Blackcat
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Posts posted by Blackcat
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Dang, Mr. Womble! From what you say I seem to have a different version of the code and have always had going back to CMBO. I cannot relate how many times my tank gunners have missed, firing short or long and them adjusted their aim to fire even longer or shorter, even when they do manage to hit the next round seems as likely to miss as the first.
I wonder how BF do it. Distribute the GBG (Goldfish-Brained Gunner) version of their software, that is. Is it done at random? Perhaps every nth customer gets it and I have just been unlucky in collecting the GBG edition in CMBO, CMBB, CMAK and so on. Perhaps they pick on a customer and sit cackling evilly as they dispatch his frustration-loaded purchase - its the sort of thing I could imagine Madmatt doing if he were still around. I suppose I could just be an unlucky, and bad, player who disproportionately notices things when they go wrong, but that seems unlikely.
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Again, I don't think so. I was just watching a Sherman that I gave an area fire order at a trench work. Its first round hit a tree between it and the trench. The second round went long. Third round was short but hit part of the trench closer to the tank and the last round of the turn was pretty much where I asked. This tank is on the edge of a wood firing over a lower area into a heavily treed hill with the trench works on it.
I was watching impressed that the AI did such a good job figuring out the shot.
Fine. The problem is that the gunners in most tanks are idiots with the memory of goldfish. So having found the range you would expect the gunner to put next set of rounds on target. You are likely to be disappointed, chances are he will again fire into a tree, go long, go short and so on and so forth. This in my experience has been a problem with CM since day 1. So many times I have seen one of my tanks fire over then under (fine so far) then even more under (wtf!) and then a hit followed by another under or over. There is nothing that can be done about this, it is built into the game that all tank gunners are morons who never watch where the last round went and treat each new shot as an adventure.
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Sorry, Ted, I really can't help you. Whenever I have been in such situations I have usually lost. Bazookas or tanks are the only things I have found that can be relied upon to take down bunkers (though both may take many shots) or you duke it out with small arms and hope that eventually you will kill the occupants (though the bunker will not show as destroyed). I have never seen a satchel charge used by my chaps against a bunker, though I have tried on numerous occasions.
As I say, one of the players on here that are better than me (and their are lots of them) may have firm advice on how to take down such a bunker, the hedgerow probably complicates things further. Can you not by-pass the wretched thing?
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In my experience it doesn't matter what you do the engineers won't throw the charge, though they may, if you give them a target order, all rush round and stand in front of the firing slit and may or may not win the resulting fire-fight just using their small arms.
Others, possibly because they are better players or the spawn of Satan, may have better experiences.
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Bil on defense vs c3k on offence. My vote is cast
Now that I would pay money to watch.
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Many thanks, Baneman, for a fascinating and superbly well written AAR. The post-cease fire Hordes of Mordor screen shot appears to show that your opponent still had a lot to give, but it will be fascinating to see what the morale/ammo state of all those units was at the time he threw his hand in.
Anyway thanks again for some great entertainment.
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"More screenies tomorrow..."
Yay! Its been too long already. A great AAR, MR. C3K, but leaving us in suspense for days at a time counts as cruel and inhuman treatment.
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Mr. Tiger, Thanks for taking the time to write such an interesting post and thank you for all the hours you have put in designing such superb campaigns and scenarios. I appreciate that the improvements to the game have made your earlier work harder than you intended. I have just bailed out of my attempt at the Scottish Campaign under version 2.01, the AI had me beat (I shall try again, of course), but the Road to Monteberg under the original game was pretty tough - how, in one battle, you knew that I would move my people in that way and place your mines accordingly, is a mystery.
I hope Battlefront have found some way of rewarding you because you (along with GeorgeMC and a couple of others) have added so much value to their product. Mind you, I still intend to beat you death with a large haddock when we meet.
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In my trips around Normandy I certainly recall seeing many churches with graveyards around them just as one would with English country churches. Furthermore just as with English Country Churches most of the graves would be quite old (19th century and before) with only the occasional modern grave. Probably the French just like the English ran out of room as the population increased.
I did discover a distinctive Commonwealth War Grave Commission headstone in one coastal Norman church - turned out to be a RAF chap who was shot down in 1943 and was buried, by the Germans, in the nearest consecrated ground to where he was found.
So to come back to the point of the thread I can't see what is wrong on portraying churches surrounded by graveyards on CMBN maps.
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"... just that in my experience with fan-made content it's been hit or miss.."
Well each to their own, old chap. Speaking personally, having been plugging my way through the Scottish Campaign under 2.01, I have revised my opinion of Paper Tiger. If, as I sincerely hope, I get to meet the chap one day I am going to beat him to death immediately - no option of a drinkie or two first and no chance of me using a haddock. If you haven't already you must try his Road to Montgarde campaign because it is a masterpiece.
Nor is Mr. Tiger alone. GeorgeMC and several others are also deserving of citations/lingering death. So the idea that "amateurs" don't produce good product just don't hold up.
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Bugger, forgot, the point of the thread. Were Brits wearing shorts in Italy? Up in the attic I have the photos from my step-father's war. He was a Sapper, in North Africa shorts are in evidence, but once he got to Sicily and Italy long trousers (KD?) seemed to have been de-rigueur.
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"It is quite traditional for threads to veer off ... "
I'd say its the hallmark of the site and has been since the beginning.
"...from quite trivial things to more interesting matters."
Well, that's a bit subjective. Sometimes the swerve takes me into more interesting areas and some times it don't. Mr. Kettler's contributions in this regard I don't think are worse than anyone else's, but perhaps more frequent. I however shall not cast a stone because a) a few years ago, when we saw the first screen shots of CMBN, I launched into some flora groggery (lavender, forsooth!),
it was only by a supreme effort of will that I did not get involved into some nascent cow-grog discussion this afternoon and, finally, part of the charm of this site has always been the twists and turns of its threads and the fantastic breadth of knowledge that its contributors bring - I well remember a fantastic series of posts about the cyrillic alphabet and ids and slogans painted on Soviet tanks in 1941/42.I echo, Mr Diesel Taylor, If you don't like a chap's posts don't read them, but please no censorship except where the rules of taste and good manners have been contravened.
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A fascinating read. Thanks for sharing your find, Mr. K.
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Paper Tiger created it? Now that doesn't surprise me..I've raved about his campaigns many times before..
Quite. In my dreams I meet Paper Tiger face to face in a bar. I buy him huge quantities of the best booze available as a thank you for all the pleasure his scenarios and campaigns have given me. Then, using a very large haddock, I beat him to death for all the screaming frustration his scenarios and campaigns have given me.
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I'm not sure I actually see the difference between 'WEGO via TCP/IP' and 'WEGO PBEM via Dropbox with H2HH'.
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Did you ever play WEGO over TCP/IP? If you did I am sure your would appreciate the difference between that and PBEM (via drop box or actual email). However, we must not look backwards. The past is past and it ain't ever coming back. I hope BF made a mint out of attracting the real time crowd.
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It is coming back, but without replay? I didn't know that. But really Mr. B., one might as well compare fine wines with vodka.
It is the replay that enables one to savour the well sprung ambush or to curse one's stupidity at advancing too quickly that actually makes the game. Without being able to savour one's triumphs or learn from one's setbacks we might just as well have a text based game ("Your tank at position L3 has been destroyed") and have done with it.
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Bah! The best CM, indeed war-gaming, experience was head to head WEGO over TCP/IP. Alas, that fell by the wayside years ago when BF made some design decisions and it is never coming back.
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Mr C3K,
Bill has an overwhelming armour superiority and has taken trivial casualties (certainly fewer than the defenders). If he wanted to I think he could roll over GaJ's defences as an incoming tide washes over a child's sandcastle. Instead he toys with him as my cat does with a captured mouse. Neither is a pretty sight.
In the arena the Roman mob would be booing Big Bill.
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Someone up thread mentioned that this AAR was intended to showcase the new module. If the intention was to show it off to dedicated aficionados of CM, then fair enough. However, from the point of attracting new players I fear it will have the reverse effect.
To be sure it looks pretty but the actual results so far would put me off from buying the game if I didn't know it already. Some of the spotting outcomes are so counter-intuitive as to be bizarre and the failure of units to actually use foxholes (instead to set up in open ground between them) just make the game look broken. I would also cite another AAR currently on-going on these boards where the player just cannot get his HMG to take up a position to fire through a bocage hedge, the supporting crew members will but not the actual HMG, as a result a huge hole in the players plan is opening up.
Coming back to the game after a long, enforced, absence is an interesting experience. Its weaknesses stand out and this AAR seems almost designed to emphasise them.
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"The colonials were usually together under the leadership of British officers."
Mr. Para,
That was true for regiments raised from the colonies, though the British Officers bit was not quite as straightforward as you seem to suggest.
However, every UK national was subject to call up regardless of their skin colour and HM Forces never operated a segregation policy. So it was normal to find "men of colour" in regular army units. There wasn't a big proportion of non-white soldiers because there wasn't a big proportion of non-whites in the UK, but pro-rata they were there serving alongside their ethnically white comrades. During the Italy campaign my step-father in the RE had as his oppo a black chap from Cardiff, who was killed when his carrier ran over a landmine.
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I am not sure what he has done wrong, and I am certainly not saying I could have done better, but it strikes me that GaJ is stuffed. He might get a technical win if Big Bill runs out of time but combat wise he looks fecked.
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Paper Tiger is an all round git (he has caused me to swear more than my wife and cat put together), and one of the best scenario/campaign designers on the planet. Anything from him is going to be a challenge. I have to say though that the improvements with V2.01 have put success in this campaign beyond my feeble reach.
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Looking at Big Bill's last post, an infantry unit spotting an ATG in a defensive position (and so presumably cammed-up) in close country that has neither moved not fired at a distance of around 600 yards. Hmmm?
From CM1 we have lost the "yellow wheel of death" that followed an ATG firing, however we seem to have replaced it with the neon sign of "drop your mortars here", before the gun can get a shot off. I am not sure that we have an improvement.
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Hister
The men in the bunker can be dead, usually by the first minute. The bunker itself will not show as knocked out yet. What little testing I've done shows the 75mm knocks out the bunkers faster than the 95mm. The reason being they use AP rounds to do this. The 75mm has more AP rounds and will shoot them, where as the 95mm has very few Heat rounds and will shoot HE more often than not, thus taking longer to KO the bunker on average. The HE rounds will kill the men inside the bunker, but not the bunker itself usually.
I dunno about that. I have just played the first mission of the Scottish Campaign and my 75mm armed Churchill fired for two and a half minutes at a bunker without destroying it, though two penetrations did kill everyone inside. The tank fired HE. By contrast the 95mm armed tank destroyed a bunker with just one HE round.
As an aside, I have just come back to the game after a long, enforced, absence and have upgraded to version 2.01. Is it my imagination or is the game a lot harder now? I know MG fire has been ramped up (at long last) but buildings seem a lot tougher than they used to be (I put 12 95mm HE rounds into one building not only was it still standing but its occupants were still alive and kicking) and enemy troops seem harder to spot.
it was only by a supreme effort of will that I did not get involved into some nascent cow-grog discussion this afternoon and, finally, part of the charm of this site has always been the twists and turns of its threads and the fantastic breadth of knowledge that its contributors bring - I well remember a fantastic series of posts about the cyrillic alphabet and ids and slogans painted on Soviet tanks in 1941/42.
Do attackers have an advantage
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
"...the attacker in realtime games is going to need a larger force advantage than the attacker in a WeGo game."
Back in the days when CMSF was the game de jure, I remember posting that games played in real time played differently than games played in WEGO mode and scenarios should be labelled as to which style they were designed for. I was beaten-up in no small measure by posters on these boards for spouting such heresy. I was also soundly thrashed on here (CMBN forum) for suggesting that MG behaviour and effect were still way out of kilter. Since then MGs in the game have been seriously tweaked and the WEGO/Realtime difference in play is becoming mainstream view.
I acknowledge that I am a bad player (seriously, Mr. Womble, I am, take me on in a PBEM if you don't believe me), but I take comfort from the fact that eventually on the big issues I get proved correct (maybe, in a few years, my Goldfish-Brained Gunners will have become a distant memory).