Cribtop Gamer

Phil, Did you ever get this resolved? I am having a very similar problem. I get a blue screen of death plus a disk write error message whenever I save a CMBB game. After re-booting, the save game has a "white" name with zero turns. The autosave remains but is also corrupted. I have not had this problem until tonight. Played CMBB religiously for months without difficulty.

I must totally concur with the original post. I love the infantry model and greatly fear that BTS will tone down the realism too much in order to please those who still want to play CMBO. As I said in another thread: 1) Just don't try to cross large stretches of open ground in the fact of an unsuppressed enemy. You will fail. 2) Don't try to close to hand to hand range. Get into grenade range and win the final victory by firepower (remember, your enemy is already suppressed before you get to grenade range, right?).

The real trick is to never get to the point where you are pinned down in the first place. A pinned unit in the open was a dead unit according to everything I have read. Quick tactics: 1) Do NOT try to cross open ground until you have won fire superiority and suppressed the enemy. How do you do this? Use a forward screening element. You should never be in a position where the main body of even one of your platoons is exposed to fire from hidden enemies. It WILL happen sometimes because your enemy will ambush you, but not very often if you play it right. 2) As someone said - do NOT try to finish an enemy by closing to hand to hand combat range. Work yourself into grenade range and open fire with more dudes than he's got. Use whatever cover there is and attack from more than one angle. I am frustrated that BTS may dial down the realism too far to please those who are unsatisfied. This game's infantry model rules. I am just as frustrated as anyone when troops don't go to the nearest cover available, but that is the ONLY thing I would change. Really, unless I am on a totally open steppe, I almost guarantee I can take out an MG 42 with 2 squads of regular Russian infantry. Seriously, do it just like they did in that scene in SPR (except use cover better than they did). You will soon discover why infantry squads were needed to protect MG positions. This wasn't supposed to be a flame or a rant, but really, if you are getting pinned you are moving through the open with too many men and/or trying to make an assault down to hand to hand range. Don't make these mistakes and move more slowly. My only complaint is that often times CMBB scenarios have time limits designed for the over-robust infantry model of CMBO.

My two Tigers are fast moving abreast on a road over the crest of a hill. They come upon a previously brewed up T-34/85 and push it out of the way - only since there are two Tigers they keep pushing the Russkie tank between them and drag it about 500m down the road! Watching from the side at a good distance on a replay, the smoke from the brewed T-34 was streaming out behind my Tigers in the prevailing wind. The whole thing looked like a train. I watched it about 10 times.

Hmmm... As the Germans, are you supposed to be able to "win" this scenario? I moved in good order along the right flank and attacked out of the woods in company strength while the fairly plentiful support elements (gun, MGs, mortars, armored cars) suppressed the trench line. I chewed up the guys in the front trench caught in my crossfire, but I encountered stiff resistance in superior numbers along the treeline, with more Russians coming to assist. Since my orders were to probe, I withdrew in good order and called a cease fire, assuming that was the point of the scenario. It's what I would have done in real life in command of a recon unit, fall back, cut the road and wait for heavy support. The score showed a total defeat for yours truly, entirely because the Soviets still held the flag. Now, I realize that I did a little roleplaying, but I doubt my ability to carry that position with the reinforced company under my command even if I tried (and I'm no newbie). My question, with no sarcasm - How are you supposed to win this one as the Germans? How did you do it if you did?

Aha, thanks! They had to be turret penetrations as I was hull down at the time. I noted in the manual that being hull down now reduces the chance of a hit significantly, meaning that going hull down with a "weak" turret is still a good idea. There was a raging debate on whether this was how it worked in CMBO, IIRC. Some people said that going hull down with, say a PzIV was a bad idea because it meant that any hit would be on the turret, and they weren't sure that being hull down meant a reduced hit chance overall.

In this scenario, my T-34s got smeared by Germans in a 1 platoon on 1 platoon battle at about 400-500 meters. The Germans only bounced one shell off of my supposed super tanks in about 13 tries. I know that penetration values are approximate only, but according to my reading of the charts at this range the 50L42 and 75mm guns of the PZ IIIs and IVs could only penetrate 30mm of armor at 60 degrees slant, while the T-34 has 45mm at 60 degrees. What gives? Do the Germans have some kind of T armor in 06/41? Is the turret of the T34 more vulnerable than the hull? I'm not mad at the game or the model or anything, but I thought I had baited the Germans into an unfair fight in my favor - so I want to know how it turned out I was so wrong.

Same here. My horror when CMBO would not fully install was, well, horrible. Thanks to Matt's real-time e-mail support, I was up and running in two hours from the first problem. You don't get that kind of support anywhere else in the industry. On another note, I also want to praise the game itself. It meets all my expectations and I've played battle after battle. A superb piece of work. I feel like we as a board are being a bit nit-picky about a few minor issues and haven't really properly thanked BFC/BTS for what is an excellent sequel to the greatest computer wargame ever made. Hmm, perhaps I'm becoming a fanboy - but I really appreciate CMBB and all the work that went into it.

Possible "A Warm Place to Sleep" spoilers ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' Playing "A Warm Place to Sleep," I had the two tank hunters creep toward the flag in the trees on the West of the map (left side from Axis point of view). I ended up with one on either side of two BT tanks. The tanks killed one of the teams, but in doing so faced away from the other, who destroyed one outright and immobilized the second (which a German tank then finished off). The team then vindictively killed both KO'd tanks' crews. In the same scenario, a regular infantry team near the right side flag engaged the T-34 from a hidden position 14m off the road, immobilizing it with a molotov and KO'ing it with a grenade bundle. I think the infantry worked well in this scenario because of the cover available, the awful weather (blizzard) which led to poor visibility and the fact that the Sov tanks had to worry about German tanks and were often buttoned and distracted.

Dude, several points: 1) Bruce C. is a god; 2) Sara sounds cool to even put up with your uber-geekdom, my wife thought the game was "cool looking" and called to tell me it had arrived, keep such women, they are rare; 3) Don't deny her lovin' until CMBB arrives; and 4) Your post was hilarious.

Title says it all. Loving it. Even the wife thought it looked/sounded cool.

I'm also a South Austinite and I got it today. Ya'll northerners should mob your mailman tomorrow. PS I had install problems but I fixed them thanks to good support from BTS. PPS Then I loaded up the game and it kicked my A$$! This was after I got all haughty 'cause I won all the demo scenarios from both sides. (sigh).

Matt, Thanks for your great service on this issue throughout the day and for the offer of the new CD. All is well, we can end up playing tonight!

Ok, I've now gotten to the point where the game is partially installed and will start (but only if the disk is in the CD-R drive, the game can't detect the CD in the normal CDROM drive), but I have no scenarios. Madmatt, please e-mail the file to me. Thanks!

OK, here's an update on my situation... I tried installing from my CD-R drive instead of the regular cd. I noted immediately that the CMBB installation file used the "colored books" graphic instead of the "windows generic" graphic it came up with in my normal CDROM drive. Install began normally and I cheered. Until it hit file 00090601.wav, when the game began to be unable to read all files. Finally the drive locks up and I get a device error message. I'm closer, but not there yet. I'll try again. I may be one of the sods with the problem described in the other thread. MadMatt please help!!! Thanks.

System: Win 98 750 processor 384 RAM NVIDIA video card Soundblaster Live! card The game won't bring up install on autorun when I insert the CDROM into the drive. When I try to access the CD, I see a "CMBB installer" file. Any attempt to manipulate that file, even just a right click, causes the CD to spin continuously and the PC to crash utterly without error message. I'm not even getting to first base here - this is a different problem than the one reported in the thread above about not getting past a certain corrupt file. Please Help! Order No. 81081

Got it in Austin, Texas. Having trouble with the installation however!

I would be very interested in a lower level command on either side. I echo the web site comments - it is excellent! [ September 19, 2002, 01:44 AM: Message edited by: Cribtop Gamer ]

In general, all the armies of WWII moved from "square" (four unit) to "triangular" (three unit) formations. Three squads in a platoon, three companies in a battalion, etc. While at higher levels I prefer triangular units(say, 3 companies to a battalion), I just finished Yelnia Stare as the Soviets and sure enjoyed the tactical options available to a square unit on the PLATOON level. For example, you can take one squad per platoon, split them up, put them under a company HQ, and voila, instant FSE, all the while still having a full triangular company behind that FSE. Example 2. Take one squad and split it to act as an FSE just for its parent platoon. Example 3. Two squads cover the advance of the other two squads in bounding overwatch. Rinse and repeat. Example 4. More manuever elements as you squirm around a contacted enemy squad in an attempt to gain fire superiority. Now, I know a "square" platoon isn't the be all and end all, but it sure seems flexible upon first use. Of course, IIRC part of the reason everyone went "triangular" was that they were running out of men! What does everyone think?

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I'm glad you asked, PIPPU. I played all the great boardgames for years as a kid - Third Reich, ASL, etc. I drifted away from gaming in college 'cause I couldn't find anyone to play with. Then I moved to Dallas and met some great guys at one of the old DallasCons. We played minis for hours and exchanged contact info, agreeing that we would try to form a weekly miniature wargaming group. Well, the appointed day rolled around and we met at one of the guys' houses. Trouble was, he didn't have a wargaming table. We were SOL. That's when he hit on the idea of taking his son's crib, flipping it upside down, and slapping some plywood on top of it - voila, instant table. From that day on, we took to calling ourselves the "Criptop Gamers." Don't worry - the guy's son was old enough that he was no longer using the crib I've since moved back to my beloved Austin, but that group was great, and we still keep in touch. So, there you go, my handle in a nutshell.

Thanks for the support guys. Perhaps we should all get together and form our own company. Actually, I've been planning to step down the old respect ladder from lawyer to politician, and thus I have been working on a campaign here in Texas. If my guy wins, it's off to government service for me! Oh, and as far as advice on how to get canned, I pulled it off by being a software licensing attorney in a market where the words "tech stock" became a joke. Since these once-mighty penny stocks were our clients, you can see how my job evaporated in a hurry. Alternatively, you could always show up with your PIPPU sock puppet at work, right Cap'n? (I still think PIPPU was the best post in the history of the board, btw).

To reply to the post from Battlefront.com, I totally agree - your cost structure is RADICALLY different than the normal situation, and in the case of BTS the publisher doesn't view you as a peon. I'll admit my guess of 100K was pulled out of thin air, almost. I based it on numerous articles from "traditional" gaming media that talked about the game as a "surprise hit." I figured they wouldn't have been impressed with less than six figures, but since that's my only evidence it's pretty thin. The point is - you guys are smart to stay away from the traditional method, as it allows you to make a better game and make more per unit sold, even if you know you'll never sell as many units as the latest crap on the shelves down at the local computer store.

The title says it all... Actually, I was planning to quit anyway, so I got 60 days' severance pay I didn't expect, and should start a new job as soon as I feel like it. Wooot!!!! I really just got very lucky on the timing of the layoff. I know it's a serious business, but in my very lucky case it just means 1 month off and 2 months of free money!!!!! [ September 12, 2002, 11:44 PM: Message edited by: Cribtop Gamer ]

I'm thrilled they're doing well, BTS! You deserve it. This may sound weird, but if I really like CMBB, I'm considering buying a second copy to give to someone just to make BTS more $$$ and to share the greatness of this product. I'm a software licensing attorney, so I'll weigh in with a few thoughts on sales. Keep in mind that everything I am about to say comes from the "standard" software model that BTS has wisely rejected. I imagine their cost structure is such that these numbers could be halved or even quartered and still leave them happy. Anyhoo, in general, publishers pay developers an "advance" on royalties equal to about what the two companies plan to make on a certain number of copies (usually the figure is 400,000 copies, but this varies). Although the "advance royalty" is non-refundable, the developer has to live, pay employees, keep the lights on, etc. with this money (that's why I put advance in quotes, as there is such a thing in my biz as a "true" advance royalty). Thus, once the game is released, the developer sees el zippo for the number of copies "covered" by the "advance." The publisher takes 100% of sales of (usually) the first 400,000 copies to cover the development costs it paid to the developer. AFTER we sell 400,000 copies for a "standard" mass-market game, then the developer finally starts seeing a SMALL percentage of each sale thereafter. Thus, a mass-market game selling 500,000 copies did pretty well, one that sold 1,000,000 copies was a mega-hit, and the SIMS was just plain silly. BTS doesn't have anything near this arrangement, and thus nothing like this cost structure. Still, "traditional" gaming media took notice that the game "sold well." Based on this, on the decision to do a sequel, and on the expansion to 5 employees, I bet CMBO sold at least 100,000 copies and made BTS and Battlefront.com a nice chunk of change - well above their projections. No ferrarris yet, but I really hope that CMBB, with its better graphics, pulls in numbers that would be considered a "mild hit" in the mass-market, say 500,000 worldwide. Best of luck to two deserving companies, I say! I've already bought one copy.