0
Welcome to the Operation Crusader FAQ. This is version
1.0 of that guide. Thanks and a tip o' the hat to all those who
contributed. I've tried to cite everyone who contributed, so if
I forgot to mention you, drop me a line.
This article is provided as is without any express or implied
warranties. While every effort has been taken to ensure the
accuracy of the information contained in this article, the
author/maintainer/contributors (take your pick) assume(s) no
responsibility for errors or omissions resulting
from the use of the information contained herein.
Bob
creel@bioch.tamu.edu
What is Operation Crusader?
Operation Crusader is a game put out by Atomic Games
representing the situation around Tobruk from mid November
to mid December, 1941. In this area, the previous major action
by the Allies was Operation "Battleax", a poor attempt at the same
objectives given to Operation "Crusader". The Commonwealth army
had obtained nearly 500 tanks with five infantry divisions in
support and enjoyed a numerical advantage in the air. The
operational plan was to divide the Eighth Army into two parts: XIII
and XXX Corps. XIII Corps had most of the infantry was given the
task of pinning and destroying the Italian frontier garrison, then to
move in support of XXX Corps. XXX Corps was to sweep around the
southern flank of the Axis forces, destroy the Axis armoured
formations, and then, with XIII Corps, relieve the Tobruk defenders.
Players have the option of taking either side in this conflict,
with their opponent being either the AI or another human. Playing
another human can be done in two ways, either via PBEM or by
the two-player same-machine option. A variety of scenarios exist, ranging
from simple (Il Duce's Finest) to difficult (Operation
Crusader campaign).
------------------
Table of contents
------------------
1. What is the relationship between the V for Victory (v4v) and
the World at War (w@w) series?
2. Hey, if the v4v series isn't being sold, how come I see it on
CD-ROM?
3. How can I contact Atomic Games?
4. How do I subscribe/unsubscribe to Atomic's listserver?
5. What is Atomic coming out with next?
6. Any Game Specific Bugs?
7. How can I attach one HQ to another HQ?
8. What's that young woman on the calender saying when I
click on her picture?
9. In OC, where are my supply dumps?
10. What happened to minefields?
11. Hey, the brits don't have any engineers, what gives?
12. How to PBEM
13. Hey, where's the OOB for OC?
14. TEC Chart
15. OC tactics/strategy
1. The Italian Army: Strengths
1.A. What are Italian light tanks good for?
1.B Italian Foot soldiers: These boots were made for climbing.
1.C. Italian Mg Battalions:
2. General
2.A. Bunker Busting, killing tanks, supply
2.B Zones of Control (ZOC)
2.C. Headquarters (HQs)
3. Questions
Q. Is there a benefit to fortifying a hex that is
already dug in?
------------------------------------------------------------------
1. What is the relationship between the V for Victory (v4v) and
the World at War (w@w) series?
------------------------------------------------------------------
V4V was a series of four operational-level WWII land
wargames created by Atomic Games and published by 360
Pacific, Inc.. The WaW series, (also created by Atomic, but
published by Avalon Hill) is built on V4V, but represents a
complete rewrite of its predecessor. The changes emphasize
more and better gameplay (read: Fun!), easier access to game
functions, greater accuracy and higher-quality graphics. The
first release in the WaW series was Operation Crusader (set in
North Africa; PC Gamer's Editor's Choice Award) followed by
Stalingrad, a massive treatment of this critical eastern-front
battle. In addition to new WaW titles, such as the upcoming
Kharkov, Atomic/AH will be revising the V4V titles and
upgrading them to the WaW standard.
------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Hey, if the v4v series isn't being sold, how come I see it on CD-ROM?
------------------------------------------------------------------
From March 1995 Atomic News
Some of you may have read the series of articles in PC Gamer
concerning a contract on which someone forged my signature
(ie K. Z.). This contract allowed a company to manufacture CD-
ROM versions of our V for Victory games - which they did.
Even though we immediately notified them of the forgery and
they represented to PC Gamer and us that they understood
they did not have the right to make or sell these CDs, they
ultimately decided to sell them. We are now trying to track
down these bootleg CDs. If you see any of them, please let us
know where, when, about how many, and how much they
were selling for. I appreciate any help you can give us. The
address to send info to is 'sightings@atomic.com'. Be sure to
include enough info so we can call the store if necessary.
Thanks.
--------------------------------------------------------------
3. How can I contact Atomic Games?
--------------------------------------------------------------
Atomic monitors comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic and
maintains a www web site at http://atomic.com. Game patches
are available at their ftp site atomic.com in the appropriate
directory. Atomic may be contacted at Compuserve
72662,1333, internet feedback@atomic.com (see also
listserver). People who have America On Line accounts should
contact FishBo at LeadEaters@AOL.com. This is a new wargame
club that will be supporting Atomic's products.
--------------------------------------------------------------
4. How do I subscribe/unsubscribe to Atomic's listserver?
--------------------------------------------------------------
This section was lifted directly from crusader-
request@atomic.com
This is the gateway to the Atomic Games
discussion groups. In the language of the Internet, these
groups are called "mailing lists" because your email address is
added to an electronic mailing list. Whenever anyone on a
mailing list sends a message to us, we automatically echo that
message to everyone else on that mailing list.
Atomic Games currently has two public mailing lists: one for
World at War: Operation Crusader and one for World at War:
Stalingrad. Topics usually range from strategy and tactics to
reading lists to finding play-by-email opponents. The lists are
constantly monitored by Atomic Games. This gives you direct
access to the game designers and developers and it assures that
no one talks about the OJ Simpson trial or fuzzy bunnies.
Also, membership to these lists is free of charge. Your Internet
provider may have a charge but that's not set by us, nor do we
get any money at all for these lists. Currently, we only know of
charges levied by CompuServe.
Warnings
1) Sometimes each list can generate 50+ messages a day. The
newer and more popular the game, the more messages you'll
get. If they get to be too much for you, you may want to try
the digest version of the list. This will come to you three to
five times a week (depending on the lists traffic) and will
contain all the messages that were sent to the list since the last
digest version was mailed.
2) Remember that when you send a message to a mailing list,
EVERYONE on the list reads it. But don't let this inhibit you.
The people on these lists are extremely polite, helpful, and
knowledgeable. So, enjoy yourself, but know that everyone is
listening.
To make the listserver more efficient, please use the
following subject prefixes:
BUG: Bug reports
OPP: Opponent wanted
SUGG: Suggestions
TAC: Tactics and Strategy
HIST: Historical background/discussion relevant
to the game.
CHAT: Legit Chat subjects include notifiying the list
of interesting topics elsewhere on the net, TV
shows, books, movies, etc. PLEASE keep
Chat messages brief and to a minimum.
SYS: Annoucements and responses from Atomic -
(not for your use)
How to Join
To join a list, you must "subscribe" to it by sending email to a
special address. If you want to join the Crusader mailing list,
you'd send mail to:
crusader-request@atomic.com
Or for the digest version:
crusader-d-request@atomic.com
Similarly, to join the Stalingrad list, you'd send mail to:
stalingrad-request@atomic.com
Or for the digest version:
stalingrad-d-request@atomic.com
Once you have addressed your note, put the word SUBSCRIBE
as the subject. (To unsubscribe, put the word UNSUBSCRIBE as
the subject.)
Then send the message. Usually within minutes, you will
recieve confirmation that you have been added to the list.
Depending on the time of day, you may also start receiving
mail from the list almost immediately. Don't worry unless you
don't see mail for 24 hours. The Internet can be a very twisted
place - literally. Also, digest versions may not come for several
days.
In the event your mailing address changes, it would be the
wise to first send an UNSUBSCRIBE message to the
-request@atomic.com or -d-request@atomic.com address from
your old address and then resubscribe from your new address.
Otherwise, all the mail will still be going to your old address.
The archive server
-------------------
Every submission sent to this list is archived. The size of the
archive depends on the limits set by the list maintainer (it is
very well possible that only, say, the last two mails sent to the
list are still archived, the rest might have expired).
You can look at the header of every mail coming from this list
to see under what name it has been archived. The X-Mailing-
List: field contains the mailaddress of the list and the file in
which this submission was archived.
If you want to access this archive, you have to send mails to
the -request
Subject: archive help
This archive server knows the following commands:
get filename ...
ls directory ...
egrep case_insensitive_regular_expression filename ...
maxfiles nnn
version
Aliases for 'get': send, sendme, getme, gimme, retrieve, mail
Aliases for 'ls': dir, directory, list, show
Aliases for 'egrep': search, grep, fgrep, find
Lines starting with a '#' are ignored.
Multiple commands per mail are allowed.
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per request). Egrep supports most common flags.
Examples:
ls latest
get latest/12
egrep some.word latest/*
---------------------------------------------------------------
5. What is Atomic coming out with next?
---------------------------------------------------------------
We have been going around and around about how to handle
the V4V re-releases. We KNEW that we'd end up upgrading
them to the WaW series, although we were determined not to.
But in addition to that, we have just decided to, on a cases by
case basis, go even further. The first title, (formerly known as
V4V:Utah Beach) will be upgraded to the WaW series with
revised OBs, scenarios maps, and graphics. All of the goodies
introduced w/Stalingrad and OC will be included (PBEM,
Toolbar, Overview Map, OB display, Supply System, Overruns
(umm..well you might not see too many of these!), etc.). The
scenario list has not been finalized, but will include several
from UB, as well as new ones covering the Omaha Beach area,
and a Utah/Omaha campaign. And, as always, we've got the
hood up, and are extensively revising the engine to handle the
Normandy environment. Players familiar with UB, will have a
brand-new set of challenges! We have similar plans for the VL,
Market Garden and GJS releases. VL is next on the list and will
be quite a different kettle of fish with the Stalingrad engine in
place! Also, we have already announced that Kharkov ('43)
will be coming out this year. So, for W@W this year, we'll have:
Cherbourg to St. Lo (working title - formerly Utah Beach),
Velikiye Luki, and Kharkov. This is in addition to Beyond Squad
Leader and (hopefully) Blitzkrieg. (atomic)
------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Any Game Specific Bugs?
------------------------------------------------------------------
Several, but the meanest is that pesky pbem bug. a patch
is being made, but you may be lucky and recover if you
perform the following ritual
THIS PAGE LEFT BLANK ON PURPOSE
-------------------------------------------------------------------
7. How can I attach one HQ to another HQ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not in the OC manual.
1. Open the "HQ side window"
2. Click on the hex containing the regimental HQ
3. Repeatedly click on the arrow left to the HQ icon
in the "HQ side window" until the corps HQ icon
is displayed
4. The "attach" button will be activated and you just
press that
-------------------------------------------------------------------
8. What's that young woman on the calender saying when I
click on her picture?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
She's says "Don't, Please". According "Strangers in a strange
land" by Hans-Heir Stapfer (Squadron signals publications, Inc.
Number 6047) She's name was Shady Lady, a noseart of a B-
17G (42-97385) of the 398th Bomb Group based at
Nuthampstead, England. Crash landed at Rechicourt Le Chateau,
France on 8th September 1944. American fighters destroyed
the bomber before it could be recovered by the Germans (J.
Seppane).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
9. In OC, where are my supply dumps?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The depots ARE on the map. Your enemy's are not see by you,
but yours look like little towns. There are several on the map
edges. The Axis have one each around Bir Hakim, Gambut and
Bardia. The Allies have 2 that move around the middle of the
map. (They done move DURING the game.) You can hide the
troops and scan the map for them. We intentionally didn't list
them and then move them around, so that the bad guys don't
zero in on them. (Atomic)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
10. What happened to minefields?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The effect of minefields is factored into the overall effect of
fortifications
-------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Hey, the brits don't have any engineers, what gives?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Needless to say, a controversial topic.
Eric Young, the games designer/researcher feels that at
this point in the war, the British did not use their engineers as
homogenous entities, as did the Germans. Instead, they spread
them out among all of their units and the AT values of the
British units reflect that. In response to the question about
then allowing the British HQs and such to build fortifications, he
says (as best as I can remember) that they didn't during this
battle. (Atomic)
Why shouldn't the British be able to build fortifications?
Though it was not in their doctrine to have combat engineers,
they did have engineering assets assigned to Division and at
Corps level. They should probably be allowed to convert some
of the wadis to trail hexsides also since they did provide 8th
army with bridging equipment. Gosh, us wargamers are picky!
(B. Wood)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
12. How to PBEM
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Not Nearly Canonical Treatise on
How to Send Binary Files
Through the Internet
by Carl D. Fago (cdf1@psu.edu) (Comments and corrections
welcome)
Mac details provided by P. Gabrillo
(GABRILLOP@STU.ADMIN.USFCA.EDU)
During the playtesting of Atomic's Stalingrad wargame I found that
many people on the Internet didn't know how to send binary files to
someone else on the internet. This is necessary if you have
internet access and want to play the game using the excellent PBEM
facility included in the game. In addition, the ability to play
computer wargames via PBEM is expanding as the capabilities of the
programmed artificial intelligence for these games continues to be
on the order of a bright lemming. (Apologies to the lemmings.)
First, a little history. The internet was developed as a non-
centralized communications and command and control system that
would survive a nuclear attack. Thus, there is no one place that
is the internet. It is a collection of linked mainframe,
workstations and personal computers at government institutions,
universities, businesses, and personal homes.
As one can see, this system would be inherently chaotic and it is.
There are innumerable configurations of different hardware
platforms and capabilities.
Now for people to be able to communicate with one another some
unified system needed to be developed to exchange written
information and ideas. Computers use 8 bit bytes as their main of
information. Each byte has 256 possible bit combinations. To
represent our alphabet, not all 256 possible combinations were
needed. Plus, communications back then were not nearly as reliable
so the system designers reserved one bit to use for error checking
leaving 128 bit combinations (7 bits out of 8) to represent text.
Thus, the most basic email system only looks at or transmits the
first 7 bits in any byte that gets transmitted to it. The 8th bit
it would use for its own purposes of error checking.
Now, a binary file as would be generated by a computer game
system to be able to exchange information during PBEM play relies
on all 8 bits of each byte. If you were to send the binary file to your
opponent using email, each 8th bit would be corrupted as it would
be used by the email systems. Thus, your opponent would receive
the file but it would be so much garbage and you both would be
frustrated that he couldn't use the file. But people still wanted to
send binary files via email as that is often the only way some people
have to exchange files. So some bright person came up with the idea
of encoding the binary file so that it could be represented by a file
of text that an email system would transmit without corrupting. In
short, this system takes each 7 bits of the binary file and writes the
corresponding alphabetic representation to another file. This second
file would appear as text and since it is pure text, it can be sent via
an email system without being inherently corrupted on the other
end. Also, as you can tell, the second file would be generally 8/7 the
size of the original file.
Now, as the recipient of such a text file, one would only need to
reverse the algorithm to reconstruct the original binary file.
There are actually a couple of different algorithms that can do
this process. Sample algorithms are uuencoding (on PC, Mac and
Unix) and BinHex (Mac and PC at least). Some differences in
encoding schemes would be which alphabetic characters it would use.
Some computers 20 years ago wouldn't send lower case characters so
some encoding schemes would use less than the 128 7 bit
combinations. It really doesn't matter what encoding scheme is
used so long as you and your opponent use the same encoding
schemes.
So, now, to send a binary file to your opponent, you would have a
program that encodes the binary file. You would run the program on
your binary file. The output would be a text file that you would
send to your opponent via your favorite email program. One way to
do this is to import the text file into the text editor that your
email program uses to let you write your messages.
Having received your mail, your opponent would save the message in
a file, decode the file with the decoding program and then use the
resulting binary file. Real simple!
On unix systems there are often utilities included that are named
uuencode and uudecode.
For PC compatibles, there are a number of possible utilities. My
favorite is uuencode.exe and uudecode.exe developed by Richard
Marks. It is available from many different ftp sites such as
oak.oakland.edu or ftp.wustl.edu. Look for a file named
UUEXE???.ZIP where ??? would be the version number.
For macintosh systems there are similar utilities that are
available. UULite, UUundo and UUTool are some example encoding
programs for the Mac. UULite is the most common because it is
robust and bigger than the others in terms of handling files. FTP
sites where these utilities can be found include sumex-
aim.stanford.edu, nic.funet.fi, src.doc.ic.ac.uk or ftp.wustl.edu.
Ok, there is one other useful utility that can be used in this
process...a compression utility. It is always easier, and
sometimes cheaper, to send a smaller file than a larger one. The
PBEM files generated by the game can generally be made smaller.
The compression programs examine the binary file for repeating
sequences of bits. They then replace the long repeating sequences
with a smaller tag keeping track of what long sequences are
represented by the smaller tags. When a compressed file is
uncompressed, the smaller tags are then substituted by the longer
sequences to reconstruct the file. The more repeating sequences,
the more the original binary file can be compressed.
There are utilities available that implement the compression
algorithms making the PBEM files significantly smaller. Popular
algorithms are pkzip, zoo, sit and compress.
A popular unix compression scheme is 'compress'. Files compressed
with 'compress' have a .Z file extension. To reverse the process,
the unix utility 'uncompress' would be used. Utilities are
available for the Mac and PC than can compress and uncompress
these .Z files. PKZIP and ZOO are popular on the PC while SIT is
popular on the Mac. SIT is actually not a very good if you send one
between mac and pc. Try ZipIt, Zippop, Macgzip, Macunzip, and
Maczip. they are all compatible with pkzip/unzip files on Dos.
Again, there are utilities available for each platform to deal with
the compression schemes used on the other platforms. To get one of
these programs, check the ftp sites I listed previously.
An additional advantage of the compression routines is that many of
them include error checking so that if the compressed file gets
corrupted along the way, the routine will tell you that something
went wrong. Your opponent can then ask you to resend your file
without possibly screwing up the PBEM game by running
a corrupt PBEM game file.
Note that I have not mentioned exactly how to use the particular
encode/decode/compression routines. There are too many out there
to go over each individually. As you obtain the routines, they
will each have their own instructions and possibly more detailed
explanations of how they work.
1.0 of that guide. Thanks and a tip o' the hat to all those who
contributed. I've tried to cite everyone who contributed, so if
I forgot to mention you, drop me a line.
This article is provided as is without any express or implied
warranties. While every effort has been taken to ensure the
accuracy of the information contained in this article, the
author/maintainer/contributors (take your pick) assume(s) no
responsibility for errors or omissions resulting
from the use of the information contained herein.
Bob
creel@bioch.tamu.edu
What is Operation Crusader?
Operation Crusader is a game put out by Atomic Games
representing the situation around Tobruk from mid November
to mid December, 1941. In this area, the previous major action
by the Allies was Operation "Battleax", a poor attempt at the same
objectives given to Operation "Crusader". The Commonwealth army
had obtained nearly 500 tanks with five infantry divisions in
support and enjoyed a numerical advantage in the air. The
operational plan was to divide the Eighth Army into two parts: XIII
and XXX Corps. XIII Corps had most of the infantry was given the
task of pinning and destroying the Italian frontier garrison, then to
move in support of XXX Corps. XXX Corps was to sweep around the
southern flank of the Axis forces, destroy the Axis armoured
formations, and then, with XIII Corps, relieve the Tobruk defenders.
Players have the option of taking either side in this conflict,
with their opponent being either the AI or another human. Playing
another human can be done in two ways, either via PBEM or by
the two-player same-machine option. A variety of scenarios exist, ranging
from simple (Il Duce's Finest) to difficult (Operation
Crusader campaign).
------------------
Table of contents
------------------
1. What is the relationship between the V for Victory (v4v) and
the World at War (w@w) series?
2. Hey, if the v4v series isn't being sold, how come I see it on
CD-ROM?
3. How can I contact Atomic Games?
4. How do I subscribe/unsubscribe to Atomic's listserver?
5. What is Atomic coming out with next?
6. Any Game Specific Bugs?
7. How can I attach one HQ to another HQ?
8. What's that young woman on the calender saying when I
click on her picture?
9. In OC, where are my supply dumps?
10. What happened to minefields?
11. Hey, the brits don't have any engineers, what gives?
12. How to PBEM
13. Hey, where's the OOB for OC?
14. TEC Chart
15. OC tactics/strategy
1. The Italian Army: Strengths
1.A. What are Italian light tanks good for?
1.B Italian Foot soldiers: These boots were made for climbing.
1.C. Italian Mg Battalions:
2. General
2.A. Bunker Busting, killing tanks, supply
2.B Zones of Control (ZOC)
2.C. Headquarters (HQs)
3. Questions
Q. Is there a benefit to fortifying a hex that is
already dug in?
------------------------------------------------------------------
1. What is the relationship between the V for Victory (v4v) and
the World at War (w@w) series?
------------------------------------------------------------------
V4V was a series of four operational-level WWII land
wargames created by Atomic Games and published by 360
Pacific, Inc.. The WaW series, (also created by Atomic, but
published by Avalon Hill) is built on V4V, but represents a
complete rewrite of its predecessor. The changes emphasize
more and better gameplay (read: Fun!), easier access to game
functions, greater accuracy and higher-quality graphics. The
first release in the WaW series was Operation Crusader (set in
North Africa; PC Gamer's Editor's Choice Award) followed by
Stalingrad, a massive treatment of this critical eastern-front
battle. In addition to new WaW titles, such as the upcoming
Kharkov, Atomic/AH will be revising the V4V titles and
upgrading them to the WaW standard.
------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Hey, if the v4v series isn't being sold, how come I see it on CD-ROM?
------------------------------------------------------------------
From March 1995 Atomic News
Some of you may have read the series of articles in PC Gamer
concerning a contract on which someone forged my signature
(ie K. Z.). This contract allowed a company to manufacture CD-
ROM versions of our V for Victory games - which they did.
Even though we immediately notified them of the forgery and
they represented to PC Gamer and us that they understood
they did not have the right to make or sell these CDs, they
ultimately decided to sell them. We are now trying to track
down these bootleg CDs. If you see any of them, please let us
know where, when, about how many, and how much they
were selling for. I appreciate any help you can give us. The
address to send info to is 'sightings@atomic.com'. Be sure to
include enough info so we can call the store if necessary.
Thanks.
--------------------------------------------------------------
3. How can I contact Atomic Games?
--------------------------------------------------------------
Atomic monitors comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic and
maintains a www web site at http://atomic.com. Game patches
are available at their ftp site atomic.com in the appropriate
directory. Atomic may be contacted at Compuserve
72662,1333, internet feedback@atomic.com (see also
listserver). People who have America On Line accounts should
contact FishBo at LeadEaters@AOL.com. This is a new wargame
club that will be supporting Atomic's products.
--------------------------------------------------------------
4. How do I subscribe/unsubscribe to Atomic's listserver?
--------------------------------------------------------------
This section was lifted directly from crusader-
request@atomic.com
This is the gateway to the Atomic Games
discussion groups. In the language of the Internet, these
groups are called "mailing lists" because your email address is
added to an electronic mailing list. Whenever anyone on a
mailing list sends a message to us, we automatically echo that
message to everyone else on that mailing list.
Atomic Games currently has two public mailing lists: one for
World at War: Operation Crusader and one for World at War:
Stalingrad. Topics usually range from strategy and tactics to
reading lists to finding play-by-email opponents. The lists are
constantly monitored by Atomic Games. This gives you direct
access to the game designers and developers and it assures that
no one talks about the OJ Simpson trial or fuzzy bunnies.
Also, membership to these lists is free of charge. Your Internet
provider may have a charge but that's not set by us, nor do we
get any money at all for these lists. Currently, we only know of
charges levied by CompuServe.
Warnings
1) Sometimes each list can generate 50+ messages a day. The
newer and more popular the game, the more messages you'll
get. If they get to be too much for you, you may want to try
the digest version of the list. This will come to you three to
five times a week (depending on the lists traffic) and will
contain all the messages that were sent to the list since the last
digest version was mailed.
2) Remember that when you send a message to a mailing list,
EVERYONE on the list reads it. But don't let this inhibit you.
The people on these lists are extremely polite, helpful, and
knowledgeable. So, enjoy yourself, but know that everyone is
listening.
To make the listserver more efficient, please use the
following subject prefixes:
BUG: Bug reports
OPP: Opponent wanted
SUGG: Suggestions
TAC: Tactics and Strategy
HIST: Historical background/discussion relevant
to the game.
CHAT: Legit Chat subjects include notifiying the list
of interesting topics elsewhere on the net, TV
shows, books, movies, etc. PLEASE keep
Chat messages brief and to a minimum.
SYS: Annoucements and responses from Atomic -
(not for your use)
How to Join
To join a list, you must "subscribe" to it by sending email to a
special address. If you want to join the Crusader mailing list,
you'd send mail to:
crusader-request@atomic.com
Or for the digest version:
crusader-d-request@atomic.com
Similarly, to join the Stalingrad list, you'd send mail to:
stalingrad-request@atomic.com
Or for the digest version:
stalingrad-d-request@atomic.com
Once you have addressed your note, put the word SUBSCRIBE
as the subject. (To unsubscribe, put the word UNSUBSCRIBE as
the subject.)
Then send the message. Usually within minutes, you will
recieve confirmation that you have been added to the list.
Depending on the time of day, you may also start receiving
mail from the list almost immediately. Don't worry unless you
don't see mail for 24 hours. The Internet can be a very twisted
place - literally. Also, digest versions may not come for several
days.
In the event your mailing address changes, it would be the
wise to first send an UNSUBSCRIBE message to the
-request@atomic.com or -d-request@atomic.com address from
your old address and then resubscribe from your new address.
Otherwise, all the mail will still be going to your old address.
The archive server
-------------------
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5. What is Atomic coming out with next?
---------------------------------------------------------------
We have been going around and around about how to handle
the V4V re-releases. We KNEW that we'd end up upgrading
them to the WaW series, although we were determined not to.
But in addition to that, we have just decided to, on a cases by
case basis, go even further. The first title, (formerly known as
V4V:Utah Beach) will be upgraded to the WaW series with
revised OBs, scenarios maps, and graphics. All of the goodies
introduced w/Stalingrad and OC will be included (PBEM,
Toolbar, Overview Map, OB display, Supply System, Overruns
(umm..well you might not see too many of these!), etc.). The
scenario list has not been finalized, but will include several
from UB, as well as new ones covering the Omaha Beach area,
and a Utah/Omaha campaign. And, as always, we've got the
hood up, and are extensively revising the engine to handle the
Normandy environment. Players familiar with UB, will have a
brand-new set of challenges! We have similar plans for the VL,
Market Garden and GJS releases. VL is next on the list and will
be quite a different kettle of fish with the Stalingrad engine in
place! Also, we have already announced that Kharkov ('43)
will be coming out this year. So, for W@W this year, we'll have:
Cherbourg to St. Lo (working title - formerly Utah Beach),
Velikiye Luki, and Kharkov. This is in addition to Beyond Squad
Leader and (hopefully) Blitzkrieg. (atomic)
------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Any Game Specific Bugs?
------------------------------------------------------------------
Several, but the meanest is that pesky pbem bug. a patch
is being made, but you may be lucky and recover if you
perform the following ritual
THIS PAGE LEFT BLANK ON PURPOSE
-------------------------------------------------------------------
7. How can I attach one HQ to another HQ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not in the OC manual.
1. Open the "HQ side window"
2. Click on the hex containing the regimental HQ
3. Repeatedly click on the arrow left to the HQ icon
in the "HQ side window" until the corps HQ icon
is displayed
4. The "attach" button will be activated and you just
press that
-------------------------------------------------------------------
8. What's that young woman on the calender saying when I
click on her picture?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
She's says "Don't, Please". According "Strangers in a strange
land" by Hans-Heir Stapfer (Squadron signals publications, Inc.
Number 6047) She's name was Shady Lady, a noseart of a B-
17G (42-97385) of the 398th Bomb Group based at
Nuthampstead, England. Crash landed at Rechicourt Le Chateau,
France on 8th September 1944. American fighters destroyed
the bomber before it could be recovered by the Germans (J.
Seppane).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
9. In OC, where are my supply dumps?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The depots ARE on the map. Your enemy's are not see by you,
but yours look like little towns. There are several on the map
edges. The Axis have one each around Bir Hakim, Gambut and
Bardia. The Allies have 2 that move around the middle of the
map. (They done move DURING the game.) You can hide the
troops and scan the map for them. We intentionally didn't list
them and then move them around, so that the bad guys don't
zero in on them. (Atomic)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
10. What happened to minefields?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The effect of minefields is factored into the overall effect of
fortifications
-------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Hey, the brits don't have any engineers, what gives?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Needless to say, a controversial topic.
Eric Young, the games designer/researcher feels that at
this point in the war, the British did not use their engineers as
homogenous entities, as did the Germans. Instead, they spread
them out among all of their units and the AT values of the
British units reflect that. In response to the question about
then allowing the British HQs and such to build fortifications, he
says (as best as I can remember) that they didn't during this
battle. (Atomic)
Why shouldn't the British be able to build fortifications?
Though it was not in their doctrine to have combat engineers,
they did have engineering assets assigned to Division and at
Corps level. They should probably be allowed to convert some
of the wadis to trail hexsides also since they did provide 8th
army with bridging equipment. Gosh, us wargamers are picky!
(B. Wood)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
12. How to PBEM
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Not Nearly Canonical Treatise on
How to Send Binary Files
Through the Internet
by Carl D. Fago (cdf1@psu.edu) (Comments and corrections
welcome)
Mac details provided by P. Gabrillo
(GABRILLOP@STU.ADMIN.USFCA.EDU)
During the playtesting of Atomic's Stalingrad wargame I found that
many people on the Internet didn't know how to send binary files to
someone else on the internet. This is necessary if you have
internet access and want to play the game using the excellent PBEM
facility included in the game. In addition, the ability to play
computer wargames via PBEM is expanding as the capabilities of the
programmed artificial intelligence for these games continues to be
on the order of a bright lemming. (Apologies to the lemmings.)
First, a little history. The internet was developed as a non-
centralized communications and command and control system that
would survive a nuclear attack. Thus, there is no one place that
is the internet. It is a collection of linked mainframe,
workstations and personal computers at government institutions,
universities, businesses, and personal homes.
As one can see, this system would be inherently chaotic and it is.
There are innumerable configurations of different hardware
platforms and capabilities.
Now for people to be able to communicate with one another some
unified system needed to be developed to exchange written
information and ideas. Computers use 8 bit bytes as their main of
information. Each byte has 256 possible bit combinations. To
represent our alphabet, not all 256 possible combinations were
needed. Plus, communications back then were not nearly as reliable
so the system designers reserved one bit to use for error checking
leaving 128 bit combinations (7 bits out of 8) to represent text.
Thus, the most basic email system only looks at or transmits the
first 7 bits in any byte that gets transmitted to it. The 8th bit
it would use for its own purposes of error checking.
Now, a binary file as would be generated by a computer game
system to be able to exchange information during PBEM play relies
on all 8 bits of each byte. If you were to send the binary file to your
opponent using email, each 8th bit would be corrupted as it would
be used by the email systems. Thus, your opponent would receive
the file but it would be so much garbage and you both would be
frustrated that he couldn't use the file. But people still wanted to
send binary files via email as that is often the only way some people
have to exchange files. So some bright person came up with the idea
of encoding the binary file so that it could be represented by a file
of text that an email system would transmit without corrupting. In
short, this system takes each 7 bits of the binary file and writes the
corresponding alphabetic representation to another file. This second
file would appear as text and since it is pure text, it can be sent via
an email system without being inherently corrupted on the other
end. Also, as you can tell, the second file would be generally 8/7 the
size of the original file.
Now, as the recipient of such a text file, one would only need to
reverse the algorithm to reconstruct the original binary file.
There are actually a couple of different algorithms that can do
this process. Sample algorithms are uuencoding (on PC, Mac and
Unix) and BinHex (Mac and PC at least). Some differences in
encoding schemes would be which alphabetic characters it would use.
Some computers 20 years ago wouldn't send lower case characters so
some encoding schemes would use less than the 128 7 bit
combinations. It really doesn't matter what encoding scheme is
used so long as you and your opponent use the same encoding
schemes.
So, now, to send a binary file to your opponent, you would have a
program that encodes the binary file. You would run the program on
your binary file. The output would be a text file that you would
send to your opponent via your favorite email program. One way to
do this is to import the text file into the text editor that your
email program uses to let you write your messages.
Having received your mail, your opponent would save the message in
a file, decode the file with the decoding program and then use the
resulting binary file. Real simple!
On unix systems there are often utilities included that are named
uuencode and uudecode.
For PC compatibles, there are a number of possible utilities. My
favorite is uuencode.exe and uudecode.exe developed by Richard
Marks. It is available from many different ftp sites such as
oak.oakland.edu or ftp.wustl.edu. Look for a file named
UUEXE???.ZIP where ??? would be the version number.
For macintosh systems there are similar utilities that are
available. UULite, UUundo and UUTool are some example encoding
programs for the Mac. UULite is the most common because it is
robust and bigger than the others in terms of handling files. FTP
sites where these utilities can be found include sumex-
aim.stanford.edu, nic.funet.fi, src.doc.ic.ac.uk or ftp.wustl.edu.
Ok, there is one other useful utility that can be used in this
process...a compression utility. It is always easier, and
sometimes cheaper, to send a smaller file than a larger one. The
PBEM files generated by the game can generally be made smaller.
The compression programs examine the binary file for repeating
sequences of bits. They then replace the long repeating sequences
with a smaller tag keeping track of what long sequences are
represented by the smaller tags. When a compressed file is
uncompressed, the smaller tags are then substituted by the longer
sequences to reconstruct the file. The more repeating sequences,
the more the original binary file can be compressed.
There are utilities available that implement the compression
algorithms making the PBEM files significantly smaller. Popular
algorithms are pkzip, zoo, sit and compress.
A popular unix compression scheme is 'compress'. Files compressed
with 'compress' have a .Z file extension. To reverse the process,
the unix utility 'uncompress' would be used. Utilities are
available for the Mac and PC than can compress and uncompress
these .Z files. PKZIP and ZOO are popular on the PC while SIT is
popular on the Mac. SIT is actually not a very good if you send one
between mac and pc. Try ZipIt, Zippop, Macgzip, Macunzip, and
Maczip. they are all compatible with pkzip/unzip files on Dos.
Again, there are utilities available for each platform to deal with
the compression schemes used on the other platforms. To get one of
these programs, check the ftp sites I listed previously.
An additional advantage of the compression routines is that many of
them include error checking so that if the compressed file gets
corrupted along the way, the routine will tell you that something
went wrong. Your opponent can then ask you to resend your file
without possibly screwing up the PBEM game by running
a corrupt PBEM game file.
Note that I have not mentioned exactly how to use the particular
encode/decode/compression routines. There are too many out there
to go over each individually. As you obtain the routines, they
will each have their own instructions and possibly more detailed
explanations of how they work.