Kineas

What a surprise, I didn't know there were commercial grade products written in Eiffel...

Good choice, you will be more productive than in cpp. VASSAL is also written in java. You can use the JOGL library for OpenGL (3D) graphics. Performance of the language and the framework is pretty close to commercial games, and you can find a lot of books on game programming in java.

Google the name "the war engine". It's freely available, and might be a good program to start. Virtually any programming language will do unless you want high quality 3D graphics.

Maybe it's just me, but this is a textbook-like dropout. Sure sign that you are winning.

It takes only one gust to take the guy down. Their death would have been a serious waste (I mean the taxpayers' money for cleaning up the mess)

I'm not sure about the 'heavy armor' category. Is it only for the T72s? In the NATO arsenal the next step from the IFV would be the Chobham unless I'm mistaken. HMGs can't penetrate IFV armor, but would penetrate 'APC armor', like on the BTR or BRDM series.

Quite good representation of the city. (I spent my university years near the Tank Trap)

for tanks the '1' camera view is simply indispensable. With grid mods you have a lot better 3d-vision/gauge of the terrain mesh. Even with that sometimes I lose tanks when I'm absolutely sure they are hidden behind a ridge. It seems if even 1/2'' of the turret is visible, the engine grants a full spot and a full 'hull down' target to the enemy.

The built in ratios look pretty balanced to me. 3:1 was considered historically as a guarantee for a successful attack. I think green troops worth more in defense than in attack. In an attack you need troops who can stand the incoming fire. At the decisive point you might want to have crack troops. A few extra points can help you to win the game, even in cases when purchasing high quality inf in numbers is not worth 'economically'.

Some sites keep record of the scenario statistics, e.g. on theblitz.org you can pick up scenarios which give equal chances for each side to win. Balance depends on player skill too. If ahistorical is an option, I recommend playing QBs on human made maps.

Wow, are you a dick to everyone or am I just special? </font>

Yup. Don't forget to brush your teeth.

Why do you think it was directed at you. It's not your thread just because you've posted in it. </font>

Me too. These posts should be collected and saved from a future forum crash.

In SPMBT you can play (nonhistorical) scenarios between 1945 and 2010(?). I fail to see why modern equipment lessen the combined arms principles. Ok, you have aircrafts with precision weapons, arty cluster ammo, but in limited quantities. Sure, the "purchase prices" are designed to produce fair fights. But that's what tactical wargaming is about,isn't it?

I also think the CEB only modifies the TacAI, makes veterans from your regular troops, nothing more. Of course the resulting gameplay will change a lot, but it's the same change if you had manually modified your units in the editor. The 'Strategical AI' will be the very same. I think this because the StratAI development is costly and a major selling point, why would BFC hide a lot of AI tricks behind a rarely used combo box? We won't know the truth unless the devs tell it or someone can create a test scenario, where the AI can show new tricks on the higher CEB levels.

JasonC, excellent post

The quality of the releases will decline till the effect is immediately visible on the sales. It reaches an equilibrium there and stays. That's my theory.

Dalem, good thoughts. JasonC stressed the 'design for effect' philosophy many times, and I think there's much truth in it. I think DFE in a (non realtime) wargame is like this: - you have a set of rules - in each turn the player has to make 10-100 decisions /'command span'/, not more - those things in the game what the player can't influence with his decisions must be abstracted out, and not performed by an AI, and must not have significant impact on the gameplay. E.g. if you can't control individual men in your squad, then the squad must be abstracted to a single entity, otherwise you will be frustrated why the LMG gunner went in such a stupid position and got himself killed immediately, and things like that. The detailed simulation will only cause distraction. The abstraction can be a dice roll or a complete simulation (e.g. bullet trajectory), it doesn't really matter. So you can have simulated elements in your game, as CMx1 does too, if it adds to realism but doesn't violate the DFE principle. Dan Verssen's games are good examples how to get DFE right.

Good sales and lots of complaints on an internal forum. I don't see any tragedy.

Depends on the troop quality/nationality. German troops with grenade bundles will assault quickly, and usually with a positive outcome. HQ units also lob grenades once-twice a minute. Regular-Green Soviets can spend sometimes minutes watching at a tank, waiting for a volunteer to rush out and close assault. In a recent game two enemy light tanks parked in the middle of my Soviet infantry platoon for at least 5 minutes. There were about 10 assault attempts, 4-5 of those hit, but I only achieved to immobilize the tanks when the game ended. This took 5 minutes! When a tank is immobilized, your chances are boosted, they lob grenades a lot more frequently.

It's likely too that the spotting algorithms have 'quadratic' running time, meaning if you double the units in the scenario you need 4 times more calculations to resolve the turn etc.

You need to suppress them enough that your advancing troops do not get 'overheated'. If they have a +2 morale leader and veteran troops, you might even need shelling them with tanks for several minutes. A single HMG can be attacked by an inf platoon, like in JasonC's training scenario.

at first it seemed a totally different substance to me.

Looks like a screenshot from this