Vanir Ausf B

I disagree. It is entirely possible to have relative spotting and still allow the player to control all the units at once. In fact, that is what BTS plans to do, according to those old posts.

I'm all for SOPs and extereme FOW and better TacAI(as is BTS, btw), but none of that is a substitute for the player feeling a connection between his decisions and the results in the game. Realism is not an end itself but a means to an end: enjoyment of the game (often refered to as "fun" ). I will probably get branded a heratic for saying that, but oh well. For me, and I suspect most CM players though I can't prove it, the more decision making you take out of the player's hands and give to the AI, the more distant and less involved the player feels with the game and hence less fun. The question is where do you strike the balance? I like the balance pretty much the way it is now.

Heh, I know what you mean, but ironically Kip and Andreas are 2 of the groggiest grogs around here but they seem to get it. [ April 22, 2002, 04:57 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Tom, you are basically correct. Steve said it himself: "Relative Spotting is far more realistic than Absolute Spotting. But it isn't perfect since the Human is allowed to interact with all units using one shared "conciousness". Relative spotting is a significant improvement but it is not the Ultimate In Realism that some here seem to be expecting. As long as each side is controlled by a single player there is no way around the "shared conciousness/God's eye view" issue unless you are willing go give over significantly more control of your forces to the AI. BTS does not seem willing to do this and I for one am quite happy about that. It could be argued that doing so would be more realistic but who cares about realism if the game is a bore to play? [ April 22, 2002, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Because otherwise there is no penalty at all for being out of C&C and therefore no incentive for the player to concern himself with it. But this is inconsistent with the player being the leader of every unit, so... Basically they fudged it as a compromise. Think about the alternatives: no command delays and no leadership bonuses are too unrealistic. On the other hand the inability to give orders to any unit out of C&C makes it too much of a "watch the AI play itself" game which hurts the fun factor. So they compromised between realism and playability even though the result is a little contradictory in concept. That is why I prefer to say the role of the player in the game is undefined rather than "the leader of every unit" although either is correct in a way.

I think I started something... :eek: Tom, you don't need to post EVERY BTS comment on relative spotting ever made. People can click on the links and get the full story if they want. I only posted a distilled version of the most important points. Just thought I'd save you some work

The human player does not have a defined role in CM per se. He is simply the guy playing the game who tells all his units what to do. Judging from BTS comments this is not likely to change in the rewrite to any large degree. I certainly hope it doesn't. It will be interesting to see how the multi-multiplayer works out, however. [ April 22, 2002, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

A fair question. The problem is that people have been lumping 2 or 3 related but seperate issues together. This stuff has been brought up before. It may be helpfull to see what was said on it previously. Big Ass Thread Obviously BTS believes there is simply no solution to the "Godlike" POV issue and will therefore make no attempt beyond making it possible for there to be more than 2 players in a game (which has been confirmed as a planned feature of the rewrite). So, how will relative spotting be done? A few hints can be found here. Hopefully this has been of some help. [ April 22, 2002, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Although the search engine refuses to find it, I distinctly remember Steve saying that the CMBB manual will be much improved over CMBO, with a lot more technical information about how the game works. I very seriously doubt they would hire someone to write it for them. Nobody else knows the game as well as they do.

I guess I should have noted that when I buy British in CM I always buy airborne, which are only 1230 or so per battalion. When you are the attacker in a 3000 pt game you get 4500 pts to play with. But like I said, I have yet to see a 3000 pt game go long enough to where resupply would be feasible. I've yet to try a 5000 pt game. I have been lobbying for much the same thing with regard to tanks. I have asked that tanks that begin the game in trees be made much more difficult to spot until they move or fire. As it is they seem to be spotted almost automatically as soon as any enemy unit enters LOS, even if they are "hiding". It makes them be of questionable value on defense compared to AT guns as it is very difficult to ambush with them. At least AT guns can remain hidden until they fire. In reality German tanks with their smokeless powder were often able to remain unspotted even after opening fire from ambush. Still, most of these problems will be solved by relative spotting. Too bad we have to wait for CM3 for it. An interesting exception to the "if it shoots it is spotted" rule in CM is the 20mm AA gun (single) which can often shoot all day without getting more than a sound contact as long as it is at least 200-300m from the nearest enemy unit.

Indeed, I would argue that it would only be applicable to battles at the most extreme CM scale. I have PBEMed a number of 3000 pt attack/defend games where the attacker can purchase 2 entire British infantry battalions + armor and arty support and have yet to see one of these games not decided by turn 35 at the latest. You would probably need a 5000 pt QB or equivalent sized scenario for this to become a realistic option. Not saying your idea is bad one, merely that it's non-inclusion in CM outside of operations isn't a big deal IMO. Certainly true and not limited to AT guns. This goes back to the whole absolute vs. relative spotting issue. Not much can be done until the engine rewrite. It sometimes seems that the AI is able to know certain information that the player is not. I don't know if this is a bug or what.

Tanks do keep the turret facing that direction for a short while unless another target presents itself. This was added in one of the patches. Ultimately, there will always be some problem with it since the AI has no memory of past events (and probably wont in the foreseeable future). Not sure what you mean here. If you don't have LOS to the house you shouldn't be able to target it. Yeah, I've noticed that. A small annoyance.

Regular squads, yes, but British Airborne rock, especially on the attack IMO. As far as the regular squads go, they are weaker than the regular US squads mainly due to squad size. On a per man basis there is not much difference. [ March 29, 2002, 12:38 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

Better have a good AI!! The only other thing I can say is: When is the East front version coming out? Operational level and East front go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Let's start a pool on how long this stays in the CM forum. I say 10 minutes.

He said 3D games "like Quake" made him puke. *shrugs* I guess it's possible.

I spent some time with the search engine to read some of his old posts. Interesting. I also ran across some guy named Thomas Davie who swore he would only play CM from the top-down 2D view. I wonder how long he stuck to that promise?

You win the boobie prize (if I had one to give you). Brings back memories, doesn't it Someone once called it "The Username Effect". [ March 01, 2002, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

1. Abrasive personality and tendency to question intelligence/reading ability of anyone who disagrees with him. 2. Frequent requests for BTS comment/attention. 3. Engineering background. 4. AOL email account. Sound familiar to anyone? I suspect "MajorBooBoo" is an old friend come back for a second tour of duty. Let's see who can guess the name I'm thinking of. Don't think too hard

Last I heard, BTS was planning a roster for CMBB. But it will intentionally be of limited functionality. It will list all units and will likely allow you to go to a unit by clicking on it in the roster, but it will probably not have any current status information. To the best of my understanding that was the basic plan, but I have no idea what the current status is or whether the whole thing has been scraped, changed ect., so take it all with a big grain of salt.

Before you guys get too much further into this, you may want to read the following thread: MP-44 vs SMG discrepancies The FP values for the MP-40 and MP-44 in CM are not quite the same that first shipped with the game. They were changed in one of the patches and it was the above discussion that led to the changes.

Oh get real In any QB it is always assumed both sides know they are about to go into battle. There is no "ambush" QB setting. Your troops know they are going into battle because you know they are going into battle and you are playing the roll of their commander(s). Some form of recce is assumed to have taken place by the time your first turn starts. When you are playing, have you ever moved your men as if they were not aware the enemy was near? I didn't think so. So please give up this silly line of reasoning.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Specterx: I'd say that it's just an AI quirk.<hr></blockquote> It's a well known quirk, and one of the more annoying ones. BTS is aware that it sometimes doesn't work right and will hopefully fix it in CMBB, but your stuck with it in CMBO. Some people will even purposely shoot off all their vehicle smoke rounds early in the game so the AI can't shoot it at infantry at inopportune times.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Mattias: Correct me if I am wrong but can't you just set your desktop resolution to whatever you want to be your default CM resolution, delete the "Prefs" file and then run CM. This will lock CM to the resolution you are using making it unnecessary to change anything later, unless you for some reason are running CM i different resolutions at different times.<hr></blockquote> No. If you change your desktop back to a lower resolution and restart CM, the 3D DirectX Test screen comes back up. For example, I run CM at 1280X960, but my desktop at 1024x768. I have to change my desktop to 1280x960 before I start CM or I am limited to running at 1024x768. It's very annoying.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Luftwaffe: Hello, I was just wondering if a rarity factor for troops would be included in CMBB?<hr></blockquote> Yes, it will.