Lethaface

(Whoops. I might have had a little to do with the post being changed...)

In computer game terminology, "strategy games" is the correct genre for CM.

In military/grog terminology, CM is a 'Tactical' game. At best it might be a "grand tactical" game, on massive maps.

It doesn't really have enough logistical nuance to really be considered an 'Operational' game, even in the campaign system. You can fiddle around with that to a certain extent (e.g., branch a mission into two options with different reinforcement rates, depending on whether a supply cache was blown up or not), but it's crude and not terribly satisfying.

CM is certainly not a 'strategy' game in the military/grog sense, since there's none of the political/diplomatic concerns that define that.

The definitions are pretty vague, still:

The Australian defence force defines them as follows:

Strategic Level of War The strategic level of war is concerned with the art and science of employing national power.
Operational Level of War The operational level of war is concerned with the planning and conduct of campaigns. It is at this level that military strategy is implemented by assigning missions, tasks and resources to tactical operations. See also campaign.
Campaign A controlled series of simultaneous or sequential operations designed to achieve an operational commander’s objective, normally within a given time or space. See also operational level of war.
Tactical Level of War The tactical level of war is concerned with the planning and conduct of battle and is characterised by the application of concentrated force and offensive action to gain objectives.

CM is a tactical game, and it can be a Campaign game with... campaigns. It's not an Operational or Strategic game at all.


As far as computer games are concerned, 'Strategy games' is a shorthand, nothing more. That serves a purpose. If I was after deep comparisons of wargame titles, I wouldn't go for a top ten list like this. I'd much rather see something like that Armchair General series on CM, or an article a while back that was using CMANO to model the F-35 and try to understand it's role in some plausible contexts. 'Wargames' is a similarly dodgy shorthand - there's a reason why 'Consim' has been preferred for a while. 'Conflict Simulation' is a term which more accurately covers most simulationist games.

Devs and publishers are referring to a genre of video game which best defines the game within popular video game culture. There are historical reasons why these genres have developed these tags: eg the type of programming design; be it real time or turnbased  and camera top down as opposed to camera first person or platform/side-scrolling games. This is where these genre types belong; they are rooted in the early programming development of video games. Nothing more! 

An example of how things have moved on is best illustrated if we consider that games developed today cut across many traditional genres. Take a game like Skyrim or Fallout, whilst being defined within video game culture as RPG games, they incorporate aspects of FPS, trading and even strategy, as well as role playing. So the term RPG is nothing more than a vestigial tag which is useful only insofar as to define the game for marketing purposes, to engage a certain audience if you will. 

So when you quote Wiki definitions as if they are a kind of shibboleth, they have no authority, and are largely meaningless for the reasons outlined in detail above.

So you are conflating this use of the word (as a video game genre) with military terms which define tactical and strategic in a much more specific way. In this, Combat Mission would undoubtedly be best described as a tactical simulation game of WW2 and modern warfare. There may well be some elements of strategy involved, that's arguable, but it's overwhelmingly tactical. The term strategy game to describe CM (because it is a turn based/ realtime wargame) is rooted in the past, it's outdated and I've never noted Battlefront use this description in its marketing - most likely for this very reason.  

So why is the magazine article using these terms you might ask? Simply because they are useful terms to convey to the reader the article's purpose. The article is not dressed up to be anything more than pop.
 
Indeed, I totally agree. But again, the cross-genre of today's games/sims are difficult to compare. The "Strategy" tag is merely for the readers convenience and the article is not to be taken that seriously... it's casual pop reading, nothing more!

In a more serious comparative review, Graviteam Tactics would get a mention alongside CM, DCS would be compared with IL-2 and Silent Hunter 3 or 4 should be included on any list of "best ever video war games"!  
 

Situation
Threat forces are advancing south rapidly, sprinkling light forces in their wake to secure their Lines of Communication (LOC). An opening has appeared for a counterattack and command has strained every nerve to concentrate an appropriately sized force to strike the enemy in the rear, cut their LOC and severely disrupt their offensive.
----
As promised - my opponent from Sabres at Dawn  and myself are back at it. I have allowed my opponent to select the scenario and sides,  and he has selected NATO. This once again puts me in command of the OPFOR forces, this time on the offensive. I have a defeat to avenge so I'll be putting my back into it. 
Expect my METT-TC and Order of Battle analysis later today.  Naturally, I template an entertaining match and an inevitable victory  
 

Let's see How should I use my time today?
1. Work on Scenarios, and QB Maps while beta testing multiple titles,
2. Read Forum threads written by players wondering 'what's going on, why the delays', OR 'don't you guys understand business or customer service'.
3. Take a Nap.
Gosh, I just can't make up my mind...Why not help me choose.

Russia has a large enough army to *cause mischief*. Making a surprise grab of Estonia in the dead of night and having enough forces to dissuade anyone from thinking about retaking it. That's different, though, from trying to lay claim to everything east of the Oder river. If they can't take Mariupol I doubt they'll be able to take Poznan. Putin's dream of being emperor of all Slavic peoples needs a different strategy. If I were to *theoretically speculate*, it would probably involve subverting the governments of his opponents and installing friendly puppet regimes. Clausewitz famously said war is politics by other means. The opposite is also true - politics is war by other means.

Saint Lambert /Dive at the time of Battlefront

 
today

in 1944 CMBN

Same place today

I speak with the inhabitant and he shows me that ...

INCROYABLE  !!!!
 
the same place in 1944 in the real world


 

In occupied Holland wood gas cars were 'normal' as oil was rationed / not available. Another reinforcement of TIKS point ;-)
@Ivanov, thanks for the links. Good to know we're not the alone finding problem in TIKs reasoning :-)

Yesterday, I stumbled upon an impressive series of books dedicated to Operation Barbarossa. Here the author takes one of TiK's videos. Pretty impressive stuff if you ask me:

http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/an-essay-on-why-i-believe-a-tik-u-tube-presentation-is-incorrect-in-regards-to-losses-and-strengths-on-the-east-front/

http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Essay-alt-view-TIK-presentation.pdf
 
Pretty good summary of TIK:

"Overall, the video made some good points. However, on its own it definitely gives the average person (who may have a cursory, or no significant, knowledge of the War on the Eastern Front) the completely wrong impression".
 

Well, a war on two fronts is generally bad. 

My take on it is that, despite those aspects of his character, he had the ability to see things like that during his rise to power. My feeling is that it was his massive successes that put his hubris over the edge and blinded him to the opportunities that were necessary to mine for victory. Basically, like Napoleon and so many others in history, he fell prey to the classic hubris of success that brings down the great.
While the destruction caused by Hitler's immoral policy decisions make his fall a kind of poetic, divine justice, we would all do well to remember that all people and nations are capable of the same hubris. It seems to occur when the person/leader/nation takes it for granted that they are in the right, God is on their side, and they have some early spectacular success.
Seems like a pro tip is "Follow the 10, avoid the 7 and stay humble."

But the results of the decisions of one powerful man still depend on everyone else.
It's like rock-paper-scissors. What's the difference between a winning move and a bad move? It's what the other guys does.
Then when we write history, we think the outcome was inevitable, but that's not apparent when we are in the midst of it.
 
 

Yeah, most people these days haven't a clue that during their rise to power, the Nazi party was seen as the young, dynamic, forward-thinking party of new ideas!
Any other comments in that area would get too much into subjective politics, so I'll stick to TIK and military what ifs. I'm quite enjoying his channel!
Very interesting info in the oil vid. It seems that we are potentially entering a new era of more objective analysis, rising from the grassroots. Recent decades have seen an appalling 2D (1D?) view of history presented by academics and documentary makers. The works prior to that, despite the distortion caused by using such German-heavy sources, seemed more objective, even though the people who lived through it were still around and even the ones making the stuff.
As with the oil vid from TIK, Hitler's decisions, when looked at objectively and with adequate information, often move from "crazy" to undestandable, to the best chance out of nothing but bad options.
However, to refer back to my earlier post, Hitler's decision to initiate barbarian nazi social policy immediately upon invading the Soviet union was a true unforced error and may have been the key mistake that cost him the war. As per TIK, he had to invade then and had only a few months to win the war. Had he used the kind of political skills he had demonstrated in his rise to power to woo the people in the Soviet territories into seeing the Germans as liberators and joining the fight against the Soviets, a collapse of the Red Army may have been possible in that first few months. Then, once that had happened, he could have gradually tightened the screws.
And then, assuming a nuclear confrontation between the remaining Allies and the Reich could be avoided later, we might well be looking at Hitler being the globally-acknowledged greatest leader in world history right now.
And, on the Allied side with a what-if, had Gavin taken his primary objective, the Nijmegen bridge, right away during Operation Market Garden, rather than spending time worrying about his defensive zone, then...wait for it...
Monty might be the globally-acknowledged greatest western Allied general of WWII!
In War and Peace, Tolstoy makes the argument that great military leaders are really just the most noticable parts of the giant, clock-work of human fate, and that neither success nor failure is really due to them, but rather to the sum total of decisions made by the great mass of individual humans making up the "machinery" of humanity.
Up to a point, maybe, but only up to a point. Sometimes, it really does boil down to the decision of one man.
 

My 'decisions win wars' comment was a little tongue in cheek (as denoted by the smiley), although with a touch of seriousness. The problem I perceive in TIKs movies is mainly in reasoning. I'm a bit of allergic to his type of reasoning, because I see it a lot these days. In my opinion his videos are compromised with root cause attribution errors. I will try to explain why:
The most easy way of going about this, is by reversing the statement or removing the factor from the equation:
So, would having 'enough' oil have won the war for Germany? The answer to this is not obvious yes (possibly even a simple 'no'), from which I conclude that oil is not 'the' reason Germany lost the war. It's a gross oversimplification, like Ivanov has very meticulously explained in his posts.
So, another tongue in cheek: I call TIK's oil and raise it with aircraft carriers: Germany lost the war because they didn't have aircraft carrier strike groups.

I think that @Ivanov has been carrying here on this thread the flag of Reason. I salute you friend! I hope you're taking good care of the fort at the homeland for me.
Given the recent flare up of militancy against content posted on these boards that may be intellectually or factually unsound I'd advise some of the posters here to reflect on the saying about people in glass houses etc.
Some observations about some of the statements on this thread:
The Soviet Union did manage to evacuate a great deal of machine tools and heavy equipment beyond the reach of the Axis armies, not the factories themselves. That is historical fact. Nevertheless, there is a difference between being able to evacuate, and being able to resume production instantly. Another historical fact is that it did really take a long time sometimes to set up production thousands of miles from the original site. You can check the bibliography on Gary Grigsby's War In The East manual for more details, and also the section of the manual on the industry relocation rules will prove a good read, as it tries to account for the process. The Germans were also quite good at doing "impossible" stuff and rebuild their nation (or use the rubble to setup hills in parks, even). Not to mention the Japanese herculean efforts.   Lend Lease was very important for the Soviet Union, way more than the Soviet propaganda wanted to admit from 1943 onwards. Stalin and Molotov "game plan" was to play the victim at the negotiation table in Tehran and Yalta. Richard Atkinson "Army at Dawn" and "Guns at Last Light", goes to the nitty gritty details of both conferences. For a treatment from the Soviet point of view, Ewan Madsley "Thunder in the East" is very good at reconstructing the beliefs and intentions of the Soviet leadership. The consensus amongst historians regarding "when Germany lost the war" as in unable to win is to put it at some point during September and October 1941, when it became apparent that the Soviet Union would not collapse like France a year and a half before, even in the face of crushing defeats in the Ukraine and right in front of Moscow. That's an assessment with the benefit of hindsight, the combatants certainly didn't feel like that at the time. More interesting is, in my opinion, the question of "was the utter destruction of Germany an unavoidable outcome?". On that, the jury is still out. My personal opinion is that there were a number of checkpoints throughout the war where they could have settled for a status quo, and possibly prepare for the next round, like Napoleonic France did 140 years before. The die was cast probably when Germany attacked the Soviet Union, or even, when GROFAZ decided to jump on the Japanese bandwagon and declare war on the US. The stupidity of the latter, and utter lack of basic understanding of the United States, will confound many generations to come.

To make you all feel good, I set up a QB and played the Brits just so I could feel the pain.
And painful it was, so I can see why you all have reason to complain about the patch that has never appeared.
So why it really has not bothered me since 4.0 came out is likely the event that I have not played the British much since the change

He starts the video with a sentence: "why Germany lost the war? It can be summed up with one word: oil". This is a gross oversimplification. I understand that Youtube needs simple, catchy answers, but in reality the lack of oil was one of few significant reasons why Germans couldn't win. Incoherent German leadership, bad management of it's available resources and industry, strategic and operational errors, logistics and vast material superiority of the Allies, were equally important. Selecting one decisive factor ( in this case oil ) is absurd and naive.

 
In theory taking the Caucasus could be a decisive problem for Soviet Union. The thing is, that the Germans could never succeed in this task, because they had never enough forces, to seriously contemplate a success there. The forces forces of Army Group A were absurdly small for the task. A quick look on the map reveals it all. Caucasus offensive failed, because there were insufficient forces allocated to the task and because of the logistics. Not because the panzers didn't have enough of fuel. Another issue is bad management of the conquered resources. In theory by 1942 the territories that Nazis had under their control, could allow them to match the production of United States ( Tooze, The Wages of Destruction ). They never came close.

 
Unfortunately what Hitler thought was decisive. Many of modern commentators apply a hindsight and current day, rational thinking to the Nazi leadership of the WW2 period, which is a mistake. Nazis were shooting and gassing Jewish women and children, because according to their ideology it was acting "in self defence". Jurgen Stroop said, that he had to liquidate the Jews "for honey and milk of Ukraine". How could anyone expect a rational thinking from that kind of people? From the other hand, in theory the food supplies and oil were both indispensable for waging a prolonged war. Bad management of the war effort and atrocious policies towards the conquered peoples, assured that the Nazis could never get hold and take a full advantage of either.

I think this is really an 'eye of the beholder' issue, a real classic one for that. As being part of the 'old guard' myself (at least I think I am after 10+ years and 1000+ posts and having done some beta testing in the past), I don't see any problem with SgtHatred's post. At the same time I understand IanL, Sburke and others because often people that are trying to be helpful on the forum get flak just for having their own viewpoint.
I think everyone is entitled their own viewpoint. Conceptual attributes like 'game-braking' are as subjective as attributes can come, because what exactly defines game breaking? 
Personally I have been so busy with other things that I have rarely had the time and or energy to play CM over the last 2 years. When I tried some 4.0 games, I did encounter the 'run from prepared positions under arty fire' behavior. Because in that particular scenario it did break my immersion, I decided to wait for a patch so I can enjoy the content I play in the most optimal form. I mostly enjoy campaigns when played the first time, so that's why.
In the end we are all here to enjoy the game. It's good that there is an old guard on the forum, at the same time it's good that there are new people on the forums. Obviously opinions about bugs, due patches and other things will differ. That's what a forum is about. 
Anyway, I don't see the problem with this discussion and most of the viewpoints offered here. As long as people keep discussion civilized and not take or make things personal, its all fine imo :).

I think this is really an 'eye of the beholder' issue, a real classic one for that. As being part of the 'old guard' myself (at least I think I am after 10+ years and 1000+ posts and having done some beta testing in the past), I don't see any problem with SgtHatred's post. At the same time I understand IanL, Sburke and others because often people that are trying to be helpful on the forum get flak just for having their own viewpoint.
I think everyone is entitled their own viewpoint. Conceptual attributes like 'game-braking' are as subjective as attributes can come, because what exactly defines game breaking? 
Personally I have been so busy with other things that I have rarely had the time and or energy to play CM over the last 2 years. When I tried some 4.0 games, I did encounter the 'run from prepared positions under arty fire' behavior. Because in that particular scenario it did break my immersion, I decided to wait for a patch so I can enjoy the content I play in the most optimal form. I mostly enjoy campaigns when played the first time, so that's why.
In the end we are all here to enjoy the game. It's good that there is an old guard on the forum, at the same time it's good that there are new people on the forums. Obviously opinions about bugs, due patches and other things will differ. That's what a forum is about. 
Anyway, I don't see the problem with this discussion and most of the viewpoints offered here. As long as people keep discussion civilized and not take or make things personal, its all fine imo :).

Why are you all being such weird asses about his question?

IanL and MOS:96B2P were kind enough to answer his questions about content, MOS very thoroughly. However, we are now on page two largely on the basis of people being ****ty that he thinks $60 is a lot of money. Yes he thinks $60 is a bit pricey. Okay great maybe it his for him, maybe it isn't. We don't know. What we don't need to be doing is dogpiling on the dude.

And you have to admit that if you didn't follow BFC posts very regularly you would likely be confused as to what is going on. You might wonder what changes have been made since CM:SF. You might wonder if CM:BS, a 4 year old game, is expecting any updates. You may not know about the CM:SF2 update. You might want to come to the forums and ask the nice helpful users some questions so those with more knowledge could concisely inform you. If you look at the CM:BS news page http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=334&Itemid=576 you might be forgiven in thinking that there are no expansions planned.

But of course we have to jump down his throat that he dare question spending $60.

Imagine replying like this....

Yea $60 is kind of expensive, but I've gotten really good value for the money. There is a lot of content included with CM:BS and a bunch of user made content for you to access. (maybe link to the scenario depot here?). You can see some of the added features since CM:SF on this page http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=338&Itemid=583 and there is always the demo available here http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=340&Itemid=584

Right now we're expecting an CM:BS expansion somewhere around (insert date here).

Imagine that, helpful, informative, non-argumentative. But why would we want to do that? When we can reply like this: 

It is possible for people to hold views that are in opposition from each other without being petty. I mean this guy has posted nine times. Five in the T-72 Balkans on Fire forum between 2010 and 2012 and four times in this thread. I'm sure he has left with a positively sterling opinion on Battlefront and the forum users. And of course we were perfectly right to drag him down as quickly as we can because this 9 post lurker is obviously a troll who wants to destroy Battlefront.

Maybe next time someone says something you don't agree with you can not immediately go on the attack. If you are really triggered by the possibility that someone thinks $60 is expensive you can just turn off your computer and not reply.
 

I think this is really an 'eye of the beholder' issue, a real classic one for that. As being part of the 'old guard' myself (at least I think I am after 10+ years and 1000+ posts and having done some beta testing in the past), I don't see any problem with SgtHatred's post. At the same time I understand IanL, Sburke and others because often people that are trying to be helpful on the forum get flak just for having their own viewpoint.
I think everyone is entitled their own viewpoint. Conceptual attributes like 'game-braking' are as subjective as attributes can come, because what exactly defines game breaking? 
Personally I have been so busy with other things that I have rarely had the time and or energy to play CM over the last 2 years. When I tried some 4.0 games, I did encounter the 'run from prepared positions under arty fire' behavior. Because in that particular scenario it did break my immersion, I decided to wait for a patch so I can enjoy the content I play in the most optimal form. I mostly enjoy campaigns when played the first time, so that's why.
In the end we are all here to enjoy the game. It's good that there is an old guard on the forum, at the same time it's good that there are new people on the forums. Obviously opinions about bugs, due patches and other things will differ. That's what a forum is about. 
Anyway, I don't see the problem with this discussion and most of the viewpoints offered here. As long as people keep discussion civilized and not take or make things personal, its all fine imo :).

I think this is really an 'eye of the beholder' issue, a real classic one for that. As being part of the 'old guard' myself (at least I think I am after 10+ years and 1000+ posts and having done some beta testing in the past), I don't see any problem with SgtHatred's post. At the same time I understand IanL, Sburke and others because often people that are trying to be helpful on the forum get flak just for having their own viewpoint.
I think everyone is entitled their own viewpoint. Conceptual attributes like 'game-braking' are as subjective as attributes can come, because what exactly defines game breaking? 
Personally I have been so busy with other things that I have rarely had the time and or energy to play CM over the last 2 years. When I tried some 4.0 games, I did encounter the 'run from prepared positions under arty fire' behavior. Because in that particular scenario it did break my immersion, I decided to wait for a patch so I can enjoy the content I play in the most optimal form. I mostly enjoy campaigns when played the first time, so that's why.
In the end we are all here to enjoy the game. It's good that there is an old guard on the forum, at the same time it's good that there are new people on the forums. Obviously opinions about bugs, due patches and other things will differ. That's what a forum is about. 
Anyway, I don't see the problem with this discussion and most of the viewpoints offered here. As long as people keep discussion civilized and not take or make things personal, its all fine imo :).

I think this is really an 'eye of the beholder' issue, a real classic one for that. As being part of the 'old guard' myself (at least I think I am after 10+ years and 1000+ posts and having done some beta testing in the past), I don't see any problem with SgtHatred's post. At the same time I understand IanL, Sburke and others because often people that are trying to be helpful on the forum get flak just for having their own viewpoint.
I think everyone is entitled their own viewpoint. Conceptual attributes like 'game-braking' are as subjective as attributes can come, because what exactly defines game breaking? 
Personally I have been so busy with other things that I have rarely had the time and or energy to play CM over the last 2 years. When I tried some 4.0 games, I did encounter the 'run from prepared positions under arty fire' behavior. Because in that particular scenario it did break my immersion, I decided to wait for a patch so I can enjoy the content I play in the most optimal form. I mostly enjoy campaigns when played the first time, so that's why.
In the end we are all here to enjoy the game. It's good that there is an old guard on the forum, at the same time it's good that there are new people on the forums. Obviously opinions about bugs, due patches and other things will differ. That's what a forum is about. 
Anyway, I don't see the problem with this discussion and most of the viewpoints offered here. As long as people keep discussion civilized and not take or make things personal, its all fine imo :).

@MOS:96B2P has served ... he probably has plenty of medals already
Banter aside - if you want to know stuff about the mechanics of this game, he's definitely not someone I'd have on my ignore list.

Totally.
/thread

Coming from a guy who is used to paying third world prices 50% discount on Steam, but paid RM256 = USD60 for combat mission, and planning to buy the whole series eventually, yes it is damn well worth it!!!. My first purchase is CMBS as well.