Vanir Ausf B

I like these maps so much I may try them out despite my reservations about cherry picking. I especially like Mountain Pass, mostly because it's for the size of game I prefer (2-3000 pts). My only request would be for more big maps.

Yes, it does. But I'm pretty lukewarm to that idea. Seeing the map ahead of time lets you cherry pick your forces to a greater degree than I would prefer.

That is a nice map. That single hill that dominates the area is a rare sight indeed in CMBB, at least on large maps. What grass are you using?

The 130 and 133 have a lot more fuel for the flamethrower; 28 "shots" vs. 11 for the 134. That's the only reason I can see for it.

I've been playing around with the QB feature and something has jumped out at me. It seems all the maps generated with the same settings look about the same. To check this I went back and booted up CMBO and made some random 3000 pt QB maps with small hills. Then I compared it to maps with the same settings in CMBB. The CMBB maps were much more uniform in their layout. There are more hills, but they are all about the same height and spaced roughly the same distance from each other. The trees are also sprinkled around in mostly same-size groupings. The maps are almost devoid of major features. In contrast the CMBO maps were much more varied. Sometimes I would get something like the CMBB maps, but mostly the terrain had a much more irregular layout with one or two dominant hills and large, deep valleys. I suspect BFC has done this to make it less likely for one player to get an advantage. In this I think they have succeeded. But at what cost? I can't escape a sense of sameness looking at these maps. They lack character. I think I'd rather play on a map that may give a small edge to one player than play on basically the same map all the time. I want my less fair, more interesting CMBO maps back. I want to battle over that key hill that dominates the battlefield, or move through that dead ground provided by that valley, or hide in the big bunch of trees. I want variety. Anybody else?

Wrong. Read more closely:

If you have sources that indicate the stats for those vehicles are incorrect in CMBB, I would recommend emailing them to matt@battlefront.com. The BFC armor guy, Charles, rarely posts here. [ November 18, 2002, 06:55 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

[rant]There is no good reason. The official line is that it gives a level of control beyond which no platoon, company or battalion commander would ever have. The problem with this line of reasoning is that in CM you are not just the commander; you are also the tank driver, the squad leader, the lone sniper. Any action which a real unit would be able to carry out in real life should be available to the player. Anything less than that results in a decrease in realism and an increase in player frustration.[/rant]

I haven't decided yet if I will go back to the RD ladder for CMBB or take advantage of the new matchmaking forums. I will say though, that while I was on the CMBO ladder I was simply using it as a matchmaking service and as a convenient means of automatically keeping track of my past games. I didn't care about my rank. The RD ladder's ranking system only gives a very general sense of a player's skill anyway, so there is no point worrying about it. I think I was ranked #9 when I stopped playing, but I doubt I was one of the ten best. Most of the people I played seemed to have been of a similar mindset. Sure, there is the occasional sore loser or rules lawyer, but the majority of the players I met bear little resemblance to the fictional, typical ladder player described in Seanachai's diatribe. If you want to know about the CM ladder scene listen to people who are involved with it (like Cyberfox) rather than someone who has probably never even been on one. As for the original question, I think (but am not sure) that Tournament House is the largest CM ladder. My impression is that it is primarily TCP/IP oriented. It also appears to use a more exact ranking method than RD. RD is also pretty good sized and is mostly PBEM oriented. I don't know much about BoB except that they are a little choosy about who they let in.

I did some testing. Regular hull-down Su-100s against regular Mk IVs at 525m. I did not do many runs, but in all cases so far the Su-100s have never retreated unless gun damaged. I also did a few runs with IS-2s. They occasionally would fire a single shot and then retreat, but usually would shoot it out to the bitter end. I haven't tested ISU-122s, nor have I tested against anything other than Pz IVs, yet.

I have a 4200 (64 MB) and I can tell you that attempting to use 2x or Quincunx with CMBB results in no display at all, i.e. a completely black screen. Minimizing and maximizing does no good. This is with 30.82 drivers and DX 8.1b. 4x and 4xS work fine.

Just so you know, team play is a planned feature for CM3. I don't know if it will work with PBEM, however, or just TCP/IP.

And strangely LARGE.

This very significant change in the 1.01 patch was mentioned briefly earlier, but appears to have been missed. * Move to Contact stops the moving unit only if a spotted enemy appears in the moving unit's covered arc (if any).

Just make a backup of your BMP folder. If you don't like it restore the whole folder from the backup.

Ok, here's a simple idea. When purchasing formations that contain more than one infantry type, the rarity for the predominant infantry type in that formation will be used for all infantry in that formation. Yes, that means some infantry will sometimes have a different rarity if purchased in a formation rather than individually, but I don't see a problem with this since it will generally be less rare within the formation than without, therefore encouraging purchasing by formation (that's a good thing, right?). It's certainly a lot better than having it hidden, which I find extremely annoying. Opinions?

EDIT: Ah, ok. I see the problem. I'm not sure how to solve that. [ November 14, 2002, 05:38 AM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Ok, thanks for the update. But, if I may ask, why is it not displayed? Is it a bug? A design decision? What is the rational behind it? It makes no sense to me.

The whole point of rarity by price manipulation is to discourage people from buying rare units. If people don't know if its rare or not it rather diminishes the effect. Knowing how usefull the unit will be in the expected battle situation depends on knowing what the battle situation will be. If a number of setting are set to random this cannot be known with any degree of certainty.

The rarity effects the price at all levels; squad, company and battalion. I don't really see why the infantry rarity can't be displayed just like the rarity for all the other unit types. The real questions I'm wondering about is why is it hidden how, and why doesn't anybody seem to care?

I am surprised that there is still no mention of fixing the rarity values for infantry units not being displayed. Is this actually a feature?

Something like that, yes. Towards the ground is lower, towards the sky is higher. According to Steve the camera angle was raised because the maps are bigger, although in QBs they really aren't much bigger. Making the shift+a/z adjustments sticky would be ideal. [ November 09, 2002, 06:37 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Actually the default camera angle in CMBB is higher, not lower, than in CMBO.

I don't think crew quality would be a factor. Unless the manual is wrong, Soviets are only equal to German units of one level lower in terms of command delay (before 1944). In all other aspects they are the same at the same experience level.

Excellent! Now, if we could get the rarity for infantry units displayed...