LemuelG

My understanding is that the 'Master Installer' has been in operation for only a couple of months - how exactly did it work prior to this? Surely there was a basic and much smaller patch before which people could install? That's what I want - because the larger (to understate it) 'update' is now officially digging into my pockets (for my internet bill, since I get substantial discount for having a cap which I don't exceed) for things I don't want. I want to use my remaining bandwidth for other things. So, instead of a breezy $10 I'm looking at a ballooning cost of up to $30 all-inclusive - yes, it sucks that my ISP is chiseling (don't get me started), but that's not exactly relevant.

That's an idea, I haven't used one of those in like, ten years, so it didn't occur to me. Though frankly I'm not blowing the rest of my bandwidth and paying extra for my internet this month. I just want the update, at a manageable size. I don't want all that other stuff! I just don't want it... if I did, I would purchase it and download it separately; and, I don't want to have to wait all darn day for a glorified patch - give people the option if that's what they want, fine, but this is completely bonkers. I cannot conceive why this must be so.

Too soon man... not cool! But seriously, I need a drink.

No I wasn't - I also figured I should stop whinging until I'd actually upgraded the engine to 3.0 so I bought it - but that did not work out too well. If you guys thought I was mad before... Sometimes - I get things, you know? I see why fog-o-war and AI might get neglected, but other times? Like the time I tried to buy 3.0 only for the download to fail at around 9Gb and reset to nothing whatsoever... what is this? The 90s? Can BF join the rest of us on planet Earth? It's like they're just not thinking... Sometimes there's just no excuse. I think I just have to turn my back on BF after buying and playing their games for many happy years.

10Gbs in one file. One un-interruptable file. For maybe less than a hundred Mb. Guess what? It was interrupted somewhere around 9Gb, and now the entire thing is gone, it seems my router just can't handle it. Nearly a third of my monthly bandwidth - down the Goddamn toilet. Thanks a lot BF. In the history of hare-brained, half-arsed, user-unfriendly schemes, this takes the ****ing cake. Remember when CMBN came out, and it was almost impossible for many of us to get the demo from the crappy host BF chose and we had to use bit torrent client to get it? Yeah, this is worse. Can somebody please put this lunacy in reverse gear, give me the update I paid for in a manageable size or download - or give me my money back. Am I fuming? You better believe it - unacceptable.

I wouldn't say that - I'm more a "50% of the volume of the glass is water, and 50% air" person. I know a thing or two about software programming, particularly AI logic; I don't subscribe to the 'no can do' philosophy of coding, there are always solutions - I would not accept that attitude from a subordinate, you would be replaced by somebody with a better attitude. One should strive for excellence, always - why settle for less?

Eh, I said I liked it - just not enough to buy the same game five times over. What do I want? This game, plus: - curves, on roads etc - hand-to-hand combat - deformable terrain, specifically subterranean fortifications (yes, I know - they couldn't work it so that the forts weren't viewable without eyes-on, maybe we shouldn't be able to see anything we can't see? You can't tell me that's impossible, many games do it) - satisfaction of the particular conditions of the campaigns they purport to be simulating - AI that shows more initiative and sensible decision-making Can you guys not get in behind that? Maybe if the fanbase made a bit more noise about it they'd try harder, and we'd get more. Maybe if the game wasn't so obscure (which the arcane sales strategy ensures will persist) to the world at-large more people would get on board, and BF'd have more money to plow into giving us the good stuff. Take hand-to-hand combat, far from being impossible, all I ever saw from BF was that "it wasn't common enough to bother including". I wish they'd bother, I don't think it was all that uncommon. Certainly I'd have made use of it many times - pulling hair when guys post-up a meter from the foe to shoot with their bolt-action. I also clearly recall proving USAB squads had BARs when CMBN came out, yet was this relatively simple change patched-in? No, one had to buy MG to get the TOE that the USAB had instituted (unofficially at that stage) by Overlord - it might seem petty, but that's what being a grog is about really - I spent a long long time making a La Fiere scenario, agonizing over Google street to include every tactical aspect of the terrain, painstakingly researching USAB order of battle - but I was ultimately foiled by the absence of French, or even light German tanks to depict the German counter-attack across the causeway; the houses included in vanilla were pitiful with almost zero protection from light-arms fire, La Fiere manor is a little castle - riflemen rooted-out Germans sniping from the top windows by entering the house and firing up through the floorboards, but in CMBN - no need, a few bursts of automatic fire blasting through the walls and the Germans would run away (to somewhere not remotely useful, and probably facing in the wrong direction) - it was impossible to accurately represent the battle, after all the effort I put in it felt like nothing but frustration. So I figured - ok, take a break, the game just came out, lots of really good content, it's still fun, they'll get around to it - and here I am years later, faced with the world's most confusing and un-user-friendly marketing and sales strategy, and only superficial changes to the engine. Sorry for expressing myself, I know what it is 'round here - Steve condescending, and sycophants blindly lashing-out at dissenters (not you Mike, you're a good sort who at least engages earnestly). To repeat - I criticize because I care, because despite its flaws it's still a really enjoyable tactical sim, maybe the best there is... but then why do I find myself playing a lot of the venerable CCV engine, or the awfully-titled, but very enjoyable Achtung Panzer from Graviteam? I'm annoyed - somewhere between these three games is the perfect WWII tactical sim, but for one reason or another none is fully satisfying - CC is 2D, AP doesn't have PvP or a sophisticated scenario creation tool. And they've all got ghastly AI, with CM's being the worst by virtue of being non-existent. I don't blindly accept the excuses offered for why this or that can't be done - 90% of the time this translates to "too much effort, too little reward", and while I understand the logic, forgive me if I don't get in behind that cynicism whole-heartedly!

Barbarossa > Berlin, in one game - vehicles, weapons, TOEs etc - compared to June/summer 1944. Do you remember that? Maybe 'scope' would be more to your liking? Semantically, that is. What exactly is it that RT offers that BB does not?

Fair enough, value-for-money is a personal, subjective thing - I'm not saying I don't like the game, just that the improvements to the engine over the course of several games has been mostly superficial - I've been loitering here trying to inspire myself to purchase RT, but really have just ended-up disappointed that so little progress has been made on the issues which I felt were detracting from the tactical fidelity of the engine. The CMx2 engine still exists in a world of 45 degree angles, which is both awkward and unrealistic for a 1:1 sim, and it's not the only sim-breaking problem which persists after years of development. I criticize because I care, I want the game to be better; new vehicles, TOEs and map elements are nice, but for my part not worth the expense when the games are almost identical mechanically to vanilla CM:BN. Where I get irritated is when BF are bringing out this and that 'new' title, for full-price, and associated modules for not much less, when I consider vanilla CM:BN to still be incomplete in a number of ways... why should I have to purchase CM:MG to access the TOE that the USAB was already using during Overlord? How can a game encompassing the US ops during and after Overlord be considered complete and representative of the campaign without French tanks, which made more appearances in the first weeks of combat than German tanks? Where are the buildings to adequately represent the castle-like Norman houses which featured so prominently in the bocage fighting? I can't help but feel that BF has given-up trying to expand and improve their engine in favour of nickel-and-diming their loyal fanbase for as long as possible. The news that the eastern front will consist of up to four separate games and associated modules just seems crazy and indefensible to me, and the comparison with CM:BB is not a good look. Each to their own.

Remember CM:Barbarossa to Berlin and how it was just one title? I do. I'd trade all the pixels and polygons for some of that tactical crunchiness and vast scale we all loved; but wait - I don't have to, because I have CM:BB, and I'm not buying RT. I still haven't gotten over CM:BN without French tanks or realistic USAB TOE (not gonna have that argument again, I proved it last time, and nothing happened). And earth-pimples. I might buy CM:RT - Stalingrad/Summer-1942/whatever, if they code hand-to-hand combat. So few of the flaws of this engine have been rectified over multiple years and titles, why do you guys keep buying it? It's nice they got flamethrowers in there, I guess.

Not really my point, though it's all quite interesting to me. In spite of their attrition they did indeed manage to make good on it and maintain their combat strength at acceptable levels - levels which proved superior to the best the Wehrmacht had left available to them. If I had a point, it's that designing a tank for redundancy after x km because that's about how far an offensive might realistically travel before reaching a culminating point is not sensible (I know that's not your argument, but you touched upon my point, so I defended it), that there are certainly contingent situations in which tankers would be obliged to undertake forced marches of hundreds of km, and then sustain enough fighting power to go a few hundred more, in combat. And when it broke down, hopefully it could be restored in field conditions with minimal effort - the Panther's transmission was not only laughably frail and prone to crapping the bed, but when it did it was extremely difficult to replace, not to mention the difficulties of recovering the vehicle in battle. I asked before: would they have made it at all had they been equipped with Panthers? What do you think, now you've become acquainted (better than I, on appearance) with the situation? It seems to me the law of averages and operational history dictates that no, no way they could have. How did this notable lack of operational mobility effect the Wehrmacht? Probably quite negatively, I say, knowing full well it's outside the purview of this game and thread. If the Panther was a kind of fire-and-forget disposable weapon, it sure was expensive and demanding of material.

How does it work that out? Does it know the exact route 4AD CCB took and the exact layout of the roads there in 1944? Does it know the location of the front lines and unit divisions? I know it's quite a useful tool, but I didn't think it was quite that good. Maybe they got temporarily lost traveling at night in unfamiliar country they had not been prepared to navigate (they had been ready to head east), maybe they had to detour because of blockages or to avoid snarling with other units rushing to block the shoulder of the German advance? I don't know, Google doesn't know... you don't know. Forgive me, but I'm going to take the word of the 8th battalion's CO (who led CCB on that march) over a lazy reckoning on Google Maps - 161 miles, in under a day. Why would he lie? Who knows better than he his mileage? You? It would be quite a shock for you to overturn the well-established historiography of the battle after a quick glance a Google Maps, a second ago you thought they were in Metz (clearly confused with their Army HQ). http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-battle-of-the-bulge-4th-armored-division-help-end-the-siege-of-bastogne.htm

As the Crow flies... According to every single source I have available to me (like Hugh Cole's *The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge*) gives 4AD's CCB marched 150-160 miles (about 250km) just to launch the attack to relieve Bastogne, and it was not even remotely a fresh outfit - most of its active AFVs were issued in England prior to Overlord and were already beat to **** after being involved in heavy campaigning. They also did it with strictly limited supply and in highly unfavourable climatic conditions. (edit) 4AD's rest-area following their campaigning on the Siegfried line was Domnon-les-Dieuze, when they moved into Belgium they marched to the vicinity of Nives via Longwy.

4th AD's Shermans covered that in a forced march of less than a day and went on to fight their way into Bastogne and throw the Wehrmacht back into Germany. If they'd had Panthers... would they have even arrived at all?

Maybe so, in one court martial during the war (of Horace West) a Colonel testified that Patton had directed soldiers to not take any prisoners if they continued to resist when the Americans had approached to within 200 yards of their position - Patton claimed he had been 'misinterpreted' - West had perhaps erred only killing them in cold blood after their surrender had already been accepted. West was convicted and sentenced to life - but was back at the front about a year later. It was/is extremely rare for anybody to actually admit to doing it themselves - always it's someone else, someone they didn't know from another battalion or somesuch. Reading Red Army vet's accounts you'd think it never happened at all. I strongly doubt the vast majority of such cases of summary battlefield executions would be prosecutable, even if there was a will to do it, finding witnesses ready to implicate their chums would be quite unlikely. I doubt it's much different for German soldiers, though I could be wrong. I'd argue that the overwhelming majority of the Germans who were 'hounded' were implicated in civilian massacres or cold-blooded POW mass-murders analogous to West's, rather than a neglect to accept the surrender of a foe, and then you've got guys like Peiper and his minions, who got off relatively easy and lived relatively peaceable and agreeable lives (until unknown assassins finished him off in '76).