jmbunnelle

KDG, Finished it a long time ago. I'll post it for download if you wish. From what I gathered, everyone was happy with the default terrain. I'll email you a copy. Drop me a line to jbunnelle@berry.edu jbunnelle

The map doesn't bother me. Its scale doesn't lend itself to great detail, although I would like to be able to create a map that was not comprised of identical hexes, one where national ownership does not color the hexes owned but rather a constantly shifting border along the hex edges, like the technique utilized in The Operational Art of War, with the border color reflecting ownership, i.e. for the East front, a two-tone hex boundary with one side gray, one side red. I'm split on the eye candy issue. They don't salvage a sh***y game but they make a great one that much more enjoyable. I don't think it should be overlooked, especially if you're trying to expand your consumer base. Besides, "great" graphics does not equate to 3D. A lot can be achieved simply painting bitmaps with a nice color palette. [ February 06, 2003, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: jmbunnelle ]

Excellent choice, Malaparte is a great writer. KAPUTT is my favorite and full of surreal and strange encounters. I'll never forget his account of walking by the frozen sea of horse heads. Great stuff but probably out-of-print in translation.

Do you really expect to be anything other than a niche market? If a wargaming company can sustain itself even for a few years, it's doing good. It's a miracle Avalon Hill and SPI lasted as long as they did. But alas, those were different days.

The whole point of SC is the ability to manipulate historical outcomes via research expenditures. Otherwise it would be an oversimplified TOAW and very little fun. Italy did not have the industrial capacity to sustain a serious ground war. And what they did have was poorly organized, unlike Germany. For example, after the initial corporate bids and test flights, the Luftwaffe focused on two primary fighters, the BF109 and the FW190, with industry creating as much standardization as possible in order to increase production and efficiency through the subsequent variants. By contrast, the Regia Aeronautica offered contracts seemingly at random, with the Macchi C.200, Fiat G50, Re2000, CR42, Macchi C.202 (totally different design from the C.200), with virtually no upgrades that did not consist of creating a completely different aircraft. Structurally speaking, the Fiat G50 and G55 Centauro have nothing in common, nor does the C.200 and C.202. In fact, if I recall correctly, the only plane to get substantial improvements via variants was the C.202 Folgore, which later evolved into the C.205V (for Veltro) and later the N model, all of which shared components. And this was just before Italy bailed out. Following the Spanish Civil War, they did not believe that bombers needed escorts so fighter design did not advance as rapidly as it should have. The Regia Aeronautica was also reluctant to move away from the radial engines, and it wasn't until they finally imported a batch from Germany that they began work on the C.202. [ December 30, 2002, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: jmbunnelle ]

HAH! I have a first edition with the misprinted pages! EBAY here I come! Seriously, this is pretty first-rate on the part of Battlefront. Now let's see, what else can I buy from them...???</font>

It's Gamespy, what do you expect? Look, the fact that CMBB appeared on their poll at all is amazing, given the fact that it is sold exclusively via the Internet, with the exception of Europe. CMBB is a different beast and shouldn't be compared to Warcraft III in the first place. Both are great, as is Medieval. Blizzard did a great job balancing WCIII, and when I'm in the mood for that type of seizure-inducing twitchy game, there's nothing better.

Panzermartin, keep it up, your tanks are quickly becoming my default. Fantastic texturing. I love the way you dull and darken the edges.

...to Panzer Ace for taking the time to CMMOS (uh-oh, look out, it's now a verb) his tank mods. I know it takes longer but it often determines how quickly I hit that download button. Nice work! Jim

I can't find it on the Internode site. Has it been removed? Nevermind, found it. [ December 30, 2002, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: jmbunnelle ]

I'm Working on the hi-res flies as we speak.

OUCH! Yes, if you're going to be a grammer snoob, make damn sure you use your spellchecker. Hehehe.....grammer snoob. The book is a rush job, for sure. Every aspect of it feels quick, cheap, and dirty. I wouldn't go so far as to say the strat guide is useless and shouldn't be ordered. If you don't know tactics, it will still be very helpful, even if the author uses "led" for "lead" about fifty times. However if you're a decent strategist, and I think the majority of CMBO/CMBB diehards are, then it's a questionable purchase. Almost all of this information, with the exception of the inserted "tips", is present in the game manual, albeit in a slightly less accessible format. I hardly think the tables warrant the $15-$18 price. [ December 19, 2002, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: jmbunnelle ]

Yes, it's a wee bit late for the right/wrong debate. Every lesson that could be learned from the events has been learned (or not, in the case of the U.S.) Yes, Hans Fallada, Heinrich Mann, et.al. would be . . . uh . . . amazed. Yes it is and yes they are. Just because they do not support the USA's latest inane Crusade doesn't make them any less so. Perhaps... even MORE Democratic and stable than many are the meek & stuporous who will side with the Bully for fear of getting mean-minded pay-back, yes? </font>

Oh god, here we go.

Canon, try using the "gaussian blur" function in PaintShop. That's what I use when I've oversharpened something or when I want things to blend a little more. I find that a radius of 0.40 works well and is not too noticeable. Also, mess around with the contrast. I think what you have here is good and would require very little adjustment to be great. Keep it up!

Here's the latest version:Latest Unit Mod with Tech Dots I'll send a copy on to Otto as well. Jim

Canon, I think your textures are great but go easy on the Sharpen tool. It makes everything look slightly pixelated. Just my opinion.

I can live with some typos but when several words are apparently missing, it gets irritating. I've seen this happen twice so far. Battlefront, do you have someone working on this or should we be emailing you the mistakes we spot?

Thanks for the comments. A lot of suggestions have been made but I will try to modify the mod accordingly. As far as shallow vs. deep water, there are not different hexes for this except for the coastal hexes. I'm going to try a gradual darkening of the blue as it reaches the outside of the hex. As for the cities, mountains, fortifications, etc., that is a seperate mod of mine altogether and available somewhere via an old thread on this forum. I think I still have it posted on my server. I have an alternate version that has skylines instead of factories. It should still be on my computer in my SC workfile. I'll hunt around for it. Thanks again!

Note the PAST TENSE. I think all of us HAVE been twelve at one point;) For what it´s worth, I didn´t really take Rambo all that seriously and considered it fun. I guess you could have waited with this revelation until a defeat, would have made a grand prize </font>

Unless you have an old beta version, all of the units should have the dots. Where did you download it from?

Another question: does anyone care if I get rid of the "+" signs in the center of the light, move-to-able hexes? The map looks cleaner without them.

Sorry, guys, not a lot of room for creativity with these bitmap files, as far as adding roads, ruins, etc. The map file is not comprised of one huge space to paint across, but individual hexes (56 per nation) linked up to create the shape itself. Due to this, the hexes are made to mix and match and must interconnect through dozens of different combinations. Therefore, anything that leaves the edge of the hex and must continue through another hex is difficult to pull off. It ultimately looks like an "X" across each hex (all roads must enter and exit at the center of a hexside). Adding any kind of purely cosmetic terrain features is tricky too because they would not figure into any offense/defense modifiers. Otherwise I would have added more foliage. Still, I might try to add some greenery. EDIT: Excellent idea about the snow, Panzer Cmdr, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks, I will toy with it tonight. Of course, that means if by some odd fluke the Soviets sweep down through Turkey or North Africa, every hex will have snow. But what the hell, it would look good on the map and also help lighten up the dark Russian landscape. As the Germans advance on Moscow, it will thaw automatically under their boots. I like the idea about the halftrack and horses. I'll mess around with it when I start revising the units. I'm not much on the black silhouettes, although I know a lot of people prefer that look. Some differences between aircraft, at this miniscule scale, are only only possible through color identification. I have agreed to darken and give more contrast between the icon and the background. I tested it last night and that really gets rid of a lot of the blurriness factor. However, due to this, all of the counter backgrounds are going to be a lighter shade. [ December 13, 2002, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: jmbunnelle ]

Sarge, Which version of TOAW are you trying to run on XP? I have TOAW:COW and had to make some adjustments to get it to run, but now I can play without the disk so I can't complain. Go to http://www.warfarehq.com for the full scoop on how to do it. Do a search in the general TOAW forum and you should pull up the threads. Jim