Tris

I'm not sure what's to be done, but it seems that the vehicle AI just doesn't react unless something's directly targeting it. Which can be, as examples on this thread have shown, a bit problematic. I wonder if this is true. I am in the process of building a scenario and tested it last night for twenty turns. My U.S. 105mm spotter first targeted a Pz VA which quickly enough changed position twice to eventually evade the terrific barrage brought to bear. Next, my spotter picked out a Tiger sitting still for the previous four turns, completely in the open, and sure enough, the turn after the first barrage fell that Tiger began to make tracks to the forward laterally left. It isn't clear to me now, though, that the game gives information re enemy AFV's which has been simply disabled. I say this because that second target of my spotter, the Tiger, drifted over to within 40m of a Stug and yet another Panter, where it then sat for the next three barrages. Finally, one of those 105mm rounds (or 75mm, it's impossible to say since the spotter for the latter battery had the Stug in his sight--this vehicle just sat there, too) found its mark, but not on the Tiger but the assault gun, which brewed up fast. Anyway, I've seen the enemy move its AFV's out of the way as soon as it's clear it's under heavy fire, but I do not know if this evasive action is consistent, or even directly tied to the fire in question in the first place but merely a coincidence and motivated by some other imperative altogether. Has anyone seen the gargantuan craters 210mm stuff leaves in the ground? Well, I suppose so. Being new to the game I just found out last night how utterly ravaging a round that large can be!

Great work, Garry. I'm waiting with bated breath for your next version of the trees. I installed what you have and if anything it's darker still (the Magua building mods soak up even more ambient light) than what you show on your board--still, much better than the Kool-Aid ads we had with the original release. A few more sprinkles of bright yellows and greens might do the trick. (Your miscellaneous work is an improvemnt as well and also now resides within my BMP folder.) Magua's most recent efforts are a huge boon to this game system. I just automatically grab and stuff his mods now.

Stop relying on this sort of support from game rules to determine victory; find a new circle of friends who share your view of the matter. Better still, play to learn, not to win.

The problem I have with this type of random function is that it's just that - random. Since the CM engine would have no way of looking at a particular mod set and deciding whether it was consistent thematically and stylistically with whatever other mods you've got loaded, it might decide to give you, say, some pretty Southern French- looking houses with gloomy Norman terrain, and have your American Shermans driving around with Canadian markings. This would be no problem as I have it envisaged. We could ramp up slowly and then iron out the wrinkles as they presented themselves. For instance, how about if we began by randomizing just the buildings .BMP's? Let's say we all put our heads together and devised a way to pressgang this Magua chap into a dark hole somewhere and just kept him on bread and water until he coughed up a suitable array of unique rural buildings, both with and without snow effects--something on the order of a dozen or so variations for each structure should do the trick for our initial test--and then see how all that sat with our now-accelerated map editing sessions? If it flew, and I believe it would, then we could set our collective head to the task of finding another Magua-type to work on a "generic" set of trees for us, then move on, perhaps, to bridges and like that. Each of these "sets" would be designed for a particular "theme" so as to ensure they wed together naturally once presented from within the game. For example, it should work out that to portray northern German buildings as distinct from French or southern Italian buildings then entirely new building sets would need to be constructed and kept in a separate folder until the time came when a scenario designer needed this various art. This would entail a swap, but to complete this chore we could once again rely on a batch file to do this with ease. Isn't that so? I bring this up because I've also been thinking about this issue a lot, and I'd love to see a practical way to do it, but since software can't make value judgements, I'm worried that what you'd get would be an utter mishmash of inconsistent mods. If someone can tell me otherwise, I'd be a happy man, believe me. Don't tell anyone, but I'm pretty much a mod junkie myself... I'm with you all the way on the "junkie" part, my friend. But you have to blame all the wonderful users who've bothered to produce their mods in the first place for that. Left to my own dull devices I'd have no doubt been perfectly happy to get along the best I could with what BTS originally provided.

What I had in mind was this. You begin to edit a map. Eventually you come to the juncture where you wish to place buildings or trees or whatever. You select an icon for scattered trees, say, then go check the map for its effect, right? The .BMP file which was associated with the icon you chose is now displayed. So the randomization routine must be established from within the map editor, not "on the fly" as users run the game. And why would capacity of CD's enter into this? I doubt if BTS would ever go this trouble (at least not as a discrete exercise initiated on their end); should the company chose to do so then an extra CD or two or whatever's called for could easily be burned and accounted for cost-wise and duly shipped with the order. Isn't that what they do now with their product? Users who did not subscribe to this system but merely ran the stock .BMP's would be no better or worse off, right? The nomenclature of the called .BMP variables might run something like 506_0001.BMP and 506_0002.BMP and if a user did not have a corresponding .BMP then the game would automatically call for the stock graphic. With schemes of this sort there is often an unseen bugaboo, and I'm not conversant enough with how this stuff works to see it. Perhaps someone else can and more closely articulate the proper means of implementation. As a carp, I wish designers would give some thought to this business with an eye to encouraging third-party labor to enhance an existing work by building into their software such niceties and then provide directions as to how this would all work out in practice. It doesn't seem to me that what I propose would be any more difficult to code than the much less flexible approach which has come to be industry standard.

I've been thinking that the kind of "mod" this game really begs for is way to set up batch calls for various .BMP sets. In that case it would be possible for people to, say, design all sorts of different looking light buildings and heavy buildings .BMP sets, and trees sets and whatever you want, then have these .BMP sets on the same themes produce themselves from within the editor on a random basis. If that isn't clear, when the editor called for such and such .BMP the batch file for that (former) .BMP number would instead be called (so I guess we'd need a batch file residing where the .BMP used to be) which itself would then start the randomization routine which would call one of the resident actual .BMP's within any given .BMP set--again, a tree, a building, a tank, whatever graphic was needed. The user would then be able to check on his map to see which .BMP had in reality been called, and if he wasn't satisfied with the batch file's selection the user could go back and run the batch again for a different effect. To me that sounds feasible. Anyone have clear idea how it might be implemented?

Yet another CMBO site to visit now on a regular basis, and this one christened on Halloween no less! (And yes, your DNS link worked without a hitch for me.) Good show, Garry. I grabbed a few things if you don't mind, Gunslinger's trees and especially your improved snow roads. I have a question re the Gunslinger stuff: I assume he has grass in there somewhere, so would I have to give up my grass grid if I copied his over to my BMP directory, or did he include a grid with his work? Hate to give up my grid.

Well, Rollstoy, if I read Mr. Hernandez correctly he did not, first of all, "compare" the two titles so much as point out that, in his view, CMBO made for a more immersive gaming experience. That's for openers. I might add, as long as you've chosen to get me started, that Hernandez, as a journalist, not only has the "right" but the obligation to pass along each and every one of his observations re related product which he feels would be pertinent to his public, most especially with possible purchase decisions in mind. Finally, Hernandez did not strike me as having any particular agenda to pursue vis-a-vis the two titles in question; you, however, with your rather emotional retort to the former gentleman's work, have indeed impressed me as falling into this trap. Should you be able to do a better job of reviewing these games, please, be my guest. I shall read you with great interest. [This message has been edited by Tris (edited 10-31-2000).]

After reading both reviews I think you'd better make that rusted nails instead of pins, and Keith will be twisting them hard on the way in. This Nelson Hernandez is a very able writer, by the way. I haven't bothered with combatsim.com before, but based on what I've seen of its content this morning I think I'll keep moderately in touch from now on.

If I know Mr. Z. (and I do, unfortunately) he's throwing a medium-sized tantrum some place while he sticks pins in a doll tagged with the name of the person who wrote said review. But enough of this stuff--it's all old hat. I'm off to read the review itself and get a chuckle out of life.

Thanks to everyone. I appreciate the feedback and had already put this incident down to "Lady Fortune." I agree that this game is quite well done, much better than I supposed or dared to hope for coming in. I've never been much for combat at this level--more of an operational kind of guy, I guess--but I keep coming back for more with CMBO, so something must be right. ]

Last night I set up a QB versus the computer and took a high-quality (all of my troops were rated VETERAN) Americans versus a heer lineup. After the usual initial stages of reconnoitering and then jockeying for position, I found myself in a position to finally use one of my three Shermans to engage the oppositions AFV's. (The biggest threat turned out to be a an old Hotchkiss, by the way. <g>) Anyway, near one of the small victory flags one of my Shermans ran into a halftrack and let go with a couple of shots, one from 63m the other from 60m, both of which missed. The first shot was taken while the Sherman was still on the move, but as I'd set it's movement to HUNT this tank then stopped, per the normal routine for that order, and took its second whack at the halftrack from a standing-still position while the latter slowly backed up toward cover. Both misses showed up graphically as falling a bit short and to the right (as the HT backed toward the Sherman's left front), digging little shell holes in the earth. Does this sort of thing happen often? I've only had this title less than a month and half my time has been expended messing around with the map editing utility, so I've not a large experiential base to draw upon when it comes to CMBO gun modeling. Neither am I particularly expert in this subject. It does seem to me, however, that certain anomalies exist with LOS and overall shot accuracy in mind. I can readily see the possibility of two straight misses from under 100m by a Sherman (even with a VETERAN crew) on a HT in the heat of the fray, but if it's the case that incidents of this sort tend to be the rule then the question must be asked: have either of the BTS people responded to queries of this kind yet, and if so, what's the story?

Fabio, I've only had the game a month and am just now getting up to speed with it. I'd love to try it out versus another live opponent, and much like you it's just for the fun of the experience. Any scenario's fine from my perspective, but I do have a new one cooking here if you're interested. The map's quite okay, but I'm not sure re scenario balance--but then should take care of itself. Contact me and we'll talk. tristanjohn@compuserve.com