Mike D

Steve, Follow up question. How much of the info that you described in terms of each squads state will be displayed to us as players? Will we know whetehr each and every unit is in a state of panic, alertedness, hiding, crawling to cover, etc.? Will the amount of info we get as the "commander" depend on whetehr or not the said unit is in command and control (w/ respect to it's or another HQ), or not? Mike D aka Mikester

ASF, I don't mean to steal BTS's wind here, but I think you have just described the antithesis of what CM will be. Thankfully, CM is not going to be any of the things that you described. The only "puzzle" in CM will be the challenge of learning how to correctly deploy your troops and coordinate their actions utilizing sound tactical combat doctrine in order to successfully attack, or defend, the postion at hand, or otherwise achieve the games objectives set forth by the scenario designer. And that is one puzzle that I'm all too ready to see come my way after a long string of ever increasing garbage wargames that have come out over the last few years from the big game publishing companies. Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 06-13-99).]

My, my, my, but this has turned into a barrel of rattlesnakes hasn't it? Well here is my two cents worth (well it started out as 2 cents worth really, but now I guess you get the $1.98 special). I pretty much agree w/ all that Fionn has said, nice job by the way Fionn. Now, CC1, 2 and 3 were all "fun" to play, but as Fionn and others have said here before when it comes right down to it their "campaign" system just doesn't work. You simply can't take a tactical level game where individual squads (or men in CC's case) are modeled and try to fight through a campaign encompassing the entire war (CC3) and really have it mean anything. IMHO CC series fails utterly and most miserably in this regard. To even say it is "fun" is a bit of a stretch. As Fionn points out playing a CC campaign against the computer isn't really any fun at all. All you have to do is preserve your precious "core" units long enough and they eventually become nearly invincible. And once that happens the most precious "play balance" is completely and utterly ruined which has happened to me in the CC series (all bloody three of them!), on any number of occasions including playing head to head against my buddy. And when this happens (and it eventually has to some degree in nearly every last CC campaign I've ever played), the "fun" just evaporates right out of the game. The point is that CC fails miserably in its quest to turn a squad/individual level combat simulation into an entire battle simulation in the case of CC1 and 2 and an entire eastern front war simulatation in the case of CC3. In fact the CC3 attempt to provide a campaign of the entire eastern front war is so utterly rediculous that I still can't believe they actually tried to do it! So what was gained? Did they (CC designers) really get that many more beer and pretzel, or RPG, gamers to come and buy there game because it had core units and a complete and utterly flawed campaign system? Perhaps, a few, but I really doubt it amounted to that many. Or, instead, did they mostly piss off us true wargamers and grognards out here (the ones they really coded the game for in the first place) by delivering us a game that fell absolutely, completely, and unequivacally, short of what is promised (my opinion)? My guess is there were a lot more people in this "ticked off" category, than there were those that were happy because the campaign game was included. Speaking for my friend and myself I think we would both say that the CC series of games, while fun to play, also consisted of a completely flawed campaign, not to mention any other number of totally screwed up modeling aspects of the game. In short, CC tried to be everything in terms of simulating squad level battle action and also giving the gamer a "grand campaign" to follow his units along through a succession of battles. All they accomplished in this regard was to produce a game which again, IMHO, for the most part sucks. They could have spent their time getting the basic squad level game done right, but instead decided to include features like campaigns that really had no place in the game to begin with in hopes of making the game something more than what it originally was intended to be. And there are very definately many things screwed up with the basic squad / tank level game in all of the CC series. When I see 2 and 3 German tanks getting taken out by a single HE round from a 152mm KVII Russian tank, and the round didn't even hit one of the tanks directly, let along all three of them, then something is VERY VERY VERY screwed up w/ the game. Absolutely, positively, no question that CC is flawed in terms of its tactical modeling of squad level infantry and tank combat. With all that said here is my "question" to Mr. Davis and anyone else out there that might come a calling and a clamouring for CM to include some sort of "grand campaign": WHY, OH MY GOD, WHY, SHOULD BTS EVEN THINK FOR ONE SECOND ABOUT GOING DOWN THE SAME ROAD THAT CC HAS? IF THE CC DESIGN TEAM HAS TRIED FOR 3 TIMES NOW TO GET IT RIGHT AND THEY CAN'T EVEN MAKE THE BASIC TACTICAL PART OF THEIR GAME WORK PROPERLY, LET ALONE INTEGRATE IT AND CORE UNITS INTO AN ALL ENCOMPASSING CAMPAIGN, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT BTS, OR ANYONE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER, CAN MAKE IT WORK? THE ANSWER TO THIS IS SIMPLE: YOU CAN'T MAKE A SINGLE GAME THAT WILL ACCURATELY MODEL AND PORTRAY SQUAD / COMPANY LEVEL UNITS, TACTICS, ETC. AND ALSO EXPECT TO HAVE THAT VERY SAME GAME ACCURATELY ATTEMPT TO MODEL, EVEN IN THE SLIGHTEST SENSE, SOME SORT OF ALL ENCOMPASSING GRAND BATTLE / CAMPAIGN AND EXPECT TO MAINTAIN ANY SORT OF OVERALL PLAY BALANCE OR HISTORICAL ACCURACY, PERIOD. WITH THAT SAID I WILL NO COME DOWN FROM MY HIGH AND MIGHTY SOAP BOX. I hope I havn't bruised Mr. Davis's or anyone elses ego here, that was not my intention. But this question of how CM will handle campaigns has come up before and I for one think that BTS is completely, 100% and without any doubts or reservations on track w/ how they intend to implement "campaigns" in CM. Again, to try to include core units and grand battle / war campaigns in a game system that is intended to accurately model tactical level combat is completely ubsurd. To even suggest to them that they should even consider such a thing is, in my opinion, nothing but an invitation to disaster. It didn't work for any of the CC series of games, and in fact, probably took what could have been a great game and turned it into mediocrity. It didn't work for Steel Panthers. I'm sure it hasn't worked for any other tactical level combat simulation either. And if it has it came at the expense of either historical accuracy (i.e. the game was about martians fighting against zorkians), or realism/accuracy (as is the case in CC series), or both. So my vote is to leave the core units and grand campaign ideas out of CM. It has no place in a game simulating combat at this level and furthermore can only serve to: 1) detract from the precious programming time needed for oh so many other things in not only CM,. but also CM2, 3, etc. and 2) drag what is going to be a great tactical level combat simulation down into the gutter w/ CC and the rest of the games that have gone before it in their ill advised attempts to make a wargame that does everything from modeling the individual soldiers in the squads to attempting to having the disjunct microcosm of a series of mostly unrelated battles somehow be drawn together (with the supposed "core" units) so as to give the player the perception of having fought through the entire war! (please, give me a break). CM is going to be what CM is going to be: a great game because they decided way up front what they were going (and not going) to try and do and then executed that plan to produce a complete and accurate game. While CC and games of the like, are going to be what they ended up being, crap! And why? Because they started off w/ all the best intentions, but then got sidetracked w/ garbage like grand campaigns and the like. And instead of doing the basic game design they originally set out to do correctly (produce a tactical level combat game), they instead got themselves wrapped around the axle doing all sorts of other things to make their game something more than it should have been. End result, garbage, plain and simple. It may be "fun", but it is garbage nonetheless! Regards, Mike D Aka Mikester

Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. It will be better to wait and get the game right, than to have you guys rush it out the door. Just getting antsy is all. Hmm, put a bathroom in the office, not a bad idea. Or maybe I can find enough room to move the computer into the bathroom...? Hmmm... Mike D aka Mikester

Skip the filler, and all other unecessary such things. Just give my my MTV, err, I mean my CM! Thanks for putting up w/ me here, and in my other post today. I had a frustrating day at work where I'm also having to wait for what seems like forever to get a new computer. I just can't take it anymore, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh! Mike D aka Mikester

Steve, All the more reason to just release the game so that you don't have to do all that extra nasty programming to show us how cool it really is. Sorry, I'm starting to get a little impatient, I just can't wait til this game arrives at the front door. From there it will be a beeline to the computer and a full day/night of playing away. I can see my buttdinski falling asleep already, as I won't be able to unglue myself from the screen. Let's see, sounds like I'd better start planning this. I'm going to need a small fridge by the computer for beer, soda's, food and the like. Mircowave on top of the fridge. That way I won't have to leave at all. Well..... Hmmm, now all I need to do is figure out the bathroom thing and I'll be set! Mike D aka Mikester

Steve, Thanks for the reply. You have gotten rid of some of my misconceptions and explained how the leaders / HQ's will work in CM. Appreciate the info. Mike D aka Mikester

BTS, On a number of occasions when leaders have been discussed I believe you have actually referred to them as headquarters. In fact the FAQ states: "Leaders are represented by an HQ unit, which has various units attached to it. For leaders to do their jobs you must keep HQs safe..." Why are you using this term? What is the reasoning, motivation, and/or advantage to having an HQ instead of just a plain individual leader? What other "various units" are going to be attached to the HQ? Will tank commanders/leaders have command tanks? What about NCO's, will they provide any benefit and will they actually be down in the thick of the fighting acting as the real squad leaders, instead of hiding behind the lines w/ the rest of the HQ like the commisioned officers apparently will be doing ? I thought German tactical doctrine typically put the leaders (commisioned officers) right at the front w/ the troops (at least the lower ranking ones)? Or have I been living under a misconception for low these many years? Also, will we be able to move the leaders themselves independent of the actual HQ? Or, are we stuck w/ having the entire HQ to parade around when we need to get a leader over to an area to rally some troops, help support a new axis of attack/defense, etc.??? I also find it odd that in a couple of the discussions here on the board there has even been mention of such a thing as a platoon HQ / leader (correct me if I'm wrong here). I realize there were and are platoon leaders, but was there really such an entity as a platoon HQ in the armed forces of Ger, GB, or the US in WWII? To me, HQ's don't start until you at least reach the company level, or higher. What does a platoon HQ / leader really consist of? Finally, how are leaders / HQ's going to be depicted on the screen? A single officer looking figure? A staff car? Mobile headquarters looking thingy on wheels?? Regards, Mike D. aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 06-10-99).]

This discussion brings up a question that has been rattling around in my little pea brain. I realize that CM's focus is 44-45 western Europe. However, I havn't heard of any proposed scenarios that will ship w/ the game that will cover the same time period for the Italian theater of op's. How well will the CM troop, equipment, and vehicles provided in the game represent those used in Italy during the same time period? I can't imagine that there is much difference. A sherman tank is a sherman tank after all. If anything the main differences I think would be in terrain features that might be unique to Italy. And given the highly flexible nature of the CM engine and map building editor I can't think that this will be a problem. Am I missing something, or shouldn't CM be equally viable for modeling actions in Italy between Anglo-American and German combatants during the same time period? Mike D. aka Mikester

Steve, When I submitted the post above something else came to mind. I think last night when I submitted the original post of this thread I hit the submit button as usual. But then, while the server was thinking / crunching to take me to the display screen to see the new post I may (can't remember for sure, but I think I did this) have hit the stop button on my browser and then hit the chat button over on the left, because I didn't really need/want to read the post. Maybe my "changing horses in mid stream" while the server was still processing the orginal submit is what caused the double post????? I'm not sure why that would happen, but then I've seen plenty of strange things happen w/ computers. Mike

Ok, ok, I'll live without the custom mapping feature I guess. As far as the double post goes, no, it wasn't me last time. Not sure what would have caused it either. Pretty much did the same things on my end that I normally do when I post. Certainly didn't do anything that I havn't done at some point in the past. Didn't notice anything else out of the ordinary until it happened. As you say, strange stuff. Mike D aka Mikester

Arrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh........ Went and edited the message (see below) to have you delete one of these and it changed both of them. Oh well. ________________________ Original message BTS, You mentioned in the recent post on scaling that there will be hot keys. Great! I'm not sure if this has been asked / discussed before, so here goes nothing. Will you please make it possible so that players can reprogram / re-map the hot-keys??? Hopefully you are already doing this and/or it isn't too much trouble to code. I assume there are going to be a fair number of them and I just can't stand games that don't allow the player to re-map them to a location on the keyboard that is more convenient and / or easier to reach. Thanks. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester end of orig. message. ____________________________ Steve, I'm not sure why this double posted. I know I only hit the submit key once, and then whammo, all of a sudden I'm taken back to the main screen and there are two new posts there with the same topic. Please nuke one of them. Thanks. Mike D [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 06-01-99).] [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 06-01-99).]

Great example Charles. Now for a few more questions. Let's stick w/ your example. Furthermore, let's say that it was a US 57mm AT gun firing at that Panther at a range of 1500m w/ whatever was a standard AT round for that gun. Assume the shot is determined to strike the quite thick and highly sloped front armour of the Panther. This, combined w/ the angle of incindence of 30 deg. as measured off the vehicle centerline I would most certainly guess would result in a non-penetration of the armour. So nothing happens to the Panther right? Q1: Well let's see. Do you include a small probability that the shot might hit some soft area on the front armour. Say, an MG, or vision slot, penentration in the armour. If so can lower caliber guns that can't possibly penetrate the Panthers front armour still have a small chance for a penetrating shot? Q2: So the shot doesn't penetrate. What, if anything, does happen. Can the crew be rattled (esp. if they are green), stunned, demoralized, etc.??? If the shot in the above example doesn't penetrate and does hit the front MG mount and also doesn't penetrate is there a chance that at least the MG is knocked out? Q3: Let's change things up a bit and say that the shot was from a 90mm gun at 500m instead and that shot strikes the Panther squarly on the side of the vehicle (i.e. angle of incidence relative to vehicle c.l. is 90 deg.) and penetrates the lower hull. What and how does the CM game engine now calculate in order to determine the damage inflicted by the penetrating shot? Hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 05-30-99).]

What!!! You guys have gone AWOL. I can't believe it. Delayed by a month or two??? (ha, ha) Have a good one, guess you guys more than deserve a break. Mike D aka mikester

BTS, Since CM is in such good shape at this point in its development in relative comparison to most other games, I'm wondering what the focus of the beta testing will be since many of the "bugs" and other problems will have already been eliminated. I'm sure the playtesters will find some things when the beta testing starts, this always seems to happen when you get a piece of software into more peoples hands, who in turn have different hardware they are running the game on, etc. However, since much of the playtesters time during beta test of your "average game" is often "wasted" reporting the types of bugs that CM will apparently already have taken care of then what do you plan to have the playtesters focus on during the testing? Also, based on playtesters feedback, roughly how much in the way of testers suggestions for additions / improvements to the game will be considered vs. just fixing the problems that they find? I would imagine that the maturity of CM when beta testing starts will be such that much of what has been coded prior to beta will not be changed / added to in any significant manner afterwards, so I would think that the beta / post beta programming changes will mostly focus on fixing problems. Mike D aka Mikester

Patrick, I could be wrong here, but I don't believe CM is modeling the ballistics of small arms and machine guns. Only "large" caliber gun ballistic models are included. I.e. main battle tank guns, AT guns, maybe artillery??? Mike D aka Mikester

In addition to Brian's question(s) which seem to focus on what the player can gleen from sound information I'm interested in the following: What can the actual units in the game gain from hearing something (tanks approaching from behind a hill, etc.) in terms of "spotting", or helping to spot / determine where and what an enemy unit is? Can a unit improve its level of spotting say by one icrement if it has some sound information in addition to some sketchy visual indications of an enemy. Say for example a unit has a poor visual sighting of a moving (or non-moving engine just idling) enemy vehicle. Could be a truck, or might be a King Tiger. Will they be able to tell it is a tank and not one of the field kitchens lunch wagons? Mike D aka Mikester

Tom, I think you bring up a great point when you mention that wargamers seem to always be the last ones to upgrade there systems. I have noticed this as well, but never really understood it. I guess I'm just a technocrat at heart. "Specifically, what would you think could be gained by having a prohibitive system requirement?" I think if you read my post just below yours you might understand better where I'm coming from. "Specifically" I'm not trying to gain anything. In fact I think such a question looks much too hard at the short term instead of focusing on what we as gamers (and programmers too for that matter) should really be focusing on which is the long term. In the long term I would like to see the CM series improve with each release. Better graphics, more features, better depiction of squads, etc., etc., etc. The list is probably endless in terms of added features and/or improvements that could be made to the game system. Anyone that has frequented this forum for any length of time knows that Steve and Charles have had to "just say no" to any number of "good" ideas. And the reasons are almost always the same. Either they don't have the time to do it now, or, you guessed it, current technology and/or the minimum hardware specification that have been set down don't allow it. In any event, at some point I believe "we/BTS" are going to run into a wall trying to implement such improvements to the "game" when the hardware requirements either 1) Always aim low in order to maximize the number of people reached in the market, or 2) worse yet remain stagnant in order to maintain and/or increase said potential market. And as you have stated wargamers are notoriously slow to upgrade their systems which in turn further drags down what the "average" system is that most people have to use. And since we all know that good business people like Steve and Charles are going to have to play to a large portion of the market below this now substandard "average" then the "problem" becomes even worse yet. That's why I firmly believe that a game series like CM has to slowly raise its hardware requirements / standards with each successive release. If it doesn't, then at some point (probably relatively quickly I might add) we will hit that wall I talked about earlier. Don't get me wrong. I'm not proposing that BTS simply raise the min. hardware requirements just for the h*** of it. Rather, they should raise the requirements and then use that additional video, CPU, and memory power to make a better game. If you don't then the CM5 game that I described in my post above probably won't be a whole lot different than what the CM2 (maybe 3) game will be like. Charles / Steve please correct me if I'm wrong here, but at some point the min. hardware standards are going to have to be increased. I say that point should be w/ CM2. And, in fact, every version of CM that comes out after CM2 as well. Tom, I hope this and the post above answers your question. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester

Thanks for the answers Charles. #1 Now I understand much better. #2 No cubes, OK. I guess the crux of what I'm driving at w/ question 2 is that 3d is a complicated business. When there are intervening objects such as buildings, trees, etc. between two units at different elevations which could otherwise see each other if those intervening objects were not there how "accurate" is the LOS model when the LOS just "grazes" an intervening object which might strecth from the ground level to some given height. To put it simply, how is the LOS determined and/or affected by such objects between two units at different elevations??? #3 And I assume that the single point you refer to for the positioning of the squad is not necessarily locked to the grid either (i.e. it is not discrete)? #4 Bummer, maybe someday when everyone has a 1000 Mhz CPU things can get really cool. #5 By the time CM2 ships (assuming late next year at the earliest) I would hardly think that a 300 Mhz CPU, 64 MB ram, etc. would be considered as "high end". If anything, I would think it would probably be close to the average, or slightly above average, system that a typical (whatever that is) CM player would have. "We can't just buy a 500 MHz computer and snap our fingers and have new features magically appear"... What!!! We all thought the great CM programming guru could do anything overnight! My world of illusion has been shattered. In all seriousness though, I do completely understand where you are coming from. Nothing comes without a price. My main reason for going into this is that I would like to take kind of a little informal poll here on the forum. What kind of systems do people have now? What do they plan to have, or think they will might have, say 1 to 2 years from now when CM2 comes out. I would be interested in seeing what the average current and future systems look like from a sampling of 10-20 people and how it compares to the current minimum requirements for CM, as well as CM2. Maybe raising the minimum hardware requirements for CM2 won't be as difficult as you believe???? By the same token, while I understand that you don't want to push people into buying what you refer to as "high end" systems just to play a game; if you (the game programmers) don't slowly push the envelope in terms of hardware requirements as time passes we will be sitting here playing CM 4 five years from now on our good old 120-166 Mhz Pentium I's while the rest of the world has moved on to the Pentium V 2000Mhz machine. No doubt, it's kind of one of those chicken and the egg scenarios. In general the software driven hardware requirements always seem to lag behind the forefront of hardware development itself because there are so many people w/ "older" systems out there that you as a software developer can't afford to ignore this portion of your potential sales market. Only problem is if you keep lowering yourself to the lowest common denominator of said market then folks can just simply keep their good old 486's and early Pentiums and never have to change. Thats' why I think that the software industry (games included) needs to push the envelope a little w/ each new release. If you don't then you are penalizing the people that really do have "high end" systems by delivering a game to them that is certainly somewhat less than it otherwise could be. In my mind this is just as bad as cutting out folks because they don't own a system that meets the minimum hardware requirements needed to play the game. But as you say, it is difficult to find a happy medium when there is such a wide range of hardware qualities out there that your potential customers are using. IMHO, CM shot somewhat below the mark that it should have. The minimum required CPU should have been a 166-200 Mhz Pentium II machine and a 3d card accelerator card should have been mandatory, etc. With the advances in hardware that will be coming out in the next year the minimum requirements for CM2 should be even higher still. The bottom line is folks have to either step up to the plate and have the hardware that is necessary to play 3d games, or else just plain forget about playing them. If many / most people want to first of all have you the programmer provide "high end" games (better 3D graphics, more than 3 men depicting a squad, etc.) and second of all be able to play such "high end" games, then it is bloody well going to take a "high end" computer to do it. If you don't want to purchase a system cabable of doing this then you can keep on playing solitare, scrabble, and your old hex based wargames while the rest of us move on into the 21st century. It's just that simple. Again this is just my opinion, so take it for what it is worth (and there is certainly many a time that my opinion is ISN'T (correction)worth a whole lot) Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 05-20-99).]

Guess I'll throw in my 2 cents as well. What the heck, eh. Er, well, as Steve has pointed out before I can tend to be rather verbose. Let's make that my 10 cents worth. Charles answered several of my questions. First, the mathematical grid used for LOS, range and other calculations is centered in the middle of the mini 2m x 2m grid squares. Now for question 1: Since CM is 3D what is the resolution of the grid in the verical, or Z, direction? Is it 2m? Assuming that we really have a 2m x 2m x 2m cube we are dealing with is the mathematical location of the cube for all calculations assumed to be tied to the center of the cube? Question 2: How does the LOS algorithm handle the cubes? What I mean by this is say that squad one is on a hill 40m above squad 2 which is 100 m away. Between the 2 are some 15m high woods. Part of the LOS just passes partially through the uppermost cube (vertically) of the the 2m x 2m x 2m cube that contains the tree tops. Can the two squads see each other? (Assume squad 2 is moving and squad 1 isn't, both are in clear terrain and there are no weather effects, or distractions to consider). If on or both can see the other is the LOS considered blocked? Partially blocked? Could either unit fire at the other assuming they have spotted the enemy unit? Is there a firing penalty if the LOS is partially blocked? Question 3: Say I have a squad of 10 men. I believe Steve told us that they all won’t be scrunched into a single 2m x 2m area. That being the case, on average, how spread out will the squad be? Will the approximation of the squads position (since individual men are not modeled) spread them out over say 3, or 4 mini tiles? Assuming for the moment that is the case and we have a somewhat dense area of buildings and/or trees. Is it possible that only one of the 3-4 mini-tiles occupied by the squad could be sighted by an enemy unit and fired upon? My guess is from reading the above statements that the answer to this question is no, but thought I would ask just to be sure. Next, while it would certainly be nice to have a higher resolution of grid squares (wouldn't .5m or 1m be great?), I can understand that the physical limitations of the average computer cannot handle this. I.e. video card, RAM, CPU type and speed, etc. just are not up to snuff today. Or are they? Question 4: If the minimum hardware requirements were raised to a really good video card (say nvidia TNT2 w/ twin texturing and 32MB of ram), a Pentium II 400 Mhz processor, and 128MB of RAM, what would be possible? Could we get a better grid? Say 1m x 1m x 1m? Could we display squads w/ the acual numbers of soldiers shown on the screen instead of making approximations like 3 men are a squad, 1-2 are a team, etc.? Could you "see" a portion of a tank hiding behind a building and be able to fire at it as Charles talked about above? I realize you don’t want to do this because the percentage of people out there that have this kind of hardware right now is probably only on the order of 1 in 10. Still, I would like to get a feel for what could have been done w/ CM1 if we didn’t limit ourselves to the lowest common denominator in terms of hardware, but instead used the best of what is available today. Which leads us to one of Mikester's pet peeves. People that think they can buy a computer and it is going to last forever (Fess up, how many of you out there are still running that Pentium 66-100 Mhz machine, or worse yet, a 486!) Question 5: How many of you out there are like me and would like to see the minimum hardware requirements increased (I'm thinking CM2 the Russian Front here, not CM - Beyond Overlord)? I would certainly like the soldiers to look better, have them represented 1 for 1 instead of 3 for 10, have a more refined grid for calculations, etc., etc. What would everyone say to raising the minimum requirements to say 64MB of RAM, a Pentium II 300 Mhz processor, and at least a 16MB video card (say a nvidia TNT first generation card just as an example) for CM2? Common guys, most of the hardware that right now forms the minimum requirements for CM is so out of date today that it isn't even being sold anymore (or won’t be in the very near future). For sure, it certainly doesn't cost all that much to get something a little bit better. All the video cards that are just now coming out only cost $100-$200 and they blow away the TNT / other generation cards that came out just 6-12 months ago. Same holds true for the processors (although the new ones tend to be pricey, but then who really needs a Pentium III 500Mhz processor?). I don't even know if you can buy a 300 MHz Pent. II anymore. Heck, by the end of the year I believe I've read that the 700-800 Mhz Pentium III chips are supposed to be out. When CM2 comes out say a year or so from now is it really going to be tied down to a machine that is only running at 120-166 Mhz like CM??? Give me a break! MY VOTE IS TO INCREASE THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR CM2! Everyone seems want to moan and groan about this doesn't look good enough, or that doesn't seem as accurate as I think it should be; and yet oh so much more could be done by folks like BTS if they didn't have their hands tied behind their backs trying to cater to people that in my opinion are running sub-standard, or near sub-standard hardware. Sorry if I offend anyone, but that is just the way I see things. I say it is time to raise the bar and give BTS a chance to make CM2 an even greater game than CM will be when the time comes to start coding it. In my most humble opinion (hah, hah) the minimum system for CM2 definitely ought to be a 200-266 Mhz Pentium II processor, a "good" (it’s all relative, so I won’t get specific) 16MB video card, and at least 64 MB of RAM. If we don’t raise the hardware standards for games like this at some point it is going to be pretty darn difficult to make CM2, 3, and so, on better games. Dear God, do you realize that by the time CM2 comes out say mid to late 2000 that there will most likely be a 1000Mhz processor out there??? Think about it. Here’s the tally so far: In the question of those in favor of raising the minimum hardware requirements for CM2: Yes’s = 1 No’s = 0 Now that I’m done ranting and raving I’d be interested to know what everyone else out there thinks. Oh, and maybe some answers to the earlier questions too. Thanks for putting up w/ me. Sorry if I ticked anyone off. And for those of you that may be wondering I currently only have a 100Mhz pentium machine w/ 48MB of ram, a fairly good 8MB video card (nothing special though) and a first generation VOODOO 3D accelator card. Thankfully for me, though, that is all going to change in the very near future. PS: Do I win the award for the longest post???? I thought I remember Steve saying something about the guy w/ the longest post getting on the Beta Team, or a free copy of CM, or something. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 05-19-99).]

Steve, If nothing else the building / fortification question would be something that I would like to see addressed in either a follow on patch and/or CM2 if at all possible. I know it all takes time, so if not in the original release then maybe you guys can do something later. Thanks. Mike D aka Mikester

Steve, No, I didn't know that. Thanks for the tip. Mike D aka Mikester

Steve, The editing your prior messages thing works pretty well. Now that I've fixed the one above, can I delete this one? Probably not I guess. Anyway, in response to your reply below if you guys are considering "spawned" copies for head to head play that is great. Thanks. Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 05-17-99).]

BTS / BF, I got to thinking after reading through the copy protection discussion about another game (I believe it was the WarCraft series) a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly that game allowed a person to "spawn" a watered down copy of the game on a friends machine so that someone who had purchased the game could play head to head w/ a friend. The watered down version was installed on your friends hard disk and only allowed the second person to connect and play w/ a person who had the actual CD in their machine. I'm not sure if the original disk had some type of code, or not, to permit spawned copies to only play head to head w/ the original disk they were spawned from, but that may have been the case. In any event, the person w/ the watered down version could not play a single player game himself and could not play a multiplayer game against someone else that didnt have an actual CD of the game in their drive. I.e. a person w/ a spawned copy couldn't play head to head w/ someone else that only had a spawned copy. I assume the thought behind the spawning was to get more people interested in the game and hopefully boost sales as a result. I don't know if it worked, or not, but always thought it was a neat idea. I believe WC2 and maybe all the other games in the series that followed also had this feature. I know that it did result in my friend buying the game after we had installed the spawned version on his machine and played several games head to head because he wanted to do the following things that the spawned copy did not offer: 1) he liked the game so much that he wanted to go through the single player campaign, 2) more importantly he wanted to have is own copy of the game so that he could practice up in between our head to head sessions, and 3) Warcraft also included a map editor and scenario builder that he wanted to have because they are fun to play with. Bottom line is I havn't seen much of this type of thing done, maybe only 1 or 2 other games that I can't remember the titles of right off hand which have provided similar multiplayer capabilities from purchasing a single software license. In any event it might be something to consider for CM, or any of your other wargames for that matter. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester [This message has been edited by Mike D (edited 05-17-99).]

Steve / CM Team, You mentioned above that there will be nopylon buildings, ferris wheels, etc. This is understandable. But what kind of variety will there be in the form of just plain old buildings? All the ones I seem to have seen in the screenshots and movies so far appear to look like blockhouses of one or more levels. That is they are pretty much square or rectangular in terms of their footprint on the map. One of the cooler things about CC3, for example, are the buildings that have sections that jut out, are triangular in foot print, single buildings having multiple levels in the same structure (like a church w/ a steeple, or bell tower), etc. Will CM allow us to construct these types of strututures? I think it would certainly help in depicting many urban areas in particular in western Europe during the time period. City streets and alleyways in this part of the world don't follow straight grid like patterns, but rather generally meander all over the place. The buildings tend to fill in the areas in between and as a result there can tend to be some fairly odd shape sturctures in terms of their footprints. Finally, will we be able to "design" our own buildings and fortifications, or not? If the buildings will only be rectangular in shape do we at least get to define the overall length and width of the footprint as well as the number of stories in the building? Regards, Mike D aka Mikester