sburke

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Good job to both of you and high 5s all the way round. I may have to look at doing a full second installation of CMSF and modules so I can keep a copy modded for this.

Black Friday at Walmart/Best Buy etc!!!!

From the amount of stuff he's been churning out I suspect he is already chained to his computer.

I won't hold you testing this.

I hesitate to get involved in this as frankly I don't know s**t, or more precisely I do know s**t and that is about it. From my view though CM fortifications are not on the scale of what you'd see in DBP. Trenches that you see are not deep enough nor are the bunkers really representative of hardened positions regardless of what they visually may look like. I view them more as something a unit would scratch together over maybe 24 hours and not a built up defensive network. As much as I appreciate all the work you are putting into this LLF, I do not think the current tools in game are going to get you to where you want to be on this unfortunately. As to logistics, yes that was an issue for the Viet Minh, but they had largely tackled that prior to launching the assault. I think LLF is on target here in that logisitics were an issue for beginning the assault, but once they had accumulated their material, that was no longer a factor. In other words, it would not impact the period he is attempting to recreate.

God help me, why do I even look? Though I have to say the poster on alien autopsies was a great find. I need to see what regulations the City of San Jose has imposed. Does daylight savings time affect the schedule at all?

Ha gonna start bugging you just like we bug BF - when's the release date? We haven't heard anything in - jeez hours now!

Holy crap. This is jaw dropping awesome. I bow before you sir.

Only the best thing ever for playing head to head. In conjunction with dropbox it can totally automate syncing PBEM game turn swaps. I can't imagine playing PBEM any more without it.

he needs an invite to the dropbox share for the HTHH updates.

http://news.yahoo.com/lost-military-jacket-found-post-sandy-nj-beach-103848150.html Before his death in 1993 at age 85, Chester deGavre was a Retired Army brigadier general, a pioneering paratrooper and chief of staff for the 1944 airborne invasion of southern France. He was one of the first Army officers to take parachute training at the start of World War II, joining the Airborne Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. The Newark, N.J., native improved techniques and standardized equipment for the airborne forces as a parachute-training officer and chief of test and development. His decorations included a Silver Star from the Korean War and the Legion of Merit with three oak-leaf clusters.

Well that's the issue with playing against the AI. It won't react while you are slowly reconning where it's AT guns are. It isn't necessarily the designer but the limitations the designer is up against. Honestly if folks want to see different designs then maybe they should take a shot at playing with the AI so they understand what is possible and then offer suggestions. It gets pretty old to the folks that do design to hear complaints about the scenarios from folks who will not take the time to understand what is possible to begin with.

That may be true that you could do larger engagements, but larger doesn't neccessarily translate to fun. Cmx2 may never get there, but honestly I wouldn't mind. At the level of detail I am watching CMx2 games I am gradually coming to the conclusion that larger simply equates to making me miss the detail that is going on. CMx2 has made me appreciate small unit tactics more than CMx1 ever did. I have played a couple good size games lately both HTh and vs the AI and my feeling at this point is too large simply detracts. It's like going out for sushi - you can go to the place that serves large pieces of mediocre fish or you can go the place that serves small pieces of really high grade fish. I'll go with the small pieces any day of the week (and no before you go there large pieces of really good fish isn't generally going to happen- good sushi places aren't there with the idea you gorge yourself.)

LOL yeah I'd say part of what took me so long to try hth play was concern that the folks I would be playing against would just annoy the crap out of me and that was partly driven by the way folks behaved on forums. I have to say though my experience with HTH play has totally spoiled me. My opponents across the board have been really really great, a real credit to our community. They have completely changed my perspective and in effect ruined solo play for me now (bastards). I still do play solo, but the fact that the AI can't react to my moves just drops the experience down a notch from the way I use to view it. Funny thing is it has also made me appreciate good scenario design even more. As an example I really loved the CMFI scenario Bad day at Beach Red as the AI plan almost felt like I was playing against a human the first time I played it.

rotflmao sometimes you do have to state the obvious I was actually a solo gamer on CMx1 and initially as well on CMx2 (through all of CMSF and initially on CMBN) and I still definitely prefer CMx2 over CMx1 by a large margin. I have to qualify that in that I never cared too much for QBs as I didn't like the maps in CMx1 and I also was not thrilled about the AI. I have seen a number of statements lately about stuff in general that folks preferred from CMx1 and it leaves me scratching my head. I deleted all my CMx1 games a while back and have no interest in them anymore. It's all subjective preference, but I honestly don't get what was so great about CMx1 even after listening to what everyone has to say on it at least in comparison to CMx2. I certainly loved the game at the time and still remember it fondly, but not enough to reload it.

Sort of. The announcements in August were pretty amazing,but pehaps slightly over optimistic. Still it wouldn't matter what dates they gave, we'd still be clamoring for more info. BF's attitude seems to be "when we have info worth providing we will provide it, until then there is nothing significant enough to say that won't just generate more conversation that would keep us from actually working". Still even if you add on more time to their expected schedule it is still a helluva a lot more material they are delivering these days. CMBN/CW, the 1.10 patch and CMFI already this year and potentially another patch, a version upgrade and maybe a module still to come. Even if you take a conservative view and don't expect the module, patch and version upgrade till March that would still be 2 modules, 2 patches a version upgrade and a new game all within a year. I would hardly consider that slow.

who you calling an old fart? Damned hippy! Get off my lawn, you are screwing up the grass mod!

They actually did win the elections of January 1946. The French in return backed the guy who had ruled the gov't under Japanese occupation. You can say as often as you'd like that the left wasn't more popular, but by Eisenhower's own statements, if the US had abided by the Geneva accords our guy would have been lucky to get 20% of the vote. We were the ones who refused to recognize any elections and made it an issue that could only be resolved by the gun. That doesn't excuse the actions of the Vietnamese communists, but let's not try and wrap ourselves in something that just didn't exist. We didn't give a damn what the Vietnamese wanted, we supported a gov't so corrupt we had to back a coup against it. Our own gov't has never shown any reticence about establishing gov't through military force so let's not rattle the old flag of democracy and human rights as if we have some corner on moral authority. Try counting up the number of dead in the war the US waged to control the Phillipines.

That is certainly one perspective on how the Vietnamese fought the war, but I am gonna respect LLF's wishes this time. If someone cares to open this up in the general forum assuming BF doesn't bounce it for politics fine, but I am gonna try to stay outta this one.

I refer to myself as a luddite at work. I am responsible for a really high end VoIP network including an integration with PDA devices and they have a hard time convincing me to even use my iPhone. I am with you on FB, my neighbors use it and it drives me batty when I see my wife's FB account and the neighbors are saying - "good night, going to bed now". What the f**k is this, the Waltons? Good night John boy... Hey John boy, go f**k yourself, shut the hell up and go to bed. Our world has gotten so trivial it drives me nuts... rant over....

It is worth taking a look at the AI and how it is programmed. It removes a lot of mystery as to what happens when if you get a feel for what tools the QB creator has at hand. I think folks are confusing two different things- the TAC AI that handles how units react on a fire/cower/no fire situation and the AI plans that decide when and where units move to. The AI plan seems to be more the issue Otto is reporting. It seems the AI plan in that QB is not acting correctly or there is no AI plan for the game option he has chosen. For example there could be an AI plan for the Allies, but none for the Axis so they just sit in place. I have just cracked the cover on trying to work with the AI with a lot of helpful suggestions from others and there is a lot involved. You have timers to decide when to move as well as schedules for reinforcements. Those need to dove tail or your units may not react when you'd expect. Then your plans have to accomodate any unit type choices the player comes up with. Personally I just don't think you can really account for all the variables and always have a good reactive plan from the AI. When you look at how many QB maps there are there simply is not enough time to verify every single AI plan on every map etc. SDP has been really really repsonsive for any issues noted in CMFI and folks should take him up on that if they find issues. The short of it is - considering all the things an AI plan has to accomodate in a QB selection and how limited the options and capabilities are I really view the QB maps as simple starting points for HTH battles. The scenarios and campaigns are much more reliable for AI specific to the battle you are facing. I am sure there are others who may play them more often and have better feedback than that, but I expect Placebo your point on force selection has a huge impact on how any particular QB plays. Ha Sgt Shultz beat me to it with a much more succinct summation.... what he said.

There could be an issue with the configuration of the QB itself. It's worth reviewing and reporting the ones you run across like this as there may be something that needs to be fixed, but no one will know unless those are reported.

LOL you get that from Groucho Marx? Rufus T. Firefly: Clear? Huh! Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head or tail out of it.

amen on that! I am absolutely looking forward to CMSF 2. Hell CMSF itself will be on my computer for years to come even with the release of CMSF 2.

Same here. In larger scenarios I do use group orders for movement more but only in places I know are out of LOS of my opponent. Placing a move order to a platoon is simple enough now and gets them going where I want them to for a forming up position well enough. I think (and I could be way off base here) that Erwin is actually considering group orders in situations where you can expect enemy contact. I wouldn't likely take advantage of that feature as when I am expecting any potential contact, my unit orders get a lot more complicated than I expect the AI to ever be able to do - covering positions, leapfrogging units etc.