Folbec

Opponent finder forum here http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=24, or http://www.theblitz.org/ (my prefered option).

try to find another ? try one of the ladders : http://www.theblitz.org is fairly relaxed.

Zhukov's style : there's no casualty rate that I cannot swallow...

Exemple : 1000pts game Attack : 30% casualties : As attacker, I should get 1500 pts, I get 2142, I spend 2142, but I know that random units in my purchase will get killed or damaged to bring the point total back to 1500. The unit price stay the same : A soviet 82mm FO purchased alone cost 107, but 98 if purchased as part of a battalion. This means that if I am able to buy larger formations, I will get more units and I may now be able to make purchases that would have broken the 1500 pts ceiling or the combined arms ceilings. Thus, more points in the initial purchase => more units even after attrition IF AND ONLY IF you buy in companies and battalions. It's not formations that become cheaper, it is individual units, when compared to unit by unit purchase. Sometimes, you will get a tank with one crew casualty, but most of the time you will get no tank : a good incentive to buy tanks by platoons, they will be cheaper (platoon discount), and you will probably get at least some survivors of the platoon. One added advantage it that it makes it risky to build your purchase around a single super King Tiger : it may be "killed" in the random casuaties, or it may "survive" at the expense of the covering infantry. This is mainly valid for low points QBs. I do not know for ammo, I would not try fitness in QBs : an attacker stuck with weakened infantry units is basically screwed unless the map is VERY small : the units are way too slow. One side effect for the attacker is that crewed units may end up with less ammo when they start moving (crew casualties => dump some ammo when start to move).

Exemple : 1000pts game Attack : 30% casualties : As attacker, I should get 1500 pts, I get 2142, I spend 2142, but I know that random units in my purchase will get killed or damaged to bring the point total back to 1500. The unit price stay the same : A soviet 82mm FO purchased alone cost 107, but 98 if purchased as part of a battalion. This means that if I am able to buy larger formations, I will get more units and I may now be able to make purchases that would have broken the 1500 pts ceiling or the combined arms ceilings. Thus, more points in the initial purchase => more units even after attrition IF AND ONLY IF you buy in companies and battalions. It's not formations that become cheaper, it is individual units, when compared to unit by unit purchase. Sometimes, you will get a tank with one crew casualty, but most of the time you will get no tank : a good incentive to buy tanks by platoons, they will be cheaper (platoon discount), and you will probably get at least some survivors of the platoon. One added advantage it that it makes it risky to build your purchase around a single super King Tiger : it may be "killed" in the random casuaties, or it may "survive" at the expense of the covering infantry. This is mainly valid for low points QBs. I do not know for ammo, I would not try fitness in QBs : an attacker stuck with weakened infantry units is basically screwed unless the map is VERY small : the units are way too slow. One side effect for the attacker is that crewed units may end up with less ammo when they start moving (crew casualties => dump some ammo when start to move).

One side effect of (random) losses is to increase somewhat the number of units for a given number of points : you are able to buy larger formations, and get more platoon / company / battalion discount on units. It is, for instance, the only way to buy the largest mecanized US (CMAK) and German (CMAK, CMBB) under "Combined Arms" restrictions, such as the "Armored SS PanzerGrenadier Battalion" in 44 (4000 pts, max vehicle is 2500 @ 5000pts & 50% losses, vehicle value is 2144, lots of gun equipped HTs ). I also feel it's more realistic, most units were understrength most of the time except at the beginning of a very major offensive.

One side effect of (random) losses is to increase somewhat the number of units for a given number of points : you are able to buy larger formations, and get more platoon / company / battalion discount on units. It is, for instance, the only way to buy the largest mecanized US (CMAK) and German (CMAK, CMBB) under "Combined Arms" restrictions, such as the "Armored SS PanzerGrenadier Battalion" in 44 (4000 pts, max vehicle is 2500 @ 5000pts & 50% losses, vehicle value is 2144, lots of gun equipped HTs ). I also feel it's more realistic, most units were understrength most of the time except at the beginning of a very major offensive.

Part of my standard blurb for newbies : (figures for CMBB - the same for CMAK) : for 1000pts QB with x% randoms casualties defender/attacker (note that defender and attacker rarely have the same casualties % in a real QB) : 0%/0% 10%/10% 20%/20% 30%/30% 40%/40% 50%/50% Assault 1000/1720 1111/1911 1250/2150 1428/2457 1666/2866 2000/3440 +72% Attack 1000/1500 1111/1666 1250/1875 1428/2142 1666/2500 2000/3000 +50% Probe 1000/1400 1111/1556 1250/1750 1428/2000 1666/2333 2000/2800 +40% ME 1000/1000 1111/1111 1250/1250 1428/1428 1666/1666 2000/2000 +00% Note that in the current engine (1.03) some types of fortifications (trenches, TRP, wire, ?) seem to count as losses against the defender at the final tally. Defender in attack or assault gets a setup area of ~40% of map depth, probe 35%, ME 15% ; attacker in attack or assault gets a setup area of ~20%, probe 25%, ME 15% It's often better to go with small or medium map since the game automatically rescales if too small (and games on huge maps are boring, unless pure armor)

Part of my standard blurb for newbies : (figures for CMBB - the same for CMAK) : for 1000pts QB with x% randoms casualties defender/attacker (note that defender and attacker rarely have the same casualties % in a real QB) : 0%/0% 10%/10% 20%/20% 30%/30% 40%/40% 50%/50% Assault 1000/1720 1111/1911 1250/2150 1428/2457 1666/2866 2000/3440 +72% Attack 1000/1500 1111/1666 1250/1875 1428/2142 1666/2500 2000/3000 +50% Probe 1000/1400 1111/1556 1250/1750 1428/2000 1666/2333 2000/2800 +40% ME 1000/1000 1111/1111 1250/1250 1428/1428 1666/1666 2000/2000 +00% Note that in the current engine (1.03) some types of fortifications (trenches, TRP, wire, ?) seem to count as losses against the defender at the final tally. Defender in attack or assault gets a setup area of ~40% of map depth, probe 35%, ME 15% ; attacker in attack or assault gets a setup area of ~20%, probe 25%, ME 15% It's often better to go with small or medium map since the game automatically rescales if too small (and games on huge maps are boring, unless pure armor)

Technical opinion : http://realclimate.org/

More generally I remember reading that panthers built in different factories were often not compatible. Present time collectors now often have to retool parts when they try to repair a wreck with canibalized parts.

Not historical, but highly entertaining, try "B&T Sword of Bagration".

I think that "suspension of disbelief" is easier when you do not try too hard to look realistic (like for instance on a stage), otherwise the instictive brain kicks in and starts being troubled by very minor defects that would have been neglected otherwise.

This is a case of buying your own ideology. This is the exact kind of propaganda that brought Hitler to power, and he ended up believing it (or believed it all along). This also brought up the german worries about "unrest in the rear" that delayed total war mobilization : if you believe that you lost the previous war because of the evil spartakist and civilian unrest, you hesitate ramping up war production at the cost of civilian luxuries. Still stupid in hindsight, but people work inside their own belief systems, even the german general staff. Whatever his belief system, Stalin had not many options after the first few defeats, his only real option was "war of attrition" (even if he also tried a few ill advised grand offensives too soon, apparently against the counsel of his own generals). He was also less of a gambler than Hitler.

Have a look at this map : http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/ww2-loss.htm N.A. (and most of the western front) were sideshows.

2 hours is probably too long considering usual CM ammo expenditure. Be sure to take on an opponent who knows how to use cease fire... But I agree that anything under 40+ feels contrieved to me. No way to have infantry scout ahead of tanks on most maps for instance.

Significantly different ballpark though. In the cases of Germany and Italy, those were Western countries who had a cultural heritage that overlapped ours to a very large degree going back for generations. </font>

An interesting analogy here : Of software and sherman tanks I don't know if the article needs subscription or not, so I add the quote :

It was what they believed, but even before CMx1, they were proved wrong during beta test. The game is for Mac and PC (different floating point libraries, a rounding error in floating point means a live or dead tank ) and even between various PCs the results where not the same (maybe this was at the time of the various Pentium floating point bugs). So each CMx1 movie file includes all the computations which are done on only one computer. I guess it will be the same for CMSF, or they would not worry about file size.

Then lying prone is maybe no more a viable option for infantry caugth in the open. The drill may have changed since WWII.

I'm also wondering if modern shells are not different from most WWII shells : more airburst (equivalent of CM VT), making lying prone more dangerous ?

A simple "synchronize on slowest unit" option would already be great to avoid micromanaging platoon with supporting MG.

I just re checked : support weapons are affected, but not tanks. I could have sworn tanks were sometimes (rarely) affected, sorry for the confusion .

Dual core / CPU do not bring spectacular benefits UNLESS the problem can be parallelized AND the software is specifically written for it. A fair number of things can probably be computed in parallel in CM, but writing a threaded algorithm is ALWAYS a BIG challenge (I'm writting one now, what a pain) and will almost always be less efficient on monoprocessors. I doubt they will spend much time on this.