Phemur

Well, the truck tactics are a bit gamey, I must admit. But recon is necessarily a dangerous job. You are going to send unit alone and unprotected to figure out where your opponents main force is, then maneuver your troops to deal with that, no? Unless of course, no one is doing recon. I play against the same opponents, and typically, we all split up a squad or two, and send the half-squads (refered to as the Sacrificial Half-Squads) in front of our main force to see if anything is there, and to avoid ambushes. Is this really so different than using a truck or a jeep? In real life, I'm sure it would be, but in CM, these units are cheaper, both in point value and tactical value, so why not use them? Nat

I play Hearts of Iron, Operation Art of War and Day of Defeat on occasion. HoI is a grand strategic game, OpArt is an operational level game (divisions, battalion, companies) and Day of Defeat is a WWII FPS based on Half-Life. That pretty much rounds up my computer gaming. I don't know if board gaming counts, but I've started Advanced Squad Leader this year as well. Nat

You'd be surprised. The sound library we bought had 100+ CDs full of WAVs. There were several CDs full of "Army" sounds. They could have bought a bunch, hired voice actors to do others, etc. Only BFC knows. I stand corrected. Phemur

I received my CMAK copy today (Ottawa) I ordered it on Dec 4th, IIRC. What's weird is that I didn't get the "Your copy has been shipped" email I usually get. Not that I care. Anyway, kudos to the BFC shipping dept. I receive my goodies typically a week after I order them. Phemur

Please. CM is one of the games that takes up the least amount of hard drive space on my computer. Most games are multi-CD, and the data is all compressed to fit on those multiple CDs. Some of the games I own take up to 4GB on my HD. And like Eichenbaum has said, it helps performance because no decompression has to take place. It's also very easy for the development teams to work with, because BMPs and WAVs are native formats to Windows. That's probably why CM doesn't crash much, if at all; I've never seen it crash. Actually, no. The WAV format is audio's native digital audio format. It's actually the format used on CDs. They're are only crappy if they're recorded that way. Try it yourself. Rip a CD without compressing it to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis, and you'll see just how big and how high the quality of a WAV is. My guess is that the sounds were bought. I worked for a startup video game company a while back, and we had a library of sounds we bought, which included gunfire, machine guns, naval guns, truck sounds, etc. Phemur

I tried targetting a specific unit, and I tried targetting area fire. I didn't try covered arc though. In any case, the battle is over. It did play a pivotal role, as I used it's speed to get the 3rd objective before the end of the game. Still, it would have made a few assault less bloody if it could have pinned down a Soviet squad or two. Thanks for the tips, Phemur

Nope, not moving at all. They've been watching the assault I mentioned a while ago for last 5 or 6 turns now. Haven't moved an inch. The AC is facing a build that is, er, was, crawling with Russians, and has, I mean had, line of sight to many units, including several that ran out from breaking. Didn't even fire at the broken units. It's really madening. Phemur

20mm autocannon. It has 82 rounds of HE left, and 32 AP. It has a full load of MG rounds too, as it doesn't seem to be wanting to fire that one either. I'm guessing they're saving themselves for the post battle photo session or something. That's not the case either. As a matter of fact, the commander seems to be having a cheery time, what with the beautyful view of the assault on a Soviet fortified position from his cuppola. If you take a close look, I bet you could see the steam rising from his coffee. Is there any way I could get them to share ammo with the half-track? These last guys have been engaged with the Soviets since the start of the battle, and they're down to their last few MG rounds. Phemur

Does the MA on Armored Cars (let's say a German AC, with a 20mm MA) have a safety switch? If so are they hard to turn off? Because in my game, my AC will not fire it's MA. The Half-tracks do, the StuGs do, but not the armored car. And since I've lost the tank, that AC's 20mm would be very useful right now. Phemur

Tanks aren't the be-all, end-all of WWII combat, IMHO. I much prefer commanding a large infantry force. In most of my games, I'll go with a lot of infantry. My infantry boys have faced off against pure armor forces, and have managed to win on several occasions. As a matter of fact, I've yet to have a strong armored force beat me in combat. But that could be due to the poor quality of my opponents. In any case, I'd love to see CMPW, for no other reason that having a Naval Gun FO. Phemur

I would *seriously* consider waiting a bit longer to save up for the bundle. I don't know what the pricing will be, but you'll save by getting both in the bundle. Not only will you get a good deal on the second game, you'll save in shipping as well. But that's just if you plan on getting both in the long run. Tough choice though. (a) Get one now, the other much later, or ( wait a bit to get both at once, for much less money. Phemur

When the Americans entered Berlin, they found an upgraded version of the SnKfw, dubbed the Mk III. It had an advanced suspension which was believed to allow it to run over potholes without changing the length of the cut. I shudder to think of how the war would have turned out had the monster Mk III been put into service. Phemur

I normally play 2 PBEMS at a time. There's no reason behind it other than they're both two very close friends of mine whom I've been wargaming with for a while. Even if I didn't play these guys, I'd probably be playing more than one PBEM at a time, but no more than 3 or 4. A typical PBEM turn usually takes me 15-20 mins, as long as my plan is still on track (this time can grow quite a bit if my opponent grabs the initiative and I have to adjust my battle plans). At 15-20 mins a turn, I can play 3 or 4 turns a day, which means that my opponents will get at least one action turn and one orders turn from me a day, and I don't have to spend more than 1 hour a day on CM. On weekends or evenings that I have more time, I may play more. I don't believe this to be the case. It may take you a minute or so at the beginning of each orders phase to analyse the current situation and refresh your memory, but other than that, I don't really see any detriments. On the other hand, you get exposed to many different command styles. Strategies and tactics change enormously from player to player, and so as you play more, less and less will surprise you. Phemur

Starting small is always a good way to go. I'd also consider starting a quick battle, and isolating unit types. Try a 500 point Infantry battle, then a 500 point Armor battle. Combined arms battles are a bit difficult as a learning tool. If you're familiar with the commands, start learning strategies and tactics found here: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000812 (See the 3rd post down, the one with a bizillion links) (Shameless website plug: I'm the webmaster for http://www.asl-forums.net if you're interested in discussing ASL) Phemur

I also think its because of familiarity. From what I've read, quite a few have met outside of the virtual world. It's a lot trickier to spew vitriol at someone when he/she knows where you live. Phemur

Not to mention those that were "recruited" by the Red Army. Stalingrad could indeed easily be added to that list. Phemur

According to MW online Brutal: Typical of Beasts; grossly ruthless or unfeeling; harsh, severe; unpleasantly accurate or incisive. By that definition, I'd say either Leningrad or Berlin, due to the number of civilians caught in the crossfire. Firing at soldiers is one thing, but harming civilians is another. Phemur

I started wargaming at University, when a friend introduced me to TacAir. My interest in military history began around this time. I started studying WWII history in 1998, after seeing the movie Saving Private Ryan. Phemur

Don't know how good your Linux Wizard is, but it's always good to have a back up (no pun intended): http://www.drivesavers.com/ http://www.ontrack.com/ and there are others. Here's to hoping the data can be recovered. Speaking of backups, you might want to consider a CD or DVD burner. Blanks are very cheap, and it takes just a few minutes every once in a while. Phemur

The ASL-style scenario briefings are definitely my prefered choice (see Wild Bill's example above). They're short, concise, give a good overview as to what lead to the battle and what's expected, as well as a nice description of the results. But what's best about it is the references. If you want more, you can get all that you want. Phemur

Unpleasant? Goodness, no. Reading the Peng thread sober is unpleasant. Watching the epic battle between Seanachai and his lunatic stalker unfold, that's entertaining. Phemur

Oh, so we're having a little contest as to who is the worst commander, eh? Here's my entry, then: Germans vs Russians, 1500 pt QB, nice weather, rural area. I'm playing the Soviets. I have a rifle battalion and a few T-34, and I'm facing 3 Ferdinands and an SS company. My T-34 get smashed by the Ferdinands early on in the game, but my infantry is holding their own. They've cleared out most of the SS, and control most of the map, except the area where the Ferdinands are holding out: a large, flat, open field. So I order my troops to assault over this open field. 600m of open field to cross to get within grenade/molotov range. Needless to say, everyone was killed/routed. Phemur

OMFG! C4n I plz hlp! My 3gl1sh 1z l33t! LOL! Phemur

We've run into this problem before, so what I've done is setup a small website where registered players can upload and download their turns. Players click on "Upload Turn" on the page and a dialog comes up to allow them to browse and pick their file. Players also have to identify their opponent. When the opponent opens the site up in the browser, they can click on "Pending Turns" to see what turns are waiting for them. They can either download the turn or delete them. It's work in progress, but it's working ok for our little club so far. The only disadvantage is diskspace. My hosting provider only allows 500mb of disk space, which could get used up pretty quick if a lot of players use the service. We only use this system as a back up when email fails, so it hasn't been an issue. Take a look: http://cm.asl-forums.net Click enter, then click on the Members tab on the navigation bar. You *must* be registered to use this functionality. Once registered, options will appear in the member menu bar on the right. Phemur

But that's exactly what they're doing. You see, there are probably 100 Quake players for every CM player out there. It makes it quite easy for ATI to decide what they put on their card. In any case, I have an ATI, and I've never had a problem (yet). Phemur