sburke

Meanwhile the insurgents have had time to coordinate deployment of heavier weapons and assault teams The battle for the corner building explodes in violence. An SPG team on the water tower hammers the defenders while a car bomb speeds into position. Fortunately the defenders are able to riddle it with MG fire and grenades before it can detonate. Under cover of the smoke and explosions an assault force of well over a dozen insurgents charges into the building

By this point a series of communications had gone back and forth between 1st Pltn, A Co HQ and Bn. The translator and XO of 1st pltn had looked through the materials captured in the safe house communicating back to the Bn S2 that documents indicated the insurgents had been building up forces for a major attack. It could be this battle has triggered the release of those forces even if unplanned. A Co may be in for the fight of it's life. Bn S2 orders those documents to be sent back for verification with other sources. Meanwhile the S2 informs the Bn Commander they should be prepared to reinforce 1st and 2nd Pltn quickly. A Co is told to commit all it's forces to the fight. 3rd Pltn in a nearby Combat outpost prepares to move out onto the MSR on foot. Fortunately the unit transfer had only begin and the Stryker Bn is still free to be used as a unified force. The insurgents would have been better off delaying their attack for a few weeks. The departing Stryker roars down the MSR straight into a hastily planned ambush by several insurgent teams. The first rocket misses, the second hits the roof while a third fired into it's flank hits the fortunately empty passenger compartment. The Crew uninjured bails from the vehicle into the ambush zone.

2nd Pltn makes sure there are no surviving insurgents hiding among the bodies of the roof. Any other insurgents that break cover are swiftly eliminated

An RPG gunner from the disaster at the Gov't complex let's loose at 1st Pltn on the Apt complex, while the last surviving member of the SPG team fires another harmless round at the same building. 2nd Pltn HQ races to hook up with 1st Pltn to assess the situation and decide where to deploy once the Gov't complex is secured.

A surviving RPG gunner gets off one round before being eliminated, but that round causes the first US fatality. Meanwhile on the roof of the Gov't complex 2nd Pltn Infantry gives an insurgent the opportunity to surrender, he choses wrong.

1st Platoon continues to clear insurgents from the gov't complex rooftop while 2nd pltn begins to clear the building. Fleeing insurgents are caught in a crossfire fire by 1st Pltn and passing Strykers. The results is utter carnage.

The SPG team continues to fire and suffers the consequences while the QRF force arrives, shooting it's way into position.

RPG fire continues in intensity, another Styrker is narrowly missed. An SPG area fires on US positions in the Apt complex being unable to ID a target. Retaliation in both cases is swift. In Sadr City there is one incident where an RPG is fired on the author's position. His comrades in adjacent rooms come running in expecting to find him dead from a direct hit. Instead it had struck a utility pole directly outside the building. I thought of that when seeing this SPG round.

HR had lost all records on how to initiate a new squire. They scrambled around and eventually got me business cards written on the back of free drink coupons for some local dive of a strip club. . . . in magic marker. Nice touch. So am doing a mockup for this PowerPoint in crayon. Trying to draw an Ozzie. Do they have two frontal teeth missing or two total frontal teeth remaining? I keep confusing them with Canadian hockey players.

Seen this a couple times, that first one is an absolute masterpiece. Besides those weren't Russian soldiers in that statue, they were vacationers who so happened to be in areas occupied previously by the nazis. They were simply lost. Yeah that's it, they had just wandered off.

Wait, after generations of struggling out of muck of the common mass, I am the first of my line to reach that exalted position bearing the pissbucket. Now I am expected to set down said badge of honor and return to the teeming masses of the ignorant and do . . . PowerPoint?!! As someone else shared this with me recently (pissbucketers have our own gatherings) I will pass on this kernel of wisdom here. Now excuse while I go move the car, I just had it washed and apparently donkeys fly. This sounds like a bad combination.

Well I call them as I see them, or in this case don't see them. And it is an "it". Just be glad it can't procreate. Shall I hit it with the bat again? Maybe that'll make it talk right. It is however unconscious, not that you could really tell.

Okay time for the old Louisville slugger. Whack!!! Thud!!! Squuuuuuueeezzee (ugh) swirl swirl, pour..... hmmmmmmm Okay near as I can tell he either said Joe Shaw Gimme a carrot Joe Shaw Gimme a loan Joe Shaw I saw a devil! Joe Shaw you should see me in Shrek or Joe Shaw, oh my god I AM a mule!!! I am leaning towards the last one considering my current view of it's nether regions.... oh wait, a gnat got into the bucket. I thought that was a bit too coherent, let me try again. Squuuuuuueeezzee (ugh) swirl swirl, pour..... hmmmm interesting, well I must say that made a huge difference. It appears it was saying Geppetto, help help!!! Not sure why he would confuse you with Geppetto, but Pinocchio was not anatomically correct. That would explain a few things. The bold there is a precaution as the names appear to be cesspool denizens, at least in it's mind...assuming it has one.

Get the damn donkey to sit still, shoot it if you have to! Hell shoot it even if you don't have to. Granted my parents are thrilled I have achieved the enviable exalted position of chasing the ass of an ass with a pissbucket, but that dang beast is just running from one end of the paddock to the other braying for all it is worth. Granted it isn't worth much, still it is braying quite a bit. I think it even disturbed a couple of the drunks around here out of their stupor. Has someone here been wearing a Hazmat suit recently?

better watch it, you've been hanging around me too long. You are starting to go senile too. Look on the bright side. Every time you open a scenario it is like the first time.

Exactly, and if you do not select a unit, you still see all of your units moving during replay.

well that shouldn't be a problem, they only gave me a pissbucket. Now hold still. If you cooperate, maybe I'll go buy a hazmat suit and put it on the next person I come across passed out drunk here.

Well I do hear Fatwa's are all the rage these days, but as with anything else once they get that popular folks tend to get jaded and they start losing their value. Next thing you know you have a cabbage patch doll dressed as an Imam issuing Fatwa's and the value of a Fatwa drops to the level of a Justin Bieber manly cologne. Besides, I have a pissbucket, what would I need with a Fatwa?

Keep in mind cmx1 was a whole different game. What works in one won't necessarily work in another. And I am with Ian, I hate your idea. Kidding!!!!!!!! I do at times adopt Peregine's rules. The Borg sense of communication does kill some of the immersion at times. However I still feel trying to have the game enforce rules is far more complicated to have work correctly than anyone realizes and womble's contention that ordering units around would completely break down is I think very much true. Oh well just my worthless opinion. Carry on.

Yeah what he said. Sorry when working from iPad it is a bit of effort to edit the way I'd prefer.

beware the manual and it's description of iron mode. It has been wrong from day one. Iron is an optional setting that goes even one step further than Elite, and introduces special restrictions on what the player can do and when. While even more realistic than the other settings, this option introduces a number of interface limitations which might put off the casual player, so it is strictly an optional choice. - Friendly units need to be spotted just like enemy units. If you have a friendly unit not in line of sight or in contact with another friendly unit, then the only way to find this unit is by either re-establishing contact with another friendly unit or by clicking through the chain of command in the game interface, jumping from unit to unit.

I'll try one more time, after that if you are not convinced, have at it and push as hard as you can. I won't spend too much time trying to convince someone the game can't do something if they really desire that thing. What I would suggest is playing a scenario and then thinking about how these changes might affect play. They are major alterations and deserve that kind of review. So anyway back to smoke. You are approaching my defenses. I know and you know there are certain covered approaches. Say your units are moving through avoiding the areas I have under LOF. All is going well..then I drop a few smoke rounds... suddenly your covered approach route is now a dead end until the smoke dissipates. I can keep that up quite a while. I have arty smoke, UK smoke mortars, couple rounds from my shermans, an on board mortar. etc. So now in order to move forward you HAVE to move out of the covered approach route. In reality your guys should just continue to advance. Instead they are stuck. Night attacks were not usually avoided in the small unit sense, patrols were sent out to capture prisoners, recon enemy positions etc. JonS has a very nifty little night patrol in CMRT - unplayable by these rules. As to flares.. really? you are gonna fire off flares just to spot your guys and get them back in C2... think about that one just a wee bit longer and I think you'll agree that is a spectacularly bad idea. Might as well just yell "hey guys where are you? When you get to that hedgerow yell back and let me know where you are okay?!" I'd disagree that your proposal is workable without AI routines. Having units just stop and become inaccessible just isn't (imho anyway) a viable game. I am not trying to just be a downer, I get the intent, I just don't think the suggestions you have so far are truly going to do what you think and the unintended consequences would make it something you wouldn't want to play. Enough of pissing on your parade, if you still like the idea go for it.

okay, but it IS a pissbucket. Sorta defeats it's purpose by collecting whatever it is that oozes out of the donkey that isn't piss. How about instead I drag one of these other yokels around and collect what ever oozes out of the donkey into them and then try to divine it's meaning? It'd keep the bucket safe. One never knows, the donkey might have ebola or something worse more likely. Besides donkey's are known to only express a couple thoughts anyway. Gimme a carrot Gimme an apple I starred in Shrek Glad I am not a mule There is one bit of disconcerting information however. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam said that dogs and donkeys, if they pass in front of men in prayer, will void or nullify that prayer. He also said that "when you hear the braying of donkeys, seek Refuge with Allah from Satan for (their braying indicates) that they have seen a devil. That might mean one of us is a devil. Personally I think that is shooting pretty high in the demonic spectrum in this place. Anyone here from Jersey?

Heh heh yeah it is a long read, but the gist of it and where he started was pretty basic. Say you want to coordinate an attack between two platoons. The quickest and most reliable method if an option is for the two Lts to meet. They can then share maps, plan supporting fires, phase lines, fallback positions etc. So he figures I need to move 2nd pltn HQ to where 1st Pltn HQ is (assuming they know where each other are), leaves them there for a few minutes and then back voila!! off the attack goes. If something disrupts the plan they then have to either have radio comms or back they go for a face to face. Squads have to be in communication to implement an order. Scouts need to communicate back before their observations can be acted on etc. As he noted, you don't need to write anything down, you just need to understand the logic. How does x unit share what it knows or wants to do with y unit? This is why i don't see the game being able to do this. The TAC AI would have to have some set of responses to know what it should do when losing C2 otherwise it just stops and you have no ability to control them and they can't act independently. What it should do is so dependent on a huge number of variables as to be useless. There is something though to note in these rules. It significantly slows the player down. AI plans particularly pre trigger plans may become completely out of whack compared to what the designer may have been expecting. Scenarios may not allow enough time etc.

In a more diplomatic tone, I do agree with womble. While these kinds of ideas "might" sound interesting, at heart they create a multiplicity of issues. First is the game becomes extremely difficult to play from a user management perspective (and this comes from someone who only plays iron mode). Let's just take a couple examples. Ex 1. You are advancing your forces to assault an enemy position. He drops a smoke barrage..... you now sit there with nothing to do till the smoke clears as you can't see anything. All your units have lost C&C, nobody does anything, you can't establish C&C with more than one unit at a time until the smoke clears. Ex. 2 Night turn... oops okay now you are simply f**ked. Your units have to bunch up to keep visual C2 making them very inviting targets and making you incapable of moving out scouts. In and of themselves the ideas in a general sense are not bad, but I can't see a way to make them game controlled events w/o breaking the game. This was the most interesting idea I have seen to try and achieve what you are hoping to see be built into the game. This is simply a set of self imposed rules for the player, but it is very well thought out and you can do it now. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1475850&posted=1#post1475850