A Canadian Cat

Strange I added a URL link for each which should have taken you to their web page for each image - worked for me. Anyway images are in the photo album here: http://www.6juin1944.com/album/juno/index.php

Peddle peddle peddle - edited to put urls next to the pics. I'm not sure if some can see them and some not or if I'm the only one that can see the pics because they are already in my browser cache. I added URLs for each pic so you can go look at them...

I would hate to crash and fall over those handle bars:)

Oh now that is cool - I'll have to try that.

Yes, I know I'm getting a head of my self. I was doing some preliminary research to see what I could find out about Juno beach. Since there are several people already working on sections of Omaha I thought I should look at Juno. Right now I'm just looking to see if there are good sources of maps that I can easily access or if I need to do more planning and perhaps look for some books to buy. Anyway that's not the point of my question. When I found this site http://www.6juin1944.com/assaut/juno/en_index.php they have an album which has lots of pictures of the Canadian's landing etc. I was struck by the number of bicycles. There seem to be thousands of them. Some pictures from later in the day show each soldier getting off carrying their own bike. Cool I had no idea that was part of the kit. Is this a crazy Canuc thing or did the US and Brits have the same? Check out these: http://www.6juin1944.com/album/juno/pa132930.jpg http://www.6juin1944.com/album/juno/pa132930.jpg http://www.6juin1944.com/album/juno/pa132930.jpg Will CMBN have bikes for the Canadian's. Hey if we cannot ride on tanks maybe we can ride on bikes:)

A 105 round killing a Panther. Well to be honest no one saw it. The Panther and a bunch of his friends (StuG IIIs) were advancing and my infantry were being beaten back. Why do they forget their bazookas in their half tracks? My FO managed to call in a barrage on their position as they withdrew. The FFE order came just at the right moment and I watched as the shells came down. There was the Panther and three assault guns in the area under the shells. The smoke was all over the place and the AFVs were clearly moving around. Then a shell exploded differently than the others and I wondered if it hit something. After a few moments two plumbs of black smoke started rising above the grey cloud. After the smoke cleared as the barrage ended I could finally see the victim - the Panther. My guys still got slaughtered but my barrage denied the Germans a total victory - they had no infantry left to flush my last two squads from their hiding places.

I'm curious too. How many people are using Dropbox for PBEM turns? How many are using something else? If so what are you using?

I have been using Assault a lot. They don't shoot for no reason and if they make contact they have people ready to fire. Not quite the same as you are asking for but I use Assault a lot when moving on uncertain ground. For example I might have my lead squads Assaulting towards tree line, building etc while my reinforcement squads behind them are Hunting forward. That way if they make contact the reinforcements stop while the lead guys fight. +1 for that Not sure about CMBO but in CMBB sneaking sure looks like crawling to me.

Which is why I don't use the key board for anything but camera navigation. It is much harder to click on Bail accidentally with the mouse:)

Thanks for the clarification! I did not notice the ELO rating at first - that's what I want. So, using the score for ranking does match your stated goal of getting people to play more, in a certain way - play more do better. My personal problem with that is two fold: I am not able to play a lot so that puts me at an immediate disadvantage (and reduces my desire to join your ladder). Two, I cannot tell from the score who would be a good match up for me. I do not find it fun to totally hammer someone with much less experience I would rather got for a more even match or risk getting hammered. Scores that grow the more you play do not help me find a good match. But I am heartened to see that you have an ELO rating as well. So, I can view the ladder from that point of view and get something valuable out of it (which increases my desire to join you ladder:-). Thanks for the information and I have one more question. Does your ELO rating calculation take into account the margin of victory? What I mean is for chess, as an example, there is only win, draw and loose. But for CM there is total victory, minor victory, draw, minor loss and total loss (I probably got the names wrong but the point is there are levels to winning and loosing). Does your ELO system take the degree of winning or loosing into account?

+1 for this too. Sometimes I would like to control how many points more precisely.

I read your site and it looks to me that the place on the ladder is more heavily weighted towards playing lots rather than having a winning record. From what I understand if I have a less than 50% win rate but play 100 games I would likely have a better score than someone with an 80% win rate but who can only play 25 games. Did I read that right?

That has been my experience. Daylight is just fine but night time I have to turn up the brightness. First QB I played randomly selected night and my screen above the control panel was totally black. I mean I saw nothing. I thought the game was broken:)

Here is a video showing two squads beating back a StuG III with small arms - OK they had rifle grenades too but no Bazookas (they left them in the half track).

+ Relative spotting!!!!!!!! + New artillery handling is great + 1:1 scale infantry on the map -----8<----- - Inability to predict if terrain is passable by a unit. This is the number one cause of the surprising path mapping problem. If I was told while plotting my move orders that the unit could not follow *my* path from A to B and instead would need to plot its own way then I would know what I was getting. For example right now you can sometimes get the ghost buster symbol if you try to plot a move into a building for a unit that cannot go in there. If I could see that ghost buster symbol as I hover over the bocage while placing a way point on the other side I would have a tool to verify if an opening is really an opening or not. If I get the tools I can control my own surprises. - Really want armor cover arcs (or some other way to manage ambushes and or make sure my AT teams and guns don't expose themselves too early) - I love snipers. If the sniper team assistant is going to do dumb ass stuff like expose their position then I would like to be able to ditch him in the woods:) Please either loose him or get him to hold his fire.

I am interested in items 1, 2, 5 and 6 on that list in particular. Let me know if I can help you test anything. I am also an experienced Java programmer so you can send me stuff to try out that is only half baked if you want (I don't need no stink'n install program:-).

I am working on a hypothetical and fictional location paratrooper drop to secure bridges. I wanted to do it just for fun and in preparation for Market Garden but I'm not using a historical map I'm basing it on a map of a place I used to live but done in Normandy France style. It will be a while before I get anything worth using because I'm having too much fun playing the game right now:) PS while researching the order of battle for US paratroopers I was sure I came across mention of a canceled plan to use paratroopers during the breakout from Normandy. But I cannot find mention of it again (it was just a one paragraph mention saying that after the paratroopers returned to England they began training for a new drop to help with the break out but by the time they were close to being ready the ground forces had already passed the planned objectives). Was my mind playing tricks on me or do any of you know about it.

Interesting - I thought about rolling my own but decided that syncing folders must have lots of tools to choose from. Sounds like you are targeting more then just one on one play. For me playing several one on one games what will your App offer that a simple sync tool would not? I'm curious.

That was our original thought as well but that actually will not work well unless you only play with one other opponent. We quickly realized that if we could do it that way then every opponent would see everyone else's turns.

All setup now Just a couple more things to make your life easier. 10) Create a short cut on your desk top so when you are done playing you can get SyncToy to copy the turns to the Dropbox folder. SyncToy has a command line that allows you to sync a folder pair by name or you can use -R to sync them all. I have found that SyncToy is quite quick if there is no work to do so I just use the -R option so I don't sync the wrong game by accident. Remember I am prone to have accidents like that and I'm doing all this work to avoid them. 11) You can do one better than manually syncing and use Windows Task scheduler to trigger SyncToy on a few events. I have mine set to trigger when I unlock my screen saver and when I log onto the Internet. That way I don't even have to press the short cut link to get new turns from my opponents. Every time I sit down to my computer it makes sure to sync my Dropbox folders with my game folders automatically. I cannot figure out how to make it auto trigger when new files show up in Dropbox or when a new file appears on a folder but I think there are some synchronizing tools that support that - I could not find a free one though. There you have it. I have been using this method for several weeks now and for four PBEM games and with three other people. I am not sure if my opponents are using SyncToy or not but we all are using Dropbox. Enjoy, Ian

5) Do the same for another folder named "CM Turns JvsI for Ian". By creating folders with the names "for Joe" and "for Ian" it is clear to each player what do do with those folders. On Joe's machine he copies turn files "for Joe" into his "Incoming Email" folder and he copies turn files in his "Outgoing Email" folder into the "for Ian" shared folder. Synchronizing The Files Now if you are like me and you don't trust yourself to copy the right file to the right place - don't. You get the computer to do that tedious work for you by using SyncToy. After downloading and installing SyncToy you can hook up your shared turn folders to your incoming and outgoing email folders thusly: 6) Start SyncToy and press the "Create New Folder Pair" button. Pick your CM "Incoming Email" folder on the left and your Dropbox directory "for <yourname>" on the right. 7) Pick Synchronize. This will mean your files in the "Incoming Email" folder will always be in sync with your Dropbox folder. Do not worry about everyone seeing everyone else's turns if you play more then one person at at time we cover that in the next few steps. 8) Give the folder pair a sensible name. I create mine like this "Turns<opp_name>From" and "Turns<opp_name>For". That way the list of folder pairs is easy to read and each set of folder pairs are listed together. 9) Click on the "Change options..." link to control what gets copied between the folders. Remember we don't really need or want Joe to see turns for Bill if we are playing more than one person. Create a file pattern that is unique to battles with Joe. For example you can have two quick battles and one scenario going with Joe and as long as you name them with JoeVsIan in the name you can use the pattern "*JoeVsIan*". And if your games with bill all have BillVsIan in their names Joe will not see those turns. I often Zip up turns for games that are over so I also add an exclusion pattern so .zip files don't get copied and waste time an space.

OK here are the How to instructions: Assuming you and your opponent already have your Dropbox accounts setup and running here are the instructions on how to set it up to share turns: 1) From your Drop box home page press the "New folder" button and give the folder a name. You can see some iterations of folder names in my account but I think the one I will be sticking with is to use a name of the form "CM Turns JvsI for Joe" where 'J' is my opponents initial 'I' is mine and 'Joe' is my opponent's name. 2) Press the "Share a folder" button and pick "I'd like to share an existing folder" option. Oh look at that you can skip step 1 and just create the new folder here. I'll try to remember that for next time. Press Next 3) Pick the folder to share. Press Next 4) Invite Joe to share this folder (this is the part that lets Joe and only Joe see his turns).

This message is long and picture heavy - I had to split it between four messages. I wanted to share my experience using Drop Box for playing CM PBEM games. The original idea to use Dropbox came from the friend that introduced me to CM games - Stephen. We have refined it and been using it with CMBB for a while now. Recently we worked out how to do it with CMBN and I have been using that method with two people I met here on this forum. So far they are happy so I thought I would share how I have it all setup. <disclaimer><shamless_plug altruism="on aswell"> Let me start by saying I don't work for Dropbox I'm just happy using their service. I only use their free service but they have some interesting pay for features as well. Before going further I will say that while anyone can sign up for Dropbox being invited nets both the invitee and the inviter extra free storage space. So, if you are interested in trying this out between friends PM me your email and I'll invite you and you can invite your opponent and you and your friend will net 2.5Gb of free storage (250Mb per invite/invitation). Other people who are using Dropbox already, or sign up, post to this thread if you are willing to invite people and we can spread the additional storage space around a bit. Even with the bigger files in CMBN a few Gb is enough. </shamless_plug></disclaimer> The Problem (s): 1) The first problem I wanted to solve was my habit of sending Stephen the wrong turn file. I don't do it often but when you only get to play one turn per day it sucks to open the email only to find yesterday's turn again. 2) I don't want to wait for files to upload / download. When I am done playing I want to press a button and walk away. The solution: Use Dropbox to share files between players. Use a synchronization tool to push and pull files between the game and Dropbox. Now that I have this all setup when I log into my computer to do my normal activities (not just CM:-) any new turn files immediately start to download. When I check my mail or get a IM from one of my CM opponents I can just press the "sync games" button on my desktop and start CM. Once I have played and saved my turn I can press the sync button again and walk away from the computer (well I don't have to walk away but I can). As long as I don't turn it off the file will be copied up to drop box for my opponent. To make all this work I use two programs Dropbox: http://www.dropbox.com and SyncToy: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52. I am sure there are other file sharing services that will work and there certainly are other folder synchronizing tools so feel free to swap your favourite tool into the mix. Next the beginning of the how to instructions...

Nope. I am currently watching a bombardment of my guys in a built up area. And after only two minutes (or is it three) there are a whole bunch of buildings totally destroyed. I think it is 105 rounds too but to be sure you would have to ask Gonzo Attacker since he is in control of them:) Ian

This is something I would really like. While it is true the command delay issue is gone but it would be nice when dealing with little mistakes early in a list of way points. That way you could fix it without starting over. Also it is really handy when dealing with traffic snarls - you can tweak the following vehicle to go a bit wider around the corner.