Canada Guy

I am currently in an MA program and was browsing some of the electives that I can take as part of my program. One class that caught my eye was WWII on the Eastern Front and this is the list of requirements. Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War Stopped at Stalingrad: The Luftwaffe and Hitler's Defeat in the East, 1942-1943 Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin (battlefront game available at www.battlefront.com) Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 Zitadelle Ostkrieg: Hitler's War Of War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin I never knew that the hours I thought I had spent wasting my time can now be turned into credit for an MA degree. I decided to check out another class and you must buy one of the following. Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord OR Combat Mission: Afrika Korps OR Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy OR Combat Mission: Fortress Italy Even better news as I can now tell my wife that I have tons of homework so no time to carry out the garbage. (even without the game, it is an interesting bibliography)

Yes, I had thought that at least my MS products would work properly. I am giving myself self-exile until my class is done Dec 1st. then will look at my ticket and get things fixed up. I told my boys to hold off updating (and my oldest will not even think about moving from Win 7). What a crappy product to release though. makes me think of moving to Apple if MS does not get their act together.

I have the entire gambit of games and Win 8 works fine. Win 8.1 borks everything. Do not update if you do not have to.

I have a hard time thinking once. Where do you get the time to think twice. I just went back to grad school and upgraded to Windows 8.1. CM has been broken since but I have not taken the time to fix it as I know that it will just distract me from my classes (and I just bought CM:MG). I would still buy CM:Afrika and it could sit on my shelf until needed. Much like GMT's Barbarossa series sit with unpunched counters. Can't wait until December when I will make a point to fix it over the holidays. This is why Metacritic is kind of useless for me. CM is broken (not due to BF though) and I still like the game and would give it great reviews. That one guy arguing with his girlfriend about swearing in his review made me realize that I am way too old to rely upon some punk telling me what I should or should not like. Do some research, take multiple points of view and make up your own mind. [Now if we could just get a toggle-able command lines back in]

I was way off in some of these. Time must be flying by when I was not looking. I could have sworn that CMFI and the 2.0 upgrade were this year. Even if 1/2 the stuff that is promised in 2014 arrives, it will still be a good year. I am very intrigued about the packs as we have not yet seen them before. That and the 3.0 upgrade. Is your 2014 list in release order (i.e. will Bagration still be in 2.0 and be the next release) or is this jumbled and we will see the 3.0 upgrade alongside one of the new base games?

Just so I understand and can count 2013 CM: FI (Base) CM: GL (CMFI Module) CM: CM (CMBN Module) CM: MG (CMBN Module) CM: Module/Pack (Unspecified or unknown) 2014 CM: Bulge (Base) CM: Module/Pack (CM: Bulge) CM: Ostfront (Base) CM: Black Sea (Base) - Maybe?? Am I missing anything?

I assume BF will follow the same format as CMBN in that additional units and time periods will slowly be added in modules and/or packs until the time period from Bagration up to the end of the war is reached.

Some clarifications -I agree with John and Michael, I think that routing is a viable option for certain fronts (e.g. Eastern) as I think it is much more likely for the Soviet or German units to want to rout than for them to be willing to surrender. It would have meant certain death especially late in the war. Running 5 kilometers vs death has a certain appeal. 2. Ammo Sharing - Would this now include vehicles? I know it does not say anything explicit but it would be nice to park a vehicle beside a unit and have that unit grab some ammo when needed rather than take time to un-deploy weapon, jump in the vehicle, grab ammo, jump out of vehicle, redeploy weapon, and then use it. - And should this not be extended to allow acquire commands for units in the same action area?

I have just started playing QBs but the last 2 were the same. I played either with Mortars, HMGs and AA Vehicles or was playing against the same force mix. Playing against 7 American AA vehicles was challenging and as the HMGs kept advancing and not deploying, it was fairly easy work. Throw in a Sherman or an infantry squad or two and those AA vehicles would have torn my units to pieces. (I only had 7 German squads and 4 SiG 33s). Very strange mix.

I am surprised that I missed that one. I will give it a try. You also use all the same mods as I do so this looks very familiar.

Bil, c3k, and all you other guys that really know how to play, It is depressing to watch your AARs knowing that you guys really know your stuff. You all handle your troops like pros. My games never turn out that way. What we want is someone with some ineptitude. (or if you play like me, a lot of ineptitude), but someone that can write a decent article. Someone that will do silly things and watch as they win because they have done less stupid things than there opponent and not because they did anything very skillful. I use my SiG 33s at the front of a close-in assault, I fire my arty within 10 meters of my troops, split my forces more than peas in split pea soup and run my guys all over the map until they are dripping in sweat. There must be other players like me. At least 2 that would be willing to play a humiliating game and be proud of it.

Oddball, How does one find a poster from a concert that was held 6 blocks from my house. Even odder is that you know about this concert and I have never heard of it. I am sorry I missed it.

Has the lack of ammo for the Breda M37 ever been corrected. I thought I had the latest version of the game and my MG teams only have 240 units of ammo. Not much use against some German HMGs with over 2000 bullets

I think most of us have calmed down now. I have seen some threads where it does get so out of hand that BF wields the ban-hammer. I think we all want the same thing. Just at different price points. If we had more to talk about maybe this would not get out of hand or so often. A long list of what will and what will not be included would be nice. Then we can all talk about the wonderful things we will do when we get the new module. I am just saying...

I hope something comes out soon. Just reading these forums for some tidbits of info is tiring me out (and me a spritely 45). Can't we all just get along? We all want the same thing. More content. Stop playing other peoples games (like some people want when you reply to pointless posts) and start playing CM

What about the Russian movie "White Tiger" or the German Unsere Müter Unsere Väter"? I have both but have not yet seen them.

These 9 things for me are enough for me to buy this module. For some it may not be enough but I do not expect CMBB sized portions ever again. Especially with the upgraded graphics et. al. I also suspect that BF will throw something else in there, even if it is small, because those are the kind of guys that they are. One point of clarification - The use of the word "Socialist" as a pejorative I would consider myself a socialist (or more precisely a "social democrat" with some classical liberalism thrown in for good measure) but I still think people should be paid for the effort that they put into something. The price you charge is fair and if I think it is too expensive for what I get, I will not buy it. If I feel that you have provided value to me, then I will buy it. In the US, the phrases "socialist" or "liberal" are used without any real understanding to either. This is one of the problems I have with this discussion. If too expensive, then do not buy. If you want it, then buy it. There is no coercion in this. Think of it as a Louis Vuitton bag that your wife wants. $1000 is practical for some, a luxury for others. (and shame on you Yankee Dog - I have bought every game/module and I have only posted 324 times) viva la revolucion

What about German ammo? 7.92k is never available for resupply. Was there a shortage on the front that they only had one ammo load out or is this a bug in the game? I would like to see some way to resupply that rifle.

One thing I would like to see is a pack. They have been mentioned and talked about but nothing concrete. 1. One idea for a pack would be for all the hi-res work that Aris/Juju and all the other great modders do on CMs behalf. An official pack of all the hi-res skins and mods, buildings, the UI and coloured icons/patches/uniforms that have been added. This does not affect the game so if you bought it, it would not prohibit you from playing against someone that did not buy it. (Like what happens if you have Commonwealth and the other player does not. You cannot play against each other with commonwealth units) Does anyone have any idea if packs are still actively in BFs future?

I would say we will get our first big hint in 2-4 weeks. We did get the video and that is always a good sign. It usually is 2-3 months after a big webpage splash with units and added capabilities and scenarios that we get it in our hands. Since GL was about 2 months ago, I would say that MG should be released in 2 months if we are really to get our next big thing before xmas (and I am assuming that BF wants to space them out and not release 4 things in 2 weeks).

When I travel in the States, I never know what temp it really is. Is 65 hot or cold - perhaps just comfortable. And then if something is 50 miles away, I see how far that would take me to drive if going 60MPH and then convert back to Kilometers (1 hour = 100km on the highway). I think there are still three countries that use Imperial officially. USA, Burma and Liberia if I am not mistaken. Its that freeze at 32F and boil at 212F that always gets to me.

Yes, I can see that having the vehicle in the same AS would be logical (or something very close to the AS). I am more opposed to actually having to mount a vehicle to get the ammo as I have wasted 2 minutes just getting into it at times. A wagon would be nice also and make it very vulnerable. Problem is that you would need horses (and horse animations) as it was slowly movable. Again, I do not know much about the moving of ammo wagons in a tactical battle to know if having it move would even be historical or needed. Having the animations would be nice but I do not want to get into someone asking for cavalry as we would have horses. If the animations were just that, just part of the vehicle, then I would say, add them and slowly trundle that wagon around the battlefield. You should be able to scrounge something from a destroyed (but not burning) vehicle. I remember in CMx1 that you always had some ammo even with low levels of supply. Having this would allow you to at least scrounge something (even if only 20% was available) from what the vehicle held before being destroyed. Just to reflect this on some way.This would still make you want to protect your vehicles. I am not sure about grenades as I have only recently been trying to see if that number decreases after some are used. It does not seem to so I am not sure if grenades actually do diminish after use. If they do, then grenades should also be an option (or you get some automatically if you acquire other ammo) I like the "take 100" as I have some of my split squads with way too much ammo as 500 is the minimum that they can acquire. I am worried (but do not know if this is represented) that they will tire more easily if they have too much ammo on them.

The gauntlet has been thrown. Taking buddy aid out of the equation, what suggestions and recommendations could we ask BF to consider to shape the behaviors and actions of the acquire command? I would like to have each unit be able to acquire supplies if they are in range of 1. a vehicle (not just inside the vehicle), lets say 10 meters A destroyed but not burning vehicle could be included perhaps with 1/2 of all ammo not available to abstract the possibility of having some not available. 2. other units within their company If a company commander said to move that PIAT/PF from unit A to unit B, I would assume that it would be done. But keep the present system where this is done automatically for within the platoon. Only specific actions would allow moment of ammo between platoons (and only if within range - and would not allow actual weapons outside of AT weapons to be moved - so no MP40s all being moved to one unit or 1 squad with 8 MG42s as I do not think this is historically accurate though I may be wrong) 3. from a non-movable supply depot situated on the map I am unsure about this as I am thinking about the movies that I have seen with the GIs always going for the supply depots. I am not sure how true to life having actual supply depots on the map is. Perhaps three different types of supply depots. Company (a few crates and 1-2 AT weapons), Battalion (could also include mortar bombs/demo charges if attached to the Battalion) and Regimental supply depots (everything within reason) with increasing levels of supply and weapons types. This may also solve the problem of resupplying the 7.92K bullet type. Can any of us think of other ways that a unit would resupply outside of buddy aid?

Lt Belenko, No one knows you at the happy ending parlour as you keep giving your name as "Lou Tennant" --- I actually have wondered why CMBB or CMAK have not been made available through Steam or GOG.com? Yes., they have aged, but gracefully and are probably not big sellers but this perhaps would 1. Introduce gamers to CM for a little amount of $ 2. generate product awareness and company awareness 3. generate a little amount of $ for BF Maybe even add CMSF and CMA to that mix as they are older, having been on the shelf for a while, are not going to be expanded but are still great games and use the modern engine. If they are not making much money, perhaps these older games would be a great introduction to CMBN and CMFI where most of the money and resources for new modules are being placed. If Steam gives less money per game, BF may make up for it on volume with the older titles (and generate more customers). I would not recommend this for the 2 new games where probably the bigger money generation is but for older games, the pros might out weigh the cons.

Womble, I agree with you in regards to elite vs conscript infantry. You do not see the distinction as well though in the use of tanks. It is a difficult balance between being gamey and being 100% historically neutral. One of the problems with ASL, though I enjoy it immensely, is the use of nationality modifiers to reflect different leadership/training doctrines but it does work to a limited extent. E.g. (Using The German Way of War: From the Thirty Years' War to the Third Reich - Robert M. Citino One of the German strengths in WWII was the training doctrine that allowed lower level leaders greater initiative at local encounters. This was slowly eroded as time went on and training that had occurred over years (1938-1943) was compressed due to need for some type of leadership replacements in 1944-45. The Soviets though had strict lines of hierarchy that prevented this type of independence (though I am sure that due to tactical situations was present from time to time). How then do you reflect this in the use of tanks. Yes, conscript level would restrict acquiring targets, firing, maintaining fire discipline and morale, but how do you reflect the lack of radios and the use of semaphore flags that was used by the tanker leader to direct his subordinates early in the war? The command delay reflected this in a sort of gamey method but not as gamey as some people make it out to be. Subordinates would not actively take measures independent of their superiors as per doctrine. As I said, I would love to see some other solution but without something gamey (e.g. half all firing, acquiring, morale discipline percentages outside of leader contact and without radios, only be in contact if within visual range (to see semaphore flags) if HQ tank is unbuttoned.). Yes, I understand wanting to get away from nationality stereotypes but how does one insert training doctrine in a nationality neutral way? It is not that I want to see Soviet troops penalized for being Soviet, but I would like to see some differences due to training doctrine between nations. You see this with squad composition (US vs Brit) and BF has introduced the idea of non-splitting squads for Italians. This is nationality composition doctrine. We just need to extend this to include training and leadership doctrine without succumbing to nationality stereotypes. German troops were not supermen and Soviets were not inept, but their training/leadership doctrine sure helped one and not the other in fulfilling goals, especially in the 1939-1943 timeline. Again, we are almost there with infantry with some tweaks but I feel it is lacking for the tanks. (and you will probably not see much of this effect or the need to implement in CMBN or CMFI as they were more evenly trained and matched and had somewhat similar training/leadership doctrines at this time and the composition doctrines are well represented)