SteveS

Package arrived safely this morning, thanks The selection looks absolutely superb. Probably keep the La Motte Shiraz till last.

Thanks again Charl. I'll toast your good health with the first glass or several.

Kingfish, Do you mind forwarding the winner e-mails to me so that I can start preparing the freight of wines to the winners' respective addresses? Sincerely, Charl Theron </font>

An alternative approach in this scenario would have been to have placed several "islands" in the water with a suitable gun on them. These would represent the gun boats available to the Brits and would have allowed a measure of support fire for the assault boats.

I placed 10 squads in the open right in front of the main heavy building flag at setup. Took a bong hit. Pressed "go". That's it. </font>

Congratulations and thanks again to WN for his victory and the organisers and scenario developers for their efforts. Obviously the problems finishing off the second round seems to have taken the shine off the tournament a bit. Nevertheless, I had a great deal of fun and I am dead chuffed to have finished in the position I did...athough I was lucky in the setup of StNaz and auto-resolving LfB was less than satisfactory. Fortunately, WN was so far ahead it didn't matter. As for Treeburst's suggestion about an entrance fee, I'd be quite happy to contribute something to a prize pool. I'm not sure, however, that this would avoid the problems that beset the 2nd round. After all, 70 odd people managed to complete the 1st round pretty much within the deadline as I recall. From what my opponents were telling me, I'd guess that TV and LfB crossed a critical threshold in size beyond which "dashing off a turn" was not an option given their personal circumstances. Hence, the time taken for completion was not simply scaled by the number of turns. Cheers

I've been looking for a meaty scenario to play as the Commonwealth and this looks just the job. Would anyone like to take this on as a PBEM? Serious players only please, i.e. you have a realistic idea about the commitment required to finish a 65+ turn scenario. My email address is in my profile if interested. Naturally, Kingfish, I'd send you feedback on the battle as we progress. Cheers

Well, it is obvious from the final scores that Walpurgis Night has won this by a big margin. Congratulations. Very impressive set of scores throughout. I'm a little suprised how balanced LfB turned out. I expected the Axis to have had a clearer advantage in that one.

It is my favorite Russian unit. I've had more success with the rpg than almost any other infantry AT asset. I've no doubt its effectiveness is over-modelled but I'd guess this makes up for having CM assume that Russian infantry in 1945 were still running around with petrol filled beer bottles by default.

Are we anywhere near having the final result yet?

If it's pbem, sign me up.

Fine with me. I've just emailed you the last file I sent out for LfB.

Well, I've not heard from my LfB opponent, Malakovski, in three weeks now. Still got 13 turns to go. Not looking good.

TV is worth playing more than once. Holien, if you fancy a rematch from the begining I can manage it. Neither of us was too happy about how we played the end game. Just drop me an email. I have no problems with LfB unlike others who have commented on it, but I don't think it is a classic. My opponent in that wanted a time-out until Thanksgiving day. Hopefully we can restart soon and finish the thing off.

You will definitely be getting AAR's from me. When the deadline on finishing the games began to slip I put off writing them for a bit. I will have no chance of winning the AAR prize, but it does look very nice.

Tiger Valley just finished. Thanks to Holien for completing the game. It was a tough fight right to the end.

Man, this guy likes to crack the whip Unfortunately LfB has stalled again. Last email I got was 11 days ago and we still have 13 turns to go. Any suggestions?

Hi Holien, Thanks, you would be an excellent choice as a replacement. You will of course need to get the Axis password from Kingfish or my previous opponent (I'll ask him) and I'll send you a selection of previous game files to get you up to speed.

My opponent in Tiger Valley feels he cannot complete the match so I would like to find a replacement. This is a Group 3 (finalists) match. There are 11 turns remaining and the battle could still go either way. My opponent had the Axis forces. Any volunteers to help us out here? I would prefer an experienced opponent who has not already played the scenario from the Allied side. Someone from a similar time zone (i.e. Europe) would be preferable, but not essential. The main thing is to have someone who can commit to returning an email a day or so until the match is finished.

Well, I'm afraid in my TV and LfB matches we have about 10 and 19 turns left respectively in each game. After good initial progress, both games stalled for long periods for what were legitimate reasons. I'd suspect the other games in Group three are also quite far from finishing. LfB has picked up recently and we've exchanged a couple of emails per day in the last week. In TV we've just exchanged a couple of emails in the last few days after a long pause. Realistically, we will need the best part of a month to finish if we do this by pbem. Organising a TCP/IP session to jolly things along will be a problem because of the time zone difference, but not unsurmountable. I guess it is up to the organisers to make a ruling.

Then again it could just be the good old random number generator throwing up a freak result. In CMBO I once had a 10 man CW regular rifle squad stationed within 25 metres of the back of a german pillbox. The pillbox got knocked out by another asset (this event had no effect on the rifle squad), the crew ran out the back and straight passed the rifle squad who did nothing. As the crew ran past there were three pistol shots and three of my squad are taken out. The crew ran off to safety. freak results happen quite a lot in CM. There are a lot of throws of the dice in an average game.

How will command delays be implemented in CMx2? Ths system as it is in CMx1 is not very satisfactory for reasons that have been discussed before, i.e., there is not always an equivalency between the complexity of an order in real-life and the number of waypoints plotted in CM. The obvious example being the case of ordering a vehicle down a windy road via a series of fast moves. Perhaps this has been suggested before, but I've always thought that the CMx1 system would have been better if command delays were only incremented if the plotted movement type was different than the previous one. e.g. telling an infantry unit to fast (across wide open terrain) followed by move-to-contact (through wood) followed by advance (across a short gap) etc. would have a larger command delay than vehicle example above, reflecting the greater complexity of the second set of orders.

I sincerely hope this tournament does not fizzle out to an unsatisfactory conclusion after the huge amount effort put into it by both the organisers and the players. Thanks to Holien for stepping into the breach and offering his services. I'd suggest advertising for other possible replacements in the PBEM forum if necessary. In group 3 I think my matches in Bear and Tiger Valley will finish in time, although the pace has been a bit patchy lately for legitimate reasons.

Basically what I think I want is an evolution of CMx1 (i.e. the core elements of WEGO and scale etc.) coupled with an improved physical environment and TAC AI. If CMx2 turns out be revolutionary all this is moot. My 10 specific changes/no changes are Change 1) Improve the modelling of LOS and visibility. It is very crude in many ways, especially with respect to structures. 2) AFVs above a certain experience should be able to target different areas (i.e. tracks) of other AFVs. 3) If a unit has an indirect fire capability in real life it should have so in the game. 4) Allow a greater variety of vehicle types to be included, e.g. in a WW2 context...buffalos, DD tanks, flail tanks, at the expense of 57 different varieties of PZIV. 5) Delineate the HQ command structure better and no more flipping units between different HQs based on proximity. No Change 1) Async. (PBEM etc) play. I cannot stress how important this is. It is the ONLY way I play CMx1. Playing humans is many times more satisfying than playing the AI and TCP/IP is not a practical option for me. 2,3,4,5 WEGO, SCALE, elegance/simplicity of the interface and generally getting the opportunity to beat the crap out of Nazis using men in shorts.

You are welcome Mal. Glad that I've at the least given you some pause for thought in this one. btw, Stoneage and I are in the last few turns of St Naz and Flenser and I are about 2/3 of the way through Tiger Valley.