Ichthys

I saw a comment about the tile system going away, and the idea struck me...without tiles it is no longer necessary to have rectangular maps. Imagine playing on a circular map; no more corners and following the map edge means taking the long way around. Would this be advantageous? Is it likely to happen?

What is your "horizon" setting (shift-H I think). Perhap the whole map isn't being shown. -Andy

I think perhaps there is a miscommunication over email counting. Two emails is one send and one receive -- so you're getting two turns per two emails.

I had the same problem when I added a GeForce card to my system. Mine was fixed when I installed updated AGP drivers for my motherboard.

Why have 5 copies of the same sound file -- it takes up too much space. How about a "mapping" file, so every file for every vehicle or unit is just an entry in the map. Shared files would just be entries that point to the same file. Mod-makers could then use any naming scheme they wanted, they'd just update the mapping file to point to their files.

This is a great idea. I had thought about something like this once, but my idea required a "neutral" third-party server that would automatically play the movie fast-forward and return the result. For trusted opponents this scheme removes the necessity of a third-party server. For "trustworthiness-unknown" opponents, or tournaments, a server-based solution running a program like this would be great. [ February 21, 2003, 12:10 PM: Message edited by: Mare Ichthys ]

SuperSulo makes a good point... Once we hit winter we will be losing nearly half our force every battle before we even engage the enemy. In fact I already had a battle like that, it was only 10% casualties, but they all came from my Company, none from the task force (the task force was all armored cars and artillery, none of which were reduced). Even a good player doesn't have much chance of keeping a strong force with that kind of attrition. - Andy

I actually suggested 200 and 300 point minimums, so you don't end up with 3x0=0 of something. I figure a major action should have at least some units from each of the categories. -Andy

I tried to fix the link in my original post, somehow the tilde disappeared from the link :-( Here is the corrected one... http://home.attbi.com/~bass-a/pyBCR.html As for what it is.... it is sort of like the auto-parameters sheet, except it interactive. As it calculates the parameters for then next battle it checks to see if there are multiple options selectable, and if there are and you have enough favor it asks if you would like to spend that favor. If you answer yes then it lists the options you can choose from. When all the parameters are calculated you can save the results and the next time you start up it will ask you about the outcome of the battle. Then it rolls up a new battle including the special rules for immediate and counter attacks. It currently only does parameters. Future work will include tracking your BattleGroup with replacements and reorganizations and a favor sheet to fill out. -Andy

For those looking for help managing your campaigns, my Python based campaign generator is finally ready for testing. It's still an early release, meaning there is no documentation and some features are still missing, but it does a good job of generating parameters for the battles. To try it out, download it from my web-page, http://home.attbi.com/bass-a/pyBCR.html You can download source (requires Python 2.2) or an exe/dll bundle (no Python installation required). pyBCR [ -d | --debug=file] [-t | --test=count] [game-file] debug options: -d debug output sent to 'debug.txt' --debug=file debug output sent to file test options: in test mode all user input is answered randomly -t create a single test --test=count create 'count' test battles game-name load/save battles from/to game-file Once you've started it and loaded a file (or started a new campaign) the program will prompt you whenever it needs input. I hope you find it useful. -Andy [ December 24, 2002, 10:22 AM: Message edited by: Mare Ichthys ]

A post from a few days back caught my attention but but there didn't appear to be a lot of discussion about it. Someone had suggested that favor shouldn't be used to adjust the time of the next battle, especially a defensive battle-- and I think I saw a post stating that the next version will disallow using favor to adjust the date. Is this so? Since I didn't see any discussion of the issue I thought I'd bring it back up myself. My thought is that one of the best uses of favor is to try and get 'light duty' assignments for my men away from the front where less fighting is likely to take place. I don't look at using favor in this context as refusing to fight when the enemy shows up, but more like arranging a 5-day pass for my men, or getting assigned to guard the motor pool. Maybe arranging a month of "training" far away from the front lines. [a side note, didn't someone suggest that a one month delay in date meant your men were going through training exercises and should thus get an experience point -- I liked that idea. ] I think it is important to note that 80% of the time you cannot effect the date for the better. In June, because of the modifiers, your favor can only effect the date 1 time in 10. Now I don't think this should come cheap, the favor-cost should probably be changed to 30. Now about the point the original poster made about choosing the time when on the defensive. I think we should roll up the battle-type before the time and then make the rule that no favor may be used to change the time for Allied attacks or MEs. Axis attacks you may have some influence using your favor. -Andy

I think this is an excellent suggestion. It rewards you for using the troops, instead of hiding them in the back. If you want to make it slightly more complicated but not overly overbalance experience gain, calculate the experience this way: for each unit, roll the 10-sided die. If the numer is less-than-or-equal-to the number of casualties caused then you get the experience. So a unit causing 1 casulty only has a 10% chance of gaining experience and one causing 9 has a 90% chance. Anything 10 or over automatically gets the experience gain (but only 1, you don't get 2 for 20 casulties). For tanks, I think you'd have to divide casualties by two, then roll the die. You'd need 20 then to guarantee an experience gain, 10 would only give you a 50% chance. -Andy

I am concerned that the newest proposals are making it too difficult to gain experience. The idea that 'moderate' casulties (1-4 men in a typical squad) means that the unit gains no experience seems counter-intuitive to me. Throw in the fact that in winter months you're guaranteed to have somewhat significant losses due to casualties QB setting, and your starting off the battle knowing none of your units are likely to gain experience from it. I'm wondering if we are placing too much importance on the experience of the individuals, the formulas we're using are simply creating an experience equal to the average of the individuals. It seems to me that group dynamics don't work that way. A units effectiveness has much to do with it's historical reputation even if none of the current members of the group actually took part in those historical events. Simply by becoming a member of a unit, an individual will tend to behave as members of that unit are expected to behave, whether good or bad. Can this be simulated in the campaign system (do we even want to)? I think a way to achieve this would be to weight the experience of the surviving members of the unit more than the newcomers, the exact ratio would need to be determined by trial and error (I'd start at 3:1). So for a 10 man squad receiving 2 new replacements the formula would be: new experience = (3*8*old_experience + 2*new_experience)/(3*8+2). Perhaps this would slow down the 'replacement dilution factor' enough to make experience gain a realistic goal and not just a mirror of the quality of replacments. -Andy

I was wondering about how people are using favor in these rules. Specifically, are you spending your favor points before rolling the die, or are you using favor as a way to 'improve' the result only if you don't like the original roll? I don't see anything in the current rules about whether the use of favor must be committed to before rolling, but in Wreck's rules I found the following: "Whenever you use favor to influence a die roll, you must commit to using points before rolling the die. Spending them allows you to change the die roll by up to one." I suspect that the use of the auto-parameters sheet might have an influence on this. It's a little hard with the auto-parameters to not notice what the results are before deciding whether to spend favor to influence a result. When commiting to use favor before the roll, it seems to me that sometimes a +1/-1 influence won't provide you any options -- should you still lose your favor in this case? -Andy

My only wish is for 3 new options in the Scenario Editor; import map on the map screen, and import allied/axis forces on the force creation screen. I separate the import forces options so battles can be created by importing 'historical OOB 3' for the Soviets and 'historical OOB 12' for the Germans. Perhaps OOB databases would be created just like the map databases now starting to show up. -Ichthys

I lost a few days last week when my machine wouldn't boot (apparently a sector of my hard disk went bad in the middle of a Windows boot file). Fortunately no data was lost, but I had to reinstall Windows and most applications on my PC. I have just a few more tables to enter, then a little better interface and it will be ready for alpha testing.

Proposal for Major Actions >from the to-do list: > Is there a need to include a randomised > possibility (say between every 5th or 10th > battle) that you core may be ordered to > participate in a major action? This could be > linked in auto-parameter sheet to a battle > number you enter at top as you play the > campaign? Also, what about an occasional > bonus platoon of this/that (e.g. AFVs, tanks > troops etc)? Have a 'major action' die roll. On a 1-7 do nothing. On an 8-9, set an auxiliaries-multiplier to 2x. On a 10 set an auxiliaries-multiplier to 3x. Use appropriate modifiers for dates when major operations were taking place. Then when rolling up auxiliaries multiply by the auxiliaries-multiplier. Also, set a minimum value of 200 in each category if using a 2x multiplier and 300 miniumum if using a 3x multiplier. This can result in battles quite a bit bigger than normal and also insures that major operations have a decent amount of stuff from each category. -Andy

Regarding ways to limit the experience gain, my thought was that applying a diminishing returns modifier, like square root, to the experience would help out. So a squad that manages to inflict 4 casualties gets 2 pts, and one that manages 25 will get 5. Even truly massive amounts of damage inflicted would only result in 10-12 experience points gained. This gives a slight experience bonus to units having a really good round, while most units will slowly work their way up 2 or 3 points at a time. -Andy

I'm working on a program, so far it has all the tables through the Allied-parameters, but the user-interface is virtually non-existant (or maybe it's a user-inteface only a programmer could love ). In addition to parameters, I'm hoping it will eventually be able to track units' experience , favor, and automate replacements -- but that sort of functionality is a long way off. -Andy

I agree that there are times when the allies should have an advantage in numbers, but the handicap setting doesn't have to be the way it is done. I can select a 1000 pt battle with a Allies +25% setting and be forced to live with the sometimes excessive category restrictions, or I can select a 1250 pt battle but only purchase the 1000 pts of stuff I rolled up. In the second case I'm not penalized twice, once for having rolled a 25% handicap and again for not even being able to purchase all the units that were assigned to me! Anyway, I've seen enough people posting how they use their modified rules to get the equipment that the think they need to think my "Axis +200%" tip might be useful to many players. -Andy

It seems to me that the only way to keep the forces correctly balanced is to apply battle-type multiplier to the Allied force, i.e allied-force-size/multiplier. The multiplier actually needs to have several factors: 1) Battle type (1.72, 1.5, 1.4) 2) Casualties (0% - 50%) 3) Handicap I've never seen the casualties issues addressed, but if the player (Axis) is playing with casualties (say a really bad roll -- 50%), then they may buy 1000 pts of stuff, but the battle starts with only 500 pts left. Say the Allies also were at 50% (it was a ME in a blizard, everyone is freezing), but the computer purchased them 2000 points of stuff of which 1000 will be left. I include handicap in the multiplier because I have a better use of that field in the QB generator than increasing the opponents force size. It should always be set at 'Axis +200%'. Here is why... One of the problems that often comes up is that you don't have enough category points to purchase what you need, particularly after your core has gained some experience since that extra cost isn't included when deteriming what size battle to generate. But always giving the handicap points to the human player, there is plenty of room to purchase whatever you need and the rest of those 'handicap points' can go unused. I didn't include an experience modifier because I think that can best be handled as an adjustment to the handicap role. E.g. Handicap table 1: 2x 2: 1.5x 3: 1.25x 4: 1.1x 5-6: 1 7: .9 8: .75 9: .67 10: .5 Conscript, +3 Green, +2 Veteran, -1 Crack, -2 etc. Just my ideas. -Andy

The AutoParameter sheet helps if you have Excel. Unfortunately I use OpenOffice at home, and so some of the functionality is missing. It also looks to me that it is rather difficult to modify the AutoParameter worksheet to implement alternative rule sets. I am writing a Python program that implements the campaign rules. I started it with Wreck's rules for CMBO, but I should have the CMBB ruleset implemented in a few days. At that time I might release it to a few alpha-testers. It also should be fairly easy to provide multiple rule sets, once they are available. -Andy

I've seen this happen a couple of times, I even took some screen shots but never got around to posting them. My guys were only able to throw it 96 meters though, I guess because it was a russian squad instead of uber-Finn.

In my experience most players choose Rock because it beats Scissors so easily. Because of this the price of Rock must be increased by 30%. Nobody who plays in ladder games ever uses Paper, so it should not have any effect on the price of Rock or Scissors. Please fix or do somefink!

I've been watching all these battles and ordering my troops to make use of these great new commands like assualt and advance, but I'm disappointed to see that the animation for the new commands is simply the same as the fast run command. Reading the descriptions of these new commands I'd hoped for something a little different. I think the description of advance was something like "moving quickly from one piece of cover to another while providing covering fire". From this I hoped to see my little men run forward for about two seconds, then kneel and raise their gun for two seconds, then repeat (both of these animations already exist, this would just combine them in a new way). The result is that they would still move forward at the same speed as "move", but it would be obvious they were doing much more. If the two or three men displayed for the squad were to do this out of phase with each other you'd get a neat impression of covering fire being used. I know only the updated models and critical bugs are being looked at for patches, but it sure would be neat to see this in CMBB. Perhaps it might make in into the engine rewrite though. -Andy