Pierce

I wonder if Quesa would bridge the gap? (QD3D compatible library that can sit on top of OpenGL or Direct3D) Quesa Site

You know, it bugs me also that there isn't a D-day related scenario. I can see BTS point that it would be brutal, but to a large extent, that was the allies finest hour. If you read the Stephen Ambrose book, on the American beaches (don't know about the others), it was basically a matter of low ranking officers, cut off, deciding to do what needed to be done. That's democracy... In other words, while the scenario would be hellish, so was D-Day. The historical significance provides enjoyment. Doing ALL of Omaha would be hard to do, but instead, I think lots of "tiny" operations would be good. Think of a scenario like this: Scenario Name: FUBAR It's D-Day. The shelling that was supposed to take out the fortifications on the cliffs above was completely fubared. Somehow you made it to the beach. Your platoon didn't. Looking around, you don't recognize a single person or landmark. I guess landing you in the right location was completly fubared as well. You toss your maps into the water. All around you, men are dying as they're slaughtered from the machine gun nest on the hill above. The mission you and your men trained for months to accomplish, that's fubar. You have a new mission. You're going to take out that machine gun nest, or die trying. Probably the latter. But at this point, you have nothing to lose. ................................... Scenario Design Details: The beach is filled with soldiers out of C&C, except for those in range of a single Company HQ unit which has found a small spot of shelter. Most of the soldiers are huddled behind small bits of shelter. The basic strategy is to take the company HQ unit and gather up the resources you need to take out the pill box. Scattered througout the map is 5 platoons worth of soldiers, most of who will end up being scenario fodder. In fact, you can probably only gather up about one platoons worth of people out of a starting 5 platoons. The objective, the machine gun, has enough victory flags to make the difference.

Ok, so I found Graftenwohl, and Small Gain (and Tutorial obviously). Any others anyone would reccomend (I've won Chance Encounter (both sides) with some advice, not so good with Valley of Trouble from the demo...) The thing I'm weak on is units and what they can do, I'm a computer gamer, not a wargamer, so I have no idea what the difference is between a Sherman HY6n3 and a Sherman MBQ4 tank is. Pierce

Is there a recommended order to play the scenarios if you're a newbie? Or, hell, what 5 scenarios should I play first? ------------------ Where's the John Wayne option? (All Axis troops miss, and you never run out of ammo.)

Both the installer and directly copying cause problems. The movie won't play off the CD-ROM either (actually the first 17.8 MB will play, then it hangs), so I just have to click. So I've been able to play it. (Or actually, download and install a bunch of mods...) Pierce

Yeah, I figured out you were using some sort of fulfillment house today when my copy arrived: (Yay!) (Kind of a good news bad news thing: Good news: Your copy arrives Bad news: Some files are busted Good news: The update fixes some of them. Bad news: It doesn't fix all of them. Good news: Cleaning the CD with a Kleenex got two more files. Bad news: Down to one: 1000.mov that doesn't copy...

The long answer (I looked up the thread.) was that they'd have to move from RAVE to OpenGL, as nothing in RAVE is carbonized... (The reason OpenGl 1.2.1 shows up in the 1.1 patch is soley to upgrade your ATI drivers...)

Having worked in the CD-ROM, video game and the print industry, I find that hard to believe... Its not like cartridge games, where you have to wait for Sega to burn the ROMs and pay them $10 royalty whether you sell them or not. There are a lot of CD duplicators, and the cash outlay isn't that much. They should be paying 1-2$/CD for duplication with a 1-2 week turn around, lots of 1000. So for $2000, they could get 1000 copies... In fact, since they've been doing this for awhile, it should be closer to $1 then $2... So they could order 2,000 copies to start, then order another 1,000 everytime they sell the first 1,000... They could be in line at the printer, but if so then they need a new printer.... Hmmm... People tell me the manual is thick, so perhaps they have special requirements. Yet companies like "iUniverse.com" print-on-demand... They would have to order the manuals in larger chunks, but 1-month of lead time sounds like a lot, and you never revise the manuals... And you want to talk about cash flow problems? Since they only sell online, they can't bill credit-cards until they ship, so they won't have ANY cash until Feb 26th. So delaying the restock order makes cash flow WORSE not better. Ah, well, I expect they're going to learn "The coffee shop lesson" the hard way. The coffee shop lesson: In a well run coffee shop, the coffee dispenser is marked with a line. That means: <U>Before</U> you dispense any coffee, start a new batch. Why: It takes 7 seconds to start a new batch of coffee, but 2 minutes for one to brew all the way. Even though you have to make the current customer wait 7 more seconds, its better then making the NEXT customer wait for an entire brewing cycle. That little mark on the coffee maker? It's called process control. By adding that little mark, you make sure that all customers get good tasting coffee quickly. Starbucks is the monstrostity it is, because of process control: Brew coffee for X minutes (note the timers hanging on the coffee machiens). Steam milk until thermometer is in red zone. Throw out coffee older then xxxx (note timers...) Pierce P.S. I'm not really this grouchy, just impatient waiting for my copy to arrive...;(

Arrgh! I just went to the order page to see if I could answer your question, and found out CM is backordered till Feb 26th. Gee, I wonder if I got in by the 23rd. I hope so, since I ordered last Friday, I think. It's kind of tacky to run out of stock... They should order the next batch when supplies are "LOW" not when supplies are "empty". I wonder if there is a CM metaphor there? I guess that's why my squad members can't scavenge ammo from dead comrades... [This message has been edited by Pierce (edited 01-24-2001).]

I have no doubt that people are blending mods with scenarios, my suggestion is just a request from BTS to support doing this sort of mod switches automagically, by building in a mini-mod manager. Right now, people will have to move files in/out of directories in order to swap out tiles. Annoying to do for each scenario. This way, if you have 10 PBEM games going, 5 in "Desert Fox" scenarios, 4 in "Seigfried Line" scenarios, 1 in a "D-Day" scenario, you wouldn't have to switch around. They kind of did this already for summer vs. Winter, I was just thinking that if they stored a directory name in the scenario that the mod would load automatically... Here are some examples of fun things you could do 1. Have an operation, where the tanks/soldiers gradually look more and more weathered/beat up as you progress from battle to battle. 2. Change the bridge texture to match some actual historical bridge, and have a scenario based on a famous bridge. 3. Three words: Patton, Rommel, Africa For those of you who don't want to download the requiste textures you wouldn't have to! It's just the graphics. The desert scenarios will just look funny with grass.. Really, this is a feature that BTS could use in CM2 and beyond too. .. Each battle could have a set of building textures unique to that region... (In Moscow, the churches have onions on top...) So for CM1, I would see there would just be a single string of where to look "first" for textures. For CM2, there's a string for trees, a string for buildings, a string for uniforms, etc.

It would be way cool if you guys emailed people a third scenario for the demo to play while we waited for our real copy to arrive. Of course, I'm just whining, I really should be working, instead of reading the forums and playing VOT over and over. ------------------ Where's the John Wayne option? (All Axis troops miss, and you never run out of ammo.)

It seems to me it would be really cool if you could bundle mods with a scenario/operation in a neat little bundle. So if you wanted to do a desert campaign, you can make some desert scenarios, along with new textures so that "grass" looks like "desert". The mods would load with those textures. You could also do movie based scenarios, and change the faces of the commanders... And of course, you could have "silly" but fun scenarios that might load kitty's hamster mods, for a "Hamster War 2000: Quest for the Couch" scenario. A simple way to do this would be to have a field in the scenario that lists the name of the relevant "mod folder". CM would then look in that folder for graphics first, and fall back to the originals it its not there. Pierce

It seems to be that before BattleFront releases CM2, they should really try scooping up all the best mods & scenarios and release an add-on pack for CM. Id did this for Doom/Quake and it really expanded the game because it wasn't just a bunch of scenarios, but a bunch of "Good" scenarios. Pierce ------------------ Where's the John Wayne option? (All Axis troops miss, and you never run out of ammo.)

OK, so I've ordered the game, and I'm waiting for it to arrive. I've beaten the AI with "major victories" in Chance Encounter as both the US and Germany, mostly thanks to help from the people in this forum. So now its on to Valley of Trouble (the only other scenario I can play until the game arrives, I guess). Where I promptly got my ass kicked. So then I thought, I'll play as the Germans, and see what brilliant strategies the AI comes up with! So I sat there and clicked "GO" 35 times as the Axis. Answer: Zip. the AI got slaughtered too! About turn 25, they smoked out the pillbox with the tank gun, but then the AI completely blundered whatever sort of attack it was planning... I did learn one or two things: 1. The 105mm artillery can't take out the pillboxes, you have to use the tanks with the 105 howitzers on top of them for that, and hope they can put a shell through the front slit. Not sure what the 105mm spotters ARE good for... 2. The smoke shelling of "tank gun hill" was pretty effective at neutralizing that pillbox. 3. It might be possible to use the first two tanks to take out the MG pillbox on the left along with that platoon and then come in via the left flank. So here goes with some questions: a. What are engineer platoons good for anyways? OK, one has a flamethrower. I guess I can flank a pillbox, then set it on fire? Anything else? I guess I can torch the town too, with all those Axis soldiers waiting inside... b. What do I do about mines and such? (The AI didn't seem to set any off, but perhaps that was because they had used the 81 mm mortar on that position? Do engineer squads remove mines? c. Any suggestions? Pierce ------------------ Where's the John Wayne option? (All Axis troops miss, and you never run out of ammo.)

Why I think I should be able to trounce the AI: 1. I know EXACTLY what the Axis is going to do, because they do it each time. They send a bunch of people into the woods on the left, and some people into the woods on the right to try to get the high ground in the church. 2. The Allies seem to have an advantage. Anyways, we'll see tonight if I everyone's advice has helped. Pierce

A friend gave me some help I thought I'd pass along: I'm ccing this to John Josephson as he needs to get into this game too. So I've been playing the demo awhile. Boy do I suck at it. Any hints on playing Chance Encounter? They key is to use the actual tactics that the army uses as this is a simulation of world war II comabt (the best every made for non military use). More on such tactics below. Also, in Chance Encounter, you want to play as the Allies first. They actually have a nice advantage in that particular scenario (making it great fun to later play with the axis and totally crush the allies ). Last night my "Victory" was up to 83, but it fell down to 49 eventually. And my morale steadily decreases... "Victory" is your estimation of how well you're doing based on forces and control of flags. If a flag appears uncontrolled (like the one in the woods, even though there are Germans all around it) your "victory" estimation will calculate as if that flag were neutral (and when the game ends and the Germans are seen to, yes, have that flag (was there any doubt?), the actual victory calculation will be different than your estimate). Morale is basically a measure of how much of your force is left. 73% percent morale means 27% percent of your guys are dead. (Basically -- splitting squads also reduced morale -- so you should only do that in specific, rare circumstances). Anyway, how to play: First off, know your units: To see how much damage a unit deals out at different ranges, click on the unit and press return. There is a little chart for different ranges. You will learn that, just like in real life: Infantry is a very powerful short range weapon. In close, nothing gives you the bang for the buck like infantry (in very close they can even use their grenades and squad level anti-tank stuff so can even knock out tanks up close). Machine guns are a medium range weapon. The attenuation of damage over range is much less than with infantry. They also move slowly. Both great reasons to keep them farther away set up with interlocking zones of fire where whenever the enemy makes a break over open ground they will get chewed up by your machine guns. Your 50 caliber machine gun is a special case. Invented in world war I and still used today (how many other weapons can we say that about??), it was originally invented as an anti-vehicle weapon. Still works. Any soft target gets chewed to heck by a 50 cal machine gun (it goes through about 20mm of armor at 0 degrees slope). Doesn't matter much in chance encounter (the stugs you face have thicker armor than that I believe), but it's handy to know later when you're knocking out half tracks with the 50 cal. Tanks are a total blast -- and are the most often misused unit. Your sherman tanks are designed to be used against infantry (in comparison with the axis tanks you face which are generally designed to be used against tanks). Each sherman has 3 machine guns and a main gun. The key to tanks is: they're a long range weapon. Everybody loves to drive them in close and menace the infantry saying "nya nya nya, I'm in a tank!". That's totally the wrong thing to do. That leads to dead tanks. Tanks can sit a kilometer away and pound infantry senseless leaving the infantry totally unable to do anything. If you're more than 200 meters away, you're immune to the anti-tank teams (panzercrieks for the Germans). This is a good thing. Park your tanks far from infantry but where they have line of sight and pound the enemy senseless. You will then start to understand why tanks or so fearsome! (and *truly* be able to say "nya nya nya!") So use each unit from it's proper range for best effect. Understand command: Your squads work better, break less, and respond faster when in command of the leaders. Check out the manual on that. Basically, keep the three squad guys with their leader guy. Red line to leader means in command, black means of of command. See simple article referenced below for more details. Targets: You don't have to give every unit a target. Units will select their own targets just fine. You give them targets when you want them to concentrate on a particular guy they may not be shooting at due to a plan you have, or because they didn't pick up on who you want them to shoot at (the guy that just ran out in the open is a good guy to shoot at!) Next, use your units together: As the army manuals say: Tanks must protect the infantry, and infantry must protect the tanks. In general, infantry should go ahead of the tanks and sweep out any place where naughty infantry are hiding that might kill a tank. The tank can guard them from behind while they do it (as tanks are a long range weapon) and then move up safely to a new position once the infantry have checked that it's safe. This is good for the tanks as they are protected from short range threats. It's good for the infantry because anything the tanks can see (like something that pops out to shoot at the infantry) the tanks can pound senseless. Know the terrain: use the line of sight tool all the time. blue means you can see something, black means not (and orange up to the black will show how far you can see up to where it turns black). to see how things look from a place where you don't have guys, control click on the terrain (to center there), then use camera view 1 to look around at what you can see. What you can see is the line of sight. Very important in this game. Turn off the trees with shift T. They are just decoration. It's the underlying terrain that counts for the game. Click on the "hotkeys" button in the lower left to see all the other controls. Realize the different levels of protection from the different terrains: Heavy buildings are twice as good as light to hide in, woods twice as good as scattered trees. Yes you can hide behind walls. Use terrain for cover! It is vital and total death results from ignoring this one. Know about movement: Infantry should run fast when under fire, move normal when not, sneak though woods when approaching enemy contact, crawl when trying to get out of harms way and avoid fire (or run -- depending on the situation). Tanks should "hunt" when moving forward towards the enemy (hunt means go forward at half speed and stop to shoot at any enemy you see). Tanks can reverse if you want to keep your good armor pointed forward. (to see the armor on the tank on each side, click on the unit and hit return). Don't send tanks running through scattered trees in wet conditions or you risk getting bogged or throwing a track. Tanks hit *much* better when not moving. Therefore, park your tanks where they can see the enemy and let the enemy tanks come to you, not you to the enemy tanks. Later on you'll need to use fast maneuver with allied tanks (the only way to stay alive against powerful axis tanks), but that's not needed in chance encounter, and for starters, it's good to know that stationary is by far the easiest state to hit something from. Know the controls: Use shift C to change your unit sizes to make things easier to see (I like size 3 for normal use, but 4 and 1 are also often handy). shift T to turn off the trees make sure you have smoke turned on as it affects line of sight and can be confusing if off. There's a lot more to the game. Ambushes, how to use artillery, how to use your motors without getting them shot, how to use bazookas best, etc. But this is a good start. Some articles online that will give more detailed help on how to play: An easy article (with pictures!) on using leaders in the game: http://combathq.thegamers.net/articles/HQ/hq.asp A medium article (also with pictures!) on using infantry: http://combathq.thegamers.net/articles/inftac/inftac.asp A medium/dense article on using tanks: http://combathq.thegamers.net/articles/move_to_contact/move_to_contact.asp For the strong of heart, a dense article written by an actual army trained guy on infantry on the attack: http://combathq.thegamers.net/articles/infatac/inatac.asp And there are plenty more articles on this website. Even a cartoon illustrated reprint of a WWII german army tank pamphlet (translated) on how to use your tank and such. Have fun. Ask any questions that come to mind. The CM community is here to help! Glenn

Wow! What great responses, and so quickly. Ok, I just bought the real version. I haven't "won" Chance Encounter yet, but you all have convinced me that I should buy it anyway.I guess I have a week to play CE and the other scenario until my real copy gets here anyways... Hint to BTS: Write up a short description of each unit, and their strength and weaknesses. It doesn't have to be super detailed, but knowing that Stugs are heavily armored in the front, and best attacked from the flank is useful info... Include that in the demo! I've read all the Stephen Ambrose books, but I'm not a wargame buff so I knew enough to fight german armor 2-1, but I didn't know to flank them as well...

OK, here are some specific questions. 1. Do the flags matter? One thing that REALLY annoys me is having to leave people to guard the flag on the hill behind the church to keep it from reverting to ?. 2. Ok, how do I use my tanks more effectively? I have 5 Shermans to the 3 Stugs, but even though generally the Stugs show up one at a time, I still seem to lose 1-2 Shermans in the exchange. Do Stugs just kick butt? Or am I not concentrating my firepower effectively? How would you do it? Ex: last time I rushed my 3 Shermans to the position between the woods on the left and the church. In theory, they should have been able to devastate the Stugs as they came up, 3-1. Instead, I lost 1-2 Shermans each exchange... (BTW, the true 3D aspect of this game does kick butt, but I've noticed that "Camera-1" can sometimes see things that the object claims aren't in its LOS. You shouldn't need to see the bottom of the tank to shoot at it...) 3. What do you have to do to get the guys riding on the tanks to get off? I've given them directions and watched them ride into fire zones, then they get shot at and paniced. Well, duh! I've tried "pausing" the tank, but the only thing that seems to work is stopping the tank for a minute. Huh, maybe that's the plan. (A minute seems really long in combat.) 4. Reading other posts, I'm supposed to "support" the tanks with infantry. Ok, how do I do that? If they are near the tanks, they get creamed since everyone shoots at the tanks. If they aren't near the tanks, they usually shoot at something else. 5. Hints on using the bazooka, and mortar units effectively? The bazookas seem to suck at taking out tanks, for one thing, if they're close enough to hit the tank, they get killed by it. Best use I've made of them so far is shooting at MG nests... The Mortar units can't shoot at anything close, and can't shoot at things they can't see? 6. Tips on fighting in the woods? I keep getting creamed when I get people in the woods. If I get a platoon to the flag in the big woods, then I want them to dig-in and set up some sort of defenses. Pierce

OK, I've got the demo. I'm pretty close to buying it. Only one thing holds me back. I totallly suck at this game! I have yet to win Close Encounter once. Yesterday, my victory % was up to 83 percent by turn 7, by Turn 14 it was 49%. Can someone give me some tips?