Maccentral post Interview with CM own Steve G.

[aka_Deadline]

http://www.maccentral.com/

check it out

Deadline

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"My honor is Life both grow as one, take honor

from me and my life is done."

[aka_Deadline]

http://www.maccentral.com/news/0009/21.playmakers.shtml

Here is the direct link to the article

Deadline

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"My honor is Life both grow as one, take honor

from me and my life is done."

[JoePrivate]

That was very well done, thanks for letting us know. I especially liked Steve's definition of a 'grognard':

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Someone who is a diehard wargamer and always finds something to complain about, in a very loud way, even if it is trivial to the extreme (and often ESPECIALLY if it is trivial!). The origins of the word date back to the Napoleonic invasion of Russia and applied to the tired veterans of that particular campaign.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Spook]

Yep, great stuff here. BTW, Steve, is that winter-camo vehicle you've sitting on in that article gonna show in CM somewhere?

Responding to some excerts of Steve's interview comments:

Many diehard fans of Combat Mission do in fact like real-time games (I know I do). But a game like Combat Mission can not be made to work in real-time due to the practicalities of bringing the two systems together. One only has to look at Close Combat and Firaxis' Civil War games to see what I mean. In order to bridge the two genres, a lot of compromises had to be made on the wargame side of the equation to accommodate the real-time system. Map size, unit counts, AI, path finding, etc. have to be kept inline with what the CPU and human hand-eye coordination can handle. You can overcome the CPU thing in time, but not the player's ability to adequately control vast numbers of units and large quantities of information.

BINGO, with a capital B. This is a good synopsis statement that should be read by any new CM gamer coming in to ask for CM to go full real-time for the quadrillionth time. I recently got Sid's Antietam on discount, and the game is great in its "atmosphere" just like Gettysburg! was earlier. But try to control more than a division's worth of troops in that game in real-time (without pausing, like in multiplayer), and you'll often lose "control" pretty quickly.

Now for Steve's reply to the interviewer's query on "What is a grognard, anyway?":

Someone who is a diehard wargamer and always finds something to complain about, in a very loud way, even if it is trivial to the extreme (and often ESPECIALLY if it is trivial!). The origins of the word date back to the Napoleonic invasion of Russia and applied to the tired veterans of that particular campaign.

OK, spot-on about the name as linked to hard-core wargamers . But on that "trivial" aspect, I will now let loose my anal nitpicking grognard nature (MuwaHAHAHAHA, ) and qualify your comment about the historic origins of the "grognard".

If related to the French term of the "grumbler", the Grumbler's origin predates the Russian campaign by a few years. In the Imperial Guard, each unit eventually got a nickname, for example, the Guard Horse Grenadiers getting the name "Gods" or the Guard Horse Artillery getting "Volantes" as one such nickname. But for the Old Guard grenadiers & chasseur infantry eventually came the name of "Grumbler" (or also "gaiter-straps" for the grenadiers) in the early battles of 1805-07 as they often griped about being held back from the fighting and wanted to get their licks in too.

"They grumbled.....and kept following him...."

There ya go, perfectly trivial & useless "grognard" history. It fits us, right?

[This message has been edited by Spook (edited 09-22-2000).]

[Spook]

Personally, I wouldn't mind for someone to develop a special "grognard wargamer" smiley....