Sivodsi

Ha! The advantages of time zone! I'm going to be checking in throughout the day. Though if the release is on Friday proper, I'll likely have to sleep on it as well :mad:

Welcome back Nabla, It seems I'm the only one here familiar with the use of Rasch statistics, but unfortunately I'm no mathematician so I'm not going to be discussing pros and cons of Rasch vs other possible statistical solutions. Anyway, just to let you know that the Facets program that I use has been calibrated so that it runs with the kind of data that we get in CM games (pairwise/percentage), and that I trialed it with the previous RoW tournament, even though it was not an ideal set up (the players were only connected through their performances on the scenarios, not through being connected with each other), it gave very similar results to those obtained by the Nabla system. I think using Facets would be ideal for a single tournament of 70 plus players or more, split into three divisions. In terms of tournament design, if WineCape wants three divisions it is easy to do, but for connectivity (and fun) each player would have a couple or so cross division games with players from the other pools. So, you might have say, three pools of 30 players with seven scenarios, you would play five against players of your own pool, and one against a player from each of the other pools. In this way Rasch should be able to compare achievement across the groups. Not only would you get a winner of each tournament, you would be able to select one overall champion as well. However, as I've said before, I'd like to try it out on a smaller scale before doing it on RoW.

Its only revisionist in the sense that we have such claims as: "Air power was devastating to ground forces, in particular tanks and other AFVs" being revised by lack of support from the historical record. I don't think this is the sense of "revisionist" that you were trying to get, right? There is no doubt that air power caused some losses, just not the kind of losses that pilots, and in particular air power fan boys, claimed.

Entertaining! How many vehicles did the Germans actually have in Normandy?

Sorry guys, I raised the issue with the ghastly yellow arcs a year or two ago, and got the answer that it is hard coded in, and thus not possible to mod. Yeah, you gotta be careful with arcs, because if a threat pops up outside the arc, your unit may not shoot at it, even if they should.

Yes, they have. It was apparently the benefit of being shot first.

... and that would be the long version, right?

Absolutely keeping CMSF on the go while playing CMBN games. It's a very different game, and I'm still having fun playing all the toys that came with NATO.

- actually, as a prior PBEM Helper user I've found that CMSF's PBEMs can be as easy to do. 1. Put shortcuts to the "incoming" and "outgoing" e-mail folders on your desktop for ease of management. CMSF still doesn't allow you to delete files from within the game, and I don't expect CMBN will let you do this either 2. Use firefox and install the add-on "Save link in folder" - currently in version 1.5.4 (thanks to Sergei for this tip). 3. In "Save link in folder" set up CMBN's "Incoming e-mail" as one of your folders. 4. Get an account at "sendthisfile.com" or use Gmail for smaller files So, when you get a file a box pops up asking you what to do with it. "save link in folder" gives you a drop down box from which you select CMBN's folder, and it saves it directly there. Then just fire up CM and you will find your PBEM file in 'saved game' waiting for you to play it. The other good thing about CMX2 is that when you come to save your PBEM it automatically numbers it. Overall, I think you'll find the PBEM system is superior to CMX1, PBEM helper or not. Sure, you have bigger files, but so long as you have a reasonable internet connection its a breeze to use.

41 and would have had a similar background if I could have found anybody to play with when I was young. In backblocks NZ the kids were more into rugby and kicking livestock around than playing wargames.

One thing that I think we'll find is that scenarios in CMX2 will play out more slowly than in CMX1. Now that there is 1 to 1 representation, the scenarios could well turn out to be more finely detailed than in CMX1, making the equivalent scenario in CMX2 take longer. At least that's the experience from CMSF. However, other reasons why CMSF plays slower than CMX1 are the enhanced deadliness of the weaponry and the unwillingless to take casualties. So, a question to the beta testers who have played all versions: does CMBN play out more like CMSF or CMX1?

Wooo, that's sig line gold, right there.

Ah yes, that sort of cheat would be difficult to detect.

Fortunately I don't think its possible to cheat. I remember rumors that somebody had 'cracked' CMx1, but I AFAIK they were only rumors. I don't think there were ever any complaints of it happening in a tournament. Besides, in RoW since there are so many playing the same scenarios such fiddling would soon come to light. For example, In an AAR:"Aw man, in Highlander Hell, my panthers got wasted by my opponents 30 17 pounder AT guns. I don't think this game is winnable as the Axis." Everybody else: WHAT!!!??? Anyway, to my knowledge, BFT doesn't build in 'cheats' that you find in other games, and certainly none have been discovered in CMSF. You are not going to find that pressing Ctrl-Alt-* while holding down 'return' and doing a one handed headstand gives you a limitless supply of AT ammunition, for example. As for 'gamey' play, well, this is a tournament where the object is to beat your opponents any way you can - as opposed to a campaign where there might be authenticity issues. In a tournament, any way you can squeeze out the most from your resources is probably allowable. Anybody else got thoughts on 'gamey' play that they would consider 'cheating'?

And is it a stupid question to ask why the '88' in the title, when the tank in the picture above is plainly PIV? It can't be referring to the gun...

Perhaps, but I think its one thing being at the mercy of a scoring system (whatever is chosen) but quite another of not fulfilling the requirement of doing an AAR that you were aware of. People might ask questions about the fairness of a scoring system, but its entirely up to themselves if they do or don't do the AAR. Besides, if everybody does the AARs it does not effect the scores at all.

Ah! Yes, Alt-J in CMSF. Somehow the green stands out more in a movie than while playing the game.

Yes, Nabla is as good as it gets for classical statistics and the form that RoW has been run in. However, as long as those groups are independent, you will always encounter the problem of different skill levels within a group, since the Nabla system cannot make direct comparisons between players who are in different groups. In this system, only two people in a group can move on to the next round, no matter the skill level of those within that group. Of the six participants in group A you might have four who are highly skilled. In group B you might only have one who is good enough to beat the others in group B, but not as skilled as the top four in group A. However, this person will qualify top in group B, while two others Group A who deserved a place on the basis of their skill will not get into the second round. This problem is less likely using a Rasch based system (as well as having other useful features), however, it has not been tried before under ideal circumstances. Until such time, Nabla offers the best solution.

Saturday and Sunday. Quite frankly I see little point in converting to your religion. It would be more advantageous to move to a country which has lots of public holidays, and there is a rule that if one falls on a weekend, the country takes the day off on the following Monday. Not all countries have this civilized rule.

Okay, I know the above does not include the bright yellow covered arc, but is it possible to mod the awful fluorescent green objective overlay? Or is there a feature to turn this off? It really is an immersion killer.

I would say 'yes' Check out the VAAR 1, you can see hedge cutters attached to some Shermans.

Yeah, same here. There is no difference in difficulty between iron and elite, but elite is more convenient. If you are in iron and want to see things clearly, just click on some empty space so you can see all your units: this is the view that you would get with elite all the time. So elite is iron plus one click. Iron is needlessly masochistic. [edit to add: ah yes, Ranger33, totally with you too. Didn't see your response]

Hey, a question on behalf of a Mac inclined buddy of mine. He has a foot in both Mac and PC worlds, and is wondering about which version to get. Has the Mac version been ported over to PC, or was it made natively for Mac, or... what? I guess I'm asking about the relationship between the two, since he says that sometimes Mac games that were ported over from PC run better in PC than they do in Mac. In which case, he would prefer the PC version. So for the beta testers who work in Mac and PC, have you noticed any differences? Can you comment on this?

I have a question about the devastating opening barrage on the Ami's foxholed soldiers amongst the trees on the right flank. TyrSpawn mentioned that the defender always sets up first, leaving the attacker a some idea of the defensive setup. I'm guessing that this means that the foxholes are noticeable, and probably attracted the barrage. So, it looks like the way to beat this would be to put in a line of foxholes, but deploy most your men further back, out of range of the incoming that would be focused on the foxholes. You would only have a couple of teams in the foxholes to begin with, just to keep an eye on things. Of course, there's not much that can be done for the AT guns because it would take them too long to bring up and deploy after the barrage, but at least you would avoid losing the bulk of your forces. Does this sound like an effective counter to deadly AI barrages? Not entirely unrealistic too, I might add.

That would be nice. PM sent with addy.