Holman

I think most of us, Eastern Front grogs or not, will welcome the enhancements that will probably be made to the CM engine for CM2. I'm assuming that CM2 will be more than just an add-on pack with new squads and new tanks, but will rather include more complexity with regards to urban fighting, command and control, and perhaps even campaign structure. At the same time, there's something great to be said for the atmosphere of fighting on the Eastern Front. Even just hearing the Russian and German voices on the same battlefield will change the experience of playing the game. Moreover, though, a whole slew of new vehicles and troop types with new strengths and weaknesses will add a lot to the CM experience. There's very little that's "generic" about CMBO, and I think CM2 will build on the specificities involved.

I haven't much experience in scenario building, but I would imagine that "zone theory" should take into account whether a scenario is meant for PBEM or for play against the AI. In games vs. the AI, somewhat restrictive zones can cause the player to wrestle with hard decisions, somewhat balancing out the natural wetware advantage.

One thing I rely on is the briefing. Most scenario sites allow you to read the general briefing (or at least a short designer-supplied description) before you even download the battle. Just as a resume cover-letter presents a first impression to a potential employer, these descriptions give you a hint of the kind of research and thinking that went into a scenario. You can usually tell how serious the designer is about doing a good job. Disaster@work: I checked out your site, and I will grab your battles. Good Briefings there...

Meaning no disrespect to all the designers out there (most of whose work I haven't yet tried), one place you might start is the list of CM beta testers and designers that occurs early in the manual. I would trust any of those names to build a good scenario.

I'll add my support for THE THIN RED LINE as well. If you make a list of attributes that someone would want in the "perfect war movie," TTRL would have few of them. It occurs to me that the perfect war movie might well be James Cameron's ALIENS: very exciting, full of detailed equipment and tactics, well-plotted, beautiful to look at, and aimed at the guts. It's all for the eyes and the senses, not the intellect. (Not that there's anything wrong with this, in its place.) Well, how successful is TTRL going to look if you judge it by the standards you bring to ALIENS? It's a case of apples and oranges. Malick is trying to use the war film genre to do things that aren't native to that genre. In this way, TTRL goes some distance towards making the war movie something more interesting than it has ever been. It doesn't succeed on every point (I'll agree it could use some editing), but the project should be commended. By comparison, SPR looks like just another cartoon starring square-jawed young leading-men with great teeth. Some people seem to assume that the whole point of TTRL was the attack on the hill or on the Japanese-occupied village. But think about the scene after that second attack: a GI is pulling gold teeth from the dead, while a tied-up Japanese prisoner watches him. The Japanese soldier is speaking and spitting to the GI, but there are no subtitles. Nor should there be.

Don't worry about the position of windows and doors on the building graphic. CM abstracts buildings to a degree, so that units in the center of the building are (obviously) farther from windows, and units near the outside walls are assumed to be using whatever windows and other openings are available. The same abstraction holds for doorways: you've probably noticed that units can enter a building from any outside wall. Yes, the 2nd floor gives greater LOS, just as if you were on a hill of that height. One interesting note in the manual is that units entering a building initally have a poor chance of detecting other units in the building. As time passes, this chance grows a great deal. This time delay simulates the unit searching and securing the various interior rooms and passageways.

Then why does it say "Herr DoktorHamsterProfessor Germanboy" on your letterhead?! I cry FRAUD!! Just kidding, of course. I await the publication of your HamsterDissertationMonograph. Martyr

Positions inside buildings do require some micromanagement. Here's how to get the best view of the outside: pull the waypoint marker to the very edge of the building wall (inside), where the marker's terrain label is almost ready to change (but doesn't) to the outside terrain. On the other hand, if you want your soldiers to take cover inside the building (and be less likely to be seen from outside), put them farther inside. Units deep inside a building can still see out a short distance, but not as far as if they're right at the wall.

Hey, thanks Joel! Good news. I hope we see the update "soon." Martyr

I always assume that the platoon HQ unit in CM consists of the Lieutenant, the sergeant who's telling the Lt. how to run the platoon, the radioman, maybe a medic, and one or two other soldiers whose main duties involve running orders or carrying stretchers (when things have gotten bad). In other words, the HQ team is everyone who shouldn't be firing weapons except under extraordinary (i.e. defensive) circumstances.

Likewise here, Manx. In the first days after CM's release, I got my first user-created scenarios from your site. Nice job. Thanks again.

Just FYI, the movie "The Longest Day" was based on Cornelius Ryan's excellent D-Day book, "The Longest Day." I don't know if this raid is detailed much in the book (although I suspect it is), but you might find answers to your questions, as well as some good background, there. Ryan also wrote "A Bridge Too far," and the movie of the same name is based on his telling of Market Garden. (Apologies if you knew this already.)

One thing to point out about CM is that there are no "inherent" advantages built into different flavors of troops. That is, a "regular" Heer rifle squad and a "regular" Waffen SS rifle squad will fight at the same level and break under the same stress. This means that SS troops and fallschirmjagers aren't supermen in comparison with heer and even volkssturm (unfit German militia) troops. But that's what the experience rating and leadership variables are for. The scenario designer decides these levels and, while they are subject to abuse, they give CM real flexibility. In general, SS and FJ should have better leaders and higher experience levels, UNLESS the scenario is set towards the end of the war when even SS recruiters were scraping the bottom of the barrel. If you see a scenario featuring "crack" volkssturms whose leaders all have +2 ratings, you know it's a fantasy. Volkssturms should be conscripts or green, generally. On the other hand, you should never see "conscript" paratroops, because these units were hand-picked and received good training. On this note, I would love to see someone post a guide to the general experience levels that we should expect to see among various service arms at various periods, and why it is so.

Hi all, Quick question: what is a "fusilier" (a word that I may be spelling incorrectly; I'm not with my game right now)? Any background on the name and details about the distinction from other German units is welcome. Thanks!

Joel, You mention that Charles has his hands full with TCP/IP. Is this an estimate, or did he tell you so? I only ask because I want to know how serious BTS thinks the reinforcements bug is, and if they plan to address it soon. Potentially, it's a game-killer for those who play against the AI. Thanks for any info.

("L'Elle River Crossing" SPOILER below) . . . . . . . . . . . . I played "L'Elle River Crossing" as Allies under 1.03, and scored a draw against the AI. Towards the end of the scenario, I had units in the town directly uphill from the bridge. When the game was over, I took a look at the map (which I usually don't do) and saw that the AI had almost a full company of fresh infantry (fallschirms?) in the woods near the town and the victory flag I had taken. These troops were in good morale, had taken no losses and had expended no ammo. Is it possible that this company was the AI's reinforcements, and that it simply never made use of them? (If it had used them, they could easily have forced me off my flag). If so, this would seem to be related to the problem Fred mentions above. Paul "Martyr" Roberts

Alec Guiness was one of the greats. I recommend that his admirers check out some of the early comedies he did. These are excellent examples of British humor, and they're still hilarious after all these years: The Lady Killers (w/ a very young Peter Sellers) The Man in the White Suit Kind Hearts and Coronets (Guiness plays almost every character here!)

My preferences run to realistic wargames, flight sims, and CRPGs. Here is what I have spent time with over the past 18 months or so: Combat Mission (best wargame I've ever seen) West Front Enemy Engaged: Comanche/Hokum EAW Falcon 4 (recent improvements make it a new game) Panzer Elite Baldur's Gate Fallout 2 System Shock 2 SWAT 3 This is just the recent cream of the crop. I've been playing good computer games since 1980. The game I'm waiting for most right now(besides CM2, of course) is "All American: the 82nd Airborne in Normandy."

I'm 31, married for 2 years now, and very happy. In fact, I can say that I'm happier now than I was at 21, 11, or 1 year(s) old! (I guess this means I'm looking forward to 41...)

Did you give assault boats to the Allies? Since the AI doesn't know how to use assault boats (this is in the manual), you can't assign them to the computer.

One thing to know about sharpshooters is that they are good at picking their own shots. Generally, if you put them in a good location, you don't need to assign targets for them. On the other hand, when it's obvious that your sniper has been spotted (i.e. the enemy starts firing on his location), sneak him off to a new location. (Oops! Bullethead posted just before I did. Quicker on the draw, I guess.) [This message has been edited by Martyr (edited 08-02-2000).]

I have to admit to something strange in my gaming history, which is that I spent a lot more time reading board wargame rules and imagining scenarios than I ever did actually *playing* wargames. I guess I just never had a steady, ready opponent. My friends in the 80s were more RPG-oriented, and I played a lot of D&D with them, but we never got organized enough for ASL or Panzerblitz. (We did play a good deal of Star Fleet Battles, Car Wars, and Ogre/GEV, though...) Somehow, though, I did own a lot of wargames, and I spent of plenty of time with the manuals. I would read the rules and examine the counter statistics even if I didn't know anyone who wanted to play. Such was life in the suburbs. (Unfortunately, many of these gems were ruined by water damage in my parents' basement some years after I'd quit revisiting them [the games, I mean]. I wish I still had the whole collection.) As you can imagine, computer games were a godsend for me: a ready opponent anytime! I've been playing computer wargames since SSI's days as a developer for the Apple II. My first computer game was SSI's hex-based D-Day game around 1982, but I forget its name. "Kampfgruppe" and "Mech Brigade" were terrifc for their time. In fact, for me one of the great pleasures of a new computer game, even now, is opening the box for the first time and reading the manual (the thicker the better). I guess it brings me back to my youth. Of course, now the internet (and the appeal of CM) has the potential to bring it all full circle for me. I think I'm just about ready to try my hand at PBEM, which, believe it or not, I have *never* tried. Once I jump in, though, I guess my problems in finding an opponent will be over. [This message has been edited by Martyr (edited 07-26-2000).]

Um... Let's just not go there, shall we?

As far as CM is concerned, the battle type determines the ratio of the attacker's purchase points to the defender's purchase points. "Assaults" give the attacker more points (relative to the defender) than "attacks" do, and "attacks" give more than "probes," but "probes" still give the attacker slightly more points than the defender has. This is why, in quick battles, you give the baseline point value as the defender's points. The manual doesn't give the exact ratios, however.

I've been assuming that the vehicle "MG" (when not specifically labeled as .50 caliber or something else) is the standard medium MG for the army in question: .30 caliber for US, MG42 for German, etc. (I haven't looked at the British vehicles much yet, but I assume that the regular MG is a Bren.)