MikeyD

CMRT module? ...I started typing then remembered 'non-disclosure agreement'. So I can't actually tell you much. Let's just say its in the queue and all of the up-front work was completed months ago. The number of in-progress projects competing for attention is larger than you may think.

CMSF2 will have (does have) the new FOW-friendly trenches and foxholes. The old sunk-in-mesh trench has been renamed 'ditch', I believe. The new trenches were in one of the dozens of screenshots submitted that didn't get selected.

Tucked away in the general topics forum Steve dropped a nice preview of the coming CMSF2!
 

Hmmm... I had thought StuG behavior had been changed awhile back so the crew wouldn't pop up unless explicitly ordered to unbutton and given a 'target light' command. The late types of Stugs have MG42 embedded in the gun mantlet for proper coaxial 'target light' when buttoned. The earlier types don't and need to unbutton and man the MG for 'target light'.

If memory serves, uncons weren't considered appropriate 'basegame' material. BFC isn't recreating current Ukraine but a fictional future Ukraine conflict (thought up before the current Ukraine conflict). Lets recall, they've got 1-2-3(?) additional modules left to fill. Which means all sorts of stuff is likely to show up someday. Marines (both sides), NATO, reserve units, fighters and mercenaries. This title still has a lot of growing left to do.
About helicopters. Watch an on-map SAM missile streak faaaaar off-map to knock down an approaching aircraft and you will understand why nobody in their right mid would fly troop transport helicopters over the front line. The closest (and most appropriate) you could get is reinforcements appearing on the map edge with the type-written orders explaining that they had humped in across country after being offloaded a safe distance away.

Y'know, when you're in the real world nobody is going to hand you a sheet of paper with hard numbes listing relative levels of concealment for the surrounding terrain. Reality doesn't work like that. The whole point of providing a detailed 3-D environment is the 'willing suspension of disbelief'. You're not juggling numbers and algorithms, you're lying in a muddy field in the middle of the night not 500m from people who want to kill you. As to not being able to tell orchards from tall pines in the game. The presence of tall pines ought to be a giveaway on that score.

One problem with good ideas is there have been too many of them!   I have my own wish list for new/different orders, myself. But the game currently is pretty much at the saturation point for number of orders/menus/buttons/commands that can be reasonably juggled at the same time. Maybe they could add one more, maybe two more, but soon the commands menu starts looking like a wall of text. I'm reminded of a survey some years back on healthcare options. If you give people a choice of five or six plans they're happy with their choices, if you give them an option of forty plans they're numbed into inaction. Sensory overload kicks in.

One problem with good ideas is there have been too many of them!   I have my own wish list for new/different orders, myself. But the game currently is pretty much at the saturation point for number of orders/menus/buttons/commands that can be reasonably juggled at the same time. Maybe they could add one more, maybe two more, but soon the commands menu starts looking like a wall of text. I'm reminded of a survey some years back on healthcare options. If you give people a choice of five or six plans they're happy with their choices, if you give them an option of forty plans they're numbed into inaction. Sensory overload kicks in.

Y'know, when you're in the real world nobody is going to hand you a sheet of paper with hard numbes listing relative levels of concealment for the surrounding terrain. Reality doesn't work like that. The whole point of providing a detailed 3-D environment is the 'willing suspension of disbelief'. You're not juggling numbers and algorithms, you're lying in a muddy field in the middle of the night not 500m from people who want to kill you. As to not being able to tell orchards from tall pines in the game. The presence of tall pines ought to be a giveaway on that score.

Things aren't so simple in CMBN. Your units no longer occupy a single point. Take a 12 man squad, place them along a ridgeline. A couple men will be on rocks, a couple men behind a bush and a couple men in tall grass.
Basically the terrain is what-you-see-is-what-you-get. If the ground looks like sand its probably sand, if it looks like rocks its rocks. If you're REALLY confused about what terrain type you're looking at the spend a couple minutes in the editor to familiarize yourself. Once you know you know. Though if you've been playing since CMBO days I can hardly imagine CMBN terrain could possibly throw you.

Things aren't so simple in CMBN. Your units no longer occupy a single point. Take a 12 man squad, place them along a ridgeline. A couple men will be on rocks, a couple men behind a bush and a couple men in tall grass.
Basically the terrain is what-you-see-is-what-you-get. If the ground looks like sand its probably sand, if it looks like rocks its rocks. If you're REALLY confused about what terrain type you're looking at the spend a couple minutes in the editor to familiarize yourself. Once you know you know. Though if you've been playing since CMBO days I can hardly imagine CMBN terrain could possibly throw you.

Except, of course, the price of the game *isn't* high. Steam is a parasite company. Why do people keep suggesting BFC attach a parasite to its neck just to suck its profits? BFC prefers to keep its own profits for itself.

Except, of course, the price of the game *isn't* high. Steam is a parasite company. Why do people keep suggesting BFC attach a parasite to its neck just to suck its profits? BFC prefers to keep its own profits for itself.

Except, of course, the price of the game *isn't* high. Steam is a parasite company. Why do people keep suggesting BFC attach a parasite to its neck just to suck its profits? BFC prefers to keep its own profits for itself.

If you come at the game out of the model hobby end of the spectrum, a single quality plastic hobby kit will cost you as much as this entire game. Depending on the title, CM might give <>150 different vehicles to play with. There's a chance you've just paid your cable TV bill for the month. How much did that set you back?

One thing that makes a BIG difference in map design in recent years is the combo of Google Earth and the game's editor map overlay function. Its hard to overindulge in certain terrain features if you're exactly matching a real world location. Reproducing actual locations, its less likely you'll arrange your buildings just-so for 'optimal' tactical game play or place copses of trees in precisely the 'optimal' spot. The real world is not often so cooperative. On the flip side, if you decide to reproduce a real-world village in the middle of a dense forest then you're going to have lots-o-woods to contend with!

One thing that makes a BIG difference in map design in recent years is the combo of Google Earth and the game's editor map overlay function. Its hard to overindulge in certain terrain features if you're exactly matching a real world location. Reproducing actual locations, its less likely you'll arrange your buildings just-so for 'optimal' tactical game play or place copses of trees in precisely the 'optimal' spot. The real world is not often so cooperative. On the flip side, if you decide to reproduce a real-world village in the middle of a dense forest then you're going to have lots-o-woods to contend with!

Remember, this is a 'tactical combat sim'. Dense urban, open rural, mountains, deserts, forest, they each have different tactical demands that require very different tactical thinking. Just a couple days ago I threw together my very first 'solid forest' combat map. Complex hilly terrain, a few foot paths, but otherwise a solid sq km of dense pine forest. Holy crapoly, its like entering something from Grimm's fairy tales! No standing off and blasting houses from a safe distance there, no spotter calling in rounds from a km away. This kind of fighting is up-close-and-personal! Heh heh, to each his own. Most CM maps with woods on them really are mostly there to channel the action, not to actually fight in. 

In the game eventually your armor will run out of smoke then you can see why they were backing away. Modern war is murderously lethal. Which for some people is vexing, for others its FUN FUN FUN!   
 
Don't forget you have Sicily and Italy to choose from too. For a lot of players the question isn't so much which game to purchase as which game to purchase first! 

I'll go first. I was successfully assaulting an American position with my Italians (to my great surprise) when I snapped these screenshots. The classic Breda "Red Devil" aluminum body hand grenade in action.

The in-game difference between early and late T34-85 is BIG. From slow hand-cranked turret to a turret motor so blazingly fast that Beta testers initially thought the numbers must be off. The late war T34-85 seems to be a perfectly capable combat tank. Gamer's often make the error of thinking of tanks as knights of the battlefield engaging in individual combat. Especially on the Eastern front it was less a duel than a gang rumble. It wasn't so much T34 vs Panther as T34 battalion vs Panther company.

The in-game difference between early and late T34-85 is BIG. From slow hand-cranked turret to a turret motor so blazingly fast that Beta testers initially thought the numbers must be off. The late war T34-85 seems to be a perfectly capable combat tank. Gamer's often make the error of thinking of tanks as knights of the battlefield engaging in individual combat. Especially on the Eastern front it was less a duel than a gang rumble. It wasn't so much T34 vs Panther as T34 battalion vs Panther company.

The in-game difference between early and late T34-85 is BIG. From slow hand-cranked turret to a turret motor so blazingly fast that Beta testers initially thought the numbers must be off. The late war T34-85 seems to be a perfectly capable combat tank. Gamer's often make the error of thinking of tanks as knights of the battlefield engaging in individual combat. Especially on the Eastern front it was less a duel than a gang rumble. It wasn't so much T34 vs Panther as T34 battalion vs Panther company.

Isn't Steam kind'a a parasitic organization? They do none of the work and take a piece of the profits.

Bugle is BIG. It required an entirely rejiggered German TO&E (in Steve's eyes the most important part), different seasons, different weather, new art, new terrain features, new region selections, new vehicles, etc etc.
CMBN was always scheduled to end on Sept 30, 1944. And (working title) Bulge game was always meant to start October 1. Its not so much a sales strategy as simple logistics. Why do a 'module' that you'd have to overwrite all of the basegame to implement? Plus if you do it as a module people interested in just the Bulge theater would be compelled to first buy the CMBN title.