HarryInk

Way way late here, but: Preston (also known as 'depreston' or 'prestonia', depending on your mood and the weather) -- a northern suburb of: Melbourne, Australia.

Just stumbled on the beautiful Tigers vs. Bears CM campaign site. Lovely, if slow to load. But I note that the last news item was dated 11/17/2002. What happened to the campaign? Did all the energy go into the site and not the fight?

Dunno what the particular problem with the PBEM Helper you've mentioned might be... but... Sometimes I've had to nudge the process along by opening the load email option in CMBB or CMBO. Then the application flicks along nicely. The PBEM Helper is also a sensitive little critter with regards to other internet applications being on at the same time. I haven't tracked the particular process that freezes it, but if I've started sending a turn and then go off fiddling about on Internet Explorer the PBEM/H sometimes chokes. Maybe Microsoft already has the knives out for it? *L* And with regard to the original question: I reckon the 4-6 games mark is best. Nine really is too many if you want to have a life away from work and the computer! Indeed, methinks, if you want a well rounded life, 3 games is prolly the go. But like I said, I hate an empty IN box when I get home! (Just wait 'til a Napoleonics CM-style game comes out in the new year *rolls eyes*). [ November 01, 2003, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: HarryInk ]

I use the PBEM helper and it saves all that silence, followed by the "Do I owe you or you owe me?" emails. Furthermore, with one friend here in Melbourne, Australia, I'm playing the trust/secure mode where we do 2 turns each email. It's making a slow and sneaking 48+ turn scenario move along quite nicely. Like direct non-violent action for activists, it comes *insert godlike voice* "Highly Reccommended".

Paul Adair's book: "Hitler's Greatest Defeat" is about AG Centre in 1944 rather than 1941, which I gather is the preferred time here? I found the book initially interesting but quickly tired of the lousy maps and Adair's inability to marry large and small detials: from Hitler down the to front. Maybe it was me but I felt it became more and more inchoerent. Worth and borrow but don't buy it!

Ermm....welll...I'm in a bit of a CM spin at the moment...so...erm...I'm playing...umm...nine PBEMs. I have two more, but in those games the opponents are currently in hibernation for one reason or another. I hate kicking up the puter and finding no move waiting for me to enjoy. Hence one game at a time would drive me nuts. I like fighting a bunch of guys because several of them are very much better than me and I learn a lot from them. Some aren't -- or, at least, aren't in the current game *L* -- and I get to restore my confidence *L* And a couple of the others are just nearby mates. However, 9 is too many if you want a lot on else in yer life. *G* I usually run at about 4 or so: it's just that CMBB is soooooo damn irresistable!

Hey Johnny. Black screen. Evil piss off damn thing! Got it on my R40 IBM laptop when I installed too. If you want the long answer, search "Minimize / Restore Blackout?" from Dec 2002 and read the fine work by Peckham. Ah, a CM Saint in my humble eyes. *wipes back the tears* The quick answer is that your problem is almost certainly the evil Microsoft update #328310. Delete it, burn it, exorcise the infamous thing and your problem will be solved.

Damn...wish I'd read your virus warning first! *sigh*

Before this thread melts into pengish waffle [oh yes, combined 'em and kept 'em uncapitalised. *snigger*], I go with the following: I think that just about covers it for me. Online players at other game sites only know the other players by their screen name/alias, and once they die they just dissapear off screen... ..During PBEM we sometimes get to know the real person a lot better.</font>

Stumbled onto this thread tonight and much appreciate the effort Dorosh, JasonC, and Gaylord Focker have gone into in producing these AARs. Special thanks to MD for the ace site and JasonC for the analysis (yep...I'm a fanboy of many previous dollops of good JC advice). Feel very encouraged to continue, good gents.

Bigger maps but same map making process??? *cringe* Still and all, I'm a glutton for punishment. And I live too much of my life on the forum too (almost as much as playing the game, D'oh!)

I think maybe CM Mod Database has been scooping the pool with mods, perhaps. Ah, fate musta smiled when she fried the HD! However, scuttlebutt is that CMHQ is about to be blessed by the great CMBO CMMOS update of gigabyte proportions.... any day/week now.... soon....not long...it's such a big job...seriously....really big...you just wait....and anyway, all them in the know are doing the CMAK testing/writing/scenario building so they're distracted somewhat....but it's a coming I tell ya...coming REAL soon. [ October 14, 2003, 06:56 AM: Message edited by: HarryInk ]

Type in 'CM movie' into the search. I did a while ago chasing the long lost CMBO move-stiching movie maker. Anyway, I found a few sources mentioning having made promo movies...and there's at least one bunch of high school kids who did a newsreel using CMBO. Sorry, haven't got the site. Try google or the web ring... you might find it. And if you play PBEMs using the PBEM Helper program, it can run turn after turn more or less automatically so that you can talk a friend through a PBEM battle you might have fought using it. [ October 09, 2003, 12:34 AM: Message edited by: HarryInk ]

Hmmm... :eek: ... looks like I better keep quiet. hehe

What's my number...

Well, finally CMBO is cracking a possie on the shelves at the local 'puter shops. Ace mate. A load of fresh aussie newbies. Sweeeeet. More TCP/IP battlers in my time zone. Woo hooooo Hold on...I pretty well only play CMBB now...I'll miss all the fresh meat. Aw sheeitt. Wonder when they'll get the BB down 'ere? Still, more aussie CMer's gotta be a good thing, eh!

Anything with Australians in it!! (Then again, I'm looking forward very much to using the super ace Australian official war histories to produce scenarios myself!) [ October 04, 2003, 09:26 AM: Message edited by: HarryInk ]

Would a WW1 game have commercial appeal?... Nah. It was such a slaughterhouse, such a horror, only novelty theatres (Africa, Middle East) or very early/late war scenarios would have any interest. Consider the following, which I'm sure is pretty much true of almost all the Western Front from 1915 to 1918: Australian Forces committed between April and December 1915 on the Dardenelles hills in an attempt to storm Istanbul and take Turkey out of the war suffered about 5000 casualties in about 8 months of fighting in tight little trenches in absolutely mountainous terrain. Against Turkish (!) MGs and arty they weren't able to move forward at all...even with naval artillery and a series of nearby landings in support. Shift the scene to France, Summer 1916. Reformed Australian Imperial Forces are introduced to the Western Front north of the Somme battlefield. After only 3 days in France, the green Australian 3rd Division gets thrown into battle at Fromelles in a diversionary battle (from the Somme). In the space of a few hours in a afternoon attack it looses over 5000 casualties. It stormed the German trenches but lost all cohesion and the survivors ended up hunted back to the start lines. I really can't imagine a lot of joy fighting a CMBB game where the attacker has to get across muddy heavily damaged terrain and through 2-3 lines of barbed wire to reach (!!?) series of trenches and pill boxes, all the while under HGM and LMG fire, and probably very soon under sustained arty barrage. Achieving a break through to what was usually an empty trench with about 10% of your force...hmmm...entertaining? Nah. I have thought of doing WW1 scenarios for a couple of my grandfather's battles in WW1: a raid at Ypres and another at Mouquet Farm on the Somme, but they were such forlorn efforts, such bloody and typical disasters... where's the game in it? There's not a lot of fun in CM when you're just reduced to hitting the GO button to watch the train wreck continue happening... Anyway, that's my negative 2 cents worth!

just reading back after posting my question today. Bravo MikeT. Really really really really really appreciate your work. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. HarryInk

I love the smell of abbreviations in the morning! I hear rumours of a major mother beaudiful revamp of the CMBO mods for CMMOS... Oooooo Any more hints when it'll hit the site? Might lure me back to CMBO for a while even!!

You're right about miserable armor and lousy armoured trucks. I'm trundling my gun towing armoured truck forward in the SCW Collision playtest and goddam it's slow when you don't have the FAST command to race about with. *sigh* Cheers HarryInk

Congrats to BTS/BFC/etc. etc. My humble and sincere admiration on jobs very very well done. Your work brought be back to my wargaming addiction after 10 blissful years away from it. Even as I type this we are collecting the names and addresses of all your kin. I will read them out to the eager audience next time I stand up to start a speech with the words: "Hi, I'm Harry, and like you I'm a CM'aholic."

Haven't read all the posts so this might be a little 'off thread' but I enjoy both TCP/IP games which have more of the rush of combat to them but equally the PBEM which have a thrilling 'next chapter' feel. Something I'd like one day is a game like CM...same 'we go' format...that works one level higher. That is, you give orders just to platoons rather than squads. This would move battles into battalion and regiment size. The AI could do all the little tactical nitty gritty, it'd be the players role to drive the overall direction of a battle and suffer the petty failures of the AI in the small stuff. However, I absolutely love the graphics in CM, so I'd be wanting something similar...seeing the folds of the terrain and watching the platoons as several piece groups do their business. I just think that'd make an interesting variation to the micro management of CM. [ September 17, 2003, 09:22 AM: Message edited by: HarryInk ]

Who knows... but playing Fall Blau I'm exchanging 2.7MB turns cos of the F%$^(@ enormous map.

I'll leave my own diatribe 'til later, but I'm wondering about the different ways that people go about assessing a terrain at the start of a battle. I'd say I'm crudely intuitive and sketch big pics for maneuvering before settling down to checking out LOS possibilities, etc. etc. And of course, I'm influenced by what I've read. I tend, of late, to want to penetrate my enemy's line quite deeply so as to chew up his support weapons before turning on whatever he's pushed forward to engage me. This is a result of adding readings on 'blitzkrieg' tactics (which are really too large a scale for CM tactical battles) to AARs like Fionn vs. the Capt (on CMHQ?). Sometimes this works nicely and brings big victories, sometimes it means I over-extend and have to pull my head in quickly. I was reading a post about tactical bibliography that mentioned another Fionn v. Bill Hardanger (?) AAR: The Suncken Road -- cos it had good stuff on micro terrain ( now that's a new term for me!). And I know a couple of friends yakked over a terrain in an upcoming PBEM I'll be having with one of them and the way that it was reported to me that friend 'A' talked over terrain to 'B' (who I'll play) sounded quite interesting to me cos it was quite a different approach. *okay, so I ranted. It's late. Sue me!* So, what do you do when mulling over a terrain before the game starts moving? What's important, and in what hierarchy?