Man I Am Ready For Some WWII

[Lanzfeld]

I also believe WWII makes for a better game because it is not so much "one shot one kill" like the modern setting.

I just seem to have more drama in the WWII setting.

[Clavicula_Nox]

With WW2 games, I hardly bat an eye when my pixeltruppen eat lead. With modern games, I always hesitate before sending in the troops. I have noticed no difference in how I use vehicles, except that maybe I am more aggressive in Modern games.

[Lanzfeld]

That is a good point NOX.

In CMSF I am way more sensitive to my casulties then a WWII setting.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I'm not sure if that's the setting. Probably 1:1 at work, for me at least.

In CMx1 the accusing finger of corpses littering the field is rarer. A 12 man squad down to it's last man doesn't leave a corpse.

In CMx2 a 12 man squad merely halved in strength already has six reminders of how badly you failed.

[umlaut]

Yeah, it's those cute above the knee plaid skirts you all wear that do it.

Michael

No, Michael, those are the scots. These guys are finns.

"Surströmming?"

- that´s what will make me wash my imagination with soap.

[Battlefront.com]

Elmar,

I'm not sure if that's the setting. Probably 1:1 at work, for me at least.

I agree with you there, at least from my perspective. In CMx1 I often found myself moving around units without having a good sense of their casualties only to find out the key unit/s were seriously depleted. This, in turn, caused me to be a little bit reckless at times because I'd put a unit into a bad situation which it really should have been kept out of. The 1:1 aspect makes it much clearer up-front, which means I'm less likely to ask too much of that unit.

But there's also the "emotional" aspect that 1:1 brings about. I've seen a lot of comments over the years about people honestly having problems with watching their units take casualties. There was one made today, in fact, in another thread. I don't recall seeing such comments for CMx1 games.

Steve

[Lethaface]

I don't have problems throwing the troops in for a severe beating, be it modern or vintage. I have a problem when my troops take unnecessary casualties I hadn't conceived.

I think it just boils down to the dutch proverb 'what a farmer doesn't know, he doesn't eat'; admiring WWII wargames is different then admiring modern wargames. Especially if you grow older and become skeptical about new things and wish it was all like 'the old days'

[Gromit]

But there's also the "emotional" aspect that 1:1 brings about. I've seen a lot of comments over the years about people honestly having problems with watching their units take casualties. There was one made today, in fact, in another thread. I don't recall seeing such comments for CMx1 games.

Steve

I have always thought of this emotional attachment aspect as one of computer gaming's "holy grails". It is difficult to achieve that suspension of disbelief, but when it works, MAN... it almost ceases to be a game in a lot of ways- at least for me.

That's why I am still working on a design for a squad level infantry game, either for board or computer. There are a lot of elements I would like to include, but they muddy up the design of course. Ah well, dreams are what make life tolerable, eh?

[Pandur]

Michael Emrys

This was the heart of my objection when SF was first announced lo these many years ago, and there is probably a post or two of mine floating around somewhere in the archives stating as much. I began to notice some 35 years ago that nearly all wargames attempting to depict modern warfare were really just a form of science fiction to one degree or another. There is nothing especially wrong with that as long as it is clearly stated and understood.

But much the same objection has to be laid against "historical" wargames as well. Yes, WW II for instance was an extraordinarily well documented historical event, but then not everything got written down and a lot of what was was not completely accurate, to say the least. That's just for starts. Then there is the question of how far a game designer is willing and able to go in researching the documentation that is available. To be honest, there is an awful lot of "by guess and by gosh" employed by even the best game designers. The good ones end up with a product that is a reasonably good simulation of the actual event—at least good enough for the entertainment of amateur historians.

Personally, I too prefer the WW II setting simply because it is the one that I have most closely examined and feel confident to render a judgement of a particular game, whether it is giving me the real goods or just blowing smoke in my eyes. There is so much research yet to be done on more recent conflicts, sorting out fact from fiction, that I feel myself on much shakier ground.

Just one man's opinion.

Michael

that is verry good point but i think the difference here for the game designer is verry big in terms of "how easy do i get accurate information?" we all know through steves posts that it was not easy at all to get accurate information on the syrians, it was hard to guess the equipment they have in X years...this stuff means extra work and thought.

for WW2 you just take whats there and given(!) the designer uses the same amount of energy for such a modern setting as for WWII he ends up either with more information on WWII as it cost less time and human resources to get or less on modern for the same "price".

as a point i say simply that older information is inherently easier to get as new one. thats the nature of this, worth of information decreses and you need to use less energy to get it.

ok, given that, you end up with more info on WWII then modern with the same investment, and you can filter out much more and only take the most accurate pices becouse you can choose. it doesnt take more energy to do.

thats why i think the "now" in this case can never be as accurately potrayed as the "past".

i hope you see what i mean.

[Michael Emrys]

i hope you see what i mean.

I think I do, and if I do, I basically agree with you. To expand your point just a little, in the case of WW II most of the fundamentally important original documentation has been examined and analyzed by historians, and they broadly agree in most cases as to the meaning of it all. Sometimes a bit of information turns up, or someone does a fresh take on what has always been there, but that is the exception rather than the rule. Thus, a game designer who doesn't have a lifetime to spend in government archives can draw on "predigested" interpretations of the data and provided he has read widely enough and chosen wisely from among the sources available, can quickly arrive at a defensible standpoint.

This is not possible with anything that has occurred in the last 50 years. In a great many cases, narratives are still being accumulated and weighed. Some of those remain classified and unavailable to historians writing for the public. That which is available often has not been openly debated by historians and a consensus reached. In such a situation, the game designer has to fall back on "by guess and by gosh" and often not a whole lot else. Particularly, the games that emerged in the 1970s and '80s attempting to depict what a war between NATO and WARPAC forces might look like were almost entirely fictional. No one knew...except that it would be incredibly destructive. Even now no one can know for sure.

We know pretty well how WW II went and how it ended. There are always loose ends, but the two cases are in no way comparable.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

I'll disagree with Pandur and Emrys a little bit. The single biggest headache we've ever had in 12 years of making CMx1 games is getting WW2 TO&E sorted out. The primary problem is the difficulty in finding accurate, consistent TO&E at the level we need it. CMx2, unfortunately in this regard, requires even MORE information than we had to scrounge up for CMx1. That's because CMx1's soldiers are far more abstracted than they are in CMx2.

Modern TO&E, on the other hand, is generally easier to obtain. And when we can't obtain official TO&E we can simply ask people currently serving in those specific formations very targeted questions.

Obviously with Syrian TO&E it has been sort of the worst of all worlds since there's not much information to use and the amount of information we need is huge. The Syrians are akin to WW2 Romanians, the difference is CMBB was not based on fighting as/against Romanians while CM:SF is based on fighting as/is Syria.

Having said that, we are allowed a lot more freedom to be "wrong" with modern stuff than with WW2 stuff. That's because pretty much nobody knows the information better than we do, at least on the whole. People are learning from us more than we are learning from them. With WW2 we have tons and tons of peers in terms of knowledge on most subjects, which makes it more difficult to get things as "right" as people expect.

But in the end it boils down to people either preferring to play what they are familiar with or to move into something they are less comfortable with. We know modern era guys who aren't much interested in WW2. We know tons of WW2 ETO guys that are completely uninterested in WW2 Eastern Front, and vice versa. Each to his own

Steve

[GSX]

Elmar,

I agree with you there, at least from my perspective. In CMx1 I often found myself moving around units without having a good sense of their casualties only to find out the key unit/s were seriously depleted. This, in turn, caused me to be a little bit reckless at times because I'd put a unit into a bad situation which it really should have been kept out of. The 1:1 aspect makes it much clearer up-front, which means I'm less likely to ask too much of that unit.

But there's also the "emotional" aspect that 1:1 brings about. I've seen a lot of comments over the years about people honestly having problems with watching their units take casualties. There was one made today, in fact, in another thread. I don't recall seeing such comments for CMx1 games.

Steve

As I mentioned in another thread. 1-1 doesnt necessarily make you want to save lives, asymmetry does. Sf is by design a game that need to limit Blue Force casualties in the vast majority. WW2 on the other hand is all about getting the job done as quickly as possible. The War in Afghanistan has already almost doubled the time for ww2, imagine a ww2 where the sides didnt want to take casualties? It might still be going on today!

Another factor of course is that CMSF is more pertinent to a lot of us and we will try and limit our casualties becuase it may be a scenario that is directly modelled on something Afghanistanish or Iraquish.

I definitely wont be so squeamish about taking 70% casualties to drive 'Jerry' back to Bosche-land in CMN......

[Battlefront.com]

Yup, there is that too. There is absolutely not one type of player with one type of perception.

Steve

[Sitting Duck]

Originally Posted by Battlefront.com

We are still aiming to have the game itself done before the beginning of the year. Meaning all the features we plan on being added should be in the game. How long it will take to get the game released after that... we're not sure. But a couple of months is certain. Therefore, it won't be January. However, none of us want it to be April either. I haven't had a relaxing summer off since about 2004. Daddy needs a tan

Steve

Good to know. I'll be watching for the release announcement. Maybe you should plan your post-release spring break to visit a certain assbackwards state to work on your tan?

[Marc Anton]

Steve did you guys ever thought about settle CMSF in the"cold war Nato vs Warsaw pact" scenario ?

Wouldn´t that be much easier to balance the game and gather informations about TO&E etc. ?

[Sequoia]

Steve did you guys ever thought about settle CMSF in the"cold war Nato vs Warsaw pact" scenario ?

Wouldn´t that be much easier to balance the game and gather informations about TO&E etc. ?

Many people have asked about this since CMSF was announced. Battlefront is just not interested. Same with any Arab-Israeli war. CMSF 2 will have Russia and maybe China vs Nato but set in the very near future not the Cold War.

[Michael Emrys]

Steve did you guys ever thought about settle CMSF in the"cold war Nato vs Warsaw pact" scenario ?

Wouldn´t that be much easier to balance the game and gather informations about TO&E etc. ?

From what I understand, prior to the mid-'80s, NATO forces would have simply been overwhelmed by conventional WARPAC forces. NATO's plan was to go nuclear in a big way very early. Not the kind of thing that would play very well in a CM game.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

To clarify the Cold War thing... Battlefront as a developer (as opposed to a publisher) has no interest in doing a Cold War game because we have a lot of other things we want to do instead. Battlefront as a publisher (as opposed to a developer) is open to the idea of partnering with someone to make a Cold War game. That is actually true for a range of other game epochs which Battlefront as a developer won't ever have time to do. There are still some pretty high practical hurdles to get over so I don't expect there to be a Cold War game any time soon.

Steve