GreenAsJade

(Russian troop briefing pamphlets)

It's OK for you gibbo, you have the game to play. What else are _we_ supposed to do.... GaJ

THIS is precisely why a gamma release is a wonderful idea. The folk who can't abide by anything less than perfection can wait for the official release. The folk who are just hanging out to get on and play the darn thing can sign whatever it takes and ... get on with it. How about it? GaJ

I couldn't make head or tails of this post ^^^ *shrug* What exactly was the point? Anyhow... I think this one is easy. The implications are we will use file-sharing such as sendthisfile.com, and live happily ever after. While a 50M email is a bid deal, a 50M file upload is not, and it will only continue to get less significant as internet speeds improve... GaJ

Maybe it would help if we stopped calling it PBEM. Who is going to be emailing 50M files around? Not many. So it WILL BE "TCP" We will deliver information about the turn to each other over TCP, probably using SendThisFile Admittedly, the game will have to start up each turn ... I wonder whether BTS could consider an easy way to "load the next file for this game"? GaJ PS: What a stupid stupid question. Every now and then there's a question so inane that it just has to be called: this is one. Where on earth did you get the idea that "BTS think that the WEGO crowd is small"?

Tee hee hee And what's worse, it was you who _made it into_ a "when will it be out" thread. Before that we were just poking fun at ourselves for the pointless arguments we love to have while we wait...

Weeks? I think it's gunna be 3 months more, right? I wonder what stops there being, at the point of "obviously getting pretty close to ready", a "gamma test phase", where you can get betas of the game as long as you sign something that promises ... well ... almost anything. I hereby promise not to complain if I play this game, until it is released. I promise to buy it. Heck, I'll pay already... GaJ

+1 :) -------------

Who really cares what the gunners were told, or knew, anyhow? It's not especially relevant to the question of "what information would be best made available to the player to make this the best game?" (Whatever "best" means to each person!) The "player" in the game is not taking the role of the gunner, he is taking the role of "strategist" or "tactician", a role which in real life doesn't even reside in one person. GaJ

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One thing that may be making CMx1 players fear this will be worse than it may actually be is the sheer wealth of units in CMx1. Right now I have a game on one hand where I have Grants and Valentines vs PIIs and in another I have Stus vs T34s. It takes a very special person to be able to hold the experience of all these types in their head, and hundreds of games to accumulate that experience. OTOH, CMBN appears really quite limited in the range of units we'll have to figure, so maybe it's all manageable... But Erwin: screw the newbies It matters to me. I'd be lost, in CMx1, without those tables, even after all these years! GaJ

By the way, this is a ridiculous characterisation of the penetration data and it's usage in CMx1. The whole beauty of it was that it was presented exactly where needed in a useful way, so that it is a mere glance when needed to find out the relevant information immediately, not intense study. Someone is suggesting "go google it if you need to know". This is the exact opposite of "readily available where you need it". GaJ

Have you guys tried WWII stuff? The sheer amount of variation makes learning it all a very daunting task. In other words, to get good will require a vast amount of experience. This might not be "wrong" but it certainly is difficult. In CMx1, the players don't need an encylopedic knowlegde of the weaponary in order to construct good tactics, somewhat leveling the playing field for grogs vs non-grogs. It seems that in CMBN those with the knowledge will have the advantage, though (as I said) it remains to be seen how effective or not the tables that we've seen pictures of will be. GaJ

No, he was saying that in the game the soldiers get orders based on their behaviour that does not match real behaviour (one example he gave was that their deaths are realistic based on bullet trajectory, but their ducking behaviour is not). GaJ

Yes. You are a grog - you know these things. This is exactly my point - without this sort of information available, the player's detailed knowledge of all the armoury (ie groginess) becomes a much more telling factor in who will win. As as been said, this is far more significant in WWII where there is a wide range of performance and capability. Reading this thread, I have gathered that some kind of information _is_ available, in a basic pictorial form, but less than was with CMx1. So only time will tell how much of a factor this is. We can be sure it will be more significant in CMBN than CMSF. IMHO. GaJ

Your self-disclosed ignorance is showing here. The way that penetration data was presented in CMx1 was wonderfully usable by the totally ungroggy. Having the data available in the way that it is results in it being routinely used and feeding into strategy and tactics. The questions would typically be as simple as "has this tank of mine got a chance of penetrating the front of that bastard over there at this range?". If the answer is "unlikely", then you know you either need to arrange a side shot, or bring in something else. How will non-grog players handle this dilemma in CMBN? The only answer I can see is "somehow, they will have to _learn_ what can hurt what in which situation". So this knowledge will become an important aspect of who wins. I've been playing CMx1 for years and years, and I haven't had to learn this knowledge, but I can do reasonably OK playing the game. What's more, I can tell you that with the huge number of variables, it's a darn hard thing to learn. So it seems we face a situation where those who are groggy enough to learn this stuff will beat those who aren't. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your outlook... GaJ

That's CM! GaJ

Yeah - I can totally see this... definitely one of the good aspects of individual solider modelling. GaJ

I was going to say the same thing. In CMx1 there is a real art to making a "balanced" scenario: one where each side has a reasonable chance to win if they play well. I had been thinking that the flexible victory conditions might ease this task ... but maybe they add more variables and make it even harder! Time will tell I guess. While I appreciate the sentiment, and recognise that folk can get _overly_ hung up on scores, the scores are there for a reason. If there was no point to them we wouldn't bother having them at all. So... wrong is wrong, and avoiding wrong is a tough task for a scenario designer! There is no point in saying "well, if they are completely wrong, who cares". Competitive players care... GaJ

Heh heh, only 2 for Sydney! Adelaide is the home of CM in Australia, everyone knows that Bring it over here gibbo, we'll have a big CM party... GaJ

Nooo! I missed it! Can you post a link to the post? (There's a flood to wade through!)

Mmm - Great DAR!

Amen to that!

I swear that tube looks like its going fwoosh GaJ

I thought earth pimples were foxholes ... ... what _do_ mines look like in CMBN?