In defense of Netterhsiem, Pt4…

Allies have the North Armybase zipped up tightly, Axis hold the most strategic location between the last depot and the AB, overlooking the tract of otherwise open ground. Can either side take control of the no-mans-land and secure the town?

Terminology #3 (recap)

I wanted to recap with the current terms people have suggested that work for me:

“Diversionary Action” (was Off-side Action)

A formalized action away from Attack Objectives.

“Company”

A player grouping below brigades, with stylized names: Alpha Company, Bravo Company etc;

“Call Up” (was Open)

To register a company so that it is visible to players to join

“Mobilize” (was Activate)

“Mobilized” (was Active)

To achieve pre-requisites that enable spawning and application of the Company.

“Blockade”  (was Neutralize)

Non-capture goal of an Off-side Action which causes an effect such as displacement of brigades.

“Engage”

“Engaged”

One or more players of an Active company has reached the objective and begun the “Blockade” counter.

“Fully Engaged”

A town with one or more Company from each side Engaged.

“War Bond” (was Token)

A virtual unit of currency with finite availability.

God bless Xiper :)

Xiper is the author of the “Battleground Europe Game Monitor“. BGEM is the little tool that makes my desktop look like this:

BEGM itself appears as nothing more than a side bar with a bunch of stuff I can’t quite recall how we lived without before this sort of thing was available.

Campaign 46 begins

The Axis turned in another victory last weekend after a fairly epic 92 day Campaign that could have gone either way at various points during the battle. We’ve made some tweaks to movement timers (the full 60 minute timer now applies whether you are moving from or to a frontline town, and the behind-lines timers is now 30 minutes instead of 15) and I snuck in “Chat Shortcuts” ($orig, $targ, $lead, $unit, $miss). Doc reduced the armor in Infantry Brigades some more, Riflemen are down to 700 per non-armor brigade vs 900 previously.

It promises to be a fascinating campaign with relatively simple changes and no client patch as yet.

Hot Damn!

(Also in High Quality on the YouTube page – click the link under the “Views” count)

Videos like that make it suck that I only get paid to write the game and not to play it :)

Rollercoaster…

Some of you who read this and work on games yourself will probably find this a bit … eerie or weird or nerdy or something. But, I like to enjoy the game I work on. So yes, for my birthday, I stocked up on beers and chips and candy, and I sat myself infront of our game for most of the day – a good 16 hours played yesterday/this morning.

And it has really been quite phenomenal. Fundamentally, it’s still the same game it was before our last patch set of patches, but this differentiated brigades has definitely been a major milestone in the development track.

Remembering the fallen

 We concluded our 7th anniversary celebration by remembering those who fought for us in World War II and the players who are no-longer with us in a 10 minute Cease Fire on the Dinant Bridge. The earlier, 2pm, ceremony was a little unruly. However, there was a touching degree of reverance shown at the 8pm ceremony. (People on both sides will no doubt feel the other side failed to behave, but remember, you only reserve 4 or 10 slots for friendly units when your vis list gets full)

Over 600 people were standing on the bridge at the peak of the 8pm ceremony.

Ah, next year, I need a slightly less drastic way to despawn everyone at the end of the ceremony…

System text from the ceremonies: