DarthJames

Problem solved - I had to allow the program to run as an administrator 0.o Goddamn vista.

^^ Paradox version of the game. My graphics card is a 8600m GS (laptop is the Asus F3Sv). Running Windows Vista. Essentially I can start the program as normal, get the paradox and battlefront intro videos, and then the screen goes blank. I can alt-tab out and the pc isn't frozen or anything, and CM Shock Force doesn't register as 'not responding'. Any ideas/more info required?

I agree in principle, but disagree in the context of, say, the main campaign. The context of those missions are a quick thrust through the center of the country where time is critical, therefore the timelimits represent the sense of urgency in the campaign not to get bogged down. And yes, from a game balance point of view the time limit forces to US player to be less cautious than he usually would, which compensates for his superiour forces. The longer a scenario lasts, the easier it will be for the US.

It can't be inconcievable. Surely all it really requires is splitting 'ownership' of each side up. All the unit individual LOS and LOF work is already being done, so the host presumably wouldn't have that much more work to do. And you'd need voip. But the only kind of battle I can see this being fun in is a several kilometer urban map with lots of conventional infantry. After all, giving a US player an Abrams in open terrain is giving him a Broken.I.Win. without even the button.

But they do want the same game to realize its fullest potential. CMX1 never did in any of its three guises. I'm not talking from a commercial standpoint or a coding standpoint, but from a desired feature standpoint. There was tons of stuff the fanbase could agree was missing from CMX1, from simple "follow me" convoy movement orders to more esoteric stuff like amphibious operations. </font>

I would suggest that the reason BB and AK did not sell so well is obvious: Anyone who looks at the game for 30 seconds sees nothing different to CMBO. And that is how long you have to grasp someone's attention. Most people (and a lot of reviewers) looked at those games coming out years after CMBO and saw that nothing substantial had changed. And lets face it, the only changes that were made were the ones that only the diehards would really care about. And they would buy it anyway. This is why the whole "You must stick to your roots" argument is complete rubbish. Nobody wants the same game again. If you are going to make another game you have to make something different in order to justify your retail price. I've seen the same argument on the Egosoft forums, the CA forums and the Bethsoft forums. People who for some reason want the developers to change nothing so they can buy the second game twice. Buisness doesn't work that way. You have to do something different if you want to get the custom.

In addition to commands, I think that a tutorial also has to focus on the 'we go' system (assuming that this is still in place). Off the top of my head, CM is the only game I've played with this system, and it's going to take new players a while to get used to the idea of issuing orders for 60 seconds and watching them play out, rather than having real time control over his units. To properly demonstrate this, you would need at least one point in a tutorial where it goes: "Let's move our tank over there" *35 secs into the turn* "Uh, oh. Looks like an enemy AT gun destroyed our tank because it was hidden from view. Let's try this again, but instead sending our infantry to screen the tank from hidden enemies..." From all the replies and disagreements, I think we can agree one thing: The key to a good tutorial will be to strike a balance between something that plays like part of the game, but is still scripted and 'on rails' so that the player is never out of his depth.

The tutorial in Rome: Total War was fantastic, both for new players and TW veterains. Just remember, it's a tutorital, don't be afraid to take control away from the player and just show him what's going on: "Look here, the Russians are attacking across this field, watch how they get mown down" "This officer has binoculars, and has used them to spot an enemy attempting to flank your force, issue a MOVE order to put this squad into a blocking position" "Good, the Russians are retreating..intelligence reports that there is a tank somewhere beyond our lines, with the infantry currently routed, now would be a good time to send our own armour out to destroy it; issue a HUNT order" I think that I've hit the key to what I wanted when I started this thread. The game needs a tutorial, but it should in no way be freeform. As a tutorial the player should be guided on rails through as many game concepts as possible, thus obliviating the need for my 'situational pop up's' suggestion. Right now all the tutorial scenario's play exactly the same as any other scenario, and that is the mistake that I hope BF doesn't repeat.

Ooh, dynamic mission objectives! I don't really think that they fit into the size and time scale of the game. If enemy reinforcements show up, then it is up to the player to decide what to do, because in RL it would be the person in the player's position to decide. It might be nice in some of the larger assault based scenario's to have a 'message from command' show up half way through saying something along the lines of: "massive enemy counter-attack imminent, pull your forces into defensive positions to deal with it". It gives the player the task of disengaging his attacking units and trying to rearrange an attacking formation into a defensive one.

I'm actually happy with that. I in no way want the game itself to be compromised in any way just to make it more familiar with the mainstream crowd. All I ask is that the game is as forgiving as possible for the first week that it takes to get a hold onto the learning curve. Yes, trial and error is good, but a member of the mainstream crowd who buys the game and loses 10 consecutive games without at least being told why will very quickly move on, and tell all his friends to as well. As an aside, a have to admit, as I play on, all my original criticisms of the game are melting away and seem a bit petty in comparison to it's sheer complexity. However the key is always giving the player in that crucial first week enough latitude so that he does not get bored of losing and moves on.

As far as tooltips go, a simple on/off switch would not be intrusive for someone who didn't want them. I think that this is a matter of presentation. Obviously the game shouldn't TELL the player what to do. However, for a game with this level of depth, there should be advice available ever time the player encounters something NEW. For example: The player commands a squad to 'assault' an enemy 75m away. If it's the first time he's used the 'assault' command, a tooltip pops up explaining what it means, and how it should be used over short distances with suppressing fire. If it's been used before, then the game lets him continue. After the turn is over, the squad is understandbly tired. Seeing as this has never happened to the player before, another tooltip pops up explaining that the squad cannot continue to run and needs to rest. The key is to find the balance between assuming the player knows what he is doing and is intentionally doing something that could be considered counter-intuitive, or whether the player really doesn't have a clue as to what's going on. Actually getting the tooltips to appear in the right occasions shouldn't be too hard. It's just a matter of linking their triggers to certain player actions: eg. The player selecting a target with a 1% chance to hit activates the "This won't really do anything, perhaps you should wait until they get closer" message. The main problem is that sometimes the context of the situation will make the tooltip irrelevant, which is why they should only appear for basic things at the start, as well as to point out things that the player might miss early on (such as fatigue). Advanced tactics should of course be left for the player to discover, although I would suggest some generic 'fix and flank' hints for the manual. To reduce my entire post to a single sentence: Tactical help should be confined solely to things that someone playing for the first time may not understand, or might not realise exists in the game, and guides the player in respect to these without need for reference to the manual. P.S. Having been playing CMAK for a few days now, I'm gradually getting the hang of the interface, and a lot of my original 'complaints' are beginning to seem less valid. I would however contend that I am an over patient person when it comes to this kind of game. The one thing that still bothers me is the camera system. It's far too hard to correctly percieve how the terrain heights change without going to the lowest height setting, where one looses all sense of perspective in relation to everything else. Hopefully with a new graphics engine this won't be a problem. If it's going to be in 3D, allow the camera to move freely in 3D too!

Thanks, I feel a bit stupid actually because it never entered my head to use the search function.

Is it possible to get infantry to ride a carrier up to a jump off point and then disembark and assualt once the carrier has finished it's waypoint? Seems like a stupid question, but every time I try to do it, the infantry disembarks at the start of the turn, and then runs off after the APC. Do I acutally have to move the vehicles to where I want them to disembark, and then wait for the next turn to move the infantry out?

Oh by all mean, do not at all compromise on the simulation mechanics of the game. I certainly do not want to see the game change into Blitzkreig. I threw that game up as having a series of gun and armour values that make it instantly possible to see how two units will compare on the battlefield. It might be heresy to the veteran wargamer to abbreviate these values, but doing so in the interface (while of course retaining access to the real information)will do better to ease new players in without feeling overwhelmed with muzzle velocities and armour slopes. For tac tips, my example would be a tooltip that pop up when you target a tank with riflemen saying "you realise that that won't do anything", or "your unit is currently undetected by the enemy; you may use *THIS* to set it to engage the enemy only once they get close enough for it's firepower to be more effective". Essentially the player does something, and the game tells the player what effect that might have in the next turn. Hitting enter gives a list of data that is poorly laid out and meaningless to someone who does not already know what it means. The data is important once someone reaches an 'advanced' level in the game, but until then I would say that the player needs to be presented with something a bit simpler, while maintaining the in-game mechanics. While targeting a unit gives some information, this is useless if I want to see how that information dynamically changes during the turn. It's also time consuming to do when you have many units with multiple possible targets. The game should give up information to the player without the player having to 'work' for it. I wouldn't be so surprised. The keyword in games these days is 'realism'. You present a game as being realistic and people bored of C&C clones will flock to it.

Levels of AI would be nice. As a game based on realism, it's actually the only way to change the difficulty without compromising on the basis of the game. My point is that currently the only way that I can find a tank's full stats is to view them in-battle, and even then they are pretty meaningless to me. If you retain the historical values in engine, but present the newbie player with a set of simple, easily comparable values for everything, then you can ease him to the level where he can look at the historical stats and answer without any paper at all . I think of all my games as puzzles to beat... Chatting on the forums is fun and all, but I shouldn't have to in order to in order to understand what is going on. It's like buying Silent Hunter 3, and then having to go ask my Uncle (written a book on it - I mean U-boats)what time delay I should set my torpedoes for on a 1000m target. The information should be readily accessable in game. My final complaint for CM is that the camera is never in the right place or angle. Either it's 2D to get the big picture and you can't see anything in detail, or you've brought it down to the bird's eye level and something's out of the plane of view. It's also extremely hard to spot small inclines in the terrain. I know that some/most of this has been replied to already; think of this as a blind test. If you've already addressed what I'm talking about, then you're on to a good thing. Essentially my suggestions boil down to what I think your already doing. Bring the scale of action down to the company level, pump up the graphics and detail, and then keep tweaking the interface until a reasonably smart person could pick up the game and play instantly (maybe not to win, but at least be able to play).