Paper Tiger

A quick reply, you might want to have a few guys performing a Target Light fire mission on the building you're attempting to enter. As long as you don't throw any HE at the building, your boys won't get hurt by the small arms fire. Also, place a movement waypoint outside the door so that your assaulting squad can use Target on the building as well. Go in hard and heavy and don't mind the ammo expenditure. There's plenty more in your vehicles. Or you can use SMOKE. It's amazing how frequently folks forget to use this valuable asset. I use it all the time.

I should have said the Commonwealth instead of Britain, my bad! The New Zealanders threw their hat in the ring too.

I don't think that WW1 would offer much for the CMx2 engine, that's for sure. I might be wrong but I suspect that the BFC guys are really armour fans and that might apply to their customer base as well. Me, I'm more of an Infantry guy I like tanks but I don't want them to be the centrepiece of my missions. I think WW1 Grand Strategy, done properly, would make for a very good wargame. I am looking forward to AGEOD's 'To End All Wars' too. But it might be a few months after the release before it becomes really first-class. If they can make sure that fronts remain reasonably static and hard to crack without one side making a major effort, it'll be a classic. To be sure, the air and naval aspects of the war have been more popular with the gaming community at large.

For me, WW1 is the ultimate war for a wargame as it featured static lines, massive, lengthy offensives that resulted in gains of a few kilometers at most. I have no idea why but that's a big, big draw for me. It probably doesn't help that it's not a war that the US got involved in until near the end either . Until 1917, it's just Germany, Austria-Hungary, The Ottomans, France, Britain, Italy and Russia plus a few Balkan minors thrown in for good measure.

That was a one off and I don't expect that ever to happen again. We can speculate that BFC were forced to released the game before they thought it was ready due to contractual relations with another game company. Steve posted once that v1.05 was the version he'd have liked to release the game in. That was about 3-4 months after the release. Since then, BFC have been releasing games when they are ready and every other CMx2 title has been pretty solid at launch.

Two things I really liked about Shock Force: One was that it was a fictional setting which meant that it allowed designers to craft plausible missions without being constrained by history. Designing for WW2 NWE has required a considerable amount of research before getting to work with the editor. Not to mention that Google Earth shows us the state of the world in the last few years and so making maps with GE is much easier. This is the same for Black Sea. The second was that it was not just about killing the other side and capturing/holding VP locations without regard for your own casualties. You could really make life difficult for the US/NATO player by imposing Preserve Terrain victory conditions on him as well as punishing him hard for taking casualties during a mission. With good VP objectives in place, suddenly the Syrian, and especially the UNCONs, became a serious force to be reckoned with. I guess Black Sea will eventually become my favourite title.

It's a Monday so I'd have to say CMSF is my favourite CM game. However, on another day, I might reply that CMBN is my favourite. They're both so good that it's hard to say which one is my favourite overall. It would be easier to say that I have little attachment to either CMFI or to CMA as I have never felt inspired enought to make a mission for either of them. Don't ask why. I really couldn't say. Italy just isn't interesting for me. I've only just started to look at CMRT and I am beginning to think that ahistorical. fictional missions are the way for me to go with this title. At this stage of the war, 44-45, the battles are pretty gargantuan and I'm a RT player only. Anything more than a couple of companies is too much for me to handle without pausing and I hate pausing.

I would leave it in when the human player is the defender. Nothing wrong with getting plastered by an AI attacker's opening bombardment. That's as good a bombardment as the AI is going to make and it should hurt. I don't use the stock QB maps. All mine are customised to my own playstyle and so are not suitable for BF QB maps. I never have the AI waste its artillery with bombardments on the attacker's set-up zones. If the AI is doing an assault or an attack, yes, if doing a Probe, Meeting or defending, no opening bombardment.

Sadly, we can't although we have been asking for improvements for some time. I would be content for the time being with being able to add delays to the AI-scripted opening bombardment but even that appears to be hard to do. Major caveat. I have yet to play Red Thunder or design a mission using the v3 engine so it's possible I've missed some new functionality.

I used to be a big fan of the World in Flames board game and was quite excited back in the late 90's when I heard that they were going to make a computer version of the board game. We know how that panned out. In the meantime, I found Hearts of Iron and that looked like it would scratch the WiF itch. It did. It had one of the most detailed tech trees I've seen in a game. I bought HOI 2 when it was released and bought the Armaggedon expansion too. But, by this time, I was getting too good at it. I could beat the AI opponent hands-down every time on the hardest difficulty settings. I remember being hugely disappointed playing a HOI2 ARM Russian campaign and crushing the Germans in the spring of 1942 and conquering the whole of Europe and China by late 1943. So, in spite of all the 'improvement's to HOI3, I didn't pick it up until the 'Finest Hour' expansion. I've played several campaigns of HOI3 TFH but have allowed the AI to control my armies. I set the objectives and the parameters etc but let the AI manage the action. This revitalised the game play for me and the improvements to this style of play coming in HOI4 insures that I will buy it close to release or soon afterwards. With regards to realism, IMO it's at least as realistic as any of the other games that attempt to simulate WW2 at this level if not more. BTW, which overpriced operational games with counters are you talking about? I play 'War in the East' as well, but only the scenarios.

Heh heh. Computers, iPads, handphones, (hell, ANY technology,) are second nature to the younger generation. My nieces and nephews are all far more tech savvy than I'll ever be. It's a wonderful world. I have bought quite a few games from Steam in my time. Matrix Games had been dead set against it for a long time as well and yet they have recently released the Distant Worlds bundle package on Steam and, surprise, surprise, it sold really well, just like the pro-Steam crowd said it would. The world didn't end. The important thing is to make Steam optional because there is a lot of Steam hate out there. Don't see BFC doing this though

Further checking reveals that there are only about 80 Germans all in on the board at the start of the mission, spread over three locations. The rest arrive as reinforcements. They have no artillery support either. The reason I'm looking at this is because I'm currently working on something with this just now

I think BFC's plan is to have separate titles for each year of the war with modules for each. If BFC is still following their original plan and what's gone before we should see at least one module for RT which is supposed to cover the fighting from Bagration through to the fall of Berlin. The module, should add more formations to the game, SS and Partisans for example as well as winter weather (I hope) and hopefully, a second module to cover the end of the war, 'Gotterdammerung' perhaps? Then a new title for 1943 with modules, and a new title for 1942, and one for 1941. But I've been out of the loop for a while so perhaps the plan has changed?

Just checked on this and found that the OP is exaggerating just a tad. The Brit forces outnumber the German defenders by 2.5:1, (320 to 120 give or take a few). Plus the Brits have Bren carriers and lots of artillery.

I was an avid SL/ASL player and walked into the Electronic Boutique in Ipswich and saw a copy of CMBO. It looked more likely to satisfy my ASL-itch than the competitors so I bought it, took it home and started playing. Then started work with the editor adapting my favourite ASL missions.

I guess one problem with bunkers is that there has to be a bit of luck involved in taking them down. The Paras have a few demo charges which are effective but you might have used them all already, or they might miss, or fail to do the job. You have lots of firepower at your disposal, but the crew might not get killed. Your bazookas can also kill it but they might not. Yes. How could that possibly go wrong. Funnily enough, that's almost what I do except I send a platoon to the woods to the north.

This sounds like a project I'd like to undertake for my own campaigns at least. Montebourg with flamethrowers! I know exactly where I'd like to use them. It might be less work to redo existing missions than to create a whole new campaign with new maps and all.

This can happen. It certainly happened to me when I was playtesting the Reithorst series. The important thing is to kill as many of the Germans as you can. It will make the next mission a tad easier. Or just skeddadle when you see what you're up against. Edit to add: I suspect this might be an easier mission to win playing in RT than in WEGO. I rarely play WEGO but when I do, I play far more cautiously because I can't adjust my plan while the turn plays out. While in RT, I can make adjustments instantly. It's small enough to play in RT very comfortably.

"arsewater". What's that? Is it like Newcastle Brown Ale? Anyway, when playtesting, I found I had plenty of time in this mission because the map is so small and it's possible to advance from the set-up area to the bridge in a couple of minutes. The bunker IS a tough nut to crack, but once it's down and the MGs are suppressed, the Germans fold really quickly. I don't ever recall playing this one through to the end. It always ended in a German surrender for me.

Operation Epsom really wasn't very "Normandy". Heavy rain, sodden ground, no air support and a determined German defence that could still fight effectively on the first day in spite of being subjected to one of Monty's famously huge, preliminary artillery bombardments. You should have a shed-load of artillery in this mission though as some have pointed out already. It just arrives over time. As a side note, I thought the maps for the ASH series in this campaign were the best map work I've done. If you have to replay any of these missions, at least the map looks good.

I'd love to do that but there is one small snag with that and that is that people who don't have the battlepack won't be able to play it anymore. I have plans to revist this one final time once BFC is finished with Normandy and if there are captured French tanks, I'll definitely sub them in. I'd also like to sub in some of the security forces that came with the MG module to replace the defenders in some places. They might be better for the opener as well as the Georgian ridge missions instead of the standard German infantry formations that shipped with the title. The version that's currently on my hard drive already has Pz IIIs in place of the Pz IVs in Turnbull's Ridge and Labrynth. While these changes are all easy to make, and indeed, most have already been done, I doubt that there'll be an extra mission. There's just too much to do at the moment and I'd like to do something for Red Thunder. But Montebourg is pretty complete anyway.

Wow. thanks for your wishes guys. I appreciate it. And don't worry. The complainers don't get me down although they do try my patience from time to time In fact, all they do is inspire me to make the campaigns more playable for folks of different playing skills. I started out doing that in 'The Scottish Corridor' but could have done better. After the 'feedback' I received on the Scottish Corridor, I gave the Green players much more time to complete the missions. My only real regret was making the Veteran level of the 'Crescendo of Doom' mission too hard. That one was just too hard by far but it's already been fixed in the rework. In fact the Grainville series has been overhauled to make it possible for Veteran players to have enough force to fight in Fair and Square. That was meant to be a fun battle to play but there's no fun if you have no tanks left.

Late to the party? Just a tad. It's good to be reminded that folks really liked this one. This is my favourite campaign of the three I've done for CMBN and it was designed to be FUN to play. And yes, it's highly replayable. I've played it at least 5 times and I will play it again no doubt.

All Allied core units for the Nijmegen campaign are Regulars with a mix of Veterans and the occasional Green thrown in. Germans are almost all GREEN. And, in many scenarios, their morale is not brilliant either For the Scottish Corridor, the Cameronians are Regulars while the ASH are a mix of Green and Regular. Realistic as the ASH was rebuilt from scratch after the original formation surrendered with the fall of Singapore. The Germans were mostly GREEN again but the SS Hitler Youth had quite high morale and good leadership. Further, if you look at the numbers at the end of the missions, you'll find that you were fighting numerically inferior foes most of the time. Placement is what makes my AI defence so tough. That and the system that I have developed for crafting my defensive AI plans

Interesting that you guys seem to forget that I have included different levels of difficulty to cater for as many of BFC's customers as possible for my last two campaigns. If you find the missions are too difficult, don't bust your balls replaying until you get a win. Just accept the loss, drop down to the lower difficulty missions and enjoy yourselves. Which other designers are willing to put in the work, (and trust me, it's a lot of work), to provide this for you? It certainly seems like this effort is unappreciated.