Reichenberg

winqvist, welcome to the forums and its slow, but heated debate about patches, add-ons.... I looked up some numbers of the Panzergranate 39 in the Kwk40 in Gepanzerte Feuerkraft, Wolfgang Fleischer. He mentiones the following: Penetration values with 60°: 100m - 99mm 1000m - 81mm ToW numbers: 100m - 96mm 500m - 83mm 1000m - 69mm 1500m - 58mm 2000m - 48mm Additionally for comparison are the numbers for the Pak40 with Panzergranate 39 (muzzle velocity 792m/s, so slightly higher than with Kwk39) at 60° and at 90° from Die Deutschen Geschütze, Senger und Etterlin: 60°: 0m - 121mm 457m - 106mm 915m - 94mm 90°: 0m - 149mm 457m - 135mm 915m - 121mm So, while the wiki data is somehow in range with the data I have mentioned (that is a bit higher than the ToW data), the first source of yours has significantly different penetration values. Maybe they do not have their angles wright?? I can not dig deeper on the side of your source, because there are no sources for their data mentioned. It just says: Uwe

track, I think you hit the nail on the head with this statement. I assume too that the main reason for the ToW weaknesses is the shifts during development. With codemasters pushing it towards mainstream RTS, but after the stepdown (or however it happened) of codemasters no other publisher saw a RTS mainstream potential in ToW....with ToW moving in a direction that most early followers had already hoped for (including me): A more realistic small scale tactical game. But for the last 1,5 years ToW had the change to move that way and came along not perfect, but ok. Now hopefully with the support of 1c, Battlefront and us customers, who still see the potential of ToW, ToW turns out to be a classic like CM or CC. Will it turn out to be that classic wargame with the coming patch already? Most likely not! Will it be with the add-on? Very doubtfull.... but maybe! Will it be with a coming ToW2? If it has not achieved it by then, I guess it will never achieve it anymore... Uwe

My mail with the license key is called: Battlefront.com Web Store Order Confirmation Sender was: sales@battlefront.com Uwe

Sounds good first.....but whatever "...to duty once again until next year..." means. If they can only start afterwards it means probably the earliest middle of next year. ...at least! Uwe

No, veh Gaermanns do not shpeak uther language!!

Madmatt stated at one point that they are doing more internal Battlefront QC before it is released to us....... Uwe

Egon, isn't it all the same in Germany now with the Studiengebühren???? I would just ask them in Greifswald how you can access their collection - that should be possible, especially if you are a student somewhere else in Germany and you tell them you would need it for whatever studies. Unfortunately I do not know anything about the university of Greifswald (bin halt nur Hesse ) - just found it on the net. Vielleicht kennst Du ja sogar jemanden, der irgendwo Geographie oder Vermessungswesen studiert und Dir weiterhelfen kann.... Uwe

Have you started the towsetup.exe and set the solution of your screen there?? This is unfortunately nowhere described, but needed before the first start. Uwe

Egon, here are some more sources: "Topographische Meßtischblätter" Clicking on the three links called "Übersichtskarte Topographische Meßtischblätter...." will bring you to some overviews of the maps and their numbers. The link "Karten anzeigen" brings you to the actual maps through the map numbers. This brings up another overview where you can choose each single map.... "view map" Or you can even order paper copies (~7,5€ each) from here. Both links bring you to "Meßtischblätter" as 1:25000 topographical maps are called in German. Uwe

Egon, I do not have a source for very detailed maps, but here is a link with maps from 1910 covering whole southeastern Europe and northern Italy in 1:200000. I would assume, that industrial centres have developed a lot from 1910 to 1940, but the rural areas stayed similar. <a href="http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/digkonyv/topo/3felmeres.htm" target="_blank"> Maps</a> Maybe in the combination with google earth you get a decent picture of the possible landscape in these areas of around 1940. Another link I check regularly for updates (but so far it did not happen) is this one. Hopefully they will start posting their material soon. Hope that helps a bit. Uwe

Congratulations!!! If this tool is only half as easy as it actually looks in this video..... then it is very impressive. Can't wait to fiddle around with it. Uwe

Liar

Thanks Webwing for your informative post. I just have to wait a few hours until I am home to check out the video. So far everything sounds very promising. Uwe

That is really awesome with the upgrade for the map editor!! We will have then a full blown map editor. right now it is better than nothing, but unfortunately pretty limited I hoped for prior to patch release.... Anyways, the wait won't kill me - and as long as the patch/add-on will be only half as good as promised.... nobody will kill you Uwe

That's what I call good news!!! Will we be able to change height and terrain type too?? Sneaksie, with all those goodies about the upcoming patch being hidden in quite some different threads....maybe it is time to give some detialed info about it soon? Uwe

Even a sponge bob would look good on a panther I always think a little bit of dirt is never a bad thing on a tank. So I would go for the dirty version of your red numbers. Uwe

What are your systems specs and your graphic drivers?? I had some issues with an ATI 1950pro on Vista with the pre-7.6 drivers and shadows. Solved it now - seemed to be a driver issue with me. Uwe

Thanks for sharing that info..... Looking for more Uwe

Maybe with a bit more info on what you are trying to do and how the game reacts could be helpful.... Save a profile, save a paused game, save a running game, quick save, save during setup... what scenario, campaign, setup... what's the content of your save directories... Uwe

Check this thread. Sneaksie just posted this a few hours later in the general ToW forum. Uwe

SlapHappy, that is an impressive thought and a feature that would put ToW into a complete new league of tactical games. The idea of having a certain set of macros to command a squad or even more than one unit, could give the player a whole new freedom of gameplay. Especially with the ability to customise these macros too. I would dream of an editing application, as you have called it, that could be worked on outside of a scenario. Save your macros, share them, or, keep them as your secret tactics in MP-mode. Looking at your example of the light MG element providing suppresive fire and two half squads advancing. I see either a certain need for ToW-AI to be able to pick the light MG (obviously), pick the soldier with the most amount MG ammunition and have a decent setup for the two half squads (e.g. not all your troops with grenades on one side and the guys with rifles on the other). Or an manual/semi-automated feature to select your troops in real time...... I guess it would be fine to have the manual selection of the according soldiers in a first step - and maybe in a later stage the possibility for an automated/semi-automated system. The more I think about something like this - the more I like it. Uwe

Great to hear that the LoS/LoF patch is (hopefully) that close to be released. Looking forward to it!! Uwe

Extensive use of the "Hold fire" and "Hold position" button did the Job for me. After the first frustration I had all my units either on "Move" or "Attack"... or on "Hold position". As soon as they do not move and have no "Hold position", they start to look for better positions for attack or defence and wander off. Some goes here: As soon as your unit has an "Attack" order and NO "Hold position" order - it will start to wander off and look for a better spot to fire at the selected target. With an additional "Hold position" order the unit stays were it is and fires at the target. This point is absolutely valid - and hopefully it will get addressed in the add-on: Look at this thread You will find this screenshots there. Again: You could not be more right. Right now an ambush works only on maps with many obstacles. A big drawback is e.g. that tall grass does not provide cover right now... it is just eye candy. But: He is the main 1c guy here on the forum Another two valid points. At least with the first one we have a statement from Sneaksie again: This is actually something many newbies to ToW were complaining about. I had the same problems too. But after setting the "Camera mode" in the options menue to "Attach to cursor", the middle mouse button is doing the trick for me. Since then I am totally happy with the camera control. I had no problems giving orders to my units.... How would you expect it to work properly??? Again: Improvements will be hopefully part of the add-on. There is a LoS/LoF tool in the making right now. You will hopefully be happy to hear that is relaitivly close the target line of cc that changes its colour. Here is alink to some screenshots . Try reducing the details and try disabling on CPU core - but unfortunately ToW is a resource hog and needs lots of it. So, while many of your points are valid and I can understand your frustration at the beginning... do not write it off completly. If it is nothing for you right now...Fair enough! Maybe the add-on will fix many things that are issues for you right now! Uwe

In many gamers eyes the first version of ToW seemed (ummm) a bit unfinished. And AFAIK the demo still shows this first version. Things have improved a bit since then with a patch reworking the LoS system and therefore the gameplay. Now there are 2 patches on the way (one fixing MP and the other one improving the game further - maybe both come together and it will only be one big patch). And an add-on is planned ($$ - you have to pay for it) with significant changes (e.g. infantry entering buildings, further LoS/LoF changes....). Maybe after the add-on comes out you can check back and see how the development went. I am enjoying ToW now for quite some months - but you are right: It plays completely different than e.g. CC or CM. You really have to play 'from the ground' - at least when handling infantry. In my mind you can still see the developement processes ToW went through from 2002 to 2007. It started at Codemasters and they were pushing towards a mainstream product (reduced weapon ranges, higher movement speeds, very tank heavy....). After they had dropped the game it was quiet for some time and then in 2006 Battlefront took over. From there on the game was bend towards realism. And you can still see, that bending is not the same than working from the beginning into that direction. The game still shines with tank combat. Additionally I am enjoying SMALL infantry battles (when you actually micromanage your troops). But there is some room for improvement with the infantry and gameplay tweaks for infantry battling tanks. To sum it up: I hope ToW gets the time to move on further with the development steps we see since summer 2006. The direction is the right one, the first step was just a bit short to make it a broad winner with the grognard fraction. Hopefully coming steps will do the job for all of us (or at least most of us)!!! Hope to see you back here at one point. Uwe

Do not start tow.exe first. towsetup.exe should be the one to start. Than you have to change the resolution to the resolution of your screen, save it....... and tow.exe should start properly. Uwe