Jock Tamson

I don't think that is the case. If you can draw a blue targeting line to the item(s) you want to spot, you have line of sight. Whether (or when) your troops subsequently spot the target is down to the spotting cycle.

Steam & Iron. Command Modern Air Naval Operations.

I believe [via the BBC] that yesterday the same Twitter account had claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian transport, around the same time that the Malaysian Airlines plane went down.

Wishlist for next CM Engine: - A dedicated server executable for hosting multiplayer. Playback movies created by the server which all players pull down at turn end. Server defineable options for the game such as time window length for turn submissions. - 2v2, 3v3 etc - allowing scenarios where one player commands allied armour, one commands allied infantry etc. Combined with C2 so that each player only gets spotting contacts from their own command and other players' contacts are dripped through via C2 (or not). - Friendly AI forces and friendly AI plans - Enabling the AI to use suppression, new AI SOPs for assaulting occupied buildings etc - Force compositions in XML which can be imported into Quick Battles. Would allow player to create eg a 1300 point Wermacht July 44 NWTO combined arms force which could be downloaded by others to go up against in their QBs. - Add ability to give elements of the AI's QB force a % chance to appear, so you don't know exactly what you are facing eg give the AI 1-4 PzIVs

I play RT against the AI mainly, but in a WEGO manner ie I issue a lot of orders during Pause, and then watch a few minutes play out. I find the movie review process a bit tedious when I am playing the AI and want to get through a scenario in a couple of hours. I do think WEGO is the soul of the game, and I would use it in multiplayer, but ultimately I would like to see a few additions to increase the allure: - A dedicated server executable for hosting WEGO games on your PC, which your client game and opponent connect to. Playback movies created by the server which all players pull down at turn end. Server defineable options such as time window length for turn submissions. - 2v2, 3v3 etc - scenarios where one player commands allied armour, one commands allied infantry etc. Even in small scenarios where everyone is a platoon commander I think it could be a lot of a fun. Combined with C2 so that each player only gets spotting contacts from their own command and other players' contacts are dripped through via C2 (or not). - Friendly AI forces and friendly AI plans - Some tidying up of some of the processes in WEGO which require workarounds at the moment eg stopping vehicles for disembarkation but not being able to plot subsequent moves until disembarkation has taken place - Not specific to WEGO: enabling the AI to use suppression, new AI SOPs for assaulting occupied buildings etc - Force compositions in XML which can be imported into Quick Battles. Would allow player to create eg a 1300 point Wermacht July 44 NWTO combined arms force which could be downloaded by others. - Add ability to give elements of the AI's QB force a % chance to appear, so you don't know exactly what you are facing There is much that is very good about CM but I long for a paradigm shift of the kind that we got when we went from CMX1 to CMX2.

Sounds like something is not being declared until the 2 storey house is placed.

Yes that's a fair point. I was just looking for something that might reduce the temptation to micro, and of course you would get a longer movie to play through (or fast forward).

A nice option would be to choose eg 2 minute turn length in WEGO. I am thinking particularly for single players versus the AI - this would be a neat way to ramp up the difficulty level. But I am sure there are some who would appreciate this option for H2H as well.

Try Graviteam Tactics Operation Star instead. Best single player that I have found - battles never play out the same way as the AI is non scripted and reactive. Close Combat hasn't really changed since the 90s and I think you would get tired of it pretty quickly.

The thing is though that unlike a QB, a scenario where the designer has picked and placed the enemy forces is likely to be more interesting and challenging. And, unlike a QB, less chance of the AI being landed with half a dozen anti aircraft guns. Sometimes in a scenario you look at the forces you have been given and start to make some assumptions about what you are going to face - "hmmm, 2 tank platoons, I guess I am going to need those". In, say, something like the old Close Combats, you would have a preview of the map and a pool of forces you could chose from. You would also have a rough idea of what strength of enemy forces you would be facing. You would then have tough choices as to your force make up. So I'm not looking for something that replaces the experience of a good scenario where the designer has picked both sides, just something akin to a better QB experience.

It would be great if there was a way for scenarios to be created where the player is given points and (perhaps) a limited pool to purchase from. It could potentially add quite a bit of replayability to scenarios, and also an interesting operational element to scenarios you haven't played before.

I played Cain and Abel for the first time a few nights ago. Very immersive, challenging, and just a lot of fun. Looking forward to seeing what can be done with modern scenarios in CMx3.

CMSF is the one I go to if I want single player fun. Battle taxis, missiles, longer engagements ranges. I find the WW2 micro-ing a bit tedious by comparison.

Manufacturing casus belli, getting a toe hold into foreign dynasties etc is the game, it's not Civilization 5.

I would extend that to: "If you enjoy playing against an unscripted, reactive, AI". Both games have their place on my HDD but I think Graviteam offers the superior single player experience. I too am really looking forward to CMBS - CMSF is still my favourite single player CMx2 game and I've always found the longer engagement ranges provide a good mask to some of the AI shortcomings.

How do you move your squads by bounds if you don't use pauses?

Unfortunately the CPU is a crucial factor in the FPS for these games. Try turning the model quality down a little (I forget exactly what the setting is called) this will reduce the distance at which the very detailed models are drawn and will give you some extra frames. Also - what do you class as bad performance? I have CM set to max graphics options, on an i5 2500k @ 4.7Ghz, with a 4GB GTX680 , and I'll consistently drop to 19/20 FPS under some circumstances. For that reason I limit the FPS to 30 by having vsync set at half the monitor's refresh rate, so that the peaks and troughs are not so far apart. This makes things much smoother.

Not following the logic here - by that point they've already bought it. Nor do I get the steep learning curve thing - I could reel off a dozen big selling games that have a much steeper curve than CM. Just about everything by Paradox for example. Difficult UI? - have you played Graviteam Tactics / Achtung Panzer Operation Star ? Sells on Steam now and the forums are not full of people throwing their toys out the pram. I've been computer gaming since 1983 and have been there and done it with DOS boot disks in the 90s and having to wait for patches to appear on magazine CDs. Nothing to be mourned from those days. The only thing that hasn't been a change for the better is developers releasing games in Alpha, IMO.

We don't usually have more than 2 working on one application.

Can't agree with that I'm afraid. I work in a software house, we release every week. This is a methodology known as Continuous Integration. If your delivery method is as straightforward as the Steam updates process (as opposed to having your userbase check for patches on your website), it would tend to encourage a higher frequency of patching. For me, Battlefront's patching has everything to do with their delivery method. There are probably minor fixes to QB AI plans etc in the upcoming patch for CMRT, which could be a minor patch release. But it is not a good look, or good for your users, to have a dozen or more patches to download from the website. So we wait. . Crusader Kings 2 has 2 different types of DLC. Graphical enhancements that cost a few dollars, and new "campaigns" that contain both new content and engine enhancements. Steam also manages the dependencies between DLCs.

I think by "older one" it would have to be CMX2. CMX1 as a toe dipper on Steam is not a good idea, IMHO. It would be trivial to make some good looking videos of CMSF for the Steam store. For me CMSF was in a pretty good place by the time I bought it (about 2 months before CMBN came out, which I found a bit flat by comparison), some good mods and excellent campaigns, and for me still one of the most immersive environments CMX2 has been in. I could see it appealing to a decent chunk of Steam strategy / strategy-lite players. Other than that, agree with many of the last few pro-Steam posts. The Battlefront store is really not a good experience, by comparison. On a Steam release we could be on the 3rd minor patch for CMRT by now, if they wanted. Incidentally, engine upgrades can easily be sold as DLC on Steam - that is pretty much what some of the DLC for Crusader Kings 2 is, for example: Content plus engine upgrade, cost about $10.

Strategy games are not expected to have instant gratification. I think we can agree the potential appeal of CM is to people who like strategy games. I think the difficulty of CM is overstated, particularly if you have played anything like Close Combat. Victoria 2 - that is an example of a difficult game. I wouldn't know what percentage of strategy games are concerned with WW2, but it is pretty high. Only within the last couple of months have I informed myself about (and bought) Command Ops. Additionally I have lost count of the number of games such as Sins of a Solar Empire, Europa Universalis which I have heard of, quite fancied the look of, and bought on a whim because they were available on Steam, a store which happens to be running on my computer. Keeping abreast of what is available can be surprisingly difficult, particularly if you work/have a family/rarely have a decent amount of time on the PC. So I feel the only valid reasons for keeping CM off Steam are commercial, not to do with how Steam works for people or how the markets for different types of games interact with it. I think it is significant that Matrix have started selling games on it. When I first got back into gaming in 2011 (first gaming was in the 80s on a Spectrum and the 90s on an Amiga), I had heard of Steam and dismissed it as some Kafka-esque means of making my gaming life a total ball ache. So I bought my first game for the PC - Rise of Flight - on CD. First and last CD purchase. Everything since then has been a digital download, 90% on Steam, no issues.

Crusader Kings is regularly a best seller on Steam. The idea that Steam users are made up of millions of smack talking kids is patently absurd, especially as the number of other channels through which games are available these days has dwindled to a handful so for most PC users who have tastes beyond a couple of games Steam is almost unavoidable. I could care less whether CM went on to Steam, if Battlefront feel they can't make money out of it then fair enough. However as a user, it is streets ahead of the Battlefront channel (or Gamersgate or whoever) - Install CM on however many devices I want (only one in use at a time). I can buy the PC version of a game but install a Mac version on a Mac at no cost. Automatic patches. Have never had to contact support to get a "registry cleaning" exe to allow me to re-install a game. Much higher download speeds. Mods available on the Steam workshop. Don't need to store license keys.

Hmmm, it also has weapon elevation on the AFVs. Guess which one of your favourite "realistic" tactical wargames doesn't have that?

Men of War Assault Squad 2 is much better than Company of Heroes. Fully destructible terrain, far more tactical complexity, no base building.