Wolfpack

Just wanted to say that I went out to Seimer's house yesterday. He was kind enough to give me an early preview since I'm moving in the next day or two. Everyone who goes is in for a treat, Him and his wife are great hosts (Free pizza...a huge plus in my book ) and then I got to see CMBB for a while. Hearing some of the things that have gone into the decision making process was very nice, and the love and detail shows. Got to play USTanker in a TCP/IP match...well, got to have my rear handed to me by USTanker in a TCP/IP anyway. I didn't have a whole lot of time to see some of the things I wanted to, but what I saw was really, really nice. If anyone wants to ask anything I'll try to answer. BTW...when you go...have him show you the partisan scenario. You'll see a traffic jam from hell. Edit: The mouse view movement is a nice improvement in my opinion. If you've played Shogun or Medieval Total War, it's just like that. Once you get used to it, it makes things much easier. [ July 21, 2002, 03:48 AM: Message edited by: Wolfpack ]

And the economic damage has been upped it seems too. I had a new high with a 10 point sub last night when it managed to get 14 MPPs to the bottom of the ocean. The naval changes so far are all to the better.

Well, playing on +1 XP for the axis, I managed to have the AI exactly recreate the German invasion of France. Turn 1 he took out the low countries (Despite still using all his airpower on the unit on the border) Turn 2 I had reinforced the French line so I figured I could hold for a bit. 2 airstrikes on the Army in the Ardennes convinced me otherwise. One armored attack took it out and he then rolled his other two panzer armies and one infantry army through the gap and completely encircled the northern half of my line. Turn 3 he widened the gap by breaking the top Maginot defender and ran through to get to Paris after destroying the encircled units...Italy enters. Turn 4 was mop up. He took Paris and finished off the Maginot defenders. I was impressed by the encirclement he achieved on my line. Before, the AI would have sent one unit one hex into the hole and let me contain it there, but now it fully exploited the hole in my lines. From what I've seen of the gold demo so far, it's going to be a much tougher opponent than it was in the Beta.

Well, playing on +1 XP for the axis, I managed to have the AI exactly recreate the German invasion of France. Turn 1 he took out the low countries (Despite still using all his airpower on the unit on the border) Turn 2 I had reinforced the French line so I figured I could hold for a bit. 2 airstrikes on the Army in the Ardennes convinced me otherwise. One armored attack took it out and he then rolled his other two panzer armies and one infantry army through the gap and completely encircled the northern half of my line. Turn 3 he widened the gap by breaking the top Maginot defender and ran through to get to Paris after destroying the encircled units...Italy enters. Turn 4 was mop up. He took Paris and finished off the Maginot defenders. I was impressed by the encirclement he achieved on my line. Before, the AI would have sent one unit one hex into the hole and let me contain it there, but now it fully exploited the hole in my lines. From what I've seen of the gold demo so far, it's going to be a much tougher opponent than it was in the Beta.

Ah, those were the days...didn't hear anyone complaining about the AI back then did ya? </font>

Well, I just got back from my personal sneak preview, and I never noticed a difference between the tanks. Of course, I was playing with extreme fog of war on all the time, so I was lucky to see them before they blew my guys away anyway. Well, that and I was too busy oohing and ahhing over the improvements. (Even with most of the tanks I saw being quite flourescent and running on a lower end system [Pentium 500 8meg video card I believe])

Main issue I still have after playing the gold demo is that suicidal german north atlantic sub who insists on coming and attacking my fleet around England every single game. Doesn't he have better things to do than die for the Furher? On the plus side. Did you tweak the naval aggressiveness for England? Man, I went for Sea Lion and they came swarming out unlike the beta when they'd mainly hang back until I landed. Two BBs even ran the channel to get to some units I was about to drop off near London. Big improvement. Makes it much harder to accomplish Sea Lion quickly when the AI uses the British fleet aggressively.

Ah, those were the days...didn't hear anyone complaining about the AI back then did ya?

Wolfenstein....Bah...youngsters. Who here ever played the ultimate wargame..."Blue Meanies from Outer Space" on the Commedore Vic 20? Huh? Huh? That's what I thought.

What's the hold up here? It's well into Friday here in the CST...where's my game? Come on now...you said Friday, it's Friday most everywhere. Now...gimmie!

Better a career than a life and country...course, Chamberlain did die in '40 didn't he?

While Hitler returns to Berlin declaring, "I have seen them at Munich, they are little worms." Thus the stage is set for one of the bigger "DOH!"s of all time. Somewhere right up there with the "kicking the door in" thing.

How incredably convenient...the day after I get paid. Do you guys keep track of these things or something?

These should be sunk "costs" for either regular movement or op movement. I fully agree paying for op movement to rebase across Europe is appropriate. But planes which can fly 5-6 hexes round trip *should* be able to fly 10-12 hexes when rebasing. It shouldn't be a big deal to hop across the North Sea, Baltic, or Med. I played allies yesterday and invaded Norway. I could get my bombers over to support, but no fighters because they couldn't reach - and you can't op move until you capture a city. This is just irritating. Another aspect to this issue is the time it takes for reinforcements and rebasing of air units. That's 2 turns your air unit is unavailable. For blitzkrieg in Russia, you may have to rebase twice to keep up, so maybe it's 3 turns without that unit. This is also irritating. Those are a couple of reasonable arguments for extending regular air movement some. If not double, at least +3 or +4. Anyway, it's something for consideration. </font>

Yes, but not across water. I found this to be a hassle moving an air unit through Denmark to Norway to support an attack on Sweden, and then back again to Poland. It takes much too long. Planes should be able to fly double the mission range when rebasing. This would permit flights from Sweden to Poland, and from Greece to Libya, rather than lengthy detours.</font>

But the communists weren't the only partisans in Yugoslavia. The Chetniks were the big ones up until they decided to squabble with the communists.

Any chance of an early preview? I'm moving to Florida on the 25th, but if I could sneak in before that, I'd be most grateful seeing as how I live in San Antonio.

Okay, I just managed to wade through all seven pages of the distribution post. Good lord what is the deal? So as of right now I will be offering my services as an american resident to anyone who wishes to purchase the US version of CMBB through me. I will accept no extra costs here though. You pay for the game and all shipping costs. I'm not going to bankrupt myself trying to help you guys. If you want a US version, please post here as my e-mail will be changing soon, and I wouldn't want anyone's request to get lost. Now...stop bugging them and let them finish. [ July 10, 2002, 03:53 PM: Message edited by: Wolfpack ]

Yes yes, but you know the National Socialists weren't socialist at all, so I really think he's going for the Winter War (Expanded version) here.

Let me guess...You're going to transport the entire axis army to Finland and do a northern invasion?

I want Hubert to come to this thread and say that because of all the constant whining and complaining about when it's going to be out, he's decided not to release it after all. Of course, then he'd come back later and say he was just kidding you can preorder now.

What the heck was that all about? Listen up, things have got to be fixed, so people can't hack the game like others have done. You say you're not? Great, but should they just release it to you? Relax, ease up, the game will be out soon, I'd give it a week or two, if that long. We know you're the demo master, you've told us all before. I think you can handle a little bit more time. Lord, if you attention span is that short how the heck do you manage to sit still for the 15-20 minutes you need to play the demo?

Well, not only can you get them to a higher strength level, but their abilities go up also. A 2nd level jet fighter should usually do much better against a regular fighter than a 0 level. As for industrial tech, it lowers the cost of units (and thereby the cost of transporting and operating them) by 10% I believe. Radar improves your defenses against bomber attacks on your strategic resources, I don't recall them all now, but if you can get them, it's definitely worth it. Somewhere on the board, there's a list of what all of them do. [ July 06, 2002, 04:48 AM: Message edited by: Wolfpack ]

Well, I was hoping for the release to come in about a month when I could whine to my family that I wanted it for my birthday. I'm trying to pay off debts now and also preparing for a move to Florida from San Antonio ($700 for a lousy 15' truck? That's insane). Hopefully once I get there and get settled I'll have my new job and have some spare cash...pretty sad when $25 dollars is too much money for something this fun. Until then I suppose I'll just have to be jealous of all of you that will get to play it on release. As for Hags...that was pure idiocy on his part, and he deserves anything and everything he gets. The act was bad enough, but then to advertise it in various places (including the board of the company releasing it) with offers to help others do the same? How much of a moron do you have to be? It doesn't matter if he was planning to buy it because he was encouraging others to follow his path. And as for his comments on the newsgroup, that just goes to emphasize what an incredable idiot he is. "Oh, well, they didn't say I couldn't...and they refused to give a release date. :whine: You see, these are the cases that euthanasia should be allowed...does he need to be allowed to breed? Anyway, thanks for the game Hubert, once I get the thing, I'll make sure and drink a few in your honor while I'm scouring the earth with my fascist hordes (Or liberating it from them).

Well, if this is their thinking then the Sneak Peek should have been the perfect thing, not some insidious machination of the evil testers. I mean, if it's vaporware, then would they allow the great unwashed to go and actually play their game? No, they'd simply release a few pretty screenshots every now and then and leave it at that. While I can understand the feelings of jealousy (I admit, I'm jealous of those who got to go ) That arguement for not liking the Sneak Peek just doesn't cut it.