BletchleyGeek

Just look - with attention - up the thread Michael. I was taking the piss. Unless 'snak' is snark in Canadian.

Don't be so snaky Dynaman, you got plenty of rifles, pistols and sub machine guns to play. Snak just pisses off people and makes them to get entrenched in their initial positions. Snak aside, clearly something got longer to solve than Steve assumed. It is clear that there is a lot of work that needs to be done by hand to release patches and games, and perhaps there aren't enough pairs of hand for it. Maybe the feedback on the Rome To Victory campaign came back and wasn't great, maybe there is still some OOB imperfection like Italians having Bazookas because a copy and paste error... who knows. Yet, as long as there is people grumbling there is people caring. The day that there is only snak left will be a sad day.

I am kind of expecting that in the books, whenever they come out, Cersei comes on top. Because GRRM's worlds are sometimes a lot like our own world and the most ruthless, cold blooded murderers of kin and foe alike are the ones who most often won and got to write History. Or something similarly messy and vaguely unsatisfying. In GRRM books if the good guys win usually comes at a price.

The list is certainly exhaustive, there's even a military cookbook

I never read historical fiction, but I quite liked Vindolanda. The historical notes at the end of the novel are a reminder of how much is lost to us from Roman times, even if imagination can fill the gaps in very entertaining ways

Hmmm that sounds familiar Great initiative to start this AAR, following it closely too!

A while ago this was brought up by someone, and Steve didn't sound very happy to learn about it. GOG has been caught in the past putting up stuff in the store without verifying rights to distribution.

No idea what is the movie but this selection of scenes is quite awesome. Just in case @Battlefront.com is considering upgrading the text messages and the decals...

This, pretty much. The kind of situations you describe are indeed the sweet spot of CMx2. As you and @DMS point out, one needs to shape the terrain mesh in order to obtain a more accurate and effective representation of fortifications. Your Enter Germany scenario did that quite well. It is though sometimes hard to create useful trenches or fixed heavy weapons firing positions because of the terrain grid resolution. A 6 meters wide "slit" trench is like 10 wider than it should be. Still waiting for the patch to correct a few things, but maps have a lot to do in amplifying casualties. I find the CMFB maps to be kind of the peak of map making in CMx2 - dropping mortar shells in a flat as a parade ground piece of terrain is way more effective than doing so on the Belgian countryside with its ditches, and general uneven, hilly terrain.

Stuff like "we have hacked your computer and have footage of you enjoying porn", with a sentence like "by the way, your password is XXXX"? And XXXXX is a password appearing in one of the big password data dumps. That is a scam that has been out for a couple months, but like those thpusands of entreperneuring Nigerian princes with millions of dollars to give away to willing business partners, they probably still do it because there is some fish taking the bait.

The practical difference I am aware of between credit and debit cards (other than interest rates) is that if you use the later to say, rent a car, you'll also get charged for whatever is the amount set as the deposit/excess. The money is then put into "escrow", whenever the rental company gives the green light, you get a refund. With a credit card you only get charged if the rental company feels within its right to claim the money. In other words, with a debit card, you are literally giving the money pretty much as if it was cash in hand, with a credit card, it is imaginary money until there's a problem. The issues I have found is that typically, the rental company (even big ones) are hopelessly slow refunding, and in one case with Hertz, I had to make a few angry calls to have them cough up the real money they took from my accounts. If you're operating in a foreign currency, you'll be also paying double comissions etc.

FWIW I played the Germans against @Lethafacein a similar way as you played the US side @slyniper. I didn't win

There you go

I was alerted of that on Thursday evening by the website that I linked up the thread. The story ran in The Guardian as early as Saturday morning, AEST.

Thanks for the comments @CMFDR there's a narrative wargame coming up that follows the 7th IR through 1942 to 1945, and they mention this book as a major reference. Will add it to my wishlist (as two slots recently opened up).

The most relevant baseline would be to check what is the number of people posting on this thread raising this issue (or doing so privately via the helpdesk) that entered their credit card details on the provided form, versus the number of customers who didn't enter any credit card details and used directly Paypal (rather than having the website forward to Paypal the card details). If that info is being logged, of course. I used Paypal directly to buy CMSF2 on 5th December 2018, and I didn't get any cards compromised.

Do some research on that site.

I recommend subscribing to this site https://haveibeenpwned.com and the companion search engine to check your passwords (you need to trust them) is good to control damage if you suspect pwnage https://haveibeenpwned.com/Passwords I just was alerted this morning by these guys as my email address appeared on a massive database of emails and passwords counting 700+ M entries that was being shared around.

Thanks for the answers, Steve. Production Line is a fun little game if you are into logistics or Rube Goldberg machines Still people feel their products are being relegated to the back of the store unfairly - I agree with you that there are just a lot of games out there and that naturally reduce visibility. Law of averages and all that.

I have been deliberately picky in my selection, Steve. I think there's a lot of generic churning on the Slitherine line up these days. They have significantly increased their depth in purely strategy genres - like 4X - which were already carried by Matrix in the early 2000s (like Reach for the Stars! or Armada 2525). I'd say that they're diversifying and broadening their audience base. That means that the kind of games become more accessible - i.e. Panzer General clones and introductory stuff like Battle Academy. My criterion for selecting those are the ones I personally find to offer something genuinely unique (as in never seen before) or exceptionally well done/researched. Your games fall in that category, too. With 2D games some production costs are indeed lower, but other are higher but typically borne out by volunteer, unpaid work. Those enthusiast volunteers spend hundreds or thousands of hours and substantial money to furnish that research. I am not saying that your research isn't good, Steve, just that tactical war games feed on a kind of information that usually isn't available (except for the US Army thanks to the excellent Historical service and their Green Books series). Or require extensive manuals that need to be proofread and actually contain useful information. On a different level, I think that coming out with credible (not perfect) external ballistics that gets right about 80% of the time match ups ranging from Panzer III vs 45mm guns to Panther versus IS-2 engaging each other at >1kms, is less time consuming than coming out with a credible system that emulates friction at the operational level due to the interaction of traffic congestion, communications and weather, or MACV intelligence collection in say, the Tay Ninh province in late 1966. Of course, if you have particularly ehm, passionate inputs, you may spend years working out an impressive external ballistics model. I just reminded another one: Panzer Command Kharkov and their follow ups. Kind of following the groove set by CMx1. But its unique feature was the interface with Google Earth to capture geographic data to setup maps. That was kind of rickety but a very cool feature (hint, hint). That's interesting and I appreciate you share that insight, Steve. I wonder if you have done any attempt to identify the causes of either issue. Reaching out seems to be a very common preoccupation these days in the video game development world (see the Epic vs Valve upcoming store wars). This guy - another hard ass indie developer survivor http://www.positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/ shares some insightful stuff from time to time (he also posts some bull and potentially broken C++ code :P). I think you have been very tactical - doh! - picking up the periods and theaters to cover, which are fresher in the memory (and imagination) of the bulk of your potential market. You may only have missed on not having a Combat Mission: Indochina in your line up. And that's a big may, imo.

In the 3D space, other than Graviteam I can think of: - That failed attempt by Eric Young that Matrix released circa 2004 - Mad Minute Games Civil War games, and their continuation as NorbSoftDev Scourge of War Series (latest expansion to their take on Waterloo released in 2016) - We can consider Histwar to have been released twice (at least!) In the 2.5D space we have the new Close Combats and that beautiful curio, Firefight. In the 2D space since 2001 we have quite a few of them: - Red Devils over Arnhem / Highway to the Reich / Conquest of the Aegean / Command Ops 1 & 2 - 2by3 Uncommon Valour, War in the Pacific, the Admiral's Edition follow up, War in the East, War in the West - Frank Hunter's Campaigns in the Danube (the best operational level Napoleonic game out there) and Piercing Fortress Europa - Desert War 1940-42 - TOAW improvements and versions 3 and 4 - Flashpoint Campaigns (both the 2006 edition and the newer games) - Armored Brigade (not entirely sure just yet how serious it actually is, though) - Command (nuHarpoon) and I am sure fellow forum members can add more titles that try to capture in a meaningful way some of the physical, economic, psychological and political constraints that make war different from other human competitive activities such as chess, soccer or cricket. Trading off level of detail for broadness of scope and scale as appropiate, of course. Ballpark figure is about 20... compare that with the number of "isometric RPGs inspired by D&D edition 3 where choices matter and the main character is guaranteed to bang at least two party NPCs over the course of the game" released between 2001 and 2019, and we'll be more or less even. I think that is about the size of what is called a "niche genre". Indeed, a tiny figure when compared with FPS, RTS, third person shooters, platformers, or casual puzzle games. In any case, the volume of titles released hardly matters to determine if a genre is "dying", what it matters is to see the historical figures for average number of units sold. Are you guys selling noticeably less over the years? Is that something hitting every one on the list above in the same way? Where I do agree with you is that 3D tactical wargames are hard yakka - there's lots of roadkill on that particular route. I am pretty sure those young ones - if they are of the clever sort - who have the skills and the talent will be happier to use said skills and talent getting a nice fat paycheck every fortnight, padding their 401k (or equivalent) accounts, providing for a safe and comfortable environment to raise children. Why should they give that up to work more hours than a wall clock and, on top of that, have to deal with an audience whose more vocal members can be quite abrasive? They would be nuts, wouldn't they?

I just don't understand how someone can pay 60$ to fly an F86 over Georgia circa 2008, the Persian Gulf in the 2020s, or Normandy in 1944. But sure the joy of doing so is real to them. I usually tolerate and respect, until I observe those same individuals getting all worked up when one just mentions to them, or in front of them, that alternative sims exist, with better value for money to the average fan. There already credible alternatives, who actually have expressed respect for your work in public several times, yet approach the subject matter differently. I have no reason to assume more developers will turn out to do similar games, with emphasis on different aspects or looking at different periods. The past is a different country, they do things differenly there... the catch being that we are all the past of some future. Tolkien was an Edwardian man who came to see: - crashing the Empire to abject lows of oppression and eventual dissolution, - along with the downfall of the ethical, moral and political system of the 19th century, - two vicious world wars, - a great depression, - with the cherry on top that was the cold war and the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction. So he was perhaps a bit dramatic, and that ending sounds like being sad. But my reading is that Tolkien was just observing that the Old plants the seeds of the New, and it is a good thing for the former to leave space to the later, to make its own mistakes or reach heights never seen before. Such is the way of the world, until somebody makes the mistake to invent a potion of eternal youth

Good timing, indeed

I need to check that out. My reading on the American Revolution is quite sparse - Middlekrauf's classic The Glorious Cause and not much more. I hear you. I have imposed myself a ban on buying stuff unless I make progress through the backlog.

You should, they're truly fantastic.