womble

I think I'm pretty specific on the morals thing. As I understand it, morals requires some sort of self-analysis, and judgement of rectitude: "is such-and-such an action the right thing to do/have done?" The ability to philosophise, if you like. I've not seen any headlines about conversations with 'lesser' primates about right and wrong. I think it's where the fancy language actually becomes the motivation that we get past and out of the animal. When we can codify, if you will, those behaviours which best preserve our community and hence the common, and therfore our own best interest. Which says nothing to morality. They understand they didn't get what they wanted when they might've/have before. Doesn't make the other dogs in the experiment step back and let the unfairly-treated one have their fair share. Crows are clever. They can make tools to make tools, and use several tools in sequence to achieve a goal. Doesn't make them moral. The divine, to misappropriate a phrase, "don't enter into it". Perhaps it's a quantitative difference: we have more capacity for language and so more symbols than other animals, so we can address second- or third- order issues like morality or discussions of it (if there's a difference). Animals just do it. They might think about how but not so much on the 'why', beyond the initial stimulus. I think the best indicator that humans have 'morals' while animals have 'behaviours' is that human morals (as in 'that which is societally acceptable') and mores change over time and space, while animals don't, unless the physical environment changes. That's because we think about things, and change our minds.

Can you put a bunker in a building?

It's what the Autobahn was for: one track on each carriageway. And a rolling repair crew behind the thing...

While 'pack' might not be the correct term, we are a social species, evolved from a tree that has numerous other social species dangling from the fruiting growth. Most other primate social groups are called, I think, "troops", though chimps live (generally) as part of "communities". However, I don't think it's necessarily fair to ascribe the morals that DT does to even primates, except maybe Bonobos.

I think you did this once before, Abneo: equating religion with morals. Please stop it.

Less 'lack of mental faculties', for, though it can be a tough job, there are also plenty of potential rewards. More because "Power attracts the corruptible". It's well to be suspicious of the motives of those who seek power over others' lives. It's not possible, no, nor ethically desirable. Nor would it even lead to any disenfranchisement, since everyone pays taxes on something: sales taxes, import/export duties and the like.

I'm guessing that there's not an infinite supply of all and any kinds of ammo sitting in the back of every carrier/jeep/kubel/truck/halftrack... So, do vehicles come with a standard load of 'spare' ammo? Or does it have to be placed in the vehicle explicitly? And assuming the latter, is it something that can be done as part of a QB setup, or only in scenario design?

How big is the tank that stores 300 rounds of 105mm?

In my ignorance, I'd thought the Wespe was a relatively commonplace piece of kit, at least across the war as a whole. Is it just vanishingly rare in the West, or at the end of the war, or have I just gotten the wrong end of a stick? Again.

That must be a seriously engaging piece of writing in Danish, cos even with all the GTrans artefacts, it was a good read...

My feeling is that messengers can really only carry the sort of information that you, as the CM player, will already have. Things like: "There's armour over here. Please send us some extra AT assets," or "Get your platoon into that farm complex, pronto," or "Link up with 2nd Platoon on your right and provide flanking fire". So I can't see them being directly simulated. C&C seems, from what I've read, to have most impact on the transmission of spotting information and on how 'supported' a unit feels, when it comes to assessing their morale.

I think the major point the link makes is that there's no such thing as "...a standard US and German Infantry Battalion in CMBN..."

I have a suggestion. I think all the elements required for it to be implementable are potentially present, though of course the development time for the interface needed could take some shaking free I like the concept of user-definable (including a 'random' setting) victory condition weighting. QBs are, as has been pointed out, inherently potentially 'gamey', artificially created situations with possibly false artefactual incentive/reward balances. I would like to see an interface that had some sliders, each with a 0-100% range, but tied so that the total of them all would be 100%. The sliders could be: * Victory Locations * Points value killed * Rarity (multiplied by points value) killed <- this one's just a whimsy At the moment, the game is fixed with the VL slider at 100%. I'm sure the other two values are held by the game and could easily be presented to a number crunch. The base total value of the VLs would be set to some multiple (I'm thinking 1, by default) of the points each side has to spend. This doesn't seem complicated. The interface is a known quantity. The values are available. I only suggest it because I wonder if BF thinks we want something more complicated. I can see that having some auto-balancing thing that takes into account force mix and terrain fought over would be a beast, even to assign parameters to. Having it user-settable, though, allows the grogs who want to encourage 'historical' caution to set the slider to high on units value, and the ones who want a gung-ho charge for the VLs can set it the way it is now, with a last, cowering squad having the chance to claim all the VPs To get even further off the reservation, and make MEs have a closer feeling to 'reality', how about a 'random force balance' option, which could set one side to be a different size to the other, with a commensurate increase in return on VPs (you'd have to include some factor for units destroyed, cos the smaller side might have no chance of ever getting any VLs). Would encourage recon and having asymmetric VCs often makes for interesting games.

It's not a problem with the scenario if that's what it was designed to check. I say, I say, I say, How many Tigers does it take to collapse a Heavy bridge? I don't know, how many Tigers does it take to collapse a Heavy bridge? ...

I liked the bit at 2:05ish where the Panzer IV hides behind the little evergreen sapling. Trees do indeed provide good cover, but the Very Important Lesson taught by the great Monty Python on "How not to be seen" springs to mind. That is so very, very cool. I thought the tanks rocking on their bogies when they fired was cool, but that's completely sub-zero.

Hopefully the activation code will be accessible to a copy action so it can be pasted into a file for transfer between computers... Indeed, would it be possible for the activation process to have, perhaps, the option to dump the code into a file for this eventuality? Edit: I know you could copy the number down longhand, but that way lies madness caused by transcription errors...

"A Tiger? In Africa?"

Even if they are (and that's what I've gathered from the various knowledgable folks on here), if you get 12 rarity points and a Tiger takes 6 where a IV(H) takes 1, you can get (assuming you have the purchase points) the 2 and 12 MikeyD mentions. If there were armour that had zero rarity cost, you could fill your entire OOB (subject to whatever other limits the QB system might apply) with it. I'm guessing too that a Tiger doesn't cost 6 times the purchase points of a IV(H)

Awwww. Shame, that. Not, by even the slightest whisker of a smidgeon, a dealbreaker, but I do so like co-op game play Thanks for clearing that up.

Apologies if I'm being slow on the uptake, but I noticed in a couple of the recent preview reports that some games were being played with 2 on each side. Is that actually 4 computers involved, with the forces of each side formally split between the 2 team members? Or was it just that each side had two people looking at the same computer and combining ideas and observations? I looked at the Features list, and it doesn't advertise team play, as far as I saw, but it'd be a welcome feature if it's gotten in.

That's cheered me up no end. Ta That specific example (given the range and power of grenades as modelled) seems to be a good argument for 'volleying' grenades being a standard doctrine...

Maybe it's an autogyro concept with no power to the rotor...

They really should have built protection systems into those towers: ratcheted rails or something you can just clip into and climb and it drags its way up, but won't go back down unless you want it to. He let go with both hands to fiddle with the carabiner, looked like, once he was stood at the top.

Not that that will make any kind of inroads on the damage that a fuel-air conflagration like that would do to the lawn...

[throws jtcm2 a cookie]