sburke

You had candles?!!! Why in my day we had to light our friend's hair up. Candles, we WISH we had candles!!!

heh heh wait till you see how detailed they get. Hopefully in Bil and Elvis's AAR we will get some screenies to demonstrate, but the short answer is. You are gonna be amazed.

+1 on that. Variation in difficulty level does add more in that as you progress in your skills you still have some portions of the campaign to present a challenge and in this case the designer provided an out if you weren't ready for this one with a simple ceasefire. As Erwin pointed out the designer has to handle a couple things. First is the varying skill level of the players, second and one we don't alk about so much is the increase in a player's capability as they learn the game. If scenarios and campaigns are only designed for a noob, they are going to be pretty useless to most of the playing community in fairly short order. It has been pointed out repeatedly, players are better off going through the scenarios first and then tackle the campaigns unless they feel they are already experienced enough to handle them.

Ha okay yeah the UK has LOTS of room to talk. Let's see who initiated the Atlantic slave trade, who ran the single biggest drug cartel in history by far for over 100 years? As I recall it was the UK, the US and quite a few other western countries who insisted Japan had to become part of the international community when they were trying to tell us to leave them the hell alone. The primary reason they decided to change their position is they had watched what Britain had done to China and were damned sure not going to be next. I don't recall Britain ever apologizing or offering an indemnity for what they stole from China. Yeah they certainly have their own issues, but please spare us the righteous indignation. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/juliankossoff/100063040/david-cameron-in-china-dont-mention-the-opium-wars/

Actually it is more like, asking "how do I change the radio channel, how's the volume, is the bass too high? Are we there yet? What does this button do? What's in the glove compartment, are we there yet?"

So they can finish this battle before the game is released.

Actually that is a mis statement on the shrine. It is not simply a memorial for the war criminals. The victim culture, that on the other hand is pretty accurate. Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社 or 靖國神社, Yasukuni Jinja?) is a Shinto shrine in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It was founded by Emperor Meiji to commemorate individuals who had died in service of the Empire of Japan during the Meiji Restoration. The shrine's purpose has been expanded over the years; the deities enshrined at the Honden shrine within Yasukuni currently include more than 2,466,000 individuals who died in conflicts spanning from the Boshin War of 1868 to the end of World War II, and the adjacent Chinreisha "spirit-pacifying" shrine commemorates all of the dead from all wars fought worldwide throughout history. The shrine also includes a war museum, Yushukan, which contains various artifacts and documents concerning Japanese war casualties and military activity from the start of the Meiji Restoration to the end of World War II. Controversies and political tension have arisen due to the enshrinement at Yasukuni of over 1,000 war criminals, including 14 "Class A" war criminals, from World War II and the shrine's historical revisionism, and intensified following visits by senior government officials such as prime ministers Yasuhiro Nakasone, Ryutaro Hashimoto, Junichiro Koizumi, and Shinzo Abe. The Shrine has BECOME a political touchstone, but it is a mis characterization and mis understanding of Japanese culture to attribute the political stance of Japanese leadership about responsibilites regarding WW 2 and the shrine itself. Frankly MacArthur has a lot to do with how that went down. The US equivocated on Japan based on a perceived national interest vis a vis Russia. We had the means to insure an alternative voice about the truth of the Pacific War and we allowed a lot of those responsible to come back into power. Net result- 70 years of revisionist history with most Japanese not really knowing what their government did and refusing to believe it as "Chinese propaganda". As an American I am also not blind to the involvement of my own government in creating the conditions to the Pacific war. Japan is responsible for all it's actions don't get me wrong. However the development of the conditions that lead to such a conflict are rarely black and white. For those interested in a fascinating look at Teddy Roosevelt's role, his frankly illegal diplomatic mission and the mis perceptions created that would eventually contribute to the Pacific War, this is a great read. Same guy who wrote Flags of Our Fathers. The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War James Bradley In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft on the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. Roosevelt's glamorous twenty-one year old daughter Alice served as mistress of the cruise, which included senators and congressmen. On this trip, Taft concluded secret agreements in Roosevelt's name. In 2005, a century later, James Bradley traveled in the wake of Roosevelt's mission and discovered what had transpired in Honolulu, Tokyo, Manila, Beijing and Seoul. In 1905, Roosevelt was bully-confident and made secret agreements that he though would secure America's westward push into the Pacific. Instead, he lit the long fuse on the Asian firecrackers that would singe America's hands for a century. http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Cruise-Secret-History-Empire-ebook/dp/B002P8N0UC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392928760&sr=1-1&keywords=roosevelt%27s+daughter+and+japan

I didn't know Moses was in the LRDG.

Sounds like to GaJ's point maybe dropbox is creating them and therefore HTHH can't clean them up as it didn't really create them. Maybe.. what the hell do I know.

True, but that does not absolve us of following a code of conduct. If we do not hold ourselves to a better standard, then it simply becomes a schoolyard argument of "you started first!" Personally I have waffled over the years over the atomic bomb. However when it comes down to it, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings caused fewer casualties than the firebombing of Tokyo and the human cost for both Japan and the nations at war with it would have been dramatically higher if Japan was not forced somehow to overcome the a**holes in the Military who refused to recognize 1. they had lost and 2. to stop making their people pay for the military's stubborn arrogance. Even when the Emperor had decided to end the war those bastards attempted a coup so they certainly weren't motivated by some "honorable" divine worship of the Emperor. They were just d**ks. End result is I have to say if I were in Truman's shoes I'd have likely made the same call, however I in no way think that warrants defacing a peace symbol and memorial.

Exactly, for Erwin's analogy to work it would be more, "you bought this new game, try messing with the code." You can break things with your car tinkering with it, but you can't break anything in the game by trying things with the editor. The car analogy actually could be better done, instead of asking someone else likes your car and how it handles, why don't you take it for a spin?

You didn't really do that did you?

That's not what I heard. From your references to your preferred theater for CM I assumed you liked the desert, but getting sand in THOSE places has got to be uncomfortable.

There is likely a lively discussion to be had as overall (as Steve has repeatedly commented) probably the LEAST realistic model in CM is CAS. We have far too much control over it in CMBN and CMFI.

I think cellars and sewers are out. BF has been pretty firm on stuff that affects the mesh (see discussions on trenches). Mouse holing can be done now but only with demo charges. Would be interesting if use of stuff like a sledgehammer could be done that wouldn't totally give away your position. I think we will see more building types and I am really hoping a lot more attention to urban destruction for Stalingrad (or even earlier in Berlin?) A map maker can add passages between buildings to simulate mouse holing. You'd then end up with something like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8zqwzP4r78&feature=youtu.be

LOL I would have expressed it differently, but Luke has a point. If you wait for someone else to answer you won't really appreciate the nuances. They can also be incorrect and misleading as we all have our own perceptions that can be influenced by our own style of play. It helps a lot to create little set ups for yourself to test things. You learn far more AND you learn the editor. It really is very easy to work with to just play around with things and understand them in more detail.

Couple things I am not sure which scenario that is, there are several on that map. I know of two but neither of those do I recall having a StuG so I can't answer to the specifics, but I think all of them originated from the same map and Allied OoB. I did Frosty Welcome. The map and OoB battle were provided by Pete and he helped me a lot to understand what the situation was. The actual number of men that you see is actually the real number of men present. Pete rebuilt the entire force. We discussed whether or not to alter the order of battle. It was my choice not to. My goal was for the player to feel the intensity of the battle. There is just no way the player should be able to defeat the British force. That is not the goal, the VL are obtainable thought probably not as easily done if played HTH. So yes they were like that historically. In my scenario I actually moved some men out of the schoolhouse as I felt it was just too much and as I couldn't recreate the fortified defensive position that the Engineers had in the schoolhouse (particularly not having a cellar) it just didn't make sense. However those men held that building for 3 days. Pete referred me to "Arnhem's Alamo" by Niall Cherry. The schoolhouse was held by approx. 60 men from A & B troops 1st Para Sqdr RE and from 9th Platn C Co. 3rd BN Parachute Regiment. As to the map, it is a true urban map. While I really appreciate the care Umlaut put into Ciembienne (CMBN) it is entirely fictional and he had however much time he needed to create it. The Arnhem map is however about as close as we can get in CM to the actual town. Pete put in a phenomenal amount of work in getting as close as he could to the actual city. If you are in any doubt as to how much Pete did for the MG module, just take a look at the master map he did. It is incredible. We all have our view of what we think things should look like. I have my own as well, there is a large urban map for CMFI up on the repository which I think is every bit as detailed as either Arnhem and Ciembienne, but is a much more blasted urban battleground. That is one of the cool things about this game- you could go in if you like and edit the map for Arnhem. Put in all the flavor items and whatnot that you want. As long as you only look at the map in 2d and 3d you will know very little about enemy dispositions. Make it look how you'd like. You bought it, you've earned the privilege to make it appeal to you.

LOL I have an urban "sandbox" just to try out different things in CMFI and see how they look and it has me totally hooked.

Considering BF is just finally hitting the stride they were shooting for oh so many years ago AND have added the overhead of keeping all post CMBN games current, to ask them to change their strategy and spend more time on resource intensive/financially burdensome work now is like asking them to go back through the same angst they experienced in deciding to go the CMx2 route to begin with. Once is enough for at least a little while longer. Why don't we let them enjoy financial stability for a bit just so they can look back and say "yeah we had that once, for a little while".

As I understand it those two were linked. The inclusion of flying monkeys required having the AAA.

umm worse, alcohol is essentially Yeast who have died in their own excrement. Yummm

Looking for definitive answers to questions in CM generally doesn't work. There are always variations based on units themselves (levels of discipline and moral), the terrain they are in (does it give enough cover, is your fire in ineffective) etc. Given that, recon by fire is a very valid tool. The AI in particular is susceptible to this as I think are most human players. Do a target briefly on an area with one unit while having others with LOF to that location can result in a very lopsided exchange if the enemy reveals their presence. If there are more hidden units it can lead to a very lively firefight..... and maybe a not very good return. The downside is if you were trying to sneak into a position, you have now revealed at least one of your units. Initial recon is a tough part of this game. As Bil has pointed out time and again, sitting still and observing is usually your best option. Sometimes though you need something that works a little faster.

except that being unbuttoned will help his spotting and situational awareness. He doesn't have to move, but he should open up.

It is worth taking a moment and reflecting on just what it is we are playing here. One of the problems CM faces is it replaces a good portion of what we used to have to imagine when playing counter games. No longer are the visuals of a squad dashing across a road as MG bullets spatter off the pavement and artillery crashes down on a house down the street something that plays only through our minds as we move flat pieces of cardboard around. Now we get to see it in all it's glory, mod the vehicles and units to look like we visualized them, mod the audio so it sounds like we think it should. We can alter the colors of the terrain and create battle maps that reflect what we envisioned. We get to see scenes play out that we had to create in our minds as being the result of a dice roll. An exhausted 3 man landser team that has just driven off a Sherman tank with their sole rifle grenade gets confronted by a pair of Americans on the other side of their hedgerow. One member is shot down, while the team leader throws up his arms with cries of surrender. Meanwhile the 3rd member in a moment of panic tosses a pair of hand grenades eliminating the enemy. Instead of "Oh I rolled a 3, hmm I take casualties but eliminate your team... your turn." I got to watch that turn over and over and then post shots on this forum. How cool is that? or something like this- for those who fret too much about CM and urban combat. I am loving it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OowNtVP0Mos And more Heading for the front door Heading for the back door The problem is we are so used to this now, we forget that imagination still has a place here. CM is a computer game. It is the nature of the medium that it can only present things a certain way. The more branching decisions it has to make in that presentation, the slower it gets. That inherently means we need to fill in the gaps with our imagination. Maybe not so much as when we had cardboard, but it will be true for a long time to come. Maybe someday we'll have a holodeck in the den, but not now. When your guy gets shot that you thought had cover think about the fact that your pixeltruppen only have one size. Maybe that guy was the 300 lb member of your team and trying to hide him behind that bush was laughable. Maybe your tank didn't see that other one right away because your crew didn't get a chance to clean the mud off the sight that got splashed up when you forded that stream. Take this scene for instance. This is from a recent scenario run through. A Russian reloading his PPsH is about to get a mouthful of Panzerfaust. Sorry I can't provide the pic, but basically they are on opposite sides of a window and the Russian is reloading while the German is aiming a PF. Is that realistic to fire off the PF at pointblank range? Not particularly. But we know the interior of houses are fudged and there are only a few animations for the infantry so what you have here is a representation. The actual scene- it is a rainy night. This landser has just seen his buddy shot down by a guy in this building. All he saw was the muzzle flash from inside the room. In a moment of terror he decides f**k this and crouched under the window sill he holds up the PF and blindly lets loose into the room figuring at a minimum the guy in there isn't going to want to stick around. That is what I saw. Yes there are some dynamics you can't quite talk way, but within the constraints of what BF is working with, what we have is phenomenal. Not that we shouldn't want more, but it would be worth doing so with an appreciation of what we have cause it is friggin awesome. And sometimes it is still okay to use your imagination. I was reading a Vietnam history the other day. This unit is out in the bush, has an L ambush set up and can hear a VC unit approaching. One of the guys farts. The VC freeze. In the silence one guy starts snickering, then another and soon the ambush is blown, the VC slip away and every guy in the unit is doing his desperate best to not just fall over laughing. The unit leader is pissed but even he is chuckling. S**t happens in RL.

That is too complicated. It is totally broken, anyone who sells software knows that. Make it easier.