Now I know why reading the manual is important

[Kartoffel]

Yesterday I was randomly looking through the GG when I stumbled upon how to differentiate between formations without having to click on each unit or look at the Headquarters screen. The operation also prevents having to find where replacement leaders are on the Headquarters roster because the original leader died, which is very annoying.

It took me 3 years to figure out, so I'm going to share it with everybody in case there are any people like myself that didn't read the manual but are active on the forums.

- Just press 5 and you can find out which formation is which and it even tells you the leader so you don't accidentally put him in the front of the banzai charge (it also is nice for rallying purposes).

K.

[Wdll]

It was added with the latest patch. It wasn't always there AFAIK.

[DRG]

That change went into winSPMBTV4.5 when it was release in March 2009 ( it went into winSPWW2 first in Dec 2008 ) as Wdll noted but to clarify that's a CD - Extended Feature and only functions if you have the CD version. IDK when you may have bought the CD version but if it's only been recently that might explain why you just noticed it.

Don

[Nightblade]

While mentionning the manual, there is this question that i always forgot to post here :

As usually between 2 PBEM games there could be easily 6 or way more months, i tend to fear i could have forgotten a bit of the process about the exact files to provide, and so re-read the PBEM explanations from the manual to refresh my memory each time before i play a PBEM with someone.

And everytime i am a bit puzzled by this part on the manual, and apparently my opponents that usually play PBEM as much as me too.
about the secured PBEM games :

This example shows the files for the second PBEM save slot being selected ( remember, the slots are numbered from (0) ZERO and not (1)ONE.

And the screenshot shows 2 files that are highlighted, so i suppose those are the ones used for the PBEM

But unfortunately, few paragraph after that, i read this :

In a remote game, player 1 now sends the 3 zipped up files to player 2.

There we are usually a bit lost, as in the example there were only 2 files highlighted, and nowhere else in the explanation there is a mention of that 3rd file.

And few lines after :

Player 2 now exits to windows, and zips up the 2 files for this game and transmits to player 1.

I suppose the "3" is a typo, but to prevent any problems in the case the typo was in fact the "2" , we always sent the 2 files + the PBEMRegistry.dat at every turn of our PBEM games(as i imagine if there is indeed a 3rd file to send, it must have been this one)

So is the "3" in the manual a typo, or just the explanation being a bit confusing ?

[DRG]

It would be three files if you were playing a scenario as PBEM and you were including the TXT file that went along with it. In the vast majority of cases it would only be two files. You do not need to send the PBEMRegistry.dat .

I'll re-write that section of the guide

Don

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by DRG

It would be three files if you were playing a scenario as PBEM and you were including the TXT file that went along with it. In the vast majority of cases it would only be two files. You do not need to send the PBEMRegistry.dat .

I'll re-write that section of the guide

Don

The 3rd file is historical - way back in the MS-DOS days, there was a 3rd AUX file, but that is now part of the DAT file. Reference to it was deleted from the Game Guide, but obviously that bit about "3" files was missed.

CMT - is a stub file with the title of the game.
DAT - is the main save game

Nothing else need be zipped up and sent to your opponent.

Sending your PBEM registry to a third party is a really daft thing to do - it might mess up his ongoing secured PBEMs totally, and nowhere do we say to send that internal system file, or even mention it!. It is not for end users to mess with, whatsoever.

Sending it to another player is highly likely to nuke his ongoing secure PBEM games since you have sent part of your own data to overwrite his completely different data. Advise any opponents you infected this way to restart any secure PBEM games they currently have in progress (not just the ones with you).

Andy

[DRG]

Ah yes, forgot all about the .AUX file......

Don

[Nightblade]

Thanks for the precision. will write this somewhere while waiting for the next upgrade and the updated manual document.

I guess a re-install is in order as from what i understand then, i have strictly no idea whose PBEMRegistry.dat i have as each time i played a pbem everyone sent their registry too, being as confused as i was in regard to the pbem explanations.

[DRG]

There is no need to re-install. When you start a new game the new info will overwrite the old for whatever slot you are using

Don