Sim1943

Howdy All First and foremost, congrats BFC on the new release! Very nicely polished - went straight to the editor and looked around at all the formations - everything looks great! Next stop was the QB system to see the new point values. Obviously I was expecting some changes here and was curious to see how much everything would 'cost'. The points for a TINY ATTACK went from 1164 points for the attacker in CMBN to 3343 points for the attack in CMBS! No problems there because everything costs more. But what really surprised me was the cost for American squads compared to the others. Regardless of Infantry, Stryker or Mech, they are about 230 points a squad. So for a 9 man squad, that's 26 points per man. Compare this to the Soviet and Ukrainian which come at 88 and 95 points respectively, or 14 points per man. So in other words, a vanilla American soldier costs nearly twice as much as his Soviet or Ukrainian counterpart. Comparing to WWII, CMBN has a vanilla US rifle squad at 47 points (4 per man) and a vanilla German Grenadier squad at 42 points (4.5 per man). I know Steve has said in the past that they do not want to get into discussions about points, but I just have to ask on this one: Are these the intended point values or is it a bug? I was very, very surprised to see such a big difference in cost. Thanks Chad

Thanks AKD! Downloading now. Appreciate you getting this up today and the hard work. Thanks Chad

Thanks for the response AKD and the offer for the beta. I know I speak for a lot of us here (judging by the downloads and ratings for both your CMSF and BN/FI sound mods), that we would be more than happy to have a 'beta' of your combined sound mod at launch. Thanks for the hard work, not only for the sound mod, but also for beta testing CMBS! Thanks Chad

AKD You had mentioned in another thread that you were working on a sound mod that would work for CMx2 WWII and Modern Titles - all post CMSF anyways. Just wanted to see if that was still the plan. Also, Chris has already mentioned that a number of beta testers would have mods up on launch (such as NATO symbols) - will your sound mod be included in this? Just trying to see if I will need to go into the CMSF sound mod and rip out the sounds that are needed while we wait for your mod. Thanks in advance! Chad

Care to be specific? The QB are used a lot by all, so Im curious how things went this time around. And no changes have been made to the QB system right? BFC previously made it sound like it has not. Thanks Chad

I never saw this. Thanks for posting it! So from reading both, this should work with CMSF/Marine bundle patched up right? Thanks Chad

Thanks for the update Chris. Perhaps next week then? Thanks Chad

That works! Looking forward to that.

We ran one of these back in the hay days of CM:BO and the median and average age was late 30's. I ran it (no polling features back then!) and we had quite a few responses. They were very, very few teenagers back then - I think one under 20. Lots of late 20's, lots of 30's, lots of 40's and then down the hill from there - no pun intended. Even with the limited responses, looks like things have changed as far as the crowd.

Thanks Chris for yet another stream and thank for putting it up on Youtube - is much easier to watch there. Great to get the manual also - lots of good info in there. Plans for a stream next Sunday? Perhaps a CM:BS QB? Thanks again! Chad

Just want to chime in on Rangers: would love to see them included this time around. Missed them in CM:SF. Having them and Marines for US forces would be perfect - obviously for expansions not the base game.

It makes me want to type: QB ME 1500 PTS SHORT 75 and then log the results at Rugged Defense. Fond memories for sure. can't believe that was 14 years ago!

Ditto. Cant say thankyou enough for doing these videos. Hope this is a tradition with all upcoming BFC titles. Appreciate the Youtube videos too - much easier to watch on there.

At this point, I honestly don't remember where I read it - been playing CM since the beginning. Was there no correlation between ASL and CM? If theres not, that's fine, still love ASL and CM and am still of the opinion that CM is the closest we can get to ASL on the computer.

Sweet! I caught that perfect window of time that Fair enough - cant really argue with that. To me the perfect QB system is what we currently have, which is great, but with the COMBINED ARMS setting back and a way to enforce the FIONNs SHORT 75 rules ingame (boy, when was the last time you heard someone bring up Fionn's Short 75 rules? Who even remembers that anymore?). I love the QB system that we have right this very instant - it has so much power built into it. My only complaint is that there is no limitation to what type of force you can have - that's where the Combined Arms setting comes in. Sure if your playing a human you can type up all sorts of desired rules, but the AI struggles to pick good force balances in QB games, especially in small battles. So if Combined Arms is not coming back, maybe some love being given to the AI purchasing routines would do the trick? Sounds great - v3 is working great, so no complaints there! Fair enough - did know about the rubbled buildings, but would love to be able to put them in intact buildings at setup. Agreed on that - I don't play those monster scenarios anyways, but this is just one of those things we have been crying about since, well, you have been here this entire time I was watching ChrisND's video and he was trying to give his Abrams a covered arc while moving. Took him a couple of tries to get the arc just right because he needed a long distance. This command coming back (the shift-CA one: CA being covered arc for you non ASL types out there ) would help immensely with those super long range CA's. Finally, thinking about what else I would ask over the day, the only other 'issue' I have with CMx2 is the way LOF/LOS works for area fire commands. Its annoying to not be able to give an area fire command because you cant see the ground through grain, or you cant see the middle of the building but can see the rest of it just fine. I think the way soldiers shoot once they have a LOS/LOF is just fine. But once the enemy goes to ground and I want to continue to shoot at their location, a single blade of grass blocking my LOS/LOF to their feet can cause frustration. Would it be possible to assume that the area fire just shoots through the soft cover so we can still give the fire command? Or just shoots at the half of the building we can see? Thanks again for the responses Steve! Chad

Chris Thanks for the response, didn't even have to wait for the stream! Glad to hear we will see a more realistic spread of Javelins this time around. I love them, don't get me wrong, but will be nice to have a correct number of them. Speaking of Javelins, I noticed in your videos that the Soviet vehicles were being las'd by Javelins and not popping smoke or evading like the US vehicles were. The Javelin uses a laser right? Or do the Soviet vehicles not have the same warnings as the US vehicles do? I honestly have no idea on both. Just to be clear, in your US campaign video, the starting forces were a single *section* of the platoon (one Humvee, one Bradley, one scout team in each) along with the Platoon HQ in a Humvee. I re-checked the video and that seemed to be the case. Thanks again for the response! Look forward to seeing tomorrows video. Chad

Chris Thanks so much for doing these videos - they have given such a great view of CM:BS. Hope this will be a tradition for all upcoming BFC CM titles. Sundays I am at church/with family and so forth, so I cant watch your streams live, but watch them later on Twitch and/or Youtube. You asked at the end of the last stream if anyone wanted to see something from the editor, and no one asked so you ended the stream. If you have the time, can I make a request ahead of time? I am interested in seeing more of the options for the major US formations and their layout in general. We know you have an option for the grenadier and sniper in the rifle squads, but what other options are there? Specifically, with the scout platoon, what is its normal formation size? Do you have an option of Humvee's or Bradleys? Or is the number of these fixed (ie. the scout platoon always has two Humvee's and one Bradley)? In your stream it was two Hunvee's and the one Bradley - is that how big the platoon normally is, or was that cut down from normal size? I noticed in one of your streams that (IIRC) the Infantry Battalion has two Javelin teams attached to each rifle platoon. Is that only the Infantry Bn's? Or the Stryker and Bradley ones too? Are there MG teams in the rifle platoons or are those assets attached elsewhere? Really, just a quick rundown of whats in each of the three Bn's, and the difference between normal and combined arms, would be great. Even just expanding the trees so we can see in the video would be fine. Obviously all of this is if you have the time to do so. No worries if you don't have the time - well have the game soon enough! Thanks again for all the hard work Chad

Steve Since your in a sharing and answering mood, some quick questions: 1. Are we any closer to having the CMx1 'Combined Arms' QB setting come back? In other words, a setting where you have X points for infantry, Y points for armor and Z points for support assets. We talked about that last year and it wasn't in the works back then. 2. We know that CM:BS is engine CMx2 v3.0. Is CM:Ardennes also slated to be engine v3.0 or will it be the first v4.0? 3. Any plans to allow AT guns and small infantry guns to put into buildings directly ala. ASL? Obviously would not be able to move or make major changes to covered arc. 4. Any plans to allow infantry to dig foxholes during a scenario? In these monster 2 hour scenarios, there is certainly time to get a slit trench going. 5. Any plans to bring back the CMx1 'shift fire arc' where you held down shift and it automatically assigned a fire arc for 180 degrees to a certain direction. Would love to have this back - especially for armor where you just want him to point his turret a certain way while moving. CMx2 engine is coming along wonderfully. Personally, am very very happy with how CMx2 is shaping together and getting better with each release. Especially appreciate the engine updates to older titles - more than happy to pay the $10 for that. Keep up the great work! Thanks Chad

Thanks for the heads up Chris, don't think I would have noticed that otherwise. BS and Ardennes next year - so much CM goodness

Steve and BFC, thanks for the traditional bone of the year! Really looking forward to BS and Ardennes. Its going to be a great year after that! Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy the break! Thanks Chad

And just to be clear, I am by no means complaining - I just enjoy this yearly tradition and look forward to getting a peak at whats instore for the coming year!

Theres all sorts of great news being shelled out by BFC: the master installers, CM:BS soon coming. But the Christmas 'Bone' has typically been about whats next - new features, new games, plans for the next year and so on. So it has information we didn't already know about - something for us to say 'Whoa cool!' over. We have all known about CM:BS and its features since November. The master installers, while greatly appreciated, were guessed at for sometime now - since the master install for the Mac CMBN. If theres not an official one this year, that's fine, we can wait for CM:BS. But I would be sad to not have an official 'Bone' to drool over.

Yeah, time is running out! Last year it was on the 20th, so hopefully its still going to happen. Would love to have an idea, even with just words and no pics/videos, of what the lineup for next year is. My best guess: 1. CM:BS 2. Red Thunder Expansion 3. Italy Expansion 4. CM: Bulge With BS coming out early/mid next month, I think that's a pretty realistic list. Would love to see 4.0 for Bulge and whats new with that.

I too would have fit that exact description if it hadn't been for my rediscovery of ASL two years ago. First with VASL PBEM play, then I started looking for people who play in Arizona. Now am enjoying ASL on a semi-regular basis: face to face, VASL live play and VASL PBEM play. Love the system and have been having a blast playing again. I often wonder how many CM players now realize that CM was an attempt at computerizing ASL? ASL and CM are the only games I play anymore.

Thanks again for the replies everyone. As ASL Veteran pointed out (Do you still play ASL? Have been enjoying it again recently myself), time limit doesn't necessarily mean a 'small scenario'. I don't know if its something that could be clearly defined, but I think that its just the overall experience of the scenario: its well balanced, the OOB is manageable and I can play it in about an hour. An hour of playtime can get through a 30 or so minute scenario. Ive been thinking about this, and maybe I will put my money where my mouth is. After CM:BS, Im going to give scenario design a whirl and upload to the Repository - something I have yet to try out. Ill see how long it takes and Ill see if I can encourage others to create 'small' scenarios also.