dieseltaylor

Interesting whether the photos themselves are in the public domain ..... I imagine that the book is an assembly of photos and the details provided to them. What makes the work copyrightable is the modern photos and comment, layout etc. Intersting to see the pictures though : )

Empire Deluxe Saved games and network play are not allowed in the demo. More information available at http://killerbeesoftware.com Great game. Simple like Diplomacy in concept but really an excellent game. I wonder if it plays like a PBEM : ) across the net

Do I get a hint of - "If I am lucky the airforce get rid of sufficient Russian heavy armour" so I win/draw. Not to say that some have genuinely beaten the computer without such good fortune. There is another late war battle that hinges rather a lot on Tigers being destroyed before they make the battlefield. I played that one about 6 times before I got a really good break and only 1 or 2 turned up to fight. BTW if we are giving detailed instructions how to win is it not still etiquette to put: ***********SPOILER WARNINGS***************** Firing smoke from your mortars to cover gun deployment is a nice way to protect your assets: )

Absurdly easy to win. Just remember to be the Russians. : ) I have tried it several times without sucess as the Germans against the AI. SPOILERS - none : )I have tried a variety of ways including getting the **mms into action but still no joy.It probably is possible given some luck and certainly falls into the category of puzzle scenario rather than one were you have a chance to win on first play. I must try it again sometime. : ) Some chap said he could win as the Germans against me - Nope he could not

One thing that strikes me here is that the morale effects, both on the attacking troops and the defenders [local and bystanders] is worth having. If you wanted to run a tote amongst all in the vicinity at that time on number of men killed and wounded I suspect that they may have gone for much higher figures. And perhaps more importantly for the Commonwealth civilian market the sight and sound, via the news reels, of the bombardment for the troops assault of the famous Siegfried line was worth quite a lot more than using up a stock of artillery shells. Tsk! You military types - no thought for propaganda.

As everything is ultimately hackable then I am not surprised that it has happened.[un] Fortunately the cheats need people opponents to keep track of how clever they are and also a league to be top off - makes them a bit obvious .......... And in the end they are just crap players who have to cheat to win. Sad gits.

Seems to me that you will need to adjust the attacking strength then to balance the game as I am sure that the odds are a reflection of the game balancing before the game was launched, Also to be considered the differences that occur when fighting in Finnish woodland as opposed to the Russian steppes. And in very hilly terrain ? A whole can of worms. I have played many games on huge maps and they have benefitted from having flank forces and screens in improving game play. I do not see a problem other than people apparently playing on maps that are so small that the edges are important if you wish to flank. Of course one never hears of a defence being gamey about flanks only the attacker!! If you wish to harden the flanks then allow players to position " flanking troops" that are tied to positions and would be penalised if they advance towards VP's. That does at leats give the opponent the choice of deliberately engaging extra enemy troops for a perceived tactical advantage. But a good idea to bring the discussion up : )

To think - if you and your opponent were playing in fast and trusted mode [PBEMHelper] not only would you have finished by now but you would have enjoyed it more : )

3"

Before getting too excited about ground pressure it should be borne in mind that it is a crude average of weight over track in contact with the ground. If memory serves me correctly MKIII and Tiger 1 & II were very well balanced with the weight evenly across the chassis and hence the tracks. The MKIV was not good and the JpzIV poor. So I am afraid the only answer for RL performance is to look at the various tanks and seek good information. I have quotes from combatants on the Western Front saying that the Tigers would skate across muddy fields that Shermans bogged in. Even the addition of paddles to widen the tracks did not bring them nearer to the Tigers performance.

Steve I have played LAN [20+],I have played TCP/IP[40++],and I have played a lot of PBEM [80++] and the most satisfying is PBEM. LAN is good if you are the audience but playing it is too fast to appreciate the beauty of your tactics or your opponents you are simply too pressured to relax. It is however extremely funny to be the audience wandering from one screen to another. TCP/IP you do not have the audience even to discuss it with. Your opponent only has his side of the game - and the little he can remember of it as it flashes past. If you are suggesting hot-seating I can only express astonishment. My wife expects when we have quests that we socialise as a group mot that one of the party is away absent for 10 -30 minutes at a time all evening. And I feel the same. If you have no significant other and your time is completely your own then you still face the problem of finding an opponent within driving distance who is not some weirdo geek that you have nothing in common with. I still trust BFC to do their best - and in an economic sense for them. However my position has always been that it is the PBEM that elevates it into a classic that will always be remembered as such - and played. P>S> I almost always use PBEMHelper in Trusted which of course reduces file transfers substantially in number and accelerates game play to two movies and turns per e-mail which does make pBEM very attractive for the time pressed player.

I have played a lot of TCP/IP - probably 50+ games from the days of CMBO. Now both my opponent and I are on broadband we have recently started playing a small game 1500 points per evening 2 hours approx. using a 500kb upload it goes quickly with 2 minute orders. However it is not satisfactory in that with relatively small number of units luck is very important. Personally 2000 points + tends to take out the luck but the number of units etc begins to become unmanageable. As for games other than ME's they are unplayable as the attacker needs precision to attack. The defender with less to do can maximise every units usefulness. Whilst TCP/iP can be fun it certainly does not translate well for larger battles or complex battles. I assume that not a huge number of posters have played much TCP/IP - if they have nobody has called on it as the way to go for the future. If it is played with Platoon level orders only etc it could be bearable but not necessarily great fun ...... but it is BFC's baby to do with as they wish.

B/D after all I can go on playing CMAK and CMBB forever : )

Thanks for the post Steve. I have had my say IFO PBEM and I appreciate you coming back again. Despite everything that is said on the board - the nice thing that we can say is that people are passionate about your games : ) I have considered for some time whether the Company should benefit from a regular injection [retainer] of money from appreciative players. Of the top of my head I wonder whether this comes from running a dedicated server for file transfer and we pay per message (a modest sum) .... However if the new game engine is all dancing perhaps your new stable of games will free you of financial concerns : )

Schullen ... "I think BFC/BTS are quite aware of how popular PBEM is to those players who frequent the forums. However not all of CM's players frequent these forums (as hard as that is to believe for some people) and most likely forum members don't even constitute the majority of people who have purchased and played the game. Therefore, as much as we may not like to think so, our thoughts on how CM is played and what features must be in the next version may not match the overall reality or potential demand. " I see a subtle distinction between those who purchase and played the game and those who purchase AND CONTINUE to play the game. I bought Shogun and have, and will never buy another in the series. There are other games that fall into this category. One thing seems to be very evident - if Battlefront have established by research the market they are not giving us that impression. By the number of posts it would appear that nobody other than Battlefront knows the total sales so what proportion 16000 is of total sales we have no idea. What is true to say is that it is most likely that REGULAR players do come to the forum. My friends who do not play - all four of them do not come to the forum! Is this therefore the people who should be marketed to? BFC are a commercial company and they can decide there own market strategy. That I think they are wrong in saying PBEM is a not MUST have is a legitimate opinion to express. I am very pro BFC but everybody can make errors in judgement -

Surely we are all agreed that the attack generally takes more casualties than the defence. This of course is providing that both sides are without uber weapons. [special point added to negate line of argument : )] Therefore the country who defended the longest would record higher kill ratios until such time as its defences crumbled. The efectiveness of the defence being a function of militay resources available to attacker and defender against/ and the terrain it was spread over. I would therefore submit that analysis by losses alone is bogus. I think Dupuy probably knew what he was talking about : )

My feeling all along has been that the desire to make the ultimate , in realism, in pretty effects, is the greatest danger to a game. I quote Advanced Squad Leader as the example .... However I know personally 6 people who have bought the game. Only two of us play it regularly and the reason we do is because of PBEM. I recommend it to all and sundry because it is a good human v. human game. Enthusiasts for the game are worth more in terms of the longevity and continuing promotion of the game than any glitzy realistic but essentially solitary game. I am saddened by Battlefronts attitude. I can understand the desire to do bigger and better but gameplay is the most important aspect of all. Edsel .....

And well known fact on the Tiger - its speed in reverse was 2 mph

http://www.geocities.com/nasenoviny/17pdrGunEN.html A simple Google search brings lots of info!. There has been at least one very learned thread on the forums recently on weapon effectiveness so searching the archives should be useful.

Look up Valentines with the 57mm gun [iX I think] See how cheap they are, see how good the gun is, smile a lot. Still try to get trees and rolling terrain though and a few T34 for anti-infantry work. I have flukily killed a Stug at 1454 metres with a Valentine and at 1013 metres on the rear more normally. Both in competitive games.

The CDV disk was always a bugger. What version are you using? Have you cleaned the CD? It may be you will have to return it as faulty. : (

Good luck in your endeavours. I have run a Fraps session and 0ne minute If I remember right was an enormous file. You may find that PBEMHelper will be useful. Either you can use its' archiving facility which will bring up all your played movie turns in about 15 seconds per file . The advantage of this compared to a Fraps based movie is that you retain all the viewpoints and rewinds you want whereas in FRAPs you do it from a directors viewpoint once. In any event it is still worth having all the movies lined up in Helper. http://www.nic.fi/~fuerte/pbem.htm

Of course when talking of PBEMHelper I had forgotten that if your opponent and you use it when clicking on the file it KNOWS whether to open CMAK, CMBO, or CMBB. Therefore it files the turn in the correct Game's PBEM folder. Neat or what. And of course it never requires you to type the password in apart from when you start the game. Of course once you get any later turn number it clears out the PBEM folder of the previous turn and names a new folder and files it there - and all subsequent old turns. The only non-filed games are therefore active. Of course when in the individual battle folder subsequently you can press F keys and it will auto=load, in about 12 seconds each film [forwards or backwards] which must be handy for the AAR or just recalling previous events in a current battle. Any queries ask GaJ or me!

Ina spirit of goodwill, and bearing in mind it is a long long time since I manually opened CMAK and then wnt and chose what file to open I thought I would do a little time and motion study on these archaic procedures. I worked out it takes 30 secs until you are in the operating screen. Now with 5 games I suppose I am looking at a 200 turns total. So if I save a minimum of 50 minutes by using PBEMhelper I am doing quite well. I have not calculated send times the old way but from the AK end go increment screen it is 6 seconds to the e-mail being sent. I guess 10 seconds? And of course it keeps track of all turns I am waiting on and files all old turns automatically. I mean come on guys why do so few use it?

Sgian Dubh Re zipping and your opponents. PBEMHelper , even if you use nothing else than its auto-opening and logging of games, also gives you the option to send files as zipped. Once you mark a game as requiring zipping it will automaticallly do that on completion of each move, and send it until altered , or the game ends : )