sburke

Just finished 6 months in 1945. http://www.amazon.com/Six-Months-1945-Churchill-Truman--/dp/030727165X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359725266&sr=8-1&keywords=6+months+in+1945 Very interesting read. The common conception (or mis conception) of how well US and Soviet troops got along at the end of the war is illuminating. The inital meetings were lively but relations deteriorated quickly. Shootings by US military of Soviet soldiers became a somewhat frequent occurence as the Soviets were very very aggressive within US army areas of influence in Berlin, theft of equipment, abuse of the population etc. It took very very little time before US army personnel began to perceive the Russians as an enemy. Also instructive to see relations betweent Roosevelt (and later Truman) with Stalin and Churchill. The fostered persona that Stalin worked on is also fascinating. Outstanding read of a period I previously had only a general understanding of.

Ahh when I was young, you had real cars! Not these plastic pieces of junk. Ours were made of steel! And men were stronger, cigarette smoke didn't bother us then, not like the wimpy men of today. And we played war games with cardboard and had to do our OWN calculations! And the sun was warmer!!! Damned place is too cold today. The good old days, when men were men and sheep were nervous!

Forces for Decency? In THIS community? Who let them in? Quick shove em into the Cesspool!!!

The subjects that 99% of us want to hear about get 1% of Steve's time....

Nope, much as many have asked for something in that period BF has so far expressed no interest. Hey maybe that is something nice they keep referring to!!! Ahh to dream.

Let the results of the business model/plan speak for themselves. All subjective opinions aside, with no knowledge at all of BF's books and order quantities - Just looking at what they have been able to produce the past two years and the forecast going forward shows a company who's strategy appears to finally be hitting the stride they were shooting for. It is obvious to anyone who isn't simply refusing to see what is in front of them that BF has hit a qualitative point in their business plan. 2011 CMBN 2012 CMBN 1st Module CW - 2013 CMFI Version 2 upgrade and 1.11 patch for CMBN 2013 The negativity crowd and doomcriers are going to need new material as facts are running over them like an M1 over a speedbump. Facts trump opinion every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Version 3 better include some ability to affect the time space continuum or I am going to have to figure out an early retirement plan. It is hard enough just trying to decide whether to launch CMBN, CMFI or CMSF.

Heh heh and then an evil voice whispers into your ear- "but what if you break up your squads into teams...."

Just finished "Six Months in 1945 FDR, Stalin and Churchill" and it brought to mind a comment Steve made about the best chance the Soviet Union ever had in attacking in Europe was right after the defeat of Nazi Germany...... and after reading this book I would just love to see a CM release to game that.

Some of us think we already do have a game for the ages. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love having an op layer. Just ask Broadsword. But there comes a point where trying to make a game be too many things leads to it doing none of them well. I can handle creating and managing an op layer. That op layer however wouldn't mean squat if CM didn't work as well as it does. Also having played through one OP layer campaign using the St Lo boardgame and only fighting out 5 battles that we cherry picked - I just couldn't commit the time to anything that had us trying to fight much more than that. It seems to be a dream concept, but it really isn't practical.

I actually loved the Troina campaign. The key (usually) is to figure out the terrain and try to find or make a covered appraoch. Taking the bunkers frontally is the hard way. Smoke is your pal my friend.

Not at all. Talking about how to play the game, tips, tactics, understanding actual practical aspects is a helluva lot more interesting than some of the back side roads in dark of night the forum can take. Regarding your AT team or AT gun. LOS and LOF are two of the trickiest aspects of the game. Without an actual spotted enemy to target it can be really difficult to know what is in a field of fire. I have been playing CMx2 for a loooong time and CMBN since it came out and right now I am watching a bunch of my troops getting shot down by vKleist in a pbem as I wrongly assumed I had them out of LOF during a move. You can use the target command to see if you can fire at a particular location and the target line will say no, then however an enemy unit pulls up and you see your unit firing. This isn't that the game lied, it simply was telling you you could not select the GROUND in that location for area fire likely because of intervening terrain. However an enemy unit would be above ground level and a viable target. The same holds true in reverse. That one will burn you oh maybe forever. It is important to know the limitations of the targeting tool and to keep a good eye on what you think might actually be exposed areas and when in doubt - assume they can shoot you.

I knew I'd heard that story, but thought maybe it was in Bloody Aachen. Victory was Beyond Their Grasp is a great read.

I guess you missed the thread at how old most of us are. I just had to get my reading glasses prescription changed to make em stronger. I actually don't know any game companies that give returns. Could be some, but generally I try to make sure I think I am going to enjoy a game before buying including trying the free demos first. +1 on what Brindlewolf said

The only systemic crashing issue with PBEMs as far as I know has to do with QBs. PBEM is certainly not unplayable by any stretch of the imagination- I have several going on. QBs I don't normally use, sorry about that one but if you wanted absolutely everything tested it would be a long time between releases. No offense but do you recall just how many threads there were pushing BF to do or announce something... and then when they do they get - this seems rushed? LOL Please don't take offense this is not directed at you just a general observation of how we behave. The last sentence is broken up but you do know you can have multiple installs at different versions right? There is no reason there has to be a break in the community, you simply need to confirm versions before creating the PBEM.

too funny. I don't think you will regret it at all, other than the issue of having to decide whether to fire up CMBN or CMFI....

C'mon admit it, you are just checking to see that flares still take precedence.

If you are talking about LLFs Makin scenario, what I did is create a CMBN install and kept it at the version level that the mods were created for. CM allows you to do this no problem, doesn't use up any activations etc and you can retain that install with those mods and still play your normal 2.0 version against other players. You can have your cake and eat it too. Or maybe more properly, you can have your mochi and eat it too.

Another item that was kind of cool about this was part of the reason I missed it was my StuG had not spotted it. I had other units that could see the M8 but I wrongfully felt it didn't have LOF to my StuG. Not that it much mattered - There was no way the StuG could get out of LOF fast enough to alter it's impending death. Another aspect that was interesting is I had actually no idea how much damage I was inflicting. Visibility during the fight was abysmal. I don't think we had a single turn there wasn't artillery falling somewhere. Between that dust, the smoke etc I could only get glimpses of individual soldiers trying to get through the minefields and barbed wire. This did however help my AT teams as they were able to use the lousy visibility to advantage. There was even one interpid fellow who completely mis interpreted his orders, charged out from behind a building in clear view of a tank and was able to get a kill before the accompanying infantry gunned him down. I had several discussions with Broadsword over the last 10 turns or so as to whether the Germans were capable of surrendering or should. C2 was shot to hell and some units were still fighting and inflicting severe casualties. The loss of the last armored vehicle and having only I think 2 shrek rounds left as a whole new section of Shermans rolled into sight sealed the deal.

sorry, yes I was mis interpreting. My bad.

Can't speak to that particular scenario, but I have included in mine placing TRPs to allow the AI to make up for it's inability to relocate to try to get eyes on an enemy. Otherwise the AI is being unfairly restricted relative to the player. It might be worth a look in the editor to see if that designer has done so as well.

Tell that to the girls being mutilated for attempting to attend school.

Well the St Lo campaign has come to an end with the Germans delaying the allied offensive enough to cause them to fail to meet their objectives. Almost a year in running, this has been a phenomenally great experience. Thank you broadsword56 for the concept, the effort, the maps, the scenarios and being a gaming partner who just enjoys the spectacle and play. It has multiplied my enjoyment of CM many times over and spoiled the crap out of me. For those interested, the last battle we fought out in CM was an allied hasty assault on a fortified position - the Chateau of La Luzerne. The battle didn't quite pan out the way we'd hoped as the Chateau collapsed several floors all the way into the basement leaving a gaping hole in our battlefield (and a bunch of German pioneer corpses). We'd hoped it would hold up longer, but war is hell. As it was the German defenders were able to inflict enough punishment on the attacking US force before surrendering to make that unit incapable of exploiting it's gains. The OP layer came a hair's breadth from causing an urban fight in the suburbs of St Lo before the US force simply ran out of steam to press home the attack in the time allotted. The highlight of this fight for the Germans were the PzShk teams which took a severe toll in Allied armor. Their StuG brethren for the most part were ineffective. They were far too vulnerable to flank attacks. 3 of the 4 succumbed without being able to contribute much more than being a deterrent. The 4th did account for 4 Shermans. The AT guns were almost useless, a combination of bad luck (also known as enemy artillery) and poor positioning by their commander. umm yeah that would be me. So what did we learn? Well for one, though it is a lot of work, the reward is huge. We had no special rules, no umpire to play blind. Just a board game for an op layer and two players who wanted to have consequences to our battles and a more realistic determinant on when to call for a withdrawal or surrender. We both felt that St Lo provided a very good op layer in restricting options for both sides and forcing planning decisions. The initative and morale issues really added a lot to the tension of the campaign. Broadsword can speak to that more having run the OP layer. The only sucky part is it finally ended and before we could fight for St Lo. Reason enough to have another go at it some time in the future. Next up is hard to determine yet, but the one we were shooting for was a MG campaign - so BF hurry up with the module will ya?

Artificial Insemination. It is what happens to your pixeltruppen when the AI kicks your butt.

Looking forward to it, your building mods are a really nice addition.

Yeah well the question remains as to how you ever found a girlfriend while spending that much time modding... or is there some kind of modders groupie thing going on?