Zarquon

Moon, thanks for the answers. I guess that sums it up. One last question : will the Great Engine Rewrite allow for switching between languages, saving production costs for you and making whiners like me happy? Joerg

Comments from anyone who got the german version?

I haven't got the game yet, but I saw the screenshots of the german version and I just wondered if the translation was really up to the overall standards the game sets. Maybe these are very minor points for most players but I saw "Morale" translated as "Kampfwille", "Turn" as "Zug" and so on. Not exactly wrong, but not the best possible expressions, either. A "Zug" is a single move, not a turn. And why not say "Kampfmoral", which is an established term for morale in german? I'm not accusing anyone (yet , just asking. Perhaps I've read too many books and articles about military issues where the translation plainly sucked ("Hauptkanone", "Kleinwaffen", etc.). It really hurts. Perhaps the game companies/distributors have their own in-house translators that work on all games, regardless of specific experience with a special topic. That wouldn't hurt with a "slay the dragon and save the world" game. How does the rest of the game's text compare? If it's done amateur style (as most game translations are), it would spoil a lot of the fun for me. I've just tried and ordered the english version from CDV, just in case... Hope they can supply it. Joerg OK, OK, I'm whining without having a look at the product... But imagine BTS was a german company and the translation would tell you about a tank's "capital cannon". An infantry unit's "storm rifle". Scary. P.S. : Did I mention I'm not accusing anyone yet? I did? Pheeeewwww...

Shouldn't that be signed "Outraged, Brigadier (Mrs.)" ?

There's a CM unit listing in MS Excel format, including all units and their game values (except point values, I think). The link is here

You mod your '87 Honda Accord with camo patterns, '44 style. You NEVER move on pavement, except for short sprints from house to house. You prefer to enter buildings through smoking holes in the wall. When ordered to do something, you always wait for at least 33 seconds, no matter how incredibly simple the task might be. You stop using google; you post all your questions on the CM board instead. You are convinced that smoke is good for your health.

Hmmm, a true German would first cross off the grenade on his equipment list, then toss it.

I think Pvt. Ryan is right - the need to show where CMBB differs from CMBO. Who will be the first ones to buy CMBB? Those who played CMBO a long time (us). So, to build up sales fast, you need to show the old players that they really get something new for their money.

Still agreeing with you. But reliability depends on many, many factors. Crew experience, maintenance cycles, actual wear (age), weather conditions and tiny details of the construction itself (insert 1001 additional factors here). From a business point of view you'd have to hire someone with a degree in mechanical engineering and let him do literally months of research and analysis, with scarce facts to build upon. You'd have to provide numbers for all 300+ vehicles. And if you do it for the vehicles, you'd have to do it for other equipment as well. Of course you and me could make some less educated guesses in an afternoon or two ("never heard of a StuGs breaking down much, so they'll get an "A" rating, who cares"), but as far as I see it that's not the way BTS could do it if they want to keep their reputation. In the end you'd spend $??.000 for research and programming on this *minor* point, knowing all the while that a few grogs would silently appreciate the effort, while hundreds of potential(sp?) customers would scream "Hey, they made my (insert favourite tank here) go 'boink' for no reason in a crucial moment!". From a game design point of view, it would add mostly random frustration to the game and lower the fun factor. So, even if there was no more important work for BTS to do, they'd probably never do it.

I agree, it would be nice to have this. But it's a very minor point. In the end, it's a question of a) the time needed to code this and do you really want a feature that adds slightly more randomness to the game, however realistic it might be? I believe, the more realistic a game gets, the more random events like this are influencing the battle. Then it becomes more of a simulation than a game. For example, a platoon that does not move at all when ordered to do so because the radio malfunctions. Etc. etc. For me, the fun comes from making plans and seeing them executed while the other player does the same. That way, CM has more in common with chess than with a WWII simulation, but that's fine with me. Too much random events lead to frustration.

I think there's no place for a feature like this in a game like CM. On a 60 seconds / 30 minutes time scale the probability would have to be very low. On second thought, there are those stories about unreliable vehicle units (like early Panther D's or A's at Kursk). Assume a unit loses 50% of its tanks in a single day due to breakdowns (extremely unlikely). Assume the tanks move for 6 hours that day. 50%/360min = 0,14% chance of breakdown/turn. Divide by 2 when moving on road, double when moving fast cross-country. In a 30 turn battle, moving every 2nd turn, this adds up to a 2% chance of a breakdown (1-(1-0,0014)^15, hope my high-school math doesn't desert me here). That's my *rough* estimation for a *very* unreliable vehicle. A worst case scenario. In most cases, it would be more like 0,00.....1%. Is it worth the time and research effort to include this in a game? How do you rate the breakdown chance for vehicles anyway (imagine the forum mayhem). Would it be fun to see your KV-1 break down in turn 2 of a 1500 pts QB?

There also was an experimental T-34 version equipped for night operations. It was painted in a black-on-black camo pattern (even the crew compartment) and the main gun was replaced with a 200 watts searchlight that had to be powered by means of a hand crank. Approximately 12 of those vehicles were built in 1943 but all were lost in night combat trials prior to Kursk and never found again. Source : some finnish internet page I came across.

*I did*. A black moustache on the hull would do.

Read it yourself : Duck Soup I like the scene where he appoints Chicolini Secretary of War. This alone adds a lot of credibility to the Sherman-Groucho-Firefly connection...

This game is all about experience. Evaluate what you've got, guess your chances, take your chances. The only thing I really miss is some lengthy, illustrated AARs (w/ screenshots) that can really shine some light on tactical decisions and their outcome. I would not volunteer for this work, but I'd like to read them.

1) I'd hate to see this thread become subverted by Marxism, but I just found that Marx was a Marxist himself - at least the FBI suspected him to be : The smoking Gun 2) Isn't it possible (or even obvious) that the Sherman Firefly was named after Rufus T. Firefly?

See Why a Duck ?

Has anybody else ever wondered if all those professionally done fan sites for many games, having exactly the same content as the official site, except for the graphics, are really done by fans? If I was a Big Game Producer, I'd hire a chaep webworker or two to launch a dozen fan sites for my upcoming game to create the impression of a loyal game community - even if the game isn't on the market yet... If you cannot provide something new, there is no point in maintaining a website. What basic issues are left to put on a site? Something not discussed in this forum?

C'mon people, the Grand Promised Prize is still at $5. We can't call this a contest unless we get some more people to waste money on this. A bottle of cheap gin, maybe? Who can tell what lunatic ideas are out there, waiting to be modded? The Royal Beefeater Wasp, The Completely Invisible Daimler (is this possible?), The Charlton Heston 250/8...

Might provide some interested scenarios : think about a Sturmkompanie assaulting this thing - level for level. Like some of those old X-COM battles...

I just read a thread mentioning clown tanks in CM. I like the phrase. I like silly ideas. What about the Semi-Official CM Clown Tank Mod Contest? There are so many fevered modder minds out there, it would be a shame not to abuse this pool of creativity for a totally useless, silly and ridiculous means. Without a contest, the world might never see: </font> The Groucho Marx Anniversary Sherman </font>The Groucho Marx Anniversary Sherman</font>The Flower Power Wirbelwind</font>The Spanish Inquisition Tiger</font>The IBM Nashorn</font>The M8 Greyhound, Western Style</font>(insert silly tank here) </font>Now, we've seen Coca Cola Trucks before, so that one is out. As a prize, I'd be willing to donate, let's say, US $5 from my meager PayPal account to the winner, to be determined by popular vote in this forum after 4 weeks. $5 is merely the monetary equivalent of (click, click...) ~30 new CBMM vehicles. No real incentive, so if anyone else has cash to spend on something useless as this, please reply to this post. Jörg

The Gamespot Review of CMBB says: Someone got the numbers wrong here, I think. I haven't got any reliable data at hand (and a quick google search isn't useful to provide *reliable* numbers on this), but I remember something about 20,000,000 killed in the USSR - including civilians. Not that it mattered much regarding CM, but anyone writing about the war should better get this right.

Hey, my original board member number was in the 6000s, but I lost the bloody password. BTS, please fix or somefink! Nobody takes me serious any longer!!!!!!!! Talking of that, did you know the concentration camps were invented by the British in the Boer Wars? And my PC (very expensive model) keeps crashing every 3 turns with the demo. Any respectable software company would blah blah blah blah blah blah. Seanachai: Get yourself a job. Talk show host or anything (I'm not talking of getting a life). Get paid for this.

Don't-feed-the-trolls. please.

I've toyed with the idea of a _small_ campaign before and started to make sketches for the map, the rules, units involved etc. etc. All I can say is: *keep it simple* Please. I've downloaded the CMMC rules. All 10?12?15? MB of them. Do so. Read them. Then think again. How much time did it take to design, *test* and write those? how much time does a player have to invest before he can actually play? 1. How much time can you invest in this? To to it, you'd have to _write_ the rules. Explicitly. Clearly. I've played a lot of boardgames before, most of them were done by professional game designers. Most are incomplete or have holes big enough to drive a KV-1 through them. Players lose interest if they decide the rules are badly done. Then they drop out. Can be a chain reaction. 2. If, after some time, you decide it's too much for you and drop out, you'll really piss off many people who relied on your commitment. Then try and find somebody who's willing and able to take over your job. 3. If you think it's enough to find some people helping out with the rules so that every one of them does one part of it, wellll.... In the end it won't make things much easier because you have to design a rules _system_. Then try to coordinate the work of 3,4,5, whatever, people over email or IRC or ICQ. It could easily be much more work and take longer than doing it all yourself. 4. A web board (Yahoo?) for the three groups would definitely help. A common area, then three separate closed areas for each group. 5. It would be easier to take an existing, simple system and change it according to your intentions. Trying to adapt a monster system like CMMC would get you nowhere IMHO. I'd say, try and make some simple rules and find a few players. Then test your system. Let it evolve. But don't try to do a complete WWII simulation. I don't mean to discourage you in any way . If you do it, just email me and I'd like to play or perhaps help with rules or maps. Jörg [ September 04, 2002, 07:52 PM: Message edited by: Zarquon ]