Redwolf

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ralph Beaman: I have a freeind who is into gaming as much as i and he thinks that close combat from microsoft is the the best wargame out on the market, do not know how to convince that idiot that CM is the wave of the future.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The number of people who think that CMBO is just better than CC is very high, just search this board or the newgroup for impressions. There are some who can't get back to turns and still want CC for realtime, very reasonable if that's your cup of tea. You need to find out whether your friend is one of those or simply doesn't know better. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Any suggestions on what other games are good out there. I am into TOAW, Panzer Campaigns, East Front, West Front, Panzer Elite.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> "Tigers and the Prowl" and "Panthers in the Shadows" are the games that CMBO'ers seem to have the most respect for. If 3D is the point for you, Shogun comes to mind.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by mrcobbler: Lesson: don't waste any troops at all, even the empty mortars and crews can be used for something.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That might backfire (hehe) victory-point wise. A tank crew member is about twice as much worth as a riflemen and the risk of even having them captured is big. Especially when you hold the victory flags you shoud think twice about committing your crews to anything. Martin

Londoner, exactly my thoughts. Most of my TH games are with some kind of agreement like random weather, short 75 etc and even computer-selected forces. I had games with agreement on realistic forces withoyt problems. Alternative to a seperate ladder: let normal TH game loss reports specify whether they agreed to some standard rule like the one proposed. Then, compute a second ladder just from those that agree to this rule. However, *just* compute, there is no seperate player community. All games also count for the normal ladder, so a "realistic-searching" player can play any "well, OK" player on TH, but the "well, OK" gamer gets his point for the standard TH ladder and the former player will probably not care abou the standard ladder anyway.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jarmo: But still! There's a good dozen vehicles to choose from. So why is it just 251/1's all the time. At least half of the vehicles the autopurchaser chooses are 251/1's. If there's a reason for it, rarity or somefink, I understand. But I was under impression there is no historic system for purchasing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The 251/1 comes with the armoured Panzergrenadier platoons, companies and battaltions. The computer usually prefers to choose organic infantry units, not piecemeal. And if it wants motorized (even as infantry for combinaed arms), it chooses the one that comes with halftracks, as the vehicles come at a discount. Still, I don't like this because a) I think the German halftracks are overpriced, considering the .50cal and too much value is put into vehicles for such an "infantry" unit. A company: 362 points infantry, 75 points support, 977 points halftracks, most of it in 18 sdkfz 251/1. That is a bit too much of the goods, the player simply lacks squads to go anywhere.

What kind of force did you ask for? If you sai "armour" or "mechanised", it fits what German infantry of that kind should look like. Note the "should", it applies even to the historic forces. While they were supposed to sit in half-tracks, they often had trucks. They are not useless. If you have them as infantry for armour, use the whole force to be very mobile and get the opponent on the move. If you hadn't have halftracks, your men would be exhaust by the time they arrive or would have to ride unarmoured. They are good for supressive fire and/or to move mortar or MG teams around, again good for supressive fire. The only problem I have with German halftracks in CMBO is that they are of less value than they cost because of the Allied .50cal MG. The availability of this halftrack killer shapes the map redically for mechanised assaults of this kind. If you get infantry of the "armoured Panzergrenadier" kind, you get the halftracks at a discount. Just remember to use your strength with such a force, mobility, don't engage in standing duels.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tanaka: My "advice" for CM1 when playing with unknown players : -Don't play with "computer-chose" -Don't play with random weather or time -Don't play on a map that should have heavy trees/hills but has no trees/hills -At the loser request, the winner is obliged to concede a 2nd game with exact same setup but now with him on the other side (Axis or Allies). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> As I said several times already, this is exactly what I want to prevent. I don't want to discriminate new players. What you outline is like handcuffing anyone who visits your house for the first time.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tanaka: We must be talking different things. The initial PBEM file can be sent to multiple partners, without any reloading at all, and all games will have the same weather and time. If you are one of the receivers yourself, you know the weather before you have to send the file to anyone else.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tanaka: Martin, Most of what you said is only valid to a very specific kind of QB, the "computer-chosen force" one, when "player-chose force" is selected those problems don't exist. The only one that remains is the absence of information to the 2nd player about the map conditions(trees and hills). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually I am most concerned about random weather and random time (which implies random ground conditions). Computer-chosen forces are mostly for people I trust anyway and less for ladder games, so not that big of a deal here. However, it makes a big difference if you know weather, ground and sight in advance. Would you buy mortars with a minimum range of 100m in a rainy night with 95m LOS? Would you buy lower Shermans in mud? What infantry do you choose? If LOS is 100m, would you buy anything that has its firewpoer peak at >= 250m? On the other hand, I really like to play random weather, I think it is more fun. You have more opportunity to hang yourself with forces that don't work in the weather that gets chosen. You cannot follow your strict "proven force" rule, you need to take more things into account. This "take more things into account" is accentuation of the basic fun I have in CMBO, gain experience rapidly, but ever have more things to learn. It is especially worthy for ladder games, since those can get boring by force overoptimization and computer-chosen forces is too radical for ladder games. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> ... every time a turn pbem is load by any CPU a NEW map/turn is calculated... So you can reload your turn as many times you want, that when you send your turn to the other player a new calculations is always done. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No. The initial setup PBEM file contains everything, if you send it to two persons, both games will have the same weather and time. [ 04-20-2001: Message edited by: Martin Cracauer ]

A few points: Mr Johnson, how do you recognize someone cheated on setup? Schugger, I don't expect a patch for CMBO, but I'd like to have this in CM2. Heinz, Agua, Scooter, I agree that this is more of an issue for ladder games. The person in the middle is nice and doable, however, its doesn't address my point. If you do something to prevent cheating, like not agreeing on any computer choices or on consulting a third person, you make playing new players more tedious and worse, we will have cases where people feel insulted. It is just not good for the community. I agree that the CMBO community is extremly nice. I never suspected one of my PBEM partners was cheating and my opponents trust me to do setup with computer selection of units or weather. However, the more important is to ensure it stays that way, and the redoable setup question can only work in one direction, mistrust. Overall, I think the proposed mechanism re-implements for the setup phase what CMBO ever did for normal turns -requiring an additional exchange to prevent redoing. Let me ask the question the other way round, why do you take the effort of the additional mail for each real turn if you don't think the same effort should go into the setup phase?

As I said, I am not so much concerned about the cheating itself, but rather about the social implications. It is unrealistic only to play people you know. Or in other words, communicating and learning is what at least I am here for, and everything that narrows down new contacts is bad.

A solution for the not-quite-blind problem in Quickbattle setup: Surface problem: The receiver of the setup has no way to ensure that player A has in fact selected "random" or "computer-chosen" when he claims he did. This cannot be easily fixed with inserting a display about the setup parameters, since at least in a PBEM the setup player can send the pbem to himself and see what the computer has chosen and then redo until he is pleased, i.e. select SMGs and flamethrower no end and throw away games until it is a rainy or foggy night. Course of problem: Since one PBEM may be sent to multiple persons, you can just send it to yourself and see how things are and only when you like it send it to your opponent. This cannot be easily prevented since the mechanism that is usually used for such cheat protection is not in place yet. A turn's exceution phase must first be "signed" by the opponents before the first player can see it, to prevent him from redoing a turn, which he could do if he could immedeately watch the action phase. However, no such mechanism is there for the setup. What is needed? Two things: - prevent redoing until results please - ensure that a given set of parameters was selected It is not possible to prevent this kind of cheating when taking into account that people may control the running program from a debugger or hack it otherwise. However, I think the following scheme with guard against any messing with PBEM files or against setup lies: Step 1: Player A sends an almost empty token, a pbem file with the setup to choose. This doesn't have to be encrypted or signed. His computer does not execute any of the random or computer-initiated settings, but it generates random numbers to prepare for it. These random numbers are in the PBEM file sent to B, but B cannot read the numbers since they are two-way one-key encrypted. These numbers are just meant to go through and being signed by B without B reading what they actually are. Step 2: Player B loads this PBEM and can see what the chosen setup is. The setup parameters are then digitally signed by him so that A's computer later knows what the parameters B agreed on were. Thus it cannot be changed in the PBEM file by A (except by breaking RSA...). B's computer also generates random numbers for later use in the computer choices, but still does not execute computer choices. He cannot read the random numbers chosen by A's computer since they are already protected by A's password, hence he cannot see what will be generated in the end, hence he cannot redo this step until he sees a result that favours him. He digitally signs his own set of random initializers and he also signs the encrypted set of A's initializers that are in the PBEM file. That's right, A's random number initializations are now both encrypted (with A's symmetric key) and signed (with B's public key). He then sends back a PBEM file that contains: - setup parameters, signed by B - his own random initializers, signed by B - A's random initializers, still unread and encrypted with A's key, signed by B Step 3: Player A loads the PBEM. A's computer reads the setup data, checks whether B's signature is intact and displays the setup data, so that A may recognize whether B messed with the parameters. A's computer reads B's random initializers and confirms, by checking B's signature, that A did not mess with them. (A's computer checks whether A cheats - as I said, it doesn't prevent cheating by changing the program, just cheating by messing with the PBEM file). A's computer reads his own random initializers by decrypting his own data that went through B. The digital signature of B on the encrypted data is there to prevent A from messing with his own initializers. Otherwise he could chance them now until they lead to a setup he likes. B signed the data that flows through him, without knowing what he signs, but thereby fixing whatever the original initializers were. The Quickbattle is then built with the setup parameters as signed and using random initializers that are XOR of A's and B's initializers. Player A may then choose forces respectivly do setup. Result: - Neither player can ever retry a step until he sees a setup that pleases him. - Each player can see what the setup parameters were, and knowing for sure that these were actually used to generate the battle. This scheme prevents cheating by retry or by messing with the PBEM file. It does not do anything about changing the program itself. A possible additional step do help here would be to have both computers execute the quickbattle setup and let the games begin only when both generated data is equal. However, if you can change the game, the whole quickbattle mechanism is flawed since you could mess with the action computing, i.e. ensure that no Axis tanks are ever hit. Hence, it would not be sufficient to make the double-check with comparision for the setup phase. You had to do this for all moves and that would at least bloat the mails. There is also the problem that different computers compute the action differently due to floating-point arithmetic. I don't think anyone would like a tenfold increase in computation time due to not using the FPU To do it right, you probably want Quickbattle generation and action computation to happen on a neutral host in the internet. However, I think the scheme as outlined would be a big step forward. The real problem here isn't the actual cheating, for me anyway. It is that people have to think other trusting each other and each one must make up his mind what to do with opponents he doesn't know. Since different people act differently here that may lead to bad blood not due to actual misbehaviour, but by expressing a certain amount of mistrust, self-evident for one personality, insulting for another. Now please step on the scheme and show me the holes, as usual, there will be one or another :-]]]

Move it into sufficient distance of interesting targets and let it choose its target by itself. You will only override possible flame attacks with manual orders. Or choose a flamethrower vehicle without a gun like the Wasp or the Badger. Martin

ATI has a very long history of releasing crappy drivers and never really fixing them without at the same time add new features, bwhich are in turn broken. Enough that I will never buy an ATI card again and I am not amused what the ATI rage mobility does in my notebook under Windows. The only reason for ATI is that you get drivers for Linux/FreeBSD with source code.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: You mean the engine noises and clouds of dusts wouldn't already do this?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Not at the same distance as a radio does when the other side has even a primitiv construction to locate a sending radio. At least the Germans had quite some equipment to do so. Do you really doubt this was a problem for radio usage? Just curious.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Commissar: Martin, I'd have to disagree with you on that "none-Heer don't stand a chance" bit. I played a game with a full Waffen SS force and won quite handily. Despite other people's comments about them routing too easily, mine seemed to fight very well.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I didn't really mean does not have a chance. But the relationship between available forces is heavily distorted towards an advantage for Axis Heer, so I tend to free people to choose from all available forces for their side. I don't neccesarily do that myself, though, somehow I'm irritated by changing flags in the game display as I plot my turn. And as far as I can see, there are quite few people whom you can't agree on historical or non-fixed forces with. And that includes TH, from my limited samples the number of cardboard noses on TH is not critially high. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Commissar: Hey, and where's my turn anyway? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Had easter liabilities, sorry. Didn't you just blow up the house with the flag? Working on the problem...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Maximus: Oh I disagree totally on the low-res texture issue. I can't stand the stock low-res stuff. White Scout Car anyone? Please can we have hi-res textures in CM2 to start out with. And for those that don't have good video cards, whassa matta? can't afford $50 for at least a 32MB card of some sort?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Didn't you read what people wrote? 1) There are computer that cannot be extended with a 32MB card. First of all Laptops with ATI rage mobility chipsets that are fine for current CMBO, but have 4 or 8 MB of video RAM. Extending is not possible and I'm not going to buy a Radeon (well never ATI again, anyway) or Geforce equipped Laptop just for CM2. 2) You will get high-res mods if you have low-res default. The other way round is much less likely. Also, it is futile to try to provide so good textures with stock CM2 that mod authors won't run circles around them a few months later. You cannot aim for such a large headstart. 3) Some people don't have 2x $50 for the game plus a new card. I think we all prefer that those people buy the game and use their old card. If you force them to spend the money on the card, they are more likely to pirate the game. And some of thouse people also have old computers without AGP. It is difficult to get a $50 32 MB card with PCI bus. I think the Voodoo 4500 is the only one here and that is not $50 and has other disadvantages.

http://www2.cons.org:8000/history/maps1/

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M. Bates: Don't you love those German players who pair up Fallschirmjager troops with Panther tanks <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I just met Gebirgsjaeger with a Tiger and a Hummel. However, that is just fine for me. Look, German Heer has almost all the squads types you could like, plus any Axis vehicle. If you say that forces (U.S./British, Airborne/Army, Heer/SS) must not be mixed, the German player will always choose Heer. He will have a huge advantage over the Allies and non-Heer doesn't have a chance to be played at all. All assuming that people choose a force to win with, not neccessarily an interesting one. Not all people like to play this way, but by all account noone can make a universal statement whether one-force-optimization is "better" that more exploring play modes. It is a matter of taste and on TH optimiztion is default. Also, there are many historical accounts where airborne troops fought with tanks from other forces. And in the CMBO timeframe that was rather the rule, except Normandy. Market Garden had a lot of British tanks fighting with U.S. airborne. For the Germans it is even more so, since after Kreta they were never dropped in a large-scale operaton again, but were not converted into normal troops. So they fought as airborne with their usual equipment as normal ground force, mixed with tanks forces as any Heer unit.

German tank platoons in WW2 were certainly communicating with optical signs. There is the famour picture of early S.S. Panthers at Kursk that show handsigns very directly. While they tried to get a radio into each tank, early in the war only the platoon commander tank had one that could send, all other could just receive. Also, radio silence would have been useful occassionally. I don't think that the tank radios would offer any kind of obfuscation, much less encryption and also radios can be located and you probably don't want to give your flanking manoeuvre away.

Just got the war diary of the Wehrmachtsführungsstab (1961 Percy Schramm) from the public library of my former home town. The folks were just about to put it into the dump! Just because I refused to go away after I noticed that it was deleted from the catalogue they took the effort to search the cellar for it (and believe me, they would have had to call the police to force me to give up). Pretty expensive, though, since the 4 volumes are distributed over 7 books and I had to pay by book, I had to pay 14 Deutschmarks altogether, that is more than 6 U.S. Dollars!

I would like to add to the wishes that the default textures are rather lightweighted. While my main computer is well equipped, I also use CM on my laptop and on my wife's computer for local TCP/IP and both have smaller 3D cards. The is a much better chance to get third-party mods in high-res if CM's are low-res than the other way round, we would end up with high-res only. And you cannot expect to satisfy the highest demands for quality mods in the game release anyway, at least 6 months after release mod authors will have improved.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mattias: Between the 8th of August and the 31st of August 223 panzers where analysed: 24 Ko?d by AP shot 1 by HEAT 4 by HE 7 by aircraft rocket 1 by aircraft cannon 108 demolished 63 abandoned 13 by unknown causes Not in Normandy but? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> These August numbers are probably not too useful to work with, since they are the result of the Falaise pocket where the Germans had to flee while not having enough fuel (but lots of TNT to blow up their tanks . I am surprised that Aircraft did not account for more tank knockouts.

In general, that does not surprise me. I think that the equal loss chance is due to different usage of these tanks. The better tanks get the more dangerous missions. If done right, each tank's operational risk should be equivalent to its knockout risk, so that the loss rate equals out at lowest level. What I wonder about is how the Germans could do that in Normandy. It was my impression that units there had to do whatever task was nearest, not selected for them. Maybe the explanation is rather to be sought in small unit tactics, that all units react to the loss of a tank in the same way. Is there a number how many Tiger 1 were in Normandy?

I use a very high-resolution display (pixel/inch). Any website that specifies exact font sizes causes me trouble, since I have to rely on the function to set my own font size in my browser (the way the WWW was originally intended, BTW). Sadly, battlefront.com went the same way now and even more sadly, specifies font=1, which by all imagination is unreadable here. I am sure I am not the only one. Even if I am the only one with such a display, there are people who just have to use bigger than normal fonts because they cannot see well. Enforcing smaller fonts than specified by the user is adding insult to injury here. May I ask that exact font specifications are switched off? Also, the specification as given now does not affect quoted text.