slysniper

If you are waiting for a terrific sale price, might as well find something else to play. Because by the time they discount the price where you are saving any money. Everyone has moved on to later stuff because it is so old by the time they do it. I might have bought CMSF if it had not been so many years before they discounted it to a real sale price (But by then, I had plenty of new stuff, why would I want that outdated stuff, no matter the price.) The one class BF did not do well in school on was how the pricing and consumer buying curves work and how to keep both mathematically at their peak.

You do know you are allowed to install it on two machines. If you cannot figure out how to play your buddies at school, that is your fault.

Ah, we all do it. I am sure I have a few rants on these forum pages. Normally fueled by some type of bad experience while playing the game. The trick is, finding a game error and reporting it takes more than just noticing something and questioning it. It requires taking a game event and testing it out through controlled test and running it enough times to get a feel for the game statistics as to what it is doing before bringing it here as a possible issue. Amazing how many odd things prove to be nothing once you see the game perform it enough. Then the other factor is to strike while the issue is hot. BF is actively looking for reports the first few months after a game release. After that, they are on to other things and it would have to be pretty major item for them to come back and look at it after that. Not likely since , no one even noticed it up to that point. Thus another reason it will not be addressed. Anyway, Mortar fire was a very hot topic at one time and Bf did what they could to fix it and at this point it likely will not be changing much. that's all

Well, that is nice, but you better just learn to live with what we have. They are not tweeking the game now after all this time to just please you so that it looks more correct to what you want to expect. The subject has been discussed for years, adjustment were made to get the kill , wounded ratios about right and it was explained multiple times as to why it was not a easy fix as to having the shell spread be different. along with the similar issue as to troops being more spread out. So the graphics are not perfect, but the results generally do a good job of representing the situation. So, you did not get the results you expected. Well playing War is just Hell isn't it.

Sounds like a good start to another player never playing with cardboard, cards and dice games again. Well, for tactical warfare anyway.

ASL, those were the days. Then years went bye and I hardly touched those games (I Had about 8 of the expansion packs) Also had the original SL series Finally decided to sell them while the fan base was still active and the price was high. Just never have missed them since going over to this type of gaming.

Its called conserving Ammo. He just doesn't want you to understand how smart he is.

Well, I will just point out again. That CMx2 really came out of the CMx1 fan base request. Years and years and years of it. Every time BFC did a new game, we had these threads that popped up with the wish list of what the players wanted CM games to be. So low and behold BF went about making a new system with many of them request addressed into the design. We get CMx2 and as we all know what then happened. The starting of the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins - the sad thing is, much of it from the same players who had made the request for just that type of game to begin with. Thank goodness for us that BF ignored the whines and pushed on with the design until we have found ourselves where we are today. Its a great game. But again if they do ever go onto a CMx3 type system, I still think it needs to be a drastic design concept change instead of a similar product all designed again in a new engine and different graphics. I think of the old Panzer Leader and Panzer Blitz games and the scale of them battles and think placing them in a 3D game design would be a amazing trick and would be a successful new adventure. Plus maneuvering battles would become much more of a event within the gameplay because of the scale with which we would be dealing with.

not Bf, but I think it was the wargamer sight that did just that, they had a link to one of these sights and then had all the players report their results to their site. Its been way too many years ago, to remember much. But I recall that the result had most everyone falling into 3 groups with only a few falling into other areas. And I remember the averages where way higher than what the percentages were showing from the test sight. Plus I also remember that some of the fellows that did not fall with the most consistent categories is some of the guys you see on other sights with terrible win, loss records. In other words their interest in the hobby steams from areas that has nothing to do with being a tactician by nature. Anyway , the whole thing did make me think of some science fiction writings out there that talk about the day when we would test people and assign them their future careers instead of letting them just do their own thing.

I always smile when we get players trying to figure out how to get CM games out to the masses and that the masses will want to join in and play the game. I really have come to a personal conclusion that these games have no appeal to the masses. There is no interest for many in what these games offer. I have shown, had friends play, and talked up these games the best I could - to people that I thought would like them because of their interest and figured these games would appeal to them. To again, and again and again, find that they show absolutely no interest at all in them, even after I have them playing one of the better exciting scenarios or something. Basically, these type of games appeal to a very small group of people that have traits that the majority of our population do not. Have you ever taken the test to tell you what type of person you are. Well, My test always shows me as a (ENTJ)Extraverted intuitive thinking judging - another name for these four attributes together is called FieldMarshal rational (less than two present of the population has these four attributes together. I can promise you, a much larger group of CM players do.) Not that this is the only type of person to gravitate to this hobby, but most have at least two or three of these trait types. These games appeal to every one of my personal traits, but I also work as a engineer and with architects. A field that also have many people with these type of traits. But there is only a few that have interest in games or want to spend the time playing them. There is also only a few that show interest in WWII or War at a tactical level. So what I am trying to point out is that there is a reason this hobby is such a niche, there is a very small percentage of people that this type of product could even appeal to, no matter what you do with it. So informing the masses of its existence will not make it into a mainline title - will more join, of course, but they will never see the numbers as with some main-line games.

Just be glad it was you that had the Panther. I can imagine the fellow you played against would not be so impressed.

Is that all that is needed. So if I give you 5 Million ( I assume I can have some say in how the next game is designed) I had nothing better to do with the money anyway. Man don't I wish, So the truth is, what can you do with $50 I can spare.

Give him h*ll I know you are talented enough to beat him and I like nothing better than to see him get beat.

There is way too much truth in this comment. Having grown up playing war games and then also having served 8 years in the Marine Corp in combat units I will add my two cents as to how little the two things are alike. A game is just that, a game. Wargames are like any other game in that you have one player making all the decisions and dictating the actions within the game to meet his desired goals. It is a united front with all choices trying to lead to the same end result. I think that is enough to show that no wargame will ever be close to what happens in real conflicts. Now of course I served from 1980 to 1987, so there has been many advances in communications to try and coordinate units in Battle since I was in. But when I was in, I was shocked as to how even simple battle plans could get all unorganized in very short periods of time and that was in conditions normally where your life was not truly in danger. I saw things like, units attacking incorrect objectives, units getting lost, Units miss their jump off times because of not being able to cover the distance needed in the preplanned times. Misunderstanding instructions from leaders and preforming incorrect acts. Commanders not able to correct incorrect actions of units under their command in time because of the time it takes to recognize, contact and communicate the issue, all of which prevents them from communicating to anyone else at that same point. lack of information as to what the goals are and then lack of action by unit leaders because of it. Now get real bullets flying and add in , units and individuals actions that do not perform their orders but do more to protect themselves and stay alive, Not really trying to engage the enemy. And the list goes on, and on and on. So you find, how little you control the events because it is a action of that decisions of hundreds and thousands of people playing out on a field of battle and the leaders are doing nothing more than trying to coordinate their small portion of command, and generally they are doing it with very simplistic commands. So I always smile when I see players wanting as realistic as possible wargames. Because the truth is, it will never be close. And if for some reason, someone did make something close to the real thing. Almost ever wargamer would hate it and it be a flop

How can you say that. In the old system, if I spotted a enemy unit, all I had to do was run 4 more units over into line of sight and I knew I would for certain have 5 to 1 odds immediately. Now I spot a unit and I have to wonder if I will even keep the spot with that unit, if I add more units by moving them into line of sight. I might get it, I might not. Plus if I do move more units, I might be moving them into line of sight of enemy units I do not see yet since spotting can be so deceiving now as to how long it might take to see enemy units within possible visual views. There is no similarity at all and it was the biggest impact as to how to play the game now compared to the old version. To be good at both games take different styles of play. All because of spotting

That is sure the truth, I always just ignore that comment about having the auto generated maps, They sucked as far as I am concerned. The new map concept is great and anyone that complains because they are limited because of how few there are needs to understand. That is the easiest of all the things to create in the game is new QB maps. If you cannot do that, you really need to get out of the hobby because you are not very smart. With all the players that like h2h QB's. I do not understand why there is not a ton of user created maps being added to the library. Really, it is step one of learning how to do something with the game editor.

The chart is interesting, but it does show that CMx1 held a better interest in that it was able to compete for a few years against the newer system. Also it is easy to see it is dying a slow death as it continues to get more and more outdated and it has the problem of being the same old thing helping to kill it off. What is not good is that the CMX2 system in the last four years has not shown as much growth as you would think with all the releases in that time frame. So I think it shows in some way that CMX1 had more support and that CMX2 has not created as great of a support group for it in its followers. But again, none of that is going to change the course of the present companies path. I think CMX2 is more of a investment in time, cost and effort to do anything with it. And it reflects it with what players are doing with it. less people are willing to invest the added cost or time into it. I know I willing to pay more, take more time to play it. But I am not willing to take the time to create scenarios anymore that are worth playing. There is a limit to what people will invest into their hobby. Personally, I would like to see a CMX3 system, that goes another direction. Like a single unit representing a tank Platoon or infantry platoon, with the AI able to manage them units. But that is just a wishful dream I never see happening.

Can I hear a "Amen" to that. This thread comes up every so often, its is nothing more than a wish for something that will never happen, more of a wish than a complaint. Some wish that the CMBB style of play would come again and that somehow they could get a updated game that looks great and covers the whole war in one game just like they had back then. The fact is, No matter what, no game like that will ever be sold again with that much scope. And no in truth, they never can be satisfied with CMBB really. Because even though it is their favorite game, it is outdated, it shows it and there is all the short comings that cannot be overlooked and nothing to ever hope for in them getting fixed. Stuck with a outdated imperfect game and no hope for a updated similar game - now do you see the wish. Of course we have the same problem with CMX2 fans that keep wishing to somehow get mods and add ons to just go on forever to somehow get the scope of the whole war as we did with CMBB. But again it is a wish that will never come true. The product just is consuming too much time and man hours to create the periods that it will be outdated and have lost interest and sales to ever see the company provide such a thing. So again a wish that will never be seen. So we have two camps that love to debate and voice their hopes for the future of the game, and in truth neither will ever happen. So deal with what is available and accept your lots in gaming lives and learn to enjoy what you have and is available and maybe just make your wishes more realistic

As I recall, he mentioned in one of his later post that things were not well and that he was going to have to not be as active a forum member as he had been for awhile. ( he did not explain why. ) I remember thinking I wonder what's up. I am too lazy to look up the post I was thinking about. Because if I do not find it, it will just prove I am getting old and crazy also.

No, it was a retake from the movie "Fury" Americans just training one of their own to be a soilless killer. That stuff was always happening, right, No Wrong. Actually crazy stuff has always happened, but it was very rare and now we act and promote it to be a very common aspect of war. So, not a scene I appreciated in the show, just another example of what we are teaching our young people to do. and everyone wonders why there is getting so many crazies out there in the world.

Now if you are going to do the opposite and take control out of the players hand. You don't need so many pauses in the game. What you need is (you as the commander) can select any leader in your active chain of command. You will be allowed to change any orders to all the units under him in his command, once that command is given, you are assigned a time limit until you are allowed to do another command change. This represent communication time and such. So a simple example, selection a platoon leader. you cannot give orders again for two minutes. a company leader 5 minutes, a battalion leader 10 minutes. I have seen many elaborate suggestions on how to do it that are very complex, trying to be too realistic. This would be simple to understand and would represent the challenge of leaders. You can only address one problem at a time and it takes time for the communications to occur. What would still be unrealistic, and is presently in the game is your commands would be instant, but that is how it presently is and trying to do the delay would likely create so many challenges for the game, not worth the effort. Where as my suggestion. Changes nothing in the game. It just requires it to track when you make a order and locks you out from another order til that time is expired.

Practical is the real word for this decision. making it less than a minute just makes it impractical. Just be grateful you have RT for those of you that cannot stand a minute of time without complete control. As a leader of real units, you hardly have any control. So a minute time frame to give new orders is still way to much god like power in truth. But a minute adds just enough out of control situations to make it fun. Leave a good thing alone

assault command compared to quick command will only send part of the unit in at a time. Generally it is better to use the quick command and do exactly what has been suggested here. The more bodies you get in their quickly, the faster you spot the suppressed enemy and kill them. The one thing you do not want to do is run just a few men in and not spot them in time and see a enemy soldier recover enough to blast your men as you are looking for him. Play enough and it will happen, just no way to make it perfect, there is always a risk.

Yes, that is important also. I always like a briefing that has pretty clear information about the point structure of the battle. Yes you can intentionally leave a few things unspecified. But way too many scenarios. hardly give you a clue as to the value of your troops compared to the points for objectives. I appreciate it when there is enough information so that I can decide how much I want to risk my troops. Telling me to keep my casualties light is not much of a incentive unless I have a understanding as to their value in the scoring of the battle. Nothing like ending a battle that the briefing said to keep your casualties light, then finding out points were only awarded if you were less than 30% losses and it was only worth 10% of your possible score. like, way too many battles have this type of logic in their scoring. If a briefing tells me to do such a thing. it better have about 30% of my points built into that or it better be more clear as to its value for me to do it. Different people have different opinions, but many battles have very little logic to their scoring no matter how you look at it. I just finished two battles against players that when we looked as to how they were scored. They did not stand a chance even if I had played poorly. They were crushed by my attacks, but they could have played the best game of their lives and I still would have won by how the scoring was set up. That is just not right. This is one of the areas I wished we could get more detailed examples out to those that take the time to create some fine scenarios. getting the scoring right is like adding the toppings to your ice cream

Man, that thing is taller than I thought. I would hate to have to exit quickly out of the back hatch. Could get injured just doing that.