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John Malcolm

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Everything posted by John Malcolm

  1. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0bd_1249524865 Scot's troops still enjoy having a bayonet
  2. I think I *might* be part of the silent majority. I know CMBN is a great game. I owned and played all the CMx1 games. CMBN is by far the best... however I can see people's problems with stuff like tanks firing on the move. When less and less stuff is being abstracted it just seems weird. Allowing tanks to stop and fire on enemy armour, but to continue moving if a single driver from a destroyed jeep shows up seems reasonable.
  3. In a quick battle tonight (infantry only) I watched the AI push it's entire force down one side of the map, through hedgerows under HMG fire, followed by HMG fire + Mortars, followed by HMG + Mortars + Rockets.... they just kept coming.... there was no Plan B.
  4. I'm sure someone will be along with some exact facts and figures. If the target is in the direct LOS of the IG then it will have no problem. If they are close and terrain blocks their LOS then they won't be able to elevate high enough to drop rounds on them.
  5. Are you trying to do inderect fire with the infantry gun(s). They aren't mortars. They have a minimum as well as a maximum range. The target may well be too close to them and they can't elevate high enough to target that area.
  6. As long as the vehicle isn't destroyed then you can get the crew back into it (once their state allows you to give them orders again). I had a game recently where 2 halftracks got shot up in an awkward place (they were blocking a road). The enemy nearby had been dealt with, but the remaining crew of the 2 halftracks looked as though they would be shaken and out of control for too long. I dismounted some crew from another 2 safe and unharmed HTs and had them jog over and move the damaged ones out the way. I'm not sure this would work with tanks however.
  7. I am fluent in English and a Combat Mission player since CMBO... but I don't know what this word means. Oh.... I've watched Band of Brothers about four or five times
  8. Embedded viewer? Mine opens up in Acrobat. The PDF dimensions are: 4.5 inch x 7 inch per page (or as I like to call it, not being American, 114.3mm x 177.8mm)
  9. I'd rather wait a while and see the Commonwealth/SS module done well, than have it sooner. Battlefront, in all the time I have know their games (CMBO) have always engaged really well with their customers. When I think of other games I play or have played, I just can't imagine the developers actually lowering themselves to debate with their fans or customers. The Beta Testers also did and do a great job. I've beta tested for non-gaming stuff (Corel Painter 12) and I think it's refreshing that Battlefront allow their testers to talk about and reveal so much of the process.... with most software, the NDA basically means I can say I was a beta tester... and that's about it.
  10. I love it, warts and all. I'm sure everybody will have a list of things they'd like to see added, changed or fixed. I know of no other game developer that engages as directly with their players. People have been discussing real-time versus WEGO. I'm 100% WEGO. I enjoy being able to replay the minute of action several times - from different angles, from the viewpoint of different units. I'd hate to miss seeing all the cool things that happen. If I were forced to use real-time then I'd be forced to set my camera view so high most of the time (when not paused) for situational awareness, that I'd miss seeing all the small dramas played out. Some might argue that WEGO gives us far more information than a real commander would ever have, but a similar criticism could be leveled at Real-time with it's ability to completely chanage a units orders from second to second. I enjoy handing over control to the AI for that minute. I like forward to further patches making the game better each time, as well as the planned modules (really looking forward to the first one)
  11. That would actually be a welcome addition (at higher difficulty levels). A delay between issuing orders and having them received dependent on C2 links, much in the same way that spotting information takes time to be shared. I suppose the difficulty would be in deciding who exactly has given these orders: That could be anyone from a squad leader to a battalion commander.
  12. Ah... It's mentioned in the video which a roundup of PC game news for the week. Watching now.
  13. I'm not seeing a review or a score from Gamespot? There's one critic score of 9.0 which appears to be from NZGamer.
  14. Cheers for that. I'm really looking forward to the first module.
  15. I'm not so sure. The quote was dealing with a Canadian attack on Carpiquet airfield east of Caen. Looking at Google Earth or Maps doesn't tell us whether the modern wooded areas near Marcelet are the some ones that were there in 1944, but any wooded area east of of Marcelet yet west of the airfield area is going to be pretty close. The fire against the assembly areas was conducted at Division level by the Germans in this instance - way outside the scope of the game - but the same arguement could be made about US forces calling in Naval gun bombardments. No matter what scale these types of fires were conducted at, we would still expect to see their effects in our smaller scale slice of the big picture. Going back to the orignal arguement - I'm not in favour of removing the ability to call in bombardments during the setup phase. This happened all the time at all levels. I am in favour of map designers setting up much more generous and larger deployment areas for both sides - making the employment of this tactic more risky. I think another problem, which has been discussed elsewhere, is the cheapness of the American 114mm rockets. Even in a Small Probe, the US player can afford to buy a battery of these for 69 points or so. They have a large rarity number, but even when rarity is set to strict they would still have 732 rarity points to play with as they spent the remainder of their points (1767).
  16. Just a wee bit of historical perspective: "In the early morning hours of 4 July, enemy radio traffic increased. The content of the messages indicated an impending attack. Based on previous experienced, the Division calculated the start of the attack for 06.00 hours. The wooded areas east and southwest of Marcelet were considered to be the assembly areas. In order to smash the assembly, or at least to inflict painful losses on the enemy, squeezed into a narrow space, two fire attacks by artillery and mortars carpeted these areas at approximately 05.00 hours. The III (Heavy) Abteilung SS-Panzerartillerieregiment 12 fired some ten salvos (approximately 220 shells) and the mortars fired two half-salvos. Ground observation of the target areas was not possible but the enemy radio traffic indicated that the fire had been effective. A repetition of the fire attacks was not possible because of the lack of ammunition." Hubert Meyer, The 12th SS: The History of the Hitler Youth Panzer Division: Volume One. Just food for thought. He could be describing exactly the situation described in this thread. This was a situation where the Canadian attack went ahead complete with their own rolling barrage (and the Germans firing their own artillery just behind that to catch advancing troops). The defender pulling back their forces to avoid the full force of a softening up barrage and then rushing into position as soon as the barrage begins to lift seems to have been very common also.
  17. I suppose we, and Battlefront, should be thankful that people feel passionate about this game - even if that does boil over into arguments from time to time. I'd like to think that even the most vocal critics of the game are doing so because they like the game and want to see it become better, and are perhaps just getting a bit frustrated. That's what I'm going to assume from now on.
  18. It wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. It's was written on returning from a Saturday night in the pub, so I apologise to everyone for the first line - perhaps a bit harsh in retrospect, but I stick by the sentiment. I get annoyed seeing threads devolve down to "us" and "them" rant and counter-rant. To be honest, looking at the original post, this thread was doomed from the start. I'm going to train myself not to post after being in the pub, and also to not get involved in negative threads. Instead I'll play CMBN.
  19. And another thread gets taken over by ranting f*ckwits. * Straight out the box (or download) this game is playable (more than that it is very enjoyable) * There are some issues (some of which the original poster mention and many of which we are assured will be dealt with in the first patch) * Am I a fanboy? I own and played to death all of the CMx1 titles. I bought and didn't like CMSF when it came out. We parted ways for a while. Just prior to CMBN coming out I reinstalled CMSF (and bought the Brit module). I saw the progress that had been made in the years I'd been absent. * Battlefront have a really good reputation for supporting their games. There aren't that many games that have forums where the programmers pop in from time to time and take on board useful crits from players.
  20. Random maps might have been OK in CMx1... though even then it was hit or miss. I personally prefer to have a playing area that someone's put a bit of time and effort into. In a 2 player Quick Battle both players might be familiar with the terrain from playing on it previously. So what? Read anything about Normandy in 1944 and it's clear that the same areas, hills, towns and villages changed hands several times and where often fought over for weeks. If setup areas and perhaps even objectives could be slightly randomised in QB maps then that would be even better. Take a chill pill.
  21. As well as pounding enemy defensive positions prior to an assault, it was fairly common practice (dependent on the ammo situation) to fire on areas where the enemy was suspected to be forming up. I wouldn't mind an option within the purchase screen to cap points spending on artillery units depending on what type of engagement was being played (perhaps an allowed percentage of overall points), on top of the overall points limit and rarity points limit, but I'd object to pre-planned artillery being removed all together. Having said all that, I'm one of the people that would like indirect fire artillery to be able to be fired at any point on the map at any point during the game - with the associated loss of accuracy for not having it observed. If there's a steep hill, I'd expect to be able to ask my mortars to fire behind in - especially if I can hear tracked vehicles clanking around. Likewise, if there's a wood, and I can only see a short distance into it then I'd love to be able to 'map fire' into it's middle. For this to work properly though then the player wouldn't be shown any visual clues as to where the shells were landing - unless his units had LOS - to prevent players from knowing their map fired artillery wasn't falling in the spot they requested it.
  22. No, but I've got a Corel Painter 12 limited edition anniversary Paint Tin. My CMBN Steelthingie is staying with me.
  23. I think I've only used the Slow command once or twice successfully and in a useful manner. It seems to work well with a 2 man scout team split off a squad - having them Quick towards a hedgerow, then drop very near to the hedgerow and Slow towards it, finishing with a very short cover arc, and then just letting them quietly observe for a minute or two can sometimes reveal enemy positions. If there are enemy immediately on the other side then you'll probably know all about it long before they get to the slow crawl stage. I've also used it similarly with entire platoons. The whole load of them run towards a hedgerow, drop to the ground 1 action space away and crawl those last couple of meters with them on short cover arcs. Then waiting a shortwhile lets them start to pick out enemy positions, and lets the whole platoon open up on the most important at the time of your choosing. I would stay away from Slow when it comes to actually moving forwards under enemy fire or observation. For situations like the original poster's I'd have my platoons sit behind a friendly hedgerow for a minute or two watching suspected enemy positions getting mortared with HE. Then I'd add HMG or MMG area fire to that, and then I'd start moving rapidly across the open ground keeping support weapons on overwatch. I'll sometimes use smoke, but often if I suspect enemy positions, I'd rather hit them with HE rather than smoke. In all of these situations I find a minute or two of quiet observation can be incredibly useful.
  24. The only time I think I've seen a split off team not rejoining was when I split them off during deployment. I was being greedy as those two men were instructed to grab goodies off a nearby jeep..
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