Andrew Kulin
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Posts posted by Andrew Kulin
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21 hours ago, Centurian52 said:
They begin spotting at the end of the delay. And since spotting takes a variable amount of time, each battery will fire for effect at different times. The difference in when they open fire will be less though, since differences in call-in times are no longer a factor (provided that the call-in time was less than the delay). But when each battery opens fire could still be a turn or two apart. I would prefer if they fired spotting rounds ASAP, and then fired for effect at the end of the delay. That would make truly synchronized artillery fire possible. But that might give more warning to opponents in H2H battles that a barrage was incoming, so I suppose I can understand the reasoning for why it isn't done that way.
The fire will be synchronized if you call in the artillery during the setup phase. But there will still be some variation in when the first rounds actually land, which could be tens of seconds in some cases, since there is still some variation from one battery to the next in how long the rounds are in flight.
It would be nice however to be able to specify the delay on pre-planned artillery to whatever time interval you want (e.g., game opens up a text box, and you enter 33 minutes), instead of 0, 5, 10, 15 minute delay.
Also would be nice if you pre-plan on map artillery unit to go at a time, that other on-map units can begin their pre-planned missions at a different time. Currently they get fixed to whatever time you set your first on-map barrage delay to.
And on my next point -->, and I am not sure I am remembering this correctly, but it may also be that if you pre-plan an on-map unit barrage, then off-map units also have to fire with the same delay. But as I said, I am not certain I am remembering that correctly.
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I noticed same thing in Round 2. I don't think mine spotted anything.
Well it takes no effort to send them aloft. Maybe they see something this time...
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John: @BFCElvis
All my CM Family games that I have played in PBEM+tournaments still have really old games showing up on my list of "Games in Progress". When I or someone on the forums asked about this a long time ago it was stated these entries would hang around for a while but eventually disappear. Not happening. And when I try to delete them, they just come back.
I am attaching a screen shot from CMSF2 as an example (shows three beta tournament games plus two others recently completed, but one of those now >40 days since complete). Anything you can do with Slitherine/Matrix about this? I imagine this affects all players, no?
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Doing eight. I am participating in two tournaments so four of those are mirrored games (2x2)
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I never got a third round start up e-mail either unless it was mixed in amongst the hundreds of round 2 has ended e-mails that I received. Nor have I heard anything from my opponent yet either and it has been 7 days since this round has started. I just got back home last night from a three week trip abroad and will fire up the game later this morning and see if there is anything waiting for me directly through PBEM+ as I have found through playing with PBEM+ that notification e-mails are not always sent automatically.
Added:
And I just looked at the tournament scoring page and it looks like only a couple of matches have started, which seems kind of low to me, seven days in.
Added again:
There were two PBEM+ files waiting for me for Round 3, one needing my password only (Turn 0) and one sent from my opponent (Turn 1) which needed my password and puts me into set-up mode.
So I suggest checking through the game to see if you have turn files. I certainly did not receive a notification file that my opponent sent me turn 1, but the turn was there waiting.
And after a brief look-over of the briefing, I can see that a bunch of 0-0 scores early in the battles could be highly probable, so my previous add-on comment is likely not relevant.
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Just finished my Round 2 matches against Atlas Actual. Had a blast. Literally. Actually made a kill with a VBIED out in the open. Barely.
Great opponent. Pretty evenly matched if you look at our scores.
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I recommend taking screen shots of your final scores to have available in case anything goes screwy with scoring at tournament round ends.
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I use the slow movement command for vehicles if I want to try and force my way through something and I am not sure I can do it. Plus placing waypoints as described on either sides of the feature. That way, if the tank crew decides that it is better to travel 1 km out in the open to get to the other side of the hedge, by using slow command, it has hopefully not yet moved out into a dangerous position, and I can cancel the order and try something else.
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Note to all however in case game auto surrenders which I think is what happened with a Barkmann corner scenario in a recent tournament where my opponent's German side just surrendered in final minute or two, and which then caused scoring problems noted above when we were officially finished at end of round. So sometimes it might be out of both players' control.
My suggestion is take screen shots of final game scores to have in hand to show Elvis if scores go awry.
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And here I thought you were referring to a Windows problem.
Oh wait. It is a windows problem and not a doors problem!
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Now that Round 1 is done, I want to thank MHerm for a great set of games. Both were hard fought battles, and yes you did pronounce my last name correctly.
Looking forward now to Round 2. I must say that I really like this concept of Syrian vs. Syrian as it should result in balanced force capabilities and thus lead to outcomes that are more of a reflection of player strategy and skill, and lucky (or not so lucky) breaks here and there.
Which segways into something that happened to me in Round 1 that I kept amongst myself and the BFC team while things were being played out. I am wondering if anyone else playing had this happen to them as well. For my Red-Side (Rebel) game, I never received the two pick-up truck mounted AA-guns. Which was totally weird. Anyone else have that happen? Fortunately, whatever this quirk was, it happened on only two marginal units, and not for example, to my T-62 units. Anyways, just curious.
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We are about a quarter of the way through Round 2 and I see from the scoring there are four (of fifteen) games with overall 0-0 scores. I have not heard a thing from my opponent (baldrick52) and have no way to contact him (I tried via Matrix and Slitherine forum messaging but both messages are stalled in the messaging outbox and never get shown as sent!).
Is there any way to poke Slitherine to send out e-mails to the players in at least the matches where scores for both games are 0-0 (which would suggest that nothing has yet started in those matches) to see where things stand with the players? And asking if they plan to play or if they have dropped out?
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On 3/28/2024 at 12:34 PM, Centurian52 said:
To give an example of how much worse it would be without the 'target' command, in one of my battles in which I'm defending hedgerow country I sprung a couple of nasty ambushes against my opponent. I had my pixeltruppen hiding with short target arcs until his scouts were nearly at my end of the field, and then opened fire. Afterwards I repositioned my teams (which I think must have looked like I was abandoning the hedgerow to him), had them resume hiding with short target arcs, and I was able to repeat the ambush on the next group of soldiers to cross. If there was no area target command I would be able to repeat this tactic again and again with complete impunity. There would be absolutely nothing my opponent could do about it. You can't possibly tell me that that would be more realistic than my opponent firing into my hedgerows with everything he's got, spots or no spots (which he has very wisely, and very realistically, started to do)?
Umm. Whom are you referring to?
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And regarding Round 2, which supposedly started today, I note that I have received no e-mails saying it is my turn. I thought each of us got one turn to start.
EDIT
Never Mind, I fired up the game and I see my first turn. I guess the e-mail did not get through.
Though some weird scenario conditions. And really hot for midnight.
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Talk to BFCElvis. If you have screenshots of your scores they can probably fix that.
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I have had the odd problem but nothing so bad I would never use PBEM+. And problems I have had are mostly (90%) tournament related.
Load speeds are going to be function of internet service. I play at home (1 TB type fibre optic service) on a new and fast computer. At cottage we have satellite internet (50 MBs type service) and the computer is 10 years old (very fast for its day). Up north at the cottage, opening up list of PBEM+ turn files could take around 30 seconds to appear, while games with 25MB file sizes up north would take a couple of minutes to load up. At home with the faster service, the turn list is pretty much instant, and loading same size game files takes seconds.
I believe with PBEM+ all save files are uploaded from the UK servers when you want to play the turn, so slower internet is going to take some time, whereas with DropBox, I also believe it uploads all files to your hard-drive in the background, so they are sitting on your hard-drive ready to go more or less instantly.
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And of course, I just sent a note to Slitherine asking because the info I had said 10 AM GMT.
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Looking forward to going up against these worthy opponents.
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I had same thing happen when my first of my first round matches ended with Meltpile. I then got an initial turn from him for the Grosshau scenario. I informed BFC Elvis and he told me not to start that game (I wasn't going to anyway) and he said someone else had the same problem (and with Meltpile too for some reason).
And I also had a scoring issue with the first game that ended (possible BFC Bug) which I informed Elvis about too. The (in my opinion) incorrect final score was showing on the Matrix site until the Grosshau Turn 1 showed up. And then it went to 0-0. And has remained such, and as well the Grosshau Turn 1 remains in my PBEM+ Games in Progress folder. This has been pushing maybe 2 weeks. Something you should check out just in case your Matrix scoring has been affected as well.
In responding to your post, I am now asking if this weird situation with me receiving a Turn 1 game file for the next scenario is why my Game 1 score for my round one match reset itself to 0-0 since the Matrix/Slitherine system thinks we have not started our first game yet?? Is Elvis in the house? @BFCElvis
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5 hours ago, A Canadian Cat - was IanL said:
No. All that does is place your email in a place that your opponent can see when you start up a game.
Where is this magical place? I cannot say I have ever seen it.
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I find them to be hit and miss. I just check for turns regularly.
Wondering aloud now if when you first log on to PBEM+, if you specify that button about sharing your email with your opponent, if that is what causes Slitherine to send you email notifications or not (depending how you choose). I never really knew what that thing actually did. Your question just made me think about this as a possibility.
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Auto-surrender?
Pretty sure that happened with my opponent as German side when we did Barkmann's Corner in last tournament. He was getting destroyed and it was near end and he said he did not surrender.
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On the bright side, it's always "this year".
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Is there an ETA for an update as to when we can expect a reporting on the current standing and expected future potentially possible release date of BAOR?
Combat Mission Grand Tournament
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
7 minutes in. And we have now just spotted a single destroyed vehicle! Whoot!