C'Rogers

So after taking a few months away from the forum I read this entire thread, think up what I hoped to be a thoughtful post, only to have Steve say what he should have at the beginning. It would be a ton of work for for a feature which, while desirable, is very far away from a crucial component in their minds. Well actually he did say that, I think. But round and round it went.

Onodoken, WWII is the next title planned for CMx2 after some CMSF modules. After WWII they will go to something else. They don't want to work on just WWII any more.

This was discussed before the game was released. In my opinion it is an ideal solution. I think on map AA is unnecessary because the air assets are covering a greater area than just the company sized battle and have to be concerned with threats over all of that range. As intriguing as it sounds I really doubt the likelihood of a battle where one company was sitting on the AA gun that paralyzed American air assets. The reason it was not included I believe is that it is BFCs opinion is that virtually all Syrian AA would be destroyed within hours of hostilities. His opinion, backed up by Rudel if I remember, is that Syrian AA is much worse than Iraqs and would not pose any significant danger.

Kettler, While we are suggesting reading materials I would suggest you look into the interviews with John Nash (the mathematician). I don't know a whole lot about him but have seen a few interviews with him on his problem with patterns. The basic theory is that if you are looking for a pattern eventually you will find one simply by coincidence. If I remember correctly his was finding secret words in newspapers through which aliens were communicating to him. The problem being that if you look long enough, and are smart enough, eventually with all the letters in a newspaper you will put together a dire message. It isn't much different with some of these sites. If you want to make something out to be 666 you can. For example I will use my most basic data to show I am the anti-christ. My name is Chris Rogers and I was born on June 3rd. The first two sixes are obvious. The sixth month of the year and a last name that has six letters. Of course the third six is hard to find, if it was too obvious everyone would realize it. Now you have to look at the exact date and work harder for that which is concealed. 3, the day of my birth, is half of 6 and we know that the anti-christ is hidden. So what am I hiding? My full name, Christopher. If you will notice the second part of the name, topher, the hidden part and half of my name, is six letters. Therefore I must clearly bear the mark of the Beast. As for the issue of Opfor. I suspect that any type of engagements between America and a major power is very unlikely in at least the next ten years. Something on the scale of what CM is modeling almost impossible. More importantly I am almost certain that is Steve's view as well. Though we can always hope they will model the completely fictious route.

Can we submit more than one entry?

Interesting videos. Probably a better method of showing what this game can do then all the posts on this forum. Though somewhat surprised you went with a quick battle. The "Ruined" video shows how that doesn't always turned out so well. When you hit the ruins and the javelins filled the sky it was very interesting. Though the battle as a whole showed some of the AI/QB limitations.

Sometimes it is good to have an excellent memory. One of those times is when you can help the forum out by remembering all of Steve's posts. Post people probably missed Work has begun on the first two modules (Marines/Brits) and WWII. So yes, they will work on multiple games at once. I imagine the order will be they come out when they are done. Steve has said that if things get added into the new games they will try and bring them back to the older ones. The engine is designed to handle this, however he does not know how difficult it is. If it is difficult they will either A) not do it or charge for it. There is no way to know for sure until we get there.

It depends on whether you are setting up to play vs. the AI or vs. humans. Against the AI with a realistic setup 10% casualties are certainly doable. A human player will play a bit more intelligently and it would be very hard to maintain that amount. The first scenario of the campaign I see as a good example of a realistic battle. Syrians stuck in a static position, US with a heavy firepower, getting through with no one killed is pretty easy. There a loss of a single tank or US squad should really reduce you to a minor victory if not a loss. Personally I enjoy scenarios that are a bit more on the fringe. The battles that might only happen a few times in the war. The time US troops were slightly out of heavy artillery support for half an hour, the time military intelligence screwed up and missed how heavily fortified an area was, or the time that they had to take an unusual risk and rush forward for close combat. That's is how I balance a scenario but with variable victory conditions you can really do it any way you want.

Compared to CMx1 the AI is infinitely better as an opponent. In all the years of playing CMx1 I maybe played single player five times. Now I have no problem kicking up a single player game. But as people said the quality is up to the scenario designer.

Dragon67, You missed it the first time around I think. We had the discussion when it first got mentioned 6+ months ago. Steve said about the same, someone explained it, but I think his reply then was (paraphrased) 'of course I know what they are trying to do, I am in the computer industry, I mean I don't know how they can actually expect it to work). But yay for discussing loss leaders again. Variety is what breaths such life into the product (product = forum). Oh, as for screwing over the customer. I work in the casino industry. People pay us to screw them over.

I am curious about this statement, though maybe you are just reading the sentence out of context. Would more scope actually make a game worse? The issue to me is cost. After a certain point scope loses relevancy to game improvements. It is much quicker to me than others (I think) and I would far rather see the things on Steve's list added before 1, 5, or 10 units. But does scope actually detract from a game? If Charles could snap his fingers and add the M113 it would make the game better, but only marginally so. At least I think so, can't see how it would be worse.

And now we have wood grogs.

Isn't that what they are doing though? The difference being that to actually encompass even a portion of what people are talking about we may be discussing having 10 modules. I think they economically, and perhaps in terms of desire on what to work on, don't want to spend that much time on it. Without a doubt greater scope equals better game. The issue is how much, to whom, and what needs to be sacrificed to bring it about.

JasonC, As the back and forth between you and Steve is getting somewhat unproductive let me ask you this. Considering the vehicle list (for marines) is there a vehicle in your opinion that is less important to simulate than M113?

Juergen, I expect that if the game gets released you will be the most disappointed person with those expectations. I don't think that is much of the direction at all.

Well that is a personal opinion, I personally enjoy the scenarios I have to run nearly perfect. I think with the CM series, especially with what has happened with quick battles, we are buying more of an engine then what some people would think of as a complete game. I know there are people who aren't crazy about this idea but but perhaps a necessary approach for a small company like BFC. I know I have far greater enjoyment when things I have dled (For both CMx1 and 2) then what was packaged. But the better the scenarios that come along I am sure the happier we will all be.

I think you hit on perhaps the reason more than anything else. I know it probably isn't believed on this board but reading everything BFC posts they believe that they are on a far superior game with CMx2. They have said a couple times that money matters to them, but if money really mattered they would be in a different industry. They won't touch CMBB because to them it takes time for a product that, while once great, is inferior to what they will have to offer.

Only when you license. My original activation was even done from a computer without internet connection (which was a bit of work). Honestly I forget all about it until I hear it mentioned.

There are a lot of things the engine is mediocre at. Some it is quite bad at. I tried to get a soldier to settle down with a nice Syrian woman, get married, get promoted, and buy lots of furniture. It was pretty awful at that. The engine has one primary goal. To my understanding it is to represent a company size engagement in the early stages of a hypothetical modern war between Syria/US. Now there are a lot of things the engine can also do, Purple vs Purple battles for instance. But those are side functions so I think the realism issue is pretty relevant. No engine does everything. Things have trade offs. If we had to trade hide able/movable trenches for increased unit depth and relative spotting (which is also I think a key issue as the map would have to be redrawn every time you changed units) I think it is an obvious choice. As was mentioned in the previous page there are a whole lot of fog of war issues that aren't addressed. We can see every bush, tree, and building from the onset. What makes trenches different? How much more unlikely would the attacker be to not know about them (and even if he didn't how quickly would they be spotted anyway)? If BFC could snap their fingers and put this in of course it would be nice. For WWII were hidden foxholes seem to be far more important I can see it being big issue. But on the matter of priorities now there have to be at least 20 things that are more important. I'm stunned that this could even approach a deal breaker for some people.

Just out of curiosity to perhaps put the question in perspective. What are the chances that an attack would happen and the attacker not have a pretty good idea where the enemies trenches were? With modern recon (and even less modern recon) would one side try and take an objective and when they showed up go 'oh, who dug that massive trenchline'? Anyone know?

I am very confused that you bought multiple copies of a game you considered buggy, then continued to buy its sequels which apparently retained the bug, and you only post now? Why? I have played the CMx1 series on a total of 10 very different PCs and never had a single issue that repeatedly caused a crash (I don't think I ever even crashed once).

At first I was upset that we could always see trenches. Then when I thought about it we have perfect information of the entire map. Where every building, brush, and tree is. In comparison to that knowing where the trenches are isn't so surprising.

I don't have the game anymore but I believe Sid Meier's Gettysburg did this.

But this assumes, as most of the support for area fire delay does, that the area fire is being done as a borg. That the player knows a unit is there but the unit does not. I will often (in this game or CMx1) fire on buildings/areas that merely look dangerous. Maybe as my role as company commander I reminded my men 'hey we got plenty of bullets, fire away'. Why would they then have a delay? Personally I think if any measures were implemented the board would explode with many players in anger over why they can't get men to follow orders. It is a tactical simulator, not a command simulator. Though I would like to command delays as an overall feature return.

My wife thanks you Huntarr for one of the cutest things she has ever seen.