dieseltaylor

I think I may have cracked a fundamental concept of where the Nabla is malfunctioning. The Nabla works fine where all people play the same sides continually - 5 games as the Axis the players will all of have received the benefits/losses from Nabla system for the same scenarios. The problem arises when you mix Allied and Axis players in sections who effectively are playing on a different reward risk scale to each other. All of a sudden the scenario and side you draw can be crucial - particularly where the swings in scenarios can be as much as 5.90 or as little as 3.72 [winner 2.95 loser-2.95 etc]. If you all in a section play German and all in another section play Allied then the winner of each section has, apart from quality of opponent , played exactly the same games as each other player in his section and is therefore truly the winner. Being a section winner would be an achievement in itself. The best x players from each side can then fight it out. It seems so basic a concept- I have I missed something?

And the flip side is that that score is debited to his opponent. So in Maleme WN opponent was -2.74 but then BigDog944 won all four of his remaining games and yet ends up at -0.43. That would suggest looking at the overall list that he is not that good which seems a travesty given his subsequent victories.

In Irfanview it is Ctrl & F11 as the default. Of course you can name your folders and take loads of pics , resize etc, annotate all wthin Irfanview. I found the biggest help recently was the gamma correction as some screen shots are quite darkish. I am of course biased to the fine Austrian who has been developing and updating it for free these last 5 years or so.[and such a tiny file!]

GAJ "Tactical Options" By this do you mean "different routes you could take"? That's not the only kind of tactical options there are. There is the choice whether to use smoke or HE. The choice of whether to go in a large mass or in smaller spread out groups. The choice of whether to support with tanks from behind or up front. The choice of whether to put the smoke down first, or scout first. I reckon there were plenty of tactical options in Moltke. GaJ." I am bemused that you should think there are lots of options available - but then perhaps I should have said viable somewhere in my post. : ) Scouting! Like 100% visibility whilst on the bridge - life expectancy 0%. Tanks have to be forward otherwise you will not be able to see/kill the defenders strongpoints who will massacre your 100% exposed troops. It really hinged around how soon you could knock-out the pillbox. Screening your tanks from ATG's demanded smoke ...... And that was about it decision wise.Of course execution of the plan required more skill than I have .... : (

My preferred sceanarios were Maleme and Highlander as they both provided some tactical options for both sides.Also enough troops to play with. I thought Wet was a little risky in that three lucky shots could put paid to the Germans very quickly so it it seemed a bit of a dice-roll. Obviously on average x tanks would go done before the Panthers died but the extremes would exist. Moltke was rather limited in tactical possibilities - and I was a little peeved to find I was allowed to set up my guns within range of the invisible pillbox my troops had been attacking all day ...... c'est la guerre. Sanatorium was not much fun - but then I suspect I played it badly and my opponent played it well - and that was why I did not like it. Probably quite a good scenario.

A little doodling shows that the 5 winning Allied scores amounted to 12.10 points and the Axis to 6.30. Obviously you get to play both sides so the worst possibly combination where you are the top winner in all your games is 6.85. This is based on the playing three Axis and two Allied and taking the lowest topmost score. Funny old thing statistics : ). May I reiterate my appreciation and support of the splendid organisers. This look at the stats. is simply a look at the possibility of future improvements if possible/necessary etc.

RoW is great and I have no problem with the results of RoW5. I think it is a brilliant concept and a worthy international tournament. That there is a problem with Nabla is indisputable in that , as shown in the Maleme example, that maximum scores are limited by which side you play. I am hypothesising that if each player played four games and each scenario was approximately the same amount biased then providing everyone plays the strong side twice and the weak side twice the Nabla system would work properly. However this is arranging scenarios to fit the scoring system which is not really the most obvious route to go. It does have the virtue of recognising the current deficiency. There does seem to be mileage in the concept of looking at the percentage of possible points gained above the median rather then absolute points gained over the median score. I will ponder more : )

Tennozan. I see that there are four British armoured that can take a Tiger head on at 500 meters in April. Most of them can kill a Tiger side on at 1000+ easily and there are another 7 mobile weapons that can ..... what is the problem? : ) Admittedly I played someone once - and presumably slightly earlier and he had 4 crack Tigers - unfortunately it took most of my ammo to gun damage 2 of the 4 and I was playing on to small a map to flank him so I declined to sacrifice my tanks in a mad charge. People buying Tigers is no problem really as long as the map is big enough, and or lumpy enough to get around the flanks. Also remember that smoke can allow you to get real close - and he is going to hate you for that : )

I have to say eichenbaums campaign is beautifully constructed. You can really believe 100% you are fighting in the Crimea. The maps are superb.

Duriel There is an old story of a king of Phyrrus who beat the Romans, the trouble was he was losing more than he could afford to win the battlefield. Hence Phyrric victory. If you lose more men [points] to kill the enemy than the points are available to win [flags and dead enemy] then a draw is very likely : )

Can I second that request from 76mm. I have been following the development of the map converter for sometime but your home/dl page assumes that people know enough of what you are doing to download a dll. or exe. file. Is there another site or forum that covers the details?

It is times like theese that I wonder if BFC made artillery expensive so as to fudge the situation. Obviously some thought went into this as the instant bombardment was included in after CMBO. I must admit to not being too excited/worried if someone does spend the money that way. It is a sorry state to legislate against something that could concievably, and no doubt did, happen. I cannot think of a single QB where I have ever suffered from it. Therefore out of 50ish attack/defense I can say it is rare "problem". One might think that if it were a successful tactic it would be well-known and widely used ........... ! BTW my normal caveats I rarely play on small maps and for less than 1500 points. The majority of my games on huge,medium and large maps 2-3000 pointers. WN "It IS gamey to prep bombard the attacker's setup zone in my book even on large maps. Especially once you learn how to measure the setup zones in QBs, so you literally know exactly how far forward the attacker's setup zone is." Regarding Walpurgis Nacht view that prep artillery is gamey on a large map and especially 1000 points on a medium map is too restrictive on cover. Does that not mean that the defence would very likely have those areas covered as natural jump off points? I always try to spread widely to avoid being obvious - who knows whether a plane will appear first turn : ). I also count start lines and do not always start on it when attacking for the very reason of prep fire - so it is not impossible to avoid is it. Generally defence is trickier to do than offence so more power to the defender : ) Personally I think it is crap defence so perhaps I should say more options to the defender.

What happens if you need to reformat a hard drive because it is corrupted? Can you download again for free?

Athlete If you get Irfanview, from Tucows and many other places, its freeware and one of the best and most downloaded. Anyway one of its tricks is you can set it up to take multiple JPEGS and store them into any folder you desire. Irfanview does loads of other tricks but for CMBB this is neat .... oh and it will allow you to slideshow them : )

Add up the points precisely. Why make these decisions on gut feelings when you can be reasonably accurate? If you are ahead for sure ...... he should be gambling on attacking you.

Sharpshooters are already pretty invisible when they shoot. Unless someone carries out tests I suspect we will not learn the answer of additional HQ benefit - but it still seems to be a bit of a waste to me.

Yskonyn Not trusting someone! With one exception nobody has cheated on me in thirty-ish opponents. To take a slight risk to substantially improve my playing pleasure seems a reasonable trade. Regarding tournaments I can see good reason why, as many players would be affected, playing the traditional way would be safer. However even the traditional way has its cheats as we have all recently learned from the fallout in the Armoured Joust series. Also playing in a club, as I do, means that everyone has had a little bit of vetting before joining so it is a slightly safer enviroment.

Sounds excellent. I will beta. : )

Regarding the testing of scenarios I have come across a few lemons , and one or two good ones. I , however play very few scenarios as I always feel that I am being coerced to play a certain way to get the right result. A few notable scenarios allow you to feel there are several ways to win and it is up to you to be effective. One thing that amazes me, as you see the designers pleading for playtesters - [or feedback on released ones] is that so few designers use PBEMHelper when testing. In trusted fast mode where you are playing two minutes gametime per e-mail testing should be a doddle. My brother and I playing a competitive game 32+ turns variable ending finished in 2.5 days having sent I think 39 or 47 e-mails each. I have played at nearly this rate with others also. So if Dandelion could find someone he trusted enough to use PBEMHelper in fast mode, and with the right scenaio : ), he could cut down remarkably on the 4 months postulated. Mind you I would look askance at anyone not sending daily turns anyway

Download Irfanview from Tucows.com, its free and amongst all the wonderful things it does is capture shots for you as JPEGs and stores them in any folder you like. And only 645kb!

Nice.

I hate to help a potential enemy but playing with the sound off is actually a big disadvantage. Once your ears get attuned you can tell the different guns by their gunfire. This can be the difference between life and death for your troops. The sound of an 75mm L/70 is distinctve and spells trouble - if you are not listening ..............

"The first people to decide were the transport drivers. An officer—nobody knew who—is said to have driven through the transport park shouting out that German tanks were on them and that all trucks were to get out of the road. There was, regrettably but understandably, a minor panic; everyone ran for the vehicles, and at the same time shells began to whizz and crash round them. Nobody attempted to form up in any sort of order; it was every truck for itself. Most of them followed the plateau round past 18 Battalion Headquarters, through B and D Companies and towards Minqar Qaim, but some went up the escarpment, steep though it was, and headed west across C Company's front. Major Boulton5 recalls some blanket rolls bouncing out of one truck in its flight, and the German tanks wasting good shells shooting at these suspicious-looking objects on the ground." Seems almost funny - blanket mines to go with blanket bombing! The NZ site with all 50 books on WW2 action readable is a great resource http://www.nzetc.org

There is the spectre of auto-surrender so try to get your men off map in the same turn. I cannot really comment on it as I have never played to that level - either a ceasefire , or when I was green a surrender. However surrender is a little too wimpy really, make him play for the end or agree a ceasefire. Players when they know they have won can become casual and use knackered troops to mop you up, and your few remaining men could cause some worthwhile casualties.

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/central.html I see what you mean Dandelion - the one above works. Firefox downloads now over 50 millian with a 13% share in Europe of the browser market. In Finland it is an amazing 30%.