Tarquelne

I've been meaning to say: I'm glad BFC has started putting in the most popular features from other multiplayer games.

Are bona fide medics - as covered by the Conventions - in the game at all? (I haven't seen any yet, and a search of the manual doesn't turn up anything or than buddy aid.) I thought that just because a soldier lays aside his rifle to give some "buddy aid" he doesn't become a medic as defined by the Conventions. In putting a round through his head the enemy may be being a bastard, but but he's not violating the Convention. Likewise, picking up a Tommy Gun rather than the rifle wouldn't be a violation either.

Do spotters need to observe the ground where a round falls, or can they also use the smoke plume?

I think anyone using pre-planed arty in ME's should send their opponent some Maungatautari cheese from the Pukeatua Peak dairy near Te Awamutu, NZ. Just a suggestion. (Another one is: Use rocket barrages. Units in ME's may move from their starting position very quickly.) Anyway... it does strike me as odd, but I'm not sure it's enough of a problem to justify making a change to the code. I wouldn't be sorry to see it made, but I'm curious as to how it'll work out over many maps and games, and why it's in CMBN. Plus of course... ... maybe ME's are best played as a handful of FOs with lines to 150+ mm batteries. A change is as good as a rest.

I wasn't asking a rhetorical question. (There aren't as many of those around as most people think.) And I didn't state what I wanted. I was trying to pin down what you. IMO: Unless the teams are always disobeying the covered arc, I think the game's appropriately realistic for the computers we've got. Don't they? And what about provocation? (ie - what have we got other than 1 incident that is, at best, ambiguous?) (No rhetorical questions in the post.)

You can't. But - and this is important - do they *always* disobey the covered arc? If so, I agree there's a problem. if not, I have my own seemingly-rhetorical question: How are you supposed to create a realistic TacAI if the soldiers never make a mistake? You want the TacAI to take over and disobey only against *extremely* obvious threats? That's not unreasonable... though it's definitely a shift away from realism. If people only fired on extremely obvious threats they wouldn't be people... We wouldn't have half as many wars, for one thing. Or do you want the TacAI to take over and disobey only when it's the smart thing to do, and never if it's a mistake? I'd call that unreasonable. Even less realistic, and depending on how smart "smart" is, far too much to ask of the game.

Thanks. It sounds like lot more support was possible than I thought. I won't feel so guilty about slathering on the artillery in QBs.

What are the figures like for # artillery guns per front line soldier in the various WWII armies? (Recommend a link?) I suspect it's far lower than I see in QBs.

A unit's "Target Arc" is defined by the distance to, but not including, the distant enemy unit firing on the unit and between, but not including, the two nearby enemy units firing on the unit. There are always two things between you and the bocage opening you want to use: First, an unnoticed bocage opening that's used by your troops instead of the one you selected. Second, as your troop is now on the wrong side of the bocage, a fatal hail of enemy fire. Immobilized enemy tanks are immobilized in the perfect position to containing destroying your units. Immobilized friendly tanks are immobilized in the perfect position to brew-up start destroying your units.

Just drive through a fence or two? I *think* that's what gave my Wheel trouble with an AC in one scenario. OTOH wheel trouble is not Immobilization, and an AC is hardly a Panther.

It is a huge difference from the CMx1 games. I'm still surprised at the relative paucity of units in CMBN. Relative being the operative term - I think (Steve's?) one time characterization of it's customers as "spoiled" by the first series perfectly fair.

BACKSPACE works, thanks. Interesting - BACKSPACE feels intuitive on the map, for waypoints, but Delete feels right for the QB screen. <Shrug.> It *is* consistent. Also: I accuse you of being a witch, for knowing that.

Why exactly is there such a long delay within buildings? I'm curious about the technical details on what's involved with building set-up vs. outdoor. Maybe you need to do some carpentry (with a few grenades?) if the MG's height doesn't just happen to match window/door height? Even then you might want wider openings. Bracing? I wouldn't think more is necessary on *my* floors... but maybe 1940's floors don't tend to be as sturdy? Not that I really know how sturdy they need to be. Though I guess I'm not thinking about sliding around - esp. back. More crude carpentry? What else?

Just double checked: Elements I can delete with the "Delete" button aren't removed by the "Delete" key. I accuse your keyboard of being a witch.

I was surprised I couldn't, for example, use the Delete key in the QB purchasing screen. In lots of little things like that the interface design shows it's age. I think the longer this thread gets the more likely it is they'll punish us by having *everything* in the new UI run off a single animated radial "control disc" that you operate with the RMB and the mouse-wheel. This post is my contribution.

I generally play RT games on a LAN, and back when designers still included pause-able RT in games it was never a problem. I can see how it could get annoying fast with a poor connection and/or some opponents... but I'd really appreciate the option. Despite that, and almost on topic: So far as single-player games go, anyone else find they preferred Shock Force in RT but like CMBN WEGO? I'd like to think that the faster-pace of modern warfare makes plausible RT objectively the better choice for CMSF. But I suspect that's BS and I'm just accustomed to WEGO for WWII CMing

I suspect the answer to this is somewhere in this thread but here's the question anyway: Are CMBN MG increasing ROF in response to target vulnerability (crossing the open on Fast, say) in addition to distance?

I was reading the other day how sometime in early '45 Joseph Dietrich carefully moved a column or two along the edge of the map. He could have stalled the Allied advance by months if Patton hadn't had all those Jeeps available.

Is "plunging fire" in the game? Sometimes the discussion seemed to use "beaten zone" when "plunging fire" may have been the actual thing in question. (I'm guessing it is, if ballistics are modeled, and it comes down to giving unit orders that'll resort in the most effective fire.) Here's the definitions I'm using - this is from globalsecurity.org, which is the first thing that google handed me:

I *hate* it when what's supposed to be a wargame is designed like a puzzle, where there's just one or two particular solutions to a scenario (or mission, or campaign, or whatever) and nothing else where work. I'm fine with that in some games, but not something that's shooting for a high degree of realism. OTOH, I do like to play some scenarios multiple times. Not really to "optimize" in some way, but to try out different approaches. HMGs in back as a sort of trap, or a classic enfilade on the approach? Opening arty for smoke or suppression? Invade down along the Trans-Mongolian railway, or have the main thrust come from Vladivostok? (tEiR!) Some CM scenarios are good for this, some aren't. For CM campaigns... I can see myself maybe playing a campaign over, seeing if things shake-out differently. But I'm not really interested re-doing individual scenarios. I'm prone to play less cautiously in a SP-QB. Partially because it doesn't seem as "serious" (ala Steve's use above) and partially because the AI is probably screwed anyway. I play scenarios like I play campaigns. I've never liked taking losses anyway... Different approaches are really apparent between me and my wife in FPS games. I look at it like a wargame - I play very cautiously, more or less acting as if I've got only one life. My wife's a casual gamer: She runs-and-guns, burning through lives much like ammo in most FPSs: Like there's unlimited amounts. To me that's just not fun. (OTOH, it can be amusing in co-op games. And it's nice to have someone who's always willing to go in first...)

Information is a key factor in "tension buildup" If you don't see the conflict in the situation you see on the screen, there's no tension, no thrill as it resolves. So if you have lots of target-lines, sight-lines, command-lines, etc. etc. etc. showing what's going on that can help build tension. Going further, if you can replay the turn over and over to not only watch everything but to make sure you notice and comprehend all those cues, that leads to more tension and/or thrill. Toward the other extreme: A virtual battle with no Heads Up Display and all in real-time is going to... not necessarily contain less information... but it's going to be harder to extract without the artificial aids. And since it's real-time no do-overs to see what you missed or help you understand what's happening. So, less tension or thrill. Unless, OTOH, you do just fine extracting the information without the lines, etc. You might even find the lines detracting from the tension. Makes suspension of disbelief harder to achieve, or truncates the build up of tension. (Seeing the line before the unit fires, type of thing.) And Real-Time can also be more exiting - at least taken over multiple games. "What's happening here... no here! The tank's buring, OMG, what happened!" To be frank I'd prefer BTS magically create replayable-RT. But I still generally prefer RT for it's other advantages, and I find it exiting enough. But as far as tension or thrill goes, I don't miss the various lines or cues at all. I'm doing fine without 'em. I expect most people will after they get used to it. But not everyone - if we're talking about thrills were talking, at least in part, about a matter of taste.

All true. OTOH, I can remember how much clunkier RTS game interfaces (and interfaces in general) used to be. As a whole they've improved a great deal. (I play lots of games.) CM's interface hasn't improved nearly as much IMO. Maybe it's because Battlefront doesn't care. Or maybe it's that they haven't had the benefit of hundreds of games and thousands of programmers over a decade or so working on the problem for other types of games. Plus Battlefront itself is rather small. I'm going with the second and third possibilities. CM does present some unique challenges. So I think it's more accurate to say "There's a lot of room for improvement." than "The interface is bad." I'm looking forward to seeing what the next major release brings.

It's hardly unusual for sci-fi novels to be technology and/or plot driven. Bad ones, at least. Clancy is like Star Trek - Utopian in attitude, full of technical gobbledygook and magically-competent characters - but day-after-tomorrow near-future. Jack Ryan vs. Captain Kirk: Who would win? (Or would they combine forces to conquer the galaxy? Scary!)

Heh. We had a computer-as-DVR hooked up to our cable well before TV was around. At this point I don't think I could stand watching TV without a Pause button. What do you do when you can't stop for a quick discussion of the plausibility of a given event, whether or not someone's acting in character, or the various levels at which a particular joke works? My wife's pretty much used to it by now. If I hear teeth grinding I just make a note to save stuff up for afterword... or until someone does something really silly, and then we can review the last 15 min of the program all at once.

I dunno. The quote gives 2 HMGs + 5 LMGs to pin. But in this case I doubt "pin" means stop indefinitely or turn back. I get the impression that's what the mortars were for, and that alone the MGs wouldn't cut it. 2 heavy + 5 light vs. a Company seems a better ratio than 1 HMG vs. a platoon. But I think the MGs would be better able to combine effect. Anyway, I'd love to see that diagram tested even sans mortars. Send in the Company and see what sort of results the game gives. If every thing is kosher I'm guessing the Company should be slowed considerably but still win. A Company just advancing on Quick or Assault with the mortars included, OTOH, (4 81mm tubes?) would be bloody convincing, IMO, that there's a significant problem with CMBO MGs.