I went and did it...

[Doug Beman]

I bought a R*S game. MechCommanderGold. Please don't hurt me. I really liked the original, and the chance to get a scenario editor was must too much to withstand.

It won't happen again.

Promise.

DjB

[Ssnake]

Don't feel ashamed... after a series of demanding battles, we can all use a bit of R&R...

I wonder how far both landscape and enemies are being rendered in games like these now...?

[Kevin Peltz]

Is there a demo for Mech Commander anywhere?

[Lee]

Yeah, you can get it at the Microprose site. It's like 80 meg. http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/smile.gif

Oh, and I would like MechCommander much better if it were more
detailed and turn-based. Too many nuances of battle get glossed
over in real-time. There's just not enough time to examine the
battle and make choices for precise use of your mech's. And
they abstracted the heat buildup, which I didn't like. If they
made a fully detailed version of MC and made it turn-based I'd
buy it in a second. http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Lee (edited 10-03-99).]

[Ssnake]

Maybe they should license the CM engine for the next sequel !

------------------
PGP key ID: 0xBCD59BA1
I strongly recommend the use of encryption software for e-Mail contacts. Ensuring privacy makes people feel better :o)

[Doug Beman]

Lee, not to steer this forum away from CM, but the heat abstraction came about because MC is sorta similar to CM in how it presents command. In CM, you're not an individual soldier or vehicle, you're a commander telling your units what you want done. It's up to them to move quickly and shoot straight. You're not doing things like dictating how much ammo to use, or when to take cover.

Same thing in MC; you're not taking the place of a Mech driver, you're telling him where you want him to go and what you want him to shoot. It's up to him to do what you tell him, in the way he thinks best. They take care of heat management, you don't have to concern yourself with it.

DjB

we now return this forum to its regularly scheduled topic: when is Turn33/the demo coming?

[Ssnake]

>You're not doing things like dictating how much ammo to use, or when to take cover.

Which is NOT what Hitler did. One anecdote tells that he wanted to decide where to place two Machine guns some two thousand Kilometers away from Berlin on the eastern front (it was a cemetary's wall in the city of Smolensk). This obviously tells enough about that moron's qualities as a troop leader...
Nevertheless - the army followed his silly orders (not for the first nor for the last time), which tells enough about how much backbone the Wehrmacht Generals had!

[This message has been edited by Ssnake (edited 10-04-99).]

[PanzerLeader]

Ssnake,

I don't want to be too pernickety but the Wehrmacht's generals probably didn't bother too much about where to place two Machine guns:)...That's really more a lieutenant's job.
In fact some bold generals and field marshals DID contest Hitler's orders, but he often sacked them for "pessimism". Halder, who pointed out the dangerous situation on the Volga in November 1942 was immediately replaced by Zeitzler; another example is FM Erich von Manstein who kept on arguing Hitler's decisions for almost 4 years...Then Hitler got bored and sacked him:) The same thing happened to Guderian and to many other brilliant thinkers in the Wehrmacht.
Without Hitler's silly decisions Germany may have won the war...who knows?

[Moon]

One should maybe also keep in mind that getting sacked often included the loss of life, be it suicide or else...

[Kevin Peltz]

I don't think too many German generals relished the idea of airing out on the end of a meathook.

[Ssnake]

Personally, I'm happy that we lost the war - looking at the state Germany is in right now, it couldn't have come out better - neither for us nor the rest of the world...

[Lee]

Doug: I don't think that argument holds up in the case of MC. In
MC you can give a many orders as you want as fast as you want,
it's just that you lose precision in your tactics because no
one can click fast enough to keep up with the combat. Like most
real-time combat games, it degenerates into somewhat of a click
fest. In CM you give your orders and then 1 minute of combat takes
place; this does give a more accurate representation of
combat in WW II but at no time does it become a click fest. Besides,
in Battletech combat the object is full control over each detail
of mech tactics. It's not supposed to be a stand-offish sort of
thing, where you issue general orders then watch what your mech's
do.

Microprose just fell into the all-too-common trap of trying to
jump on the latest bandwagon. Lately this seems to involve
trying to make every game imaginable into a "real-time" environment.
Whether it's a good idea or not. Look at Jagged Alliance 2, you
could never have super detailed combat like that in real-time, you
couldn't issue orders fast enough, so the details would just get
glossed over. I would like to see MC done turn-based, with all
Battletech options in place. That would be a ton of fun. http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/smile.gif

[Wesy]

That would probably include Japan too. Yeah they lost the war, but they've achieved all that they wanted by 1980 through economic means. I think voicing dissent during the war was probably even more deadly (personally) in Japan than it was in Germany. Failure no matter what the odds was equally career limiting to the Axis participants. Look at Admiral Raizo "Razor" Tanaka, a man who was quote 'a bonafide genius, probably one of the finest squadron commanders of the entire war to serve on either side. He routinely defeated superior Allied forces in the Solomons, or escaped with the bulk of his forces from traps that should have meant his annihilation' (taken from the Nihon Kaigun Website - if you haven't been there you need to go - great stuff on the site from info on the IJN to Armor Penetration calculators). He ended up losing his command for a desk job - probably as one of the scape goats for the Solomons debacle - I would argue this campaign was far more significant than Midway...