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Grey Hunter posted:Right, looking at my free time allotment, I don't think I can do another round I'm afraid. It's perfectly fine. I had a blast, even if that time was mostly spent running around like a headless chicken during the first game and sitting around valiantly attempting to gain x-ray vision the second game.  If someone does step up, I'll be there in a heart-beat.
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Nov 3, 2014 12:21
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 22:20 |
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Grey Hunter posted:Right, looking at my free time allotment, I don't think I can do another round I'm afraid. Thank you for doing it all. I await the 7th of Dec with interest. Don't burn out, we have 5 more years of battle reports to read.
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Nov 3, 2014 12:53
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A good game, well fought. I had fun, even though there were a few frustrating lulls and sudden losses. I feel there's lots to take away from the game, but no real screw-ups on either side. Both sides played well, and I have to commend the Germans for putting up a great defence instead of just turtling across the river.
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Nov 3, 2014 13:17
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Comstar posted:Thank you for doing it all. I await the 7th of Dec with interest. Don't burn out, we have 5 more years of battle reports to read. Now that you said it out loud, we went into the first playthrough of WitP fully anticipating that Grey won't finish it. He said it himself. Let's just go with that thread as long as it's fun and don't worry about the end of the war. It will be a swift war anyway, for without their Pacific Fleet and with the war raging in Europe, the United States will surel be in no shape to oppose the Glorious Nippon until we can force a favourable peace.
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Nov 3, 2014 13:37
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Grey Hunter posted:Right, looking at my free time allotment, I don't think I can do another round I'm afraid. That's too bad. Thanks a lot for all your work running the game!
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Nov 3, 2014 13:39
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Repeating myself here a bit but adding stuff! I've put a bunch of assets together and have a decent idea about a new game, not sure if I'm qualified to run it due to not having run a LP before and would have to set up recording software etc. I'm more than happy to step in for a admin role to assist both sides of this planned little excursion, maybe a few of us working together can equal one Grey Hunter! American assault on the crossroads at Monthardrou. 2nd of August, 1944. U.S forces pushing through France are tasked with securing a vital road junction as German Forces start to withdraw towards Falaise.  For how to play this thing I was thinking a small experienced 5 person German team vs a larger, greener U.S force lead by a couple of experienced people with the game (Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy). The Germans on this map start with all of their units in a large deployment zone in which to optimally deploy defences. The Americans start with a small mix of troops and receive periodic reinforcements at the 5, 15, 30 and 50 minute marks of the 70 minute map. I think the smaller number of troops plus the reinforcements coming in gradually will allow us to have a reasonable amount of people playing on the American side without it ever getting to hectic, if people really, really want in then U.S commanders could split responsibility up further or assign dead/new people to reinforcements, I am envisioning each person controlling around a platoons worth of troops or 2 or so tanks depending on amount of interest. The Americans should win this battle, however the Germans are veterans of a far more brutal war and will do everything they can do slow down and bleed their inexperienced enemy. Of course goon military code of honour will be in place so no peeking at the opposite sides threads or in-game troop lists , both sides have a vague idea as to the other capabilities but this will be revealed in your thread. I have troop lists and objectives and map close ups saved for both sides for the individual threads A cropped together large map (open in new tab for huge) and deployment zones:   Overhead actual map and an attempt at a badly cropped together one (new tab for large):   View North, South, East, West:     And since combat mission is awesome this map is of course modelled on a real location which can be found on google maps: Here! How were people doing elevation maps? That's something I've been trying to figure out, the gridded terrain mod was causing issues with some of my other texture mods so I've left it off for now but would love other idea's, maybe something through http://www.geoportail.gouv.fr? My French is awful so no idea how to navigate to what we need. This is the best I've managed so far from google maps: 
Abongination fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 16:40
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Bacarruda posted:Hob, if have thoughts about the good/bad sides of my leadership this game, I'd be interested to hear them. I believe the essence of leadership is to set goals, make sure everyone understands them, lay out the groundwork on how said goals will be achieved, guide people towards them and if necessary, re-evaluate the meaningfulness of said goals. Judging by these goalposts: You laid the goals out very clearly. All your company commanders started working in unison towards these aims: quote:Objectives You explained the work you'd have to do to achieve these goals. You offered advice when asked for it, mostly left people to their own devices when you were not needed and prodded them when it seemed like you wouldn't meet the deadlines otherwise. If I were to ask your company commanders they'd likely say that you didn't crowd their turf but gave them the support needed to be effective. As far as I can tell you had two points of failure in the execution of your plan. First was the deployment of snipers. You resorted to micromanaging as first choice and things took a downward turn immediately afterwards. I'd be interested in hearing your reason why; up until this point you trusted people to handle the details and you concerned yourself with the general plan. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3658537&userid=174512&perpage=40&pagenumber=3#post434377343 Second was when you realized you were taking a lot of casualties and changed plans. I think you should have re-evaluated the original goals and rewritten them for everyone to see if you felt like they were no longer achievable. Goals are not the same thing as tasks taken to make them happen. You wrote out a list of tasks (the five-point list) but not the motivation behind them. If some of those tasks had failed, people would have worked hard to salvage the task, not the goal that motivated the task in the first place. For example, you ordered something resembling a general retreat for Draluns men and started preparing a fight within the objective area. Tasks 1 and 2 would be easy to read as "defend Troll forest" when the actual motivation is something like "preserve your forces until you're in better position, better supported and better shape to stop Soviet advance towards East Town". Calling a retreat of the remaining troops seems counter-intuitive if you understood the goal wrong. You also had two tasks directly at odds and while I think you wanted to preserve your troops more, you listed the tasks in an order that placed stopping the advance first. If Dralun had staged another delaying action and gotten his company knocked ineffective but stopped the advance for 15 minutes, would you have been happy with the result? After all, both your large-scale objectives and immediate tasks said to stop the Soviets before East Town. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3658537&userid=174512&perpage=40&pagenumber=6#post436949017 Other than those two, I think people in your team would say you pointed players of Team Germany towards the same objective. Well played.
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Nov 3, 2014 17:07
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Looks like Abongination might have this next one. Sign me up yo. Dublish and myself sat down yesterday and talked for two hours about how we'd do a version with each team having a dedicated person who runs CM, akin to each team having their own Grey. It'd be a blind affair too so neither one of us would actually know what's where, or what's coming. This would also allow each side to make requests like LoS checks or terrain or etc. We haven't finalized ideas yet but we were close to just hopping up and starting sign ups.
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Nov 3, 2014 18:13
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I would like to sign up immediately!
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Nov 3, 2014 18:19
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Thanks Grey Hunter for running these, I caught up on the last few battles and actually bought Red Thunder because of this thread! If someone is starting a new one I would also like to sign up immediately, my armchair platoon-commander is itching.
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Nov 3, 2014 18:22
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I would also like to sign up if someone's doing one, of course.
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Nov 3, 2014 18:29
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I'd like to get in the next battle as well - preferably en Allemagne. 
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Nov 3, 2014 18:33
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Dark_Swordmaster posted:Looks like Abongination might have this next one. Sign me up yo. Yeah I've thought for a while now that having each side have their dedicated "orders inputter" would help, but I was never sure if it would work within the framework of Grey being the processor of the turns. A straight-up blind duel between two commanders as though it were a normal PBEM except forums goons are commanding the units, though? Sign me the hell up. VVVVVV A goons vs AI game would also work well I think because there'd be less petty sniping between the two sides, it'd be easier to replace drop-outs since you don't have inter-thread cheating to worry about, and we'd all be going into it just as blind. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 18:38
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^^^^Agreed. And it'd be a different take on Combat Mission from Abongination's and dublish/Dark_Swordmaster's games. Soup Inspector posted:It's perfectly fine. I'm still up to run a game. Sometime Jan-Feb of next year would be the earliest I could run a game, since I'm moving to Korea in December and will need some time to settle in. There's a bunch of ways to run this next game, so I'll run them by the thread for feedback. Firstly, format. 1. Dark_Swordmaster and dublish's iea for PBEM between battalion commanders. Thread gives their orders to a battalion commander (or XO) with the game, they input them, play their turn's side, and make the video. 2. A Grey Hunter-style goon vs. goon battle. Threads would post orders, I'd input them, make the videos, etc. 3. A goons vs. AI scenario or campaign. Another goon did this for the Shock Force UK campaign and it worked well. 4. A head-to-head single-player against another goon, each one running a separate thread. Less hands-on goon participation but a lot more peanut gallery. I think a goon campaign would be a nice change of pace for folks. In terms of player attrition, it's pretty forgiving. Unlike a goon vs. goon game, people are only seeing one side of the action, so spoilers aren't an issue and missing goons can be replaced by observers. It also requires people to be mindful of casualties. If your core unit gets gutted early in the campaign, it becomes a lot harder to finish (although some campaigns do let you get replacement troops). Secondly, content. I have Afghanistan, Shock Force, Normandy (Commonwealth and Market-Garden), and Red Thunder. These games can be LP'ed in a bunch of ways. Afghanistan and Shock Force are older CM games, and they play very differently from Red Thunder. APCs, anti-tank missiles, RPGs, and IEDs are all threats. Because it doesn't have a good quick battle mode, we'd need to run this game in a campaign or in a custom scenario. Grey Hunter did two Normandy LPs, so a lot of goons have the feel for this already. It's my personal favorite. There's hedgerows, stone cottages, and a Panzerfaust around every corners. If we play Market-Garden, we get dykes and some brutal urban fights. There's loads of campaigns and battle for these games. Plus, it isn't too hard to make a custom scenario. If people want more Bagration action, I can run another Red Thunder game. e: if anyone's down for a PBEM game sometime, let me know. e2: so it looks like we have abongination, dublish/Dark_Swordmaster, and me all planning games. Cool! The more the better! Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 18:42
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Bacarruda posted:3. A goons vs. AI scenario or campaign. Another goon did this for the Shock Force UK campaign and it worked well. I'd like to see this the most myself. As someone else mentioned, it'd eliminate the potential for drama whilst maximising the chances of hilarious hijinks. I also think it could be interesting!
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Nov 3, 2014 19:02
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I'm interested. I have shock force + all the modules, cm normandy at 3.0, cmfi at 3.0 with gustave line, and cmrt. I'm willing to do pretty much anything, and also if anyone just wants to do a pbem hit me up.
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Nov 3, 2014 19:03
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I have BN and all modules to 3.0 except the new vehicles one. I have SF with all modules. I don't own FI or RT but I can fix that. Personally I don't care for against AI stuff since you can't replace the cunning and ability to react of people. I was playing one of the MG scenarios last night and despite having a road/field/railroad covered the AI kept pushing across it.
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Nov 3, 2014 19:07
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Dark_Swordmaster posted:I have BN and all modules to 3.0 except the new vehicles one. Yeah, scenarios where the AI has to go on the offensive don't work all that well. If we do run a goon campaign (which seems likely), it'd needs to be an Epsom-type deal where the goons are assaulting the AI.
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Nov 3, 2014 19:11
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Bacarruda posted:Yeah, scenarios where the AI has to go on the offensive don't work all that well. If we do run a goon campaign (which seems likely), it'd needs to be an Epsom-type deal where the goons are assaulting the AI. Well geeze it shouldn't be that hard to do better than Monty, right?
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Nov 3, 2014 19:32
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gradenko_2000 posted:Well geeze it shouldn't be that hard to do better than Monty, right? 
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Nov 3, 2014 19:49
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Abongination, heres how I did the contour map: 1. Finding an old ordinance survey map, It was just a matter of finding a searching google right. Studienka didn't work, but Bryli (The town on the west side) has a slightly less common name and I think is a bit bigger today, so that got some positive results. I found a site that archived old russian map series, kind of hard to navigate but I was lucky to find it and some trial and error let me find the right maps. 2. I stayed behind after work one day and used a CAD program to load in the game map. Then I loaded in a cropped version of the survey map and rectified it (I matched up a bunch of points from the survey map with the equivalent points on the game map. For example, the point of the forest where Route 66 split into two.) This rotates and scales the survey map to match the game map very closely. 3. Turned off the layer with the game map and drew lines matching the contours on the survey map. This actually took the most time because the section of the survey map showing Studienka was only a few centimeters across and the contour lines on it tended to disappear under all the other features, so making sure I didn't mix up contours took a while. 4. Printed it directly to .tif, I tried to use some paint programs to transfer the contours to a higher res map, but it didn't work. did a whole lot of bodged formatting, hence the final map had huge white borders and a few other formatting issues. The Sovs seemed to get theirs directly from the game, thus skipping the whole CAD drawing step. Their map was more accurate as well since they weren't scaling up from a small scale map. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 20:55
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Jaguars! posted:The Sovs seemed to get theirs directly from the game, thus skipping the whole CAD drawing step. Their map was more accurate as well since they weren't scaling up from a small scale map. Yeah, we made an enormous map out of screenshots from the scenario editor with the elevation numbers turned on, then played connect-the-dot.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:18
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dublish posted:Yeah, we made an enormous map out of screenshots from the scenario editor with the elevation numbers turned on, then played connect-the-dot. How much work did that take? A Couple of map sites: This awesome russian site covers the whole world with Russian and US army maps. You should be able to zoom in to where you want and see which series of maps is best. Of course, Russia is covered in more detail. Here's a map of the St Lo area, which shows Monthardrou. You should be able to find where you want by starting at St Lo and comparing it to the town names/ major roads on Google maps. It's a little more zoomed out than ideal, A 1:50 000 or closer map would give you better detail. Your best bet is to include St Lo or Caen in your search terms, as well as 'topographic', which is the type of map with contour lines on it. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 21:46
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Sign me up for a game, I'm all for it. Especially if I get to drive a Sherman 
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Nov 3, 2014 21:54
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Sign me up for a game, I'm all for it. Especially if I get to drive a Sherman ___________________/ 
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Nov 3, 2014 22:12
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Sign me up for a game, I'm all for it. Especially if I get to drive a Sherman 
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Nov 3, 2014 22:55
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Sign me up for a game, I'm all for it. Especially if I get to drive a Sherman 
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Nov 3, 2014 23:05
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Jaguars! posted:How much work did that take? Maybe 6 hours? I think finding existing topographical maps for an area would be a lot faster and accurate enough for anything you wouldn't need to go into the game for, but you'd have to be playing on a map based on real locations.
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Nov 3, 2014 23:27
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It took about 3 hours for me to rectify and trace for my map, not including search time. Less boring as well, if you did it all tile by tile. I could probably do it a bit quicker as well now that I know the process. I'm quite happy to contourise a map or two, especially if someone helps by finding good maps.
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Nov 4, 2014 00:05
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I was thinking a lot about this last night as I obviously have nothing better to do and I think I agree that the head to head scenario is the best way to run this. This does mean we'll need to get two dedicated commanders that both own the game and can agree to put out a few minutes of video every day for the next month or so with the occasional 48 or 72 hour break if life demands it. These commanders will also need to standardise their mods to make sure both recordings look and perform the same. Even if everyone ends up dropping out these two commanders would be able to finish the battle and hopefully avoid stalling out again. I think Grey's 2 minute turns are the way to go. That would be 35 turns in total to completely finish the map and due to this map being substantially smaller then Grey's we should see some action in the first few turns. Would love to discuss the format some more with our potential generals. vvvv vv Putting the call out for the goon equivalents of Bradley and Rommel, you will command your respective force, input orders from your team and play and record your turns. This is a major time investment so be aware of what you are signing up for. You must own CM:BN 3.0 and have experience with the game. You will be lionised by your pixelmen and less glamorous goon comrades! To war! ^^ ^^^^ I'll stay on the admin side of things and can act as a go between for the commanders as well as doing map stuff and generally trying to keep the game going smoothly, would love to collab with the other people that were considering planning games, what chat program were you and dublish using sword? A campaign would be amazing, I already have grand dreams about it but thought a smaller game might be a good test for us non-LP'ers before we jump into the deep end. RE:Topo map stuff. Both methods seems incredibly difficult haha, will have a scout around but might be best off just copying the elevation map numbers out of the scenario editor and people can interpret that. Abongination fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Nov 4, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 01:29
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I like longer turns pre-engagement, but I feel that once you get into the actual battle it should be one minute turns simply because you have to be able to react to so many things.
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Nov 4, 2014 02:12
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Boom, complicated elevation map (new tab for huge):  It's really not easy on the eyes haha *Edit - Redid it with contour lines listing elevation, not super professional but might do the job? 
Abongination fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Nov 4, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 03:29
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Perhaps it would be interesting to play a goon horde vs one person game? You get the benefits of only having to deal with the complexities of handling orders for one side, and don't have to play against brain dead AI. You could offset the advantages of the one player side by making the odds ridiculously in favor of the goon horde. Then that one player, while not having to deal with the mess that is the chain of command, has to be cunning and have a perfect plan to overcome the great odds.
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Nov 4, 2014 03:41
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I just broke down and bought red thunder.  
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Nov 4, 2014 03:45
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TonySnow posted:Perhaps it would be interesting to play a goon horde vs one person game? This is pretty much what I want to do but with a few people on the German side to make it slightly more interesting and spark some discussion on strategy and tactics.
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Nov 4, 2014 03:51
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TonySnow posted:Perhaps it would be interesting to play a goon horde vs one person game? You get the benefits of only having to deal with the complexities of handling orders for one side, and don't have to play against brain dead AI. You could offset the advantages of the one player side by making the odds ridiculously in favor of the goon horde. Then that one player, while not having to deal with the mess that is the chain of command, has to be cunning and have a perfect plan to overcome the great odds. I'd be down for this. It'd be fun to play the fox against the hounds. Morale-wise, it might be a bit hard for the goons. Some smart commander pops three or four goon tanks in the first few minutes of the game and goon morale might start to crumble.
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Nov 4, 2014 04:34
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You're gonna have to give the goons some advantages because it will be way to easy to win vs goons.
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Nov 4, 2014 04:47
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TehKeen posted:I just broke down and bought red thunder. Fear the Russian SMG.
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Nov 4, 2014 05:04
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My first QB I had one hetzer versus a t34 and seven SU76s. My Hetzer killed everything (a couple of double penetrations in a line through the thin armored ones  ) except the final SU76 which got it because for whatever reason it couldn't see it (probably due to the clouds of smoke from his dead friends, lol)
TehKeen fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Nov 4, 2014 |
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Nov 4, 2014 05:17
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 22:20 |
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I'd be interested in doing another one of these. I don't have a copy of the game though. As an aside, I'd also be curious to know if my tank crew got any kills. Watching the videos it looked like they may have, but it is hard to tell at times.
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Nov 4, 2014 05:20
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