Eden Smallwood

Ooops. A couple of people have advised us not to go "Fast". Are you sure? In this same scenario, after I got a couple bogged just where OP said, "moving" I decided to go Fast, and thereafter had no problems. My intuition says it will help to speed over those muddy places rather than try to tiptoe through them. ? Eden

The other VICCON ideas you and others responded with are nifty stuff; sounds cool. But the problem I'm addressing is inside the box; the solution I propose is very easy, direct and straighforward way of letting the battle continue while there is true motion, *in the game as it exists now*. I know, this is CM::The Next Generation thread, but... For me, I would much rather see a "programmer's" release in one year, an internal rewrite with a few of the things we're screaming for, rather than something huge and glorious in two years. The other fellow mentioned that an engine rewrite implied to him that it will have dramatic changes. I disagree, it implies to me that an enormous amount of work is going to go into doing exactly what we have now, only it will be more efficient and extensible, easier to add models, etc. The effort to make a next-gen product for the *user* will be over and above the effort to rewrite the engine. A new engine AND a new theater?!? That sounds like three years to me. For a game which has an armor penetration model so exact it includes the brittleness(forget the name) of the metal, it's somewhat of a farce that the SOPs we have available for units are so limiting that we can't differentiate between Sneak and Crawl. Nice. Now tell me if this sounds familiar- what does it mean to have "control" of that area? Do two Routed peons in a burning building who are surrounded by tanks constitute control? Six of one, half dozen of the other, my friend. Agreed- the Axis must take the hill; the Allied must attrite the Axis forces, say...? I can't tell here whether you're implying that my Take A Flag, Get Five Turns idea sets the precedent for putting scripting into the game...? Can't really comment on scripting, except that I hope that BTS puts the desires of scenario designers as a top priority. Eden

Not sure what you have in mind, (?), but I've got a beef of my own with the VICCON. If I complain about the "VicAI" one more time they might throw me outta here. THIS time, though... *I've got a solution*. I just played one of the CMBO converted to CMBB scenarios... Reigsburg? Kriegsville? Reigersburgers something like that. It was beautiful- I thought I was just barely managing to eke out a Major Victory. Or better! But I was wrong- it was a "Draw". Apparently CM felt that the big flag in that building was controlled by the two enemies in there... One was a Cautious Inf Squad of some kind, and one was a Panicked HQ. Being Cautious or Panicked, or course, makes perfect sense, since that would surely be the natural reaction to being inside a building which is completely on fire. Add to that the fact that it was set on fire in the first place by the surrounding horde of healthy enemies and their ISU MotherTanks, and then it really makes sense. Now WHO is really CONTROLLING that territory?!??!?!?!?![/RANT] OK, Ok... here's the *solution*, the compromise in lieu of really sophisticated AI compromise, which would be really simple to do compromise. As it stands now, if one of the flags changes hands during the last turns, an additional length of turns is played. Fine. I submit that if *another* flag changes hands during that sudden death period, then *another* quantum of turns is tacked on. That simple. Keep the Sudden Death Overtime ongoing until flags are no longer changing hands. Easy. In fact, add some number of turns for each flag taken, perhaps. So whaddayathink??? Eden [ October 23, 2002, 01:40 AM: Message edited by: Eden Smallwood ]

"WHY'D 'E 'AVE TUNA?!?!?!?" Eden

Dude. Sorry about your day; I tried to save it. I went and loaded this thing... you've got to be joking me. My poor little iBook can barely count that many men, let alone render them. So I will neither be commisserating nor enlightening, sorry! I've lost 2 out of 2 in _Directive #3_ though... does that help? Eden

The most important part I perhaps did not spell out exactly. 1 Peruse web, find html code you like, copy. 2 *Play* with it- make a change, see what happens. 3 Repeat 1 if necessary. 4 Lather, Rinse Not at all. All URLs listed in html code are either Relative or Absolute. An Absolute path spells out the entire path, and does NOT depend on where the "executing" html file resides- an example is the URL I listed for my page above. It starts with "http://www.angelfire....." A Relative path DOES depend on the location of the html file. Look at the source of my page- the declaration for what the BODY should look like starts like this: BODY BACKGROUND="../JPG_MoneyCruz.JPG" ...... This is a Relative Path- ".." means "go up a level". If I wanted to use an Absolute Path, I would have put BODY BACKGROUND="http://anglefire.com/mac/programming/JPG_MoneyCruz.JPG"... See? Using Relative paths enables you to create a "site" on your hard drive and change and test and change and test all *without connecting*, then when it all works, you can upload it, and it works fine in it's new home. If your html file contains any Absolute paths, your browser will keep trying to connect to retrieve that item. Not so much size, as frequency- if you upload often, or have many files on your site, it becomes a serious burden. Your little icon bar is nothing- it's these huge hunker mods which are reaching band limits; don't worry, unless you start doing multi-tank mods. Finally, just trust me on this- perform 1 through 4 above, and in two weeks you won't be asking, you'll be telling. It just takes some peeking and experimenting, that's all. But you won't get it from my explaining in this forum; it just doesn't work that way. Study while you're waiting for the AI to make it's next move. Hth, Eden

Hee. I'm know what you're saying, Coffin 'Enry- I just tried this last night; one of my few utterly resounding defeats against AI. Naturally, I have to put *some* blame on my ignorance of these units- I only deduced after playing it that "cracking the egg" refers to the Tigers taking out a good dozen and a half of my Soviet Industrial Sized Tanks without breaking a sweat!! Yes, I *failed* as a commander: even after it became clear that my steel was a complete wimp by comparison, I just couldn't accept it, (they look so big!), and I kept trying to engage those Tigers, loss after loss after... Sheesh! Even three or four of mine on one Tiger, and all I get is three or four losses! Hmmm. Well, next time... Yes, next time. What can I change? All I can do next time will be to refuse to engage Tigers without them coming to ME. After all, I've got twice as many tanks as I need to wipe out the whole village, and tough arty besides. Therefore I will play chicken with half of them, sneaking behind hills to support my inf taking the village, slow but sure. The other half I will try to sneak into ambush position, for the time that the AI can no longer stand to see it's inf decimated by huge HE rounds... ? Eden

Pshaw on the book. Rule One of programming is that you never program if you can avoid it. Whatever you want to do, it's almost a certainty that someone else has already done it, or something extremely similar. So copy that person's code, tweak it a bit... voila. For html, this works just fine. That page I put up- it's kinda pretty, n'est-ce pas? In your browser, while looking at the page, choose 'view source' or whatever it's called in yours, and there you are- html grad course free of charge!! If you're on Macintosh, get the text editor "Alpha" immediately. For any type of programming, actually. Read the help on the html mode in there, and you'll know more than you ever needed to. Html is kind of a stinker "language", but if you just want to put up a bit of content, you can do anything you need to with very little html. If you agree that my little page up there looks nice, then Why? Not because it's html (or some other scripting language) crazy, but because it uses just a wee bit of html to nice effect. Anyhow. On geocities you have the terrible disadvantage of having to upload your files via their web shell rather than from the intelligent interface of a dedicated ftp program. Angelfire allows me to use my own ftp program, but then I guess we've seen how easy it is to max out the bandwidth limit... As far as what actual syntax to use for sticking something up there to be downloadable, why the examples for that are on my site, or on Tom's site, or Scenario Depot... all over, except for those webmasters who feel they have to use an exclusively more sophisticated language to do their site, like php or perl or whatever. Implement the site on your hard drive, and make all your paths relative, and you can test and change while on your drive without connecting... Then explain to my why these other guys download my flags and it's just "white" for them?!? Eden

Add to the uberlist of things to put in the rewrite: 1) The Movie- the whole kaboodle movie, but played via CM. You can "stop" anywhere and check out things as in normal play. 2) Well that's already a heck of an AAR, but then also allow the user to add little "notes" to the "movie" frames, like on turn 16 a little window pops up, pointing to the ISU 152, saying "see, this is where I screwed up!!" Another dream courtesy of Eden

It says right in the manual, (er, somewhere), that to make a damaged bridge, (buildings the same?), you have to use a "trick" of sorts. Edit your map, and place a rubble tile where you want the damaged building. Then, (this is the trick), you have to *preview* the map, id est, look at it in the normal 3d. That causes the "damaged" bit flag for that hex to be set. Then go back and edit the map some more, this time putting your building on top of that damaged square. If IRC, Eden

For the same reason that the map has a mathematically precisely rectangular shape- because it's a game, and some aspects of reality either can't be modelled or are very difficult to model. I disagree with the statement when read literally. In today's Delta Force and GPS and all that world, why, I can easily see a commander saying that if you maggots don't take that hill by exactly 0700 hours then the HALO guys are gonna drop in enemy territory and it's all gonna suck. But I can't believe that in WWII a battle which lasts twenty minutes, in which I've decimated all the enemies armor and reduced his men to a handful of routed exhausted men would be considered a "defeat" simply because another ten minutes could not be afforded. For me, I've just about had it with the end game victory determination- from now on I'm going to set my turn limit to the maximum, and simply drive him off the board, (assuming I win!). [Ed- I mean in my QBs...] At any rate, my point is that if both players agree to a time limit, then perforce they are agreeing to "unrealistic" end game behaviour. Otherwise, they are inviting dispute by providing an inducement for unreal behaviour; perhaps the best way to avoid bad feelings about the end game is simply not to have one- let the game run on until both sides can see exactly what the outcome is. It's been said that people will abuse that system, refusing to admit defeat by running their last squad of peons all over the board hiding or whatnot... well, just don't play those people. ? Eden [ October 22, 2002, 02:26 AM: Message edited by: Eden Smallwood ]

It strikes me that it would very easy to "fix" this, if the forum is in wide agreement, like maybe even it could make it into the patch(!?): With warnings on, if the battle is at all crazed, (often enough!) my screen gets filled up with "warnings" about damaged buildings, which don't concern me, and eliminated enemies, which also don't concern me... I'm only interested in adverse conditions of my own troops and weapons! When the numbers get big it can really be impossible to see anything... What sayest thou, O forum? Eden

No idea about that scenario, yet I'm in complete agreement that it seems like a great waste for scenario designers to go to all that effort and then fail to tell us which side to play vs AI, (if indeed it's suitable vs AI). Kudos to those designers who specify exactly what the intention is, ("meant for PBEM, or take Allied vs AI, with AI + 50% ), and one scenario I found which contained a separate version just for single player, ("Haunted Hill"). Eden

No clue! Do you need the original 449.BMP? Or what are you saying? I don't have a degree in modding, but still that's strange. Details? Hey you know what; I think I'll put the original 449.BMP up there on that page- that seems like a sensible precedent...there! Sorry- works fine for me; I tested the whole gamut. Eden

Nope. Sorry, can't think of a single thing. Great pix though!! Try not to kill them, would you? They're just hungry little people, that's all. Eden

How about we invent a new music group, "The ModSluts", and then rename all the mod files to end in ".mp3" and get everyone else with Napster to store them and... Hey you guys. You're all worried about bandwidth and stuff... why worry? What is the goal here? Is it necessary to have one and only one site which hosts mods, or is it necessary and sufficient to benefit the community if it merely functions as the one "official" site which hosts all mods? What I mean is that IMHO you should go with distributed hosting, (which you can't fight anyhow), and bottlenecked *downloading*. You have one "official" site which lists all mods, and has them searchable and yadda- that's the obvious part. But then you also need one little bit more which is crucial- wherever in the whole web universe Mr Noobie goes to check out mods, if he clicks on a link to *download* a mod, he will be presented with a new page, the exact page which exists on that one official mod site. See? In this manner the mod shopper has direct and compelling evidence that there is indeed one site which officially lists all available mods in the known universe. Implementing this would require a bit of socialism, as it is incumbent on the webmasters of the official site to present their case to whatever renegade site owners are out there, but those individual site owners do not have to make any real kind of sacrifice. They can host their own mods and talk about how great they are and all that whole thing- all they have to be convinced of is to hook through the official site for the actual *download*. After all, in doing so they are helping the CM community. The same situation applies for scenarios, maps, and what have you. For scenario designers, who appear eager to have their stuff reviewed, it becomes easier if there is one and only one official site which has a nice interface. Imagine that, in downloading a scenario from TheCombatMatrix official site for stuff, the downloader is presented with a typical downloading page, which includes the query "the designer of this scenario would like you to recieve an 'AutoReviewReminder email'. In case you have not submitted a review in one month's time, you will receive one and only one pleasantly phrased email asking you to do so, with a link and whatnot". So although some renegade new webmaster new modder new scenario designer puts up a new site with his stuff, he in fact has inducement to detour his users through TheMatrix for the physical download, even though those files are on his own site. Anybody follow that? This message too long for proofreading, Eden

What happened to the whole "Area Fire & Disappering Pillboxes etc etc" thing? Did BTS officially comment on that ever? Or did we as a forum never even agree on any part of that issue? Eden

Thank you, that's exactly what I'm talking about! BTS, please fix or somefink! ...and if there is no cover, then just bring some! Eden

Ah that's nice. Positive feedback feels good. I don't know- I don't think I'll ever see Europe unless I'm taken prisoner. In Hollywood it's fine. It's pretty easy, and costs nothing or I wouldn't do it. There are a couple things to say about using these free sites though. As time goes on, these sites have become less and less charitable. Geocities.com no longer allows me to access my ten Megs or so with an ftp program- I can only upload stuff with their web based shell interface, which is doodoo. Angelfire.com allows me to use my own ftp program, so that's fine. All these sites however, have figured out that people are using them just to "store" stuff, and they've gotten smart about it. As an example, consider a huge jpeg image file, which I'd like to put on my geocities site so that I can display it in this post I'm writing now. It won't work. When the geocities server sees that request for that image, it "knows" that the image is NOT being retrieved as part of my html page, just the naked jpeg is needed, for some *other* reason than content of my site. Therefore, the server will instead send a tiny image saying "this image hosted by some stupid free site company". Follow? Otherwise, these sites are just what they appear to be- a bunch of free space, but whatever site you put up there will be blessed with their popups or their banner, usually your choice. Er, did that answer you? If not, you know where to post further questions, don't you now? Eden

Well there's one thing that kind of drives me nuts, it's the victory condition. I just finished the one at the zoo, for example. I've got three killer tanks, so many squads that I get cramps from all that clicking, I've advanced over the majority of the board and I'm good shape. Defender has a handful of men, and... well that's what defender has. But CM called it a draw. Ok, you think that's no big deal. But in alot of scenarios, I find myself rushing the flag... so I'll get those extra turns and I can keep playing!! It seems to me that the "VicAI" just doesn't recognize a *clear and present danger*, not even when it's a clear and present danger of overwhelming proportion. I would vote for CM allowing the battle to continue as long as at least one flag were in clear jeopardy. The way it is now, I alter my decisions based on what "turn" it is. Eden

Well er mumble it's just that I made a little mod mumble and it's nothing really, but I like it, so maybe it will motivate someone else to do a better one, or something. It's for the flag of the Disputed Regions, currently attributed to The Riddler from Batman, which is of course ridiculous. A historically correct flag, attributing those regions to The King Of All Countries can be had here: http://www.angelfire.com/mac/programming/cmbb/DisputedFlag.html No artistic criticism necessary. Oh! I made two, because the first fancy one I made, I found that my wimpy little system downsampled it into mush, so that's why there are hi and lo detail versions. Eden

I'm with OP on one thing at least- while not having any experience in the matter, it is none the less very frustrating to bring a squad to within a few meters of an immobile tank and watch it "hide" while the turret slowly turns in its direction. Surely a squad attacking an immobile tank should at least be able to stay out of harm's way??? ( Assuming there's no other threat around ) Eden [ October 19, 2002, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Eden Smallwood ]

I think this must be a dumb question, but why did you "convert the SS...to the PzDiv totenkopf" et cetera? I mean, how come they weren't right before? The swastika I understand- the stuff about German distribution and impressionable kinter. But all these others...? Is it all the same issue? Please pardon my unfamiliarity with these badges. Are we getting any closer to having one complete definitive politically NOT correct icon bar? What's GOING ON?? Eden

Isn't it already the 19th of whatever month this is, in New York or Worcestershire or somewhere? Eden

STOP STOP STOP!!! With the LOS bug, they have as much concealment as an empty parking lot! Save your game and wait for the patch! Eden