M. Bates

Yes you can. The retail version will include a big magic pen to directly draw onto the Combat Mission screen. The pen will work with Photoshop 6 but not with Photoshop 7, or so I am told.</font>

Yes you can. The retail version will include a big magic pen to directly draw onto the Combat Mission screen. The pen will work with Photoshop 6 but not with Photoshop 7, or so I am told.

Two versions of CMBB are released. The first, normal version is like CMBO only with more options, and the Germans and Russians etc etc etc. - $50 The second Platinum Edition has more features. There is a 1 in 20 chance that a player with the Platinum Edition can see all of the enemy units (no FOW) in a PBEM game. Special AFVs like the Maus make it in to the game. Wireframe graphics mode. 1st person perspective game mode/campaign. Plus any other enhancements - $250 Only 200 copies of the Platinum Edition are produced, so this prevents unfairness becoming widespread.

I have the figures for Caen somewhere and 10 times greater Allied casualties does not sound right at all. The Germans of course had a very great concentration of tanks in the Caen area. The Germans may have been able to defend in an urban area with high overlooking ground behind them, but I seriously doubt this would give such a defensive advantage... the German defenders in Caen were seriously carpet bombed.

Can someone please recomend and provide a link for terrain mods to go with the Velvet Grass. The terrain mods by the Velvet Grass author at CMHQ contain quite a few "pinkies" and the trees bases are a bit messy for my tastes. Oh, also I'm missing a British uniform mod.

The rules look to be very well balanced. The Panther is a definite plus point for the Germans though.

The Gurkhas' probably used their kukris (if they got a chance) in the Falklands, as their preferred method of close combat. there are more stories of use against the Germans, Japanese and Malayan Communists.

By the same token it would be wrong to judge CM purely by the efforts of accomplished scenario designers. Oh yes I am forgetting that CM also has a Recon game mode!! You might think that a full strength Green squad is a good simulation of a beaten up under-manned Veteran squad but I definitely wouldn't. Why not read what I wrote? I already acknowledged that tanks made of anti-matter will appear in CMBB. No where have I said that CM is a bad game, I think it is a very good game. Finally, it's ironic that many of niggles in CM at the moment would not be such an issue in a North African game and I hope they will be reduced in any Eastern Front game.

I would not go that far, old chap.

Europe is many shapes and sizes, but I have never seen undulating slopes, four times the height of a man, which fall away just as quickly. Battlefields shouldn't look like Teletubbie episodes. Now, this might be more of a problem with the QB system. A scenario designer could produce good results. I still suspect that CM hills are too broad, too frequent, too high and too smooth. Yes, but it is all abstracted and so the end result is clean LOS across all open ground for the enemy.

Show me a scenario designer who has created a ditch (plenty of ditches in Europe). If artillery is so important... then why do both sides join the battle with fresh, rested troops that have suffered no casualties, not even a grazed knee?? Symmetrical warfare? More defensive items and options are needed. Often meeting engagements feel like re-enactments of Waterloo, 1815. Unfortunately if that's correct then "solid" vehicles will make it for the desert warfare of CM3 and not some of the urban fighting of CM2.

I was agreeing more with his frustation about LOS. I'd like to see more variance in terrain and more complex terrain. Instead of relatively high, smooth hills there could be small ditches and isolated trees. At the moment buildings feel way too basic. Platoon HQs need to have a greater command radius in urban areas and artillery does not play an important enough role in CM. It's not really good enough to say that CM is not designed to simulate certain aspects of warfare. Why give control over a unit of 8 men if they cannot be used properly. Why is it that the only form of man-made fortification is a very basic fox hole. At least trenches will make it into CM2. Another point is that infantry cannot closely follow and work with friendly AFVs, as tank and halftracks are not "solid". This is really important. In CM it feels like infantry and AFVs are divorced from each other. These are just a general bunch of suggestions/complaints. [ March 24, 2002, 04:50 PM: Message edited by: M. Bates ]

Perhaps CM needs more micro management options. Such as the ability to dig in whilst in woods. It's stupid that infantry who have been stationery in some woods for five turns are not better fortified than enemy infantry who blunder right into their position. Infantry can enter a building from any angle. But what about doors and side windows? If two buildings are right next to each other then why is the option to go directly from one to another removed? Also, why is infantry in open ground so hopelessly exposed to enemy fire? The only way that infantry are prevented from getting cut to bits is by having maps full of bumps, hills and mounds. That is not realistic. At the moment CM maps are either lots of impenetrable forest or billiard table-like expanses of freshly cut grass.

I'm not trying to suggest that CM is a bad game, but no one can deny the unfairness in one inconsequential grunt spotting a tank, then all his comrades miles around know all about it. Absolute spotting is one factor, but the other factor is that as someone has already said, in CM you are acting as the Platoon Commander all the way up to Battalion Commander. The inherent nature of a computer game like this is that in 10 seconds of game time between Sgt Becker spotting a Jumbo Sherman, suddenly General Hessler is cancelling the orders for Tigers to head East, and now they are moving West. I think it's basically because Veteran US Squad encounters Regular SS Squad, the game engine does it's calculations, then inevitably the Regular squad comes off worst. There does seem to be a set predictability to many encounters and so it appears that no miraculous deeds take place. Perhaps there is also the momentum of one side gaining the upper hand, and they not only have a slight territorial advantage but also a global morale advantage. In conclusion the best way to play CM is with large maps and a large number of units. This gives both players plenty of options and room to move around the map, without both players getting fixated on half a dozen heavy buildings (and victory flag) in the middle of the map.

Absolute spotting is certainly a key point as well. It only takes one bailed crewman to spot an advancing platoon for all enemy units up to an infinite distance away know exactly where that unit is. Unfortunately relative spotting and proper house-to-house travelling won't be in the next CM.

Er, this is a legitimate real world military tactic used since the time of Wellington. The no LOS until point blank range is its exact purpose. Not a 'gamey' tactic at all.</font>

I agree with you. One example is that when defending, I always put my infantry at the back and rear of houses and at the back of forests. This gives them a narrow LOS, and deprives the enemy of LOS until they are very near to my infantry, and then the enemy infantry gets chewed up. Also there is all the emphasis on reverse slope defending. Once again the enemy has no LOS until at point-blank range. It is possible to defend a large Heavy Building indefinitely by having two infantry squads on the bottom floor at the back of the building supported by a Platoon HQ on the top floor directly above them. In a lot of PBEM games the first player to "stick their head above the parapet" and try to do something interesting with their tanks will end up with a lot of dead AFVs. For an AT gun, a line of Tall Trees is like an impenetrable brick wall to limit enemy LOS. Another point is that success in CM is dictated more by an understanding of the CM game engine. Given the strange way in which squads cannot move directly from one house into its neighbour (instead having to walk outside and then back in again) it's easy to predict where the enemy will be forced into the open while advancing through a town or village.

Could someone please email the two scenarios which came with the gold demo? I think they were Chance Encounter and Last Defense, I have not played them for a while. Preferably the originals, though if you can email any tweaked versions, so much the better! Maybe other people wanting the orginal demo scenarios could post their email addresses in this thread. Mine is m.batespbem@btinternet.com

Red Dwarf is mostly crap. No comedy series deserves NINE seasons. Rubbish topics I don't know about but I hate posts like: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Moderator Message by KwazyMatt If any of you guys misbehave again I will have no choice but to close the forum, and also the internet (if Bill Gates lets me). I realise that I have given you 217 final chances before but mark these soon-to-be-forgotten words: This is your final chance. Break any of the forum rules and I WILL ban you!! (possibly). Maximouth76, this is the fifth time in a week that you have praised Hitler's policies on ethnic minorities. Please don't do it again. I check the forums at *least* once a month and I don't put up with any ****. Consider this thread locked.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by YK2: Sheesh do us a favoUr...... next you'll be asking the Scots to add an E to their whisky.... And anyone with a modicum of sense knows that us Scots never add anything to their Amber Nectar [ 08-25-2001: Message edited by: YK2 ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, didn't the Irish (sensibly) remove the "e" from Whiskey to differentiate their product from the Scotch drink? A good system. Better than hacking a "u" from Colour to make a pleb-friendly "Color". Interestingly, does anyone really believe that the rest of the world will start removing U's to Americanise words? Seems to me that all the Europeans who have Romance language influences - from the French or Romans or both - will carry on using U's as they always have done, to spell words "properly". Just because Bill Gates or Steve Jobs makes us use a Favorites (ugh) menu does not herald a wholesale change to existing literacy. FIGHT THE SYSTEM. (ahem).

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: Hi, I should maybe say that this was really a case of me having walked through Gloucestershire one day, seeing this place, and having this urge to do a battle on it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> LOL I'm sorry but I just read that comment, looked at your user name (Germanboy) and exploded with laughter! Good luck to your boys next Saturday BTW.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus: But back on the "English" stuff...dropping those unnecessary u's in words ending in o..r would be a great start.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hey Maximus, I just emailed my American cousin, Stevenson Franklin (III), and this is what he had to say: DUH I gess tjose BRits R still saw at looseing to a bunsch of farmerz in the Re-Volution back in 1776!!!! They shood lerrn to spell maw leke us (WHOOPS A U THERE) cuz we spell words wivout U's (ANOTHER U SOR-REY) AND we saaved tham TWICE fromm Gerr-Manns HAHAHAH FRENCH CRAP AT FIGHTING!!!!! Well there you have it Maximus, perhaps one day the rest of the world will learn to spell like invading 17th Century English Peasant F*ckwitts, but until then we will have to differ [ 08-25-2001: Message edited by: M. Bates ]

What about a cinematic re-telling of the Battle of Trafalgar? Kevin Costner or Ben Affleck would play Nelson, with three love interests including Simon the cabin boy. Tim Curry or Alan Rickman could then play Napoleon, pacing up and down dark corridors, slamming his fists, and muttering in an upper-middle class south-eastern English accent. He could also have a bumbling sidekick who is sent to assasinate Nelson, but fails and is killed by Napoleon with a dagger to the forehead.

What if... ... in 1943 the Germans WON convincingly at Kursk but still LOST (i.e. the Allies invade) in Sicily and Italy. Do the Germans wrap up Russia and take Moscow, then secure and hold the Western Front? Or do the Allies push on steadily thru Italy and invade France in 1944, while the Germans are still slogging it out with the Soviet Union?