Thewood1

Just to clarify. The main combat difference with GT and CM is that in GT games, you have the option of micro-managing or not. In CM you don't. Try comparing managing a move of many units down a road in CM. The main game difference in CM and GT is CM's wego and game replay. Although you can play GT games in wego mode if you want. You can pause automatically and give orders. Its basically wego at that point. The other difference is GT games have an op layer built into the game that puts any battle in context. CM also has a much more powerful editor.

I would love for someone to point out how CM is any more detailed than Graviteam Mius games. I have played CM and MF extensively since release for both. They both approach tactical combat at almost the exact same scale, setting aside MF's Operational capability. Both use the same tracking of soft factors, detailed armor modeling, FoW. I would say the MF is much more detailed on the comms and FoW side of things. Artillery is a little more abstracted than in MF. What CM has over MF is a much easier to use editor and a map editor. But for detailed combat its fairly equal. And at the post-WW2 level, Steel Beasts models modern combat in a much more detailed manner everywhere except infantry. There is almost no comparison. Are they better games? I'm not sure. I stopped playing CM a few years ago, can see the attraction for micro-managers. And you can't really find a broad WW2 Western front experience outside CM. But detail is easily equaled.

So is the only true comparison of CM an exact copy of CM? I would easily put the graviteam games up there against CM. And its wasn't stated as a copy of CM, complicated and detailed. A far more complex wargame is CMO, by far. Steel beasts is also far more detailed in many ways.

I would think vehicle packs, map packs, scenario packs, etc. could be a way to move content from CMBN to CMFB and CMBS's unpubbed module to CMSF.

I criticize parts of their business model and some of the decisions made around games vs modules. But one thing I completely grant to the BFC crew is that they have been building wargames and making money on it for 25 years. If they didn't know what sells and what doesn't sell, we wouldn't be here discussing it. And yes, your comments came across as snarky and butt-hurt.

Thanks for this. The I-I War is fairly underrepresented and underappreciated by wargamers. Some of the largest tank battles in the post-WW2 era took place with Soviet-style tactics against Western hardware early on. Graviteam has some very good scenarios and Steel Beasts has a few with the potential to model almost anything in that war. I would have thought CMCW would have made a better representation than CMSF2. Especially once the BOAR shows up with their Chieftains.

You are arguing a non-issue with me. I don't necessarily think any of those theaters are money makers and I am no expert in those markets. I have said nothing about the viability of any of those proposed games. My issue is the huge misconceptions of combat from wargamers who like to think they are focused on highly historical games. How many times I have heard wargamers deride the press on not researching history and perpetuating myths about a particular subject. Yet on these very forums I continue to hear knowledgeable wargamers perpetuating myths like this without a second thought.

The comments about terrain are way over generalized as is the concept of battles in the Pacific and Korea. Korea is mostly hilly open terrain, with a few areas of dense forests. Korea was all about hills, rivers, and urban fighting. The Pacific as a combat theater had a lot of non-jungle combat. In fact, some of the largest US Army urban battles of WW2 were fought in more urban environments around Manila. A large number of the island battles for the USMC were not in densely forested jungles. The British fought large battles in Burma in urban and built up areas. The Hurtgen forest and the Ardennes can be handled in CM so I would imagine it could handle jungles in a similar more abstracted fashion. If we could just combine units from Downfall with Red Thunder, you could do the majority of Korean battles today.

You're even later to that discussion on that topic than I am on this one.

So Downfall is actually much more complete than I expected. A rather quick look shows that compared to CMBN, the only non-infantry units missing in the end will be: Early Pz IVs, early Panthers, early tiger, and Pz IIIG for German tanks AT bunkers from VP French/German funnies Early M8 Early US baseline M4s Even the early tanks marks still have more later versions. From a non-infantry standpoint, you could recreate pretty much any CMBN scenario if you could port maps over.

I edited it less than a minute after posting. Looked a little deeper and most of the "standard" VP made it into DF. Its just the weird French-based stuff that probably never made the retreat that isn't in.

This is good news. Noted that the M-26 is in. Are there plans to bring all of the CMBN vehicle pack units into CMFB? I'm mainly thinking of the Sherman Crab. It was very useful in mine-infested scenarios. Nevermind...saw that the crab is in CMFB already.

I really don't see how this is much different than CMSF 2. Its even more innovative than that. And I suspect less work. All the UK/CW is just sitting there waiting to be leveraged. Finally bring CMBN up to CMFB standards. Thats a pitch most people on this board would eat up. I would imagine it would speed up CMFB to Steam also. Of course, this is something someone should have thought of a year or so ago. I am assuming its too late now.

Just like you can still buy CMSF 1, you can buy CMSF 2. Same with this. Nevermind...thought CMSF 1 is still selling. The point is that they can still sell CMFB separately.

I bet the way they are doing CW units in CMFB is copying the models and stats from CMBN. Plus a few extra. Its probably too late for the suggestion, but I would hope it was considered. Treat it like CMSF2. Its a relaunch of CMFB, but within CMBN. Call it CMBN 2.

I would really like CMFB to be a module for CMBN. I would even pay full game price just to move units and maps over. It makes life slightly easier and also opens up new opportunities to quickly get Commonwealth units into more post-1944 scenarios. It would also bring some unique Allied units into late war usage, like from the battlepack. It would also be an easy/easier way to get CMFB-type gaming on to Steam faster.

Frankly, I don't play much PBEM and haven't played one in 5-6 years. I have never had more than one instance of any CM game running at the same time.

How about we not drag that crap show of a thread into other threads. That might be nice. Although, on second thought, maybe it'll get someone from BFC interested.

Not saying CM is a truly modern game, but there aren't many modern games that allow more than on instance without some virtual machine work.

Is this basically an issue because of BFC using older OpenGL libraries? I know games still using OpenGL that don't seem to have this issue.

I look at comms to your base as a significant part of marketing regardless. I'm not sure anyone expects a multi-domain and multi-media campaign for every release. But a key component of marketing as a concept is basic communications to customers and some place to point prospective customers to. There is a very obvious lack of that basic foundation of marketing. And BFC has stated that Slitherine has no say in what is released on BFC.com or when. And then there is basic customer service of letting existing customers know what is happening. Even Graviteam gives basic updates periodically.

How about just more than once a year or when two threads begging for some info start up? Its called marketing beyond your base.

The point was that a poster said its hard talking to people. I'm just pointing out Steve obviously doesn't think so. Everyone gets time off, but maybe instead of 10 posts a day in the Ukraine thread, 9 posts a day and one day a month post something on the games he produces.

Just to put a quantitative point on it, Steve has posted around 65 times in the last week in the Ukraine thread. He's averaging about 10 posts a day in a topic that right now has nothing to do with the game. And no where else in at least a month, and maybe more. Its his company and his time to do with what he likes. But based on some of the counterpoints that communicating with people is exhausting, he either is doing heavy doses of uppers or he is completely exhausted. BFC has gone through this before. Back when CMSF 1 came out and was almost a disaster of a CM product for the first few months, Steve was spending all of his posting energy for weeks at a time prolifically debating the concept of the Stryker brigade in one thread. It finally hit a point where enough established players were vocally walking away that he shifted his comms from his Stryker tirades to addressing game issues.

Its only exhausting if don't like doing it. There are people that are happy to communicate with people all day and some of them are good at it. Steve obviously loves it based on how often he posts in the Ukraine thread. I would think taking half of his posting in that thread and focusing it on updating customers and prospects would be a good reinvestment.