Kobal2

@MikeyD : exactly, but that's why CM is turn based and Rome RTS (but maybe Rome will feature extensive calculations about rope quality and torsion in ballistaes, or the long range penetration of elephant hide capability of a thrown pilum ) But like I said, I don't believe that what takes time between turns (or rather, turn movies) is the display preparations, it's all those invisible calculations - *what* happens, not *how* it's depicted, hence enhancing graphics wouldn't matter much in terms of pauses between actions.

Lars finally sent his turn, and so far I'm not doing that bad, considering my only casualties are due to mines and airplanes. In other words, he had nothing to do with it, AND I couldn't do a thing about it. Minelaying cockroach.

(or rather, why are they so fecking unfindable ? I don't mind having to detour my AFVs halfway across the map to dodge one well placed minefield, but losing my only tank (and only assault support of my assault) to a stealth AND lucky minefield bugs me mightily...)

Exactly. It's the combination of wire+mines+ennemy fire that is deadly, not mines/wire alone. Then, why are AT mines that deadly all by themselves ? They always immobilize/KO tanks, whatever the type, why not having them do partial/not KOing penetration, shaking/panicking the crew instead of killing the tank without any way to counter them ?

@Ant : agreed, but then again the scale is not the same. In Medieval your average battle features 900 soldiers, a castle and a couple of siege weapons, while in CM it's more like 250 soldiers, 20 tanks/guns tops. Thus, the gap between 2D/3D (mind you, CM's 3D models are rudimentary to say the least - infantry models are what, 10 polygons ?) would not be that big. And I'm just like you regarding Rome, I wonder what king of a machine will be needed to have more than 1 frame per week

Well, there's the daisy-chains mines for that purpose, isn't there ? (though I don't know if AP daisy-chain mines exist)

As I'm not well versed on the Eastern Front, I made a quick Google search on "Kursk mines". Here's what I found : So, I understand there were many mines there, but the text/excerpt above leans into my belief of mines being more of a nuisance/hindrance than a deadly affair. Or maybe I missed something important ?

At least trenches I can deal with properly...AT mines I can only detect by using Armored Cars set to recon_by_explosion @junk2 : not would be, *might* be. And you could lower their price too, if they could be found by infantry. Even when found, they can't be cleared except by Engineer squads (which are not that common), so they're still an efficient way of blocking an axis of attack, even when/if spotted, aren't they ? IMHO, mines were never meant to be that "dangerous" - they were meant to be a dissuasion/time-waster, not a "real" weapon, weren't they ?

Yes, but gamewise it's somewhat unbalancing... AT mines cost what, 10, 20 points ? Yet with those 20ish points you can easily blow up a 200 points tank. Now, AP mines I don't really mind, they're just an "upgraded wire" if you want, but AT mines are just...unfair ! ("Sir, sir ! The ennemy is occupying strong defensive positions up the hill, we spotted at least 3 bunkers, a dozen machine gun nests, and a trench system with wire and AT mines, SIR !" "AT mines, Simmkins ? THAT'S COMPLETELY UNFAIR ! Radioman, get me the War Referee this minute !")

@MikeyD : I don't think displaying the exact number of men would be that slowing down...I mean, what takes so much time is the "behind the scenes" calculations, not the display IMHO. And besides, Shogun and Medieval:Total War run smoothly with battles involving a thousand soldiers on each side, each of these soldiers tracked individually (though on a less complete/complex scale than in CM), plus a full 3D map much more detailed/complex than CM ones, so technically those 10 soldiers wouldn't be such a major feat...

Hardly practical unless you know for sure where they are in the first place, is it ? :/ It's weird that infantry doesn't see it when they go through the tile though, don't you think ?

As for the crops that are enclosed in bocage, Normandy is known for it's butter and cheese (but is there any region of France not known for some cheese ? )(hence, grazing fields), and apple cider (hence orchards, though if I recall clearly you could also get apple trees in grazing fields). I don't know about wheat/barlow/corn, but I assume there must be - after all, Normandy was France's granary for quite some time, in medieval years. Also, as Pheasant Plucker says, you musn't think of them as modern fields, horizon-to-horizon like - Normandy fields had stayed pretty much in their medieval state (remember, those were the days where tractors were still not that common), with each family having it's small parcel of land. Although I don't know for sure, I imagine they were rough squares with 100-200m sides average. I agree with fabs that displaying bocage as hedges (or CMBO bocage, which as far as I know is just an oversized hedge) is not accurate - I'd rather have say a slim but sharp terrain elevation with tall pines/woods on top (which would make them impassable to vehicules - but are there any accounts of AFVs going right through it ? I'm not that much of a scholar myself)

So much to test, and so little time...

Interesting... They maybe I was wrong...Maybe points are counted between each battle and added up in the end, in which case killing the same tank twice would give you twice the points...

Well, if you accept only the final kills count, killing the same tank twice will only get you points once (since the game would check the starting roster (plus reinforcements of course) against the final roster). And in fact, maybe "killing" a tank, and that tank gets recovered, you don't get any points at all...worth checking/testing. I don't have much time right now because of my exams, but I'll try and run tests when I'm done (around the 22th of this month)

Yeah yeah I know that, but I wondered if tanks direct firing at AT guns preferably used AP rounds, as you seemed to imply. I never checked that really, and it seemed...wrong

I *think* (with a very strong emphasis on "think") that points are not counted between battles in Operations, only the final kill/flag tally in the end of the last battles matters. But then again, I might easily be wrong, I haven't played that many Ops (apart from "A Day in the Cavalry", which was truely brilliant)

Regarding the graphics, to quote, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.". Of course, if they remade CM, the exact same game, with top-notch graphics and hollywood special effects and all, I'd definitely buy it. But it's not all that important to me - as it is, it's still a huge step ahead from those "hexes and counters" strategy games, and besides I still play games like UFO or Jagged Alliance 2 or Fallout, so... Gameplay is everything. Graphics...we don't need no stinkin' graphics !

(PS : as to my battles being happy, they'd probably be happier if Lars didn't insist on setting his mails in stone with a toothpick before sending them. I swear he does. That, or his emails are actually airmailed to my provider.)

Wow, didn't know that, I always assumed POWs to become some kind of dead weight, only worth the points they give, and so I never made much efforts to secure them... I'll have to be more careful.

Wow, didn't know that, I always assumed POWs to become some kind of dead weight, only worth the points they give, and so I never made much efforts to secure them... I'll have to be more careful.

Thesaurus ? What's that ? It's just the way I speak/write when thinking in French, then trying to translate my words in English. Honest. But you do have a point : teachers always told me how to speak proper, uperclass posh BBC-style English, and never what real English was supposed to be, and sadly I've never been abroad enough to have a good culture of sayings, expressions, slang etc... I mean, I understand them when I read/hear them, but they just don't pop into my head spontaneously, unless I've been reading/speaking English long enough to start *thinking* in English. (Which happens, mostly when abroad, but even back here in France, especially when spending the night reading that-last-Pratchett-that-won't-be-translated-in-French-for-another-year, and believe me you feel mighty odd when you can't find your words in your own language afterwards...Just imagine the looks your friends give you when you tell them (in French) "wait wait, I've got it on the tip of me tongue, I know the English word, let me think...") Oh, and thanks for the welcome, you patronizing limey crone ! [ June 06, 2004, 07:34 AM: Message edited by: Kobal2 ]

@YK2 : isn't that one of those words that's spelt differently depending on which side of the Atlantic it's written ? The game's called "Medal of Honor", innit ? Or maybe there's some context in which to use "honor" instead of "honour" and vice versa, in which case, bugger the lot of you, at least in French there's only one way to write a stupid word ! (albeit completely non-depending of any kind of rule whatsoever (I firmly believe French was designed on the sole purpose of confusing foreigners and children alike. The use of it as a language is purely anecdotical, if not coincidental.)) On the other hand, considering the way most of my fellow Frenchmen speak (and write) English, you should be bloody happy for the luck you have, to have been invaded by me. At least *I*'m remotely comprehensible. Or rather, make an effort toward that goal. Mind you, they didn't wait until I made a couple of syntaxic blunders on some remote grog-owned forum to be ashamed of me. I don't eat cheese NOR drink wine, for starters. That's tantamount to felony, if not outright treason.

All right, this is the absolute limit. Daft old men giving in-extenso tales of their wet dreams... If this gets any worse, I'll have to call for an Emergency Sanitation of all people involved. Sanitation via Flamethrower.

A happy ending ? What, you give 'em a prostitue dressed up as a princess with each car sold, and write "and they married, had many children and lived happily ever after" on your ledgers ? Or maybe it's just stating that "yes, but he *was* happy when the brakes failed, the direction broke loose and he ran into that wall at 120mph." ?