Nuku

I've read the manual on how this is supposed to work: you set the waypoint to the spot on the ground where you WANT hull-down from, and the unit will move towards it until it finds a hull-down position. What puzzles me is if it doesn't find a hull-down position, it continues to move forward: what's the logic behind that? If I want hull-down against a far ridge line 800+ meters away, I do NOT want my units shrugging their shoulder and pushing off down from the hill where they started! Another question is if it really works? In more than one occaision, I have a tank or two BEHIND a slope or hill in reverse-slope defense, but the battle goes well, and I want them to poke up and smack some enemy tanks who are looking the other direction. Using the LOS tool, I stretch the line to the target tanks: it's blue up until it hits the crest of the hill my unit is behind, then it turns red/black. Makes sense. I set the "hull-down" command in the location where the enemy tanks are, and what does my unit do? It moves up and OVER the hill and gets shot: it doesn't even shoot back (during the 1-minute real-time phase the status of the unit is "seeking hull down"). I've experimented comparing the "Seek hull down" command versus "Move to Contact + Cover Armor Arc". I've had one or more tanks using both commands going over the same hill to engage known targets, and found the latter is infinitely superior to "Seek Hull down": the unit acts more aggressively firing as it moves, and will stop the moment it crests a hill (in hull-down no less!). With "seek hull down", 8 out of 10 scenarios, the unit blew over a hull down spot, and also failed to fire the entire time it was advancing. Does anyone have more information on the logic behind the "Seek hull down" command (i.e. why did it skip a good hull down position -- is there a minimum distance it has to move forward?)

I'm having a REAL frustrating time trying to do "leapfrog" tactics with Russian armor. As one unit advances past the other, and the overwatch units makes contact with enemy armor (not against Tigers, which I would understand, but also PzIII or PzIVs), the overwatch units withdraw!! They didn't even come under fire yet, and probably haven't even been spotted, but they kick into reverse and hide! The advancing unit, on the other hand, blithly moves forward and is TOTALLY slaughtered! The situation that just ticked me off was a scenario called "Lonely Country". I start with 9 T-34's on a ridge, I put SIX overwatching the approach into the valley, and advanced a platoon of 3 along with infantry. ONE,(yes you read that right). ONE StugIII appears, and ALL SIX overwatching T-34s (regulars, mind you), start kicking into reverse, NOT ONE SHOT FIRED. The advancing 3 T-34s and infantry immediately come under fire from the StugIII, and I'm helpless for a whole minute while they get pinned down. I check the armor ratings, and the T-34s can easily penetrate at the range they were firing at. WHY did they retreat? They are NINE TO ONE, capable of smashing the StugIII down in the valley. A third of them have side shots because the StuG doesn't have a turret but still they run like cowards! I'm pissed. I need a "political officer" unit modeled that can go from tank to tank and shoot each cowardly tank commander in the noggin. Even the Anti-tank rifle squads and Maxim MG I had bravely tried to bounce rounds off the Stug at 1km, while the Tungsten equipped T-34s ran away. Someone explain to me the TacAI's reasoning for this? I can't move my tanks into the valley, even in a flanking maneuver, because the TacAI forces them to stop and reverse back over the hill. The units are not Conscript, and not coming under fire. I'm trying to get these guys to cover their comrades, but they're not, and it's making overwatch with armor impossible. [With infantry on the other hand, it works much better]

I figured it out. It was my fault. Despite what a lot of tech-support guys say, it is not always a good idea to upgrade to the latest video drivers [especially if they're from a company that has gone under]. As a side note, I found out that Microsoft refuses to give you tech support if you don't upgrade to latest drivers of everything (they closed two problem tickets on me 'cus of that -- didn't even ask if upgrading worked[it didn't]) Latest ain't always greatest. The latest Voodoo Banshee reference video drivers from 3dFX(dated Feb 2000) are incompatible with the Diamond Fusion(and/or horribly buggy and incomplete). I reinstalled drivers way back from '99 (geez, I'm glad I leave old garbage lying around), and I've got translucent smoke again. One of the games I recently got no longer works, but CM is worth it. Still, the old Banshee is obsolete anyways, time to upgrade.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MoJo: Hello, I've noticed after seeing a lot of screenshots that the smoke is translucent and you can partially still see through it. However on my game I cannot see through the smoke, it's just there and totally blocks my view of whatever is behind it. Do you have to have a 3D card to view translucent smoke/effects? Is there an option I overlooked? -MoJo<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> First, use Shift-I to toggle to "maximum" smoke Fx. However, I think this may be a new bug introduced with 1.1. Prior to 1.1, I had translucent smoke on a Diamond Monster Fusion (Voodoo Banshee chipset). After I upgrade to 1.1, the translucent smoke effects partially disappear: if I rotate around a smoke cloud, it will appear solid (and very polygonal, like from the old Microprose M1TP1 game) for at 350-degrees; but there would be a narrow 10-degree viewing area where it would appear translucent. However, given that Diamond has put its 3dfx-based cards out to pasture, and also that 3dfx itself is effectively out of the business, I think I'll be solving my problems with a new video card... [This message has been edited by Nuku (edited 01-14-2001).]

I was playing a defense-type mission hot-seat with my brother. On the LAST turn, I had all the victory locations, and a 75% victory rating. My brother charged ALL his units into all the victory locations (even though most of them, like crew and buttoned halftracks, weren't even combat capable), and reverted all the victory locations to neutral merely because of their proximity, and I ended up with a 33% victory rating and *he* got a minor victory!! Aaaugh that is SOOOO !@#!$ cheap!! If the scenario lasted one more turn, there'd be burning halftracks and piles of dead tank-drivers all around my troops! What pisses me off even more is that I just found out the AI does it too!!! On the last turn, it CHARGES with everything it's got, (except crew). HQs, chewed up 1-2 man squads, halftracks; just to render the victory locations neutral. Bleeaargh. This is gamey dammit! I hear the TCP/IP patch is coming... can the BigTime boys toss in something to stop this last-second "capture the flag" crap?

I was playing the infamous "Villers-Bocage-Tiger!" scenario, and got rather frustrated with Wittman's behavior (an elite Tiger tank). Rounds were bouncing off his tank from unidentified armor contacts, yet he persisted in facing his turret to the left flank and firing at a Platoon HQ. I would've thought an elite soldier would rank enemy tank fire a higher priority than a scrappy little Lieutenant. I tried canceling fire, and Rotating to face the incoming rounds, but the hull rotated, and the turret spun back around to pummel the HQ (and it made me cringe every time a round hit the rear facing of the turret!) Next, three armor sound contacts appeared ahead and to the right, and I could not get him to face the contacts. On the next turn, three Cromwell VIIIs crested the hill at less than 100 meters and just lit up Wittman's Tiger (and they were just Green troops too!). Quite frustrating. I'm also seeing my StuG's rotate to fire at infantry when a Sherman ducks behind cover. But when it pops back out, the Stug can't fire back and takes a round in the side. If I could've forced it to focus on the Sherman's last position, it could've nailed it as soon as it popped out of cover. Any tips on preventing this?