Childress

I hear you, sburke. Tough break. Do you really want to know about Hell? How about six years in a North Vietnamese POW camp? The brutal guards, the isolation.... All they gave us to eat was shrimp curry. We were finally liberated only to return to a society that pretended we didn't exist. For decades we roamed, a band of brothers, searching every hash house and greasy spoon in this country looking for that shrimp curry. Sure, we found some here and there. But they could never get the spices right.

Really? More like Justin Bieber, but younger and more chiseled. You sense the man's sporting a six pack under that muscle shirt.

Jon's magnificent about diffusing controversy and awkward situations. A healing balm, a bridge over troubled waters.

Sburke: an iceberg, whose mass lies nine-tenths under the sea.

Shakespeare? There's been a lot of serious scholarship and copious debates whether he was the actual author of those plays and sonnets. I believe the preponderance of the evidence points to Edward de Vere who assumed that nom de plume to avoid social obloquy. Playwrights suffered from low status during Elizabethan times, certainly a motive for dissimulation for a courtier like de Vere. His friend, Ben Jonson, played along with the ruse. We know a thousand times more detail about 1st century Romans, a richly documented era, than the man from Avon. Pro&Con: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question

I've witnessed the phenomenon on a PC. But very rarely.

Thanks, John. Mord and I usually collaborate on the snarky stuff. At least an eyeball before submission. BTW, do you know of any *clean* hotels in Reptilia City? Haven't set foot in the place myself but the reviews in Zagat were NOT encouraging.

Glad you brought that up. I was considering in investing in Reptilian 30 yr bonds but an intergalactic financial newsletter to which I subscribe has delineated an unmistakable bullish configuration in the Reptilian Bourse. Something to do with Elliott waves. So now I'm thinking of securities. I'm hesitating going the ETF route because Moody's has downgraded that vehicle recently and as the distance to Reptilia, as you know, is considerable, opening an account in loco doesn't appear feasible. Maybe you could hit up some of your contacts for advice. Tks in advance.

Nice. That sweetened the dyspeptic discharge a bit, Mr. 8 Posts guy. Why not? Isn't Sicily within spitting distance of Malta?

I, for one, salute our new reptilian overlords. The scales (eh) have fallen from my eyes. Hmmm. 'Jon', 'John'.... Are coincidences merely psychic mysteries, drifting fragments of alternate dimensions as yet unsuspected? Or are they are like winks from the Universe, confirming we are on the path toward our dreams?

John, you certainly possess vast knowledge of 20th century warfare, weapons in particular. My prayer, and I'm certainly not alone in wishing this, is that you employ this reservoir of expertise in the furtherance of good, not evil. BTW, are you collecting a pension?

Agreed. But penalizing teams, to play the devil's advocate, one would create problems in setting up an extended defense. As I posted elsewhere, splitting squads when defending is practically mandatory. You end up with lots of isolated, out of C2 teams. And these require some resilience in resisting pressure from the attacker. There may be no solution other than retaining the current dynamic. Ideally, you'd inflict penalties on teams in an attacking mode. But implementing such limitations no doubt imposes coding challenges. Alternatively, just play smaller scenarios and split to you heart's content.

We players need to get the concept of smaller battles into our heads. Some of the monster scenarios that shipped with the CW module stagger the mind. They play fluidly with the ram upgrade but I look on players who split every squad with, well, wild surmise. I'm one who tends to approach splitting with a lazy eye with the result that I was a much stronger CMx1 player (most recently in 2005, I believe) and why I haven't ventured into PBEM with CM2. Not that all the team options aren't useful- they are. Though I find the ability of low experience squads to split without penalty (I think) to be questionable. Or they should generate team leaders with lower command ratings on a more consistent basis than they do currently.

And I just thought of another aspect the new overlay won't help you with....elevations.

Sounds good. But in your shoes, PT, I'd holding off on starting any new campaigns until the Italy game is released and CMBN is upgraded to 2.0. The map overlay, expanded AI plans and auto-assemble features will make your task a whole lot easier. Why paddle upstream?

Fascinating. The poor schlub digs up an ancient howitzer in an Arkansas river bed and most of the comments consist of warnings over running afoul of federal gun control laws. One senses that our ancestors would have found this exchange most curious, if not incomprehensible.

'Oh, procreation!'?

Oh, George you were *this* close. But your punctuation wasn't quite right.

Μπράβο!, Σκύλος. Είστε ο καλύτερος. (First to translate wins a Kindle Fire)

A sniper? Try this guy. A cool uniform and he looks like that tennis player dude:

The detailing and variety on the German uniforms are fantastic. Is this new with 2.0 or is my video card simply adequate?

If I'm not mistaken, one can divide the Italian 20 man squads into two 10 man 'sections'.

The Mix option gets a bad rap. Especially with Auto Purchase. Where else can a player lead 12 LMG teams, 8 MMG Jeeps, and 4 Snipers against a force composed entirely of 251/1 halftracks?

Not even King Solomon could suggest a way to split the Italians.

If you chop up their routes into sections the squads will form up and spread out at each waypoint. And/or you can divide them into teams to get some spread.