Barleyman

Using table fog and only table fog is sort of BFCs design decision. AFAIK, it's never going to be included in ATI drivers since almost every other game out there is happy with W-fog, Z-fog, vertex fog..

Campaign wrapper for the UI. Would make solo play a lot more interesting even if it's just the same as with original steel panthers. Command line loading of PBEM files. Dammit. Not having this is Just Plain Stupid. Takes 1 hour to code, tops, and then you can associate your pbem files with CMBB!

Yeah, right. Somehow it just so happens CM engine breaks a lot of gfx drivers and utilities out there which have no problems with other games. Small wonder as any problem must be fixed by the hw drivers since CM code is flawless..

You're aware, of course, that there has been no FSAA in 16-bit games until Catalyst 3.1, out today? No wonder you see jaggies Try it with the new drivers and be amazed! (Knocking on wood, the leaked drivers broke CMBB big time)

Reinforcements can be nice, but the very big problem I see with them is that they can get thrown to the wolves. Imho it'd make more sense to have very long map and place the reinforcements away from action fairly early, so you have to leg it to the front. And no unrealistic "pop up turkey shoot" situations.

Yeah, the soviet defense in round 2 looks pretty tricky.. I'm still agonizing how many hills to defend.. Quess I should make up my mind before the fascists have their parade in Moscow!

1.01 demo? Nice. Were the scenarios changed as well? IMHO CMBB demo did not feel that great.. [ December 18, 2002, 07:17 AM: Message edited by: Barleyman ]

So far so good. But one thing I can't figure out why do you guys refuse to do "trivial" stuff like command-line loading of PBEM turns? Heck, you could associate PBEM file type with CMBB and make the PBEM helper programmer's children go to bed hungry.. Another is the campaign layer.. This sort of thing probably does not need attention of Charles the Great? Just some add on stuff for the menu system, which is already separate from the game engine?

It might not be a bad idea to limit the DL bandwith for freebie users. So either you pay a bit and get nice bandwith or suffer crappy DL speeds. Pick your poison. That'd also limit the expenses due to bandwith use.

That's pretty universal engineer mindset. When I work on a design, sometimes I have to swallow my pride and do things un-elegant way, which does what it's supposed to do. Customers do not pay us for a product which makes especially clever use of technology. They pay us for delivering a product which performs favourably compared to other products in the market. In this case, scripting or hinting the AI during the scenario design might be too easy a solution.

The point was exactly to give some more options to the scenario designers, which they can choose to use or not. Single-player scenarios would have limited replayability, not necessarily a big problem. I saw the BFC comments which was basically that only the BFC programmer is allowed to comment on AI And my other suggestion, to chain scenarios for mini-campaigns.. That'd take minimal changes to the game engine, being front-end stuff. That would also create extra dimension of losses .. Pyrrhic victories?

Let's make a separate thread, maybe I'll provoke someone to comment. I feel CMBO and CMBB were and are wonderful fun as PBEM, but the single-player experience leaves something to be desired.. Looking at what people have ben requesting for CM2, nobody brings up solo-play. I think most people would agree it's sort of boring against the AI as it is. Baby+candy sort of way. How about some single-player improvements? </font> Chaining scenarios to mini-campaigns with pre-defined reinforcements in-between. Maybe relative to victory level?</font> Allow date to change in above. Personally upgrading dinky Pz-IVFs to Pz-IVGs was always damn nice in Steel Panthers.</font> Allow scenario designer some simple scripting for AI. Think "attack vectors", "target area" and maybe "defense zone". This would tell the poor AI where to set up for a fight. Fallback/regroup-area would be nice, too. </font>Anyone?

bumpski

How about some single-player improvements? I think most people would agree it's sort of boring against the AI as it is. So. </font> Chaining scenarios to mini-campaigns with pre-defined reinforcements in-between. Maybe relative to victory level?</font>Allow date to change in above. Personally upgrading dinky Pz-IVFs to Pz-IVGs was always damn nice in Steel Panthers. </font>Allow scenario designer some simple scripting for AI. Think "attack vectors", "target area" and maybe "defense zone". This would tell the poor AI where to set up for a fight. Fallback/regroup-area would be nice, too. </font>Anyone?

For what it's worth, I always thought the CM mod manager approach was sane®. Put bmp files for main mod into one sub-directory and options, if any, into separate directories. Doesn't involve renaming files and the config file layout was so simple I converted the mods I used myself into the mod manager format.

You might want to try out PBEM helper. Untintuitive program as any I've ever seen to set up.. But once you get it figured out, it makes your life much easier.

Maybe it's just me, but I haven't noticed anyone mentioning this.. The "Light gun?" graphic seems to be just as white as the ampulomet. Please fix or do somefink?

Okay. Any chance of moving Finnish phrase "Seis, tuolla on vihollinen!" Halt, enemies over there! 00043801.wav out of the "ambient" category? I'm getting sick + tired of hearing that over and over again.

The patch is actually changing strings from RAM. It's not offset based AFAIK, so it should still work post 1.01. Personally I find it a bit of a hassle. actual exe hack would be better

Stalin was quite good in quelling unrest by the original population. See for reference what did he do about the Chechen problem. It did work, too, unlike what they're doing today. Relocate majority of the population to somewhere real far away and import new population.. With suitably diverse ethnic mix so that they don't band together. As for the reds being cuddly and diplomatic. Praque? Poland?

Hitler this, OKW that. Ok, the corporal did mess with plans he had no business messing with. So did Dzugasvili. To start with, without the the man Barbarossa would've never happened. Probably invasion of Poland neither. Any quesses when the red army would've stormed europe without the debacle with fascist Germany? And would it have taken them six weeks or more to arrive at the channel?

Well. Yeah. Except what kind of command delay conscripts get? Same as green?

Just for fun, I exported the Z-mask fix for Ati radeon cards and CMBB. Should work with W2k/XP and Catalyst drivers. Don't blame me if it does not Just save the file somewhere and double-click on it. That link might do a disappearance act sometime in near future.

I have been wondering about this one. Russkie green troops equal kraut conscripts, right. But what do Russkie conscripts equal? Even worse than green heroes of worker's and farmers? Is it worthwhile buying green troops or only regular and better?

Since Überfinn Jääkäris will now get satchel charges.. What about tank hunter teams? Shouldn't they get priority on that kind of stuff? How about russkie tank hunters?