herr_oberst

Well, someone had to do it. And in the time honored legacy of all BFC releases: "What, you couldn't read the whole freaking email and keep quiet for the benefit of other pre-order folks? What a bonehead."

Anyone else remember Berli's Stalingrad? Jeez, but it brought my PC to its knees trying to play that one.

Sometimes, (well, rarely but it happens), a sufficient amount of seeming disorder can grant an opportunity. IF you can get your opponent to pause just long enough thinking "What the heck is he up to?"

I have long stayed away from 'modern' combat, preferring the CMBN, CMFI, CMRT (or CMBO, CMAK, and CMBB for us old-timers) era (yeah, I know, I'm old), but dang this one looks like fun. Pre-ordered.

Pffft! Pay no attention to the back seat / woulda / shoulda / coulda commentary. You make your bets and you take your chances. It's all educational. Thank you for providing ALL the AARs you have done over time (not just this one). For this one, had you hung back and not pushed hard early as you did, we would have missed out on the story thus far, or at least experienced a different story. Perhaps the next one will be a more balanced meeting engagement...

18012015 precisely at 11:11 AM EST Would you seriously give something war-game related to a Frenchie? Monsieur Jargot??? Sérieusement? Strategy? Tactics? Knowledge of the modern weapon systems? They are like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

Face it Emrys, You're nothing but a picture and video slut!!!

Avatars... an oldie but a goodie.

I made a bit cleaner break. Bought CMBN on the PC. Built a Hackintosh 9 months later, and have bought all Mac since then, so only one "overlap" title. Not sure about this "modern warfare" stuff, tho' CMBS looks interesting. But I agree, I'll be happy when CM covers all of the European theatre from soup to nuts -- early war, late war, netherlands, france, germany, north africa, italy, the vastness of russia. Bring 'em all on.

Meh… in $$$/minute of playing time, it isn't really even measurable. Even if I add up CMBO, CMAK, CMBB, Battle for Normandy (PC and Mac), Commonwealth Forces, Market Garden, Fortress Italy, Gustav Line, and Red Thunder. Compared to other "entertainment", it's a steal.

Oh man. Close Combat? Heck yeah. Zipping back and forth behind the hedgerows with the Kubelwagen o' Death... You could rack up insane kill counts with that little thing. Hose down some infantry, then displace, rinse, repeat.

Sounds like just the ticket for a college laptop then. With a "built-in" gaming deterrent. haha

Also a "build your own" person, so can't really speak to a bought PC or laptop. With a son going to college, I'm thinking HP laptop for him. Basing that on good reliability at my wife's company (she directs the purchasing, and that's all they buy), but no idea how CMRT would run on one.

The one thing the AI lacks is deviousness. I had a friend of mine convinced that I had a big complement of Panthers in one battle (he swore I had 5), when I really had two and were running their a$$es off back and forth between a couple of vantage points via a covered approach. Eventually he got eyes next to the road I was using and was shocked to see a Panther go flying past while displacing to a different vantage point. After that my plan was toast, but it sure was fun while it lasted.

+1: Framed and on the wall in my office.

Was searching on the web for something like Squad Leader for the PC. Found some young upstart company (BTS in those days), and the Alpha AAR that was being played between (I think) Fionn and someone (apologies, but it was a long time ago, and I'm not getting any younger), and followed it (aah, the days of blockier models and the three stooges) the whole way through. Participated in the forums, waded in the Cesspool, the whole deal. Pre-Ordered CMBO for the PC as soon as it was made available. Pre-ordered everything WWII timeframe since (CMBB, CMAK, and everything since CMBN -- some twice since I switched from a PC to a Mac).

Youngest son (17) is a gamer -- has tons of games from Steam. I'll admit to the "I have a license, so download it to my machine" is nice -- he complains whenever I have to resurrect his machine after he downloads some piece of carp (mostly player-made modules for some game or other) -- but he does the Steam thing on his time, not mine - win for him, bigger win for me, the home IT guy. He and several of his friends have watched about 20 minutes each of newer CM (BN, FI, or RT) . Universal opinion when they ask to try a couple of turns, and gets their a$$es handed to them by the AI is that "You have to think to much to play this game." I've watched many an infantry/tank Zerg-rush get chopped to pieces -- for one particular friend, he thought he was a studly hard-core gamer, so I gave him "School of Hard Knocks" (even after I warned him I got trounced the first time or two, was he sure? -- yes, I can be evil sometimes). 'nuff said. IMO, very different markets for players in general. Yes, there will be exceptions either way, but the general rule seems to hold true -- CM players are en masse, not your typical Steam game players. I'm good with BF, what they build, and how they deliver. Steam would bring no value added for me.

So BF has abstracted the interior damage models into a probability table. Fine. If that's not your cup of tea, then ask for and lobby for an internal 3d representation of the major component systems of each AFV in the game, the weights, and metal composition of each so the damage engine can accurately calculate the effect and energy loss as the round strikes/penetrates/through-and-throughs each component on its way through. You did want accuracy didn't you? It's a slippery design slope, and where do you say enough is enough in light of all the other things that would be / could be / should be added to the game engine. If the transmission has a rounded structure, and it was a glancing impact, then you should do the calculations on the diverted round after it potentially ricochets off the housing. The WeGo players can afford the couple of extra seconds in resolving a turn, but what about the realtime players? Hmm, perhaps that could be abstracted to just cubes representing vital systems inside the AFV models -- a compromise of sorts, but the amount of research and data to be collected would still be non-trivial for a relatively marginal return on the investment. The game and game engine has been getting continuous improvements, which is preferable to postponed perfection. I'd rather be playing RT as it is rather than waiting for just one more feature. Perhaps when the game engine matures to take advantage of as many cores as the processor has available they could look at spawning threads to do all those detailed calculations. But I suspect that there are other "bigger fish" that BF would like to fry with the resources that would have to be allocated to a damage engine of that level of detail. In the interest of transparency, I work in the software industry, and based on my 20+ years of experience, BF has the right processes in place. Pick your target, build, test, release, refine.

Now that I'm trying in earnest to create a 2km x 6km map, the roads are driving me crazy. Straight is fine. 45 degree are fine. It looks like there is the capability to make a 22.5 degree road. I need a real bonafide highway, and its driving me crazy. Sure, 15 minutes ago I plotted a section of road like this, but dang if I can recall just which tiles at which orientation made it up. What I would love to see would be a 'copy this tile' option, kind of like paint programs use when 'picking up' an existing color -- set my current selection to that specific thing - i.e., the proper road tile at the proper orientation.

Too much information there. Why in the hell would you know exactly what round holed your armor? Seems that a more appropriate level of information is "Holy crap, I could fit my fist through that hole. At least a xx mm shell." Much more realistic than "OMG, I got holed by a 76mm APBC PzGranate sumfink or other at a 28 degree angle"

Who needs ammo when you have e-tools around???

Haven't played that campaign yet, but perhaps the designer's intent for the Russians was to perform a holding action for a period of time, then retreat. Maybe the surrounding battles "off map" went poorly/were going poorly for them, and the Russian forces you were facing were supposed to retreat to avoid an envelopment. Or you are the one being lured into a kessel of your own by your overeager pursuit. Nothing says that all the battles have to be a last man standing kind of event. Pity that designers can't design an orderly retreat that doesn't show the arses of the defender's AFVs by reversing out of an area. I've been toying with using map areas to decide what happens along those lines, but it's all just musings at the moment. Perhaps the standard order is to scurry away on or around turn X. The enemy hasn't "come to fight", so leave and preserve your forces for the next encounter. If the enemy has touched/crossed into area X, then its a stand and fight, since there isn't hidden terrain to scurry away in.

Oh yeah, there is that thread. I'll have to go re-acquaint myself with that one. In a related bit, I've started working on a 2km by 6km map -- potentially a piece of the Russian breakout at the Mius river near Dmitrijewka, mid July, 1943. "From the Mius to Marinowka" or something like that. I'm trying to see what it would be like to put together a 'defense in depth' scenario. The "special editor overlay.bmp" is a godsend for letting me see a goodly chunk of the surrounding terrain when setting elevations. What I've migrated to doing is a terrain 'mesh' - I have tried different countour line methods in the past. Trace the contour line: to me the corners are obvious, and rapid elevation change looks like a set of stairs. Trace the contour line every X tiles or so: better than a solid trace, but rapid elevation change can yield stairs, and large expanses between elevations are pool tables. So the current effort is a mesh. 8x8 with me guesstimating the elevation according to the contours I see from the overlay. This lets the engine do its cool work, and so far has yielded a pleasing map for the portion that is complete.

A quick read and I only noticed 1 instance of 2 front glacis hits on a single tank, none penetrating. Given that the tanks were taken out/abandonned/destroyed by some other penetration, we don't know the effects of sustained hits to that single piece of plate. I didn't stop to look at the hit decals (but I'll remember to do that next time), or back track the flights other than "Crap, they're up on that hill", but there was down angle involved from the shooter, which would reduce the effective angle of the plate also, mitigating some of the protection. Was I disappointed to lose that Panther -- yeah. Did I think it unrealistic -- no.

Given the longevity of the individual games, CMRT will have a long life. Replayability is a quality all its own. Value is a subjective number, but if I consider what I've spent on CM titles over the years ($500?) versus the time spent playing (uncounted, but huge), where else would I spend it? 3 movies per year for 10 years? Dinner for two once a year for 10 years? That said, the entire CM series isn't some people's cup of tea. Perhaps it isn't yours, but that's your decision.