Andrew H.

Does "hot" in the quoted passage mean that we can specify that the weather is "hot?"

This may be more of a problem with real-life assault companies than with CMBO's modeling of them. They were used extensively in the battle of the bulge to lead off assaults on various villages (you can read about them in the green book history of the bulge), and they were not very effective at all. They basically either get cut down at long range, hit by artillery, or both. Sometimes one squad makes it into a building in the village, but none of the follow up platoons do, causing the assault platoon to eventually surrender. This is pretty much the way the work in CMBO, too.

CM is like a medieval city. Most people on the board are peasants. Steve and Charles, etc. are the lords in the castle overlooking the town. They occasionally throw tidbits (screenshots, etc.) down to the peasantry to keep them from getting too unruly. The role of the church is played by the grogs. The grogs have no direct way of forcing the lords to do anything, but if they show the lords that what they are doing is against the grog religion (so to speak), they can persuade the lords to change things, as was the case with the M3 halfsquad heresy. As was historically, the case, however, the church of grog is not monolithic. While almost all of the groggy clergy support Pope Rexford, and many believe that Pope Rexford is infallible, some complain about the fact that the pope has *so many* revelations. Mostly concering the blessed virgin of Isigny (with a lot of discussion about whether the apparation at Isigny was really a virgin, with some suggesting that the "virgin" had actually been previously holed, (possibly even burned out), and was then just patched, painted, and passed off as new. (The virginal status of the Isigny apparition is, however, quite important for part of grog doctrine). There are numerous factions within the church of grog, however, some of which bear mention. One group is the Opticians, nominally lead by Bishop Tom W., who believe that German optics were divinely inspired, and thus far superior to optics created by mortal man. The Statisticians, lead by Bishop Jason, essentially postulate (in prose that makes Heidegger and Adorno read like Clancy and Grisham by comparison) that there is a new way of "knowing" things in CM, and that this new epistemology should be applied across the board. Bishop Tero and the Uberfinnish Heresy (sounds like a rock band) is a very small group (consisting almost entirely of Bishop Tero), but has been able to widely broadcast its vision, although the heresy has won no converts. The lords in their castle are mostly able to ignore what the various groggy factions say, although Lord Steve is often unable to resist the temptation to leave the castle and engage in theological infighting with the clerics. The architecture of CMville was created by a large group of loosely organized craftsmen known as the Modders' Guild. While CM was originally built by Lord Steve and Lord Charles, and their original structural work remains, due to the activities of the modders' guild, almost nothing of the original CM architecture remains, except for those parts which can't be changed. Some Lords were originally members of the modders' guild, and were elevated to nobility on account of their artistic virtue. The final important element of CM town is the Cult of Peng, a large mysterious establishment on the outskirts of town, near a swamp. No one really knows what goes on in this cult (or if they do, they're not saying), and none of the lords dare approach the swamp. Nevertheless, perhaps on the theory that it's better to keep these people in one place, where you can keep an eye on them, the lords have refused to shut down and disperse the cultists, even upon request of the more pious members of the peasantry, who would prefer more groggy churchgoing CMville, and less impious invective by the cultists. However, the lords do not hesitate to strike swiftly and decisively when he cultists leave their swampy enclave and start roaming around the town proper.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Big Time Software: Folks! I demoted myself to Vice President... Steve<hr></blockquote> I hope you are in a secure location... Seriously, it's good to know that you're delegating out stuff so that you can concentrate on game design, which is something that we know you're good at. It's also nice to know that you'll be either hard at work on CMBx or on the forum answering questions, rather than spending your time watching buggy PowerPoint presentations made by marketing types, inspecting damp Irish warehouses, or trying to find the best kind of shrink wrap to pack the manual and CD in. As for Moon...well, you must have made him a fairly attractive offer.

Given the abstract nature of small arms combat in CM, "volley fire" probably produces more accurate results than continuous fire would. To be really realistic, CM would have to completely rewrite the code to track and model the fire of individual soldiers. Fire in this case might be continuous, but it would generally not be continuous fire by the entire squad; it would only be continuous fire by those soldiers with LOS, a clear shot, and who actually decided to fire their weapons. So in the above example, if some soldiers darted between a house, they might be shot at in a way that wouldn't happen with "volley fire," but they might only be fired at by one man. And the game engine would have to choose whether the man was the one armed with the rifle, the smg, the mp44, or maybe the mg42. One problem with this system would be that it would often turn out that a squad in a particular location would not have its men disposed in the way the player would like -- that is, the player might want to cover a certain area, or might expect an attack from a particular direction, but the computer may have determined that the MG42 and MP44s were covering another area, leaving only the riflemen to deal with the expected threat area. Players, of course, would then want the opportunity to place individual squad members where they wanted... and then CM is no longer a squad based game. Given that the game doesn't model individual soldiers, I think that the full-squad-fires-in-volleys system more accurately models realism than a full-squad-fires-continuously model would. I've never had a problem with how the volley fire mechanism works, since soldiers did not automatically fire at every target that presented itself. But it's at least conceiveable that the volley-fire mechanism could be tweaked to permit extra volleys under certain conditions...such as against particularly vulnerable targets, especially if the targets are not likely to return fire.

The new drivers worked well for CM, but caused some stuttering in another game I have, so I went back to my older drivers. This won't be an issue for people who don't play other games, of course.

The new driver seems to be working for me as well -- the white AAR screen now shows up white at the end of the game. I do kind of miss how, after you looked at the map at the end of the game, the non-white portion of the AAR would be superimposed over the map. That was sort of cool.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Deadly Dave: perhaps the withdraw command could make them more vulnerable and hence risk taking more casulaties so that we would use the withrdraw command more catiously<hr></blockquote> There is an increased chance of withdrawing units panicking or breaking, according to the manual; I'm not sure how great the chance is, although it doesn't seem to affect generally good order squads much. It's probably easier to start a withdrawal than to stop one, so that's probably what the morale penalty simulates.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Jagdratt: What type of materials are used to construct the interior walls in the types of buildings you're talking about? Current interior walls in North American buildings - 2x4" studs with 5/8" drywall on both sides - offer no protection from even the smallest calibre weapon. Never having travelled to Europe, I'm having a hard time envisioning what type of construction would be used to provide this level of protection from small arms and grenades.<hr></blockquote> People are using "interior walls" in different ways, which might be confusing the issue. Interior walls in *houses* -- i.e., the walls that separate the bedroom from the living room, or whatever, are fairly similar to American interior walls in homes built in the 40's. I.e., slightly more substantial than in homes built since the 70's, but still no impediment for the lowest caliber infantry weapon. Also, there are doors and stuff on the inside. What most people mean by "interior walls" are not really interior walls, but the walls between buildings that touch each other, but that are otherwise separate buildings...i.e., you have to go out the front door of one and in the front door of another. This is pretty much the same thing that you find in the circa-1900-downtowns of most smaller US cities -- a row of businesses surrounding, say, the square with the courthouse. You generally can't go from the shoestore to the hardware store, or from the hardware store to the bank, without first going outside, because each building is separate. This practice is just more widespread in Europe.

In a normal movement order, the troops are told with some specificity where they should go -- like 10 meters inside the treeline past those two houses on the ridge...but don't go directly there, veer around and use the wall for cover. In withdrawal, I think the troops are just told to "bug out!" That's quicker .

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: Willi Brandt or Willi Heinrich? Brandt is one of the characters in the English version of the book. That is good to know, thanks, I can make use of it. I also own CRACK OF DOOM (in English) and don't remember being too impressed by it.<hr></blockquote> Willi Brandt (a Willi Brandt) was also the chancellor of Germany in the early 70's; I think he won a Nobel Peace Prize.

I wanted to thank everyone who helped me choose a new computer. I picked up the Athlon XP described above about two weeks ago, and and it has been working very well. The case looks very nice, and the cd burner, which I had expected to be a no name generic turned out to be a plextor, which works extremely well ... much better than my old burner, and much faster. I'm very pleased with how well CM (and my other programs) run on this computer, and I feel like I've finally gotten my money's worth for the large monitor I bought a couple of months ago. I downloaded and ran the 3DMark2001 benchmark program on my new computer and my old computer (it's funny how buying an improved computer makes you want to do this). This computer gave me a 2908; the old one gave me a 725. And I thought CM played okay (except for large battles) on the old one. I guess it just depends on what you get used to. I know that some GeForce 3 cards have 3DMark scores around 7000. I can't even imagine what that means, really. But I'm still thinking of upgrading to that when CMBB comes out. Anyway, as I said, I'm very happy with the computer, and thanks to everyone.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: Can't these all be portrayed by standard German troops? If they didn't use different organization or weapons, the only difference in game terms would be - well, none except maybe speaking the wrong language and missing a colourful bit or two on the sleeves of the uniform. [ 01-19-2002: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]<hr></blockquote> Even if the equipment carried by the troops was standard German, the availability of armor and artillery was probably more limited than that available to the German army. I don't know whether it's worth the time to specially code this stuff in, or if it can be left to (1) scenario designers or (2) players (i.e., "if you want to simulate the Croats, the only available tank is the 35(t) and the only artillery they can purchase is 81mm mortars"). I supppose the option of having moddable languages for rare units would be available, too. I wonder if it would be unrealistic for one of my Blue Division troops to occasionally say "Arriba! Arriba! Ich bin Speedy Gonzalez, the schnellste Maus in ganzem Mexiko!" .

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by JasonC: If he adjusts prices, he can go through them for either side and tweak each one he wants. It'd be great if the same was also possible for starting ammo levels. [ 01-20-2002: Message edited by: JasonC ]<hr></blockquote> I'm a little leery of giving players the ability to tweak individual unit prices; I think what I don't like about it is that I'm afraid it will encourage the use of more system-type play by players who tweak various prices. Certainly it can also thwart some system-type play as well, although doing so requires a relatively high level of knowledge concerning pricing. In general, too, I don't like (philosophically, I suppose) there being a lot of choice about pricing (or, really, about choosing forces (although I do enjoy doing it)). It seems wrong that so much of the victory in CM depends on picking the right forces, when this was one element that historical battalion commanders had very little choice about. For balancing purposes, though, in QBs and ladders, it probably wouldn't be bad to allow the "handicap" feature (i.e., the thing that gives one side more or less points) to have more details at the lower handicap levels. I think that the gap between Attacker -10% and Attacker -30% is too large to permit effective player-negotiated balancing for QBs. In conditions where a player feels that SMG squads would be particularly effective, it might be the case that penalizing the German player 10% in a ME would still leave him with an advantage, but penalizing him 30% would be too much. Having this adjustable in 5% increments from 5% to 30% might allow a little more flexibility; it may also be more natively compatible with the rarity function and the automatic unit selection. I do really like the idea of being able to purchase additional ammunition for units, though. As I mentioned above, one of the general problems I have with general unit selection is that a CM level commander had little real choice concerning the units he got -- the company commander generally couldn't say, "I'd like my company's attack to be supported by 10 M8 HMCs," or "let's take a platoon of Fallschirmjaeger along." A CM-level commander did have some choice about support units, though, and could realistically add a couple of extra bazooka teams or MMGs or whatever because these things existed to be parcelled out (MMGs) or could be established with men from existing units (bazookas, sharpshooters, etc.). I imagine that it would be fairly easy for, say, a captain to advise a platoon (or the whole company) that they were going to bear the brunt of the fighting (or were going to be doing a lot of suppression, or whatever), so they should take along extra ammo (or make sure they had a full load, or whatever). I don't know the historical reality of this, actually, but it has to be much more realistic than the same captain finding three pumas to support the attack . And it would be more realistic for a quick battler to use up spare points by buying extra ammo for existing units than by attaching some random unit to his company. I would imagine that extra ammo might be expensive. Extra ammo is problematic for support weapons because their mobility is at least partially based on the weight of their ammunition. Permitting support weapons extra ammo, but having them lose the extra ammo if they move would deal with this problem and also simulate fixed positions stockpiling ammo. Of course, all of these changes are based on CMBOs ammunition routine; I understand that ammo usage will change in CMBB, and this might affect the desirability of ammo changes. Although if they are going to track grenades individually, you might as well stock up!

The Road to Wiltz is a great scenario, and is particularly good for new people because there are a relatively small number of troops to control, but it is tactically very interesting.

The difficulty with applying market analysis to prices in CMBO is that units in CMBO have to have oneprice for all circumstances. Because the value of a unit [i.e., how much you would voluntarily pay for it] varies with the terrain, the type of battle, and the equipment purchased by the opposing force, there is always going to be a disparity between the price CMBO charges for a unit and the value that unit actually has. Thus a Panther in an open, large lightly wooded rural area fighting the US in June has a greater value than a Panther fighting a British force in a closed in urban area. But the cost of the Panther does not vary as conditions change, even though the value of the unit has changed dramatically. The rational approach to a situation where cost does not equal value is to purchase units whose value the player believes exceeds the unit's cost, while eschewing units which seem to be expensive compared to their value. Essentially, the argument of the flamethrowers-are-overpriced (FAO) faction is that the price of flamethrowers should be adjusted downward to better reflect their actual value. The other group -- the scenarioists -- seem to argue that FTs are priced appropriately because they are effective in certain scenarios. Another way of characterizing this pricing argument, though, and I think a more accurate way of characterizing it, is to describe it as an argument over what other circumstances should be considered in setting the price of a unit in CM. Because there can be only one price per unit in CM, the "other circumstances" that affect the unit's value are, or course, very important. Jason's view seems to be that a unit's cost should reflect its value during a QB. This is reasonable, of course, as the QB marketplace is where most of CM's unit-purchasing transactions take place, so it makes sense to use the value that a unit has in this marketplace to establish the cost of a unit. People who play scenarios, on the other hand, never experience the conditions that obtain in QBs, and so reasonably don't believe that they should be stuck with unit prices that reflect conditions that they won't experience. Scenario players are less price sensitive than QB players: while a unit's price has an effect on determining who won both a scenario and a QB, a person playing a scenario does not have to worry about pricing in selecting effective units to fight with in the first place -- they are provided by the scenario designer. BTS's viewpoint seems to be that because conditions will change from battle to battle and cannot be accounted for dynamically, the best way to determine point costs is to completely ignore conditions and base unit cost solely on the combat qualities of the unit in question, even though the importance of the combat qualities of a particular unit will vary widely depending on the type of battle, terrain, and troops and equipment chosen by the opponent. This is a different viewpoint from the scenario-player viewpoint, although for most practical purposes the scenario players would tend to be more supportive of BTS's pricing philosophy, since scenario designers can choose appropriate units for appropriate battle types. For a given set of conditions, it is probably true that you could develop a pricing scheme that would have a very very high correlation with a unit's value in that set of conditions. Apparently there are city-fight scenarios where FTs are very much worth their point cost. However, it is probably the case that FTs are almost never worth their cost in QBs -- and it may also be the case that QBs never generate the type of maps in which FTs would be worthwhile. While it would be conceptually easy to establish an ruleset that would establish unit prices for a given set of conditions, CM only permits one unit price for all conditions. Determining which conditions should be used in setting unit prices is purely a matter of philosophy, and is not really susceptible to proof in the scientific sense. Jason can prove (to my satisfaction, anyway) that SMGs are underpriced in QBs; economic theory of this sort is well established and works quite well. What neither he nor anyone else can prove is that unit pricing should be based on a unit's performance in a QB. There are several very compelling arguments in favor of this viewpoint, of course, but this decision is essentially a matter of philosophy, and cannot be proven or disproven. So the fact (and I think it is a fact) that FTs are overpriced for QBs does not mean that they are overpriced in CM. You can't determine whether things are overpriced in CM without making a philosophical choice of, among other things, whether QBs matter at all. BTS has made the philosophical choice that pricing should be based on a unit's inherent attributes, without reference to the units performance under certain circumstances, and in particular without specific reference to a unit's performance in QBs. So an argument that a particular unit is overpriced in a QB is not really relevant to whether BTS should adjust a unit's price. On the other hand, a discussion about whether BTS's pricing scheme should operate as it now does could have some global effect on unit prices. But there's no way to "prove" that BTS made the wrong choice.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by SpazManOught: An aluminium engine in 1941? maybe part alluminium,cylinder head and clutch housing, but I thought the engineering needed to make a good allu engine didn't come about until recently? Although I'm proberly wrong.<hr></blockquote> IIRC, the T-34 had an aluminum engine block. Although they could make it back then, it was still pretty complicated: I've read that even if the Germans had tried to make an exact copy of the T-34 (which several generals had suggested they do), they would not have been able to manufacture the aluminum engine block.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Monty's Double: I get the impression FO's didn't like drawing attention to themselves (just like in CMBO) and sitting in a hulking great vehicle doesn't help much. The current system isn't entirely comprehensive, but I think it is the best solution, especially in terms of playability.<hr></blockquote> This would make a lot of sense, both for CM and in real life. Even for regular tanks, you will read a lot of accounts of a tank platoon pulling up on a reverse slope, completely hidden, and then the platoon leader (and sometimes all TCs) dismounting and crawling to the top of the hill to peer over and see what's on the other side.

What I really miss about SL/ASL is the role-playing aspect. The "okay, I fire my bmg. Now I fire my cmg. Now I fire my aamg." I really did identify with my units. The same was true with morale checks -- when I had units that just had to hold a position and were bearing the brunt of an attack, it was very exciting to make those die rolls. CC was also pretty cool. If CC wasn't resolved during the CC phase and I had higher morale units in the fight, I would sometimes fire on the CC hex, on the theory that the other guy's lower morale units would be more likely to break and be eliminated. It usually didn't work; once I caused three of my own squads to break and be killed in CC. And it seemed like there were a lot of scenarios where victory came down to controlling a single building, and control of that building was determined in the CC phase of the last turn. Explanation of terms/concepts for non SL/ASL ppl: bmg=bow machine gun; cmg = coax. mg; aamg = anti-aircraft mg; CC = the close combat phase, where troops are fighting hand to hand within the same hex. If you fire at units in CC, you affect all units within the hex equally, including your own. All broken units in CC are eliminated.

I have a couple of thoughts on this issue. The first is that the experience level of a sharpshooter is only really meaningful when you compare him to other sharpshooters. So a regular SS is regular compared to other sharpshooters, not compared to regular infantry squads. What would an elite SS become? WRT the other point, if I were a platoon leader, I would want my most experienced men in my platoon so that he can be relied upon when things get hairy. I don't want him 300 meters away, drawing a bead on some unimportant unit halfway across the board when my unit gets swarmed by gamey smg squads embarked on pumas.

There is a word that rhymes with "front" that might set off filtering software, I suppose.

As I understand it, CMBB will only include things in the "Barbarossa to Berlin" time frame. I.e., June '41 to May '45. This would cover the continuation war, but not the winter war, which would be fit in with CM-the early war, or whatever they end up calling that game. Warsaw to Athens?

Flamethrowers are pretty realistic as they are now modeled in CM: in real life, they were very vulnerable, and were often specifically targeted by enemy troops. They also did not have a long range. The reason that they are something of a marginal unit in CM is because they had something of a marginal role in CM type battles. This is essentially the same point that Slappy made. Flamethrowers excel against troops who can't fire back, essentially, but who are in a defensive location that makes it difficult to dig them out without suffering casualties. This would include troops in bunkers if you approach the bunker from an oblique angle, or troops barracaded in buildings, or troops in caves. In most, although not all, cases, these uses of flamethrowers were sort of "second-wave" weapons: i.e., the marines have cleared part of the island, but there are still a lot of caves with troops in them. Or soldiers have mostly taken a city block, but there are some holdouts in fortified buildings. Occasionally FTs did have "first-wave" application, as when a particular pillbox or fortified building was holding up an advance.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Dan Robertson: Piercing weapons would drive a hole throught the stone into the earth but would not spread the damage. HESH would blow a large hole in the outer stone a facing but the earth would not transmit the shockwaves to damage the rear. Only really big HE would be any good, 8 inches plus.<hr></blockquote> The real ally of gunpowder wall-breaching weapons is gravity and the weight of the wall itself. Meaning that the proper tactic is to fire at the bottom of the wall you want to breach; as it weakens, a strip of wall from the bottom to the top collapses. So, for example, if you use HESH to blow large holes in the bottom of the outside wall, large portions of the outside wall will eventually collapse, which permits you to attack the rear wall.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf: I liked playing squads with several MGs in-squad, and I like squads with long-range firepower. So I tried to build superplatoons by choosing infantry squads with just one MG in-squad and then attaching several LMGs. <hr></blockquote> I tried the "super platoon" idea, too, generally adding two LMGs to regular platoon. I called it an "assault platoon." Like your experience, it was not that successful. It added a little bit of firepower to squads, but it slowed the squads down quite a bit, and the LMGs were very fragile.