Panzertruppen

You may also find this of interest: http://www.warfarehq.com/page_left_column.php?content=article_disp&p=176&page=1&cat=1

Also try Warfare HQ. http://www.warfarehq.com -- official website http://www.warfarehq.com/forums -- official forums There is a large and active CM community there and several ongoing tournaments.

Something I would like to add on this note: we did have a very basic TacOps ladder at Warfare HQ at one time (about a year ago) and only a handful of TacOps players used it. One of the major reasons why it wasn't popular was that there was no mechanism to track how balanced a particular scenario was. Allow me to address this. The new ladder will be open for business very soon and it is head and shoulders above the old one. First, it is fully automated and has more info than the old one. Second, it does contain a mechanism for tracking not only each player's individual statisitcs, but it will also track each scenario individually. That means you will be able to look for a particular scenario, see how many times it was played, and what the results were. If that isn't enough, it will also contain the ability to have a "mini AAR" each time an endgame is reported for that scenario. I would hightly encourage TacOps players to start reporting their games once the ladder is fully operational. Even if you are not interested in competitive play (most Warfare HQ members aren't), the ladder will still serve its primary purpose as an opponents registry and to track scenario balance. You're going to love it! I will make an announcement when the TacOps ladder is up and running.

http://www.warfarehq.com

Don't miss this one. http://www.warfarehq.com/forums/showthread.php?p=30607&goto=postid

In fact, the entire webpage needs some quality time with a spell checker. But that's less than relevant, since it's a game tournament, not a spelling contest! /SirReal </font>

This is just a friendly reminder for those that don't know that the TacOps ladder is still running at Warfare HQ. There is also a TacOps forum that sees a small amount of activity.

A most interesting thread. I don't know the particulars of the above mentioned article, so I'll only comment on the subject from a very general point of view. Wargame simulations not valuable in recreating historical situations? Hmmmm...I guess we fools in the US Army have it all wrong. We use wargame simulation software at many levels to recreate both modern training exercises and historical encounters. This is certainly a limited tool, but a very useful one. Nothing, not even the most rigorous training, can guarantee he outcome of a battle. Just too many variables involved. However, by using several different methods an officer or senior NCO can make a reasonably accurate assessment of his unit's chances of surviving a given battle. Computer wargame simulation software is an important tool in training all four of America's major military services. The US Army War College and the US Army Sergeant's Major Academy are full of people who can testify to that. I have participated in many training events up to Brigade level and observed the results from within the Brigade TOC. A little more in depth than the average wargame perhaps, but it has the same basic priciples. In fact some of the folks who now design Wargames started out designing software for the military. I believe the TacOps designer started out that way (although I'm not 100% sure of that). As far as military folks having a manopoly on historical knowledge...well, they do have a unique perspective. I was in Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Haiti. Does that make me an expert? Perhaps, but only from a very narrow focus as it pertains to my job in the military. Even though I was there and saw many things the history books don't always include, that doesn't really qualify me as an expert on the subject. A true historian would be far more knowledgeable on many aspects of the fighting than I am. Although a soldier has a very unique perspective, it is almost always a very narrow perspective. I wouldn't worry too much about a cantankerous veteran. No one has more respect for the accomplishments and sacrifice of my fellow soldiers than I do, but also understand that old soldiers are a grouchy bunch. You will never make them happy no matter what you do. Old soldiers are always critical of younger soldiers and anyone who wasn't "actually there." Except for a few very rare examples, most soldiers are not experts on the techical complexity of a battle as a whole. They just think they are! By the way, this veteran must not be totally aginst wargames. He was reading a copy of Computer Gaming World wasn't he... Don

I love it when oppenents give each other the old Blitz salute! Sounds like Round 2 is going to be interesting. Yes indeed Wild Bill and his boys did an outstanding job. I certainly hope they will continue to support us during Round 3 and 4. Thanks guys. Don

I'm glad to hear most people are enjoying the buildings. For me, that made all the hard work worth it. The textures were created on a Pentium II 400mhz, 128 meg RAM, Geforce 2. That system will be upgraded to an Athlon 900mhz, 256 meg RAM early next week. Can hardly wait. I have heard a few comments about the buildings being somewhat dark. That may be. It's hard for me to tell. With the way my gamma settings and video card are configured they look just right on my system, but I can't tell how they appear for others. It is quite well known that there is usually quite a difference between the way 3dfx based cards and Nvidia based cards display. 3dfx drivers tend to be far "brighter." Of course someone could always use Paint Shop Pro or some other utility to lighten or darken them a little. It's a good point, but I'm not sure I could solve it to everyone's satisfaction. Don

That's correct - the problem is related to Zippit. Tom_W and I had a terrible time trying to figure out what the problem was when he hosted the original Rural Building Mod. The only thing I can figure is that that particular utility is only 99% reliable at converting files. I even resaved certain files and then emailed them to him. Same problem, same files. We then tried sending them posted inside an email (not as an attachment. That didn't work either. The problem is not with the file, but with the conversion process. I don't have time right now, but someone could post those two images on this forum. Then the people who need them could just copy and paste. Hope this helps. Don [This message has been edited by Panzertruppen (edited 12-02-2000).]

Thanks for the interest gentlemen. I am happy to announce that both the "city" buildings and the full winter version are now 100% complete. I have broken them down into two files - a summer zip and a winter zip. The summer contains all rural buildings, the two story buildings, the city buildings, the church and a stone wall. The winter version contains the full set as well. I sure hope everyone enjoys them. What program did you use to make these buildings? All the building textures were created with Paint Shop Pro 5. I use the same methods that designers use to create textures for 1st person shooters such as Quake and Half-Life. I would create a brick texture, a concrete texture, wood, etc. Then I would past them together as needed, add detail, and then weather the whole building. After that the battle damage was added, and then shadow effects. Very time consuming, but I think it was worth it. Can you give an approximation of when they may be released? I'm not trying to tease you, but the buildings are not quite ready to download yet. There will be an announcement on the forum when they are. I don't know the exact time, but it will be very soon. What's next after the buildings are complete? Vehicles? Terrain? Not quite sure. I'll probably take a break for a few days. There are about 45 textures in each set. As each was originally created at 1024x768, that a whole lot of textures to airbrush! To be honest, I glad it's finished. I may go after the pillbox and perhaps some of the lesser vehicles. Let me think about it. Thanks for all the kind remarks gentlemen. I doubt I would have made this whole conversion for just myself. Here is another sneak preview: </p> </p> </p> Don Panzertruppen Maddox

Thanks for the support! It's cool to know that a few people are looking forward to this mod. We're getting warm now. I finished half of the third city building today. It took a long time because I spent a day and a half on a texture that I had to discard. I hate it when that happens! I really wish you guys could see these buildings at the resoulution I'm seeing them. In some cases they look truly lifelike. If only CM supported dynamic shadow effects... Oh well, enough of that. I hope to complete that third building within 24 hrs. After that I need to do the winter version (that should only take a few hours for three buildings). I'll keep you posted. Don Panzertruppen Maddox CM Custodian Blitzkrieg Wargaming Club

Just thought I would give you an update on my progress. The winter version of my rural building mod is nearly complete. I expect to have them done this weekend. I had several false starts with the city buildings though. They didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, but I think I'm on the right track now. The only problem I encountered is that I miscounted the number of city buildings. There are actually only three (I thought there were more). With only three available buildings, things are goings to get a little repetitive no matter how clever I try to get with the artwork. What can I say? The CM mission engine simulates small villages quite well, but visually, towns have some drawbacks. I guess it's something we just have to live with until CM2 or a future patch. Anyway, here is a first look. </p> </p> </p>

<DIV>Don, </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This is absolutely correct and Adrian should advance. He neglected to eliminate my de clawed panther at the end and it cost him a victory, (My panther chose to target infantry attacking from the rear instead of the Chaffee in front and took a gun hit. <G> ) but that was just one of the quirks in combat mission. I've had games where I or my opponent have held a victory objective with a less than a half dozen panicked troops when the opposing troops were in the flag range with a full platoon. Overall he played an excellent game and deserves to move on. I noticed on the CM discussion board that you had asked about the scenario balance and there was a little grumbling that it favored the Germans. I had agreed on playing this scenario till I read some of the comments. 1) There was the bogging question, Adrian ran my flanks and caught me with too many areas to cover. I had played for the bog by covering all the roads to the center and right hoping to tag a vehicle coming up the road or force him off the road. He moved off the road early before my ambush and as soon as I saw my opponent was moving well through the mud on my right , I realized I had played the scenario wrong. His greyhound actually made it up the slope behind the right hedgerow and tried to attack from the rear but got cut down. I can't say bogging was an important factor here 2)There was also a mention of green troops. My troops had a tendency to break under fire easily even under clear command control. I had a couple of full squads break after suffering 1-2 casualties and one panicked after being fired upon. The funniest was my schreck bolting from an ambush position behind a forward building when Adrian' s jeep drove up the hill at fast speed. The schreck bolted before even taking fire. <G> So I'd have to say the troops experience was not a major factor in our game. Earlier I had thought the scenario was pro-German to a degree because of time constraints, until I saw the ground traversed by Adrian in the time allotted. So after seeing another close score and with the way my troops behaved and given that my opponent could drive my flanks, I doubt the scenario was imbalanced toward the Germans any longer. I do think my opponent could have made short work of me by driving the center under a cloud of smoke but that will be a possible result unexplored. Now earlier I had asked about a loser's tourney. The sudden death is great for competition but also can leave some sore losers due to the nature of CM. I think Sudden Death is more fitting for the CC system. In CM, while good field tactics are essential to the game, the element of chance still plays a role and because it is a point based game, results can be inconclusive. I'm thinking here of the message on the board where a result was decided by one point. I also know that a few of the tourney members are not very experienced in CM. I've just completed a game with one tourney member and that was his first PBEM game. My last reason is though competition is admirable, it can sometimes lead to those sore feelings. Playing double-blind mirrored games or a set number of double/blind games with several tourney members round robin style can be less cutthroat and more telling in a game like CM in my opinion. is it possible to add a loser's tourney for us less competitive, more fun loving players. I don't think the work would be overdemanding if double-blind QB's were used with set points and conditions. I also think some club members would volunteer some help and instead of using a web page like the St Lo's updates could be posted on the message board. Is it feasible? Also Adrian is playing me in another and said he needed a boot game. Can the tournament game be counted toward the ladder as his boot game? Sam Moon </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks for the speedy reply.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>All tournament games also count as regular ladder games. You don't need to report it again, I'll take care of updating both the ladder, and the tournament page.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sounds like you guys had a fairly interesting battle. I totally agree that sudden-death can be a frustrating experience, especially since the opponents were randomly matched. The only reason I decided to run the tournament that way is the length of CM PBEM games. In CS you could finish a PBEM in a few days if both sides put in the effort. In CM it takes a long time to finish a game because of the huge amount of emails necessarry for each turn. As it is the tournament is only four games, but will take almost four months to complete! If I had done mirror games we wouldn't be finished until late next year. I just don't think most players would be able to commit to such a long process. Although the sudden process isn't as fair as we would all like, I think it may be the lesser of two evils. Now if we had a reliable TCP/IP system...well, that would change things quite a bit. That may not be too far in the future.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Of course there will be other CM tournaments at the Blitz. This is just the first one. The Blitz has a long history of tournament play among its members so I'm looking forward to having several others before too long.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Don Panzertruppen Maddox</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>CM Deputy Custodian</FONT></DIV> [This message has been edited by Panzertruppen (edited 11-18-2000).]

Gentlemen, Thanks for the candid comments. For those that are interested you'll be happy to note that Wild Bill and the boys from Boot-n-Tracks will be providing the scenarios for rounds two, three and four. I think most everyone knows how good Wild Bill's scenarios are and these scenarios are designed specifically for the tournament. The extra effort from these guys are greatly appreciated. For those that came out on the short end of the stick on Hell's Doorstep, I hope it was at a minimum an enjoyable game. Don

Panzertruppen! ................. As you see, speechless for a while... Wow... Stunning... Really awesome indeed. I loaded one of those pics (306, the one with all the signs) into ACDSee at 1152x864 resolution, and it was full screen, clear as a bell. Paris, 54KM!! God I love it! Thanks a lot! Thanks for the feedback guys. This is my first real CM mod and I'm glad to hear some of you like it. The particular texture you mention looks 100% better at its original 1024x1024 size, however, it's just not realistic to release mods that size. That would have made this release about 60-70 meg instead of four. Oh well, maybe someday that will be practical. I was curious how you guys would react to the road signs. I was originally going to put a lot more of them in, but since there are a limited number of textures I didn't want it to look repetitive. When I do the city textures I will certainly throw a few more in there. The winter buildings are coming along and so far, it seems to look decent. Hope you guys have a field day taking screen shots with the new buildings! Don

No. The church steeple should be the same color - e xcept I forgot to include it in the zip! Oops. I'm sending it over to Tom now and he will post it later today. Sorry about that. Some asked about the 33o.bmp. You should only need to download that if you have a problem with the gray two story building. This bmp is already in the zip so if it's working, you're good. You do need to download the 336.bmp when Tom posts it though. We'll combine all these into one zip later. Enjoy. Don

Here is a first look at one of the winter building mods. Since all of the original artwork is finished for the rural buildings these shouldn't take too long to complete.</p> </p>

Panzertruppen, those are very well done! But I do have to ask how they will look when using subdued mods? That is how they look the best, at least to me. I use a toned down version of the velvet grass and my own custom tree bases and that is how I designed the mod fit in. The whole mod is supposed to have a gritty, more realistic look than the original buildings. The pristine battlefields generated using the original textures were just way too clean looking. I'm cooking up some ideas of how to make the city textures look just as good. One of the problems of making textures for the big city structures is that each building has only three textures (not counting the roof). Each has a "front," "back," and side. The side texture is flipped and then pasted to the opposite side. I'm sure BTS did this to save RAM, but it does make things difficult. That means you can't have much in the way of unique faces on a building. What I mean is you almost can't make the texture look like two rowhouses - one brick and the other not. If you do that the textures will not align because the "side" texture will get flipped and now the building sides are mismatched. Perhaps BTS will consider changing this in a future patch, then it would be possible to make a lot better textures. Anyway, the rural buildings are available for download. The winter version should be available before much longer. Don

We're still working on the problem folks. It appears that Mac users may have problems with this mod although I am at a loss to understand why. As I said before I don't want this mod released until we are certain it is 100% ready to go. There also seems to be some possibility that the files may have been partially corrupted in the email or zip process. Don't worry, I have all the mod files on my HD along with the original 1024x1024 BMP's. Perhaps I can release those one of these days as well. We're working on this problem as we speak. As soon as we figure it out the mod will be ready for download. Thanks. Don

Aren't there 4 different types of two-story buildings? (2 different looks each for heavy and light tall bldg) There are two 'light' two story buildings, and four 'heavy' two story buildings. The heavy buildings are what I call the "city" buildings. These are what I plan to release in a second set. It's too bad there are not more versions of the light two story available. This is certainly one of the most common buildings used in the game and it tends to look somewhat repetitive. Which brings me to yet another challenge of creating building textures. Since there are so few buildings available you have to be really careful about making any building too unique. It might look fine if there were only one of them, but when you have three right near each other it looks totally out of place. There is really no choice but to make all the buildings as generic and plain as possible to avoid this. Another issue when making building mods is CM's handling of color. Although the engine accepts full 16 bit color BMPs, it does not display them that way in-game. If you get close to objects you can see what I mean. I made some really super detailed building textures to see how the game would look. The textures turned out really well, but when viewed in game it looked like a mess. You can work around that with buildings and vehicles, but it's somewhat of a limitation for sky textures. I imported some really realistic sky textures that I was sure was going to make CM look 200% better, only to find them greatly reduced in color once displayed in game. That's why you have the pixilated look to all the sky textures. The flat gray "fog" sky ends up looking better than most of the ones with clouds because of this. A while back someone from BTS mentioned they were playing with some HI-RES sky textures, but I have not heard anything since. Anyway, the rural building set has gone gold. It should be available for download within the next 24 hours. Stay tuned! Don [This message has been edited by Panzertruppen (edited 11-14-2000).]

Question: which terrain mods are you using? Those buildings look good BTW, just subdued enuff. The grass is part of the "velvet" terrain set, however, I modified the hue to make it somewhat more subdued. It looks much more realistic this way. I think it looked too much like golf course grass before. Most of the other stuff is standard from the MDMP release except for the marsh and rough. Some of the buildings in the background were from Magua's mod. As I finish each new building I add it in to see how it fits in with the others. This can be one of the greatest challenges of doing a mod like this. I created several buildings which I didn't give screenshots of because I didn't like them. They looked as good as the others, but for some reason they just didn't "feel" right when viewed as a whole. The effect I'm shooting for is similar to the destroyed village at the end of SPR. That's wishful thinking given the limitations of the CM engine, but I'm still pleased with what I've been able to do so far. I finished one new building last night. I originally didn't realize how many of the small "houses" there were. I got used to looking at Magua's mod. Magua chose not to include a completly different set of textures for each building so some of them are actually repeats. That's why I thought there were only four at first, then I discovered two more, then when I thought I was finished I found two more! That's actually a good thing though. With each house having a slightly different texture it gives a village a somewhat varied look. It's makes it time consuming though. There are a total of eight "houses," two two story houses, and a church. With three textures each that's a total of 33 textures! As I said before I do each at 1024x1024 to start with - that's a lot of airbrushing. My poor old mouse is getting a workout. Don

I think infantry warfare may be the most fun, but at a minimum tanks are a necessary evil. It has happened to me several times recently that I found myself without any available armor support. The enemy's armor was not all that formidable (a couple StuGs), but I had no way of fighting back. The enemy wisely picked a position in open terrain where my bazooka had no chance to get close enough for a shot, and then proceeded to pummel everything that moved. There is simply no substitute for a well organized combined-arms force. Of course extreme terrain can dictate in some situations, but all things being equal, I like a little of each.

A lot of people have been asking me about the progress of my building mod. Well, it's not finished yet. The "rural" buildings are nearly complete, but the "city" buildings will have to be released later. </p> For those who have not seen the screenshots at the <a href="http://www.theblitz.org">Blitzkrieg Wargaming Club</a>, this is a total conversion of all the Combat Mission buildings. Every one of these buildings was hand airbrushed from scratch at a minimum 1024x1024 resolution. The screenshots do not do them justice because I had to reduce them to 256 color to keep them within a reasonable size. The screenshots were taken after the textures had been reduced to 256x256 resolution. At this resolution they run fine on my lower end machine (a Pentium II 400 mhz). A higher end machine should run them without a hitch providing you have a decent video card.</p> Be forewarned though, this mod was originally intended for the grognard who just has to have it perfect. I have no intention of lowering the resolution further, that would defeat the whole purpose of the mod. I don't think it's going to be a big issue though. Those who are concerned about speed could always resize the textures themselves if they chose to do so.</p> As far as the release time goes...I hope to have the whole 'rural' building set complete within a next few days. They will not be released until they are finished. A few people have emailed me and asked that I release them one at a time. It's a good idea, but they tend to look somewhat out of place with some of the original buildings still in place. Just like Magua's fine mod, they have a unique look and feel, and I want to wait until they're ready. What I intend to do is release the 'rural' buildings in the first set. The city textures will come a little later. There will also be a winter set released when I get the time.</p> I will keep you posted on my progress. Thanks to Magua, Tiger, and Madmatt for the inspiration to do this mod in the first place. I hope people like it, and I'm looking forward to releasing the first set shortly. Last thing: I need a place to host it. My space is limited at the Blitzkrieg, so if you are interested in hosting this mod - let me know.</p> <font color=#DF4800">Don Panzertruppen Maddox CM Deputy Custodian Blitzkrieg Wargaming Club</font> </p> </p> </p> </p>