silverstars

Unless of course they just decide that Paratroopers of all nationalities becomes its own module (along with probably a Market-Garden Campaign).

You may have a point, but then again I also see Steves point of view when he gets a little hostile. If I worked half as hard as he does to make one of the best wargames out there, and then somebody just sort of walks in, says everything he has done is complete crap and that he obviously has no idea what he is doing. The fact that he actually responds with something more the a few choice four letter words and a ban hammer is actually showing some constraint. My point is this: If someone walks into my home that I paid for and tells me I am an idiot of the highest caliber , I would punch him dead in the face, kick his body into the closest Fire-covered ditch and piss on his ashes. Cognizant and thoughtful disagreement is one thing, antagonistic badgering and rudeness is something completely different.

Well OK, you got me there, but really it amounts to new uniform and not much else I can think of. Either a Flame Sherman or maybe going to the trouble to model wood siding on some of the Shermans, and a different OOB. i was just suggesting that most of the work would center around a completely different terrain set, with a myriad of different climate types within it.

If the Eastern Front is going to be a different family then West Front, the the Pacific theater would DEFINITELY have to be its own seperate family. Although once West and East Fronts are done they only need to put in Japanese units (Which I think wouldn't be too hard considering their paucity of Armored/Mechanized equipment) and the Terrain(The real work, IMO). perhaps whole Families could be farmed out like CM:Afghanistan? Or is CM:A viewed more as a stand-alone module to CMSF?

I think it would be a big help, especially if you get persistant damage setup for maps. That way when your Recce in force got a foothold into town but couldn't quite take the town center proper, or just lost too many men immediately, you would then play the same map with your reinforcements versus his dug-in men. But I'm sure the Betas have thought of things like that already. It would of course also increase the workload for making a campaign if you let it get out of hand by trying to make a third or fourth outcome for every little scenario, but that would be up to the campaign creator to figure out. And any extra tools you can give a campaign creator to design his work is a good thing all around, IMO.

Question: In a campaign, can there be more then 2 outcomes from a specific scenario? For example, if you get a Major or Total Victory you go to Scen A, a Major or Total failure to Scen B, and any other result to Scen C?

Actually, if you want to talk about a lack of accents, how about the Americans? For a US-based company, they are pretty light in the diversity of voice accents. Its as if the US Army and Marines where wholly populated by news broadcasters. There's no Southern drawl, no New Yawk accent, no high yankee accent(the one where R's become Ah's), not to mention the panoply of African-American accents, Latino-Hispanic accents, and so on. So yeah, someone make a mod with those accents saying large volumes of swear words and you would have it just about right.

Yeah, I seem to remember some anecdotes from the Bulge where one of the newer draftee Divisions took up a long-standing Veteran's Division(I keep thinking the 2nd Div, but not particularly sure) in the line in Belgium. The gist of the story was that the Vet Division had so much accumulated equipment outside of thier TO&E, Extra MMGs, 50 cals, and so forth, that when they left the line to the FNG's (taking thier bounty of extra weapons with them) the new division had to completely redesign thier earthworks to make them work. Of course, they still got steamrollered in a couple of weeks anyway....

YAY! A sliver of hope! Angry SS Werewolf approves!

I just wanted to mention a few things as to why I posted this question. For starters, I am not in the market of saying that the new QB system will suck unless it is exactly like the old QB system in CMx1. I have faith that Battlefront will come up with something that will have the detailed unit selection and if it also keeps forces looking completely ridiculous from a historical standpoint, wonderful. If I can at least select units down to the platoon level, I would be happy. My chief thing was getting the new QB system for CMN into CMSF. I know Battlefront's policy is that once they move forward, there is no looking back. And when all I invested was 50$ for a game that gave me just about all I needed, that was fine in my book. But now that I have sunk..let's see....50$ for main game + 25$ for Marines + 25$ Brits = 100$, which doesn't count the NATO pack which I will of course ravenously devour, or the fact I have bought multiple copies of said game to give to friends for me to fight with (and get them addicted to my drug of choice). So needless to say after spending that amount of money for this game I wouldn't mind paying a little more to get this one feature so that I can keep playing this rather large investment for a little while longer(i.e., until CMSF 2). And I have been around this series long enough to remember the problems with the original system and the arguements thereof, which did have some merit. Nothing is quite as embarrassing as to pick out a well balanced german force using my extensive experience with the game and history and have that force decimated by a force comprising of only FOs of 150mm Kytushkas, picked by the guy who is just playing the game that night. But I will also say that the same individual I played with that evening just played a CMSF QB with me the other day, and stated, "Oh man, I wish they still had that pick your own units setup." So there is something to be said for the old cherry picking in that regard. But as I said, if Battlefront can give us a QB where I can at least get a selection of men down at the platoon level, and maybe throw in something that gives me more of a heads up as to what the map will look like before I start making choices (a preview screen for the map would be wonderful) I will be quite content.

Hmm. Let me put it in a way more geared toward you Steve: Is there a price tag to how much you would need to make to retrofit the new CMN QB system into CMSF, and if there is, would a module release selling at a rate equal to any of the current modules reach it?

It is true that civilians are more important in a COIN type mission than a full scale invasion, and if you really are only trying to model the initial invasion and absolutely none of the follow up, then the current situation is mostly sufficient. But so far in the 21st century both of our major wars have consisted of less then a month of invasion, and 8-6 years of counter insurgency work. As far as a wargame is concerned, making a "Fulda Gap" scenario where the all the world's high end technologies clash in full scale warfare for a bid at European dominance is breathtakingly attractive. But it's something that is highly unlikely to happen in any way shape or form. The US military has been dragged farther and farther away from that type of fighting force, and a lot of other militaries are already there(I'm starting the think that the Brits look so weak in this game is because they are fighting in the wrong type of war the are designed for). so while not having civilians being involved in the main focus of the game does not mean the game will not be fun, I just think it doesn't model the reality of warfare today as well.

I know Steve has said that reworking the Quick Battles system is going to be for Normandy and that (for the most part) CMSF Modules are in the hands of third party developers. But since everything seems to be selling quite well, I was wondering if the price was right for them if they would implement the new QB system into CMSF? I personally would buy a Module that just added that more then a French/Chinese/whathaveyou module any day of the week. So how many people would pay for a "Cherry Pick" QB for CMSF Module, and how much? For me the answer is(obviously) yes, and I would be willing to pay 40$ for it.(although 25$ would be just as good)

Ah, its nice to post something late at night and wake up to find a discussion..... Just thought I'd mention that when I thought of the idea of having civilian units in game, I in no way imagined trying to model EVERY civilian in the area. I was thinking of say 1-2 units(say 4-8 civvies per unit) in a village, 3-4 for a town, and maybe 6-7 in an urban area. In other words, just put in enough civvies to make you want to check your fire, but not so many as to bathe your display in question marks, and/or bog the system into the ground. And again, make it something that the scenario designer can put in if they want, so that not every scenario has to be set up with civs in it.

After playing a couple of quick battles of CMSF the other day, I started thinking about my almost-constant tactic of "lay a hail of gunfire on any question mark you see." And then I thought about how plausible this tactic is in a real urban setting, and that even if I just limit my attacks to small arms fire(which would circumvent any building damage caveats in game if I am not mistaken) I would have my head on a pole for endangering civilians in the real world. And in a world where warfare is becoming more centered on hearts and minds of the local populace, and more battles being found in cities then rolling fields, I am starting to think that to not have something visible in the way of civilians in the battleground is leading to tactics that no longer relate to reality of warfare today. Now I remember the whole argument given by Battlefront that the resources to develop a full-fledged civilian simulator are way too large for a small return. And granted, I would not expect something along the lines of Grand theft Auto in terms of random locals milling about their daily lives. But as of now the Urban Density being abstractly modeled for hiding uncons doesn't give me any reason to hold back fire on anything. I mean it makes it harder for you to "Find" a taxi or a spy, but if you just get one little question mark on your radar, why hold back? Have a platoon Target Light down the middle of main street and spray everything to kingdom come. So my idea was something along the lines of a 3rd non-playable side, that just had units of civilians to be placed only by the scanario designer. Give them a conscript morale or something even more shaky. And any casualties you inflict has a negative modifier for your score, for either side or in certain situations, just for BLUFOR. That way as your men inch forward into the Hamlet of wherever and start seeing question marks pop up in buildings, you don't automatically assume that they are OPFOR, and you might choose to hold fire until you can get a positive ID. Also, The player would ease up on blasting every building to rubble when you start seeing civilians fleeing in terror out of buildings when the HE rounds start landing. And don't forget this would allow people to setup actual hostage situations/POW rescue missions in a lot more realistic fashion. Now, I wouldn't expect something like this to be in any of the WWII games. Civilian impact was more often then not far from the minds of most company commanders, at least compared to today. But maybe when the next Modern setting shows up, something along these lines might happen. I know that the wish list for this series makes Santa's List look like a Post-it, But I think that a more tangible civilian presence would make gameplay hew more close to the real world, much like buddy-aid has made people actually babysit their troops and not send them into one Pickett's Charge after another. If nothing else, it's something to talk about while we wait for CM:N.

Well, with the whole CM:Russo-Afghan Conflict in the works, whose to say if that sells well Battlefront will just let 1C put out CM:Eastern Front? Or do you think Steve loves his Romanians too much to give them to another?

I am also looking forward to a non-modern setting, although I like all th CMs in their own way. Normandy is still my favorite, and I am glad it was chosen as the second one in the series so it will have all the features we want. CMBB wasn't my favorite at first, but I ended up playing it more and more since it had better interface and features then CMBO. Getting addicted to IL-2 Sturmovik also helped fuel my interest in the theatre. The one thing I think I am looking forward to most of all is Soviet SMG squads ripsawing through the fascists at close range in all of its 1:1 glory.

Please say that some of you realize this is a quote from "A Fish called Wanda" and not taking it as actual personal thought...

and to bring the discussion back to something CMN related: "OOOOOHHHH, you Limeys are SOOOOOO superior. If it wasn't for us you would all be speaking German! DEUTSCHLAND, DEUTSCHLAND, UBER ALLES...."

but isn't that a solid 90% of British Humor, the other 10% going to non-sequiturs?

Also, to go along with the HUMMWV Gunner issue, how about the ability of passengers with weapons to roll down the windows and shoot at people? I've been watching "Generation Kill" all week and thinking, "Why can't my guys do that?"

Yeah, if nothing else if they could just have a "Burnt" skin for the vehicle model when set ablaze. It would at least lessen that "Campfire stapled to the Hull" look.

Hmmm. I wonder if the new ERA bricks precludes the Slat Armor, or if they will have both.

Huh. I just figured America had the Patent Pending on going "WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" whenever doing anything loud or entertaining.

ganked from the Wargamer Forum: It's a video of Marines(I think, although they are DEFINITELY American) firing on Taliban insurgents with what looks like a L9A1 Mortar that the Brits use. Am I missing something here, or do you think a Platoon of Her Majesty's is running around the 'Stan with a SMAW? Also, be forewarned; it is a video of Marines shooting at people so the language gets a bit..."Salty". The Fun moment is when they get tired of firing the Mortar, and ask if they can fire a LAW. A 6-year old at Chucky Cheese would look stoic compared to these guys.