Steiner14

Rick, how many PBEM-games have you going on? How often and how long do you play CMSF?

Who cares anymore?

And is it different enough?

If they are clever, they put the solutions for the current problems into the module.

It's not a bug, it's a feature for very busy oponents.

Reinstalled CMBB after the CMSF-desaster and have joined the "Battle of Lauban" meta-campaign.

StellarRat, that's true, but computer games do not what you expect. The brain is like a muscle and the only way to keep it intact, is to put it to it's limits. That means reading and/or learning new things, that force the brain to remember. Playing chess is a completely other league and indeed is a good brain training. But CMSF isn't.

Thanks for the info.

The next week is already there. When can we expect the 1.04 demo?

Drusus, what you describe is definately true for german artillery in WWII. Artillery was not used primarily to destroy resistance (Germany never had enough ammo and guns to establish such a doctrine), but to make the defenders keep their heads down and establish some confusion. Either the attacks were precisely timed, so the BTN commanders knew, when the barrage would advance further, or infantry commanders used illumination signals that artillery should advance with their fire. IMO it's a great idea to "buy" multi-stage artillery plans. Several stages, that can either be pretimed or triggered by the player would be a step forward in realism - at least for the WWII release.

Yes Steve said, 2x2 is on their list, but not for the initial release of CMx2, and for later maybe even multi-multiplayer.

I'm surprised that you are surprised, Steve. It has been an old wish for CMx1 to make the timeframes larger, to allow the german attacker to follow german doctrine. It's also an old wish, to have an option to switch the timeframe off completely and allow games like "destroy enemy forces". Or why was that done with CMx2, if that wasn't a wish ever since?

thewood, good question. Will we see it in the WWII-release?

It's not 1.2 or 1.4 it is 1.04! :mad:

Why not making CMx2 hide certain distractions, too?

In CMx1 it is not possible to shoot through terrain but in CMSF it is happening.

This shooting through terrain makes me really worry about the WWII-sequel: modeling the turret height of hull-down tanks (Pz IV!!!) was one of the big wishes since CMBO days.

That's hilarious! Even after three days i can't stop laughing when i'm thinking about that picture.

double post

Thanks for the explanations. Makes totally sense.

Very interesting discussion. From what i understand, the 8mx8m squares have been introduced due to save computation power (= the price for RT). Could it be possible maybe, to reduce the size of the action spots for WEGO only? Or to make their sizes optional (down to 1mx1m would be fantastic!)? As a wargamer I would have absolutely no problem if a turn calculation would take 5 minutes and the screen would go blank during that phase and the sound being muted.

RT had a huge impact on the gameengine. Because the abstractions with action points and the 8mx8m grid for LOS calculations are nexcessary to make RT possible. Not necessary for WEGO.

More control in RT only seems nice. But it reduces the fun, because the LESS control in WEGO gives an additional thrill RT never owns. Horror movies work, because you are doomed to watch and cannot change the flow and cannot escape. WEGO creates exactly that feeling with the right amount of control. I just received several artillery barrages in a CMBB battle. Will the tanks close their hatches? Will it panick my men? Eternal seconds, where i'm doomed to watch and cannot escape it, by reacting and redrawing them after the first round. And this thrill lasts not only for a few seconds, but it is even built up until the next movie shows the results of the taken measures. In WEGO you are doomed to watch. It's similar to the hours before Christmas for children. Although every child hardly can bear the time to go by, but if you remember yourself about it, this time, where you wish and imagine having the gift, is the really precious one. In German we have the saying "Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude." And here lies the magic of WEGO. If you ask a child, if it would like to have it's gift immediately or wait until the time has come, no child would deny to recieve it immediately. Give it to me now! RT is the instant delivering of the gift. But WEGO ist the ceremony with Vorfreude. [ September 29, 2007, 03:27 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

Steve, i think no one means, CMSF were not great programming art. What it can do, is miles ahead of other games, without any doubt. It's not the point, that it is technically by far superior to CMx1. What counts is the result and when you take away all imagination by displaying 1:1 units, then it is for me as old CM-player not enough, if the achievements are better than everything else out there, but if it is realistical what i see displayed. If you decide to take the imagination away, you have to make the display very accurate, otherwise you will have a negative effect, no matter how technically much more enhanced and powerful the new system is. Could it be you underestimate the positive power of imagination? The more i think about it, the more i'm convinced, the magic of CMx1 is, that it triggers imagination. A strong indication for that theory is, that no one playing CMx1, feels he were moving abstractions with 3 soldiers. It feels like moving squads, the objects have a life, although they are quite abstracted. This trigger for imagination can definately be enhanced, i.e. by better graphics, faces showing emotions, body movements according to the environment and the psychic situation. But this trigger can also be reduced, if the things that are displayed, do not fit perfectly to the action going on. I don't know if it would be much labour, but it could be worth a try, to switch the graphical 1:1 representation off and reduce the representation to three soldiers like in CMx1 and test the impact on the gaming experience.

So what's the benefit of 1:1 then, if the present 1:1 action is the unrealistical part, while the rest, like ammo useage and pace, does not need graphical 1:1 at all? What is expected from player is, to forget about the graphical representation and think abstractly. Great, therefore we have a 1:1 representation. In CMx1 it was exactly the other way round: the graphial representation showed fewer things, and the player logically and naturally imagined the rest. That works. Not the other way around, that unrealistical action on the screen should be ignored. The not working 1:1 representation destroys everything.