Sim1943

I would love to see all the CM games on Steam. For new players who prefer that platform, that would be a huge player base increase. Would also love to see CMBO, CMBB and CMAK on Steam CMBO showed up quick in the mail, but I remember checking the mail everyday for like 2 weeks waiting for the CD of CMBB to show up. My oldest daughter was a brand new, 1 month old baby - she's a senior in high school now. Man, these are starting to be old memories! Anyone down for 2000pt ME CA Short 75?

Just wanted to throw in my congratulations as well. Been around here with you guys since 2000 - what a ride it has been. Hope this opens up a nice new wave of CM players! Plan on buying a new Steam key just to support BFC on the new platform. Will leave a nice detailed review for those new to the system as well - as good, detailed reviews are key for wargrames. Again, congrats to all the old hands at BFC. Chad

Quick question: would I download and install the original bundle? Or just the updates?

Perfect. Just wanted to make sure as the licensing tool can be picky when dealing with bundles. Thanks Chad

Howdy all I have theCMSF Original + Marines Bundle and want to update both to the new version. Would I just purchase the Base Game upgrade and the Marines upgrade? I just want to make sure that is going to work with the bundle that I purchased. Thanks in advance Chad

Sounds great Mark. I hope my comments do not cast a shadow on your hard work: your maps are great, and the reason I keep playing QB's is because the maps are so good, they can be played on again and again with different results and experiences each time. If you are making map changes (elevations, terrain, building, ect.) then thats great - even though the map will look familiar, it will play very differently. Glad to hear adding new maps is your goal. We appreciate the hard work and look forward to seeing the next iteration of Mark's QB experienceTM! Thanks Chad

Sounds great - will for sure use it. Any plans on future work, or is the universal 3.0 CMBS mod the last hurrah?

Absolutely no arguments there - if your new to CMx2, all maps are great and you appreciate them all. The maps are already done, so porting them over is quick and easy. However, for me personally, all I really play are QB's - so the maps that are included with CMBN and its expansions have been played over, and over and over again. Would love to see a fresh set of maps and be able to leave the map at 'random' setting without getting the same maps I have played so many times in the last years. From the description, if France and Holland are being included then I assume CMBN maps will be included in CMFB. If that is the case, just number them in such a way that I can manually take out the previous maps and leave only the new ones. For instance, in current CMBN there are maps numbered up to around 200. Just make the new ones 300 and above or something. Just a thought.

Mark How many of the new maps will be recycled from previous CMx2 titles? For instance, I noticed a bunch of CMRT QB maps included with CMBS. Would love to see unique maps for each CM base game - even if it means fewer maps. Thanks in advance Chad

AKD Any plans to update your 3.0 sound mod for CMFB? I assume the original one from CMBS would still work unless the file name/structure changed. Would love to see this continue to be updated for CMx2 series. Thanks Chad

Great to hear all around. Looking forward to some QB's.

Akd Did the sound mod ever get updated beyond the original files shared here? This is still the only sound mod I use for all my CM games. Thanks for the hard work Chad

Just sitting here and thinking about the above list a little more, I think recreating the 'COMBINED ARMS' and 'SHORT 75' experience is possible *IF* we can get some better balance to infantry costs. You could call it COMPANY PLUS. In essence, your force would be based on a company sized unit, unaltered. Then you spend your remaining points on adding support elements to it. There would need to be rules for point balancing (to replicate COMBINED ARMS) and what units are allowed and not allowed (to replicate SHORT 75). While this will be tricky, but possible, with Modern titles, it would work especially well with current WWII titles. Thoughts? I think I might start a thread for just this. And please balance the infantry costs so we can use this for CM:BS Thanks Chad

Rugged Defense was great. Discovered it at the same time I discovered CM - they two went hand in hand. Played as 'Chad Harrison' back in that day. I think 'COMBINED ARMS' and 'SHORT 75' can be brought to the modern titles. For those who wernt around back then, 'COMBINED ARMS' was a setting in CMx1 games where the game allowed you a certain percentage of points for INFANTRY, TANKS, ARTILLERY, AIR and SUPPORT if I recall correctly. In essence the setting forced played to have a balanced force consisting mostly of infantry. In other words, you games were infantry supported by tanks/arty, not tanks/arty supported by a few squads. The 'SHORT 75' rules, or 'FIONN SHORT 75' were rules that limited both sides to vehicles that could be defeated on the front armor by a 'Short' 75 gun. In other words, Germany couldnt have Panthers, Tigers or tank destroyers that were essentially immune to the Shermans 75mm gun firing AP at the front armor. And the Allies couldnt take Jumbo Shermans. What both these rule sets did was create a wonderfully balanced game that was entirely appropriate for competitive, ladder play - which is exactly what Rugged Defense was. One set of rules was enforced by the game (COMBINED ARMS), while the other was enforced as a house rule. Certainly people broke it here and there, but never any of my opponents. As Vanir pointed out, it was great fun and very competitive. Unfortunately, it has been hard to replicate since. Every year or so, I have been asking BFC is they ever plan to bring back 'COMBINED ARMS' as a setting, such as here http://community.battlefront.com/topic/103808-cm-v20-combined-arms-for-qbs/?hl=rison#entry1360983 and here http://community.battlefront.com/topic/103808-cm-v20-combined-arms-for-qbs/?hl=rison#entry1360983. Steve finally got back to him and sadly, no plans, ever apparently, on COMBINED ARMS coming back. So moving forward, to duplicate that experience, you would need a whole lot of house rules, none of which could be enforced by the game - you would find out your opponent 'cheated' either once you saw the illegal equipment or after the game. 'SHORT 75' on the other hand, while tricky, could still be done in Modern titles of CM. Take the essence of the rule, nothing is invincible, and apply it to modern kit. APS is out for sure. A limit to Javelins. And so on. If the infantry points were balanced in CMBS, you could make a rule that goes something like this: Alteast 50% of points must be spend on a 'Core' infantry unit atleast company in size - no deleting assets or cherry picking, its taken 'as-is' No more than 30% of points can be spend on armored transport - whether APC or IFV. These vehicles must be part of the parent formation, and not cherry picked. No more than 20% of points can be spent on AFV's No more than 20% of points can be spent on artillery, aircraft and drones No APS. No specialist teams. No Javelins outside of organic ones. So its doable, but we would have to have a pretty long list of house rules and you would have to trust your opponent on it. *IF* the infantry points are balanced in a future patch to CM:BS, I would be happy to head up the attempt at making the modern equivalent to 'COMBINED ARMS SHORT 75'. But if the infantry inbalance in cost remains, I think I will once again find myself waiting for the 'next release'. That being said, I would like to get the ball rolling on 'COMBINED ARMS SHORT 75' for the Bulge game as we get closer to release. Ill start threads for that and get a much more comprehensive list of rules in place to try and replicate the wonderful balance of CMx1. Chad

Vanir Your solution, of giving the US a point bonus, works fine against the AI in QB's. The bigger problem is the *QB PBEM* scene. To replicate some kind of 'COMBINED ARMS' from CMx1 you are already going to need a butt load of rules. To replicate a modern version of 'SHORT 75' you are going to need another butt load of rules. Then to have the US player have to have another butt load of rules to cover how to spend that 40% adjustment. Balancing point values is a bear, but it can be done. For instance, if you pulled the hood back a bit and we could see some of the values being used ingame we could better estimate how much 'better' a soldier really is. For instance, your baseline soldier has no NVG, no armor, an average accuracy weapon and no weapon optics. Lets say he costs 10 points. Then if we could see under the hood, and knew a soldier with weapon thermals was 50% more likely to spot infantry at say 50 meters, and a soldier with NVG *and* thermals was 67% more likely to spot at that same range, now we have something to work with. Then if we say that 'normal' body armor defeats 30% of incoming rounds, but 'good' body armor defeats 40%, theres more data. Then if his weapon accuracy is say 40%, but another had weapon accuracy of 55% with optics - thats even more data. If we were able to pull back the hood, you can see that everything that happens ingame is values like this: A Veteran solider, who is tired, and firing from a prone position at a point target behind a window in a wood building at a range of 56 meters is going, while under light suppression, is going to have a 14% chance of hitting on his first shot. Like any 'game' system, each one of those elements is factoring into the overall equation, and ultimatley, you roll the dice and see if you hit - no different than say taking a shot at a moving tank, from a moving tank, in ASL. So if we, which we wont, have that data we could come to some concrete values about how much better any soldier in CM is than another soldier. Not this 'it feels about the same', but actual values that can help in making these balancing decisions. Again, taking ASL as an example, if you compare the American 1st line 6/6/6 squad against the German 1st line 4/6/7 squad, you can draw absolute, concrete conclusions about their relative strengths and weaknesses, by which you can start to base points off of - which is exactly what they did all those years ago. My gut feeling, is that if those values were posted here we would see that the American solider is way, way overpriced for not that much more capability than his RUS counterpart - the value was a number that someone chose, and it got inflated and never rechecked. Which is fine, thats part of development, but now that the issue has been raised, lets revisit those values. 75% more points is huge - and you would expect that soldier to be that much better. In CM:BS, the average GI Joe is *not*, not even close, 75% more capable than his Ivan counterpart. Just my continued thoughts - its out of balance. Thanks Chad