[hirr]Leto

Thanks for posting this Adam. Free America still has the right to know about potential issues in the game! LMAO!!! ; ) As Mark said, I wouldn't frame this as a bug or anything yet, but perhaps if more people report this, then we can have some discussion on it. Cheers! Leto

After Elvis, you are second on the dance card when 1.2 comes out. : ) Cheers! Leto

Yep I do. I've been playing vs AI trying to refamiliarize myself with the game. I will email you to set up a game tonight or tomorrow. Cheers! Leto

Well that I kind of knew... I suppose I should have framed the question as hypothetical and not something that I actually expect would be in the domain of contemplation. I am sure that RT has its charms (such as the option for more detailed unit command), but I've tried it several times with an inability to get past the ADD aspect of my 'grean leaf gummy tree' damaged cognitive abilities. If you don't know what I mean, eat a box of blue whales and you'll find out that a side effect is that you forget math and find Keanu Reeves an accomplished method actor. I really do not know what they put in our food, nor do I wish to know. Cheers! Leto

Of course, the level of violence could have been much worse if you would have offered a job to a programmer from Quake or Doom III... but this is really not the point here... I find the depiction of war in a game, sometimes too much like war. It doesn't lessen my enjoyment of the game, but it sometimes makes me a little more hesitant than in my CM days were I could apathetically use the "red wave" command and watch the Russkies eat bullets until there was nothing left but cabbage jello littered around the battlefield. 1:1 is definately more cringeworthy... Cheers! Leto

If RT was killed off, would that provide the resources necessary for implementing some of these much needed (but I agree, quite difficult to implement) changes? (PS, RT fans, no offence of course, but you can send nasty letters run through your crack to me at my beach house address in Hawaii if that sates your hate on...) : ) Cheers! Leto

I just saw the excellent video of the Brits module by George MC. There is a scene in the video where one of the british soldiers in a trenchline comes upon a wounded or hiding Syrian defender, and then packs him full of three bursts of fire. It was a brutal scene and was an epiphany moment for me... The 1:1 modeling of infantry makes CMSF quite personal, and in many ways, perhaps simulates war 'too well'. How many of you have had these cringeworthy moments when you see men fall over and die? In CM 1, the abstraction component was there, so you knew you were dealing with game pieces, and not actual soldiers, but it is harder to abstract and dehumanize that element now. This is in no way a critical swipe at BFC or CMSF (which I still think have produced some amazing stuff), but back to an earlier post of mine where I suggested that CM2 has become too much of a 'sim' and less of a(n) abstracted wargame surfaces in my thoughts again. Is it perhaps that we civilians are just too complacent with the world, and we look upon these things differently than what one might call the "wolves" of our society (the men and women who actually take up arms to protect us, and in doing so, perhaps see warfare, bloodshed and violence in a different way). I for one would like to get some respectful opinions from both sides of the fence: vets and civs, on the impact of 1:1 modeling and how you see the game / and how emotional it may get at times. Cheers! Leto

I agree, there would be a very setpiece form to many of the battles in these contexts. Just watched a history channel production of "Generals" where they recounted the Japanese conquest of Malaysia and Singapore against the British. While the Jap's utilized some very basic tanks to the advantage of their bicycle mounted army of infantry, the British had none. This does not lend to the freewheeling meeting engagement type scenarios where both sides have armor and assets that are highly mobile as on the eastern or western front. That being said, there are some true diehard grognards that love that era and theatre of war... I played Campaign Series Rising Sun from Talonsoft for many years, and always felt that it had a very different feel to it, and the best scenarios often had a mixture of mobile forces on both sides. So I could not rule out that this type of module wouldn't be doable or extremely fun for all CM'rs... Cheers! Leto

Dagnabbit! Oh well... my dreams of playing Vichy French against Yank North African invaders is dashed! Perhaps if you had a wealthy benfactor that asked you to design such modules, you would reconsider? : ) Cheers! Leto

This definately needs to be pinned up BFC!! Nice post WC... and I promise to read every last bit of it... but it may take me a few weeks!! Cheers! Leto

"Tip toe, through the hedgerows!" Cheers! Leto

Who didn't love the Rumanians? But you have to admit the Hungarian Toldi's are as cool as they are inefficacious in combat... but you gotta love it when you take down a few T-34's with those short 75's!! What I want to know is, what happened to the Bulgarians (so you could wheel around in Italian CV-33's and crush all who oppose you), or for that matter, the (bleah) Transylvanians as an elite unit of Romanians used specifically for night actions? ; ) BFC missed the ball here, totally. And to think that we may never see the noble Axis minors again... I ache with sadness... Steve: in all the plans for modules, do you foresee at all any chance of doing the 1940 invasion of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France? Now who would not give their left testicle to lumber around in Char B's, Somua's and Belgian T-13's and Renault AMC 35's?? (damned cool AC's) Cheers! Leto

Uhm, thanks. (does anyone know who this guy is and why he's acting a little strange?) Cheers! Leto

Apology accepted. Cheers! Leto

"Tax our teas, wills yas! Well on guarde you limey bastahds!" The epic battle is finally continued... : ) Cheers! Leto

Yous= myself and (I humbly assume from his rather prosaic testimony) Chad Harrington. Or did you mean a Joe Pesci like "youth's", as in the "two yous" from "My Cousin Vinny"? : ) Cheers! Leto

I agree with this. But as you say, the scoring system (one major criterion of how I evaluate a wargame) lends to an ambiguous environment for competitive play and thus deters much in terms of wargaming fun as we like to know more information about how to win games. Ergo, no clubs, no ladders and no relatively comparative presence in the typical wargaming community. That does not mean that CMSF doesn't have its legions of players. Once again, those people who just love to immerse themselves in the simulation of CMSF may feel that they are playing a competitive wargame, and I won't disagree with them. Again, back to the original post, for some people, our opinions of how we translate "fun" and "competitive" may be a little different than others as it enters the domain of personal taste. That does not take away anything from the fact that CMSF is an extroardinary piece of work (I continually read about how guys over in the mid east feel it is a great sim)... but once again, it IS different from CMx1... if you think in contrast and comparison terms, you will be forever left to wander the ethereal planes of message board limbo. Cheers! Leto

I'm at BoB and have not run into much of the pro CMSF group... I agree that BoB and The Blitz as two major CM clubs did really not take to the CMSF game at all. I also am a founding member of the WaW english players section and the tourney you are referring to was created by Geordie (or GSX on these boards). I didn't have CMSF at the time, or I would have joined the fray as well. But you do make a fundamental point that I think Chad is really honing in on: compared to CMx1, CMSF is a less competitive PBEM human against human type game. This is somewhat pointed out by the absence of ladders and clubs that are designed around CMSF, where CMx1 had over 20 clubs around the world when it was in its heyday. What CMSF has over CMx1 is realism, IMHO. But with that realism, fun and competitive human to human gaming for world war 2 gamers (that are another market I very much admit) was ultimately sacrificed (or so they think). This has a lot to do with the QB system being left dysfunctional in CMSF and the asymmetric warfare aspect. At the end of the day, it's all down to taste and what you want from a game. Personally, I think CMSF is less of a pure wargame, and more of a simulator. For people who like that sort of thing, that's great. But which is better? It is like arguing amongst religious fanatics IMHO... the vocabulary of the discussion begins to be peppered with words like: heathens, zealots, pagans, devils, jihad, and "I KEEL YOU"... while amusing as it reveals the character and lack of unbiased insight by some, this debate is practically unwinnable by either side. So we wait for Normandy... the return of cherry picking QB's, and maybe some good old fashioned honest to goodness wargaming fun (for some of us like me and Chad). That's all folks. Cheers! Leto

And once again, the straw phantom menace is hoisted up by pitchfork, the fires lit, and rationality drowned out by the cultish chantings of "we know better and how dare you say otherwise." Cheers! Leto

Can you provide us with a list of all those clubs that play CMSF? I have belonged to 5 major wargaming clubs and know of two others, and not one of them have any real player group or ladder for CMSF. Cheers! Leto

I agree wholeheartedly with this... and you are not alone... entire gaming clubs that had a huge following of players in the CMAK and CMBB games have completely turned their back on CMSF... Maybe it is the theatre (context of Syria), maybe it is too much competitive playability was lost in the pursuit of realism. Dunno. As much as I try to like CMSF, I find that I am always awaiting my CMBB and CMAK files with youthful enthusiasm and exuberance... while my copy of CMSF collects dust. We will know soon enough whether or not it is the theatre or the progress of the new game engine that is what turns our noses up when CM Normandy comes out. Cheers! Leto

I think the cherry picking element was more useful, fair and fun at the human vs human level (in CMx1). Do you see the major problem here as trying to set up a QB system that is to be used with human vs AI games in CM2? I get that the now unit organization element is going to be predominant, but unless there are at least a good number of different unit organizations to choose from (battalion, regiment, company and platoon), the QB system may get a bit ho hum... especially for guys like me who think variety is the spice of life and the most fun in picking forces in QB's is your ingenuity in putting together unique and effective forces, from the battalion pick all the way down to the single unit pick. I am very much looking forward to seeing how you guys will be doing this, but admit, I am a bit tremulous about the level of flexibility QB players will have in choosing their kits. But then again, I guess we all have to retrain ourselves to the fact that there will not be a very large number of individual units (such as tanks, vehicles, arty, support weapons and troops) to choose from in the context of CM Normandy... Cheers! Leto

1) I don't post at the 'alternate reality' any longer, as I have been accused of being a witch and politely left town while the pitchforks were working on the burning pyre. I am not a medium, translator or messenger. 2) I think there is a misunderstanding of English on both ends as I have only stated that I can see why some people may think that you dropped QB's in the module system so that you would only have games that kept people's fascinations for 6 months (industry standard you said once?) and that BFC could get more money for the amount of work they put into the game. I personally do not subscribe to this line of thinking IE. QB's, but I do believe that the modules systems were created to capture more $$ for BFC, ergo, more games for us... which is a good thing. I also honestly saw no issues with Cherry picking nor felt that the QB system in CMx1 was anything but well put together. 3) I understand your disdain with criticism on the game, as you've weathered quite a vicious storm (some times rightly, most of the times wrongly), but if you keep looking for conspirators and agent provacateurs where there ain't, you're only doing yourself wrong (and perhaps proving some disdainers right). I have no agenda other than my own... when I know what that agenda is, I will nail my manifesto to the forum door. You have my word. In the meantime, I will post here on things that interest me. : ) But as I see this has all gone pear shaped, and I feel the itch of hemp rope around my wrists and the ticke of straw up my backside, I will retire from posting in this thread again, hoping some semblance of utility and rationality will exert itself into the conversation. Cheers! Leto

Sigh. Right after Steve came to your defense by stating that in no way did QB's get tossed out because of dollars, he made this statement leaving room for the intepretation of contradiction: "What is true is that we have said many, many, many times that we over delivered for the CMx1 games for the amount of compensation we received and therefore we weren't going to put in the same amount of breadth (most often thought of as vehicles) in any one CMx2 game as we did in CMx1. Reducing the depth of game features is not part of our plan. It wasn't the plan for QBs, for sure, but it quickly became apparent that despite our best intentions that is exactly what happened for that one feature. We acknowledged that within a few months of the release of CM:SF and pledged to fix it for Normandy because there is no way we could slap something together and stick it into CM:SF. Several months of redesign, recoding, and testing are needed." Although the logic is tortured throughout this statement with intentions not meeting up with actions, it can still be very much interpreted as evidence to support my previous statement... I don't have a lot of stock in that, as I don't really care what BFC's motivations or intentions were as I was simply more interested in outcomes (workable, functioning QB's a la CMx1 back in the game). But I can see how others could. Moving to a module system where the breadth of what was offered in the original CMx1 can be incrementally doled out and captured within another set of revenue streams is simply good strategy... especially with QB's back in. Thus the term 'preposterous' simply didn't fit the context from my less than adroit and obviously politically incorrect and insensitive point of view. But as I posted my statement as a framing of rumours that I had heard, but did not subscribe to them myself in a wholehearted and zealous manner, I really don't have much intellectual debate capital in it, outside of someone simply dismissing it as 'preposterous'. I am finding this whole back and forth a little perplexing, with terms like 'intelligence' (of which I have little) and 'respect' (of which I usually curry very little from anyone, thanks for that reminder MeatEatr! lol) bandied about; especially as Steve has offered us some information that suggests they have reinstituted a workable QB system within their new line of CM2 games and "modules' to come. Maybe let's focus on that? Cheers! Leto

I wasn't around for the cherry picking and QB wars on BFC forums back in the early days. I started playing CMx1 back in 2005 at the Blitz wargaming club, and we had no issues there with the QB system, as we worked out issues before games started, used Redwolf rules, or friendly ROE's. I'm now at WeBoB and I see no issues with it there either. The cherry picking complainers must have been a very vocal and minority as you say. We also played a pile of scenarios, which I actually prefer to the QB's. I think if you can set up a system where you can get good scenario makers (and I mean the top notch designers) to make CM2 scenarios, a la the millions of scenarios that were produced for CMx1 (and they are STILL being produced), then you've slam dunked this one (Cm2 Normandy). I am not sure what the incentives, tools and environment required for scenario making are in CMx1 or CMx2, but I have talked to some neutral scenario designers for CMx1 that didn't really like some of the features of CMSF map editing etc., but I don't know much about that as stated previously. "Good" criticism is necessary to your endeavors, but I suppose the "wars" will continue, and sadly so... bias always reigns supreme. Cheers! Leto