landser

BFC is going to go whichever route they choose, but I hope that if there ever is a new generation, that it is Combat Mission as a base game and every module plugs in to that, so that it all works together as one.

BFC is going to go whichever route they choose, but I hope that if there ever is a new generation, that it is Combat Mission as a base game and every module plugs in to that, so that it all works together as one.

BFC is going to go whichever route they choose, but I hope that if there ever is a new generation, that it is Combat Mission as a base game and every module plugs in to that, so that it all works together as one.

BFC is going to go whichever route they choose, but I hope that if there ever is a new generation, that it is Combat Mission as a base game and every module plugs in to that, so that it all works together as one.

BFC is going to go whichever route they choose, but I hope that if there ever is a new generation, that it is Combat Mission as a base game and every module plugs in to that, so that it all works together as one.

BFC is going to go whichever route they choose, but I hope that if there ever is a new generation, that it is Combat Mission as a base game and every module plugs in to that, so that it all works together as one.

BFC is going to go whichever route they choose, but I hope that if there ever is a new generation, that it is Combat Mission as a base game and every module plugs in to that, so that it all works together as one.

I find myself nodding along to many of the posts you make Bulletpoint, but here I must disagree. By this logic, all we need is a single Combat Mission title since it's all basically the same.
Speaking for myself, that's certainly not what I am looking to do, though it would be nice haha. It's more down to the equipment and especially the armored vehicles. Panzer Is and IIs, BT-7s, T-26s, short-gunned Pz IIIs against T-34s and KVs, doorknocker AT guns, maybe the return of command delay? Far less lethal, far more interesting, for me anyway. The heavy armor and big guns of the 1944-45 period we have, or are getting, is less compelling than the brand of combat that 1941-42 would serve up.  Duels are more asymmetric, which is appealing to me in any wargaming scenario.

I find myself nodding along to many of the posts you make Bulletpoint, but here I must disagree. By this logic, all we need is a single Combat Mission title since it's all basically the same.
Speaking for myself, that's certainly not what I am looking to do, though it would be nice haha. It's more down to the equipment and especially the armored vehicles. Panzer Is and IIs, BT-7s, T-26s, short-gunned Pz IIIs against T-34s and KVs, doorknocker AT guns, maybe the return of command delay? Far less lethal, far more interesting, for me anyway. The heavy armor and big guns of the 1944-45 period we have, or are getting, is less compelling than the brand of combat that 1941-42 would serve up.  Duels are more asymmetric, which is appealing to me in any wargaming scenario.

I find myself nodding along to many of the posts you make Bulletpoint, but here I must disagree. By this logic, all we need is a single Combat Mission title since it's all basically the same.
Speaking for myself, that's certainly not what I am looking to do, though it would be nice haha. It's more down to the equipment and especially the armored vehicles. Panzer Is and IIs, BT-7s, T-26s, short-gunned Pz IIIs against T-34s and KVs, doorknocker AT guns, maybe the return of command delay? Far less lethal, far more interesting, for me anyway. The heavy armor and big guns of the 1944-45 period we have, or are getting, is less compelling than the brand of combat that 1941-42 would serve up.  Duels are more asymmetric, which is appealing to me in any wargaming scenario.

Well, that's kinda hard to argue with innit? Stop now or I'll never buy another Combat Mission!

I find myself nodding along to many of the posts you make Bulletpoint, but here I must disagree. By this logic, all we need is a single Combat Mission title since it's all basically the same.
Speaking for myself, that's certainly not what I am looking to do, though it would be nice haha. It's more down to the equipment and especially the armored vehicles. Panzer Is and IIs, BT-7s, T-26s, short-gunned Pz IIIs against T-34s and KVs, doorknocker AT guns, maybe the return of command delay? Far less lethal, far more interesting, for me anyway. The heavy armor and big guns of the 1944-45 period we have, or are getting, is less compelling than the brand of combat that 1941-42 would serve up.  Duels are more asymmetric, which is appealing to me in any wargaming scenario.

Well, that's kinda hard to argue with innit? Stop now or I'll never buy another Combat Mission!

I understand what you are saying from a historical perspective, but I just think using a short-barrel Pz III against a T-34 would be very similar gameplay experience to using a Sherman against a Panther.
It's possible I'm wrong of course.

I find myself nodding along to many of the posts you make Bulletpoint, but here I must disagree. By this logic, all we need is a single Combat Mission title since it's all basically the same.
Speaking for myself, that's certainly not what I am looking to do, though it would be nice haha. It's more down to the equipment and especially the armored vehicles. Panzer Is and IIs, BT-7s, T-26s, short-gunned Pz IIIs against T-34s and KVs, doorknocker AT guns, maybe the return of command delay? Far less lethal, far more interesting, for me anyway. The heavy armor and big guns of the 1944-45 period we have, or are getting, is less compelling than the brand of combat that 1941-42 would serve up.  Duels are more asymmetric, which is appealing to me in any wargaming scenario.

I find myself nodding along to many of the posts you make Bulletpoint, but here I must disagree. By this logic, all we need is a single Combat Mission title since it's all basically the same.
Speaking for myself, that's certainly not what I am looking to do, though it would be nice haha. It's more down to the equipment and especially the armored vehicles. Panzer Is and IIs, BT-7s, T-26s, short-gunned Pz IIIs against T-34s and KVs, doorknocker AT guns, maybe the return of command delay? Far less lethal, far more interesting, for me anyway. The heavy armor and big guns of the 1944-45 period we have, or are getting, is less compelling than the brand of combat that 1941-42 would serve up.  Duels are more asymmetric, which is appealing to me in any wargaming scenario.

Really disagree.  Early war was a testing period for what we now consider modern weapons.  The Germans had to learn tactics to overcome the (on paper) much better French tanks and the Soviet tanks like KV's and T-34's.  It wasn't one shot one kill as it generally is in late war.  If you ever played CMBB from 1941 to late war the difference in challenges and gameplay experience was clear.  Currently, all the late war WW2 titles play about the same and are getting boring if one has been playing them heavily for 9 years.

I rarely use mods, and hadn't really thought about why, but this thread made me think about it.
The point above about playing from on high applies to me, and that's certainly part of it. For example uniform textures... I really couldn't care less. I never even notice. If the Russians were wearing Japanese uniforms I'd be fine with that.
I also find searching the mod sites a bit of a chore. Not to disparage the fine and valuable service to the community these sites provide, but actually finding the thing I want is not always easy. The only mods I search out for every title are UI mods and sometimes sound mods. If mod packs were more comprehensive I might just do. But I have no desire to download + install, farm buildings, then roads, then trees, dead cows, individual vehicles, sky boxes, uniforms, machine gun animations and so on.
Then I factor in the fact that I have installed say CMBN on three or four different machines through the years and I just can't be bothered to re-mod my installs, since it doesn't really matter to me in the first place. I don't play Combat Mission for the graphics of course

I can. Here it is: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/euiv-bug-reports.813/
 
Currently standing at 22 792 bug reports.

Wow, this is some thread. The tribalism is strong.
I've been playing Combat Mission for 20 years and I probably would NOT recommend it except for very specific players. I praise WEGO, the tactical battlefield, and particularly the spotting, C2 and ballistics. But for me virtually everything else is out of date or substandard, including but not limited to the transaction process (Steam takes care of this), the upgrade method (also good now with Steam I suppose), AI, campaign system, editor, UI, QMB, graphics, and more.
How do I get Steam keys?
 

I worked with him in the 90s on Steel Panthers after SSI stopped. He was a force of nature, seemingly unstoppable, but irrepressibly good humoured and enthusiastic. A positive individual and I am sad to hear of his passing.

Wow, this is some thread. The tribalism is strong.
I've been playing Combat Mission for 20 years and I probably would NOT recommend it except for very specific players. I praise WEGO, the tactical battlefield, and particularly the spotting, C2 and ballistics. But for me virtually everything else is out of date or substandard, including but not limited to the transaction process (Steam takes care of this), the upgrade method (also good now with Steam I suppose), AI, campaign system, editor, UI, QMB, graphics, and more.
How do I get Steam keys?
 

If I could only pick one thing, it might be an overhaul of the artillery system. 
There should be a "repeat" function for fire missions. If you want to call in another barrage on the exact same spot you did before, you should be able to do it without having to wait for spotting rounds and doing that whole lengthy cycle all over again. They should already have the information necessary. You should be able to adjust the length and intensity of barrages on the fly. For example, say I have a battery of four off-map howitzers. I call in a long fire mission with low rate of fire (harass) using only one of the four guns just to get some rounds flying near a suspected enemy position. Eventually I realize that the rounds are landing right near a huge group of enemies I didn't spot before. I should be able to quickly bring the other 3 guns into the barrage and then raise it up to a high rate of fire. All it should take is the observer yelling into the radio to "shoot faster!". But no, you have to cancel the entire mission and then call a new one and go through the whole agonizing process of waiting for spotting rounds (which the observer might not even see) all over again. You should not be so limited by the spotter's LOS to the target. For example, as it is now, you cannot call artillery onto the middle of a forest because the spotter can only see the edge of it at any one time. In reality it would be a simple matter. You can just call spotting rounds onto the edge of the forest where you can see them, and then once they are on target, you tell the battery to adjust to 100 meters back or whatever and then fire for effect. In reality, artillery observers sometimes walked rounds onto the target by sound instead of sight. I read a WW2 memoir a ways back where the author did exactly that. He walked rounds onto a target in the middle of the night when he couldn't see anything. He just knew Germans were assembling out there somewhere in the dark (engine noises), and then walked some artillery onto them by ear. He ended up hitting something too, evidenced by the loud boom and column of flame and smoke shooting high into the air. Artillery explosions are obviously extremely loud. It's not like you wouldn't be able to tell if a shell landed behind that building over there on the left if you didn't see the explosion yourself. You can also hear the shells loudly screaming through the air overhead and sometimes even see them, like little black sausages in the air. Soldiers tend to pick up pretty quickly whether artillery is incoming or outgoing, and experienced soldiers can often tell if a shell is going to land near them or not just by the sound of it in the air. It should not be that hard to call artillery onto targets outside of LOS. I kinda wish they would go back to the way it worked in the CM1 engine, where you can call artillery anywhere on the map, but it's just not as accurate if it's outside LOS. Or perhaps they could make it so you're not allowed to do the "point target" or "linear target" functions outside of LOS, and only allowed to do really wide area targets or something. The point is that being outside LOS should not matter if you just want to saturate a huge area (like a town or forest) with shelling. OK rant over. That ended up being longer than I thought it would be. Anyway, there are plenty of little nitpicks in these games that I can rant about. I would love graphics and sound improvements too. Someone else mentioned the glitchy shaders already. The shaders look really bad on my computer sometimes (especially if the scenario is foggy or hazy or at dawn or dusk) and I often play with them turned off. Those are only cosmetic issues though and don't affect the gameplay. I would much rather have the artillery system be more involved and realistic.

I concur that CM:SF 2 Germans are probably the most powerful, relative to OPFOR. However, in the context of WW2: I've found CM:FI to be the easiest ride:
In CM:FB, you will face some of the best equipped Allied forces in CM WW2. King Tigers and Panthers are countered by ubiquitous 76mm guns and bazookas. Most situations pit you against well entrenched, and determined, foes -- with virtually no infantry reserves. It's an uphill battle.
CM:BN is the most balanced, I'd say. Although, the STuGs and MG-42s are incredible in defensive bocage fighting. One of them can hold off a company, in the right situation. You have lots of infantry of varying quality at your disposal, and you'll be mostly fighting Shermans with Panzer 4s.
CM:RT is very asymmetrical, and I find it more difficult because of that. The name of the game is keeping the Soviets at arm's length. Your weapons are more accurate, but theirs have unprecedented firepower. Open terrain is easy, forests and urban terrains are extremely difficult.
For CM:FI, you'll be facing a menagerie of Allied forces. The Allies here are generally less equipped, and trained, than in France. The rocky terrain provides great defensive opportunities for your infantry. The wide open maps allow you to capitalize on accurate, long-range, weaponry. Especially in early war, you hold the advantage.
Note that these evaluation are based on typical scenarios. Difficulty varies widely, depending on the situation, objectives, and specific forces involved.