dan/california

A purely rational analysis would indicate The U.S. and China should agree to disagree, and not wreck the world economy over, well anything really. See this article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/13/AR2011011304832.html People aren't always rational.

They need the oil even worse than the U.S. does? And a game background doesn't need to be perfect.

I think he referring, at least in part, to theater level wargame run right before the 2003 Iraq invasion. The red team guy used dispersed, concealed cruise missiles to hand the navy a severe black eye in the simulation. The admirals were not amused, according to what I read, anyway.

War in Pakistan could draw the Chinese in, at least for purposes of a game back story. They have something of an alliance and more less share a border somewhere up there in the Himalayan version of the backside of nowhere. In a side note, I continue to be amazed at the awfulness of my own typing, maybe that should be in my sig?

The password for the repository is different in most cases. Check your email for the password you used to actually download the game.

I would, love a game/module based on Pakistan coming unglued, more than a little relevant. More unglued would probably be more accurate. Arguably it is a little too relevant..... Tunisia seems to be in the process of demonstrating that tipping points are very hard to see until they are in the rear view mirror.

I just don't think games in this genre have any Asian market to speak of, Something Steve has mentioned numerous times. Would a US-Chin aCMSF2 change that much? I have no idea.

That picture of the hole in the mud just looks beyond miserable, the actual photograph that is. I mean really.

If you purchase the module at the same time it works out fine as I understand it. Getting all the way patched up if you only buy cheap base version is a bit of a process, if its even doable at this point.

A bit of self leveling might be in order.

In a stage whisper " Temp it out to someone you already publish for". The email stuff in particular should not require giving someone on the outside access to the source code. And I do understand why you hold it so closely.

It is always contextual, sometimes a brutal sacrifice up front can save hundreds or thousands of lives later. The cold, cruel math of war may dictate sacrificing a platoon to complete the encirclement of a large enemy formation. One you will have to spend painful weeks hunting down later if it escapes. Or it may be necessary to prevent such encirclement of your own side. Or.......... By definition you don't get a balanced battle at the CM level unless the Corps/Division level commander made a mistake, or at least a hard decision. Otherwise they would have sent enough of everything to ensure it wasn't a fair fight in the first place.

Apparently, the Tac-AI programming to have realistic own side shot blocking is a rather steep hill to climb.

Some utterly simple visual indicator that the unit was engaged at bayonet range would be nice. Even if was just a flashing code on the icon.

You can fire through your OWN vehicles but not the other sides, wrecks included. I am not sure about your own wrecks.

I understand what Jason C is saying about infantry casualty rates and the actual frequency of truly decisive vs attrition based combat at the CM scale. Note I didn't say I agreed with him on either point . What I don't understand is what he wants BFC to do, short of junking the CMX2 engine to write a nice Brigade level simulation where the smallest unit displayed is a platoon or even a company. And somehow I don't see that happening. Does the way Tac-AI finds cover and responds to incoming fire be improved? Of course it can. Can the fidelity of small cover elements in the terrain be increased, yes, and it will be as soon as the average PC can run it with out smoke pouring out of the vents. I just can't shake the impression that if BFC improved both of these things by a factor of four with CMBN vs CMSF that he would not be any happier than he is now. I have played some board war games in my time, and I don't need to see another pair of dice or another effects table anytime soon, ever really. Computers were built to deal with that sort of tedium.

Any effort of BFC's part to make finding opponents, and or playing them easier would be greatly appreciated. A lot of people don't play human opponents because its a pain to set up, fix that and you will be amazed at how multi-player blossoms. And you don't have to give someone access to the inner sanctum of the source code to contract some of this out either. Just automating the handling of PBEM files a little would be huge.

The problem is when the unit can't see it, and therefore can't target it. It happens when a two man ATGM team spreads out on roof for instance. What you really want is the guy with the missile in the key hole in the center that has LOS all the way down the street. It can be very aggravating when it occurs, but its a low frequency problem.

We Go versus RT has very little to do with it, at least for most people most of the time. It just becomes cognitively overwhelming to try to deal with too many things at once. And even in we-go there needs to be some limit on how long it takes to go through a single turn. Fixing this through micromanagement will hurt more than it helps in the long term.

I think what our Finnish friend is actually trying to say, is that CMX 2 AI at the level of a single team occasionally does things that are obviously idiotic. The one that occasionally makes me nearly pull my hair out is when you have an ATGM team and a squad in the same building or action point and you just can't get the guy with the rocket in position to see the bloody tank. This is obviously a breakdown in the game engine. The question is how bad is it in the overall scheme of things, and what to do about it. Many people on this board want some ability to manipulate individual soldiers positions and actions within a single action spot. Steve has consistently maintained that the way to fix it is to gradually and continually improve the TAC AI so that we have fewer of these little moments, and don't create an unplayable level of micromanagement and with in the game. I have a relatively strong impression that Steve isn't going to change his mind, so the verdict comes down related to whether any given person wants to play anyway. And I think he's probably right, although there have been moments when you couldn't convince me of that at the point of a gun. CMX2 is already of the limits of a single person's ability to keep track of what's going on. Trying to go from managing 15 or 20 teams to 100 or 200 individual soldiers will just swamp most people. There are certainly plenty of historical anecdotes about Pvt. Jones being unable to get it together, in these cases you just have to tell yourself you're having one of them.

This vision has destroyed my appetite for lunch.

And most truck drivers can obey traffic signals, pixeltruppen not so much yet.

Certainly their would be none of that boring ROE silliness.

Trust me, their is a mech company out there somewhere that thanks god fasting that I am not its commander. Even pixeltruppen have been known to commit preemptive suicide when they found out I was in charge. And I was purely ribbing you only because I could. Winning isn't even really the point of an AAR game like this one. Its purpose is to illustrate game mechanics and features of the newest iteration of the engine. And this board is perhaps the toughest crowd on earth, ask Steve if you don't believe me. We have been telling him how not bright he is for a decade now. Then sending him more money anyway. As far as my "volunteer post" above I mostly wanted to relay my wife's funny but real ranking of my bad habits.

I will volunteer, with all due reluctance, the heartbreaking letter to my wife and all. Who really would go into mourning if I got on the beta test team, by the way. I am not kidding my gaming habit irritates her more than porn, not that I ever look at any of that stuff..... Errr never mind......