Jeff Duquette

Agreed. The only way this sort of game is going to have any level of longevity with game playing folks is through online play. Regarding the editor -- I have been knocking this thing around a bit, and I think it works pretty well. I still have not figured out how to establish intial positions of new units. I see there seems to be some form of scenario map cordinate system, but I am unsure how to figure out map cordinates and how to set new units onto a scenario map. Anyone have helpful hints on how to place units on scenario maps?

Well I did manage to get my infantry to lay down prone and stay put for the first time. Life is good. Thanks for the game command tips. I started doing the double click thingie on squad members so that the whole squad was highlighted for a specific command. It worked pretty slick -- I think that's the way to go for me. I finally beat the AI in the Mortain scenario. Although to be fair I had to edit the base scenario and give myself four additional M10 TDs. Too many panzers. I still felt that I only had time to futz around with the armor during actual game play. The game was again decided by the various tank encounters with the infantry acting only as decoration. This was perhaps a poor scenario to test the games infantry capabilities as it is such a tank heavy scenario. I think I need to try a scenario with only infantry present on both sides. Maybe I’ll dump all the tanks from the Mortain Scenario and give that a try.

I'm gonna give the infantry a couple more college trys with the various tips provided above -- just to make sure I'm not totally full of dog poop. But right now I gotz' to agree with Mannerheim Tanker's above post. The infantry sorta seems like tits on a bull. The game feels like it was optimized for panzer stuff. I'm just not getting a Combined Arms warm and fuzzy feel from game play.

Okee Dokee. Thanks for the tips -- I'll give it a whirl. If I use the "HOLD" command does that result in my dudes not using defensive fires and such? I mean if someone starts shooting at some of my guys that are in "HOLD" -- will they still drop to prone and return fire?

how do i get my infantry to lay down -- or crawl for that matter? i'm still pretty skeptical of the infantry having much use -- even after your last post. Unless dying is considered an asset. i'm not a total 'tard. i know a tad about real world infantry tactics -- using suppressive fire and the like, and I suppose I can wag on about bounding-overwatch or whatever. i'm just not seeing how it can be implemented realistically within this game system. but i promise that i won’t throw a hissy-fit or act like a bloody drama queen just cause the game isn’t my personal idea of perfection. moreover I am willing to learn. for starters how do I get my infantry dudes to lay frickin’ prone ...and stay frickin’ prone until i tell um' to do something different? My dudes are constantly wondering off lookin’ for smokes or beer or a bologna sandwich or some such thing. mmmm...bologna and beer. No idea wtf they are doing but every time they wonder off they invariably get mowed down by a tank or by MG fire or the like. I usually have no idea what happened. I am always coming back to a scene from Custer’s last stand as I was off engrossed in some other part of the battlefield. Hmm..guess my frickin’ infantry sprites decided to go off looking for poon-tang again. I told um’ to sit tight – now they’re all dead – again. some of my lack of continued enthusiasm for the game is doubtless associated with me playing this thing solitaire only. i recall from my days of playing Close Combat the solitaire play was fun, but had its own peculiar foibles. a whole new world of gaming goodness cropped up out of being able to play Close Combat online. I know this game ain’t Close Combat or Combat Mission or Squad Leader – or whatever. But folks are invariably going to make comparisons to past game designs that have been successful. Now there used to be a online game room thingie for Close Combat. sort of a neanderthal version of gamespy or the like. it made mutiplayer very easy in the sense that there always seemed to be dudes online ready to thrash each other. Insomnia bugging you – no problem. Get online on at 2AM and you could play a dude living in Helsinki or whatever. is there such a place available for ToW? or is it pretty much hunt down a buddy -- who also has the game -- and hook-up for human-bean’ play? [ May 16, 2007, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: Jeff Duquette ]

i think multiplayer capability is critical to this sort of games success. a lot of sins can and will be be overlooked by gamers if they are having a rip-roaring time playing online with other human 'beans'

great -- danke for the tip. i'll give it a whirl. is there another key i need to press to get my infantry to take cover and to stop running off on their own ;o) i love being the last post to a particular page of a thread. it pretty much ensures your post will never be read.

I have to agree with most of this post. While I think the tank vs tank battles can be a lot of fun in the game, Infantry is pretty much cannon fodder. It seems to have either limited or little practical use in the game. Infantry has to be able to gain advantage from cover and concealment. Woods, brush, subtle folds in the ground. The inability of Infantry to enter buildings is a major oversight and a questionable design decision, particularly for a game that is supposed to portray squad level combat in Europe during WWII. The basic infantry unit a player has to manuver in the game should really be either a squad or a fire team. Perhaps give the player the ability to break down squads into individual men if the player is so inclined. Having to command individual men as a default game play setting is too distracting for the typical scenario sizes. I know one can control entire squads via a double click on the squad leader. However, it is not typically practical to find the squad leader during real time game play. When things get fast and furious one losses track of the squad leader, particularly if the scenario has any number of tanks\panzers. You end up playing infantry like a game of Command and Conquer, where by you have to grab arbitrary groups of men using a mouse box. I could live with the individual soldier thing, if I felt like spending some time with my infantry was going to pay some dividends. But Infantry survivability in the game is pretty much nil as a result of the games cover and concealment issues. One final bitch, individual units and the AI initiative thingie is rather over-blown in the game. The general effect of having the AI continually grab hold of a players men and tanks and propel them along in random directions is distracting, and adds little to “realism”. It does suceed in limiting replay value -- at least for me. Units and tanks seem to be continually picking and moving on their own and invariably being slaughtered when a player’s attention is focused elsewhere. Is there a way for a player to turn this feature off such that his squads and tanks are not inclined toward moving on their own? By the way, I bought the full blown version. I have played the game a number of times. I like the tank battles. Graphics and art are remarkable -- editor is a great add and such. I can work with the controls and camera and the like -- if I felt like it was worth the effort. There are a lot of good design ideas and great concepts in the game. But I personally am looking for a bit more balance between infantry and tank capabilities. To that end I think the design team needs to take a hard look at terrain effects – cover and concealment. Otherwise the game has limited replay value for me. I’ll prolly pick it up again and kick it around after the first patch. [ May 16, 2007, 04:41 AM: Message edited by: Jeff Duquette ]

Yup. The German penetration data looks like 30-degrees data (or 60-degree relative to the German method for indicating obliquity). I also noticed that the game info screen doesn't show anything in the way of penetration for Hollow charge ammo -- at least it’s missing from the info screen for a number of German tanks. I have the full blown game. I haven’t noticed German AP being particularly impotent. But I would be interested to hear if this was an oversight.

the editor is a pretty slick tool.

The demo missions never will do it, anyway for whatever its worth: 122mm VBR-471 167 152 142 133 122 100mm UBR-412 171 155 135 115 100 152mm VBR-546 133 125 115 105 90 </font>

Actually slope effects do work that way, although this would be relative to lower obliquities. Divergence from a simple cosine relationship starts anywhere from approximately 10 to 30-degrees dependent upon the projectile, impact velocity and t/d amongst other things. Obviously for higher obliquities, slope effect modeled as thickness divided by cosine(theta) is not a particularly accurate representation. That's pretty fundmental. However, a poor representation of slope effects doesn’t really imply that there are “no” slope effects being modeled by the game. But I suppose we should never sweat the details if we happen to be swimming around in the middle of a shark feeding frenzy, or when attempting to stir up a lynch mob. So what are you basing your guess that ToW’s slope effects are limited to line of sight thickness only? HEAT slope effects are pretty much LOS thickness -- nominal plate thickness divided by cosine of obliquity. If we are talking about monolithic steel armor targets, rod penetrators will perforate a greater thickness of armor at obliquity than 0-degree obliquity -- assuming we hold impact velocity and such constant. This is a function of the break out phase of perforation by long rod penetrators; or you can call it backsurface effects if you like. However, the armor on modern MBT doesn't typically consist of monolithic steel armor.

than the answer would be slope effects are nominal thickness divided by cosine theta. however since your previous posts suggest that your understanding of the game design is relatively limited, maybe I'll wait for one of the designers to comment.

Just fiddling about on my lunch hour. Attached is a comparison of perforation data for 75mm M61 APC and 3-inch M62A1 APC. The blue curves are based upon V50 limit velocities determined by the US Army Ballistics Labratory from firing trials – projectile just passing completely through the plate 50% of the time (better known as the Naval Ballistic Limit). No remaining velocity after passage. Obliquity is zero-degrees. The red curves are based upon the numbers posted by Bioseed (see his above posting) for ToW. I’m away from my copy of the game, so I can’t verify that the numbers posted by Bioseed’s are free from errors. I don’t know what penetration criteria had been assumed in the ToW design. Presumably BL(N). [ May 08, 2007, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Jeff Duquette ]

But slope effects are Lorrin's?

Hi SoaN: Did you rely exclusively on Lorrin Bird's manual "Armor & Gunnery" for the game? Thanks Jeff

Downloaded the demo and played around with the basic training stuff. Nice game. Love the graphics and interface. Pretty intuitive -- well intuitive after a bit of help from the training scenarios. I'm gonna try the Sealowe scenario tommorrow after work.

Thanks Madmatt.

Never mind -- I see Moon put together a brief right up on ricochet on the other thread. Thanks. I like that you touched upon ricochet being partly a function of t/d. Couple things I wanted to throw out there for anyone interested. Critical ricochet angle varies dependent upon several additional factors – above and beyond t/d. Obviously attack angle is the crucial ingredient – and as Moon has already indicated, the games attack angle seems to be the complex angle of the design plate slope combined with projectile line of impact. Plate hardness and impact velocity are also rather crucial in determining the final critical ricochet angle for a specific target\projectile impact event. Moreover, if we were to hold plate obliquity and projectile attack angle constant, a slower moving projectile will have a lower critical ricochet angle than the same projectile moving at higher velocity. In addition, if we hold all constant except plate hardness, the softer plate will have a higher critical ricochet angle than the harder plate. It is in essence one of the advantages high hardness, highly sloping armor brings to the table.

Kewl. I have a spring-butt question ;P How are you determining ricochet angle? I assume by this you mean critical ricochet angle?

Yes: What is a 'spring-butt'???!? Best regards, Thomm </font>

Thanks for your help UTex. Lemme know if you find out anything more about multiplayer if its an XP and Vista situation.

Sounds like from your trials that the game engine does employ some sort of slope effects. The one trial where the Panther was destroyed from a glacis hit could have been a MG-ball hit -- or I think the early Panther models had a driver’s periscope and visor built into the glacis. I'm sure one of the local spring-butts can jabber on about the glacis accoutrements better than I. But in essence it sounds like a lucky hit on a weak zone. If there were no slope effects built into the games algorithms, than 75mm M61 APC @ 271meters range ought to be perforating 80mm of vertical plate the vast majority of the time.

Before I part with my cash, will the game run if I have windows vista on my computer? And can I do multiplayer\pbem if the other dude has windows XP on his computer?

Can you set-up a simple scenario to test this theory? I know nothing about the game aside from I was thinking about buying it cause the graphics look kewl. But if there is a scenario making tool in the game, put a Sherman with a 75mm at a range of about 250-meters from the front of a Panther. A 75mm firing M72 AP or M61 APC ought to be able perforate 80mm of vertical RHA at that range -- most of the time. On the other hand, if the game engine is modeling slope effects, neither projectile stands much of a chance against the glacis of a Panther at that range.