Becket

Possibly because, I believe, the use of covered arcs was intended to replace the old ambush command.

So one could, theorectically, start "To the Volga", save it, then import the map, delete all the forces, and have a few QBs on the map with a more CPU friendly number of forces? Or are the operation-level maps too big for the import?

One thing that I saw playing around with the Sturmtiger was this: I had Panther nearby. When the Sturmtiger's gun went off, the Panther was "shocked" and the crew bailed out. This was way back in my setup area and far out of range of any enemy units, so unless I missed something the shock had to be caused by the Sturmtiger's colossal blast.

(third multiple post deleted, gah) [ September 26, 2002, 02:13 PM: Message edited by: Becket ]

Crap. Sorry for the multiple post. [ September 26, 2002, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: Becket ]

Thanks Rune, that's the kind of information I was looking for. Believe it or not I was on another forum chatting with a programmer friend about the issue and came to the conclusion that the textures seem to be the core of the issue. After all, nVidia can push multi-millions of untextured polys. But the texturing can bollux everything up. Anyway, I think the end result is that upgrading won't help for Stalingrad. Or, put differently, you'll need to go above a 2Ghz P4, 512 Ram, and GF3 at the very least.

I respectfully disagree. These are very low poly units and a 4 year old engine. Do you know the poly counts on the infantry, AFV, and buildings? I find it impossible to believe that the sum of those polys is greater than BF1942 at full draw distance or Unreal Tournament 2003 w/ all details cranked. For example, Unreal Tournament 2003 uses 15,000-20,000 polys per player model. (http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1476&p=2) Meanwhile, BF1942, in addition to high poly count models, is rendering outdoor environments with huge draw distances. I can't imagine that there are more than 20,000 polys in an entire battlion of infantry. Since my system can run UT2003 at full detail and 60fps with 16+ players on screen, it just doesn't make sense that fewer polys can cause stuttering. I'm not saying CMBB is bad; quite the contrary, I love it. Just that the engine can't handle an operation of that size and upgrading your hardware will not help.

Re: Upgrade -- that operation is stuttery and framey on a Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz Computer with 512 Megs of Ram and a GeForce 3Ti. In other words, it's not the system. I cannot understand why it's so framey and stuttery, unless the game engine is just simply too taxed by the size of the map and numbers of units. I can't imagine there are more polygons on screen that in, say, a fully maxed out Battlefield 1942 game, and that runs smooth as silk for me. Not bitching here, just noting that you should not get your hopes up that an upgrade will let you play that map.

Now that you've closed your tag I'll consider posting some gameplay stuffs tonight. Not being a CMBO veteran I could care less about all that stuff, I just want to play. Sadly it won't run on my work computer. Boo.

Woohoo! I have to say, it's very refreshing when a game arrives with a 262 page manual. Coming on the heels of the utter crap manual that shipped with BF1942 it's even better.

I love this place for resources like this, that's going on my must buy list (along with An Army at Dawn and the new Battle of Kursk books). Let me put in a plug for Erickson's two volume series The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin; they are not detailed discussions of weapons and armor but rather a comprehensive discussion of how the Soviets fought the war. Read the first few pages about how Marshal Tukachevskii demanded, in 1936-38, that the USSR practice war games reacting to sudden suprise attack by masses of German armored divisions -- plans that died when he did, in the first round of Stalin's purges -- and you'll be hooked. [ September 22, 2002, 08:25 PM: Message edited by: Becket ]

Yep. Bioware finally got Infogrames to deep six the SecureROM copy protection in the 1.23 patch.

Ugh. If my firewall came with software doing unwelcome things like that I'd send it back. I was thinking of core firewall stuff. Anyway, Daemon Tools should get rid of the problem by running the check from a CD image on a virtual drive.

Just as a technical matter, it (EDIT ) sounds like you have a shoddy firewall if the game's copy protection is causing a problem with that. Get a new one that doesn't try to be intimate with your CD drive. (END EDIT! ) Now, as to SafeDisc, SecureROM, etc., they are horribly annoying and cause lots of problems...BUT you can avoid these problems by putting an image of the CD on your hard drive using CloneCD and using Daemon Tools to run a "virtual" CD drive emulating SafeDisc. I hate pirates and piracy, but any copy protection beyond a CD key is going too far. None of this crap ever stops the pirates, it just ends up hurting paying customers. Oh...by the way...for really egregious copy protection schemes, check out Battlefield 1942. It uses a total separate application to perform a Safedisc check. Problem? It does this check not only every time you join a server, BUT EVERY TIME THE MAP CHANGES ON THAT SERVER. Takes 20 seconds to do the check on a bleeding edge system, over a minute on systems that match the recommended specs. Now THAT is ugly copy protection. [ September 20, 2002, 04:40 PM: Message edited by: Becket ]

Wow, so CMBO is actually what became of the attempt to convert ASL to a computer game? I did not know that. That is very cool, I had always wondered what happened to that game.

No, it means they sent you my confirmation email. Heh, though today sales@battlefront did reply and let me know my order went through. :cool:

Thanks Steve. I'll give sales@battlefront.com another day or two to respond before pestering them with more email.

Two days after placing my order, still no confirmation email, nor has there been any response to the email I sent to sales@battlefront.com. On the other hand, my credit card has been charged. Any reason to be worried about the no-show on the email? It wouldn't matter if they hadn't made a demo that has me craving for more!

Thanks very much for the info about your experience. I've sent along an email to make sure nothing went wrong with my order.

I pre-ordered yesterday...should I be concerned that I haven't received a confirmation email? My email appears correct on the printout I made from the order page.

Thanks very much for the kind welcome. I feared that it might be impossible given the complex armor calculations. Never fear, I still love the game as is.

I would love to mod CMBB to add the Superscience/Pulp Fiction units of Dream Pod 9's Gear Krieg wargame (http://www.dp9.com/Worlds/GK.htm), especially the armored walkers. Is this possible? Can new units be added?

As reported in various places, including CNet and blue's news, Greece has passed a law that appears to outlaw video games of all sorts (not just CMBB as the original poster implied). Story here: http://msnbc-cnet.com.com/2100-1040-956357.html?type=pt∂=msnbc&tag=alert&form=feed&subj=cnetnews To add more on topic stuff: I'm loving how suppression fire works in the demo -- the difference b/t advancing w/ supporting fire and advancing w/o it is marked and very realistic. Kudos!

Thanks very much to you both!

I love the demo, definitely going to buy the full game (though I'm very new to hardcore wargames). Anyway, I was wondering what the hotkey is in game to take screenshots, if there is one. The documentation and a search of this forum didn't reveal the answer. If there's not an ingame screenshot feature, are folks just using hypersnap to take screens?