Re: Improvement proposal I - OP fire draining
I've seen pretty good arguments in this thread. And I've seen some pretty ridiculous, totally off-point ones. Finally, had to register to make my one and only post on the subject.
I prefer the period and the weapons of SPMBT to any other in the series at least ten to one. I looked forward to a Windoze-compatible version since I bought my first computer with it's completely non-SPMBT hardware. No one was more excited to download and try it than I. To this day, I absolutely LOVE the OOB hacking and editing.
But just before I signed the check I played a few games and suffered the greatest disappointment of my gaming life. The one shot - one kill approach to combat resolution is deplorable, but I could deal with that for a while. The lack of any control over my units' OpFire is simply a deal breaker. I played the heck out the game for about a week before the effects of that gigantic flaw completely killed any desire I ever had to play the game.
I caught some flak from friends who heard feel the same way about it. They had to listen to me rave about how the game was coming out and how I had to have a copy and how we all had to play it. All four of us downloaded it as only an interim "fix" until we could pull the new CD's out of the mailbox. All four of us played the heck out of it for about a week, played it almost as much for about a month; and now don't play it at all.
Could some sort of OpFire fix be given to the AI? Sure, with enough time and hard work. Would I want the job? No. I decided in the 80's that any sort of computer programming was nothing I ever wanted to even be near.
But so what? SCREW THE AI!It could always be an option to be turned "on" or "off". Making it so would be the easiest part of the job. But who cares? Even if the AI never got a better OpFire management routine, why should PBEM players have the game made totally unplayable for the sake of an idea that the AI should have as good a setup? Does that mean that it is unethical to use superior forces from a "better" country to beat up on the "poor AI"? Why? The AI is nothing more than electrons I bought and paid for myself. (OK, so actually I only to get to rent them; like air, water and beer, but the principle is the same.)
Arguments about if it is or isn't historically correct to have forces who are too stupid to pass on a tank to shoot at an empty jeep and whether or not it is somehow "wrong" for the human player to have something that the AI doesn't completely miss the point. The AI doesn't buy games. And neither do people who've found it unplayable because of the uncontrollable OpFire.
And as Forest said, "that's all I have to say about that."
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