Holdit

The idea that the war against the Japanes was all about island-hopping strike me as odd. Advanced Squad Leader did two modules covering the Pacific War: Code of Bushido, and Gung Ho!. The first added the Japanese and scenarios in which they fight US army and Commonwealth troops, the second adds US Marines and the Chinese. The scenarios cover: Burma (4), The Phillipihnes (3), Peleliu- inland (1), Bougainville - inland (1) & beach assault (1), Guam - beach assault (1), Manchuria (2), New Guinea (2), Leyte - inland (1) That's two beach assaults out of 16 scenarios. (12.5%) .

ASL for me. It fills in the gaps left by CM. There are scenarios and releases now that cover from the Sino-Japanese war to the Korean war, and everything and every theatre and nationality in between and a lot of stuff that isn't in CM e.g. paradrops, beach landings, gliders, climbing, sewer movement, basements for tanks to fall into... Sure, you have to do the engine work yourself and there a few other drawbacks e.g. no sexy 3D and the FOW isn't as well-done, and you can't replicate weal-world tactics in the same way as you can with CM but in my opinion it's worth it. The modules can be hard to get and quite expensive, but if anyone prepared to forgo the full sets with physical boards can do quite well with VASL, an online computerised playing surface - unfortunately, it doesn't enforce the rules so you still need to learn them. Some say that ASL is a Hollywood version of WW2. I don't think that's correct - the outcomes are too random and too cruel - just like in CM. Show me the Hollywood ,movie where the best leader was taken out by a sniper before he got to do anything, or where a bunch of Stalingrad's heroic defenders fried themselves with their own molotov cocktails. But a lot of players reckon that each scenario played produces its own story that stick in the mind. One that sticks in my mind recently was from "Fighting Withdrawal" (me playing solo - Holditov vs Holditala) the first scenario in the first module, which has the Finns attacking a Russian-held town in one of the early attacks of the Continuation War. A number of Finnish squads needed to cross an open space but it was covered by an Russian squad+ MG which had already wiped out one squad attempting to cross at the same spot. A morale check against one of the Finnish squads auto-generated a Hero counter and the hero distracted the Russians by heading for an adjacent building, drawing fire while the rest of his comrades scampered across safely. The hero survived the fire aimed at him but seeing that the Russian squad was demoralised (it had been reduced in quality by an earlier morale check), he fancied his chances at taking them on single-handed...and didn't survive the experience. The kind of vignette you might read about in a book by Max Hastings, Anthony Beevor or Cornelius Ryan.

Do you really think so?

I love the KSP tagline: "Failure is always an option..."

I can't see why they couldn't knock all that out over a long weekend... (I'd push the PTO higher up the list, but that's just me.)

Some posters seem to be assuming a false dichotomy when it comes to modding: that either new material comes direct from the developers only or else it's the wild west. What I'd like to see is something more along the Linux model, where people can make/suggest changes, but only one authority can authorise their release into the game, and this would only refer to the more data-driven mods i.e. new theatres. The current system where visual and sound mods can vary according to the tastes of the player, would continue, because that doesn't affect anything important - for all you know, you opponent's panthers could be pink. In an ideal world, I would see the place for modding - or third party development - would be in the area of new campaigns or theatres e.g. some modders get together and put together a package for the Winter War, and so the uniform graphics, the research for the weapons, maybe tweak some weather to account for extreme winter, etc. The weapon, TO&E, and vehicular data would be provided in a format specified by BF. The modders or TPDs would run their own playtesting and provide the results to BF for review. BF would then run some of their own quality control and when satisfied, release it as a new module, which players would either have or not have, just as it is now with other modules. All in an ideal world, of course. (Actually, in an idea world, BF would release one game including everything between 1936 and 1953 - next week... no, make that tomorrow...wait..this afternoon...)

There's a difference, though, between the engine and the data - or maybe there isn't with CM, but in theory at least, giving someone the ability to add data e.g. weight, speed, calibre, ,muzzle velocity, rate of fire for a given vehicle, gun or small arm isn't the same as letting them muck about with how the engine crunches that data. That, of course, should be BF's and BF's alone to mess with. In addition, BF could act as gatekeeper for new additions, the data for much of which is already known, so they could do things like make sure nobody is trying to sneak a 90mm gun onto a Matilda.

Or just look at the Linux community.

I'd like to see something like this...one engine, just one, that will support all of the terrain, all of the building types, all of the weapons, for ETO, PTO (there's a lot more to it than beach assaults) and North Africa, with a limited selection of content for each. One engine to buy, one engine to patch. Because of the vastly-increased potential scope, out of the box, the game might contain a limited sample of unit types and vehicles across all theatres, just to get things going. A bit like the original Squad Leader, which only provided MKIV's,, Shermans and T-34/76's, one personnel carrier for each nation, regular infantry only, etc. At the same time, release the tools for others e.g. modders or contracted third parties to create the additional content e.g. database entries and graphics. Find some to way make it worth their while to get involved, but ultimate control for releasing content would rest with BF. That way they could concentrate on the engine while others get the theatres/campaigns out more quickly. I'm not claiming that this would be feasible or realistic, just what I'd ask for if the genie-of-the--wargame appeared and asked what my wish was. Regarding CMx3, I have to say that I have no interest in buying multiple versions of another engine that after another 13 years is still likely to have covered the same ground as CMx2. I haven't even picked up the new CMFI release yet, so depleted is my enthusiasm for the way BF is doing things - still no fix for the CMBN bocage bug over a year after it was reported. The military contract thing doesn't sound encouraging; it just sounds like more time spent on that and less time on this. I've seen that happen before with another publisher.

Not long, I suspect. But I was thinking more in terms of ease of management of versions, patching and map reusability.

One engine. All theatres and conflicts from 1930 onwards. Specific conflict packages contracted out/licensed to other creators where BF isn't interested or is too stretched already, but BF retains full control of the engine. Also an editor supporting copy-and-paste-able, rotatable, exportable and generally reusable maps and map segments.

Copy-able, re-usable, rotatable maps and map segments.

As a result of the Ad Hoc at Chef du Pont experience, and for other reasons, I've rediscovered ASL. ASL does live on, independently of CM.

Has anybody tried this since the patch was released? I just noticed about the patch, so I'll take the scenario for a test drive myself some time this week.

Glad to hear it - thanks for the feedback.