Sunbather

While the others are right in that every CM game performs more or less the same, Cold War is a bit more taxing on your system since many scenarios are very big with huge maps and many, many units. "Turn-based" mode is also much friendlier to your hardware and gives a smoother gameplay experience. And you should play in turn-based anyway.

All I know is that I am ready to immediately pay the 80 dollars once the bundle with the base game + module comes out. And for what's it worth: we have far more titles on the Eastern Front or *yaawn* Normandy than games depicting the Western Front from the end of 1944 to May 1945. Which is why I don't think Final Blitzkrieg is just another game with American tanks. Or else you could say about Eastern Front games, oh no, it's yet another game with T-34s... In the end it is subjective and not everyone is equally fed up with American tanks. Especially since the module is purported to include the British Forces as well, so there's that. In the end, I am a seasonal gamer anyway so once the temperatures rise in the next couple of weeks, I will temporarily lose interest in the game anyway. I just can't see myself fighting in the Battle of the Bulge while it is 25 degrees Celsius outside. And as sure as hell, my interest will come back 6 months later when temperatures are falling again, just in time for the release of the module. Since after all I am pretty confident that the FB module will only release much later this year, after BN Battle Pack and after the Cold War module, bringing it somewhat in line with the Steam release of FB.

It is also quite off-putting to see how "the" customer who might already have invested some several hundreds of euro into the CM games is insulted in such a blatant and generalizing manner. EDIT: Of course, the tone has softened quite a bit since that initial statement that we are all just greedy people who endlessly ask for more gameplay features or technical improvements or both (what disgusting human being asks for technical improvements and content?!) but it is all the more distinct when you see that they actually can talk friendly with the customer. But then it turns again to highly insulting behaviour. I don't know, it all seems kinda schizophrenic. And at the same time it is incessantly stated (not only here but by many wargame devs) that the niche is so small, it isn't feasible at all to implement all those features. Well, if I was new to the CM games and I had a look in a thread like this one, I'd took my money and time and go straight ahead to Micropose or EUGEN Systems or whoever.

It's very curious to me that Matrix/Slitherine have such tremendous problems to bring in an update on Steam in a timely manner. The same issues are prevalent with Command: Modern Operations. There are numerous examples of games that exist on Steam and an indigenous platform, and yet they always manage to bring out updates, and especially hotfixes, at the same time. And no, this is not because they artifically delay the update on their own platform only to publish it at the same time on Steam. Or else they could not push out hotfixes within a few days or even hours, see for example War Thunder, the late Survarium, all the titles from big companies like Ubisoft. (I will be able to think of more tomorrow). They have their own launcher and their own platform, yet they manage to get the updates to Steam VERY quickly. Yes, I understand that every file published on Steam has to go through an extra approval process so Steam can check if it is a virus or malware or whatever. And yes, I also know that Slitherine/Matrix are not the same as Ubisoft. But Jesus Christ, when Slitherine/Matrix with their insane price policy that gets more insane by the month can't even manage to get the approval of a 100 MB update (one hundred megabytes!) within a week, one seriously has to ask how sustainable this whole old school wargame business is. The old guard will retire eventually and you can't really convince a 20 year old who grow up with ****ing TikTok to go to an external site to get their hotfix there (which took a year to begin with, and doesn't even contain the hotfixes that were written in the patchnotes...).

May I ask if we can expect some news on the new FB module as well?

This looks like the perfect book to read when the module comes out! Saved on my yet quite meager list of Cold War books. Thanks!

Yeah, you said that in the 2023 update thread already, I think, and of course you are right. And what a wonderful job the modders are doing! However, I still think that it is way better to have such assets (snow maps, winter uniforms, snow vehicles) as official content. Why? Because then scenario and campaign creators in the community and also the modders themselves can concentrate on giving us new stuff. All those winter mods for Red Thunder and now for Black Sea! Only so that at some point snow will be officially added to the game after all? In fact, the only custom campaign with snow for Red Thunder I can think of right now is Dragonwynns Last Panzer. And that doesn't even work without the additional mod package Dragonwynn included (incl. mods by Kohlenklau. I.e. it doesn't use the tagged assets we now have in Fire and Rubble. Why is that? Of course Fire and Rubble is relatively new and campaigns take a long time to create. But isn't it also so that most community campaigns came out shortly after Red Thunder released? Seven (7!) years later the module came out, giving the creators a lot to toy around with. But where is that momentum now, again: 7 years after the game came out? And now the very same mistake is made with Cold War? I said it in the 2023 update thread already but it is not only asset content that CW is lacking (i.e. factions, units) but I think for a lot of people it is quite taxing on the mind to see and play the ever same maps with green hills, lots of forest, country roads, and some small villages. While there are certainly other areas in central Germany one could portray to mix things up (industrial zones, big lakes, ruins from a former battle), the "easiest" way to mix things up map-wise (and the most realistic on top of that, even influencing the gameplay!) is to implement the different seasons. In the end, I just wanna say this: the sooner we get more variations (including master maps, vehicles, different weather!), the sooner we will see community content with those variations. And community content is what makes these games so long-living in my opinion.

May I inquire what book you are talking about? Is it a book about the Cold War? A brief look on his publications only shows WW2 era books?

Oh my god, this is such good news! And it is also very good news that we are not moving forward but actually back in time. Very intrigued. I am always a bit hesitant about buying yet another CM thing but this module will be bought on Day 1, I can tell you that much. PS: Since we were talking about seasonal uniforms. Will we actually have snow maps?

Since I was the one to introduce the acronym in this thread, I am gonna go ahead and say that it was a test and I wanted to see if anyone would notice.

I wish Battlefront no harm, quite the opposite frankly. But we all saw what a driving force competition can be when AMD finally released competitive CPUs. I am no liberalist when it comes to economics but Jesus did we all prosper from that competition. Just the kick in the *** Intel needed so badly. This only translates roughly to the video game sector, especially the wargaming niche, but a recent example would be the release of Regiments and it seems to have exerted at least some pressure on the developers of Warno. At the end of the day, I can't say if Combat Mission can be rivaled in the foreseeable future. Despite its apparent dated-ness, CM still has a 25 year long headstart. All that being said, I remembered a post from Reddit from last year. Apparently the guy is still working on it. And apparently the it's also a guy working from his garage, hahaha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZZi3x8VdKE

I hear you! Thing is, in the module I want both German sides AND the British. I would pay 50 bucks for that since CW has quickly become my favourite CM game but it just lacks variety and content. So the main reason why I hope for a release of all three factions at the same time is the mere fact that I don't want to wait another 2 years after the first module came out (which already might be 2 years away) just to see the British forces. And I want more varied maps. Germany even in the central region does not consist only of little villages and green hills. (Scenarios like Rumpenheim Rumpus are notable exceptions.) Of course there are limits but heck, even the maps in Shock Force 2 are more varied than the maps in Cold War. I think the best way to combat the lack of IRL variety is to give us more seasons. Snow, trees without foliage etc.

I also dearly hope that there will be snow in Cold War AND Black Sea. Would it really be so mind-bending to put forward the timeline a mere few months when it comes to the story of Black Sea? I think the current embargo on the module could be used to squeeze in some Brits and some snow, hahaha. (I am serious though.)

Haha, alright. Thinking critically about it, the easy way to go would be to implement West and East German Forces and be done with it. The only new assets needed would be some ramshackle Leopards but mostly you could get away with just American equipment "lend-leased" to the Germans. Of course I hope that I am completely wrong! I guess the question is: will this be like the trim modules for Shock Force 2 or a like the big, fatty module that is Fire and Rubble? I am all for the latter!

All I want is more British Forces! We need the BOAR in Cold War and we need the Brits in Black Sea. Heck I am not even British but the only modern Brits we got are in Shock Force 2 and they are by far the most fun nation to play with. What would the US Marines do in the Ukraine and in a CWGH in Germany anyways?

Jesus Crhist, behave yourselves already!

I think the implementation of microtransactioned emotes would be very fitting for the Combat Mission games. And with the revenue they could finally finance that science fiction CM game or even a Marvels super hero iteration of CM. The future is bright.

My wishlist is coming up soon but for now I just wanna say that I wish you could call in airstrikes and arty without LOS as well!

As far as I know, setting up a Steam workshop is not as easy as one might think. Though it might be different with how easy it is to load mods in the CM games. However, the main objection is probably that you would put all the users in disadvantage that play the game via Battlefront and Matrix/Slitherine. While I, too, love the Steam workshop as modding has never been so easy, there still is a general trend against the implementation of the Steam workshop: Ready or Not, Songs of Conquest, Humankind to name just three are all games that embrace mod.io instead of Steam workshop to not exclude players on any other platforms.

You are right! What was I thinking? I should have checked my facts. There are 2 different folders but the mods still go into the directory you've installed your game in. However, the other folder on your main drive still packs all the savegames which we all know are unbearably huge in the CM games.

All I want to know is if we can expect the Final Blitzkrieg module anytime soon, or if it is still planned to release together with the Steam release --- which according to last year's schedule will be 1 year after Normandy is coming to Steam.....

I have always marvelled about people being so opposed against something they don't need to have anything to do with in the first place. If you don't want Steam and think it is full of bugs or runs worse on Steam (superstition anybody?), then don't use it. After all, you got the Steam key for free. But this slightly condescending look on the new kid on the block (Steam was established in 2003...), gets a tad ridiculous. Now for the reason why the Steam releases are actually a good thing and to answer OP's follow-up question quoted here in the beginning: Subjective Reasons 1. For me, and as I explained in my first post, a big plus is that Steam offers regional pricing and sales. For me the bargain might be not that great but for people who live in countries with a weak currency or ridiculous inflation, Steam's regional pricing is a godsend (Turkey, Argentina). 2. I can track my playtime. I am by no means a quantified self-guy, in fact, I hate all quantifying. But still, as an avid gamer, I like to keep track of how much I play of this or that game. To see that every single CM title is slowly gaining momentum and soon will roll by my shameful 60 hours of PUBG, gives me an odd satisfaction. 3. Also, people like me like to have all their games in one place. Again, the satisfaction. Also, when you're used to it, Steam is easy to navigate and will bring your VERY quickly in your game install folder, so you can look up things. 4. Small thing but still noteworthy: your install of a CM game via Battlefront will divide your game into two sections: the fundamental gamefiles will be installed whereever you like, of course. Let's say you choose your D:\ drive because C:\ is full or not your chosen place for games. Well, the game will STILL make a folder on your C:\ drive and in fact you will have to install all mods there. So when you have 10GB of mods and your C:\ is small, you're a bit in a tight space (literally). The Steam install is all in one place and one place only. Objective Reasons 5. Steam has refunds. This can also be a negative argument since I don't think that people can learn to enjoy a Combat Mission game within the 2 hours of refund time. The best solution to let people try out games are demos. Which Battlefront offers. But not on Steam. In fact, I think they should upload their demos on Steam as well. It might go a long way. Not everyone browsing on Steam and stumbles upon a CM game, knows that there are demos on the official site. Heck, they might not even know an official site exists. 6. As has been said by @MikeyD, CM gets a wider audience, hence maybe more money and more interest which ultimately benefits you. Also, more players means more multiplayer opponents. Look at me youngster: I've purchased my first CM game (SF2) via this website but ONLY because I was promised to get a Steam key later on. 7. As has been said by @Malaspina: automated updating! This is only from the top of my head. I've tried hard to make my argumentation as convincing as @chuckdykes forceful argument against Steam: "Never a problem purchasing my games from BF. Steam a solution without a problem."

Well, let's hope we don't have to wait so long that your new laptop has become an old laptop.

Only the price, yes. Steam has regional prices so for me it is 50 euro on Steam instead of almost 60 euro (Paypal conversion rates) buying it from here. Of course, you support the developers a bit more when you buy it from their website. Then again, in addition to the regional pricing, Steam also has sales on the Combat Mission titles. You might also want to consider that you can complete bundles on Steam, and bundles give you an additional sale. For example, there is a bundle for all modern war CM base games. I already owned Shock Force 2 and Black Sea, so I was able - by purchasing the bundle - to buy Cold War for 40 euro instead of 50 euro. The same is true for the Shock Force 2 DLCs. I already owned 2 of them and completed the bundle at a double sale (regular sale and bundle additional sale), so the last DLC was 14 euro for me instead of the sale 21 euro. Do note, that Battlefront has the same bundles here on the website but you have to buy them at once and you are not able to complete it peu à peu. All that being said, you will get a Steam key for all of the CM games (the WW2 games will come out on Steam some time in the future) when you buy them from the Battlefront website. When you buy the games on Steam, however, you won't get a key for the games outside of Steam.

Hello Ultradave, thank you for your answer! I will try out the Kriegsburg scenarios soon. But as fate has it, I have finally pulled the trigger on Red Thunder yesterday, so I expect my war interests to divert from the Cold War for the next couple of weeks, haha. That being said, I have already learned to embrace the M113 since it already had its fair share of destroying Soviet BMPs with its trusty .50 cal MG. But as much as I am surprised by the M113’s actual fighting capability, I am disappointed by the Dragon launcher of the infantry. The effective range of 1000 meters seems to be way to optimistic. Heck, sometimes they need all of their 6 rockets to destroy a single tank. The M109, of course, is an absolute killer but lacks any anti-infantry fight capabilites and is, of course, dependent only on its mere 8 rockets. So all the purported and actual discourse surrounding the Bradleys notwithstanding, I can see why the US wanted to have something like the Bradley which combines all the 3 assets above, plus thicker armor and a proper automatic gun. After all, with the BMPs the Soviets had their form of “Bradley” already in the 60ies. To conclude: in face of a Cold War gone hot, and as a aspiring arm-chair general, I would have churned up the production and deployed as many Bradleys as possible after 1981. Which is why I was a bit surprised to see none of them so far in the 1981 and 1982 scenarios.