Tankist

Maybe you should read, and try to understand my post, instead of doing a fanboi impersonation. Tankist

Why did you post the above comments to this forum? There were certainly other options open to you, GD for instance, or the CMx1 forums. I don't play any of those titles, but I don't post messages in their dedicated forums bitching because I dislike turn-based computer games. Seriously, what's the deal? PoE </font>

A long time has passed since I last gave signals. Sometimes it is hard to be right. Steve always said, that he has no interest in the old customer base, the hateful grognards. Honestly, he never liked us, and he thinks that we are a nuisance like fleas or rats. I asked a marketing managing director, and he told me, that Steves approach is "questionable". Never, ever, attack your customers, he told me. So, we had Combat Mission, a winning concept, a shining jewel in the niche market of wargaming. Obviously it sold well enough, that guys like Steve went nuts...attacking long time customers, while aiming for RTS juvenile freaks. If you get money for doing a WW2 game, you should foster it. If WEGO is the newest hype, you schould NOT go RTS. Quote from Steve Grammont, ca. 1996:"CM will NEVER go RTS!" He is not, obviously, true. I tried the demo...horrible. Charles gave us "Over the Reich", "Achtung Spitfire", and "Flight Commander 2" (besides CM). All turn based, and all got a 9 or 10 out of 10. Why, o why, pleasing the mass market? The first thing is to get rid of your pr manager Steve "I hate all grogs" Grammont. This spells the difference between success or failure. Let him try EA or Hasbro... Tankist [ November 07, 2007, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Tankist ]

I have no doubt; you always delivered! Tankist

Between all these "realism" debates, one feature of CM always was "sheer fun". And, to be honest, that makes or wrecks a game. I have no idea how CMx2 will "feel", but if Steve tells me it will be better than CM, he is probably right; after all it's Battlefront! As long, as they do not make me a spectator, instead of a player, CMx2 will be ordered blind. Tankist

Well, I played about 10% of my CM games vs. humans and 90% vs. the AI (I have HIGHLY unsocial times for playing, for sure) And the AI, in CMAK at least, is quite good (that means I am an average player). But a few things can be done , w/o winning a nobel prize: - Keeping units in command, even when attacking - Do not leave trenches and foxholes near a big flag, just because a 100 point flag was captured - If 5 tanks were killed by an AT gun, do not drive #6 and #7 into the same kill lane - Try to flank objectives, not going straight ahead all the time Scenario scripting will help alot to make the AI look "good". And yes, Warcraft AI was bad, but who cares for Warcraft and other RTS click feasts? Tankist

As I said; ahistorical behavior. Sure, there WERE coward tank commanders, but not all. A major nuisance. Tankist

I was bashing these same Grog types back when we were just Big Time Software too, so c'mon... at least give me points for being consistant CMBO was made over the LOUD objections of some of the same people that are now trying to cling onto every nut and bolt that is in CMx1. They were not helpful then, they are not helpful now. So... if they should recognized their limitations and kindly leave the rest of us alone. Come back and nitpick the game AFTER it is done, when imagination and forward is not required. Also remember that the Grogs I've locked horns with for the past 7 years are a small fringe of a minority within a minority. If they went away completely, nothing would be different. Well, except that we'd not have to get so distracted by people telling us what we can and can not do Steve </font>

Well, in thase case it was a fight he COULD win (and btw, not even every german tanker has all the mm armor vs. penetration strengths in mind, to decide on a math basic computation to RUN like a rabbit...) Tankist

I do not understand the Grog bashing here. Steve told us, that alot of people are imperfect, and loud and know everything better. Is CM the best wargame ever? You bet! But let us go back in history. It was a VERY small group of "fans" and "grogs", who spread the word, long before all the awards come in...(a few hundred if not less). BIGTIME Software, at this stage, was a totally unknown company of 2 men. Charles was well known for Flight Commander and Over The Reich, but after quitting with AH, the whole company was on its own. They were developing the "Squad Leader" computer version, but no hard data was available. In this time window, some of the best discussions took place. Then CMBO was published and it hits the market like an atomic bomb. They (at this time) stayed an 'internet only' company, so it was spread of word again, that helped paying the bills. Then, only then, came the fame. So bashing grogs for being grogs, is a strange behavior that seems to ignore the very roots of the custoner base (who still and reliable will) pay the bills... Tankist

I've noticed a strange behavior in a scenario I played recently. I (axis player) had around a company of Pz III J (50 L60). I gave the orders to engage some Stuarts and Cruiser Tanks at 400-700 meters. Then, a Grant came into view, and all PZ III in sight (regulars and vets alike) run for cover like crazy! Not that the Grant targeted them or that they had no chance to kill him (he presented his flank to my front). Even 2 Marders (who have the guns to kill a Grant frontally) reversed in the funniest angles, getting killed by some Stuarts, which were not longer engaged by the PZ III (which run like hell). This is one aspect, that seems highly unrealistic to me. If a single Grant can make the whole Wehrmacht retreat, and if every tank runs like a rabbit when he sees a possible threat somewhere, then Germany would not have won a single battle (think of the battle for France and the Matildas and Char B1 bis), and Shermans would have never ever closed with Panthers and Tigers (what they did...numbers killed the beasts). I have a lot of literature about ww2, but this behavior, for a regular army unit, seems highly unusual; else, all the allies had to do, would be to show a Grant to the Germans, and gone they are... This "cowardness" routine should be redone in my opinion. Tankist

Here is the direct link to download the "Against All Odds" Mini-Campaign: ftp://ftp.militarygameronline.com/pub/TCMHQ/scenarios/axcmp_us.zip

"Against All Odds" mini-campaign (Toms HQ site). CMBO, company sized, 6-battle pack. Tankist

Hello, I noticed that the "seam" line between some tiles, especially water tiles, is clearly visible (bright sand colored), so that the sea looks like a chessboard with all these dashed lines. Anyone knows if there is some switch in the nvidia drivers, to stop this "seam" effect??? tia Tankist

I hope scenario designers do this, but to be honest, I think a change in CMAKs code (very easy, just one check) is a better way to solve this problem. Whenever something is embarked on trucks, and the AI plays this side...disembark. Where is the problem? There is no disadvantage while pbemimng with this slight change. Tankist

If you set reinforcements with trucks AND infantry, they will be automatically embarked. This has absolutely nothing to do with pbem.. That is the reason why I ask for a change when one plays the AI.

In CMAK (and iirc CMBO and CMBB too), the AI does not move trucks/unarmed vehicles. I can live with that (even if I don't see the reason). Worse is, that the AI does not debark units that are aboard those vehicles, so that in some scenarios, you notice after the battle, that there are whole enemy platoons still embarked on trucks at their starting positions. The same applies to reinforcements in trucks. When I want to play vs. the AI, I now load the scenario into the editor and manually delete all trucks on the AIs side, in order to let the AI use the units embarked on them...with the disadvantage that I then know all enemy forces. Would it be very difficult, to implement a single rule into CMAKs code: IF one side is played by the AI and IF this side has trucks(unarmed vehicles) THEN disembark all units that are embarked on those trucks. Et voila! Now the AI at least can use the former embarked units. Thoughts? Tankist

Hi, I just got my CMAK (v 1.01). I played 6 scenarios, all with "variable endings". But not in one(!), was the game longer, than the scheduled length. Is there something wrong with variable endings, as all games so far ended on the exact "end" turn? Tankist

The term was "reaktiviert" (reactivated) too. This officer would then be a "reaktivierter Kriegsversehrter" (reactivated disabled soldier). Tankist

I tracked it! Because I had no more ideas about the cause for this behavior, I started ASUS Probe, a hardware monitoring tool. I then started CMBB and after around 20 seconds, my cpu temperature rises to critical levels. Some cpu overheating protection from the mainboard then kicks in and cuts down processor power (this is when the fps drop). The temperature falls and fps revert to normal. Then the cycle starts again. The weird thing is, that my cpu fan (and all other fans) is running nominal (around 4000-4500 rpm), like all the years before. Very strange. Tankist

Yes, it happens with sound on or totally off. Tankist

Hello, maybe someone can help me with a problem. System: Pentium III 800, WIN98 SE, Geforce 2 GTS, 128 MB RAM, Nvidia Driver 53.04, SB Live 1024, DirectX 9.0b When playing CMBB or CMBO, every 20-30 seconds, the framerate drops dramatically (for example from 43 fps to 10 fps). It then stays low for around 1 or 2 seconds before going back to normal. There is no hard disk activity when this happens. It happens in the planning phase and in the execution phase. It is independent from game activity; i.e. even when I do nothing (no scrolling, no mouse movement, etc), just watching the screen, fps drops periodically. It is independent of driver settings for FSAA etc. I have the programs for years and this NEVER happened before. I uninstalled and reinstalled all drivers, cleaned the registry with a reg clean tool, checked for viruses, spyware, trojans, etc., but all to no avail. There are no background programs running (like firewalls or anti-virus software). The only thing I changed recently with my system was an upgrade from DirextX 8.0a to 9.0b SDK. I noticed that in DxDiag, there are more new tabs/options etc. than in 8.0a, but I found no way to get rid of 9.0b to check, if this is the reason for the erratic behaviour. So, some task/driver/whatever is periodically doing some cpu intensive activity when playing CM; any idea what the reason is or how I can track it down? tia Tankist

*bump*

Illo, have you sent your scenario file to Madmatt? Running an elite unit on the horizon, to get close to an anti-tank asset with less experienced units, seems very gamey and is a severe bug with EFOW rules. It does not matter, that both sides are affected by this bug. Tankist

There is no problem with routing or broken tanks or squads. Even in 'classic' wargames, routed units are controlled by the 'system', and this is fine. But one have to be subtle here; the more you take away control form the player (the single most important person), the more you make him an observer, instead of a 'guiding spirit'. After all, people want to play the game, not observe the computer playing itself. Sometimes more realism does not mean more fun... Tankist