Vanir Ausf B

I suspect this is the thread you are looking for.

QB mini-campaigns! This has potential. :cool:

I'm hoping for an option to display the graphics in 32-bit color. I know Steve said they wouldn't do this a long ways back, but I have a video card with 64 MB of ram that I think would handle it.

You're looking in the wrong place. It's in the Tips & Tricks forum.

Everybody thinks they have a lot of integrity. If BTS spilled the beans to everyone who claimed they could keep a secret there would be no secret to keep sinse everyone would be told. Besides, the people who went to Rune's house were not chosen because they were thought to have some integity the rest of us lack, but were chosen simply because they could get there. I couldn't get there either, but I don't feel slighted.

One thing this thread has clearly shown is that bombing of civilians is grossly undermodeled in CM. Let's hope it stays that way.

How the heck did a thread that started as a question about the company's name turn into a discussion about the release date? We've had enough release date threads methinks.

Unless my memory is decieving me, FOW is modeled for dead tanks in CMBB. I like the idea. It will be interesting to see how it works out.

I'll be damned. I've been playing CM for 2 years almost and I had no idea it even had an intro movie. What's it like? Is it Steve driving around in his back yard in his Stuart?

Nope. No word. The latest 100% unsubstantiated speculation is that the game will ship in October. Rumor mongering is fun.

They are busy... too busy.

Are you sure of this? I'm curious what the US Army would want with such a feature being that CM doesn not model modern units. It seems to me that TacOps would be far more oppropriate for this until BTS gets around to making a modern warfare CM.

Not true. You can't see the forces picked, but you can see the map.

BTS has said they are trying to alter the setup proceedure to fix this as well as prevent the same sort of thing happening with the new variable rarity feature. Last we heard they were not sure if they would have time to fit it in. Let's hope.

One other thing I will say is that I think we should try to not be too judgemental at this point sinse none of us (posting in this thread) have actually seen the rarity system in action. From the very beginning when BTS laid out their plans for implementation of variable rarity I had serious reservations about the very concept of rarity by price manipulation (as did others, as you can see). However, it should be noted that everyone who has used the system so far seems to like it and think it will be fine for ladder play. BTS has received an earfull on this and so I know they are aware of our concerns. I am inclined to withhold final judgement of it until I see for myself. That is not to suggest we cannot discuss this, but only to say that accusing BTS of ignoring a large section of their customer base may be premature at this point.

You will note from reading the linked thread that I talked about a "dice roll" (I called it binary) system. However, your version adds a second part that makes no sense to me, from a historical persective. If a vehicle is available for purchase I see no reason to limit the number available. This just encourages people to buy "one of these and two of those" and end up with mixed platoons. This would also be problematic to implement as I'm not sure how you would reconcile it with buying units in formations ("what to you mean my KT platoon only has one vehicle!") It has to do with the frequency that rare units will be available at cost with no rarity premium under variable rarity. I went into this in some detail in the linked-to thread. In essense, I object to the notion that some units should ALWAYS have at least some rarity premium added to their cost under variable rarity. That should be the case only in fixed rarity, IMO.

Anybody speculating about rarity in CMBB would be advised to read this thread, if they have not already. Many of the issues being discussed here are brought up there and addressed by BTS.

BTS has said there will be no demo before release. I think they are smart to not have a release date. If they did set a date they would probably miss it and then everyone would be more annoyed than if they had never set one at all. I've seen it happen many times before with other games: publisher announces date, date is missed, fans go nuts about being "lied to" and how the devs are incompetent ect.

No kidding. 14 posts in 3 years! Well, no one can accuse you of spam.

Heh, they actually did start up 2 games on the Rugged Defense ladder, but AFAIK they were never finished.

I don't think so. According to various BTS comments made from the beginning of time, changing the PBEM format is not easy. They are trying to alter the way settup is done so that people can't cheat with the new rarity system, but they aren't sure if even that will make it in.

I never put too much faith in those things. Unless the developer told them they are just guessing. Having said that, I wouldn't mind. The more time they take, the more goodness they can put in. Do you want gun accuracy to be effected by wind? I do. Besides, I've got plenty to keep me busy 'til October (Uncommon Valor, UT2003, ect... )

Thanks for the post, Dan. That was informative. I personally have always felt that being able to tailor your purchases to a map you have already seen was a little too "gamey" for my taste. But I understand others will feel differently as user made maps are hard to beat for quality, so I can see that would be a valid point. I will say that the example you gave looks considerably better than I had expected. Of course, it's only one example and we'll have to see how things do on the average. I still prefer the binary system, but if that is indicative of a typical purchase screen this system may yet be workable in ladder play. Again, thanks for the info.

Hopefully my last post cleared that up. That was it's purpose. Correct, in a way. The price threshold is simply the base price. Why that? Because the base price represents the actual combat capability of the unit, in general terms. You can say that there are areas where this could be improved (and many have) but by-in-large CM gets it pretty close. All else being equal, points spent on rarity premium are points wasted. If you spend 350 pts to buy a tank with a base cost of 250 you are still only getting 250 pts of potential. The extra 100 pts are just gone, where they could have been used to buy more capability in the form of another infantry platoon or a heavy mortar battery if you had simply bought 2 common 125 pt tanks at base price instead. But the argument comes back that there are cases where a person feels a certain unit will be extra useful in a particular game and so feels justified in spending the extra rarity points for it. I think this is the case at times, but in my experience it very rarely works out that way. Certainly, if you knew from the map settings you would be likely playing on essentially a large billiard table it would make sense to pay a lot extra for a big tank with thick frontal armor, even at a high premium. But few QBs, and fewer ladder QBs, are played on such extreme terrain that you could predict that in advance without seeing the map. Settings are usually some combination of the more moderate settings to avoid just such situations where a particular unit type will dominate. Add to that the fact that the 350 pt KT you buy will bag your opponent 350 victory points if he nails it (even though it only had ~250 pts of potential) and you are taking a huge gamble that would probably backfire more often that not. Hope that makes sense. There are two main reasons I never bought the big expensive rare stuff in CMBO. 1) is that I felt that using it would lead to the development of sloppy armor tactics. 2) is that they are not as cost effective in CMBO as most cheaper units. All of the best bang for the buck tanks in CMBO cost less than 150 pts (the most expensive being the Churchill VIII). Top ladder players almost never buy KTs or Jadgtigers. The biggest reason I like rarity even though I mostly use the cheaper common stuff is that it will screw up the formula players. These are guys who pretty much buy the same units every game and use the same tactics. Some of them are quite effective despite their predictability. Rarity would force them to use different unit types. Heck, it would force me to use different units. Although I am not a formula player I did tend to have favorite units that I would pick most of the time. There is also the fact that I keep telling myself one day I will break down and buy a couple of Jadgtigers just for the hell of it. I still haven't been able to bring myself to do it ("But look how many Pz IVs I can get for that...") but who knows. Depends. My impression is that if you don't include units with a significant premium as "choice", your choices really aren't better. Of course, without seeing either system work this is somewhat speculative on my part. My disappointment was that it didn't discount items down to their base value often enough. See my post above. Note that you did say this was still being tweaked and so I'm not sure what to think of it yet other than I like the system better with the wild card than without, in principle. Not so. See my post above. I hope you're right. This is something I wouldn't mind being proven wrong on

Ah, Steve, you posted while I was typing. Fair questions. I'll stay awake a little longer...