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

As Ryujin mentions below, the Javelin is *not* organic to a US rifle squad - they need to pick it up from somewhere else. As I mention above, the points for it are therefore in that asset, whether a Stryker, Bradley or actual Javelin team. The only AT assets that you are paying for in a US rifle squad are the two AT4's. As mentioned in the original post, NVG/Thermals are clearly not contributing to points, else the UKR squads would cost less than their RUS counterparts, not more. So even if there is a tactical advantage to US squads with their NVG/Thermals, its not contributing to the point of the squad. But even at 50% increase, for what? A PDA? I would happily trade my US PDA for a RUS RPG-7. While some may shrug their shoulders at this and think its not a big deal, for those of us who play QB's, especially against a real opponent, these point differences are huge and are going to affect gameplay. Its not like the StuG example above, where just one vehicle may or may not have been too many points. You are talking about every single US soldier being way, way more expensive than his counterpart. Why? Thanks Chad

Howdy all I know in years past BFC has said that they dont want to *ever* get into point discussions on the QB purchases. If I recall correctly, there was some lengthy debate about the point value of the StuG III compared to the Sherman when CM:BN came out. I stayed out of that discussion because I didnt really see a problem with it - the much bigger problem was the AI purchases for me (a force of all AT guns, all mortars, all FO's or all MG's) The great news is that with CM:BS, the problem with AI purchases seems to be a thing of the past - whether because the actual logic and coding was changed, or because the AI has fewer odd formations to choose from, in all the QB's I have run the AI purchased force has been pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. Certainly enough for an interesting fight. So whether intentional or not, much appreciated! That all being said, when the game first came out, after snooping around in the editor first, I was curious to see the point values that were being used for modern equipment in the QB's. First, as everyone has noticed, the point values have gone way up from the WWII titles. Taking a fully patched and expanded CM:BN as my WWII example, in a SMALL ATTACK QB the attacker has 1908 points and the defender has 1185 points: a ratio of about 1.6 to 1. In CM:BS, in a SMALL ATTACK QB the attacker has 6662 points and the defender has 4037 points: a ratio of about 1.65 to 1. So while the ratio has remained the same, the points have obviously gone way up: there are about 3.5 times as many points as before. Which is fine and expected since the point values of everything has gone up. I started this thread - http://community.battlefront.com/topic/117752-bug-with-american-squad-point-cost-or-intended/#entry1576371 - after release when I saw the points for American, Russian and Ukrainian squads. I was very surprised, and still am, at the point differences between them. To the point that I think the current squad point values are making AI QB's unbalanced, and destroying the option of competitive QB PBEM games. Lets be specific. All point values from both CM:BS and CM:BN will be for REGULAR experience, NORMAL motivation, FIT and 0 leadership troops. A US rifle squad costs 229 points (9 man), a Russian one 88 points (6 man) and a Ukrainian one 95 points (6 man). So points per man are: US 25.4, RUS 14.6 and UKR 15.8. So that means that your average GI Joe costs 75% more than your average Ivan. In my previous thread, everyone pointed out all the advantages that the US soldier has and justified the cost increase with this. So since release I have tried to look very close at those advantages and see if they justify this point increase and are **CONSISTENT** for all the squads. So lets break down the advantages/disadvantages for each National squad: PERSONAL ARMOR: As far as I can tell, everyone has personal body armor. I know for sure US and RUS soldiers do, and I have not read or heard anything that states that UKR soldiers do not. While there may be a slight advantage coded into the system for US armor, I can not tell a big difference between their protection and RUS protection - small arms seems to have a 50/50 chance of wounding as opposed to killing/incapacitating. So no clear cut advantage here. SQUAD SMALL ARMS: In the vanilla squads under consideration, US squads have M4's, SAW's, one M320, one M25 and one M110. RUS squads have AK-74's, a PKP and two GP30's. UKR squads have AK-74's, two GP25's, one RPK-74 and one PKM. US squads tend to have better optics, but I have seem no significant difference between these small arms and their RUS counterparts. As many have noted, I have not been impressed with the M25 - it sounded super cool, but its blast is just so weak that it tends to suppress more than kill. I do like having the M110 on the squad level and think its a great weapon. But, neither weapon makes any real difference to the cost of the squad - the M320 actually costs 1 point more than the M25. No again, no clear cut advantage here. SQAUD AT ASSETS: Here is where the US squads are actually at a *significant DISADVANTAGE*. The normal US squad has two AT4's - thats it. Yet, both the UKR and RUS squads have the RPG-7. In playing CM:SF and in CM:BS, the vast majority of my losses to US squads from enemy squads is the RPG-7. It is simply devastating against infantry in hard cover - one well placed shot and you lose half your squad. Not to mention the tandem warhead for actually shooting at enemy vehicles. Dont get me wrong - this is modelled correctly, thats exactly what a well placed RPG will do, and exactly what the tandem warhead will do. While the US squads have *access* to the wonderful and deadly Javelin, its not in the squad, so its points are elsewhere (ie. Javelin teams, Strykers, Bradleys, ect.). So this is an area where RUS and UKR squads have a clear ADVANTAGE over their US counterparts. SQUAD NIGHT VISION: This is where I am the most confused and this is the biggest reason that I feel like the current point system needs to be revisited. The US have night vision assets coming out their ears: both on their heads and on their weapons. The RUS soldiers have thermals on their sights, but the UKR soldiers have no night vision elements at all on the squad level. This is interesting, because the UKR soldiers cost *more* than their RUS counterparts, even though they have no NVG! Even still, I can not notice a significant difference between the squad NVG's on the US and RUS soldiers. Once the shooting starts, everyone sees fine, but before the shooting starts, the RUS soldiers seem to have no problem picking US ones out at night. There may be a small difference coded, but in practice, on the *squad* level, I see no advantage. But again, if NVG's are contributing to point cost, why are UKR soldiers, who have *no* NVG's, more expensive than RUS ones who do? SQUAD COMMUNICATION: Everyone has radios, so thats common across the board - its very nice to always be in command! But the US squad have an advantage here in that they have PDA's on the squad level. This is an advantage, but I would say not a huge one. Sure they can call in artillery strikes, but for a squad, this tends to take nearly 10 minutes to get rounds on target. During development people were debating the strengths and weaknesses of the Javelin, and one of the devs or beta testers commented on the Javelin taking 30 seconds to lock and fire - then made the comment that on the modern battlefield, 30 seconds is a long time. Well if 30 seconds to fire a Javelin is a long time, what about ten minutes! If an enemy asset is willing to sit still for 10 minutes while I walk artillery fire onto them, my squad is the last thing they need to worry about. So while the PDA does help with communication and calling in other assets, it takes so long to do so its not a big advantage. MISCELLANEOUS SQUAD ASSETS: Everyone has binoculars. US squads have two breaching (note, not demo) charges, which helps with flexibility in urban environments. So nothing huge here. So all in all, the US squads have a potential advantage in body armor, an advantage in communication thanks to the PDA, and a potential advantage at night, but again, I cant notice a difference: in playing at night, I tend to find the enemy with my US *squads* when they start shooting at me - Sniper teams with the M107 and vehicles are a much different story, but their points are elsewhere. But the SOV and UKR squads have a significant advantage in the RPG-7. Again, NVG/Thermals are clearly not a point contributor because the UKR squads, which are blind at night, have neither but yet cost *more* than their RUS counterparts. So overall, I see no clear cut advantage. But instead I see the strengths and weaknesses of both balancing out. Similar to the age old question: would you rather have 10 Garands, 1 BAR and 1 Thompson, or 1 MG42, 1 MP40 and 7 Mausers? So looking back to the balance of CM:BN, the vanilla US Rifle Squad cost 47 points and got you 1 Thompson, 1 or 2 BAR's, usually one sniper 1903, one AT rifle grenade and the rest Garands. So for that 12 man squad, you were paying 3.9 points per man. Compare to the Fallschrimjager rifle squad that cost 57 points, has 2 or 3 automatic weapons (MP40, MP44 or FG42), 2 MG42's, 2 rifle grenadiers, rest mausers, *plus* 2 demo charges, 1 or 2 Panzerfausts and 4 AT grenades. All that for 5.7 points per man, or a 46% increase in cost. So this squad has a significant and real advantage in firepower, and AT assets, plus the demo charges - I would expect it to be more expensive, and 50% more expensive sounds about right. Compare this against the CM:BS balance, where the US square are 75% more expensive for no significant advantages. So how is this affecting QB's? Simply put, the US player is facing the red horde. When attacking if 30% of the points are set aside for artillery, support and/or vehicles assets, on a SMALL, ATTACK QB the attacker would be left with approximately 4660 points and the defender with 2825 points for infantry purchases. So if US infantry costs 25.4 points a man, they would have approximately 180 guys attacking against a SOV infantry force of about 190 guys. Carefully playing against the AI, youll win just fine depending on what assets you purchase beyond your infantry and how you use it. However, defending as the US, you would have approximately 110 US infantry against *320 RUS Infantry*. Against the AI, depending on how you use your artillery, sure you can still win, but it feels more like a zombie game than a CM game. In both of these situations though, playing against a human opponent, the US player is at a SIGNIFICANT disadvantage because of the cost differences in infantry while not really gaining any clear cut advantage. I have been waiting since the days of CM:BO to get back into PBEM play. The days of "1500 ME SHORT 75" bring back very fond memories. Playing on Rugged Defense, I thought the balance in purchasing points was great and had a blast playing. I was really looking forward to CM:BS to see if the SHORT 75 rules could be duplicated and a similar experience could be had. But given these current squad points, I would never play as a US force. UKR versus RUS could still work, but the US player is severly handicap because the US soldier is way too many points for no clear advantage. So I ask the same question my original thread did: Are the current point values for US/RUS/UKR squads balanced? If NVG/Thermals are not contributing to points, why are the US Squads 75% more than their RUS counterparts? I am really enjoying CM:BS in particular, and CMx2 in general, but this issue is leaving a bad QB taste in my mouth, which is especially bad considering the long standing AI purchasing seems to be much better. Thanks in advance Chad

I just want to second this. While I do agree with the original post, to me, I would use this command much, much more frequently.

When I told my brother about APS defeating Hellfires, he just laughed. Currently in my testing, the only Hellfires that made it through APS were to the rear of BMP's or after multiple effective stops from T90's. I had one T90 that defeated 6 or so Hellfires with APS before going down to 30mm fire. Was satisfying to watch it explode from a 30mm penetration on the rear/top of the turret.

Now that I have played a few scenarios and QB . . . AKD you've done an amazing job! It sounds wonderful. I started firing with the Bradley 25mm for the first time and it sounded great! I would recommend to put in both the modern sounds files in addition to the base file in the zip - all sounds great! Thanks again for the hard work Chad

Finally playing my first scenario - the first 'TINY' one. In the briefing, Pete specifically mentions this thread as his reason for making it. Thanks for listening Pete!

Wow. Didn't know its threshold was that high. 30mm Autocannon fire is definitely under that. On another note, does Arena run out of ammo for the entire system? Or for each section (ie. front, right, left, rear, ect.)? Or not at all? Good to see it working as designed! Thanks Chad

Howdy All Still playing around in editor. My brothers a current Apache pilot and I wanted to be able to show him this game. So I was messing around with the editor and wanted to see if APS/Arena defeated Hellfire missiles - he had never heard of APS before, which surprised me. APS/Arena does defeat Hellfires, but it also defeated a number of 30mm Autocannon fire. That doesn't seem right - is this a bug? Just a small question, not a complaint. Game looks great BFC, and really enjoying it. Thanks Chad

Mentioned this in the other thread, but thanks again for putting this out today AKD. Went to immediate use! By the way, does this include WWII Soviet sounds?

Not arguing about points. I was just really surprised to see that they cost twice as much and wanted to make sure that wasn't a bug that snuck through. And to those that asked above, this was daytime and night - points don't change. I agree with AKD, I noticed also that 'upgrading' to the better sniper rifle and laser grenade launcher, you actually save points