Sertorius

Well, the GUI is editable...

But once they decide, it won't take them as long to set up a digital system than to actually print and ship hard copies. I'll just wait and hope that they can arrange something soon.

No, all scripting is done using the same English language commands. Personally, I'd wait to see how the online distribution system works before I started thinking about buying the German version.

Overall, I really liked this demo. It's got everything that made Rome: Total War such an excellent game, and it gets rid of a few problems (E.g. the "clone soldiers") with that game. Combat seems even more centered on heavy infantry and heavy cavalry than it was in Rome. Nice graphical improvements, and the improvements to the campaign map sound very interesting. You should advance a little with your center of dismounted knights in order to prevent attacks on your longbowmen. I've had good luck when I lined up my knights with the outermost stakes. As the battle progresses, I shift my knights to one side of the gap between the stakes, and use the longbows to plug the other side of that gap with intense fire. I use my spare halberdiers (The single hand-to-hand unit at the back of the right side of your formation) to either reinforce the left-side reserves against the cavalry attack, or to ward off an attack on the longbows. I've beaten the battle twice, so I must be doing something right. They have improved the AI, but the improvements are probably more noticeable in the nonscripted campaign battles. Don't forget, you can build castles with multi-wall systems (According to a preview movie, you can reinforce a castle with three rings of walls). And I have to say that I like the new blood spatter system. Yeah, though that might just be a matter of adjusting to battles with many more ranged weapons. Are you sure that there'll be an online version available in English on that day? I hadn't heard anything conclusive about online distribution.

No. And the guy's arms look fine to me in that picture.

I'm not sure how BIS managed to make a knockoff of BF when it wasn't even on the market .

Is it just me, or are they going a little overboard with the grass? The interview is here. but it's in Polish. It had three other screenies besides the one above: Beach Landing Guard Post Some Civvie Vehicles

AMD 64 X2

How is the M113 destroyed? If the mission works, you're supposed to be picked up by the M113 after the tanks are destroyed.

Americans aren't exactly known for being rational when religion comes up. For instance, take this story. When 61% of your population believes in literal Genesis, there's obviously more than a few fundamentalists about. Edit - And stories like this one make me want to slam my head against a brick wall. Well, at least we accept evolution more than people in Turkey, but I don't think that says much.

You could go back to the destruction of the Sassanid empire. Then I'll have to plead ignorance, as I don't know much concerning the culture in that region.

Who are you referring to? Persians? Africans?

I'd be inclined to say that the problem is Arab tribalism, not Islam itself.

I'm eagerly anticipating the same thing. In OFP 15, due out in 2095. Well, if you were paying more attention, you'd have noticed that they updated the engine so that it now streams terrain. The only thing needed to create "thousands of miles" is, well, hundreds of terrain editors. Armed Assault has gotten pretty nice looking over time. Maybe not quite the equal of OFP2, but it's an excellent improvement. Well, think about this for a second. To complete a "jaw-dropping" game, BIS needs lots of talented workers and the money to pay these workers. Since BIS can't pull cash out of a hat, it needs to release products that people will buy. A heavily-improved OFP with better graphics, scripting, AI, etc will not only revitalize the community, it will prevent Marek from being forced to sell his body on the streets of Prague in order to raise salaries for his employees. How can you make blanket statements like "It probably will never come out"? Work has obviously been done on it, or there would have been nothing to show at E3. Obviously work will have slowed down for ArmA, but it will speed up again after ArmA is released and they have some positive cash flow. Really, getting hyperactive over a release date is pretty absurd. BI is a company, it operates by the same principles that any company operates under: Publish, or perish. Either they release a product and keep themselves financially sound, or the company can no longer do any work. I'd rather buy a heavily-revamped engine and wait a few years for OFP2, than get nothing at all. Edit - Personally, I find it bizarre to have such a sense of anger at BIS for not releasing OFP2 earlier. It's just a game. Sure, it's arguably one of the best game concepts on the market, but in the end it's just a form of entertainment. Becoming emotionally invested in a piece of gaming software and getting angry when it's not released is just plain silly.

There's this little thing called "Armed Assault". You might want to read about it...

Edit - Woops

Though there a plethora of WWII mods, I don't think that there has ever been one based on the Wehrmacht. I'm not interested in glorifying the Nazis, but I don't think that avoiding glorification should equate to completely ignoring the experience of German soldiers. This brings up the first thing I'd like to ask: Is a campaign where the player is a member of the Wehrmacht still too much of a "hot potato"? The way I see it, there've been excellent movies about the Nazi military (Such as Das Boot) which do not glorify Nazism, so it should be possible to create a story-based campaign that does not glorify it. So, is there anyone interested in helping me with this project? I'd be doing config work, scripting, island creation, and mission-making. I desperately need modellers and texturers if I'm even to get this mod off the ground. If this mod actually got started, I'd want to start by building a campaign around the defeat of Germany. There have been plenty of campaigns centering around Normandy, and to be honest, I'm sick of fighting for another French town. Instead, I want to build missions about events such as the Battle of the Siegfried Line, the Battle of the Bulge, the Battle of Seelow Heights, and the Battle of the Halbe Pocket. Perhaps, in order to give a mix of mission types, the campaign would be centered around the experiences of a group of friends, each of whom was serving in a different role (E.G. infantryman, heavy infantry, panzer commander). Anyway, comments, questions, offers of help, etc are welcome.

I'm interested, and I'd be glad to collaborate as soon as I have a copy of ArmA. Thank you for the offer. I'll be sure to contact you once the mod has some units to make missions with.

Well, for starters, WWII was not dominated by trench warfare. Trenches were used, of course, but the ability to create functioning trenches is not vital like it would be in a WWI mod. I think that all of these problems can be dealt with through careful config work. That sounds more like WWI. WWII battles certainly did reach epic proportions, but there was plenty of small scale action. I know that I can't create a full recreation of the Battle of Kursk, but there are literally thousands of mission-opportunities in the form of smaller actions. I'm sure research will generate plenty of good ideas.

I've done work in all of these areas, I've done scripting for a mod, and I have released a few missions. I would have released more, but I lost my OFP disks a while back and I didn't bother buying replacements due to the upcoming release of ArmA. I've never released a map, but I understand how to build and config one, and building an island really is just a matter of patience. I'll probably end up doing mostly script and mission work, though I'm capable of handling island work if I can't find someone to make maps. As for modelling, I can build static objects, though I can't do textures (No Photoshop at the moment, and I'm not too fond of selling a kidney in order to afford a new copy.)

So? As far as I can tell, that's coincidental, not causal. Ford has experienced problems with pensions, good competetion, excessive rebates/marketing gimmicks, and many other issues, but I've never seen evidence that a primary factor in its nonprofitability has to do with Evil Neocon Men. If anything, it has more to do with Evil Japanese Businessmen and their Annoyingly Good Cars.

I played the demo, and I'd say it was pretty good. My main bug was with the population limits in skirmish mode, which were set far too low for my taste. I suppose that the level of tanks was appropriate for the size of the map, but I definitely think that the limit should be raised on infantry. And some base defenses (Here I am thinking of the Flak 88) consume huge amounts of population units, meaning that building even one or two of these severely limits remaining production. The units balanced pretty well, the Germans have superior armor and the Americans have superior riflemen. American riflemen can be upgraded with BARs, sticky bombs, and grenades (They can carry all three at once). The Germans get Volksgrenadiers, which carry rifles which can be upgraded to MP40s. They do carry Panzerfausts, making them OK against light armor, but they lose quickly against BAR-equipped American riflemen. The Germans get better heavy infantry in the form of grenadiers, 4-man squads that start out with Stg44s and Mausers. They can be upgraded with two heavy weapons: Panzershreks and/or light MG42s, in any combination you see fit. Both sides get snipers, machinegun teams, mortar teams, and engineers (They act as the construction vehicles in the game). German tanks are superior to the American alternatives, and usually send the Yanks running away in terror (One consequence of the population limit is that American players will have a bitch of a time getting winnable armor ratios). One Tiger or Panther can quickly make a mess out of several Shermans. However, a German commander can only get a Tiger by selecting a certain command doctrine (Like a small, seperate tech tree) and buying it with XP points. Both sides get some armored cars and AAA vehicles too. Graphics are awesome, and there's a neat camera feature that lets you freely move the camera, even down to ground level. You can get an excellent idea of what each unit can see/shoot using this tool. All models look very good even at point blank range. I found the gameplay to be pretty easy. You earn XP points by building units or killing enemy units, and you use those points to buy cards giving you various types of upgrades/reinforcements/support. You have an economy based on three resources: Manpower, fuel, and munitions. You earn these by capturing points on the battlefield, and capturing new sectors also increases your population limit. The gameplay is more bloody than in many RTSs I've played, as the AI can be very aggressive and will put constant pressure on you. The number of machineguns, mortars, AT guns, and artillery on the battlefield virtually assures a great deal of casualties, even for a good player.

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And the Great Satan receives another gift from its underworld sponsor...

The Communist Manifesto wasn't just "implemented incorrectly", it has deep internal flaws that can't be glossed over. Socialism requires a huge government in order to be implemented, and there is an enormous amount of historical evidence concerning what happens when a government is given that much power. If you don't want to look at recent attempts at socialism, you could perhaps look at the example of Rome. Rome wasn't socialist, but it's an excellent example of the consequences of power. It offered men enormous power, and look at the men who were attracted by that power. For every man who served the Roman people loyally, there was one nutcase, one politically-capable-but-militarily-incompetant man, and, of course, one who took his army and marched on Rome. My point is that any system that offers people huge amounts of consolidated power is going to draw out some of the ugliest examples of humanity. In order to reach Communism (By definition an unreachable goal, as one cannot build a classless society out of aggressive, strongly tribal animals) an all-powerful socialist state must be constructed, and such power will eventually attract the vicious, the evil, and the power-mad. Edit: One of my favorite Abraham Lincoln excerpts. It's far more eloquent than I'd ever be: