Matrix Games Forums

I have just joined the combat command league and have challenged an opponent but neither of us has played SPWAW by Pbem before and don't know how to get started. Can anyone give us some pointers? Do we play scenarios or generated-battles? Are there any house rules for dtermining force make-up? How many points are allowed to purchase forces? etc.

PBEM is pretty simple. please note that anything less than 4.3b u will encounter a replay problem.. ie u won't see the complete turn of your opponent.
At the main menu, go into play by email.
u can either play a scenario or a battle generated game. If you play a battle generated game, choose the different sides, the type of engagement.. meeting/assault/advance.. go into preferences and u can select the options u guys want.. for example the realism settings and the amount of points per side/air strikes.. etc. work all of these details out beforehand to avoid confusion. Then click done and choose a password. Save the file in one of the email slots and then send these files to your opponent:
.cmt/.dat/.aux
its best if you have some type of zipping software, like winzip which will compress the files. u can get a demo from http://www.winzip.com

basically i'm going by memory but thats the procedure. best thing is to experiment and also check out the help file/manual for further details.
GL and have fun

EDITED TEXT:
THERE ARE NO HARD/FAST RULES REGARDING SETUP/POINTS.. ETC. JUST GOTTA EXPERIMENT AND SEE WHAT WORKS BEST. FOR STARTERS, PLAY A MEETING ENGAGMENT WITH DEFAULT POINTS/ AIR STRIKES ETC. THE MAIN THING IS TO EXPERIMENT


[This message has been edited by Colonel Klink (edited October 15, 2000).]

thanks Col. Klink. We've both got 4.3B and agreed on preferences and are on our way. BTW we started with 2000 battle points. Is this too much? too little? what is the default amount? I read in the forum that 8 minutes per turn was about right. what do you use? I've got OF set for 5 sec. seems okay but there's no time to go to the head!

Originally posted by Drex:
BTW we started with 2000 battle points. Is this too much? too little? what is the default amount? I read in the forum that 8 minutes per turn was about right. what do you use? I've got OF set for 5 sec. seems okay but there's no time to go to the head!

battle points are purely up to one's own preference/discretion. i've played PBEM games with the huge 100x240 maps and 20k points each! the file is huge but its alot of fun if you like BIG battles. The default points vary depending on the type of battle and time/year. Default air strikes will be based on the historical probability of your nation in the time period u choose. EX: germany is more apt to get an air strike in June of 1941 than April of 1945.
As far as times per turn and OP fire, it sounds like you are trying to hookup for an online game rather than PBEM. I read that 3/4 minutes per 1000 points and 10 seconds of OP fire is a good base to start with. Again, you can tweak these variables as the game becomes more familiar to you. For me, i've only played one online game so far. We had 7 minute turns with (2 sec of OP (too quick for me))