Centurian52

The way building combat is currently modeled is certainly a huge abstraction. But I'd argue that it's probably necessary in order to avoid getting bogged down in getting that one thing working perfectly at the expense of everything else. For the most part I feel like building combat is "good enough". I seriously doubt the tac AI could handle realistic buildings anyway (could you imagine the current AI trying to pathfind through narrow hallways and multiple small rooms?), so an overhaul of urban combat would require overhauling the tac AI, which will require overhauling the entire game. There is no way they have the time or money for that.
It's a matter of balancing time and resources. No one has an infinite supply of either, so they have to pick and choose where they put their time and money. In this case they wanted a good general purpose combat simulator that could handle fighting in any environment in any period. So they chose generalization over specialization. They did every environment "good enough" instead of getting one environment perfect. For a game that took the opposite approach you should check out Door Kickers. Door Kickers is an outstanding example of urban/building combat done right. The way it depicts combat in buildings and houses is absolutely superb, because they chose to specialize in room clearing. But it could never represent a moderately sized field battle with multiple terrain types (for example: a small built up area in the middle, dense woods on either side, and open fields on the approaches) the way Combat Mission can, because Combat Mission chose to generalize in everything.
Maybe one day we'll get a game that does everything perfectly. But I'm not holding my breath (most games that get overambitious and try to do everything perfectly never make it into production).

The way building combat is currently modeled is certainly a huge abstraction. But I'd argue that it's probably necessary in order to avoid getting bogged down in getting that one thing working perfectly at the expense of everything else. For the most part I feel like building combat is "good enough". I seriously doubt the tac AI could handle realistic buildings anyway (could you imagine the current AI trying to pathfind through narrow hallways and multiple small rooms?), so an overhaul of urban combat would require overhauling the tac AI, which will require overhauling the entire game. There is no way they have the time or money for that.
It's a matter of balancing time and resources. No one has an infinite supply of either, so they have to pick and choose where they put their time and money. In this case they wanted a good general purpose combat simulator that could handle fighting in any environment in any period. So they chose generalization over specialization. They did every environment "good enough" instead of getting one environment perfect. For a game that took the opposite approach you should check out Door Kickers. Door Kickers is an outstanding example of urban/building combat done right. The way it depicts combat in buildings and houses is absolutely superb, because they chose to specialize in room clearing. But it could never represent a moderately sized field battle with multiple terrain types (for example: a small built up area in the middle, dense woods on either side, and open fields on the approaches) the way Combat Mission can, because Combat Mission chose to generalize in everything.
Maybe one day we'll get a game that does everything perfectly. But I'm not holding my breath (most games that get overambitious and try to do everything perfectly never make it into production).

Hmmm, looks pretty 50/50 to me. But I'll go ahead and place my bet on the T62 as the winner. Although I would love it if they both fired at the same time and took each other out.

Ok, I will go out on a limb here and say “2022” is what we are planning on but that comes with the usual caveats (i.e “when it is done”) and I would not want to hazard anymore detail than that until we get an official announcement.

CMA is definitely one of my favorites, and I suspect I'm not the only one.

More importantly.....When? 
Not too worried what it is, but I definitely want it. 
Yours in the only game in the series where I still spend more time playing than editing.....But that won't last, I've already got three CM:CW projects on the go.
PS - I am hoping there are some old CM:A fans amongst the CM:CW posse, I must admit. 

BAOR gets me Chieftains with the 120mm rifled gun, West Germany gets me Leopard 1s and Marders. 
 
Either way I’d buy both. 
 
H

No one has been exactly right yet, but there are a couple that are close.

OK, let's see.....
You were right:

Thanks all for the helpful replies.  Yes I am in UK.  I am so used to Matrix and Steam showing UK tax inclusive prices that VAT never occurred to me.  Anyway, I bit the bullet even harder and ordered the game.  I was based in Germany in 1983 and have always had an interest in that era.  The Cold War felt very real at the time.

Testing C2 with a BMP formation and I found that dismounted infantry very quickly lost contact with their platoon leader and with their personal BMPs (Iron difficulty). I felt that this was odd and was doing some searching and found that (apparently) each squad leader would be equipped with a personal radio (R-126, R-352) for dismounted use. This handheld radio acted as a link between the dismounted squad leader and his personal BMP. The BMPs internal radio then connected with the rest of the formation.

So in this instance Coy Commander at top, PL at bottom right:




The entire platoon and Coy Commander should be connected. But in-game a large portion of the formation is shown as out of C2. They would be in communication via a long game of telephone but they would be in connection regardless and the individual squads would seem to be decently connected to their individual vehicle.  For instance, if the Plt. Leader wished to communicate to his personal BMP he would be able to while dismounted. Further if he wanted to communicate to Squad 2 he could.

Plt. Leader -> PL BMP -> Squad 2 BMP -> Squad 2 and then back Squad 2 -> Squad 2 BMP -> PL BMP -> PL

----

Is there any reason that this is not being modeled or am I missing something?






 
 

Modern vehicles will have vastly better long range spotting when buttoned, since the crew have access to advanced optics. But in any era they should have better close-in situational awareness when unbuttoned (even 2nd generation thermal optics can't compete with having full peripheral vision and being able to freely swivel your head), although I haven't really tested this much (exposing your squishy crew members at that distance probably isn't the smartest move anyway). In WW2 any vehicle will have better spotting when unbuttoned in pretty much any circumstance, it's just a matter of how much risk you're willing to take with your TCs. In CMCW it's a mix.

BUTTONED SPOTS BETTER:
Here is a possibly incomplete list of vehicles that spot better while buttoned all the time (but only to the front of the vehicle).
M1A2 Abrams
T-90AM
BM Oplot
M2A3 Bradley
M3A3 Bradley
M7A3 B-FIST
Khrizantema
Tunguska
I don't know for certain, but I think it very unlikely that vehicle crews have night vision goggles, so nearly all vehicles should stay buttoned in low light conditions.
 
UNBUTTONED SPOTS BETTER:
WW2 
Recon-specific M1127 Stryker with LRAS3

This chart came up two pages ago and @BFCElvisalready stated that it wasn't accurate. But yes, I would be very interested in full mission replays. But I understand the reasoning for why they aren't included (monstrously huge file sizes)

I am only a mediocre programmer and have only learned a little bit about game development here and there, but I have a growing suspicion that nothing is easy in game development. Changing or adding features means changing existing code, and who knows what that might break or how long it will take to get it working right.

I am only a mediocre programmer and have only learned a little bit about game development here and there, but I have a growing suspicion that nothing is easy in game development. Changing or adding features means changing existing code, and who knows what that might break or how long it will take to get it working right.

I am only a mediocre programmer and have only learned a little bit about game development here and there, but I have a growing suspicion that nothing is easy in game development. Changing or adding features means changing existing code, and who knows what that might break or how long it will take to get it working right.

I am only a mediocre programmer and have only learned a little bit about game development here and there, but I have a growing suspicion that nothing is easy in game development. Changing or adding features means changing existing code, and who knows what that might break or how long it will take to get it working right.

I am only a mediocre programmer and have only learned a little bit about game development here and there, but I have a growing suspicion that nothing is easy in game development. Changing or adding features means changing existing code, and who knows what that might break or how long it will take to get it working right.

If CM Pro has up to date British forces then surely that means that most of the leg work is already done for a British module to CMBS?

I definitely want them to cover the current time period in as much depth as possible before they start expanding it out. Depth before breadth. At a minimum get most of the NATO and WP roster filled out for the Central European front. Getting Scandinavia in there as well would also be nice.
When they do start expanding the timeframe I'm hoping they will extend it into the late 80's, up to 89. 1989 is an interesting setting to me because that is the year that World in Conflict is set in and it was WiC that first got me interested in the Cold War. But I would also be very interested in a 1962 setting.
In 1962 most of the equipment of the current setting would be present, but it will be earlier variants of everything, all shooting less modern ammunition. The M60 would be as new as the Abrams is in 1982, and the M48 would be sporting the good ol' 90mm gun. I've always been curious how a classic M48 (A3 or earlier) would fare against a T55. US infantry would be armed with the M14, giving them barely more firepower than they had in WW2 (there might be some XM16s with 20 round mags kicking around). Soviet infantry would have the classic AKM. The era of the ATGM would not yet have begun, with the Sagger only entering service next year. The AT work will instead be done by recoilless rifles and old school AT guns. It would be an absolutely fascinating period. If the current setting of CMCW is a perfect midpoint between the WW2 titles and CMSF, then 1962 would be a perfect midpoint between the WW2 titles and the current CMCW setting.
And of course once British forces get added in we will get to see the Centurion in action as well, which is something I would be particularly interested in (I chose my username so long ago I don't remember if I was naming myself after the tank or the Roman leadership position, but if the latter I'm happy enough to retcon it to saying that the tank is my namesake (yeah I know my account on the BFC forums is only a few months old, I've been using this name for everything for much longer though)).

I definitely want them to cover the current time period in as much depth as possible before they start expanding it out. Depth before breadth. At a minimum get most of the NATO and WP roster filled out for the Central European front. Getting Scandinavia in there as well would also be nice.
When they do start expanding the timeframe I'm hoping they will extend it into the late 80's, up to 89. 1989 is an interesting setting to me because that is the year that World in Conflict is set in and it was WiC that first got me interested in the Cold War. But I would also be very interested in a 1962 setting.
In 1962 most of the equipment of the current setting would be present, but it will be earlier variants of everything, all shooting less modern ammunition. The M60 would be as new as the Abrams is in 1982, and the M48 would be sporting the good ol' 90mm gun. I've always been curious how a classic M48 (A3 or earlier) would fare against a T55. US infantry would be armed with the M14, giving them barely more firepower than they had in WW2 (there might be some XM16s with 20 round mags kicking around). Soviet infantry would have the classic AKM. The era of the ATGM would not yet have begun, with the Sagger only entering service next year. The AT work will instead be done by recoilless rifles and old school AT guns. It would be an absolutely fascinating period. If the current setting of CMCW is a perfect midpoint between the WW2 titles and CMSF, then 1962 would be a perfect midpoint between the WW2 titles and the current CMCW setting.
And of course once British forces get added in we will get to see the Centurion in action as well, which is something I would be particularly interested in (I chose my username so long ago I don't remember if I was naming myself after the tank or the Roman leadership position, but if the latter I'm happy enough to retcon it to saying that the tank is my namesake (yeah I know my account on the BFC forums is only a few months old, I've been using this name for everything for much longer though)).

I definitely want them to cover the current time period in as much depth as possible before they start expanding it out. Depth before breadth. At a minimum get most of the NATO and WP roster filled out for the Central European front. Getting Scandinavia in there as well would also be nice.
When they do start expanding the timeframe I'm hoping they will extend it into the late 80's, up to 89. 1989 is an interesting setting to me because that is the year that World in Conflict is set in and it was WiC that first got me interested in the Cold War. But I would also be very interested in a 1962 setting.
In 1962 most of the equipment of the current setting would be present, but it will be earlier variants of everything, all shooting less modern ammunition. The M60 would be as new as the Abrams is in 1982, and the M48 would be sporting the good ol' 90mm gun. I've always been curious how a classic M48 (A3 or earlier) would fare against a T55. US infantry would be armed with the M14, giving them barely more firepower than they had in WW2 (there might be some XM16s with 20 round mags kicking around). Soviet infantry would have the classic AKM. The era of the ATGM would not yet have begun, with the Sagger only entering service next year. The AT work will instead be done by recoilless rifles and old school AT guns. It would be an absolutely fascinating period. If the current setting of CMCW is a perfect midpoint between the WW2 titles and CMSF, then 1962 would be a perfect midpoint between the WW2 titles and the current CMCW setting.
And of course once British forces get added in we will get to see the Centurion in action as well, which is something I would be particularly interested in (I chose my username so long ago I don't remember if I was naming myself after the tank or the Roman leadership position, but if the latter I'm happy enough to retcon it to saying that the tank is my namesake (yeah I know my account on the BFC forums is only a few months old, I've been using this name for everything for much longer though)).

Oh I agree completely. But still interested in what that would look like. The realist in me recognizes that they would likely just be rearmed with US and Commonwealth equipment and maybe pressed into their own formations. But I like to let the imagination run here and there. 
 
I would also love to see Norway added as an additional front. There would be some awesome infantry centric battles in rough terrain that would be a change of pace compared to the mechanized slug fests we're seeing a lot of now. Not that I don't love those as it is, but one can never have too much variety!

IIRC, only the airborne divisions and the marine FMF completed the full transition to the M14 by the beginning of 1962, while the bulk of the US Army completed the transition by the end of the year. So, in that year, some American infantry units might still be equipped with M1 rifles.