B2-Spirit

That's a good idea for a battle. Also you'd have the added pressure of not wanting to let anyone down by getting their unit slaughtered

I feel the same way when going back to the older games for nostalgia purposes. I find scenarios that I struggled with when I was a child are a lot easier than I remembered. Then I realise I had the mentality then of 'tank beats all, so it should go into battle ahead of everything'. Not ideal!

You're right about these simulations being addictive drugs and very large sponges of time! My particular addiction for CM is when new modules are released, my brain is 'MUST HAVE, MUST HAVE', but the rational part of my brain knows I probably won't have time to play it anytime soon. I just feel better for having it ready!

I bet the satisfaction factor must be massive when you pull off a successful operation. I'll need to give it a go when I have more time

Love this! That must have been epic. Did you finish it?

Wow, thanks for sharing. Comprehensive post! I can definitely relate to some of the games you mentioned: Red Alert 2 - I put a lot of hours into this game and had a blast playing multiplayer in university. Loved the cringey cutscene videos! Rome Total War - I started with the original Shogun, but I remember the jump to 3D being quite something. The only issue I had was I felt the AI deteriorated compared to the 2D games. On my first playthrough of RTW, I conquered most of Europe and never felt like I was close to losing a battle. Agree that playing with mods is the only way to get the proper total war experience. Some great ones out there. I had a lot of fun with Roma Surrectum. Darkest Hour - Great game. Put a lot of time into the Hearts of Iron games but this one is very solid. Much more difficult to conquer Russia as the Germans than the base game. I've always wanted to give the Gary Grigsby games a go, but the huge complexity has always put me off. I feel like I'd need to watch hours of youtube tutorials on it before I'd even be confident to load the game! Good on you for experimenting with modding. Can add countless hours of fun to a game and increase its longevity.

That's too bad you came across the CMx1 games so late. I can sympathise with your friends who found the spotting element of the CMx2 games frustrating. A totally different beast compared to the earlier games and probably explains why I found CMBN so difficult when it first came out. I did find myself going back to the CMx1 games quite a lot at first, then I gradually better understood the mechanics of CMBN and the newer games. Not for the impatient shall we say!

We agree on CM being far superior now. I consider it more of an arcade quick battle experience these days. Regrettably I don't always have enough time to play CM, especially when organising pixeltruppen in between turns can take about 30mins or longer for the larger battles.

Hi all, I've noticed that the average Combat Mission gamer appears to be a more mature individual and I wondered what games lead you down the road to Combat Mission? For me, probably the first WW2 strategy game that I played that actually made me think about military tactics was Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far. Paying attention to things like morale, using suppression and tactical manoeuvre were key to success unlike a lot of previous games. I continued with the Close Combat series for a good while and then stumbled across an article in a PC gaming magazine... It looked like Close Combat but in 3D! It was of course Combat Mission Beyond Overlord and that was the start of my Combat Mission journey. I've stuck with the WW2 focused games through all the releases and it remains my main fix for tactical combat in this area. Does anyone else still play the Close Combat games? I do when I want a quick couple of battles but the AI is non-existent after the early releases. What other tactical war games do you play in addition to CM? Sorry for the waffly post, but I'd be interested to hear what everyone plays.

Really appreciate the responses, thanks

Hi all, I've been out of the CM loop for a while and just gone through the process of getting steam keys for my games. My question - I only upgraded to upgrade version 3 when I last played. Are my steam versions automatically at version 4 or do I need to purchase it from the Battlefront website and redo my steam keys? Hopefully this makes sense!