WWB

I did 2 of the ones on the CD, both are reasonably manageable. Dergratschi roadblock is especially so, it only gets the "large" designation because of some conditional reinforcements. A Long Day's March is a bit longer, but still reasonably managable to play. I kept both of them to 15+ turn battles so that even if you could not play the thing in one sitting, you could at least knock off a battle or two in that time. WWB

Some decent book sources: 1) Zemike, Moscow to Berlin. 2) Carrell, Hitler Moves East. WWB

See addy in profile. Hmm, Berli, Jeff, wanna have a same-map battle off? WWB

What I really like is the delayed prep barrage. You can get it by setting the turn 1 barrage, then hitting Q to add one minute delays. Your opponent really will **** a brick when 300mm rockets suddenly start dropping on turn 20. WWB

Better yet try WinRAR, www.winrar.com. WWB

How about the good old pro-forma answer from BFC: WWB

Well, no real nasty spoilers yet here, IMHO. Apache, you might want to post a spoiler notice on top of this thread to keep everything kosher. As for the battle, well, something so small with so many high-value units leads to skewed scores. Interestingly, I did play it multiplayer and it turned out quite well. I would love to see an aars/reports you all have. WWB

Big enough to be tasty and filling yet small enough to be manageable. WWB

Muhahaha. Well, I could get 76-24s pretty regularly, but I might have an advantage. WWB

Well, if true, that sounds rather dumb. Why would such a limitation be coded? In cases involving supply or relief columns, particularly when the trucks are loaded up with troops, the AI should be able to move the trucks to a secure area out of LOS of known enemy units and disembark the passengers. I would hope this would be fixed in a patch. Steve</font>

I never really thought the CMBO editor needed modding, but I can see the need for one tweak to the cmbb editor tiles. Someone please make brush and steppe look different somehow. Maybe throw soem green splotches in there. WWB

The AI will not move unarmored, unarmed vehicles. WWB

You should consider a career as author . However, I'm often surprised about the constructios that people use to explain away that BTS has made an error. CM is a good game, otherwise I wouldn't play it since years, but CMBO is a game full of errors and flaws, CMBB is a bit better, but if I consider that they had two years of time!?! Let's look at the artillery system, the part with the most changes (BTS' words). What was changed? Delays are longer, a small random factor was added, and fireplans, what only mean that a order is locked and executed with fixed delay. Can I select different ammo now? Where are explosive or shrapnell shells? How about star shells? Why is a smoke screen not influenced by the wind? Why need my spotter an extra delay if he just orders +100m into a wood without LOS? Why can my off-map rockets and mortars exceed there maximum range? etcetcetcetc The graphic engine is still the same as in CMBO, even if they now use Hi-res textures, and it was already outdated in CMBO. And two years in graphic development is a VERY long time. How long will BTS work on the engine rewrite? three years, or maybe four? They had better spared the two yours of development for CMBB and invested it into the big rewrite.</font>

Did you not notice they added some views, so had to change things so the interpolation worked right. If you dont like it, fine, dont buy the game and quit whining here. WWB</font>

Would you carry a 970 pound ATG over a fence? WWB

Did you not notice they added some views, so had to change things so the interpolation worked right. If you dont like it, fine, dont buy the game and quit whining here. WWB

IIRC, I have seen a BFC comment that they would like to fix it, but the issue is so deeply embedded into the game that it is not feasable to address the matter. Command is a tricky thing to code, and given it works right 96% of the time, why risk horribly breaking the thing for one minor case? WWB

You still miss the major weaknesses of the Stugs, aside from the lack of turret which a human player can easily use against you. 1) No MG, or MG with very limited ammo. They have issues with infantry close defense. 2) Low ammo load. This is really exacberated by CMBB's death clock. With 23 or so AP shots, a stug can really only engage 4 targets before it runs out of ammo, given misses and treble hits due to death clock. While they are powerful, especially if properly supported, they are far from uberweapons. WWB

CMHQ chat is as good an IRC channel as there is for CMxx. You can find it at www.combatmission.com then click on chat in the menu. As for a chat within the game, I dont see that happening based on order of operations if nothing else. You dont connect until well after the parameters are set. And I highly doubt they are going to rewrite the whole game starting sequence just for something as trivial as avoiding a little task switching. WWB

I have said it before, FEAR the stug. Especially on the defensive it was a weapon to be reckoned with. The 75mm gun has very nice reach out and touch capabilities and the sloped armor is proof against the 76.2mm gun. Throw in very good optics and very well trained crew (strumartillery was artillery, had lots of gun training) and you can see why they were so effective. This also attested to in the historical record. A battery of stugs taking out ten T34s is not an altogether uncommon occourance. WWB

The from part is immaterial, except for the sender has recieved email from that address. The return path is what is important, so send that guy a note telling him you are getting viruses from his machine. WWB

Exit VPs work like so: Units are of 2 sorts: Should Exit for Points or Not Eligible For Exit Points. Units that are eligible for exit points count as negative VPs if they do not exit. They also count in the casualties figure. So they become quite valuable. OTOH, should they exit, that player will pick up a hefty bonus. The exact figure in question here is based on the value of the unit involved. WWB

Is that a single level peasant shack (small, small ones) or building (small one)? There is a big difference. You can usually get a squad and a team, or 2 squads if you are lucky, in a small building. But in a shack you aint fitting anything more than one unit. WWB

Yeah, I think in CMBB the AT platoon makes them a scenario designer option, not a realistic force for QBs. Especially given the historical employmet, which was on the attack where the 75mm ATGs would be hard to use at best. WWB

Are you at work or somewhere where they limit the websites you can visit? What browser and what version of it are you using. MGO is using PHP which I have seen creating some problems with Netscape 4.x. WWB