BloodyBucket

Originally posted by Mattias: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Subjective of course but that simple line of text would be enough for me, as long as it is the real thing <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> LOL! Now that is grogism at it's unvarnished best. God forbid someone put an adjective in the text, making it "ahistorical glitz". "As long as it is the real thing". Was the real thing the Hertzer getting eliminated due to the laws of physics, or is the memory of the smell of burnt flesh and fear just as valid? What is glitz to one is truth to another. I am with deanco on this one. My desire to see my electronic toy soldiers get decorated has no basis in the Neverending Quest To Get The Most Realistic Simulation Possible. I just think it would be fun. As to the general idea that it would be ahistorical glitz to have units gain quality because casualties among officers are so high, as an enlisted man I think this overestimates the importance of officers to a small unit. Leaders do not all wear silver and gold. The overall experience of any group is hard to simulate. Too much combat experience puts some people in psychiatric wards. Rest, and a good program for breaking in replacements are huge factors. So, would that single line of text be High Res or Lo Res?

I fine idea. Bump.

Well put Maltese. There are good arguements to be had for a "survival" feature, from both historical and game-play grounds. It would be kind of pointless in a single battle, but I freely admit that it would be fun if the game gave out some recognition to units that did well. Granted, you can look at the "kills" after a battle, but I don't think it would eliminate the realism of the game if the most effective or "hardest fighting" units were singled out with an award, or merely identified. I know, CM is not a clickfest or a FPS. It would just be for the hell of it. A real commander is constrained by the moral and practical disadvantages of lavishly spending the lives of his men to control a "victory location" on the "last turn" (the Hurtgen Forest might be an exception). Most veterans say that one of the tragedies of war is the way it consumes "the best of us", and if there was a way to make the player feel that way about his units, so much the better. It is ironic to me that an effort to make the game more immersive is dismissed on grounds that it would somehow be silly. We mod, we demand correct armor stats, we debate tactics and weapons constantly, but if someone points out that battle is an emotional as well as a physical and mental exersize, he gets labeled as silly. It is ridiculous to be playing with little electronic toy soldiers to begin with. I do it because it's fun . CM, great as it is, will never be more than a pale shadow of the real event. If the shadow can be made to include a small insight into the emotions and considerations of the people it is cast by, and not just show the actions and tools used, that might not be bad. I gotta go, my toy soldiers need me

May you have fair winds and following seas. Have a safe and profitable voyage.

An interesting observation. How many times have you pounded on an unit that is not fully identified, and when it doesn't break think, "hmm, must be an HQ. Gotta get 'em all to make it innefective."? Maybe degrading the bonus due to casualties is a good idea. I know that weapon loss in squads is tracked, so it seems possible. I think that green or conscript HQ attributes should only be revealed after contact. Who knows ahead of time how good an officer will be in battle? Also, maybe having some HQ's having a negative effect would be fun. You would still use them to get the time bonus for being in command, and try to find them jobs where they couldn't foul things up too much. "That Lt. Smith is noisier than a bull in a china shop. Have him stay back and spot for the mortars". Maybe the bonus would go up if the intrepid Lt. Smith was hit. "Too bad about Smith, but Sgt. Schmuck is doing a great job since Smith bought it." Better leave it alone. Would fragging become a gamey tactic? [ 04-25-2001: Message edited by: BloodyBucket ]

Odd how I can relish the thought of crushing my CM enemy but references to real violence make me wince. I am just as guilty. My father was an infantryman in the 28th and his horrible stories fascinate me. I even posted one. I don't see digging a textbook fighting hole in the CM timeframe without the aid of machinery or explosives. I like snipers the way they are, the thought of taking random casualties doesn't make my toes twirl. In game terms, if you want to deny an enemy FO the steeple of a church, blow up the building. A third building level would be nice, to represent really tall structures, but modelling damage to part of a building is probably tricky, so I imagine it would be just like a regular building when calculating damage.

I know the feeling. :mad: That scenario is tough for a new player, or at least it was tough for me. I don't pretend to be God's gift to tactics, but some things that helped me were: <UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Remembering to use smoke. <LI>Not getting fixated on victory flags <LI>Using the whole time available in a scenario, ie not rushing <LI>Trying to save some artillery for later <LI>Not getting in to gunfights with tanks that outclass yours If only I could remember to do all these things myself. I still have an annoying tendency to "hope for the best" and shoot it out with tanks that outclass me, and there are times when I don't use smoke when I should because it is so satisfying to blow stuff up. Just keep plugging away, take time to try different things to see how they work and you will develop a style of play that suits you. If it is any consolation, the fact that the AI can be a bugger means that you will still play this game months from now, and if you do get the best of it consistently (Happy Day! ) then there are some awesome tacticians on this board who will always challenge you.

Earlier in this thread I admitted to losing to the AI on occasion. After reading what Terence wrote, I have to admit that when I do lose, it is due to impatience, or more often, deer in the headlights stupidity. Many is the time I've thought, "I might get away with it this time! After all, the manual said that even when there is no chance for a kill a lucky hit might do SOME damage." So my Stuart takes the frontal shot at the Tiger. And I stare at the results like a deer in the headlights. I know better. I know tactics. The urge to fly in the face of probability is just overwhelming. After all, someone has to get that firing slit penetration at 500 meters against the AT pillbox. It could be me this time, right? (Wow, that sound mod makes you wince when the Sherman brews up.)

Bruno Weiss wisely said... <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Hehe, incomming. Duck!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmmm...It's quiet. Maybe I'll get out of my hole and stretch...Nah, better not.

I have lost to the AI on occasion. The temptation to hit Alt+A is almost irresistable.

Most effective anti-tank vehicle in the game is, without a doubt, the One That My Opponent Is Using At The Moment .

You sound like me. I purchased a 32MB Maxi-Gamer Cougar PCI video card just to see fog in CM . I am not a hardware geek, and the advice given by others sounds right to me. In December of 2000, that card cost me $99 at a local computer store. It has a smaller "pipeline"? than the more expensive TNT type cards, being an M64. In english, I think that means that the data has a bottleneck to deal with that the more expensive non-M64 cards don't have. My machine is only a 350 Mhz Aptiva, and it runs CM just fine, so I didn't care. If you want to have a card that runs the latest first person shooters smoothly, you gotta pony up the bucks for a better card and a faster system. My wife would kill me. My Aptiva had a 8MB ATI chipset and would not show fog. The TNT card cured that. I popped it in myself, and the biggest problem I had was not figuring out that the monitor had to be plugged in to the back of the card . PS. The fog is worth it. Looks like a movie.

After my father was captured during the Bulge, he and his group were issued bright blue french capes the germans had aquired at the start of the war, because of the bitter cold. As the marched towards Germany, a horse-drawn cart followed the column to carry those too sick or wounded to march any further. One morning the German officer in charge of the column of PW's shot a compass azimuth cross country. Prior to this, the had followed a road. This meant that the cart could not follow. The prisoner were horrified. As the sick and wounded began to falter, the men in the column tried to keep them going, but it was sometimes impossible. The Germans had no choice, and as the men fell out they were bayoneted to death. My father told me that one of his lasting memories of the war was the brilliant sunlight on the day of that march, and the bright red blood on the blue capes of the figures they passed, laying in the snow. Apparently, the war was in color for him. [ 04-19-2001: Message edited by: BloodyBucket ] [ 04-19-2001: Message edited by: BloodyBucket ]

thanks, but I coulnd't get the file to work... must be brain fade on my part. Any way you could send it as a ZIP file? That seems to do the trick.

Steve- http://users.pandora.be/aneric/index8.htm I think that is the one you want. [ 04-19-2001: Message edited by: BloodyBucket ]

Wiltz, St. Anne's Chapel, Oddball's attack out of the tunnel (it's just funny) and Rafflesbrand. I know VoT is transferable from the Gold demo, but I don't want to download it just to get the scenario. Has it been posted somewhere, or can some kind soul send it my way?

I think one reason that you hear from users with high end machines here is simple. If I got a great new system, I would post and tell everyone about it. How many folks sit down and think, "Hmmm, I think I will post about this same old 350 MHZ geezer I have had for two years because, boy, I feel like bragging today!"?

South African Wine?

I like Keegan. I like Ralph Martin. Mauldin and Pyle are great. Ambrose is worth a read. William Manchester is worth reading. So is Guy Sajer. As to Ambrose's view that democracy triumphed over dictatorship in a contest of systems on the soldier level, I hope he is right, and I don't think it is smarmy for somebody to ascribe victory to those virtues. If all the marbles went automatically to the side that had the mathematical advantage, then there is no virtue in bringing the question to the decision of battle.

Ok, this is one that has puzzled me for some time. I think I got a draw once, and it was by using smoke as the allies. Smoked up the map with my FO, and got close so my 'zooks could engage the pillboxes and tanks. It is a tough one. I have given up in disgust more than once.

The Boston M*******.

Why does eating lunch make you more likely to be mad?

Ok, sign me up. Send it to danedwards45@NOSPAMhotmail.com. I am also not an expert.

Wow.

I have not noticed this, but will start looking for it. BTW, did you know that 50% of infantrymen in WWII firefights had bugs?