Biltong

On it's way

Just curious - what position do you occupy at MicroSoft?

Most of you won’t know this, but BCR was a team effort... The Invisible Hero's of BCR The BCR-Team contributed endless hours and without them BCR wouldn't have been half as 'clean' and entertaining. Apache - Feedback & Ideas; Contacts and more Ideas Peter Molloy - Hundreds of City Battle Maps Manstein22 - Endless Maps for all situations Max BauHaus - Auto Parameters and logic Scooby - Web Master & PDF provider SuperSulo - Web Master and endless feedback The Scalpel - Logic, Language and the Players Guide Myself and the players can't thank you enough!! I would also like to thank the Players. A large number of ideas and improvements came from suggestions made on the board or via e-mail. Thanx guys. Biltong

END OF THIS THREAD - PLEASE POST IN THE NEW 'GOLD' THREAD Go here: BCR Goes GOLD!!

Biltong’s Campaign Rules goes ‘GOLD’!!! 41 South v2.1 now available!! NEW: Beta of 42 South v1.0 NEW: Player Guide v2.1 A complete walk-through of the first battle, the more difficult rules explained in some detail and lots of lovely pictures More maps from Manstein!! Map Pack 5.0 now out with 28 new maps. Map Pack 2.2 has seen some revisions to the Poljegorod maps. All of the above - Get it here: SuperSulo's Site or here Scooby's Site - including PDF versions for the non-MS compliant individuals If this is the first time you hear about BCR… :confused: BCR is a set of Campaign rules that enable you to play a series of battles from Barbarossa to Berlin. BCR 41 & 42 South is the set of Rules covering the months June 41 to December 42 in the Army Group “South” Theatre of Operations. Operation Barbarossa erupts on 22 June 1941 and you and your Battle Group storm through the Soviet ranks through the long months of summer in the steppe and the mud and rain of October. You take your men all the way to Rostov, Khar’kov and the Crimea before the incredible cold of November halt you in your tracks. Then the Soviet counter attacks start. You are the commanding officer of a company of German Mechanized Infantry and some armor that you take through the whole CMBB time frame. As you lead your company and armor into Russia most of the parameters of the battles are dictated by historically accurate data, e.g. on the 4th week of October 41 it suddenly turns bitterly cold and the German advance freezes to a halt. You, your men and armor gain or loose experience throughout the Campaign. You start off with Regular troops, but after a year it becomes obvious that the quality of your replacements are getting worse... How your men grow in experience will depend on how they fare in each battle… how many men did they lose; did they get rattled; did they take out a MG pillbox or maybe even a tank? You yourself, as the CO, learn and slowly gain or loose Favor with your own commanding officer. If you screw up, you lose favor... Favor that you could have used to avoid launching an Immediate Assault straight after your last battle without even getting reinforcements. You also get a Task Force to support your Battle Group: Infantry, Support, Vehicles, Armor, Arty or Air, depending on factors such as who assaults or attack who, weather etc. With designed scenarios you quite often have ‘balanced’ forces, but with BCR you’ll get the real thing: Sometimes you know who your opponent is; sometimes you are facing unknown odds. Sometimes you have an easy go of it - hammering low on ammo and decimated green Partisans, but later that night you might face a counter-attack from 3 companies of Guards Mech, before you had chance to get reinforcements... You have to think on your feet and learn to retreat when necessary... no more heroic defenses or assaults till the last man!! Your men's survival is of the utmost importance... even to the extent that you'll rather loose a battle than loose too many men! The objectives still matter – you still want to win, but not at the cost and risk of decimating your men. Here realism rules for the first time. As a learning tool this is unsurpassed.... You learn to think and act like a real commander... If you think you’ve got your tactics down pat, – Think again… You will get into situations that you’ve never encountered before… and never will with normal scenarios and QB’s. BCR is just for yourself… the battle is between yourself and an enemy who grows stronger every year… You will have to become a better commander for you and your men to survive till the end. If you have any questions - post in this thread and I or one of the old hands will answer you within a day or 2. Enjoy!! Biltong [ February 23, 2003, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: Biltong ]

Just saw the 1st pages of this thread. Unfortunately I must agree BFC does not care for it’s customers. Years ago I played WF/EF by a company called Talonsoft (don’t know if they’re still going – be surprised if they are). With their ‘excellent’ system someone could replay the movie until they got the result they wanted. Consequently you would start a game with some unknown guy and 3 or more weeks later start wondering about the miraculous luck your opponent has every now and then… Then you would have the dilemma: Do I accuse him.... swallow the crap and carry on... or make some lame excuse and stop the game. :mad: This kept on happening and was driving me nuts!! Then a guy called Ken Talley told me about a game being coded that makes cheating impossible…. So – 3? Months before the CMBO demo came out I stopped playing that ‘other game’ and waited… To get back to my 1st point. I’ll never forgive BFC for those months of unbearably painfull suspense – waiting for that bloody demo!!! :mad: Who can remember those days – Oh! How we suffered!!!! Julle domdonners!!! Bitch & Complain!!!!! Julle het nie 'n fokken clue nie!!!!

Looks like it, Apache - see this post elsewhere on the board:Gderman version patch feature translation BCR players will be very pleased

I was talking to another guy today - speculating about what I'll be doing with BCR for 45... I won't be surprised if the Battle Group has grown a lot by then and your battallion rules might come into play - who knows? Still a long way to go!

Check your in box

Hmmm Apache - That explains some of the advice you give to newbies - maybe time to download again :eek: You're 5 versions behind!!! BTW - You don't have to download - I sent them to you as they came out - just check your inbox. This issue was dealt with 2 or 3 versions ago. BOLD, RED letters right at the top of the parameters [ February 08, 2003, 06:27 AM: Message edited by: Biltong ]

Hi HB You're too fast - go a bit slower :eek: Just added the following to Weather-b "Previous Battle in Snow or Blizzard +3"

Hi kenm/Guys, kenm - Thanx for the AAR - Are you using a QB map? Try using the arcs to alternate between the squads - hide those with little ammo (short arcs) while those with the most (larger arcs), keep the enemy pinned... Armor/arty HE on heavy enemy concentrations only, otherwise as a reserve to pop up where the inf runs out of ammo using their MG's. Ammo bug - BFC know's about the issue - hopefully it gets fixed in 1.02. Until then assume the Allied company facing you have Stalin's young cousin for a CO and somehow he always has ammo The Player Guide will be released with BCR Gold (V2.0) - just waiting for some Special City Battle maps - then we launch - maybe a week or 3 or maybe just days :confused: At the latest 6 months...

Turkey Shoot - chicken shoot LOL What tells you I'm not a yank It sounds good Apache. Should be easy to make into a special rule as well. Might be able to build it into the Stalingrad pack (42) ... On da list.

No - I just need more detail. it sounds interesting. From the above I assume?? that you give extra purchase points to Axis fortifications and arty... With the allied points culculated the normal way...? In that case it won't be an over run, but a chicken shoot? Somehow the allies need to get a lot of extra points to give them a chance, surely? E.g.: Allied Force Size = 3 times Axis Force Size?

Hi Peter, Nice idea, but not practical. We don't know if a battle (no 7 or 9 or whatever) will be a small rural fight or a large inner city battle. Also no idea how many battles in a campaign - too many variables. Nope, most parameters based on averages for the whole front. Especially when it comes to terrain. Weather and mayor battles were easier - more definite dates for, say the 1st snow etc etc We are slowly bringing in specific battles: planning to introduce 5 battles in and around Kiev for 41, but the Battle Group is still just an 'average' of what you could expect on that front at that time. As far as the armor for 41 goes - quite a 'rough' average From 42 onwards I intend to make the armor more historically correct ( 1 light and 1 medium platoon) and there will also be 2 historical battles: Stalingrad and Sevastopol with a total of 20 battles.

Apache, 1) Fixed some time/couple of versions? ago… check v2.0 I sent you" 43 WIND Fog/Rain -4; Fog -5; Thick Fog –6 2) The battle that you play is an ‘Over-run’ battle, Right? Not after the over run took place. “…with all the arty pieces being on-map, plenty of fortifications and well dug in.“ - OK Lots of on board arty – OK I would imagine you give the Allies a lot of extra points or they will get slaughtered? How do you do this? Some sort of formula? What makes this different from an Allied Assault, except for the onboard arty? Something here, but it needs a bit more flesh. What would be the purpose? How to defend till death? How to run/escape overwhelming odds? Obviously it provides variety, but the players will hate it, because it will stuff up their Favor and Experience… It might have to be ‘punishment’ for some transgression/failure? Just, very bad luck? It is real – did happen, but I still need a handle on it. Gimme more…

Do you understand that 4000pts w/ 50% casualties gives you an on map force size of 4000pts, not 2000pts? Eden </font>

Force Size. Obviously you’ll get more units/points to choose from than you need, but that’s just because I’m nice In actual fact you’ll get a lot of repetition of units and all in all it works out well. Most of the times the generated units will be enough to spend all your purchase points on, but sometimes you’re lucky and there are more points then generated units – esp. in Arty or Vehicles, and you get to choose what you want to buy (within the 30% rarity constriction). I have just amended the players Guide to say: “Use all the parameters that you have rolled up and calculated, including ‘Force Size’. “ Enjoy!

Right! Right! X 2 Right! X 3!! Good Luck & Enjoy!! Also a good idea to get a lawyer at this stage Biltong

'Force Size' is the parameter name in the QB generator. After you rolled up your Purchase Points you add them up and get a Total Purchase Points. This is then converted via a formula to cater for the different Battle Types (Assault etc) into a Provisional Force Size. You round this up to the nearest Force Size and that: Force Size is what you enter into the QB generator parameter with the same name. To answer your question: Map Size is determined (among other modifiers) by Force Size. BCR uses the QB generator parameter names as is, so that you will always now where to enter what. (I hope) Got your mail - reply in your inbox... Impressive!! Going to 'steal' some ideas for 42

Aaron, Never knew that... I'll warn the players in a rules note Biltong Guy's - I'm being swanped with e-mails requesting the Players Guide...If you'll hold on for a bit I'll finish it and have it posted for download... nearly there

Hi Kasei, Welcome! Player Guide should be out late this coming week-end (8/9 Feb)(touch wood) as for your question: 58 Normal Replacements (v2.0) "After each battle the whole Battle Group (including the Battle Group Armor & Attached Units) get replacements, except when there is an Allied Counter or an Axis Immediate Attack." [ February 04, 2003, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: Biltong ]

Print the Rules, get the first Random Number and read Parameter 1... carry on doing that with the other parameters and send us AAR's once in a while... Welcome Biltong [ February 04, 2003, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: Biltong ]

see above Originally I thought we could do that: 1 map for all battle types, but I soon realized that won't work. Once you've played one (say: Axis Attack) you can't play any of the other Axis battle types or the ME since the objectives and the optimum approach route remains the same. Even if the QB is left to 'randomly' assign this, most of the time you will still be stuck with the same approach route. The QB setup zones are also bloody boring (and unrealistic). That's why we change the setup zones and objectives (as well as some terrain features etc) for each map. Effectively creating new 'battle terrain' for each one. A lot of work, but what can I say: "Only the Best for BCR players" [ February 02, 2003, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: Biltong ]

Apache - I'm lost (remember this 'rooinek' language is not my homelanguage - you gotta spell things out for me ) If, for example, I choose 'village' which Force Size do they base what modifiers on? Are you talking about Map Size etc?... all those are rolled up as per normal... I think your question will be answered once you have a look at the map list... I hope. As for the Air rule: Great minds that has changed sometime back - see v2.0 I sent you. Note 9 - Air: "However, you might want to buy some arty as well. You can do so. Use at least half your Air purchase points to buy at least one plane. Then you can use the rest of your 'Air' points to buy arty of your choice." As for damage: Just added this to 48 Damage: "If you are playing on a 'small' PC you might have to adjust this to your configuration" We aim to please