CRourke

Ya, thats true about the bomber crews getting rid of their bombs right before they crossed out of germany. Can't say I blame them for it. However, my mom had the misfortune to be growing up in Kleve, a small town on the border with the Netherlands, and a frequent victim of these bombs. I believe that Kleve had more tonnage per unit area dropped on than of the major cities of germany by the end of the war. Chris

I've heard that smoke grenades were primarily used for marking, which is unfortunate since I've always enjoy masterminding a sturm pionere assault using their own smoke to make dangerous assaults. But, I believe arty delivered smoke was used to blind enemy position and to obscure friendly troops as they crossed open ground. Chris

Brian, I had to take a moment to acknowledge your joke. *That was TERRIBLE.* Thats all, Chris

Its my understanding that the west front was on the whole alot more civilized then the east. I imagine the brutality of the eastern front was contagious. Once you hear about the enemy machining prisoners, or mutilating corpses, your alot less inclined to let his medics recover wounded. It is interesting though that a germany unit could fight under a differant set of morale rules depending what front they on. My belief is that brutality, murder, torture and all those unpleasant acts are not the exclusive priviledge of any race or nation. Given the right conditions, any of western allied powers might have done the same thing, and in fact its likely that on a much smaller scale, some of them did. Anyway, this topic is longwinded enough already, I'll stop adding to it now. Chris

Funny, I remember agreeing with CM's choice last time this was mentioned. But now that I'm a few months older and oh so wiser, I'm not sure that I do. I don't there's any need for BTS to come up with the CM equivilent of battle.net or bungie.net or whatever. But I really think it would be handy to have a chatroom on this sight where players could meet. We can all enter IP addresses in by hand, or email addresses, or however you play, but I think it would be really useful to have a place to go to find opponents and to talk about the game. At the very least, it would be good to have a message board devoted to finding opponents and a maintained list of ICQ numbers. Considering that CM will probably not have the sales of say diablo, or myth, its important that players get as much help as they can finding opponents. Plus, this sort of thing can make the gamer's into more a community, which, at least for me, adds alot of life to a game. I don't believe this sort of thing would be very expensive to do, admittedly I have next to nil experience with www board software, but its seems like it should be an order of magnitude cheaper than the "game server" type solution. Chris

A more in depth treatment of morale/cohesion/training is on my wish list for CM2. I think the green-elite thing is adequate most of the time, but there are units you mentioned and whatnot where it doesn't quite work Chris

There was a goodly discussion on this sort of thing a while back. The basic conclusion was that yes, in a perfect wargame the player would have no control over units out of communication, limitted, if any control over your subordinates subordinates, and would not have the "god's eye view" of the battlefield. But, the perfect wargame would also have amazing AI that would be good enough to handle all those lower level decisions intelligently and in sync with the general "game plan". Sadly, AI just isn't at this point yet (and may never be), and even if it was, most gamers would hate being told they can't micromanage. So, the player must wear many hats, playing both the roles of his LT's, and to a lesser extent, his squad leaders. This isn't to say that there is no representation of C^3, indeed its better than all games to date(rivalled perhaps by PITS/TOP). But its still primarily limitted to command delays. Or at least thats my understanding. Chris

I'm not positive, but I think on this scale, the decision of whether to chuck or not to chuck grenades will probably be left up to the grunts, as opposed to you, their commander's, commander's commander. And in any case, if your men only did see the vehicle for a second, should you, way up on the chain of command really know much about their speed? I could be wrong, Chris

>You could also make a dessert set of graphics, but it would be using the terrain types of NW Cpt Jackson, your company must make a diversionary attack down gumdrop lane to sundae hill. Now, all that hot fudge is going to make for slow movement. And try not to get your shermans bogged down fording the custard river. Be prepared for a counterattack from the direction of the chocolate forest. Expect Rommel to do something tricky, after all, thats why they call him "The Dessert Fox". Sorry Steve, I couldn't resist. Chris

perfect.

Can a barrage in progress be shifted?

Good point, Los... I've often heard it said that france had superior med tanks to the germans in 1940, as well as a superior fighter, and look what that got them. I'm kind of curious about how much more reliable and easier to produce the panther could have been if germany had been concentrating on a thousand other varieties of armor at the time... Or if the engineers had been made to remove all their gadgets and gimmicks, leaving just heavily armored medium tank with a good gun. Chris R

I don't think this has been covered yet.. How will CM handle battle time limits? As in the "The game ends in 1 hour, 23 minutes" sort of thing. Will they be optional, mandatory, or nonexistant? I realize they probably seem unrealistic to many gamers (What do you mean I took the remagen bridge 2 mins late!!??!). And they do often eliminate the opening recon and probing moves of a battle as players are compelled to attack right away. Plus, no one likes those crazy last minute vp charges. But a time limit is often the best way of simulating outside factor that would end the battle. For a defender, this would usually be the arrival of reserves to stop an attack. If the defender can hold on to objectives A, B, and C for long enough, without immense casualties, the higher ups would probably be willing to commit additional forces to the battle to decisively stop the enemy. So the timed battle has advantages and disadvantages. Some of the disadvantages (the last minute charge) can be diminished by making the end time slightly variable. I think the problem of cramping the opening game could be diminished by also making the start of the battle timer variable. The clock wouldn't start ticking until sufficient combat had occurred. After all, those off map reinforcements wouldn't start moving until there was proof the enemy was making a major attack. This would give the attacker his time to conduct as much recon as his little heart desires, but still require him to make a quick attack once the action started. Obviously coding the "when the lead really starts flying" event would be difficult (perhaps by # of enemy units spotted?). Alternatively, you could let the defender decide just when he thinks calling on outside help is necessary and the timer should start ticking. The longer he waited, the higher a final score modifier he'd get. This could even lead to scenarios where the "attack" is in fact a feint with a smaller attacking force.. but, if the player can fool the enemy commander into starting the timer, and assuming casualties aren't extremely lopsided, he wins. Obviously not stuff I'm expecting in CM1, but maybe food for thought? Chris R

What would prevent a player from receiving his opponnents order file, making a copy of it, and then executing a turn just to see what happens. He could then go back to the copy, and plan his orders as normal, but with some pretty good insight about what the enemy was going to do in the next minute. Not that it should matter... I've always found that the best away to avoid having your opponents cheat is to avoid playing games with cheaters. Considering the type of people CM will appeal to, and lack of retail mass market availability, I don't think it should be too much of a problem. Chris R

Seems those nasty VRAM discussion have been rearing their ugly head in the recent posts.. Since every seems to be crying for more whiz bang special effects, I thought I'd be original and say that I'm glad you guys are holding the line on the graphics and the required computing power. It must be hard to have the discipline to keep from adding "just one more thing" until you have a bloated behemoth of a game. Don't give in to the temptations. Well except maybe for translucent smoke. And vehicle shadows. Yes, but hold the line there.. absolutely. Oh, did I mention battlefield debris? From a technical standpoint, I was wondering if the "snowy terrain" loads a differant set of textures and data into memory than the standard stuff to save space? Thanks for your time, BTS, Chris R

BTS raised the very good point of just who would be the command tank of the sort of mixed forces typical in wargames... which makes me wonder, just how typical was such a setup in real life? Does anyone have a good sense of how likely it would be to see sections or single vehicles operating without the rest of their plt in a battle.. I could maybe imagine assault guns being employed like this but I imagine guderian would be rolling in his grave if he could see the brave panzer corps being parcelled out in ones and twos. Not that I don't think its fun to have the variety in a battle. Does anyone have a good sense about exactly how a tank would "break" under fire.. it seems like the crew is kept pretty much out of the loop locked up in their steel coffin.. and given a nice mechanical task to perform, they hardly seem the weak leak in the chain. It seems like the most common morale failure would be the "Oh heck, thats an 88, BACK UP!!" sort of thing. Would crews actually "mutiny" and abandon tank? -Chris R, who is secretly preparing his company of Crocodiles, AVREs, Tiger II's, Goliaths, SchwimmPanzers, and Pattons.

Just some thoughts accumulated from the previous subj. First off, lemme just say that I agree with BTS on most everything... I think the "bigmap" campaign system is one of the best wargaming ideas to be had in awhile. I'm glad to see the company taking the grognard high ground on this one. But, thats not to say that PzGen and CC2 type stuff isn't fun. I think every wargamer has deep in his heart a desire to build up his own army/division/company/etc, masterfully integrating weapons, men and vehicles. We want to not only outsmart the enemy on the battle field, but outdesign him before the battle by wisely spending our "prestige points" (or what have you) to create the perfect force. But, fun as it is (at least to me) I am forced to conceed that its totally inappropriate in CM. A suggestion for CM2: So I agree, its silly to allow players to custom design their force of 7 Koenig Tigers, 2 Panthers, 1 Hetzer, and 9 FT teams. And I further agree that its silly to take your unit on the whirlwind tour of european battlefields (Quick men, kill those british paratroopers.. we have to be back on the gustav line in 5 hours). But what I think would be plausible and possible would be to allow the player to step into the shoes of a company commander for part of the war. Sure, you may get to spend "points" or whatnot "buying" support for a specific battle, but this won't carryover (or at least only for the duration of a subcampaign). There will be no upgrading of your 2nd 60mm mortar section to an AVRE. Your infantry company remains just that, except possibly for periodic upgrades of eqipment. Will you get to fight on every major battle field of the war? No, but it won't matter because, and I feel the need to put this in caps, THIS IS A TACTICAL GAME PEOPLE (BTS, feel free to copy that statement and make it into a macro). On the scale we're looking at, there isn't that much differance between defending an urban area from SS troops that happens to be bastogne and defending some other miscellaneous urban area from SS troops in a battle that was otherwise to small to make the front pages. Does it matter if your companies assualt on a fortified german position is actually part of some famous battle? Front the grunts-eye view, the war just a grueling series of engagements, some which made the history books, most which didn't. In the previous mega-thread, I think steve pointed out that a long term campaign such as this would have problems dealing with unit attrition between battles due do snipers, random barrages, etc, and that over the course of time, units recieved so many replacements anyway, that the force quickly lost any "character" between major battles. First, it is true, many units in WW2 ended up receiving numbers of replacements far bigger than the unit's total size. However, its my understanding that (especially in the us army) the majority of the casualties came from last weeks replacements. Thus, you have a core of veterans who tended to survive and formed the heart of the force. These are the men which would eventually gain enough experience to make the force veteran or elite. Yes, some realism would have to be sacrificed for a "Command Your OWN Company" type campaign, but I think it would be worth it for the fun it would be to play. But thats just my opinion. I'd be curious see what others think. Chris R

You know, I can't help but notice that the release date for CM is "slipping" right into the beginning of my fall semester. Who put you guys up to the job of ruining my grades.. probably the same folks who came up with this "beer" stuff. Chris R p.s. Back after a month of being away from the internet and finding alot of catching up to do on the msg board. I don't suppose you guys are considering releasing a compendium of the messages in a multivolume hard copy series?

Ya, talk about a scary topic. Speaking for myself in the 1st personal plural, we understand that at this time bt must focus on getting the product out the dpor, rather than taking to heart all our reccomendations for simulating the differances in allies vs axis shoelace tying technique. In fact, I dare say, some of us are even in favor of getting cm into our hot sweaty hand as soon as possible even if it is utterly devoid of AI and full of bugs. None the less, we fear that we will keep the suggestions cominig, as we have very little else in our lives to distract us, and love the idea of having influence on what we sincerely hope will be the coolest game of all time. And we certainly appreciate the openess. ChrisRs ps, any chance you could still fit in the SuperTeknoMegaNinjaMobile

Ya Fionn, I'd LIKE to believe that moon is just their stupid dupe... but c'mon. Just think about it.. all his "Wow, I saw the game and its soooo cool" posts.. yeah, I'll bet most of you guys fell for that one hook line and sinker.. but not me. Chris

No fear, I'm not about to ask about the projected release date. But after hearing all these reports of an alpha more polished then many developer's final releases, I am curious what exactly is left to do. Is the strategic AI the bulk of it? It sounds like you guys are actually going to use the beta phase for ironing bugs that crop up and implementing changes based on tester feedback, as opposed to how some companies are still just trying get the game to work at all. Anyway, with patience and a little valium I imagine I'll survive until that glorious end of summer day, but it helps to know what I'm waiting on. Chris R ps I'm still entertaining a fear that this whole CM thing is just a very elaborate practical joke by two bored college freshman named steve and charles... Sure, wargamers are the most abused and neglected segment of the gaming audience.. why not pretend to listen to them? Act like your designing a game that does everything they want... Oh yeah, real physics, brilliant AI, you can even mock up some "screen shots" with a paint program. Heck, charles can even use the text from the "message board" in his sociology 101 paper. Oh, won't it be a hoot when they finally let the cat out of the bag.

Have you considered some sort of hard written serial # protection as well? It could be used to prevent duplicates from being used together in a multiplayer game. The # could also be passed (or given by the user) when downloading any subsequent patches. Just asking for it would make a pirate nervous, and it would allow you to keep tabs on the spread of dupes. Will more than 1 cd be required for network multiplay? It would be nice if there was some sort of "network spawn" install that would allow multiplay. CD verification could still be provided by swapping the disk. Chris R

I believe ASL had rules covering this situation. The key as I remember was that the squad or half squad didn't actually fall until it was "made aware" of the fact that it was no longer on solid ground. Generally this could be attempted by any unbroken enemy leader in an adjacent hex during the rally phase, assuming the leader hadn't used a support weapon or already applied his leadership modifier to an attack roll. I think there was even a -2 bonus to the roll if he carried the book "Gravity: An Introduction" (1pp). Of course that rule was later modified by the Chapter R Foreign Language Fluency Rules released in a later expansion. Chris R ps Can I drop anvils on enemy troops? Does that qualify as OBA?

Gee, I thought that was the idea behind grenade bundles.. I was always surprised that the germans didn't take it one step further and design multibarrelled antitank guns. Think of it.. 3x50mm = 150mm equivilency. (hoping no one asks me if I'm joking) Chris R

I think at least that piracy is a bit less of a risk with a complex wargame. Most "Warez Dudez" are either into it for the challenge or to get the new release of quake 7 before anyone else does. Picture if you will 16 year old computer geeks going "Hey man, stop playing goldeneye, I just bootlegged a copy of Tigers on the Prowl!" Now its true that the most damaging form of piracy is probably conducted by good seemingly upstanding adults.. but my point here is that the potential for lost sales of something like CM aren't as high because many of the people who "aquire" a copy probably weren't going to buy their own in any case. A good example of a situation where every stolen copy IS lost revenue would be OS's. Every who is using that ripped off copy of windows would have had to pay for it if they hadn't had that friend who loaned them the CD. Odd that there isn't more social disapproval of theft in this form. Well, then again, it IS microsoft. Anyway, like most everyone, I hate copy protection, but if its the necessary evil that will make cm and bf a success, by all means use it. Even if it has to be a manual lookup <shudder>. Or how about a code wheel <double shudder>. Chris R