Becket

Let me just say that MikeT's new stuff looks awesome. I've fallen down on the job of looking at stuff for him, but when I have had time to peek at the new mods, I've been impressed. You guys are going to just pass out when you get the uniform mods.

WHO YOU CALLING A NASCAR FAN? Ah, time to savor my victory over mike the wino's burning horde. A fun game, but too long (see below). Feedback for Soddball: 1. The general theme is great. You want fire, you got FIRE. 2. The scenario is basically balanced, though I question the decision to balance SU-76s with Marder IIs. 3. The tit-for-tat balancing and the rate of reinforcements leads to a bit of gameyness. I would (a) ditch the dinky tanks and ( limit the reinforcements to one wave. 4. The scenario is too long. This game was decided on turn 25 but we had to wait out the variable ending on turn 35. The last 5 turns were painful. I suggest going with 25 turns variable. [ March 19, 2003, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: Becket ]

YOUR FLAG? YOUR FLAG? I think not. Besides, I think it's time this abomination came to an end. With a major victory for me, of course.

Hee hee hee. And here I was worried that the Soviet side would be too strong.

I scheduled your appointment for 10am on the 25th. Hey Soddy did you like that last round? That's some the most gruesome molten-TNT this game has seen yet. And now you know why your silly socialist tin cans should park with a space between them when having a picnic. BTW it was file 36, I think. And, no, I don't think you are through being a remedial ****wit. You have been at it so long, you might as well see it all the way to the end. </font>

Hey guys, I hope to be able to start sending turns again tonight. So, GOODALE, SEND ME MY DAMN TURN.

Man, sorry guys, work, house hunting, and in laws have reduced my turn-sending to a Master Goodale like proportion. whiner, I sent a turn to your old email last night, let me know if I need to resend.

Sowwy, work has been killing and, to top it off, Freelancer came out yesterday, so my meager game time last night was locked up with that bundle of joy. But I'll deal the death and destruction tonight! Note: MG, this doesn't apply to you, since you STILL HAVEN'T SENT ME A TURN.

Let's not forget, however, that these are scholarly endeavors, not creative writing. Now, that doesn't mean they have to be dry and boring (see "Portrait of the Titan," a bio of Henry VIII, for an example of engaging history) but it is typical of the field. I read Glantz, Erikson, et. al. for the scholarly information. Not disagreeing with your conclusion that's it "dull" but rather with your conclusion that it's poor writing. Let's also remember that Glantz is endeavoring to provide analysis, which I find fascinating, unlike other authors, say, Hampton Sides or Stephen Ambrose, who are trying to provide gripping recreations. [ March 05, 2003, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: Becket ]

One can only be stunned that mikey whiney is complaining about only getting 2 turns from me a day instead of three. On the other hand, we're (hopefully) two turns away from the end of this debacle, so I understand his sentiment. IF A GADDAM FLAG CHANGES HANDS IN THE NEXT TWO TURNS AND MAKES ME PLAY FIVE MORE TURNS OF THIS MESS THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY. That is all.

I'm under penalty of death not to give specifics, but yes, I've been playing some scenarios that are designed for 60 turns on massive maps with lots of forces. And they are quite fun. You can actually the AI redeploy its forces as one line crumbles and the line behind it needs to be strengthened. More than that I will not say.

GOODWHALE!!!!! Whar be my turn????

Let's sum things up, shall we? I don't think mike has any forces left. Dear, dear lord but the M17 is a powerful unit in low visibility conditions. Mine has now knocked out 6 vehicles (4 HTs and 2 Marder IIIs) in addition to 16 infantry kills. As for Goody, he apparently just likes sitting in a marsh. That's fine, we're drinking all the wine in town and there'll be none left for you. Goodwhale's forces teeter on the verge of collapse, as I now have free run over the map. I just keep watching the movie where the PIII smashes the KV-2 over and over and over again. Sgian Dubh doesn't really have the game. Else he would've sent me a setup by now.

Yesterday we were driving around an area where a lot of place names ended in "ridge." I kept thinking of hull down Tigers sitting on those ridges.

I think he'll be whinning more after he gets my next turn. Memo to mike: 4 SU-76Ms beat 2 Marder IIIs. And M17 halftracks rule all. More dead Germans.

Unfortunately, you can't add models to the game, you can only re-skin existing models. Since there's no train model in the game, it can't be done.

Borg spotting refers to the fact that once one of your units spots an enemy unit, all of your units spot it. So even though only your forward scout can "see" the advancing infantry, suddenly all your infantry guns up on a ridge 500m away can fire down upon them. I believe they are talking about implementing relative spotting, where only the units that actually have spotted the enemy can see them, with the neat addition of a "radio net" to simulate passing information among units connected by radio.

Away, you! Borg spotting is eeeeevil. Take our current game -- I wonder if the ATG that shot out your magical Panzer II actually could have spotted it in time to acquire and shoot it in the brief period it popped out from trees.

I'll sacrifice graphics to see the end of Borg Spotting (which is a promised feature).

Yep. IIRC, the plan was that after 1.02 was finished, they would begin work on "CMII," which is the name for the total rewrite of the game engine. No information yet on the setting, but there was speculation that it would be set in North Africa/Mediterranean.

Uh-oh, you may want to watch yourself around hog farms, then.

Give me a buzz if you want to put up some screenies.

It's been a bad week for turns. I shall endeavor to improve that. After all, mike is still crawling along and I have to stomp the rest of the life out him, and it goes without saying that the cleanup of gunless Goodwhale must continue.

Actually, isn't it the attacker's choice? See pg. 42 in the manual. If the Dynamic Flags were set to "random," then there's no way to choose which is the "real" flag, it changes each time you play. If the Dynamic Flag is "Chosen" then the attacker can select the highest level HQ on the map and select the "activate flag" option, and click on the flag they wish to designate as "real."

By the way, lest anyone read Cyber's comments and think "see, KV-1s are invincible," you should know that (a) I gave him crack troops as a handicapping measure and ( I'm not any good. Anyway, I made a ton of mistakes but I'm fairly certain I could've killed one of the beasts had I played better. I have zero problem with seeing KV-1s and KV-2s on the early battlefield, or Tigers in 43 (killable once you know the right Soviet units to use), or KTs in 45. For me, I'm just playing to have fun moving my little toy soldiers around trying to accomplish objectives. Some objectives are harder than others, but if you aren't playing with the Tiger Woods mentality (i.e., "coming in second sucks") it's not that big of a deal.