dieseltaylor

I think we can safely say China are a super-power now. power does not after all be from the barrel of the gun! I suspect China is very keen to see alternatives to oil - to fight a serious war for oil when might be better off improving your alternative sources seems a very good idea.

Its surely reassuring to know that this cute little classic would be a must buy if it had more screens. Some think its the depth of the game play that should be considered. Losers! : )

I agree with gunnergoz. You got to respect people for them to be your friends.

: ) True. At night perhaps 60% full.

Thanks for that Yossaian - I only got one year of science at school. Wiki is fun on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph_Scale Vinegar is less acidic than sodas! Thats a laugh. Anyway as to phosphoric acid:

Well I suppose no one would like to see the statistics then - here : : ) http://www.dentalgentlecare.com/diet_soda.htm If you scroll down there is many soda and even further down more reports from science on associated problems. Quite eye-opening.

Plugger - Interesting post. I discern a difference between big selling games and great games*. Sometimes they can be both - Gettysburg by Sid Meier, Railroad Tycoon, the Sims. BF obviously want to make money and therefore big-selling is paramount. So breaking down WW2 or moderns to lots of modules is a good way to generate more money from the same engine and research. Arguably the breadth of the three CMx1 was a commercial error - there was too much playability in them. The TW series will be long buried whilst the CMx1's will still be played. CMAK is a great game even if it sold least. I do have a beef with BF in that I was quite willing to sell CMBO war-gaming club to club etc but they simply were not interested when I suggested I hold a UK stock - later of course they arranged a Eire distribution system and tied up with CDV. The CDV disk had its terrifying copy protection which did not like lots of CD drives. Running a game even when you were fortunate enough to load onto a hard drive was still laborious. Lets put it this way I ended up buying a CMBB from Battlefront aswell as a CDV. Whether CDV managed to put off players I don't know. Also how do you find out how many copies a distributor makes and sells? *Rails West! : ) Any way lots of luck to Brit whatever he does.

N3rull - I mention my experience as a gamer because I think it might have relevance. When evaluating peoples opinions its nice to know if they have any actually experience of the subject matter or are simply adding an opinion. You will appreciate that we can all love Porsches and Jaguars without being automotive engineers. Some peple will have driven lots of cars and some comparatively few so whose opinion are you going to feel carries more weight in a discussion? Don't get me wrong I am of the breed who knows what I like in art and am not swayed by experts telling me whats good. However it is nice to know in any discussion what has shaped the viewpoint of the people joining in. I have told you I have played hundreds of different games which does not make me right but also does not make me wrong. Whats your background in gaming? I guess technical. You see there I would disagree as arguably CMAK is the final refined version of the CM series. It is "new" but has built on the previous CM's. It also has the added advantage of being a great game not just a new game. Hawk - ages ago I suggested that it would be nice if the game could encompass wind directions and currents so that the age of sail could provide the background to battles for Empires. Rather fun would be that charting the world would not always necessarily provide the currents etc we are used to. Exploration would really be something. And given the limited scope for technical innovation trade might be very interesting.

Its funny but most food items are tested for adverse effects - but I wondered if because it has been around for ages it is assumed to be safe but no-one knows. There is a theory that the phosphoric acid in sodas was was stripping calcium from bones leading to higher rates of osteoporosis ..... but then that has been a drink additive for a hundred years. I just picked this out : http://www.naturalnews.com/021774.html For a more mainstream informant: http://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/features/soda-osteoporosis I sure hope gunner you and your wife have milk when having your oats : )

Do great designers work to make a dollar or do they work to make the best game they can? I have long felt that the great games are labours of love and designers are no different from artists and authors in what drives them originally. Of course like a lot of initially successful creative types they then become hacks churning out what will keep them and their publisher/agent in comfort. : ) Brits vision I always imagined, and given the title, was a superior form of Empire. Whether he has lost the purity of vision whilst programming or had too much advice I know not but it does seem to be trying to encompass too much in one bite. I could be wrong on this. For those who are too young to have played Empire one of the great pluses was that one could keep in ones head your general strategy so play swiftly turn after turn aftr turn. An additional layer would have made that impossible - one would have been reduced to making notes and jotting down plans. It was assisted by having automated moves for produced units to the front , or to form task groups etc. Incidentally you could name your ships which also helped to keep track of what was going on ... or mislead your human enemies. The AI was pretty darn good and playing multiple AI was a challenge. So how does this relate to EoS. Apparent simplicity does not mean game play is simple and layers of additional chrome do not necessarily make a better product as time spent per turn of action would rise quite quickly. Apart possibly for the Ad-men who would extoll the wonders of upgraded tech, many dozens of units etc etc. chrome is not always good. To turn a moment to CMx1 series which is the greatest work of BF. Their labour of love. I can play a turn very quickly, minute, and see the results; I know of someone who plays each turn and takes up to an hour a time. Investment of time to fun is an important metric for most players - too much complication would skew this badly. Fortunately this game does play swiftly - but this against a simplest AI player. I am not against deeper layers to the game at all. I am a great fan of resource capture, supply, technological research, exploring etc but to do all that in one game module seems very ambitious if the desire was a improved multi-player Empire or a quickplaying solo game. And I think the chief PITA is the technology tree going into an unknown future warfare. The best of the bunch for EoS is resources as historically that is what most wars are about. If technology is included the abilty to find new resources and evolve the technology for drilling oil at sea would surely be more important than most. I am sure you are interested in my game theories ! But to add colour I have been playing boardgames for 40 years and computer games for 20. At one stage I had 200 boardgames and therefore I have had plenty of time to figure out what makes lemons and what makes for classic games. Of course in my opinion. Its nice though when my opinions coincide with others. : )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch Apparently not. And in any event with the Resistance being active it would hardly have been a fair case even if the attempted port landing to secure the docks had worked.

I have no problems with an inability to land into and take a city directly. Historically I am hard put to think of a single incidence since perhaps the 17th century.

Brit, I think there is a trade off here. My chief concern is that with the super tech tree covering such a huge period of time that the games chief danger is setting out to be a naval based game but will end up as a air game, or a technology race game. I do think that the early aircraft vs ships vs land units seems right - 1900 to 1940. However once past that point with the rapid change of relative powers the game has problems. Not insurmountable but it does make a schizophrenic game. My gut feeling would be to perfect the mechanics so they make sense for the 1900-1940 period. Everyone can read the history books and agree pretty much that naval power ruled in sea based maps in that period. Also with relative simplicity of the period supplylines may work well. Also you may want to consider land based coal? and oil fields as the ocean oil fields are the most glaring by far piece of unrealism. Post 1940 everything becomes very much more complicated quite quickly. This could be seen as a plus if you want to include technology in. Run a period 1940-44 for those who want rapid advancement but not ICBM's, or perhaps no nuclear. It could be extended to 1950. I think once you start theorising as to UAV class 3 versus tank 5 and a proper results table then it opens the game design to people's diverse opinions as to what will be truly effective etc etc. Why go there now? The base game 1900-1940 seems solid in balance. BTW I believe an intrinsic supply mechanism was considered in the game design and would obviously add to the "realism" but the decison as to a quick simple but satisying game to a longer complex one is tricky. Empire favoured simplicity and sold a bundle - there may be a lesson in it : ) For even more simplicity one might go back pre-air to sail and steam ..... over 100 years without too much innovation ... and no oil. : )

Jdif I am afraid that despite many beginners finding the transports clunky N3rull is convinced we are all at fault and not that it is actually a little clunky design*. I do like that you can see you have a transport coming to pick them up but would prefer to allocate soldiers to is rather than a single unit. Also that this single unit if waiting over a turn can be upgraded in port rather than having to be taken off load orders to do so then re-set the load order. *I can do an unload order and place the grab targets order before landing but to say I have confidence in the unload system would be stretching the point.

No idea about CMSF. I did once use a freeware program that would record your screen for what ever period you wanted but the megabyte cost was massive. On youtube you can see both Cm and CMSF films - but the effort required my seem poor compared to the number of games that could be played PBEM in the meantime. In a small PBEM I can turn a turn around in about two minutes, just a film 90 seconds. You can play a lot of games at that speed : )

Thanks for the extra information. It helps . You may well be right then. In relation to the docked BB I can only assume that dockyards come with an intrinsic defences like torpedo nets, AA, anti-submarine defences, shore based guns etc. After all Scapa Flow was pretty well defended and it was not even a dockyard. Interestingly the TAC therefore can do its job but takes losses - is this to stop them being uber-effective and unbalancing the game in other ways? You know Tac always gets through would mean planes would rule the roost and invasions would be infinitely stupid. My own feeling is that Brit should have covered the 1900-1940 only and for that I think the aircraft may ring true. To encompass the odd 100 years is too much for the base system.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/921/1?etoc Certainly ties up with my prejudices. Or possibly my prejudices are derived from a gut feeling against excess : ) And just for fun with chemicals into the body a 2 litre [3.6pt uk = 72oz] bottle of coke contains 8.6 litres of carbon dioxide when manufactured. Thats according to the UK Coca-Cola Press Office. Which raises the interesting point as to when was carbon dioxide declared a suitable product for ingesting in its raw form - or pressurised [pressurized in the US]

You seem to avoid my point that perhaps it is a numbers game. Do 5 Atc bombers overwhelm a tank unit? Is this how they should be deployed? Well known fact in WW2 that Tigers were deadly and that it was a 5 to 1 proposition for Shermans to stand a chance to take it out. Sending a Typhoon to take out a Tiger was also risky as other than pretty much a direct hit it would be untouched so to make sure you would have many Typhoons line up for the task and dependent on terrain and smoke and AA fire they may be successful. I am sorry to use specifics to argue a case but I am trying to make the point that this may well be a numbers game and one on one is not the only statistic to look at. You do say from "my experience" this and that happens. I don't know if that is one incident or ten incidents. Or if like many people you remember the bad results rather than the good. I see many people are saying this sucks and that sucks but without numbers for examples how seriously can the complaints be taken. I know one WeboBer complained he lost a BB to a destroyer - but you say they are uber! Perhaps you could arrange 5 tac against a tank and let everyone know if volume does make a difference.

an alternative answer : ) I am glad to have cleared that up : )

ASL - you raise an interesting point about bias which I fully accept. It is interesting that one of the problems I have with the BBC is that it is prone to print good stories about computer gaming whenever there is adverse reports as though digital proficiency outweighs violent tendencies encouraged through gaming. It takes a view that it is responsible for providing a balanced view ..... however the weight of an articles is not effectively displayed if any critical comment is countered by a positive also associated with computing no matter if it is frivlous. Fortunately the BBC does occassionally get off the fence - climate change would be a good example. Arguably this may be a response to the fact that they are reporting on government actions around the world, green actions by companies etc. And it is entirely possible that the fact that all the major science organisations in the Western world - and possibly the Eastern are all in agreement on the matter. Now it is interesting to think maverick scientists should be given an equal shout ..... but at some point you have to realise that like holocaust deniers and flat-earthers that really they do not need any further hearing. So when you say plenty of scientists disagree with climate warming ...... do they amount to a significant figure or are they the misguided crackpots of any profession. No science is 100% proven but sometimes the consensus view has to be accepted by the Governments of the countries concerned as to await a 100% agreement of all scientists would be absurd.

Does seem a general problem area to new players ... as we all are!

I am trying to make the point that UAV aircraft are figments of the imagination, as is a Class 5 tank. I have no idea whether aircraft are on an individual basis and tanks are on an platoon/regiment/division/corps basis - or even vice versa. Therefore to assert that your experience proves that UAV aircraft are not potent enough is a point of view. I might suggest that you used insufficient aircraft to accomplish the mission AND that the build costs etc are irrelevant because it is the ability to move aircraft more rapidly than tanks is actually the important aspect of building them. I think it is unfortunately easy to identify the names with with current representatives of that weapons class. However if we look at aircraft versus tank formations in 1939 they were lethal only in respect of dive bombers - Stuka's. And the lack of adequate mobile AA units. By 1944 Typhoons and Theunderbolts and Sturmoviks were dangerous though by not as much as flyboys would like to believe. However with the advent of AAM's and shoulder fired AAM's the aircraft threat was reduced. Generally speaking air assets have never been devastating to armoured units. However that does not mean this game designer has to side with one period or the other for "realism". He has to balance the combat benefits and weaknesses/costs/Movement etc to make a cohesive whole. You may be correct a tweak is needed overall but citing a single incident of two mythical aircraft against a "tank" seemed to me to be a weak case to argue for change. I am rather from the school that says give me more data: two UAV's have a 10% chance of instant KO against a Class 5 tank 10% chance of complete fail etc etc. If I attack with three UAV's my success rate is 50% in one turn etc etc Rather boring but , for me , a necessary approach to tinkering with a game.

N3rull - your knowledge of UAV tac bombers effectiveness versus Class 5 tank formations [regiment/division] is obviously far superior to mine : )

N3rull - I bet you think all the later Rocky films were better than the original : ) It was a general comment I made but does have an application to EoS. But I have played all the iterations of Empire and know that increased complexity did not always make it a better experience. Perhaps less fun as you juggled with more and more variables. Possibly the AI coding becomes more iffy with many more units to build and play ..... just wondering. But eoS looks good in its own right. I am concerned that the 1900 technology has the ability to drill deep sea wells from year 1. Would it help to have land based ones and with increasing technology levels the ability to drill off shore. Possibly finite production from land based oil .... that may be too far but ocean oil wells does seem a glaring problem with time line. As for the technology speed ...er well um ... NO.

I agree with rich on this. Sometimes the chrome in a game kills the simplicity that made the game so attractive in is first incarnation. Having the ability to tweak off what is not wanted should not be difficult. Incidentally I find the tech tree WAY way too fast. This may be a deliberate mechanism to speed up the game end but certainly playing the weak AI I was galloping through the tech. Presumably in multi-player as all will be poorer then it may seem more in keeping with the game [provided its a small map. I think I am saying that the tech tree speed perhaps ought to be a function of players to resources .... possibly a dialable speed to suit peoples prejudices : )