costard

Don't dis' the donkey - he kicks ass. He (could be a she, could well be a she) versifies, villifies and denigrates all over Emrys in large, lozenge-shaped portions: we should lift our voices in praise to any who take part in such worthy pastimes.

Hitler had Germany convinced that it was fighting for it's very existence [against the Soviet Union], that the war was about the survival of the German people and that a loss would mean their being wiped out. He was wrong, but Germany needed to lose the war to obtain the proof of that.

What they said 76mm - you're a long way behind on this one. What you're experiencing is something pretty much everyone has to go through to get to the CMX2 goodness. I find widescreen © is a must. If you're going to be struggling with the new format, why not go straight to Real Time? The sense of achievement I get when I surface from an hour's battling (maybe five pauses in that time) is unlike any other game I've come across.

It has always amazed me that the USSR was able to do so much - scientific and maths research, successful diplomacy and espionage, massive infrastructure projects, space programs etc. whilst busily killing off so much of it's own populace. Aragorn2002, is it just possible that those "world's best" historians were / are full of it?

Mouse LED has bit of crap/hair diffracting...?

Michael, I agree there was little hope of the UK falling through politics - the army was behind the King and I've nowhere read that the King was inclined to submit to Hitler. The alliance of the City banks was hardly in dispute either - the UK still had the Global Reserve currency at this stage, half the globe under it's flag providing resources, the gold and ties of history and language to pull the US banks in behind the war effort against Nazi Germany. The UK did have a stranglehold on Germany's trade routes through it's navy. At the start of the war Germany wasn't self-sustaining in food - the idea of expanding into the Soviet Union was about redressing this state of affairs; it was one of Hitler's prime motivations, to gain land to feed the German populace. One of the reasons Germany didn't gear its war effort up until so late was the need to have fighting age men farming the land: once it had to pull men from the land to go to the front it was on a downhill slope all the way to starvation, just as it was in WW1 (the war effort took up available machinery and fuel that would counter this reduction in efficiency, in effect multiplied the inefficiencies.) It had the advantage of a de facto reserve currency in occupied territories (that is, Germany set a favourable exchange rate that enabled German businesses to buy materials and labour cheaply and convert the difference to profit) but this introduced the unintended consequences of making businesses in the occupied states uncompetitive - they lost business and skills to Germany and the occupied states were unable to provide their conqueror with excess goods, food or finished manufactures. As ever throughout history, the conquered states become burdens on the Empire and the choice is made to either forego profits and centrally plan the whole economy (horror of horrors and the antithesis of the business backing of the Nazi Party, though not so much disliked by those who gained through being corrupt), or turn the conquered populations into slaves. In the end, it depended on where you lived and which God you prayed to whether or not you were enslaved. The rest were robbed of as much as could be managed without sparking further resistance (it is a costly business, fighting an insurgency in an occupied territory) and the Third Reich was well and truly on it's way into a terminal economic decline.

Useful tips Combatintman, thanks. As I understand it the licensing requirements to get [other] program functionality into the editor would send the unit price for the game into the thousands, I get that this isn't an option. I also get that spending precious programmer resources on the editor is way down the priority list if there is no business plan that supports this. With the caveat that I've never been able to write good code, at any level, and am therefore displaying my ignorance of the workload involved, I believe making the tactical map bmps (arrows and intel included), the preview bmp (screenshot from somewhere in the 3D preview) and the forces list shouldn't require too much time with respect to the improved functionality lent to the editor (i.e. the value added to the game). Briefings aren't optional - though the Quick Battle briefing setup might provide some sort of skeleton to hang further details on - the operational map bmp is most relevant to a campaign and the designer's notes are mostly irrelevant to the play. At the moment, it seems that Battlefront has sensibly broken it's available talent into streams for the scenarios that go with the releases - someone is excellent at creating maps, someone else writes fiendish AI scripts, someone else knows what situations grab players (H2H, solo, WEGO, Real Time), someone else can actually write to a level that is entertaining and informative: expecting the casual oik of a customer (squee!) to be able to muster all these capabilities and turn out multiple polished scenarios is setting the bar a tad high (something BF does as a matter of course when it comes to self-expectation and the reason we get such brilliant games to play). The surprising thing is that many casual oiks do manage to turn out quality scenarios - hence their mis-aligned snouts when receiving no feedback. The important note as far as I am concerned is that this is a wish list - they're nice when they come true but nothing like a realistic expectation of the way things will happen. As long as Battlefront can keep their business profitable and their work enjoyable, we all benefit. There's no need to wish for anything more, really.

From the lack of feedback thread: As a serious wish, if all this could be done in the editor I believe we'd go a long way to getting more user made scenarios out there. Some of it, like the map making, forces and AI plans requires user input and I'm not suggesting the editor do these tasks, but some of this stuff [can/ought/might] be automated to streamline the process.

"Flusher" or "Beater"? "Pointer"? Emrys is a flusher, in any case.

"If you are not confused, you have misunderstood the question." No fair blaming the thread, 76mm, your natural state is confused. Can we get flashing green/red icons for active jamming by the enemy? (I'm thinking reggae or blues...)

Can you light up the box line? i.e. ----------- (green) 1 Platoon ----------- (green) A company ----------- (red) Battalion for a selected unit that is in C2 with it's parent HQ, it's Company HQ not in C2 with Battalion. Get rid of the lights and save space. (Probably look pretty yuk, but)

and ultra-magnetic posteriors.

A CM:Vietnam tale, based on a chapter of "A Bright and Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan- You select a Battalion of South Vietnamese for a COIN op against a suspected Viet-Cong sympathising hamlet: - three companies turn up, but two of them are ghosts. - the troops that are there get to their start lines (eventually), then sit there and do nothing while you bash the keyboard, scream and generally have such a good time that your neighbours call the cops because they're worried for you. - you call in arty and the fast movers, then count the charred corpses. Label them all as enemy combatants, write up AAR the and call it a day. Winning.

CM:SLoD comes before Vietnam sburke. If you want your pet project realised first you'll have to pay for it (and this constitutes a warning to your wealthier relatives).

..and a bit more reading leads me to believe that an unarmed aircraft would be the Russians' best bet. I'm wanting the Reds to win this one and having half their tank force taken out by their own air arm isn't going to help.

I was wondering about this - IL2 is supposed to be pretty tough to bring down and might be a big help with a line-backer Cat or two. I'm guessing it'd be expensive, but.

As an idea: Arty stonk as prep, linear, 025095-035085 and linear, 075085-085085. Short and heavy. Big right hook (two companies - 1 rifle, one smg - plus engineers) and a fast left (tank riders over ground previously scouted) when you have your guys level with the first objective. Watch for a counter from your right after you begin the hook proper from the bridge at 085085. If this happens the tank riders come in following the hook, and support your flank, else they take the left flank over open ground and help reduce the first objective. Plan to make it up as you go after this. core: Battalion(-): two companies rifle, smg company(-), engineer company(-), high quality FO support: two platoons T34 (six in total in two squads of three?), 1 aircraft, one platoon T70 (if you can afford them) or armoured scout vehicles arty: organic 82mm mortars, 2 x 150mm, three trp I'm pretty sure I'll be over budget - maybe swap the 150mm for 120mm mortars?

Hi Bil - SMG squads for that forested area? Mix 'em up with flamers and we have an assault from hell. Is that toppo map part of the briefing/preview now, or is that an import from the scenario builder?

I'm all for Nidan indulging in a little public copraphagia - so long as he cleans up the mess afterwards. Anyways, where's craptorix' challenge? So far all I've seen is some idle boasting and some less than inspiring attempts at putting it in its place. Yawn, I mean , YAWN. Emrys pwns this place - perhaps it'd be best we lock him inside and set fire to it.

If you know for a fact that you have borked your turn (e.g. forgotten to button someone up when you know there is a sniper about), you can go back to the original file and redo your turn, but it is probably best to delete the outgoing file first (there can be problems with the new file not over-writing the old one.) Or you could rename the old file - in any case, there is no way to see how your turn went without first sending it to your opponent, "locking in" your decisions and game moves. This is an inherent part of the rules of the game - your opp is in the same boat and by the time you get to view the outcome of your decisions/moves, his are locked in for the next minute too. I hope this helps.

I'm weird, but the donkey gets a free pass? Your true colours are shining through Emrys and they don't compare favourably with the knotted, shaggy brown pile the long eared varmint wears. And it doubles as a gnome juicer. Beneath the ass is where you belong.

But the political is the strategic - the tactical doesn't enter into the equation. It's like the economists describing the actions of participants in the market as being driven by greed or fear: when you have a good, close look at it, greed is fear. If you want to know about the tactical results you need to know about the inputs at the strategic level, some time previously. All that is happening is that the discussion between the sergeants is being taken over by the colonels: get used to it, it happens all the time. Uedel, I think that's a good call but Hitler was intent on occupying Eastern Europe for the opportunity it gave Germany to be self sufficient in the same way the UK was through its dominions. He'd said as much throughout his rise to power and I don't think Stalin was blind to his ambitions: the Anglo-American banks (in particular) would not be letting the UK go peacefully into a German hegemony. There would have been accords made to ensure an assault borne by the armies of the USSR, supplied by the industry of the US (pretty much what happened). The revolt of the German populace against the banking systems that originally arose from the Napoleonic wars (as represented by the decisions of Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler) needed to be taken up by the peoples of the world to have any chance of succeeding - the means adopted by Hitler pretty much scotched the chances of that happening.

Scumbag Ken and his amazing indifference to the suffering of others (not true - he delights in it.) Waiting is.

Uedel, yep, that might have worked. I'm not sure Hitler's idea of subserviency to himself would have been met, though, leading to a guerrilla war throughout his conquered territories. In any case, the miracle of Dunkirk, followed by the victory of the Battle of Britain (which was set up by Churchill in '35-'36) was going to make this a really, really big ask of the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine.)

CM: The Arrow of Arabat (just looked up pizdets - good one Erwin)