in game feedback from collegeprof86

[collegeprof86]

Hi !

this is a very cool game... love the graphics, and the entire game seems very intuitive......
the AI to me seems sufficient
the gui for firing and moving units seems fine too
i did try the editor and created my own game......

did get 1 continual error when the axis played - a missing tile error...
otherwise the game played fine

i question a few mechanics of the game though and wonder if anyone else has comments on this

i notice that a few of my tanks were firing AP ammunition, even when the graphical display on the left indicated i had zero AP shells left.... should that then be a firing of HE rather than AP?

Also, I am wondering about the calcs for firing at the rear of tanks hulls.....
seems to me if a tank is within 3 or 4 hexes of an enemy tank, facing the rear of the hull, then especially with the target being a panther tank, this should be a easy kills hot..... i believe that flanking or rear shots are far more affective against this kind of tank, given the gas tanks were in the rear and easy to hit.

also how does line of sight work... i have had units fire over other units to hit the tank behind it, and had some units hit a tanbk behind a tank that was in front 1 hex of the target.... wondering if some calcs for line of sight being blocked take place

in my edited game, played with all the various figher bomber combos... wow, that bristol plane does a good job, and i like the patterns of the artilleries .. the 105 artilliary has a large fire zone

is there a way to produce a "hull down" effect for tanks.... on the russian front and in the desert campaigns, both sides would pull a tank into a fortified position so no lower hull shots could be hit, and only the turret could be hit from the front....... i noticed i was unable to put tank or other vehicles in a fortified position,... would like to do this

also
wonder about using HE versus AP on open crewed apcs and spg..... like when attacking a marder type german apc/ spg or a half track, which are open topped vehicles, can we simulate the effects of personnel damage to those inside the vehicles.

also
what about the tank crews and apc crews... i think i saw a pop u say something about bail out, but i never saw a cew figure do this

so far love this game! great 3 -d graphic,s i like the turn by turn i go you go idea
the cartoon promo for each mission is cool too

one thing i noticed about the editor is it allowed me to place units off the map in the gray area, yet never gave an error message

also
a 1 time error on start up occurred

a pop up box only on 1st start up after install
was

missing ids register box

no problems afterwards and did not seem to affect game play

system specs
running
windows 7 home premium 64 bit

hp dx4-1281 us laptop

4 gb ram
dual core 2 ghz intel chips


loving what i see so far, just wondering about these small q and tweaks above... anyone have any comments?

!!

[Obsolete]

i notice that a few of my tanks were firing AP ammunition, even when the graphical display on the left indicated i had zero AP shells left.... should that then be a firing of HE rather than AP?

You get one free reserve fire. Though there doesn't seem to be an icon yet to show if this has been used yet or not.

[pipfromslitherine]

Thanks for the detailed feedback - that's great!

- Can you tell us which mission you got the "Missing Tile" message on.
- You are more likely to penetrate with rear and flank shots, but no more likely to hit, so that could well be what you are seeing
- There isn't a hulldown mechanic implemented, although static units do gain some bonuses to reaction and firing
- placing units off the map is very useful when creating your own missions, as you can use scripts to move them onto the map as reinforcements, etc.

Please let us have any more comments as you get further into the game. Enjoy!

Cheers

Pip

[collegeprof86]

Hi! Thanks for responding!

The missing tile was my own quick armour battle game..... just flat out open terrain for the most part, just to test the dynamics of the various tank ratios as well as to test the various air power buttons....
i can send you the mission scripts if you want me to......


I do have a q about the link up - d-day mission... at one point i used naval bombardment and it seemed to blow up one of the bridges near the village... is tihs supposed to happen???? Could that be a way to force a bridge to be blown even without engineers as a way to prevent armor crossings?

i noticed that even units w zero ap shells continued to be able to fire on all tanks, as if it was shooting ap.. and the mouse over when the bulls eye is there asking do you want to attach, also shows still an AP hit... only time i see he is when attaching troops it seems

this is a very cool game and i am spending hours enjoying it! Thanks!

this game is like a supped up version of another brands campaign series... i like this alot...

i do have 1 q about terrain

its hard to see where hills are and such, until i click on a unit and it shows what i can see line of sight wise... would be nice to be able to see some sort of terrain elevations when i am moving a vehicle or squad so i can pick the high ground, or the low ground, to avoid fire..... in advance!!!! rather than showing up on a square and finding out i cant see from there!

great game so far!

!!!!

[collegeprof86]

also, i am noticing that the german puma seems a fair match for the sherman... is this historical? I'd think a tank would be better armored and be able to out fight a apc in a close in dog fight? Anyone else see this???

[Obsolete]

Pumas were not APCs. Also, they were the up-graded versions of 8-Rads, which had the ability to knock out medium sized tanks.

However, Shermans still have the better armour by far, so no I haven't seen yet what you mention. Most likely you either had some bad luck, or left yourself exploited by some of the game mechanics.

[pipfromslitherine]

Hi! Thanks for responding!

The missing tile was my own quick armour battle game..... just flat out open terrain for the most part, just to test the dynamics of the various tank ratios as well as to test the various air power buttons....
i can send you the mission scripts if you want me to......


I do have a q about the link up - d-day mission... at one point i used naval bombardment and it seemed to blow up one of the bridges near the village... is tihs supposed to happen???? Could that be a way to force a bridge to be blown even without engineers as a way to prevent armor crossings?

i noticed that even units w zero ap shells continued to be able to fire on all tanks, as if it was shooting ap.. and the mouse over when the bulls eye is there asking do you want to attach, also shows still an AP hit... only time i see he is when attaching troops it seems

this is a very cool game and i am spending hours enjoying it! Thanks!

this game is like a supped up version of another brands campaign series... i like this alot...

i do have 1 q about terrain

its hard to see where hills are and such, until i click on a unit and it shows what i can see line of sight wise... would be nice to be able to see some sort of terrain elevations when i am moving a vehicle or squad so i can pick the high ground, or the low ground, to avoid fire..... in advance!!!! rather than showing up on a square and finding out i cant see from there!

great game so far!

!!!!

Glad you are enjoying it . You can't destroy objects on the map, but they do have graphical states to show they have taken fire, I imagine this is what you saw?

You should see a tooltip when over a hill tile.

Cheers

Pip

[collegeprof86]

hi
thanks for the quick replies!
suggestion for things i'd like to see

to be able to zoom out further, without having to resort to the overhead view

would like to be able to have a windowed view... even though i do not have full screen clicked, on the highest resolution, it uses the full frame of the screen, which prevents me from using the snipet tool of windows 7 to do screen shots during combat.

the russian front would be awesome to add too!

i love the idea of purchasing equipment prior to an actual campaign.... this allows one to customize and try different combinations of equipment and personnel that suit a mission..... i like this concept a lot
and i love the cartoony style!

is there a way to edit the mission failure objectives for a campaign that is wired into the game? Seems to me there should be some form of differntiating victory or losses, as opposed to just saying "failure" when you lose a mission...... I played the final mission of the desert campaign, and killed german units at the rate of almost 3 to 1, and yet because they blew through the line 1 turn early, the entire mission was a loss..... some games have things like
outstanding success/devastating defeat
moderate victory/moderate defeat
draw
and so on
perhaps this kind of victory concept would be good thing

i love too the concept of promotions, and using the drill sargent to upgrade units effectiveness... its so sad though to see my favorite unit get promoted, only to be destroyed 1 turn later...bummer !

Oh, and 1 more thing
I was wondering if there could be a way to tweak the aggresiveness of the AI, or, allow players whom are novices to have more purchase points going into a scenario........i think allowing users to mod a scenario by being green to veteran, through the picking of purchase points , might allow some users the chance to win games they might not otherwise be able to on 1st try


otherwise, great game!

[pipfromslitherine]

You can automatically take screenshots (although only in fullscreen mode - it's a restriction of DirectX 9 IIRC...). Just hit F2 and it will be created in the SCREENS dir of the My Docs\My Games\BBCBA directory.

Difficulty levels is something we would love to put in, but sadly there isn't time for everything . I think most people will be able to work their way through the campaign as is - and I can't see it being long before people create much much harder versions for the more hardcore crowd!

Thanks again for all the feedback

Cheers

Pip

[collegeprof86]

Thanks for the extremely fast reply! You folks are great !!!! and thanks for the head sup on how to do a screen shot!

[collegeprof86]

Hi!
New issue
I notice when using the map editor
and leaving some of the tiles as default

then when i load the campaign, all the tiles look great... but,.,,

once i do this...

that when the selecting a unit, or, when attacking units in a square, then the tile is replaced with a black square, and sometime, even writing is showing up ... this includes when a unit is there, and even after it is destroyed, it still stays black

I have taken some screen shots with my camera, how can i send them to you as jpegs..?

any ideas on this kind of bug? version 1.0
in process of downloading the new 1.1 v

[pipfromslitherine]

Can you give me an exact sequence to repeat this? It seems it only happens when you create a new map?

Posting screenshots, usually people use online free posting sites (like imageshack) and then link them into their posts.

Thanks a lot

Pip

[collegeprof86]

Yes, it only happens with the maps i make in editor.... i have made 2 maps thus far, and both have had issues with missing tiles, black tiles after combat results only, and then, sometimes even white text on the black tile
shows the words
"player" and "tile" and other things too

i will quickly create a disposable file sharing site and upload the shots... i took like 200 MB worth, it happened the entire game, and not just a one time event!
!!!

will reply with URl in a few minutes!

[pipfromslitherine]

We don't need 200Mb of files . Just convert a couple to jpgs (which will make them a lot smaller!) and post those.

Alternatively, make a quick sequence which creates a map displaying this kind of behaviour and I can try it out here.

Thanks

Pip

[collegeprof86]

images at the following URL

http://profile.imageshack.us/user/collegeprof86/

[pipfromslitherine]

Ah - it looks like it's defaulting to an overlay texture - so it might have junk as the bottom level texture, hence things showing oddly.

It shouldn't allow you to use that texture as the base for a map, I thought that was fixed, but I guess not!

Thanks for posting the images

Cheers

Pip

[collegeprof86]

i'm using 1.1 beta now, and creating a new map
and screen shot step by step
if that will help
!!

[pipfromslitherine]

It's OK . I think I can see what it happening - I just thought I fixed it so it shouldn't!

I'll make it more robust when I get into work in the morning.

Thanks for all your help

Pip

[collegeprof86]

i just noticed that the campaigns are now locked, until i complete the tutorial now....

[pipfromslitherine]

Correct. The new version actually locks them all in order. The diff level means that jumping straight to Bulge for new users would be pretty ugly!

If older hands want to jump right in, there is a simple trick to set all the campaigns to done .

Cheers

Pip