Laox

No, it was shown at E3 quite a while ago. If anything the graphics have got better. Want to see some more? including night shots, and closer zooms .. some really spectacular stuff, although of course it is not trying to be realistic or anything to do with WWII, but IMO realtime shadows and realtime lighting and more detail, as options for faster pcs, is certainly a "about time" addition to the CM series. check these out.. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,5624959~root=pcgames~mode=flat

oh you old grizzled bunch of ludites, with your 'works just fine' acoustic coupled modems ... forget the tank and explosion graphics, I'm talking about the proper shadowing and lighting and detailed models for buildings, ground and so on. Yes it looks like table top model, because thats one step UP from looking like slab sided no-lighting circa 1998 polygons, as CMBB does. Anyway, I imagine in motion it stops looking like a static model. Trees waving and moving shadows, lighting, etc, tend to do bring models to life. Of course I'd like money to be spent on AI, but player vs player that becomes less of a priority, and fighting in around villages that look like the above picture are so much more immersive than what we have now. And immersion is the mother of tension and you can't have too much tension, grogs are just afraid to say so out loud, yet secretly i bet they greet any graphic new toys with glee.

I agree! I noticed this but had not done any tests.. it would seem that there is once the game decides a tank knows from where a shot came, the *exact* location is tagged (and then hit) even though there may be no good LOS to it. Whereas in reality you would notice "incoming fire from that clump of trees" .. I bet someone will have an argument as to why it the behavior is correct though

Ok perhaps this picture, of the new C&C game, will give the doubters an idea of what CMBB could be like with a bigger budget graphics engine. One can only dream. Why are the megabucks being spent on development for kids, who have no money unless we give it them? I say, boycott your kids pocket money and put it in a fund for paying battlefront to license the C&C graphics engine, or something like it. Thats the only solution. [ January 11, 2003, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: Laox ]

I ran some tests on a special map for the purpose. "dry day" the short summary is that the heaviest german tank does not bog at all travelling on steppe or "open ground" on a "dry" (but not very-dry) day .. only flat, no undulations, were tested. My test ran 15 of these tanks the full width of the largest map and back again, and there, and back again, in 20 turns. No bogging. So on a *per-tank* basis, thats no bogging (or imobilization) for at least 15x20 = 250 game turns ... steppe was equivalent to open ground, and wheat field and scrub the same also but just a little speed reduction. Other strips of land faired much worse. For a heavy tank, "rocky" was a disaster.. hardly any progress at all by any of the tanks or straight immobilizations, not that it made much difference in terms of distance travelled! "rough" was a non starter of course. Scattered trees was another heavy tank disaster, extremely slow progress (perhaps 50-100m after 20 turns) and several immobilizations out of 10 tanks within 20 turns. This surprised me a bit. After all, scattered, is not a forest. Shallow fords were another disaster, many boggings and subsequent immobilizations. I'd say on average a heavy tank can cross about 10 shallow fords before immobilizing. I didnt test deep/narrow fords, I guess all the rest are even worse. "wet day" what a disaster.. I just ran the steppe/open ground tests and out of 20 tanks, 10 were immobile within half the map covered and turn 10, and by turn 15, only 4 were still moving, none had reached the end due to bogging delays. I don't expect the entire map can be crossed by anymore than 1 or 2 tanks out of 20 n a "wet day".. Thus the lifespan to immobilization drops dramatically from 250+ turns for a single tank for "dry", to less than 6 turns on average for a single tank for "wet" on the best ground.. So watch out for "Mud" or (good grief) "Deep Mud!" days, on even the best ground.. and be suspicious of "Damp". Only be confident when weather says "Dry" and "Very Dry" on open/steppe/wheat/bushes... Oh and the faster you 'get outta there' the less chance of bogging it seems to be a function of how long you are in the badlands rather than speed of travel etc.

Do we know the game bogging percentages for DRY FLAT GROUND because everything I've read seems to indicate they are rather high. In fact, extremely so.. in other words, if you took 20 tanks and ordered them all across a DRY FLAT steppe, how many make it to the other end? It would seem that if on average you lose 1 or 2, and that move takes 10 turns (10 minutes) then the lifespan of a tank on the russian front on anything other than a road, was about 100 minutes of motion, without enemy fire. Which seems just plain wrong. I quite see the point about ordering ones tanks to avoid anything that looks boggy, as a good commander should, unless its a calculated risk. But within the game we cant walk on the ground to check it, the *best* ground is labelled dry/flat etc, and if 5 or 10% of tanks bogging in this within 10 minutes, then it doesnt seem realistic. For the best offroad area the game should model a very low bogging chance, maybe less than 1% of tanks per 10 minutes, otherwise it is going to ruin the day with "luck".. so what are the stats for a heavy tank on dry/flat ground? anyone know?

I can only give covered arc commands to half my MG guys and anti-tank teams.. the other half do not show the menu option. I'm trying not to waste anyones time but I cant figure out the common denominator for the ones missing the command?

.. right in the first second of the playback of a turn, if they are going to change at all? it seems a kind of a spoiler. It seems to be that the computer resolves the moves and knows the victory flag status at the end, then plays it back, but the flags change in the first second? or am I imagining it?

and - ah - speaking of ergonomics.. I HATE the way group select works to cancel out other orders. Sometimes I am not aware I've got a bunch selected, then I concentrate on one unit and issue a command, and find all my previous work has been lost as all units selected get one new command, sometimes losing long path orders from the previous round(s) as well.. given the general hopelessness of group movement commands anyway, I'd rather that just be removed entirely and orders given can only be canceled by backspace, or halt etc.. individually, or, group-commands can only apply to units that have not currently got a command. Throwing away so much movement data without a confirm is something that should never happen! sorry this is off this topic, but it relates to my last post above.

Oh one thought... ergonomics on REVERSE vs ROTATE are not the best The lines are the same color, almost, and the hotkey that comes to mind for both is "R". It is more common to "rotate" than "reverse" .. yet that is "O" (see what I mean about Ergonomics?), and "reverse" is "R". So if you screw up R vs O, and do move-to, then "r" for rotate, you'll see a nice purple line, and everything looks good, but what you've really done is given a reverse order, which would cause a spin on the spot, before it was cancelled out next turn.. just a thought.

No the StuG was well positioned, not flanked, look at the picture, it was on the smoke, facing up hill to the intersection, right at the t-34 as it rounded the rubble. the smoke it popped appeared right over the tank, even though the aiming line was 100m away. Actually that seems to happen a lot with freaked out tanks, they pop smoke and there is an aiming line maybe 50-100m out, but the smoke appears right over them instead.. regardless of smoke, it was a good spot, reversing would have been better if it was freaked out, but instead it went forward and curved to the right to end where you see it, side-on and shot through.

I don't understand what I just saw .. The StuGIIIB in this pic, now dead meat, was sitting with a nice comfy hulldown position right above (or 10m forward if you prefer) the surviving and unmoved tank. It was facing the intersection front on. No orders are pending. Sequence of events during the turn.. * Noise of tank heard by me * Unknown tank appears around the far rubble * Red or yellow line (can't remember) appears from StuG to unknown tank now id'd as KV (it will be a T-34) * "Fire Smoke" grey line appears from the StuG extending forward.. * Smoke fires and appears.. * StuG accelerates FORWARD, THROUGH the smoke, and curves to the RIGHT during which, and ending up, its entire side facing the lethal enemy. * Enemy fires once, predictable results Why did it do that? It had hull down wrt to the far side of that crossing, it could have stayed and fought. It could have shot smoke and reversed. It could have shot smoke and stayed. Instead it decided to do the dumb thing As you can see its Veteran, plenty of ammo, and now shocked soon to be entirely dead.

This happened to me today! here is my example. I am Axis, that parboiled tank front and center was ordered to fast-move right next to its buddy.. This pic was snapped about 5 or 6 turns later in the scenario, after I had already created that russian scrapyard up on the road .. Unfortunately, at the time of the parking request, I looked during the move, and to my horror the tank was doing some weird dance ahead of its designated spot, it was turning with stately grace anti-clockwise!! had the commader spotted a particularly rare flower perhaps? I know not.. Of course what happens? the first russian armor unit showed up coming in from the left, and took one look at the side of my tank and said I'll have that for breakfast, thank you. The damn thing even exploded, right as I was watching in disgust and thinking "noo! what are you DOING!" Had it done what I told it to do, there would have been two guns trained on the road, with proper front armor facing the right way, and that russian scrapheap would not have cost me any tanks at all ... As I say, there was nothing fancy here. The move for both tanks was Fast-move, Fast-move, Rotate to (face road). The last fast-move spots were next to each other, with ample space between them. Could it be possible that there is a bug where the rotate sometimes decides to take the 340 degree trip rather than the 20 degree trip?

yes I've been enjoying the beefy sounds mod for some time, thanks, a bargain at twice the price!

eh ok I know what you're trying to say but nobody is asking for a perfect list. I went through the lists, and damn it took AGES, and picked out a few .. just happened to remember people saying your stuff was good, so included that.. I felt like I was throwing darts at a 5 mile wide dart board. Few have detailed information on what is changed, many over-write parts of other mods, and there are dark warnings in some topics about texture re-use that can break other things. I ended up picking ones that had been downloaded a lot, and clicking into the zips, and previewing BMPs(!) to help. The slowness of the mods site doesnt help, you can wait half an hour no matter how fast your connection is, while fatter ones dribble download, just to find out they are not interesting. So speaking as the current resident idiot newbie, I'll say again, a 'rough and ready' list of 'must have mods' is a very good place to start and would help a lot of other newbies .. it doesnt MATTER if its different for different people -- don't you know newbies have no personality until we've hung around here for six months and know who is who and what is what? Until then, we it is all the same to us, we're happy with some basic upgrades that a few clever elders think is "reasonable". A little post with eight 'click here' zips would be wonderful.

Apart from juju I don't believe anyone above answered the question... it is my questions as well.. what is the minimum list of must-have mods? some fire/smoke/explosion ones, something for gridded grass that doesnt break anything else, perhaps some better trees? there must be a minimum list for newbies that wouldn't know the difference between one uniform and another, and are not interested (yet) in snow-camo for their tanks.

ok thanks. Well I better treat them with more respect then. But its not like they all are tough, it just appears like the tail of this bell curve stretches very far to the right, and an outlier way down there can ruin your entire day. As if robocop has suddenly materialized into the 1940s and is holding a position.

I love all this assumption that Saddam has Nukes hidden, and chemical weapons ready and waiting. If the west KNOWS that, then presumably it has told the inspectors where to look. They have not found squat, and the "evidence" that Iraq had something, was never presented to the world either. Meanwhile Nth Korea is quite open about what it has, and what it intends to do, and Bush says he thinks he can solve that situation with diplomacy. Yeah right. So the end result is it looks just like bullying a resource rich country that is in no state to challenge the US in any way, or even local neighbors .. for revenge, and/or access to oil and a regional presence (more bases). I think you'll find this opinion, as badly as it goes down with the republican "chickenhawks", is the majority world opinion now, at least amongst those with half a brain. Of course if the war schedule is fixed, and goes ahead without cause, expect to find the CIA go in after the tanks, to ensure suitable post action justification can be found.. the winner always writes the history, after all.

The root cause of this kerfuffle is the scenario website is not functional enough (actually, either of them). It should offer scenario packs, and a better layout. Frankly, and no disrespect intended to the webmaster (either of them) because he is not getting paid to do it, the site could be much MUCH better, and then there would be no competition from people solving the problems it has.

damn you mean CMBB doesnt have the chess clock option already?! I thought that would be a natural to have included .. There are times when you really need to think, and times when you can rush..

Maybe I'm just unlucky but in various scenarios vs the computer, I keep seeing the "amazing unkillable soviet squad", in cover that is nothing spectacular (for example, "scattered trees"), standing up to four, six, eight inbound firing lines AND a tank, or two even, firing high explosives, and they simply DO NOT DIE for two, three or four minutes .. and while alive, they fire back, they panic or kill my guys.. Is this realistic? Post match, the dead squad shows unbelievable kill totals .. 30, 40 infantry? eh? No its not a machine gun.. And .. why are tank HE rounds so pathetic against squads 20m away in foxholes or buildings? often a tank can fire 10 HE rounds at a foxhole (or at the top floor of a building) while stationary, while within spitting distance, before the little guys start twisting then leap out and hopit.. even then, they hopit, and survive more HE rounds, often disappearing into cover.. is this realistic? I thought an HE round *makes* a foxhole or crater.. why would it have so much trouble retiring the occupants? especially in view of the power of a little MG team against infantry, whether they are in foxhole, trench, cover, or not.. yikes squads break/die/panic/melt away like ice creams on the sidewalk in july.. ok I'm done. Anyway I just played that Zoo scenario for the first time, and got a tactical victory and all flags, would have got a major victory but for the aforementioned soviet hard men standing up for themselves for far too long ..

Nah face it the CMBB graphics are not all that. Take a look at the graphics in Age of Mythology which offers a max of about 200 units on screen, all fully modelled, detailed structures, animated water, proper smoke, flames etc, and different zoom levels.. it does not detract from the gameplay, but the graphics in CMBB are pretty basic, slab sided structures, only two levels of damage, basic flame textures, no dynamic lighting at all, and clunky character models with "insta-change" animations (eg, when a soldier goes from pinned to routed/panic and about to die, the model jumps from lying down to the 'march' animation, as though he is on parade .. rifle over the shoulder .. then if he dies, the model goes instantly from march to 'dead body', whereas AOM and other eye candy oriented war games offer complex and satisfying movement/mode/death animations).. I could go on for ages but it would sound like a CMBB flame and its not, just pointing out that the graphics, ah, 'do the job' and no more, and that is why reviewers are quick to warn people who care about graphics more than gameplay, right up front, what they are getting (or not getting).

Before I try humans, can anyone recommend which scenario has the AI bringing, when you're defending, a reasonable attack? I tried Hill 312 as Ivan after beating it as the germans, and it was a joke .. only lost one guy, and only had to press Go 25 times and watch the movie.. ants in my kitchen give me more surprises.. Then I tried Defense of Verkhne-Golubaya because it seemed like a last-stand kind of scenario, and it was also a joke, 550 russian casualties (3 times my total troops) and a major victory, the stuff on my side of the river hardly saw action ..

you cannot infect your computer from BMP and WAV files. You didnt specify what "problems" you had with your HD. CMBB uses approx six billion files, installation or moving or re-writing these files can uncover disk problems you never knew you already had.

yeah there was a minefield.. beats me how this can be won (without using the edge of the map and circling around the back). If you can't get your men into the open without them being mown down, and the mortars only have about 20 shots in them anyway .. I'm beginning to wonder whether "good" canned-scenario players are good mainly because they've lost all the scenarios a few times, so they now know all the positions... anyway.. now I have the mike for a turn Speaking as a new player to CMBB from the world of shrinkwrap RTS games .. a few key and trivial to add things I wish CMBB had or CMBB v2 could have are: * a real mini map replacing that useless "country mini map", one that can be clicked once to move the camera.. with a bounding box showing your view and a little arrow showing the camera direction. * an ability to leave little markers at points in-battle, like little stick-pins, and type something onto them.. such as "key ridgeline", or whatever you need as post-it notes to yourself. * ability to memorize and return to a few views * a little tiny vertical list of your units as simple icons down the LHS of the screen that showed via color and or other pixel decorations, damage, out of action, incoming fire, enemy in sight, and can be clicked to bring the camera to them. * support for the mouse wheel to travel viewpt forward and backward * a view toggle that temporarily 5x the terrain vertical scale so you can more easily pick hillocks ravines and hull downs etc. * english subtitles for the voices preferably also done with little speech bubbles .. Seems to me none of these are very hard to do, not compared to a graphics overhaul, and might expand the fanbase into more people tired of clickfest RTS gaming. Please don't shoot the messenger though, this may have come up many times before and be a typical newbie whine.