WWB

I will grant the part of the argument about trenches being a bit too visible in covering terrain, they should be a bit harder to spot in the woods. I dont think foxholes should provide too much protection, if you want to be dug in buy trenches. It aint imbalance, it is by design. WWB

You have to randomize the whole schebang--division and nation. This can be controlled to some extent. If you want to stay russo-german, set region to central and for most of the war you will get just that. WWB

Or do they. Great way to soak off enemy ammo is to put an unoccupied trench system somewhere . . . Also, before bitching about spotting, play a few hotseat games against yourself to see what really happens. WWB

Key factors are OS, drivers and directX. When you are running into problems such as this, the best general step to take is: 1) Uninstall video driver, switching to Standard VGA. 2) Reinstall DirectX. 3) Reinstall video driver (for nVidia cards, stick with the 29.xx series). WWB

As an additional comment, I have used Steppe and grass tiles intermingled in several battles, and it actually looks quite good now. So just setup some sections of shorter grass, etc. WWB

Uh, it would be the latter. I dont spell well, thanks to a life of using spell checker. WWB

Rule #1a: Dont play QBs vs the AI. It needs a little help to be a good opponent. WWB

It should run on that graphics card, but I would defintiely consider upgrading it. It weighs on an otherwise reasonably quick system like an anchor. WWB

Bumping Scotts thread for him. By far the most descirptive comment about Clash of Titans II is that it is not a scenario, it is an orgasam. WWB

Rule #1: The AI is incapable of setting up for itself. The scenario designer needs to deploy it to be effective. WWB

Error is only in the scenario selection screen, it was fixed in the general briefing. WWB

Try dropping a crapload of arty 155mm and smaller on trenches. It does not do that much damage. We went through a good debate on trenches during the beta, they simulate the very tough, well developed type with overhead cover, etc. Trench lines were spottable from distance, and are still reasonably tough to spot in the woods. If you want an ambush, dont put guys in trenches. WWB

Pause can be pretty short, only a minute and a half. Anyhow, I would sit tight in the target zone if I am dug in. Chances are you are not going to get hit too hard in one spot, damage to moving troops is alot worse, and there is no way to clear that large (300x500m) a target zone too quickly anyhow. WWB

The search on the depot only allows for a search by first letter of scenario name. If you don't know the name of the scenario, or you want to search against a set of criteria other than just the first name of the scenario you'll have that option.</font>

Preplanned rocket strikes are very handy. In QBs they are among the few effective pre-planned arty options due to their blanketing effects. One nice trick is to delay the bombardment until you can close to within 500m or so of the enemy, so you can follow on relatively quickly. Use the Q key for that. Another fun pre-planned rocket strike is the "pound him as he shifts forces late in the game" strike, basically a pre-planned strike delayed until turn 20 or so when he will be redeploying. Just remember to steer clear of your own rocket strike. WWB

While we are on editor wishes: Hotkeys for: a) Movement between terrain tiles. Movement between editor modes (terrain, elevation, setup). WWB

I think I know which op you speak of. Yes, the stugs were as drunk as I was when I designed it. The thing you see is the one instance of true relative spotting in CM: the 60 second movie when units are first spotted. In that short timeframe, there are rolls made to see if the unit can acquire the target itself, even if another unit has it spotted clear as day. Which is why unbottoned tanks are such an advantage in those situations. WWB

Pulling stuff out of the briefings is an impossibility, as they are completely free-form based on author whim. The CD scenarios have some format to them, but even they defy the laws of normalization when put to the test. And some of the things you mention are not quite listed anywhere, nor would I want to put that up at the depot. Do I want to ruin suspense by telling both sides it is an infantry only battle? WWB

1) The depot actually grew out of that Excel file, written by Craig "Harv" Harvey a while back. Read the history. 2) I think searchable ingame is not realistic. We pined and whined for such features in the beta, but there is very little "Meta" type info easily retieveable from the scenario files as I understand things. Which makes sorting, parsing and sorting based on some sort of header information a bit problematic, as each file would have to be opened to generate the dataset. I do feel you all's pain, there are close to 100 battles in my CMBB folder already. In my venerable CMBO folder, the total is closer to 500. There are some tricks I use to force sort things: 1) Battles I need to address for some reason (test, comment on, etc) are prefaced with !s, forcing them to the top. Really important ones get multiple !!s. 2) Its not that hard to remember the name of the battle you want to play, and the list is alphabetical after all . . . GJK--I like your idea, but you are to some extent reinventing the wheel. The depot already is searchable to a large extent, and has the files to download, plus the under utilized review feature. Why duplicate efforts? WWB [ October 09, 2002, 09:51 AM: Message edited by: wwb_99 ]

I doubt we will see many AI tweaks at this stage of the game. Anyhow, setting up the defense so that the AI stays put is really the task of a designer. The CMBB ai is also alot more likely to leave units where the designer placed them and to remain there than its predecessor. WWB

If you have 50% steppe tiles on a map, it goes brown. So keep the numbers down. WWB

I agree. OTOH, the other part of me is happy to have a review or three to a battle. WWB

More reviews would definitely be cool. My 2 offerings up at the moment have been dled ~90 times through the depot, and probably more through Boots & Tracks. But there is nary a review avaliable. Interestingly, the one where I managed to submit the battle before pasting in the extended briefing has been dled more. As for good 2 player battles, I reccomend on the CD Danube Blues or A Battle of Minors. I would also advise checking out Boots & Tracks, where we have several fine multiplayer CMBB Battles avaliable. WWB

Catgh, QA did not take a backseat to make some mythical Sept 20 deadline. Ask anyone else who tested the game. Redwolf, Not everyone can configure their own mail server. Even on most paid-for ISP based accounts the limit is 5mb per message. Moreover, some use web-based mail by choice. It is handy when you switch ISPs often. I am getting the feeling here the battle in question is somewhat of a special case. While there are only six tanks involved, there are gads of infantry, on a rather large and rather bare map. And, given EFOW and more intesive spotting tracking, it is not hard to see why the files have grown enormously. WWB

German infantry and tank hunters can have grenade bundles. As for usage, just let a tank get close, within 30m or so, and watch it fly. Then hope it hits home. WWB