A Canadian Cat

Am I missing something? That article looked like a shallow summary of this thread and offered no additional info on how great it would be on steam. Absolutely no offense intended @astano BTW. I am still scanning through the comments in case there is value there - so far not really. I have to admit I don't understand peoples' position who insist they will only buy games via steam. Then again people often look at me strangely when I explain my position that I will not buy subscription software. I respect your decision - it is yours. I don't expect Adobe will change their position to only offer subscription licensing for some of their software though. The key is respect. Adobe and I disagree and I have told them so - once. I respect their decision and that is that. They respected me by taking me off their mailing list

What's the old saying "any publicity is good publicity".

Yep, it is the catapulted into oblivion that I truly hate. Not a single day goes by that I don't manage to trigger it. And it really pisses me off so I try hard not to trigger it. But alas I suck and I still manage to trip it. I also *never* actually control the camera that way never, never, never. Sorry I'm ranting now I'll stop.

LOL great idea. With the way I play they would make a fortune. I'll make sure I pitch the idea to Steve - maybe he will give ma cut

I would ditch the camera movement controls whenever the mouse pointer is near the edge of the screen.

Wow @Frankster65 you really un-blocked the log jam there.

I belive that is correct, yes. Someone at one point created an ammo usage chart for various artillery pieces in the game. I did not keep a link to it though.

I have no direct comment on the tutorial but in the currently released games I regularly give my FOs or scouts a circular covered arc and most of the time the face the way I expect. Those few times they don't I will give them a short wedge arch to get them facing the right way and then the next turn I'll give them a circular arc again. I find two things: The circular covered arc is important for self-defense. I just hate seeing my guys get chewed up without responding when they get flanked. The vast majority of the time when the FO or scout unit arrives a its end point it is facing the way they were moving last - including in buildings. So I only rarely need to switch to a wedge arc.

They don't now? I thought that was long fixed. Runs away to test - oh rats can't do that I'm at work.

Nasty. Long range. Every country's infantry is more dangerous than the German army in the WW2 games. Yeah, the Javelins are really nasty and I never grow tired of watching them fly. And precision munitions that are available for many batteries on all sides are truly wild. One thing I will say about APS system is be careful with your own guys. Nothing sucks more than looing a squad of your men because your tank's APS system triggered to counter an enemy missile. Man it sucks.

Good call. Although that automatic grenade launcher is pretty cool...

Or theBlitz. The current plan is to have a modern game ladder once it is released.

Mystery solved then. If you use the url icon to insert the link it behaves as a link and looks like this in the "show codes" view: [url=http://youtu.be/Geeo3tK8PZ8]http://youtu.be/Geeo3tK8PZ8[/url] Vs. just inserting the link as text which looks like this (and is automatiically converted into an embeded video): http://youtu.be/Geeo3tK8PZ8]http://youtu.be/Geeo3tK8PZ8 Excellent.

There is a game limitation when units are very close that is true. It used to be that the spotting cycle was the same for far away and close encounters but that has been changed. Now spotting is checked more frequently when units are close. It made a definite improvement. However, regarding the example above: in the dark and the rain, I do not think there is a bug there. I think it would be quite possible to stumble upon the opposition without much warning under those conditions. Other than the game limitation that soldiers don't get hurt when tanks run over them it seemed quite possible to me.

Let’s try it another way. Don't use the hide command. There all good:D Hiding means stay out of sight. Yes, you are right in an open paved area it is hard to figure out what that means. Definitely do *not* use hide there because the behaviour will be odd - as you noted. But we need the hide command because it is the only way to get your guys to keep their heads down behind a low wall or in a fox hole during an artillery barrage. Just remember, when hiding your men spend their time trying to hide and they do not spend time trying to spot or fight. If you think of that way you can see that there are very few places that you need to use the hide command. In fact, the only time I use it is if my men get caught in an artillery strike. If you get a unit to hide in a fox hole during an artillery strike they will have a good chance to come out of it unharmed (unless they get it directly). Similarly for buildings. If you hide a unit next a low wall during an artillery strike only rounds landing on one side of the wall are likely to harm them. Heck during an artillery barrage if you guys are caught in a paved area go ahead give them a hide command, at least they will not kneel or stand up or even look up. Yes, that actually matters. There you have use for the hide command. Keep it simple - being under an artillery barrage is the only time to use hide. Never use it for anything else. I am not joking. Your men will always try to find some kind of cover if it is available. They will do the right thing you don't need to tell them to be careful. That is not what the hide command is for.

After reading posts here for a while now, nearly four years, one thing I think I am seeing is that people are miss understanding the difference between "I have spotted something" and "I could spot something". I am not picking on @mirekm61 his post just reminded me about it - again - and I thought I would post it in a spotting thread. The game's spotting method shows you things that have been fully spotted and (via the ? family of icons) things your soldiers are aware of. It does not show you units that are in plain view. That is not what spotting means. Just because you have a squad crossing a street and there is a tank sitting in the open four blocks away, it does not automatically follow that the infantry will spot the tank instantly. Sorry, real life just does not work that way. Yes, I would expect the infantry to see the tank very quickly, most of the time. It would probably be very close to instant in this case, much of the time. But really there could be times when they don't see it for a few moments. Hell if they are running from building to building I could even understand that they don't see it at all. Think about it. How many times have you been with people who are try to get you to look at something and the thing is plain sight and you just don't get it right away. It is not that the object is hidden or something. What's wrong with you? Answer nothing at all. It is that people's brains do *not* register ever thing they see every minute they are awake. People are just like that. What? Is @ian.leslie insane you say? Well no, at least I don't think so. Don't get me wrong if the infantry crossing the street never ever spotted a tank that close in the open after repeating the test 100 times - yeah that would be a bug. But missing it sometimes is not a bug (there could be some debate about where the line is sure). It is called bad luck. **** happens. You stepped in that salty slushy puddle in the parking lot you did not notice on your way into work. Wow, you suck, that puddle was in plain view what's wrong with you. Everyone should have been able to see that. Naw, that is just how our brains works. You were thinking about that other car as it drove down the aisle looking for a parking space and missed the puddle right in front of you. Or back to our story you were paying attention to the building you and your mates were about to enter. Are there any bad guys upstairs? Are there any in the building next door. Who is going to get to the door first? Should I take a position to look in the window before we go in? Or should I look down the street instead. Sure there are game limitations when units are in close proximity and the spotting system uses has cycles that can cause some surprises. The end result is at least plausible the vast, vast majority of the time. My advice is when it’s not just move on and chalk it up to **** happens. If you really want, after it happens a few times by all means recreate the environment and see if it is repeatable and what kind of variation you see. It could be a bug, it is possible. Bottom line "but my unit has clear LOS, look at the nice light blue line, it should have seen X" is not a bug. It is a feature.

@Migo441's graph is plenty good enough to get an idea of how things work. However it is not quite perfect. Your guys can go from OK, Cautions or Nervious directly to Shaken or Panic and back to their previous status (but more likely to a lower one, especially after Panic).

The only thing you can do is choose between target and target light. Target will use the main gun, target light will use the tank's MGs (I believe including the .50 cal if the tank is unbuttoned). Otherwise the TC will choose between HE for infantry, buildings, walls, trucks and some other lightly armoured vehicles or AP for tanks, assault guns or some other lightly armoured vehicles.

I think what @womble said is very true. I also think that even if a "properly constituted assault" was scored so that the defender could "win" even if they get stomped on would not appeal to a portion of players even then. I know I would be fine with that but some people want a fair fight to be in the fight not in the objectives. Anyway the main point I want to make is using front wide statistics of casualties or KIA to WIA or rounds expended are just don't make any sense. Add to that our faster pace and we get where we are. Anyway for @RedMenace’s original question. Just play. Perhaps one thing you can do is decide not to leave wounded behind. That means that squads stay in place if they take casualties or plan for a following unit to buddy aid fallen soldiers. I often play like that to force myself to slow down a bit. There are other schemes people have developed but adding more restrictions quickly starts to get onerous.

Excellent revenge extracted and you did not even need to wait for the next game to do it

There are two issues So, you shoot at stuff when there are tree around you are going to hit some trees. The released games' Tac AI already adjusts fire when a round hits an obstruction. I see it lots. So, if that is one of your issues it is long ago fixed. Do we have a confirmed case of a tiny little bush absorbing multiple rounds? I am not aware of one. So, I am not seeing two issues - am I missing something?

Yeah, everything @womble said. I look forward to your AAR. Another factor to consider is our games move quite a bit faster than RL. If a platoon is moving up and comes under MG fire it might take a couple of minutes for the lead elements to figure out where the fire is coming from and communicate it with the Platoon Lt. Who then might decide to pull the wounded back and get to a safe place to come up with a plan to deal with the MGs. Ten minutes later they might have a plan and start executing it. During all that time both sides might be firing some too. In our games we come up with the plan instantly including possible coordination with other company level assets etc. We cut out a lot of time that could have been spent shooting at log ranges. My point is just that our engagements are over quicker which means less ammo gets used up.

Just to check - do you have it sorted now? Once your engineers are in the action square next to the mines the mark mine command will be available. Do not be too complacent though, even marked mines are dangerous. Even if the mines are marked and you order some infantry to quick or fast through the area they might still trigger a mine. Heck I think it is still possible that might happen with move or slow too even, just very unlikely.

There is variation in the game. TCs sometimes drop down right away and other times they stay up longer than you might have. Loosing two TCs from fire 450m away in short order is a bit of bad luck for you. Next time you might see both of them duck down and survive. I would admire their bravery and simultaniously curse their stupidity and then have the crews extract revenge.

I should probably stop reading this thread but it is interesting to watch the interaction and spot the logical fallacies Steve even joined in and explained his reasoning - again. Wow. So, here is the thing. Back in post 133 Steve laid out his reasoning. The bottom line is that the so called arguments put forward by a few people pushing steam are riddled with fallacies: Aside from the usual biggies Straw Man and Ad-hominem which abound there is also Burden of Proof and then there is the problem of Steam has a bigger pie therefore it will yield more customers which I cannot quite pin down it is some combination of Composition or Division. So to summarize and not call out specific examples there has been plenty of Straw Man arguments, even Steve has a tendency to do slip into this one (I know I do too) mainly because sometimes it is a fine line between committing a Straw Man error and scoring a beautiful Reductio ad absurdum argument. But the Straw Man and Ad-hominem stuff aside the biggest problem is the burden of proof is ass backwards in they eyes of a few Steam advocates. I realize you don't see it but *you* have the burden of proof. Steve has conducted his analysis and has stated several times that he keeps up to date and is open to changing his mind if conditions change. He is the one that owns the business. He is the one that is actually producing product to sell. He is the one that makes his living based on the decisions he makes. Therefore the burden of proof is not his. It is yours. Period. This brings us to half of the real issue (the only half that has been discussed at all): the makeup of the pie. It is not logically correct to say that exposure to a particular larger community of more people will result in more sales. It is a fallacy to say so. You must demonstrate that the larger community actually has the appropriate characteristics to support your argument. Hint just saying it is bigger does not prove anything. Several people have given their anecdotal descriptions of the appeal of CM which while not rising to the level of statically significant actually points to problems with the bigger community means more interest in CM. So, if you want to continue this as a worthwhile discussion you should accept the burden of proof and address this issue of “community make up”. Again remember bigger does not necessarily mean better. While at the same time avoiding Straw man and Ad-hominem mistakes. The trouble is that only takes you half way there. The other half is the business side. If a size of CM interest can been estimated with some kind of confidence then you need to look at how the business side stacks up. That means more than just quoting some % hold back on Steam’s part. You have to know how prices are established (no I don't mean say you know some number you have to have the contracts and fully understand them) who controls pricing? When can they change the price? What penalties there are for slow sales, high volume, low volume or whatever else is in there.