Liebchen

In a nutshell... Well said. Most Italian soldiers didn't give a rat's behind about Ethiopia or Greece. Detractors of Italian fighting prowess should not forget that one of the world's largest empires - ever - was created by fighting men from that same place. (I liked the part about the Italians bailing the Germans out in Russia...) BTW, I am not Italian, not even a fraction. I just think that fair is fair.

Does this include ability of gun crews to lead infantry on the move?

Here's my setup, according to the Gateway site's scan of my system (It's amazing how they do that!): Processor Intel Pentium III, 450 MHz 100MHz external bus BIOS Intel Corp. 4W4SB0X0.15A.0013.P08 04/22/1999 Memory Upgrade 256MB physical 38% free resources 3 memory slots, 1 free (128+128+0) Video NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro 1024x768 pixels, 65,536 colors Display: DELL P991 (From what the boot screen says, I believe that the video card has 16M memory.)

Hey Ranger/Agua (Thanks for IDing yoursef!) I'm a self-employed single dad. Need I say any more?

What is most likely to reduce system lag that results in the following: - waypoint-dislocation (where the waypoint goes where the cursor is *later* instead of where is it *upon clicking*) - jerky movement when pannning around the battlefield - jerkiness during the replay (stop-start) Is it: a. System memory? b. Processor speed? c. Video card memory? I'm looking to upgrade to deal with this (and in anticipation of CMBB), need to focus on the biggest problems first. (I have a PIII with 256M memory, and 16M video memory -nvidia TNT; can't remember processor speed, but think it's in the 400 range) Thanks in advance.

Scipio, why on Earth do you want a demo anyway? You KNOW you're going to buy the damn game, you don't need to be convinced by any demo. Admit it: You just can't wait! Well, join the club...

Yeah, after reading Kump's report I was rather curious about the effect of wind on shot accuracy, at least of the big bore guns. I would imagine that it would have a negative impact upon less experienced troops' accuracy, with veterans and above being more readily able to compensate for windage effects.

Oh, but the bugle calls are so much fun to hear in Sid Meier's Gettysburg!

I think that their talking about having a coax run out of ammo before the bow MG (for a typical example)...

IIRC many signals were used to coordinate troop movement on the eastern front, especially by the Russians. Whistles and bugles would signal the advance, retreat, etc. If CMBB is going to have wave attacks, will CMBB give us these signals (instead of the ubiquitous "Let's go! Move it! in Russian)?

I, too, recall an open top, watching the crew cranking the gun up toward the tower. It's been a while, though. A Wespe was a SP Arty unit and would have the elevation to hit that tower. The alternative (a Marder) would never have been able to do that.

I know exactly what you mean... There are times where even the best grass or snow mods do not let you discern the subtle ripples in the ground. Short of getting down to level one and scooting all around the map (which is cheesy), grids are the only convenient way (at level 3 or 4) of noting those bumps and "grassy knolls" that would be quite apparent in RL. The basic utility of the grid lines is not at all similar to the hexes of yore. They really just serve to lend a sense of the contours. I added a button to my CMMOS to set gridded terrain, using the gridded grass that used to be available at CMHG (in Matt's Mods? For all I know, it's still there...) Unfortunately, it's not the prettiest looking grass mod out there, but at least it ain't ugly. By the by, I've found that after a while my eye doesn't even really "see" the grid lines so much as incorporate them into the terrain scheme.

Hey, I volunteer to be the SF Bay Area "rep" -- Let me have a copy to demonstrate to the Bay Area's CMBB market, willya! Huh! Huh! Please! (I promise not to post anything on the board about the game, honest I do...)

I thought that the topic on "Yards" would be about the lack of front and back yards around houses, but it wasn't... Anyway, I find it odd that houses seem to just sit in the open like they do on the suburban and town CM maps. In RL there are usually fences, walls, and shrubs between houses. They tended to make charging houses more difficult. It's probably been brought up before.

Never mind... The drugs have worn off now... [Edited for sobriety's sake.] [ May 21, 2002, 12:33 AM: Message edited by: Liebchen ]

"No chute! No chute!" - landswehr surrendering to Yankees. :eek: "Nix chasin'! Nix chasin'!" - GI surrendering to Germans. :eek: I remember how they taught us sailors how to say thank you in Japanese: "Don't touch my moustache." (For, "Doe tashe ma****a" or something like that.)

Obviously, the screen shot was taken during map design, and the map-designer is given an opportunity to place huge craters onto the map to represent previous barrages.

It's the sound of their coffee grinders whirring...

What fallacy? I am describing a desired change to the game engine, not the way that it works now. The thread of a couple days ago (to which I refer in my opening sentence) hypothesized that BTS could arrange so that the game would allow pbem to take place with only two files exchanged per turn. Try to follow along, keeping in mind that this was only a suggestion, and not a reflection of the actual current state of the game: 1- [Players set up] 2- Player A plots moves, sends move file to Player B. 3- Player B plots moves, generates a movie, sends to Player A. 4- Player A views the movie, plots move for turn 2, sends a combined file (this was the suggestion) to Player B. 5- Player B views the movie (from turn 1), plots moves for turn 2, and generates a new movie for turn 2. 6- Cycle repeats The suggestion was that the game engine would allow viewing of a movie by player A, and appends to the movie file a set of move plots. This would be received by Player B's machine, which would allow viewing of the movie and would then incorporate the move plots into generating the next movie. The idea was to reduce the number of files exchanged per turn. Most people liked the idea, but some worried about certain problems which I believe were misguided (see my first post).

The thread suggesting an alternative to the pbem turn sequence really got me thinking. (You know, where player A generates a movie, player B watches and plots moves, then player A watches, plots moves, and generates a new movie.) I read all of the naysayers' comments, and they seem to boil down to two themes: a) If Player B views the movie before Player A does, then Player B can keep rewatching it until he gets results that he likes, and Player B will have the opportunity to crack the code and screw things up for Player A. As to the first argument, this is based upon a mistaken understanding of the game engine (AFAIK). A movie is not the occurrence of the events -- it is only a replaying of the events. Once Player A generates the movie, it is done and locked in. One could say that the events actually transpire during the brief period when Player A watches the progress bar filling in on his/her screen. Everything after that is simply a replay. SO... Player B can watch the movie over and over again until the cows come home, but everything will happen EXACTLY the same way each and every time. Therefore, if Player B were to watch and make plots, and then email the combined movie/plot file to Player A, the movie that Player A would watch would be exactly identical. (Well, that is to say that the events that occur are identical. Obviously, the events that are actually seen will differ.) As for the "hacking" problem, the threat of this occurring under these circumstances would be no greater than exists under the current arrangement. Frankly, AFAIK almost everyone is much more interested in PLAYING than in hacking. Hacking codes takes lost of time and energy away from game playing. My bets are that it would not be a problem (any more than it is now...) [Edited for clarification.] [ April 08, 2002, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: Liebchen ]

Know-it-all do-gooder that I am I tried to report a fraud on Ebay, but couldn't fit it into their neat little categories. I did see that they have insurance for fraudulant transactions, but the buyer won't know they were defrauded until someone more knowledgable sees the photo and says "You paid $50 for THAT! HEE HEE HEE!" Alternatively, we could all email the seller and impugn his honesty (he supposedly has "40 years experience" dealing with militaria and is "fair and honest" -- ONE of these is incorrect!)

Keep control of your mods: DL the CMMOS mod handling system from www.combatmission.com. It'll make your life much easier.

Send him a link to a really good AAR! THAT should hook him!

I mentioned patching only just in case. Nothing like starting a pbem with someone and then realizing you have the wrong version.

You have to buy the product, and you have to patch up to v. 1.12. The product is worth every cent, so just whip out your credit card, buddy! [ April 04, 2002, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Liebchen ]