Desert Dave

Happy Days are here again! The sky is nearly clear Again! All's well that ends well. I think I have finally figured out Who fantomas actually is, What he does So to earn a living, I mean. Inspector Clouseau! Ressusciter! Here he can be seen searching For that most dastardly Cat, Suspected to be... pink, Since, he has reasoned, The footprints! Monsieur! Seem to be Of that particular colour! Yes, the dastardly Cat Who stole Battlefront's... Purse! The game is - afoot! LOL! **[... and best, the other game we are tres, tres concerned with, is very... nearly... IN THE MAIL! :cool: ]

ROFLMAO I first read this last page or so an hour ago And, sorry, no offense to ANYONE, but... I am STILL laughing. fantomas, Let's suppose. Say, you went out on a date And spent 50 bucks or therabouts On fine French wines, And fine French sauces And whatever comes next, Ending in the two of you happily Sharing each other's dessert, Well, You'd have had a great! time, EVEN IF You were NOT fortunate enough To have gotten a "good-night" kiss, True? There you'd stand in the cool French evening, Hands a-pocket, Nothing else to do - now, But... go on home. 50 bucks thrown to the high winds! No return on yer money. But, You COULD play SC-2!! :cool: Because I am telling you, LOL, That game is NEVER going to leave you Nor fail to kiss you good-night. And it costs LESS than that fancy dinner With NO good-night kiss afterwards. Look here, LOL (... sorry) I am sometimes imagined As one of THE most suspicious & paranoid Americans you will find ANYWHERE, Having grown up in the South in the 50's And having lived Through the VERY EERIE 60's (... so... it is constantly whispered around town) And I tell you now, I have... NO FEARS, none! That Fury and Battlefront Are out to deceive me and cause me to lose Even one good night's sleep Over this game. Whether I can play it again and again And again, I mean. OK? LOL. [... are we sure we are not being HAD on this one?] [ March 31, 2006, 05:21 PM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

LutraMage! You MUST have some jin Mojo, Man. :cool: 3 pretty heavy hitters address yer concerns, Lickety split! Celestial Body, Black Knight of the Hudson, and! Rack 'em Cat, from Idaho, WOW! Don't see that sorta stuff Much 'round these here parts. So. I must be impressed, and You GOT to make ONE more post, anyhow, Let us (... me anyway, if nobody else wishes to know) in on the meaning Of one of the coolest nicks I've seen On any forum. "LutraMage," Now that's old fashioned class. Sounds... ancient, and as though You'd spent the best part of yer boyhood (... 'stead of merely playing baseball) In a cave with some distant come Avatar, Only on earth a VERY brief while. :cool:

Yep, MullinsR, Dull it too often be. Here, An offering from WB Yeats' "The Phases of the Moon" ______________________________________ A rat or water-hen Splashed, or an otter slid into the stream, We are on the bridge; that shadow Is the Tower, And the light provides That he is reading still. He has found, After the manner of his kind, Mere images; chosen this place to live in Because, it may be, of the candle-light From the far tower Where Milton's Platonist Sat late, or Shelley's visionary prince: The lonely light that Samuel Palmer engraved, An image of mysterious wisdom won by toil; And now he seeks in book or manuscript What he shall never find. _____________________________________________ What worked then, or once, Might work now, though, I doubt it. Insurmountable? Problem being... few are the number Will throw over what's old, And deliberately change The usual way of seeing. Must be done, I aver; else That distant rumble you hear? 'Tis the thunder of entropy And devolution; Assembling now, the hordes of devouring Rat warriors, Strutting to a feudal trumpet, Disdaining fair thought, or fear, Indolently arriving, oh yes, As though ordained Since first inception, This wasting earth... ah, coming Ever near. Time for the uknown book, Passed from one to the next, direct, Soul to mind to innermost-ear. Words become... magic transcription.

Just last night I played the '39 default campaign against the AI, on "intermediate" setting with no bonus for enemy experience. It took me until first week of August to finally capture Paris. [... no, LOL, I'm not too awfully bad as a WW-2 GS game player after all these 40+ years... got a bit of a late start due to the fickle weather, MUD slowed them mechs & panzers] Many Wehrmacht units beat up and weary. UK Air Forces knocking down my port strength, so I'd have to wait to try out Sea Lion. UK ASW CA's patrolling the convoy lanes, Smacking the U-boots around. What I'm saying is this: The AI is good, now. I haven't even tried it on the 2 or 3 HIGHER settings. :eek: And, it's going to get even better and better and better when there are 100's of excellent players offering suggestions, even, making their own "supplemental AI scripts" and sharing their ideas all around the town. :cool:

The very coolest thing about SC-2? :cool: You can have EXACTLY the solo game that you prefer. Lots of folks will be playing competitive, and in leagues, and that's fine. Eventually there will be established a fantastic and ideally balanced default '39 campaign, BUT, I'd venture to guess MOST, by far (... including all those that like PBEM; solo play fills in the time between turns and allows you to practice and dream up new S & T) will play SOLO games. So. Why? Is that the coolest feature? 1) You can use the Editor to change the map, adding Ports or Cities where you want them, creating separate Nations like Saudia Arabia or Venezuela (... both with valuable OIL). 2) Want to have a great Air War? You could boost the strategic attack value of the Bombers, and lower the cost of purchasing Anti-Air Flak. 3) You can concentrate on creating the ideal "Battle of the Atlantic," say, by playing around with the numbers for subs and ASW, even making the Atlantic larger. 4) You can substitute sprites. Artillery for Rockets, or Special Forces for Engineers. 5) You can make your own scripts for supply or convoys or units to arrive off the production queue, like several Corps in Egypt, say Aussies and Kiwis and Indian Ghurkas. 6) You want the Italians to be more aggressive in first - building up, then trying to dominate the Med? Well, you use the AI scripts to provide alternative realities. Different attack & defense plans, focus on certain units like armor, or direct the various Nations in what to research. I am telling you, the possible choices and personal game preferences are very nearly infinite, and so, EVERY single player out there who wants to have THEIR OWN game, CAN and WILL have that... perfect WW-2 GS game that they've ALWAYS wanted. It's really NOT very hard to do, and ANYONE will quite easily grasp the mechanisms... but if not, no worries, since there will be VERY many who will post up various scripts and maps and sprites and the like. I've never EVER... heard of such a thing Being possible, Given all them poor paltry games We've been forced to put up with Over all these years. Have you? :cool:

You got it right, Southwest Surfer, And here pretty doggone soon, It's gonna be... better than ONLY good, It's gonna be a bitchin' blitzin' blast! Looking forward to it... don't forget the K-rations that MUST be sent by way of the Red Ball Express! JK! SM! But yer right about one thing. SC-2 is gonna be awful hard to beat. For years and years and... :cool:

It does. If the resource is reduced, THEN supply is necessarily reduced (... and somewhat variable, depending on - IF an HQ is nearby). The resource does slowly recover, as with SC-1. There IS a cost. You pay it out as you go, since you are collecting LESS MPP's from the previous damage that has been inflicted. Let's not, please, make this more complicated than it needs be. Having played it, IMHO, the supply is modeled exactly right. :cool: Specific scripting can "tweak" this to be more how you might like it in certain theaters. For instance, I have made scripts for Axis occupation of Crete, and wouldn't mind seeing one for Trondheim port, IE, an Axis interdiction of the Murmansk/Archangel convoys. If you wouldn't mind something as that, then you can do it too. ___________________________ Good idea, because the game just flows along real smooth and even, effervescent... like cool mountain streams, you'll see. When you are shore bombarding, what does the unit size have to do with how much damage is inflicted on the resource? :confused: One lone sentry soldier OR a whole Army, what can either of these do to deflect those big-gun shells raining down? You have (... editable) port defense, which would account for those shore batteries and other bulwarks which WOULD actually make a difference.

Nope, SM, Shore bombarding naval units, IE, CA's and BB's, attack the resource FIRST, very same as with bombers... with a 10% chance that the occupying unit will also take a strength point loss. The chance of said unit being hit is increased by 10% for each achieved level of GLR (... gun laying radar). And so, L-2 GLR BB Bismark, for instance, could bombard occupied Allied city or port, and have a 30% chance of also damaging whatever unit is there. _________________ **Now, Full well knowing yer (al)chemical background, I hesitate to mention... this all might depend on the initially introduced "guide-lines" of a Mandelbrot Set, since the Geo-fractals are intricately, exquisitely repeated FAR beyond some static, simplistic 4-D infinity, LOL... WHAT Infinity?

Nor, Also included, The wood-sided Crash Wagon he uses To get to and from work: [... bet many don't know Hubert is the best surfer dude this side of Palisades Park... down by the old Merry-Go-Round at entrance to Santa Monica pier! :cool: ]

Didn't mean to "step on" yer most INTRIGUING announcement... as you can see, we posted at the same time, so, To repeat Moon's hint about a pending stupendous! SURPRISE: _______________________________________ Well, we might have a neat surprise in our backpocket with regard to the release to make up for the extended schedule... Keep the faith in us ____________________

Get yerselves ready, Stand forth, be prepared For a privately arranged... fate. All who choose to meet the challenge, attain Those... almost impossible feats, Be the ultimate SC-2 blitz-krieg! leader: Oh yes, dress rehearsal is nearly done, You have stood still so very long now, It's time, it's finally time To get into gear. No matter any storm of Hurricanes Raining down - a constant lightning From the scattered dark clouds 'Round Malta, An intrepid Mare Nostrum convoy Is... on the way: Providing you with something new! Under an old and devilish deceiving Desert sun: Doom Gun! That the old school hooligans Have dreamed, schemed into being, oh A thundering! flak & anti-tank gun! That the brave and dauntless Desert Rats Admit to dread, and yet, have Conquered that useless fear... is Even now... being quickly un-crated In the palm-tree shaded Port of Tripoli. Now, Sure, it's how it Was always... meant to be. You see, Only the one small question remains. Can you... handle it? SC Commanders? :cool: ___________________________________ **1941-42 North Afrika, only one Of the mini-campaigns you'll soon be able To play! :cool: ___________________________________ Note: This is NOT the "surprise" that Moon has just now promised... even I don't have a clue what that might be, but, am looking forward to it just the same! [ March 28, 2006, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

An idiot (sure, I will admit) On an 88mm Pogo Stick, Simply pounding desert sand, In a distant... bandit Land. (... didacted? - redacted? Dis-compacted? Anywhow, first 3 lines, minus the parenthetical - ah, they just couldn't close out the 2-4 rhyme... taken closely verbatim from a strange EM I got notso long ago, LOL, ah, it's alright, it HAS to be ) JJ, Ever the simpatico gentleman, Since you didn't mention That you and I, During course of many, many EM's, And on various forums, Have indeed discussed all sorts Of writing, poetry and Bold told Naked City prose, included. Anyway, We NEED yer presence, Raconteur sir, Not to mention, SOME - but not all! :eek: Of yer... past. [... 'twould needlessly alarm some are sorta softly composed]

Couple other comments about the above mentioned and illustrated Libya <-> Italy convoy route: 1) I do NOT believe this is a BETTER way to represent Italy's relationship with Libya. I merely did it this way so to try out something DIFFERENT. :cool: 2) IF you are going to add in X-tra convoys, or, for that matter, other OOB's or more complex feature alterations, well, be prepared, as yer very likely gonna need to ALSO re-configure or ADD in some other AI scripts to compensate (... in solo games) for what you have done.

Retributar, Some folks really like to finagle With ALL them smaller aspects of WW-2, And that's cool, To each their own preferred game I always say. What you CAN do, And as I have done with my own mod, Is... have a supply convoy running from Palermo to Tripoli. **(... just to be clear, this is actually a convoy from Tripoli to Palermo, transferring Libyan resources to Italy; however, in my mind, my fevered imagination if you will, I see it as "running both ways," IE, however you figure it, Italy LOSES MPP's IF interdicted by the subs) 'Course, then, UK will need to place a sub in the Med In order to intercept, since, As of NOW anyhow, Only the subs can raid the convoys. [... who knows? What truly interesting things MIGHT be implemented later on "down the glory road"... Hubert is nothing if not open to slowly and carefully improving those features that might have some adjustment, IE, there's the CHANCE, and by no means any certainty, that we COULD have added ability for "surface ships" to act as RAIDERS! some fine, ocean-going day! :cool: ] In fact, You can draw in (... very easy to make that script with way-points, port to port) As many convoys as you might wish. As for instance, And, Keep in mind I have made Libya A separate minor Nation Controlled by Italy: ________________________________________ ; Supply Convoys to and from Libya: { #NAME= Supply Convoys - Sicily <-> Libya #POPUP= #FLAG= 1 #TYPE= 2 #COUNTRY_ID= 27 #TRANSFER_ID= 6 #COUNTRY_ID_TRIGGER= 60 #TRANSFER_ID_TRIGGER= 60 #PERCENTAGE= 80 #MAX_PERCENTAGE= 80 #SPRING_REDUCTION= 100 #SUMMER_REDUCTION= 100 #FALL_REDUCTION= 90 #WINTER_REDUCTION= 80 #SOURCE_PORT= 79,33 #DESTINATION_PORT= 83,27 #WAYPOINT= 78,32 #WAYPOINT= 78,29 #WAYPOINT= 80,27 } ________________________________ [ March 26, 2006, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

SMG42, There IS a re-presentation Of supply being interdicted in the game. It is handled simply and deftly, IMO, With the "Malta Effect." :cool: IE, at a certain "trigger %" (... which, like just about everything else, can be edited to your liking) Either Tripoli & port, or Tobruk & port will be reduced. Ipso Calypso, ANY units in area will ALSO have their "supply" and "readiness" and ability to conduct combat OPs... reduced. VERY LITTLE micro-managing in this new! SC-2. :cool: QUITE A BIT Of intricacy quite subtly implemented, And, in fact, I predict it will take quite a long, Long time, Even for the Teutonic Myth, Terif, To BEGIN to master it. Yep, The competition is gonna be fierce, and Very best, NO-ONE will be able to dominate. No one.

Good idea. I hope someone - perhaps the Cat from Columbus O already has the thing properly done? Will establish a SIZABLE site right quick. We're gonna need it. LOL+ There will CERTAINLY be an amazing Amount of "content." I predict this: Within a week or two, tops, We'll have, oh, 40-50 new! SC-2 Blitzkrieg! Scenarios for WW-2 and! Mini-campaigns or Even, huge 9-mile-sized encounters, for Just about every other war Or skirmish ever fought, And, That's a helluva lot! Like I've said, I myself have made several already, (... as has Mr Bill and Blashy too) And if I can do it, Given my mediocre spatial relation skills, ANYBODY can. What FUN to be had, Not long from now. Nope, not so long a'tall.

jjr, I know about "potter's field." That help ya enny? C'mon, Throw over all this apparent obeisance To the ever increasing American Theocratic Aristocracy, And write us some true cool stories, Like, How you threw them papers clean through! The brambles & vines so to land! Precisely right on Ol' Potato King's... door mat. Or, How you stuck yer avid eagre fist Into the teeming candy jar Over to the General Store. Or, How you whipped ol' Clint Eastwood Out at ocean misted Pebble Beach, eh? Stuff like that there. My best guess is this: Were you to allow That we gotta have EQUAL balance Between Science and Religion, With no remote merging Of ANY Church with ANY State, Well, You could very likely write some damn fine! NON-rambo-akimbo kind of memoirs. Like I said, ONLY my simple Simon opinion.

Boardwalk Raconteur, Very good! to once again See you - a'ramblin' 'round This ol' SC Town! Stay awhile, wouldja? We are a'times irreverant And too, Clown-house rowdy, Though, You'll likely notice there are no Roads so black-top, white-line, East-West wicked As Route 66, nah, Who's been makin' 'at stuff up? Ain't got none of them "gate of pearls" Nor enny cranberries, LOL, least, not between Desert City and handsome, Hollywood or bust! - San Berdoo. A few too many STOP! signs, well What can you do, They ain't so hot About drag-races tracing Little frilly fillips through The Mayor's prize winning tulip garden, LOL, And the Town Council tends To be a mite paternalistic, but, Usually fair, Ya gotta admit. But there is that Memorial Park, The one wrought-iron bench, And plenty of trees So to provide some soothing shade! And ample space to set up yer chess-board, And then! Oh you bet! Then! We shall see some REAL slow-mo poetry! As you and Bobby Fischer Duel like old-schooled fools, ah Musing, pausing, making adept moves All over the place, Tile-to-tile As some of the greatest games Will have it, and laughing! lazing! Another! Amazing-crazy day away! :cool: I defer to not Kafka's K. As clearly evidenced above, He can best write out the lines, Scansion them entangling jangles, O Arrange the fickle spheric music, and Not to omit, gift Whitman-esque life to the rhyme. Not I. See, And you, JJ, if no-one else, Realizes this to be a simple truth; I NEVER claimed to be any... "poet." Somebody ELSE mentioned that. Not I, nix, no, NEVER did I, Not ever would I do, And as proofs plu-perfect, Any wondering member can go back And search EVERY single post I done made in these here 4 years, And nowhere, I full firmly aver, Shall they find Such a... presumptious boast. Anyhow, Don't be a Stranger! We need all the Philosopher Kings We can get our... sort-of-Thor-like Hands on! (... though, of late, ol' Liam has been a'sayin' some truly cool "thesis-antithesis" sorts of NC sing-song things! :cool: )

LOL, How in tarnation! Could you know? It was really the other way 'round In that true-told sentiment story Just above? It was the Lesser, The Fool, The Idiot, The Freak, The very, very Least, oh, The cool, cool existential boundary tester, Who was a'lyin' there on the ground? Ah, Jimeny Cricket, thanks be! For ALL the Truth Seekers We got left. Not too many, alas. But, And I am as SURE of this as I am The FACT that: Just outside my window, There's a TREE that will not die! I keep on attending to it, Layin' on the hoo-doo hands, Prayin' harmonies for its very survival, What with all the chemical slop They keep on a' throwin' down, Anyhow, I am absolutely, utterly SURE we got Some who cannot be fooled Enny longer, ayup, it's gonna be! Enough. :cool:

Beware! Kafka's K! There are ever more and more and more Nameless, faceless judges Out there. Where? EVERY where, LOLOL, ah, screw 'em. No, What I wuz a'essayin' is this: Once, And to answer yer specific Scando-Mondo query, I was indeed... a side-kicked. Now, And ever since Summer of 1968, Whence... The State PROVED what banality it will resort to, I'm not. :cool:

Kafka's K. LOL, ah, sure, you have meandered onto A small truth, at last! Happened like so... out here near Desert City Out near the Watermellon Mountains, You know, That grand, outstanding PIC I showed you Some whiles back? Out on the periphery, Where no dignified, solid & upstanding Hide-behind curtains kind of citizen Would EVER go, There's a place where the REAL gang Bangers hang out, A sort of "hole in the wall" For all the outlaws and renegades And bikers and their big rolling Shoulder molls, yes, you dig it? Big boulders surround this hollowed out Pit, that has a built in spit, Where you can roast whole cows Or Rattlesnake pieces & bits, Anyway, One day-into-night, long ago It was, I'd been Out at a happening there, And, yep, as you might guess, Plenty of booze and smack and crank And greenies and black beauties And the like kind of swell, Send-you-to-Hell... apertifs. Some cocky womens roamin' 'round Half-clad, Half-duped, Half-mad from all them Mighty Machismo Angels & Bandidos And the like sort of Bad Moon Risin' over Watermellon Mountain Kind of Cats. Ho hum, so we go, I musta passed out from the foul fumes Eminatin' outta some Harley Hog Crank-case, parked nearby, Cuz, Next thing I know, This lathered, dirty-boot and leathered Dude With greasy hair hanging all over himself, Rumble-stumbled on over and KICKED ME! In the side! Hey - Little Lord Fauntelroys, What's up with THAT cowardly crap! I (... sub-consciously) wondered aloud. Musta took exception to one a' my Truly awful poems I'd done recited 'Round the roaring camp-fire? Ummm, I think it was the one What goes: ______________ Mary had a little Lamb Fleece quite white as new spilled snow, And everywhere that Mary went Sycophant the Lamb was SURE to follow And! Swallow all the Earth They'd only just traversed! _____________________________ Something akin as that, anyhow. Well, My brother, who is 6'4" and 250 pounds With NO fat anywhere to be found, Noticed what this cheap-jack Punk Had done and 'e calmly strolled on over Whistling a little rock-roll tune, Ah, I seem to recall it was them Stones - "No sympathy for the Devil," And he very calmly reached down And picked up this cowardly Cat, Oh, no gen-u-ine biker a'tall, LOLOL, not a chance, Mojos, Yep, a slab of arm in one hand And a bunch of leg in t'other, And, He just Threw him! Way - WAY UP! in this nearby REALLY tall ol' tree. Well, The kick-'em-when down Dude Just hung there awhile, BUT! Would NOT come down, nope, He KNEW what else neo-nasty awaited, And it warn't anything he'd like to Have occur to him All over and once again. Long story shortened, My brother carried me home As I was still unconscious And 'E wrapped some packing tape And bailing wire I think it was, All around & around And so, my ribs healed up jes fine. Next morning once I'd awoke And sucked down a "pick-me-up," A manna of 7th heaven medicine, I kicked me ol' Indian into gear And slowly rode on out to that Secret, safe from upstanding jamokes Kind of outlaw spot, And sure enuff, LOLOL The cowardly pseudo Dude WAS STILL UP IN THE TREE! Greasy hair & assorted limbs Hangin' akimbo and all forlorn. He was takin' NO CHANCES, my friends. Well, I ain't no kind of Cat who will Kick enny one, no, nix, not even Some mewling puling punk When he is DOWN, So, I clambered aboard that beat And battered ol' Indian moto cycle And rode the 40 miles or so Back to Desert City town. Called up #9 Fire Department And tole 'em: "Hey you Fire extinguishing mokes, Better hitch yer little red wagon And get on out to 'at infamous Outlaw Spot And put up yer most-tallest ladder And, Save some ol' kick-'em-when-down PUNK From, finally, turning into Blanched white skeleton bones Up 'er in 'at dead-wood tree They got a' growin' out 'er." And so, It's what they up and did. To this day, My brother... he's got my back. To this day, Me, yea verily, I stand on it, My word, How I work and play, ah, You know The honor of gettin' Through these crude And INCREASING dumb-ass wiles & ways Of all 'em crooks & thiefs & liars And chicken-hawks and what not We got hanging in cherry trees Out in Washington D.C. Yep, by now, You figured it alright, Anywhere. Anytime. I got his. :cool: ________________________________ Forgot to add in... enny you nuts & bolts folk Ain't cotton to this kinda off-topic Akimbo majimbo, well, do me this: Don't... read... it. We all be hep-cats hip and onna rip-rap and happy trip, then, eh? [ March 25, 2006, 08:49 AM: Message edited by: Desert Dave ]

Gotta hand it to ya, Idaho Ivanho, You are mostly... fearless. Good to witness, you see, and alas, Ain't much of that left anywhere, anymore. Though, RE: recent comments about Bill being the "lead tester" are WRONG. I can say this, as Les the Sarge, 4-1, Has also just recently said: Bill is an X-tremely cool SC Cat And is one of the most decent And fair, and open-minded persons I've known. IF there are to be ANY Future remonstrations, Or consternations, Or conniptions leading to frothing fit, Or enfant terrible complaints About the Beta Testers, Well, We are ALL in it together. :cool:

First day of Spring! Winter's ice-tent is a thing Has - folded it's flaps, and went! Looking forward, fantomas, to seeing What kind of acey-deucey sprites you can do! :cool: My word, this is like a balmy brisk breeze Clattering 'midst the leaves Of sur mer Palm trees. In being? Dare we throw them blanched Desert coyote bones And... wish it? An SC Cat that's got! Esprit de Corps, Joie de Vivre, And, Seems be Really, one of those is So very, VERY hard to find These days, an... Esprit Fort besides! How can you beat that? A cricket stick won't do, no way Nix, but Perhaps - a hickory baseball bat? [... all 'at French jazz-bo stuck in there cuz if it weren't for them ancien Continental Cats, why, there'd BE NO.. a'times democratic "America," ah, LOL, how awful quick! We elect! To forget! ]

LOL, Oh, don't I know it! Woody Guthrie, maybe? Don't I WISH! :cool: Let's see... you and rambo remind me of Waylon Jennings somehow... or, Hank Williams Jr, both of whom I listen to when I am changin' spark plugs in my Bessie Blue VW Kamper Van.