Greg Deych

I actually would like to second that. If there is ever a time to have a unit list available, it should be in the setup stage.

It's a crying shame that we're not going to get CM2 untill next year. I'm currently in Madison, and have been VERY favorably impressed by the contents of the UWM library. They have great many books on WWII, including a large number (at least several hundred) in Russian. This is by far better then UCLA's collection on the subject...unfortunately I'll be gone from Madison at the end of this academic year, so I won't be able to use it to design scenarios! Maybe I should start surrepticiously copying the books... And speaking of that, what would be the moral implications of this? If those books are really not available for purchase (which they pretty much aren't), does it make it moral and to copy them? [This message has been edited by Greg Deych (edited 11-07-99).]

I've actually read something along those lines in Dupuy, which corroborated pcelt's observation. I think perhaps Green units should have a slight modifier to Fanaticism, reflecting that sometimes they just didn't know any better. Also, along the same lines...British troops may've been a special case, but it was common towards the time of Normandy for British units to be a lot more cautious then the American ones. How should this be reflected in CM? Perhaps we need not only a Fanaticism figure, but some sort of Aggresiveness modifier? For example, a unit which has Green experience but Regular morale, etc. And speaking of modifiers, what exactly do the +1 Stealth etc. on HQ units signify? Does it make a big difference? Does it apply to HQ only, or to it's units as well...what's the deal?

This was one of the techniques Road to Moscow was supposed to implement. God knows if they ever will. Their shipping date slips worse then a cow on ice.

Fionn: Remember most people who don't like the interface simply need to get a little used to it.. BTW the VAST majority love the interface so I am sure once you make a few adjustments to your thoughts you'll learn to use it better. Hrm. Herr Fionn of the Thought Polizei? I hope that wasn't quite what you meant. BTW, you speak of English not being your first language...well, what is your first language?

Some observations: I've seen several (two, to be exact) cases where AI advanced the FO team ahead of it's other line infantry units. To me, this appears unlikely, barring a completely desperate situation (which it wasn't, the FO had a platoon (-) of infantry behind him). Also, I'm not 100% sure of this, but I've observed several instances of units vaccilating under fire. First, they'd advance towards the enemy, then retreat, then advance again. I can see how such behavior could happen, but it /felt/ wrong....I think because the changes were too quick, all within one turn.

I have a question regarding the mortar teams. Are they really expected to do their own spotting? I was under the impression that the medium/heavy weight(81+ mm) stuff was kept at least several hundred meters behind the line. At least, that is the impression I got from my grandfather, who commanded a mortar platoon/company through the Great Patriotic War. Difference in doctrine?

I'm having a problem switching from CM to desktop and back again. I hit escape, return to desktop, click on the CM button on the taskbar, and come back to a corrupted screen. More precisely, the top half of the screen is washed in white, and flickering. The only solution is to exit CM. I'm also getting some problems when plotting movement (or fire, etc). If the pointer exits the play area and comes back in, the source of the line is no longer the unit, but rather the point where the line crossed the play boundary. My configuration: Pentium II-333 128 MB RAM Intel 740 card with 8MB of RAM (not 100% sure of the RAM amount). I'm using the default i740 Intel driver (from the Intel website) and DirectX 7

I'm going to what's got to be the safest place on earth for Y2K... Switzerland. I can't imagine Swiss rioting unless God announced Armageddon in twenty minutes (in person).

My impression is that flare pistols were fairly widely available on both sides, and used for illumination as well as signalling.

Press release from CGO: -------------------------------------------- 3dfx Interactive announced today that it is making its 3dfx FXT1 texture compression technology available to software and hardware developers in a free, open-source format. 3dfx claims that this new technology dramatically reduces the size of texture images with little or no loss in visual quality, enhancing game speed and improving the overall gaming performance. The technology is supports multiple platforms including Windows, Macintosh, BeOS, Linux and other platforms. 3dfx says that they will also provide tools and the source code for the FXT1 texture compression free to the industry. This is in hopes that developers and 3D hardware vendors will adopt the technology as an industry standard. Support for FXT1 texture compression will be included in upcoming versions of Direct3D, Glide, and OpenGL APIs. Developers seem to be lining up to support the technology as well; Be Inc (BeOS makers), Bungie Software, Flatland, Inc, and Linux game developer Loki entertainment have all had positive things about the new technology in relation to what they are working on. As to whether this new technology will become a standard remains to be seen. FXT1 is currently available to developers registered with the 3dfx Developer Program and can be accessed at www-dev.3dfx.com/fxt1. -------------------------------------------- What do you think, Steve and Charles? Something in time for CM II?

Dan, Could that have been T-62? Those are out and about in quantities.

Re: Reinforcement slots. Would 5 slots be sufficient for a campaign?

I'm not a professional programmer (yet), but AFAIK assembly programming as a way of building sizable projects is dead. You may use it in programming drivers or other mission-critical apps which need to be small, but it's really not possible to do CM-sized project in assembly. Not unless we want to wait another year and half for Steve and Charles to finish it up. To all of you who want more stuff...have faith in Moore's law. That gigahertz processor should be here in time for next summer...just about the time CM: East Front is slated to arrive. Of course, we'd have to allow for the time for everybody to get it, say another 6-8 month, which actually makes it more in time for CM: Med. Oh well.

Re: Limits I think the units crossing the edge of the map, just sort of pitch over and with a cry of "Waaah!" disappear. Or, maybe not. Re: Stealth Outside OSS and such, silenced weapons were not used, so we will not see them here. There is a "stealthy movement" mode, I remember Charles or Steve mentioning it.

Absolutely gorgeous, especially the snow covered trees and the sky. Excellent job, BTS!

Los, You get some of those features in "101st Airborne". The original had some issues that slowed down gameplay a bit too much (turn based slogging across multiple map sectors), but there is a sequel on the way, called "All American", about 82nd at Bastogne which should be pretty good. If you haven't heard about it, check out some of the reviews.

This is slightly OT, but since a lot of people will be designing their own scenarios, I feel justified to bring this forward. I've been using the HGMF as a definitive source for German TO&E, but recently I've came across a quirk that stopped me in my tracks. The HGMF classifies most non-tank platforms by the gun they carry (i.e 7.5 cm howitzer (SP), for example). This makes it rather confusing since there are many chassis' supporting the same gun (frex, 7.5 cm L/24 gun can be found on a StuG III, Sd. Kfz 233 armored car and Sd. Kz 251/90 halftrack). Anybody know how to decifer exactly which one appears where?

Quick correction to Moon's post: What you have listed for the Hv Wpn Co is in fact the total amount for the whole battalion. I'm showing it as: 201 Person, 4 LMG, 2 75mm Mt Inf Howitzer.

I got to second that WOW. In fact, let me triple that. WOW. That sounds just absolutely incredible. Like Lokesa, I'm concerned that we will not find enough players...but for a divisional size battle we'd need about 12-15 players on each side, plus the admin team of 2-3. I think we should be able to scrape up that many...oh, I hope that thing is released before I have to go back to school. As far as multiplayer, I presume BTS is planning to put in some sort of anti-cheating mechanism.

Got a couple of more ideas to throw at your: dragon's teeth, steel pillboxes, concrete mortar emplacements and static tank turrets. Also...concealed bunkers/pillboxes. Germans used to hide bunkers by enclosing them in wooden structures simulating a regular house. You get a bit too close, and that nice Alpine winter house sprouts a AT gun through the window. And lastly, I remember you mentioned making some AT/IG man-haulable. I've just came across a photo of a Russian squad (8 men) hauling a Zis 76mm divisional gun across a creek at a run. Those things were not too heavy, all be told...A 75 Pak 40 was about 3000 lbs, which is about what an average car is, about the same as 150 mm IG.

Speaking of all the newsgroup fallacies and so on and so forth...you've guys have been absolutely exceptional with your support and responsiveness on this board (the only other person I could compare you to would be Major H., which in my book is a high compliment indeed). Will you be extending your presence to c.s.i.p.g.w-h? It can take some thick skin, but IMHO nothing promotes a game as seeing a developer being out and about.

You might want to start writing code, then. Those 2Ghz chips are only about 2 years off. On a slight tangent, my longtime dream is to play in a Everquest-style FP sym. We may be moving somewhat in that direction... I've just read that the new Microprose B-17 Flying Bomber II will feature multiplay capability for all the 10 positions (pilot, gunners, navigator). From there, it's just a hop, skip and jump to playing a grunt at Nijmegen.

Vis a vis oodles of grenades, this is actually one of my pet peeves. In most the of the soviet war movies, the intrepid hero ties together several grenades and tosses them under the track of the oncoming panzer, thereby immobilizing it and saving his comrades (a variant of that involves him being shot by the dastardly Nazi stormtroopers, and throwing himself with the grenades under the tank). Just so you know....bunches of grenades should not be dismissed out of hand, especially when wielded by a individual skilled in dialectic materialism.

Hrm. I'm actually not sure if I would be interested in a feature like this. It somehow does not jibe with my understanding of how WWII worked. Plus, you automatically assume that everybody wants to play the attacker, which I'm sure is not true.