John Malcolm
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Posts posted by John Malcolm
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I'm reading volume 1 of the 12th SS Division by Hubert Meyer and have already came across several instances of troops from both sides rendering "Buddy Aid" to wounded enemy. I know this isn't done in CMBN. It would only make sense if points for captured troops were greater than those for WIA or KIA.
It would however open up a whole new can of worms. By the time we reach an Eastern Front version of CMx2 then we'd need to see actions like "Looking for gold tooth filings"
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It's a pity the information displayed when clicking isn't a bit more generic. More experienced spotters might be able to get more info as might units who have been observing for longer - but knowing exactly what the enemy unit is including it's place in the hierachy seems a bit odd. If I see a unit and click on it I can for example see that it's a Company HQ. I can therefor take a stab in the dark and assume the rest of the company is nearby.
A workaround might be to not click on enemy units. Sometimes however we have no choice but to click on the unit. Targetting an enemy floating icon usually snaps the fire to the target, but in some cases it doesn't and we have to click on the enemy icon to see the highlighted individuals.
On a similar subject, it'd like the generic ? enemy contacts to be broken down into sound contacts and visual contacts, ideally with slightly more info - whether it's a tracked vehicle, wheeled vehicle or infantry sounds.
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John Malcom--FYI--The charge on the delivery envelope states its source as the UK Border Agency,Mt Pleasant Parcel Dept,London.So we must presume that Agency is the body in overall responsibility for these charges and any correspondence re these charges is to be sent to that address. Thats what they have to do with it.......
Cheers... that was why I mentioned AFAIK. Which agency is in charge of these things, and the fact that the line is fairly blurred between UK Border Agency (a fairly new organisation) and HM Customs & Excise (parts of which date back to then stopping smugglers landing goods in the 18th century) might go some way to explaining the lack of consistency in charging. Add to that the fact that different companies seem to have been responsible for the actual delivery and we end up in a mess.
I suppose at the end of the day it's just the UK governments justification for squeezing a bit more money out of us. I get taxed on my income. I additionally pay National Insurance (another tax). Any money I make in my second freelance capacity is additionally taxed. When I finally get my hands on what's left of my money I am taxed for purchasing things (at 20%). I pay £1.30+ a litre of petrol, most of which is made up of tax (roughly $8.25USD a gallon if I've done my sums right). We also pay a local Council Tax and Road Tax.
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I'm not at all sure what the UK Border Agency has to do with anything. Their main task is making sure people who enter the country are doing so legally. The only customs related task they are responsible for AFAIK is making sure what is brought in by private individuals is legal and that the appropriate VAT tax or duty is paid. In other words, they would only be the relevent agency if you flew over to North America, bought something and flew back with it.
It's HM Revenue & Customs you have a problem with.
I was lucky in that my copy was simply forced through my letterbox by the postie. I think Battlefront could have eased the burden on those who did have to pay by not putting the value of the whole Download AND hardcopy price on the declaration. This could have been as simple as deducting the download only price from the total $80.
People who pre-ordered the steelbox and got the download were playing the game long before the hard copy arrived. In my case the hardcopy DVD hasn't even been out of the box. I bought the hardcopy for three reasons: I like limited edition boxed software, I like having something to read that I don't print out myself, and, I like supporting Battlefront.
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I'd also like to see the tabs disappear. The main interface part of the screen is designed for people still using a screen with a resolution width of 1024 pixels. That must be a tiny proportion of users in 2011 (about 95% of Steam users have a higher resolution for example). I'd prefer to see the remaining 656 pixels of my screen width used.
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Not much of a gamer huh?
I've been playing computer games for 29 years.
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Thanks for all the replies and input. As I said, my monitors (two 22") are both calibrated using hardware calibration devices. I ain't going to mess around with their physical controls to make this game brighter.
Having said that: Maybe it's just that I was too keen to play a German campaign, and too disppointed that the first three missions take place basically at night. What WERE the advantages of attcking at night during WW2? If they can hear you coming then they know to stand to.
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Is anyone else finding this frustrating? I'm onto the third battle of the Panzer Marsch campaign, and wishing really hopefully that dawn will come soon. It's a pity we don't get parachute flares or illumination rounds.
In my spare time I'm a freelance digital illustrator, and my monitor is calibrated regularly using a hardware calibration device (spyder2) - so I'm not prepared to mess about with the brightess controls.
The only way I've found of getting a halfway decent idea of the layout of the roads, trails, hedgerows and gaps is by assigning a massive 360 covered arc to a couple of units.
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Alternating short legs of Move and Quick is what I do to get units from quiet areas of the field towards the action... It's just a way of cutting down on the fatigue. I'm not going to order a mortar team or HMG team to jog or run when it isn't urgent.
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Excelent...thanks. tried to set up a QB the other day but the only gun listed as available under tank Destroyer battalions towed was the 57mm for some reason.
Regards
walt
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Are the same routines used by the AI for purchases as when the AI is allowed to suggest purchases for a human in a QB?
Interesting question John... you don't mind if I call you by your first name do you? I feel as though I know you!
I'd love an answer to this... is everyone one else too busy playing human opponents? or enjoying the fact that you can assume the AI will spend the majority of it's points on armoured vehicles and buying suitable countermeasures.
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Is anyone else finding results like these when playing QBs vs the AI in larger battles? The AI is a poor substitute for a human opponent - but can be valuable for testing tactics and techniques or just purchases then you're not familiar with.
I'd love to hear an asnwer to my question though: Are the same routines used by the AI for purchases as when the AI is allowed to suggest purchases for a human in a QB?
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- Keep KO and KIA squad members in the panel. Colour the weapons red or brown depending on status. Would give an instant view of how badly a squad has been mauled in the current scenario.
+1 for this. I love that we can mouse over the weapon icons and see the individual highlighted and wish that could be extended to KIA and WIA
- Keep KO and KIA squad members in the panel. Colour the weapons red or brown depending on status. Would give an instant view of how badly a squad has been mauled in the current scenario.
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Does clicking on 'Suggestions' in the unit purchasing part of quick battles use the same decision making processes as when the AI purchases units (for itself)? If not then I've perhaps wasted some time.
I was clicking away on that button to get a rough idea of what the AI was buying when a pattern started to form. I chose an Attack (Large) with a German attacker with Mix for force type, Rarity on Strict. I then started taking notes of what was being spend on what. I broke things down roughly into: Infantry, Armour, Artillery, Guns (other types of onboard guns like AT or Inf), and a Miscellaneous section which seemed mainly to to contain small independent MG teams (a great way to get rid of a small handful of points at the end).
I only ran the test 22 times, more would have been better, but I wanted to play
The AI likes its armour.I think a couple of things may have to be considered here:
* When playing a Quick Battle versus the AI, I'd imagine the majority of players wouldn't want to purchase the enemy units themselves. They simply don't wan't to know in advance what they'll be up against.
* Choosing a 'Combat Force' of Infantry, Mechanised Infantry or Armour for the AI means they don't know exactly what they'll be facing, but they'll have a reasonable idea, and have a good idea what they can disregard. They are not going to be shocked by the sudden appearance of a Panzer or two with Infantry as the 'Combat Force' for example.
* This leaves the Combat Force of 'Mix' which works pretty well for humans to purchase with, as it allows the kind of ad hoc formations that can be flung together for operations. We can choose a balanced force - perhaps mainly infantry stiffened by a handful of tanks, tank destroyers or assault guns or similar.
I think what we need is the additional of a couple more 'Combat Force' options - mainly to narrow down the AI's picking - something like 'Mixed (Infantry heavy)' and 'Mixed (Armour heavy)'. Having an all armour force with absolutely no infantry support whatsoever just seems bonkers. See the attached pie chart thingie.
[edit] Oops: Forum has decided to downsize my attachment. Here's a more readable version:
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I read somewhere very recently an account that bicycles carried over from England were mostly dumped by their owners in huge piles on the beaches.
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This is fairly easy to achieve if you have access to the full version of Adobe Acrobat (not just the reader). Just use the Ink Manager to locate the offending brown colour (Pantone 140 C) and have it aliased to Process Black. Then print the PDF to the Adobe PDF "printer" to get a nice version with white pages and black text.
I've done this for my own purposes (so I can stick it on my Sony Reader). The only other thing I did was bump the page size up (unintentionally) to 16cm x 22cm instead of 11.4cm x 17.78cm.
I could place this file in the repository, but not without permission from someone at Battlefront. An easier option would be for them to strip out the Pantone spot colour themselves and make available a black print on white version.
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Mine finally dropped through my letterbox today. I was awoken by the sound of the postman forcing the envelope through the letterbox.
I feel very lucky to have escaped getting any customs fees. Part of the reason some people may have had horrendous import fees applied is that the customs declaration states it contains merchandise to the value of $80. It might have been more helpful to customers to have valued the physical box part of their purchase as less than the combined total they paid for the download and box combined.
I think that the Steelbook looks great. The manual also exceeds my expectations. That being said - I am still a big fan of having printed material black on white. I've worked for a newspaper group for 18 years designing adverts for print. We often get asked to do some fairly ridiculous things by customers - having a washed out image or area of colour behind fairly small type is one of the things I'd try and talk them out of.
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I'm still awaiting my Steelbook edition of CMBN. I have (and and am most happy with) the download side of things. Apart from a nice box I am awaiting a readable manual. If you must release two PDF versions of the manual with the product then that might be a clue that one of them is useless. I'm a big fan of keeping things simple. I've worked in pre-press for around 18 years. I am grateful for a printed manual. At the moment it's pretty much the reason I might face some horrendous customs charges... it had better be readable.
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Still nothing here in Paisley (SW of Scotland). As I mentioned elsewhere: BF should have marked the value of the parcel as $10 or whatever the difference was for people buying the download + steelbook
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Still waiting (not so patiently) in Paisley. The Customs fees quoted above are a complete rip off. Customers who ordered both the download and box should have had the box valued at $10 by Battlefront - the added cost when ordering the box on top of the download.
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I seem to remember reading (in Hasting's 'Overlord' I think), that the stench in Normandy of dead cows (and horses, etc., as well as humans) was bad enough that recon aircraft were sometimes forced to fly higher.
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First of all - Hi from a long time lurker brough back by the new game
I'm sure many people will be familiar with the photo from Normandy of a sign reading 'Dust means death'. I haven't been able to look into this in the game so far, but do vehicles travelling on dirt roads in dry conditions kick up dust which would be visible to the enemy whether or not they have LOS to the area?
A seond related question regarding on board mortars. Supposing I have a unit capable of calling for this support, observing a wood. There are contact icons in the woods. No friendly units are known to be in this area. Why can't that observer request mortar fire into the middle of these woods where he doesn't have LOS. It seems odd that the observer is unable to call for fire in these situations. The enemy could be forming up for an attack and he is unable to call for fire unless he can seem them at the edges.
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exactly my point.... all the mirrors I checked showed a file at least 3 days old.Originally posted by vincere:gunnergoz, where's the mirror that you're using? I tried strategy infomer and the mirror kept resetting.
Some of the other sites are saying it's days old so I don't want to download the old 1.06.
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any chance of sharing what this means with the rest of us?Originally posted by Madmatt:I am the power that "be's" and your welcome.
Madmatt
The AI likes its armour.
Dissapointed by CMBN
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
These are valid points. The way they were put forward was dreadful. Battlefront have always had a good record in patching and continuing to develop games long after release (as well as listening and reacting to constructive crits). I suspect this is simply a case of not using the search function.