BloodyBucket

Ah, that's AoD and AoC for $40, a nice ten dollar discount for those wanting both...but there's no base game there. It would be nice to see a base game plus one of the new "Assault on" modules bundle, but alas, no dice.

I'm a Strategic Command I player from way back when, and it looks like I may finally have the time and coin to get back in the fray. My oh my, what a bunch of new stuff to ponder! In fact, it's a little confusing to someone like me who is overwhelmed by the options and slow on the uptake to begin with. My guess is, as a player who is interested in a large scale, global, "World in Flames" type experience, with an emphasis on the Western Front in Europe and the Pacific Theater, and as someone who is going to playing against the AI almost exclusively, the route to go would be basic Global Conflict plus AoD. If I understand correctly, the addition of AoD to vanilla GC negates the need to get the gold version of GC, unless one wanted to "go back" to playing the smaller scale of GC with the gold features. Also, the essential difference between AoD and AoC is that AoD has the bigger scale and the scenario list more Westfront/Pacific focused, while AoC doesn't have the larger scale and the scenario list is exclusively Eastfront focused. If anybody could confirm or correct the above, I'd surely appreciate it. Also, is there a GC+AoD bundle that I'm missing, or is the only purchase option GC and AoD separately? Thanks!

Price, profit and value...I don't know that we'll solve those age old issues on this forum. I've gotten great value out of CMBN. Yeah, I'm on a tight budget so I can't just buy every game that comes out, or, it appears, every module and upgrade that BFC plans to offer. I have to consider the value I'll get out of it. The Italian campaign doesn't interest me enough to plunk down $55. So far, I've not purchased the Commonwealth module, although it's one of those "roundtuit" purchases. The upgrade for ten bucks seems like a bargain. I'm glad that BFC is presenting options...and I'll opt in some and opt out of others. I don't begrudge the CM player who is drooling over the chance to game out the Italian campaign his day in the sun. I'll be waiting for further developments in the ETO, just as others are chomping at the bit for the Eastern front. Even if the next few releases are not my cup of tea and/or out of my current discretionary budget, I hope BFC sells 'em like hotcakes and continues to create great tactical wargames. Very few things in this vale of tears are gratis, and I've gotten to a point in life where I'm pretty sure the rest of the wold doesn't revolve around my sweet tuckis. I've also come to terms with the idea that I can't buy everything that catches my eye, and I'm not sore at those who can afford more toys and those who peddle the toys to them. So I'm off to the Hedgerows again, for the umpteenth time, enjoying mods that I got for free, and still playing around with different tactics and combinations.

My father always maintained they did it by outfighting the Germans. They did that by maximizing whatever unfair advantage that they could get.

Edit: Bimmer beat me to it. I think that the exact scale of stuff like buildings wouldn't be so important as the overall situation. If I'm thinking this through right, that would qualify the posted example as a "tiny" map. There are plenty of folks, including me, who like small, mostly infantry battles.

In the rules, a standing man can throw a grenade 15". Figure a range of 30-40 yards or so. If we go with 30 or so, figure about 25 yards a foot. I recall figuring out this scale as a kid, and calculating ranges for infantry weapons to scale for my plastic army guys.

I'm using it, and the only issue I've had is that I didn't start using it sooner.

Great stuff, thanks!

Hear, hear! We need to hear the "budda-budda-budda" of the Thompson for the Combat! based scenarios I'm thinking of.

I'd agree. There are a few outstanding sound mods that do parts extremely well, but not one that does everything the way I like it. Because of that, I'm using a hodgepodge, and in many cases I'm honestly not sure what mod is taking precedence over the others, and I just play it by ear, add one, listen, and decide I like the overall effect or not. I've tried "surgically" taking MG-42 sounds, for instance, from a mod and using it with another, and sometimes it works, other times not.

What about those of us who stuck with CMX1 for some time because of the difficulty in counting to CMX2?

Thanks for clearing that up....as much as I can follow it. Since I'm not an MTO guy, I'll wait for the release of the uniforms with the Normandy patches...

Most excellent. Thanks for doing these, and making them available. I fight a lot of small QB ME, so this is like Christmas in August.

I do feel like I'm setting my guys up in a swamp. I'd like to see a return to the outlines as well.

One mod I consider essential is Vein's support chatter. There was something just jarringly wrong about the modern radio operator sounds that come with the game. 'Course, I used to be an RTO so I'm probably paying too much attention. Rambler's weapons are very nice, as are Mord's US voices, Dietrich's German voices, and the sound mods from Odball and others add a lot. I like most of Vein's effects such as tracers, muzzleflash, smoke, etc. I am using Aristoteles terrain rather than Vein's. I run JuJu's UI, and I can't recall what mod I'm using that changes the bearclaw bases to hexagons...Bill H? I'm also using a mod that let's you choose divisional patches for the US, but I think it's down pending retooling for the patch...?

Great discussion. As a side note, after watching "Where Eagles Dare" with my eleven year old son (his first viewing of the classic war fantasy) he wanted to know why they didn't give everybodytwo MP40s since when Clint Eastwood used two he killed Germans twice as fast. Is this modeled???

Excellent ideas on this thread. Bjorn Kjellström would approve. Hadn't thought of pasting the cardinal directions in the background. Even a fixed "rose" or a simple "N and arrow" fixed somewhere would help. While I'm wishing for the moon, I'd also like a distance scale that would slide with the zoom level, and the ability to export maps as gridded contour maps. And a pony. Mjkerner, let's leave the compass out of the stock. You'll shoot your eye out.

Hey, it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck... If on page 62 of the manual they'd put "Camera Direction Indicator with Time of Day Readout, not a compass, BloodyBucket, you dummy", then I'd be happy as a clam. Also, doing a search on "Camera Direction Indicator" you only get a relevant hit on this thread. If you search "compass" you get a few confused posts like mine. If you search "tachometer" you get a few posts for people asking for tachometers. Functioning speedometers and tachometers on vehicle instrument panels will be in CM3, I'm sure. The time for magnetic North is now.

I confess, up until I started trying to write an after action report, I paid about as much attention to the "compass" as I do to the collection of knick-nacks that the wife has on display...I mean, I vaguely knew it was there, but other than that? Then in my write up I started to try and use phrases like "the Northernmost objective" and "East of the river" and found that the needle on the dingus doesn't point North. Yeah, no big deal, but to a guy who spent decades saying things like "See, sir (or "lad"), when you hold the map and turn until the red part of the needle goes in the little red house that the nice man who made the compass painted on there, you can clearly see that we are headed towards the impact area..." It's trivial, but it's fingernails on the blackboard of the soul trivial. I found some of the existing mods via forum search, but while I can appreciate the idea behind the Point of View eyeball mod, it looks like something that Terry Gilliam would put in the game, and makes me feel like I'm playing "Combat Mission: The Mutoscope". I'm with Erwin. A game that gets so much detail right should have a proper compass. Just venting made me feel better. It's not like I'm asking for scenario specific magnetic declination. Hey, is that possible? I guess I'll be fine with the undocumented direction indicator that looks like a compass. After all, maybe they tried to put in a virtual magnetic compass but the extra metal from all the bayonet lugs and adjustable rear sights on the M1 carbines pulled it out of whack....

Let's start out with what I like about the compass. It looks right for the game. Not a precise image of a WWII US or German compass, but it looks good. Now, what I don't like about the compass. Damn needle should point North, no matter what direction you are "looking". AFAIK, nothing in the manual warns you about the bassackwards nature of the CMBN compass. That's a time readout in there, right? Once again, nothing in the manual...or did I miss it? Can't toggle between bassackwards "needle towards view direction" and "needle points North like the Good Lord intended for a compass" and "no compass at all". Not a precise image of a WWII US or German compass. Compass at night should have that green phosphorescent look. (Hey, since I'm nitpicking the compass....) When your in game OIC is Green, there should be a 50% chance compass will indicate a random direction. No decoder ring or whistle included. OK, I'd really settle for a compass where the needle pointed North. Is this possible?

I'm looking forward to playing this...my initial impression is that the 28th division at this point would tend more towards green/regular than regular/veteran.

Played a QB as US, infantry only vs. German mix. Small forces, about Company sized. Map was LJF-Small-ME-Bocage. It's got a big eight level church steeple. I sent a platoon leader and an FO up the steeple, and they got hammered with a whole bunch of small arms fire, most of a German Company letting them have it. When I'd tried this sort of stunt before the patch, the folks in the building always turned into a pink mist before they could say "Jack Robinson wants a fire mission". This time, they took casualties, but the survived long enough for the 105s to start dropping, and since the Germans were in a sunken road between hedgerows it was a like...well, it was like big explosions in a sunken road packed with Germans. So, based on this one isolated event, with no testing and complete lack of WWII combat experience, I'm claiming - Units in buildings post patch are more protected than before. My linear artillery strike looked more like it was called in by Oscar Madison than Felix Unger, but it was still plenty effective. After that artillery hit, the German attack was broken and needed to be fixed. The game was fun to play, even without affirming my results with multiple tests after each turn. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, SLA Marshall and the Howling Commandos be damned.

Thank goodness. For a minute I thought the game was broken and flawed, but the simple addition of an imaginary smiley saved my bacon.

It looks great. Count me in as a fan! I do find that subdued terrain, combined with low light game conditions and my ageing eyeballs can be frustratingly dark.

I'd like to start off by saying I don't belittle military service of any type. My own experience showed me that much of what one is asked to do is a crap game, and while those who roll boxcars and get to shoot "for real" deserve all the credit that entails, the willingness to be a part of the lottery counts for something. I'm a firm believer that, as somebody said prior, a two way rifle range is a completely different story than the peacetime type. It's also well to remember that the vast WWII armies of mass conscription were a different beast from the small, rather intensely trained military forces of most nations today. I'm glad to see that unscientific anecdotal concerns can generate tests from the community that seem to settle questions, and would hate to see a "extensively test or stay silent!" forum. I know that testing every concern or theory would be an impossible task for BF, so when the community steps in, it's all good. Fascinating subject. The idea of a sniper holds a lot of mystique in the popular culture, and among gamers, too.