swap sides. I.e. Pre define the script? Hmm I need to think this through and just take this as a brain dump to see if anyone else can feed into my mad musings... More later as I must do some work outside and parents are dropping over today. We have plenty of time on this as it is not until the 30th April. H

Hi, Richie / Bimmer I will E-mail Bimmer when I get home tonight. I was thinking either CMAK or CMBB. As for requirements I just need something that can be played in a reasonable period of time as we will have limited PC's and so some players will be sat out. Being sat out for an hour is OK but much longer gets boring. The feel I want is skirmish type games with small units and perhaps tied into a story line? I.e. Battles along a fictional part of the front line. Mixed forces Inf and light armour nothing that imbalances the play. But I am open to suggestions. Richie thanks for the offer and I will take whatever you can give me. Cheers H

Hi, Ace I have just dropped in to see how things are progressing and I note the comment about releasing the AAR's before the end. IMO I would not do this as players might complain about ideas on style and format being taken by other players. After all a player could say that is really neat I shall re-write my AAR using that approach and then you would end up with "style clones" and make judging far harder than it already is. I know it is a pain in the butt that players have to wait sooooo long for the end but that is the downside to having soooo many players with different play rates. Also you would not want any to slip out to players who are still playing the scenarios, hence you lock the AAR's down until the end. I hope this helps H

Hi, Over the weekend of the 30th April I am hosting a unique CM event in the UK. It is open to all CM players and so far we have 5 players signed up. If you want to know more e-mail me as the more the merrier. By networking some PC's together we will be running a CM event where the players actually get to shout insults across the table rather than having to type it out on an e-mail. We of course could just play some scenarios that can be obtained from the various hosting sites on the WWW. I am looking to do something slightly different. The idea I am kicking around is getting some small scenarios purpose built for the weekend. These can then be played in a semi competitive manner for the enjoyment of the players and spectators. In an ideal world they should be small enough so that they can be completed in around 1 hour of play. Say 5 minute turns at most? If there are any designers out there who might like to talk this through please post here or e-mail me. I will ensure that you get feedback from all the players and we might even be able to do some AAR's. Just kicking this idea around to see what people think. Cheers H

Great Photo's. Thanks I shall have to go to the UK Tank Fest to see a real Tiger moving. I hope I get time this year to do that. H

Somtime things take longer to come than you would hope for but I am sure that it will sooner or later. H

Hi I can back up Kip on the desire for multi-player and some sort of campaign environment. The ideal would be as described above having the ability to assign Company Commander roles to other players / the AI. If however that is too much of a compromise I would not want to lose what you have done with the current engine as the majority of play is single player vs PBEM and that is the majority market. As for congealing down the pup I have never done that and never will. Not sure what Kip does down the pup?? H

Hi, You might know about these but here they are if you don't. http://www.multimap.com/ http://www.streetmap.co.uk/ http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/getamap/ Cheers P.s. A feature of Google is to do a search for images. Loads of images for the wall. http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=hadrian's%20wall&hl=en&lr=&cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&sa=N&tab=wi This one quite good... Removed as link too long... Sorry. H [ December 31, 2004, 08:13 AM: Message edited by: Holien ]

Ahh those were the days sat in Andreas little flat looking at the CMAK for the first time! Pity he is stuck in Paris and actually working for once in his life!!! Like him I have pretty much stopped playing CM at the moment and hope that with a fair wind in the New Year I will start again and you will be at the top of the list Jim. Also don't forget the New Year means you are closer to another weekend of CM fun in sunny Woodford. Anyway once again the artwork is great and a work of beauty and dedication. Keep it up... H

Andrew, Did you get a response from your e-mail? Have they confirmed that they sent it to you? H P.s. It will be worth the wait.....

Excellent!!!! H

Sore subject the Canadian postal service has not given him it yet. However, Florida postal service came up trumps and gave KF his copy even though it was ordered some time after Ankulin. I am expecting some Norwegian scenarios from KF as the latest copy is purely the Norwegian invasion then and now. Some great pictures of French Tanks stuck on the beaches. Plenty of scenario ideas for German paras surrounded on remote Norwegian airfields. H

You missed the boat!!! It could have made a difference with the AAR's. I presume you had a fun game with that scenario?

And What games would they be? H

You just have to love the WWW without this wonderful tool we poor souls sat in the middle of the country (or remote parts of the world) would never get to see such things. H

That new web site is great. A really nice well thought out site that helps the designer. Thanks for pointing it out KF. H

If you look on the right of the first page you will see a special link for WWII Normandy 60 years on photo's. H

The results for the Top AAR as voted for by the ROW IV community The first round of counting saw John Kettler knocked out. The second round saw Tabpub taken down. This left Londoner a close third with Steve and Ankulin. Londoner votes were then transfered to the voters next choice and that meant..... Ankulin won with a clear majority. So the full year subscription goes to Ankulin and I once again must congratulate you all on some well written AAR's that hit the spot!! Scenario Winner is as follows: - There were only three horses in this race and Methode came second, ahead of Melon, but behind Vevi. So congratulations to Kingfish who gets the prize for the best scenario design as voted by the ROWIV community. If you want to see the spreadsheet explaining it then e-mail me. H

Hi The only address I have for you (that I can find so far) is the Bell South account. H

Hi, The Votes have been counted the winners will soon be announced after I have had independent checks undertaken. Any lawyers out there I will gladly send you the spreadsheet after it has been checked and after I have announced the results. H