Steve Clark

Clear something up for me. It can't be officially the Eastern Front since that only assumes a European/America geographic perspective. What did the Soviets call it, the Western Front? Is Russian Front the most historically accurate term?

Losing interest because it doesn't have TCP/IP play?? Remember, there is a significant number of CM gamers who have NO interest in TCP/IP.

The AI is a cheatin' entity. In my one big scenario I'm playing this fall, I was just about ready to capture a flag on a wooded hill with 2 platoons. Just when I get to about 10m (still fighting off some German infantries), some really big bombs exploded all around me. I assumed they were coming from aircrafts, but not entirely sure. Needless to say, my 2 platoons were hurt badly. The AI just don't play nice.

With most of the examples focusing on tanks, I can provide a simplistic example with infantry. The Germans had 5 infantry units around a bunker and a few barbed wires, purely in defense mode awaiting my attacks. There was open ground in front of the bunker and woods/tall pines along the southern and western edge where I had advancing platoons. One platoon was covering the western woods and the other, the souther woods. When I approached the edges and started targeting the German infantries, 2 started to move to the western woods, not to find a better defensive position, but to flank my platoon since I had a line facing the open ground. The other German infantry found a gap between my two platoon and ran towards it, thus causing me to refocus firings from the bunker and the 2 remaining infantries, to meet the more immediate threats. I had never experienced a pre-emptive offense in a wargame before, esp. when the enemy had been in an obvious defensive position.

Here is why I've been playing CM for all its worth... With the addition of CM to my regular playlist, there are now 5-7 PC games that I play in rotation. Unlike most gamers here, my game time is limited to about 1-2 hours per night and I will not play the same PC game consecutively. Anyway, after easily winning the tutorial scenario, I wanted to play a historical-based scenario that would provide me with a comprehensive experience with CM. Knowing that this will be the only CM scenario that I will play this fall, I wanted to make it a good one. After considerable research, I choose "These Hills Are Alive" (no spoilers). It is a huge 50-turn scenario but it has everything I wanted: playing as attacking Americans, heavy fog, numerous hills in a forest, a village and many types of units. I've been playing this for about 2 weeks and with the turns taking me about an hour each, I'm only at turn 16. However, I am constantly awed as to how good CM is. The tactical decisions, which is the judge a great wargame, are modeled and executed brilliantly. Even though it is a slow, tough (yet winnable) game for me to play, it is holding my interest because of the intelligence of the tactics and how every move is critical. I think the other thing that I like about playing this scenario is the surprise factor. I had purposely not read anything here about playing this and of course, I play with full FOW and don't replay turns. That, IMO, makes it a very fun challenge, which I had not experienced in playing wargames the past several years. Again, thanks to BTS for making a great wargame (esp. one that runs well on a Pentium 233) and for sparking my interest in WW2.

I think the thing is missing from this discussion is SCALE. All of you talk expertly about the strategic campaigns of the Eastern Front. In CM2, however, only a small fraction of any the land area will be contested and in that small area, you can only fight with a relative handful of tanks and infantries. Thus, you are not going to get the sweeping flankings around one city to the next or a charge against a 50-mile long defended trench to find a weak spot. You are just going to get the weak spot. I could be wrong but we need to consider the size and scale of the maps to see if CM2 will offer anything substantially new in the way of tactics than CM1.

I think a good tactic would be not only say that you have searched but prove it as well! A few weeks ago, I brought up a question about POV (Point Of View). Knowing that this had probably been a popular topic in the past, I referenced threads that talked about the god syndrome, first person perspective and even included a URL link to an old thread that came close to what I wanted to ask, but not quite. Therefore, I felt safe about asking a POV question.

Slap, that's exactly the point I was going to make. I have done a number of searches and sometimes after doing so, I still had to ask my question because I wanted to phrase it in a different way, thus getting slightly different answers. If someone really insists that such discussions were fully elaborated on before (as in quite a few cases), then post some URLs. Doing a search, for example, on FOW yields hundreds of threads, some relevant and some not. It would be of immense help to those asking old questions that for those that participated in earlier discussions, point to such specific threads. My 1 1/2 cents.

This debate is actually related to the UN since 'environmentalism' is one its pet issues. As shown in the US since WW2, the only way you can effectively cut down on pollutants is to make it economically feasible to do so. The best way to make it economically feasible is for the industrial economy to be growing and profitable. In a post-industrial economy, it now becomes a positive thing to do, but only until it reaches that stage. If you want India and China to cut on pollutants, get them growing out of the industrial age. Otherwise, it becomes a matter of shutting down the plant (and putting people out of work), which does not help the economy. And that is my beef with Big Govt and Naderites. They (like OSHA and EPA) believes that the only safe business, or a truly clean plant, is one that is out of business. IMO, much of the environmentalist and the UN agenda is partly based on 'worshipping Mother Earth' and 'saving the world for the children' but also on envy and arrogance of others. They truly believe that humankind can be one with nature, but they do not realize the fundamental essense of human nature.

I think having a collection of 3D battlefront is a great idea and one that could be marketable in some way? I'm going to play Vosges1 for the next 6 days and then I'm vacation for a while. So next month I'll work on Antietam for the collection.

But what if you have a president that puts the interest of the UN (and its one-world philosophy) ahead of the interest of the US and its Constitution? BTW, IIRC, a US troop got court martialled(sp?) for not wanting to serve under the UN. I would like to have read the case law for that. Oh, and don't target the JBS for this. I suspect alot of Americans feel the same way. It's just the JBS tends to be, well, more vocal about it. Just like some radical left groups tend to be vocal about their causes. [This message has been edited by Steve Clark (edited 09-07-2000).]

So this is the thread that got Rob/1 in a hissy-fit. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>but dose there have to be thunder if its raining?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Absolutely not. Lightning (and its sound resulting in thunder) is typically associated with convection-type storms or where there is a certain temperature difference between the upper and lower air lofts. It is common to have rainstorms without lightning just as it is to have lightning without rain!

I got most of the Burnside's Bridge area done even though I may have to adjust the scale to get the North Woods into the same map. Having recently got into CM, I know I will need help in figuring what units to include, where to place them and how to make a game out of this. A dumb question, is it assumed that the Rebs have to be the attacker (like Gettysburg)? What are your thoughts to get me started? Steve

Thank you Wild, I will look at those as well.

I downloaded and took a look at all of these suggestions and some of them are exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for your help.

I stumbled upon this last night and nearly fell out of my chair seeing the 3D terrain. I almost cried when I could, with view 1, walk from McPherson's Ridge to Seminary Ridge and look over the town and see the high ground to the south. I then followed Longstreet's path to the southwest and then came across the wheatfield to Devil's Den and up to Little Round Top. I had never seen Gettysburg like this and it looked great. I'm wondering though, given the irreverant tone of the briefing whether it is playable? BTW, this has inspired me to start working on the terrain map for Antietam, the battle that I know very well.

Here's what I've done so far. I looked at a majority of the scenarios from the CD and I went through the scenario search at CMHQ. I didn't find anything obvious so I thought I would pose the question here. I am looking for a historical (or quasi-historical) scenario, medium length (20-30 turns), in a hilly/valley terrain (not winter) where the mission is more attacking (e.g., capturing a hill or taking out a bridge). I know I can produce this in QB but I would rather have some historical context. Does such a scenario exist?

Jsoh, let me add to these great posts as well. My background is 19th and 18th century military history and I have played a number of wargames of those periods. Even though I had always wanted to learn more about WW2, it just wasn't a priority. I heard about CM late last year and got the game when it first came out. I knew that if I wanted to play a WW2 wargame, this has to be the one. However, keep in mind that CM models small-scale tactical combat. You are not going sweep the beaches of Normandy, or break the Atlantic Wall from Switzerland to Belgium, or with CM2, invade (or defend) Russia. CM is strictly tactical where the placement of units on one side of the road or the other could mean the difference between victory or defeat. Or even firing a weapon at just the right time. Your goals will be things like taking out a bridge, capturing an intersection, getting from one side of the map to the other and many other small-scale variations. With CM you will get a great feel for tanks, zooks, MGs, infantry movements and placements and such, but not grand strategies and operations. I don't know what other games you play, but I play Civilization alot. To understand WW2 better as a whole, I first played a fantastic custom WW2 scenario that involved the whole European Theatre. There, playing the Allies, I had to defend Britain, plan my bombing raids to the continent, decide grand invasion strategies in N. Africa and Italy, and figure out how use the Soviets and the resources of the US. It was not until after I played that did I felt I could get into the small-scale tactics of CM. I just finished the tutorial and like many others, I had a hard time understanding and planning for successful tactics. I need to read more articles and AARs at the CombatHQ, as well as the specific scenario helps in this forum. CM is intimidating for a non-wargamer or for one with little understanding of WW2. But if you want to become interested in WW2 combat, there is no better game than CM.

Steve: It is not my intent to restart any debates but since you closed the Open Letter thread before I had a chance to read everything, I feel I need to say that, while your first post in that thread was a brilliant satire, those words may come back to haunt you in some way. As BTS and CM become more known in the industry, jealousy will arise from some quarters and they could take your words in that post out of context. As one who deals in software developments and legal matters, I think it might be prudent to remove that particular post. Respectfully, Steve Clark

Heck, when I was doing PBEM in the Talonsoft Civil War, we were typically doing one or two turns per week. I can see with CM doing 60 seconds turns that it would be frustrating to drag that out over an extended period of time. But that's the way all PBEM works, it's up to the participants.

Geez, how come others can get by saying 'Do a search'? The example Steve used in the manual is the unrealistic tactic of sacrificing a truck (a nonessential unit) to 'scout' ahead and expose enemy locations.

A single voodoo2 card can do True-color displays up to 1600x1200 but 3D hardware acceleration up to 800x600 (software acceleration may be higher). Daisy-chaining two voodoo2 cards can push 3D hardware acceleration to 1024x768. A voodoo3 can go up to 2046x1536, but probably not in True-color. 1024x768 on a 19" monitor is considered a 'lower-end' resolution for the voodoo3, thus why I can run with full details with no performance hits. I had to replace my voodoo2 card with a voodoo3 a few months back and it was a bargain at $99 (compared to $299 for a voodoo5).

Ummm, I have a 233 MMX with 96mb RAM and a 16mb Voodoo3. I display at 1024x768 with all of the details to the max except for horizon (no Mods though). I have no problems with performance with any scenarios (except on huge maps) and with high points QBs that I briefly tested. Maybe it's something else?

To Fine and Dandy, a search here reveals many discussions around what are gamey tactics or not. It is a hard thing to define (it basically means an 'unrealistic tactic') but we usually know it when we see it.

A brief example from the developers can be seen on Pg. 5 of the manual under "The We go Principle".