Robert Mayer

I was in London last month and CM was on shelves there for 29 pounds.

Doctrine may have discouraged hiding behind tanks, but something tells me that in the heat of combat men tended to hunker down behind large steel objects between them and the guys shooting at them. It would seem this would be true of all sides in the conflict. Of course, do you want your game to simulate what should happen or what did happen, I guess that's the question.

Point taken, Major; by "mainstream," though I mean beyond just hard core wargamers. The sales figures in that realm are so low they don't even register with mainstream game companies. Of course that begs the question--if you're doing ok in a niche why compromise for a mainstream that probably won't do much for you anyway? I do think though, from my conversations with wargamers over the years, that adding in the featuers I mentioned would expand even the number of wargamers who would buy TacOps. I know of many who like the subject matter but won't buy a game where they can't play both sides.

Hmm, is it that horrible for people to expect a new version of TacOps--which is only available as a new purchase, mind you--to include (gasp!) new scenarios and other things? Granted, enhanced multiplayer capabilities are nice (for those who use them--I've had a copy of TacOps since its debut on the Mac back in 1994 or whenever and have played precisely two multiplayer games <g>), but that's the sort of thing most gamers expect in a patch, not a new product. The one thing that has hurt TacOps most in the "mainstream" wargaming world is the inability to play OPFOR in solo games. You can complain about graphics whore reviewers all you want, but until TacOps allows you to play both sides against a decent AI (rather than just one side against a decent AI as now) you will never see the game go beyond cult status. I mean, I still love the damn thing but not having the time for multiplayer matchups the lack of a blue force AI has always been the game's bete noir in my book. Still, any new version of TacOps is a cause for joy.

Erickson was one of the first Western scholars to gain access to the then-Soviet archives, and his massive two-volume work remains indispensable as a detailed recounting of combat operations in the Germany-USSR conflict. He's boring as hell though, and after a while your eyes glaze and all you see is a never-ending roll of XX Korps and 34th Army and XXXth Tank Brigade, ad nauseum. Still very useful, and well worth getting, especially if you can get a nice edition. Glantz is better written in some ways, though Clash of the Titans is more of an overivew--his battle-specific stuff is dry but often very good. He has a new-ish series that includes companion atlases; I know he has one for the 1941 battles around Smolensk. Neither Glantz nor Erickson is going to be mistaken for Stephen King (or even John Keegan) as an accessible writer, but they're great places to go for detailed info. For an overview, though, Clash of the Titans is much better than the Road books. Also Werth's book is decent as well.

Yeah, I'm sorry about the mistakes in the article. As Steve notes, there was some confusion, mostly on my end. Steve talks a lot, and in going through the tapes of the interview, "CM2" and "CMII" got me confused--we jumped around a lot. So everything Steve said about relative spotting is true, but only for the next game in the series. On the Winter War, well, that's my fault too, in that once he said the Finns were in I figured, hell, what else would they do but fight the Winter War? Again, sorry for the errors.

I think each soldier needs to be tracked by name and personal history. We should see messages like "Pvt. Green takes one in the leg, three inches below the knee! His movement speed is reduced to 1, and he'll have a limp for the next three weeks." Then, at the end of a battle, we should see a list of every single soldier, and what happened to them. Oh, and a list of their home towns, too!

Everyone would love to have CMBO magically updated to CMBB standards. But it's hardly a no-brainer issue of "customer support." BTS has no particular obligation to continuously improve the game you bought. It works, they fix problems where they arise, and you got what you paid for. Now, it's nice when a company does retrofit improvements to a game, but I wouldn't hold it against them if they put their efforts into a new title instead. The idea that it would make business sense to go back and redo CMBO after CMBB doesn't wash IMO. For such an effort to be successful, BTS would have to re-sell CMBO to pretty much everyone. Now, while some of the hardcore would gleefully pay another $50+ for the same game redone, I'm betting most gamers would choke on the idea of buying again what they already bought once. So I don't think that BTS would gain much from trying to sell a CMBO upgraded to CMBB standards. Now, if the West Front gets the CMII treatment, that'll be a whole new game, and there should be no problem selling it. The effort needed to refit CMBO IMO again isn't something that could be done on the cheap or that easily. And it's a zero-sum game--retrofit an existing game (for which efforts you'd receive nada, as I've explained above), or work on a new, salable product. Seems a no-brainer to me. In the world of computer games in general, rarely does a company try to keep their entire catalog of similar games up to date. You didn't see Doom upgraded to Quake standards, and when they did Falcon 4 they didn't give the "upgrades" for free to owners of the original Falcon, either. Sure, BTS only has one game really, but it's a whopper . Besides, just because CMBB will exist with different features in no way makes CMBO worse. What, you wake up one morning and suddenly the game you enjoyed last night is no good because another, different game is out that has more features? Sheesh--I'm glad I don't feel that way about cars, I'd be broke

Out of curiosity, are these legal? I'm not accusing anyone of anything, please understand, I'm just curious, because I've heard from BTS that they've been trying to get a hold of the remaining boxed copies of these games for sale, and have been unable to. That would lead me to believe that 1) they still own them, and 2) they still have interest in them, meaning 3) most likely someone offering them for download is doing something naughty. I'd like to hear BTS' opinion meself...

Hehe, thanks. The "confusing" icon was a mistake, one which I haven't bothered to edit out.... :eek:

I can understand the concern for CMBO, once CMBB is out, and I kinda share the feeling, but I can't for the life of me figure out how BTS can get around the problem. From what I've been told, and from what we've all seen, the changes in CM2 are going to be pretty significant. Some of them, like the "weapon racks" and the unit designations, require an 800 by 600 minimum interface. Others, like relative spotting, vehicle morale, and vehicle organization, have huge effects on gameplay. I can't see any way of retrofitting these to CMBO in a cost-effective manner. I suspect that to do so BTS would have to suspend work on CMII, and on CM3/4 as well. And all the improvements for the original game would in effect be uncompensated--they'd be revamping the game for no additional revenue, but with a lot of additional work. Then there are the issues of performance and hardware requirements. CMBO has a very low hardware threshold. CMBB has a somewhat higher threshold. To retrofit the one to the other would necessitate upgrades for some--perhaps man--CMBO owners. Sure, owners of the first came could choose not to upgrade, but then, they'd only be able to play with other unupgraded people, the flow of user created scenarios would dry up, and soon they'd be outcasts anyhow. Some companies are able to pass upgrades down the line--HPS comes to mind, for the Panzer Campaign series--but those games are much simpler in many ways and the improvements are incremental (and it's getting harder and taking longer to do these upgrades with each release, anyhow). I sure as hell can't and won't speak for BTS, but as much as I'd love to have CMBO upgraded, I'm not holding my breath, nor do I begrudge them the decision not to offer such retrofits, if that's the course they choose. We'll just have to wait for CMII to return to the West maybe, with an even better engine....

If, and again this is just speculation on my part, the game handles relative spotting like we've discussed here, I suspect that yes, radios will figure in prominently. BTS has said they will be paying special attention to radios or the lack thereof in the game, with radio-less units getting some significant C3I penalties.

First off, the quote with the Voodoo references is from CGW, not my CGM article, just to clear things up. In the CGM article, I write: "The game will drop support for 4MB video cardds, making 8MB cards the minimum requirement. 32MB cards are suggested, though the game will function well with 16MB boards." I.e., the only things that won't run this game in 3D mode (I presume; I didn't ask about software mode, for some reason ) are old cards like the Voodoo1 and the early ATI Rage boards. Anyone with a remotely modern 3D card should be ok, though if you want to use high-res textures and lots of mods, the more VRAM you have the better, obviously. :confused: [ 06-05-2001: Message edited by: Robert Mayer ]

Computer Games Magazine is available in Canada, but as in the US which precise stores will have it is something of a crap shoot. As for relative spotting, I suspect it'll be more along the lines of displaying everything just as is done now, but not allowing the tac AI to "see" things not directly observed by a unit. So, if you have an AT gun that is shooting at a tank, and the rest of that tank's platoon can't see the gun, then until (unless) the original tank lets them know where the AT gun is, or they move to where they can see it, the tac AI will handle those tanks as if that AT gun doesn't exist. Of course, if this is the case the player will be able to send tanks to the AT gun anyhow, but those tanks will not be wary, because they won't know the gun is there, so you might be sending them into an ambush. Just speculation on my part, however. In any event, I see Deanco's points, but on balance I think the "fun factor" will only be enhanced by this. Then again, I have a higher tolerance than most for excessive abstraction

I suspect that CMII will in all probability be an East Front/West Front package, thus giving both CM and CM2 a next gen upgrade. To retrofit CM2 code to CM would certainly be possible, but not cost-effective, if that effort could be put towards developing either CMII or CM3/4. Still, would be nice, wouldn't it? <g>