WWB

Well, I could come up with an evil map or two . . . WWB

Hmm, looks like the PC is at the routers normal IP addy. Try assigning it to a speficif IP. WWB

While half of me loves the idea of pre-plotting the AIs first moves, another half of me deplores it. The major drawback is you will lose alot of replayability as the AI is now semi-scripted. Then again, that could be taken care of by giving it 6 or 10 'plan' slots . . . WWB

I could make you alot of money Fionn . . . WWB

I think we need to know the parameters of the engagement before setting the line. When I have those in hand, I will consult with some other nefarious characters and give the official line. WWB

While I love the idea, I really do not think it can work. If you have ever made an operation, you know the amount of tweaking it takes to make it work. A computer is simply not capable of generating a map and forces and having it all click more than 10% of the time. As for ME operations, they are in CMBO, and are known as Destroy type operations. All points come from opponents hardware blown up. One weakness is they do have to have a defender. WWB

No. WWB

Well, I would definitely send them the wine now. Reason being that apparently CM itslef was generated over several pitchers of beer at an unnamed pub, and we should give them the fuel to enhance their creative energy. WWB

No. WWB

Good points andreas. I knew somehow my dates were not jibing . . . WWB

The polish side of this fighting has been done quite well. First, there is a wild bill battle on the CD regarding the actions at les Campeax. I am blanking on the name ATM. For the fighting on the Mace, Wild Bill has also done a battle called A Rock in the Flood, which is quite interesting. I also have an unfinished scenario dealing with the German attack on the eastern face of the Mace on August 21 1944. I have pretty much given up on it, but if anyone would like it I can send it out. WWB

I do believe my suggestion was to improve the force picker so that it uses the rarity data in CMBB. This should give you a roughly historical force mix in decent-sized battles, no? But it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a checkbox to make sure you have an attached panzer section/AT gun battery.. It'd suck to have 3 companies of rifle against heavy tanks Historical or not!</font>

Then you have never programmed anything. All I do is lightweight access apps, and NOTHING is ever as easy as it seems. WWB

One thing I really disagree with doing, even if it helps the AI, is reversing the map sides. If you do so, you end up allowing people to withdraw forwards, making the command either useless or a cheat. Regarding the points issue, it is a matter of taste. If you want to setup a battle so that the terrain held is the key factor, then use lots of flags. If you want losses to be determinant than use fewer and smaller. Large flags are worth 300 points, while small flags are 100. Units are worth essentially their purchase price in KO points (yes, I know not exactly, redwolf, but the factors effect both sides equally so they take care of themselves). Also remember that flags held can cancel each other out. One interesting way to do an ME is give both sides a rear area 'HQ' flag, which should be held, as well as some flags in the middle. That tends to encourage players to not rush everything forward. WWB

Gpig: No, deleting platoon leader deletes the squad. You can add extra BN and coy commanders though, by buying companies and deleting everything. WWB

It is about time for one of these discussions. We have had a good 2 years to make battles for CMBO, so we should have that mystifying AI thing figured out by now. I have never seen the PO mount a vehicle, but I have seen it dismount. It only dismounts when under fire, near as I can tell. It will not do something like "drive to the back of the woods and dismount infantry platoon." I do think starting the AI mounted is valid, when you want it to drive into an ambush. Also, it does go a long way towards keeping tanks moving with infantry, instead of having them blindly rush into AT ambushes. I pretty much agree with you here, especially for the defensive. For the offensive, it can do a half decent job, because it sets itself up in a manner which it wants to attack in. The major weakness here is that it pays no mind to formation, leading to lots of broken, out of command infantry. The AI can attack, in the right situation. I would not ask it to assault a dug-in foe in a dense urban environment. Making an effective AI attack requires the right kind of map, the right kind of forces, and a proper flag deployment. Moreover, it is quite unpredictable how the AI will react to a given flag deployment and map setup until one actually tests it. It tends to work towards big flags, going over little ones on the way, but aside from that nothing is certain.

Uh, the artificial picker does go for semi-historical forces. You just need to give it 1000 or so points so it can pick an effective list, it tends to have problems in smaller battles. WWB

Well, one can look at the graph it makes. When CM is in the foreground it does take 100% of the cycles. WWB

As pointed out above, all laptops do not have this problem. I would look at the heavy duty, big body models intended as desktop replacement units. These are meant to be on for 8-12 hours at a stretch, etc. Also, for the record, I have CM going in the background (as well as 2 IE windows, Netscape Mail and mIRC) and my processor usage is sitting pretty at 7% on a Celeron 800. WWB

I support 6 hp laptops (XE something or others). They all have heat issues aside, even if you are just running word and powerpoint. WWB

The best buy now, or at least in a month or two once they really hit the market, will be the GeForce4 Ti4200, going for $180 or so with performance well above a GeForce3 Ti500. Now that nVidia has got their drivers playing nicely, there are no CM issues. WWB

It is normal for CM to take all availiable cycles, so it reads out at 100%. OTOH, I was just running 3 copies of CM at once, so I would not read too much into it. WWB

Uh, The Wrong Hill would be by Wild Bill Wilder (WBW), not I. As for the historical vs. semi-historical, I pretty much agree with CMplayer above. Although, I think we might need a new classification: Psuedo-Historical. These would be battles where the OOBs and maps are plauseable but fictional and are not based on any specific incident. WWB

You are forgetting the friendliest 'ladder' around. I put 'ladder' in quotes because it is not a ladder but much more of a club and community. And this club would be Band of Brothers. WWB PS: regarding your technical difficulties, it sounds like you do not have java installed or enabled. If you are running XP, java virtual machine is not installed by defualt and must be downloaded from microsoft. [ May 24, 2002, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: wwb_99 ]

I saw an email from madmatt quoted a while back. It is a known bug which will be addressed in CMBB. I cannot say where to find the response. WWB