GSX

Er, as BF are well behind the drag curve on their own announcements I think you mean about 18 months, as there are no SS units in the Normandy game.

I was indeed thinking of the stock campaigns there. However, the more I think about your statement, the more I dont know. 1. Can you actually design a Campaign for H2H rather than play one designed for single player H2H? Can you have two core units? Can you have differing campaign objectives for each player and, how would that work out? 2. Leading on from above, surely a campaign is just that, an attempt to play using some core units through a series of scenarios within the mission parameters given. If you had two core units surely you would need twice as many maps etc. I do however, find the whole concept very interesting as it throws up so many possibilities for H2H, for one, you wouldnt have a clue what the next mission would be, whether you would be advancing or defending etc....

Wouldnt playing the whole campaign H2H be dire and even more one sided? They are meant to be single player after all, and as you cant amend the forces in them I dont really see the interest in wanting to play them?

I agree, every 'special force' has a designated role to play. I dont think you can compare them directly with each other. While I dont doubt the Aussies are good, Im not sure they are the best. I dont think anyone is the best. Mind you, Ive always liked the Aussies when Ive served with them, gave me my first lesson in proper swearing they did. Oh and long may you be part of the Commonwealth.

Ah the Tiger pic, yes, I was a bit over the top there, but in the main, I stand by what I said. As for Dudley, then, he, as everyone is at GS, is entirely entitled to their own opinions. Its not owned by BF after all, and in the majority, there is some excellent talk at GS that wouldnt be allowed here. For obvious reasons, one being that BF owns this site.

So: 1. How is this calculated, what is my chance in a given situation of being hit, and 2. If this is written into the game mechanics, then why isnt it explained so that I can take it into account when moving infantry around and fighting with them? Id like to know my percentage chance of having my men killed or injured in a given situation, how do the die roll?

Hmm, I would disagree with this. While there were certain aspects of the rifle that were prone to failings the A1 was a very decent weapon. As with all weapons it was improved upon, M-16 anyone? Its always been a very accurate weapon but some of the parts were a llittle bit suspect. I remember converting to this from the SLR and was bowled over by its weight, well lack of it. Also, I could carry much more ammo for it and if anything it was more accurate. Yes. initially, the magazine catch for one was atrocious and your magazine could drop out at the most in-opportune of times. Stoppages were a problem too as I remember as the extraction system wasnt as robust as it is now, but not whats billed as despised. We also got the SUSAT, which was at a time when most countries still used an iron sight, including the US. Anyway Sf is set in 2008, when the L85A2 had been modified. In all honesty though, since first firing the L85 I can count on one hand the times that it has failed to fire, and when it did, I always managed to get it going again in a few seconds. Except once when the firing pin broke.

Gee, Im not comparing it to CMBO mate..... Im looking at it for what it is. CMBO wasnt 1-1. I wonder why it is that when anyone says anything about an aspect of Sf that they dont like someone comes along and compares it to CMBB etc? Also, I think you may be slightly wrong there too, I dont think CMBO packed 12 men standing on their heads all together in some sort of circus act. As I understood it, that single point was abstractly representing a 12 man squad spread out over a wide area. Maybe Im wrong though? I often am.

Is it? Are you saying that firepower is dumbed down to account for dense troop concentration? news to me.

Just to balance out some perceptions of my attitude towards CMSF and the upcoming CMN Id like to say the following. I like SF as a wargame. There is nothing that compares to it out there right now, and I think for the foreseeable future BF has this niche cornered. In a world where companies can put millions into games like COD BF has continued to cater for the wargamer, with a single programmer and a vision. I see SF as a worthy successor to CM-1 and the ambition of the new modular system is, I think, a great one. SF, for me has been much maligned, some of it deservedly, some not, but as long as I and other continue to enjoy it, then I think the franchise has a lot of legs left in it. To this end I continue to support the game wherever I play games. Over at WaW I will continue to foster the ever growing SF community there and plan a few more tournaments next year, and yes even over at gamesquad I will continue to run an open SF forum for those that both like and dislike the game. I think, and hope that with a return to ww2, CMx2 will engender the same spirit and size of community that CM-1 has. So keep it up BF, a little criticism now and again is good for you.........

And yet, you have been saying this for quite a long time. Since CMSF arrived and maybe before. You also said that CMN would definitely be out in 2009. Dont get me wrong, I'm really not particularly bothered when CMN or the NATO module arrives, I will more than likely get the latter anyway, even if its a year from now. I also enjoy SF as it is right now, with a couple of misgivings about the infantry. However, the fact remains that I can only judge whats happening next by whats happened before with the CMx2 engine. I suppose I could say that you had to do so much work on CMSF because it needed it and was probably released about a year or so before it should have been. So with this in mind, I really dont want CMN rushed and released too soon. But, BFC are the ones driving the expectation levels here by stating that a module will be out every six months and a new game every year. Which, hasnt, so far, been the case. All hail the future though, it seems like gaming heaven to me.

You see, for me, this is the biggest, probably the most important failing of CMSF. Infantry doesnt get a fair crack at the battlefield simulation. Infantry is just too tightly packed into a small area. This leads to several things in the game for me: 1. An an infantry squad is far too bunched up on most occasions. This leads to incoming fire causing far too many casualties when compared to real life. 2. In real life, to stop this happening infantry spread out and use various formations, which means that if they come under concentrated fire from a certain direction, not all of them become casualties. 3. Again in real life, infantry squads have Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for when they come into contact with the enemy. For instance, on contacting the enemy to the front soldiers should automatically adopt a procedure for this, which includes putting an immediate fire upon the enemy, seeking cover, even withdrawing if necessary. My whole point I suppose is fundamentally this; "If the infantry in the game are exactly where I see them, then the infantry model is flawed, because they are too densely packed into too small an area". Of course this doesnt mean I cant enjoy the game, because I do, but it means I play infantry very differently from real life experience. I tend to always split the squads down and move them farther apart for example.

BF could answer this, but perhaps soldiers will pick up what is coded into the game as a more effective weapon? So if the L85A2 gets a bigger score then it will be swapped out for an M4?

Thats sounds good, but unfortunately I have tried to persuade some of my peers to play the game. Most military are the same as non military in my experience, more interested in COD than CMSF. My mates are all obsessed with their quest to get 300 head shots to unlock the 'Fall' camo for their ACR etc etc....

Not according to Steve, he very firmly told me that the 1-1 is actually abstracted and that the infantry arent necesarily where I see them on screen. With infantry Im led to believe therefore that its not true 1-1. It it were then the current way we use infantry in the game is fundamentally flawed. Why? Well real life infantry use formations and tactics, CMSF infantry dont come near this.

Well I for one certainly dont see any inferiority in the CM-2 engine. Its far superior in most respects there. All my statements are based on observations from this forum over the past few years. Its nothing to do with the game engine at all.

I think often the consusion here arises from the fact that weve gone 1-1 visually but as stated before the program doesnt really see the infantry as 1-1. I know that Steve has explained all this before and I fully accept the reasoning why it is the case. But it still leads to confusion as my brain wants to shout out that one of my soldiers can see the fecker in front of him, while my CPU is saying no. One day we may have true 1-1 with each individual soldier being tracked as you see it and no need for the action spots!!!!

If we follow this model, and nothing I have read here seems to indicate otherwise, then the Base game is followed by Modules at roughly yearly intervals. So CM Normandy would be released in say Jun 10, then CMN Commonwealth in Jun/Jul 11 etc etc. I see absolutely no evidence that the modular system produces new games any faster than this 1 yearly interval. Despite all the rhetoric here about timelines etc the actual game and module times speak for themselves. Marines was advertised as going to be out way before it actually appeared (with a broken campaign) and the Brits was advertised as going to be out in Dec 2008, with an actual release of Jul 2009. Simply by using this forum to predict game arrival times means that some of you will need to be a lot more patient than you have been as there seems to be a 6-8 month delay on any timeline given by BF for cm-2 games.

Yes, a whole lot of service was given by a lot of people in what was the Indain part of the Empire.

I too play Call of Duty and CM, one is not exclusive to the other. Some days I think, heck Im in the mood for running arond and play COD, other days I might be in the mood for some CM. Heck even some RTS games are fun, Warhammer immediately springs to mind here. I suppose it all depends on who BF is aiming CM at?

Id agree with this. After all it wasnt all that long ago that Steve said the game would essentially be finished this week. And, if they wanted to it could be published next week but they wanted to have a nice holiday. What do we actually know about CMN? Well, it has no forum for a start and a game that was good to go would surely have that by now. We have seen a total of 2 screenshots in the past year or two. Again, not indicitive of a game thats ready to go in the near future. No real information or discussions on how the game will improve on the CMSF mechanics. How do we takle close armour assault, river crossing, camoflage, AT gun animations, soldier animations, mortar animations, how do men wade through water. Can a man see over a hedge or even partially through it? If the game was anywhere near done then Im sure all of the above and much more would be being discussed on the Forum for the game. I suspect (and this is simply from reading these forums) that the game is no where near completed in the programming department yet. After the programming is complete then the Campaign guys have to work through this and again, this has seemed to be a major brake on modules and so I see no difference with a whole new game. My best earliest guess is that CMN will be finished around March and out around June after the campaign has been tweaked etc. This is earliest though and recently Im beginning to suspect that this title may be slipping a lot farther back than this. As for NATO, I have no idea where thats at as Ive read nothing on it for a long while now. Yet another Campaign problem? Or are BF suffering from too many CM projects for a small company? Short answer is, I dont know, but it sure seems like every one of their games is either suffering long delays or as in the case of Histwar and CMC, cancelled. Of course, I'll be ore than happy to be proven wrong on any count above.

Of course in real life a GPMG or such MG would be able to fire in a cone shaped effect or something similar. It would be cool when deployed to allow a GPMG to enter SF mode in certain circumstances.

My Vaio is nearly 5 years old and doesnt have any problems running any Sf scenarios. Although on the biger ones my troops tend to turn into stick men! However, if I zoom out, its still eminently playable.

Can there be a ww2 game without flames and flame throwing equipment? Can we have a CMN without close combat? Im assuming that engineers will have flamers and satchels and that they can blow stuff up like we do in SF. Were only weeks away from CMN now and have no information about it, no bones to speak of and no forum. This is a game that Steve said is ready to go before Xmas but theyre waiting till just after to have a nice holiday. So if the games complete, why no info except a bit on bridges and a couple of bland screenies from months ago?

As I mentioned in another thread. 1-1 doesnt necessarily make you want to save lives, asymmetry does. Sf is by design a game that need to limit Blue Force casualties in the vast majority. WW2 on the other hand is all about getting the job done as quickly as possible. The War in Afghanistan has already almost doubled the time for ww2, imagine a ww2 where the sides didnt want to take casualties? It might still be going on today! Another factor of course is that CMSF is more pertinent to a lot of us and we will try and limit our casualties becuase it may be a scenario that is directly modelled on something Afghanistanish or Iraquish. I definitely wont be so squeamish about taking 70% casualties to drive 'Jerry' back to Bosche-land in CMN......