Very Newbie

[Agent Smith]

Fellow grognards; Christmas came early for me this year with PZC Normandy coming my way. I have one very basic question; as I begin to get into this game.
The getting started scenario mentions two screens that automatically appear during combat, the fire report dialog and A/I action dialog, neither of these are appearing while I run the intro scenario. Is there a toggle/ hotkey/ settings point I am overlooking? Or does the updated patches remove the need to see these reports? I feel any feedback from the game engine would be useful during my newbie stage.
Also what do people round here consider the default settings should be while getting started?
...any help regarding this or other issues would be welcome.
oh, and as soon as I've mastered the A.I. any helpful respondents to this thread can have the honor of kicking my butt online!!! :)
thanx.
& merry christmas to you all.

[trauth116]

Agent Smith - I think you might have been reading some of the outdated material - with the newer patches there is no dialog screen that pop up when conducting combat (the only reason I am familiar with this- is by some og John Tiller's earlier games for Talonsoft -where the results of the combats would show up in a dialog box -- now the results just show up on the map itself.)


Here is a great site to get your feet wet - in general -when it comes to this series:
http://members.shaw.ca/gcsaunders/welcome.html the articles are particularly interesting.

If you are patching your game off of the www.hpssims.com site - if you haven't done so- also update with the optional and recommended material - which (iirc) changes the online manual to the latest set of rules ... also updates the online help screens when you are inside the game itself.


Default settings well that is sorta open to debate - as it depends upon how you want your game to flow - I can tell you my preferences (although I'd have to look them up) -- the manual defensive fire though - to me adds in a phase that can get to be a drag when running a PBEM game... as it makes about 3 emails to complete a single turn -so I think most don't do it.

Personally I printed off the manual -way back when ... but that one is one of those things where mileage can vary.

Hope this helps even just a bit .

[dannybou]

Definitely set your defensive fire to auto when playing by email. Agree with Steve.

[Agent Smith]

The setting 'on map results' rectifies the issue of not seeing the fire reports, but given how intrusive they are I have now switched them off. So thanks for the quick response. I'm still keen to find out 2 things. Settings prefs by those more experienced than I and how many potential opponents I might have playing this flavour (Normandy), of PZC. Despite it's age, compared to the more recent additions, does it still hold up? and which game has the most challenging A.I.

[KG_RangerBooBoo]

When your ready I know I'll be glad to give you a Normandy game. As far as I know any enhancements made to new releases are patched back into the older games so it should be on par with the new releases.

[rahamy]

My experiance has been the age of a title doesn't matter, if people play the series they play all the games in the series they own. Part of the reason for that is John Tiller's procedure of patching all games in a series (for free) each time new engine changes are made for a new title, so that the first game and the last game in the series all support the same features.

I am personally a pre-20th century gamer primarily, so I haven't formulated a set of rules I prefer to play with in this series, so can't help you there. :cool:

[molotov_billy]

Make sure you get Volcano Man's art pack - its definately a must download!

http://members.shaw.ca/gcsaunders/downloads4_VM.html

[dannybou]

The setting 'on map results' rectifies the issue of not seeing the fire reports, but given how intrusive they are I have now switched them off. So thanks for the quick response. I'm still keen to find out 2 things. Settings prefs by those more experienced than I and how many potential opponents I might have playing this flavour (Normandy), of PZC. Despite it's age, compared to the more recent additions, does it still hold up? and which game has the most challenging A.I.
Use the default button for the rules. Add virtual supply trucks, recon spotting and you should be set.

[Agent Smith]

I hope to cross swords with some of you in 2006.
(Oh and to ranger booboo, love the avatar. Gettysburg has to be Jeff Daniels' finest acting performance ever.)
to molotov_billy, awesome link; ta