How to defend?

[Childress]

I have absolutely no problem with that cos I have always known that the CM series is a great entertainment product not a great simulation.

I expect a high level of simulation from CM which, imo, it provides. But not a perfect one.

Also we need, perhaps, to accept that Wego CM and RT CM are similar but not identical games. It's simpler to execute a precise ambush in RT. And it's easier to get your troops to bug out of a Mortar attack in RT when the spotting rounds fall. Or to reverse your tank out of range of a AT gun discovered in mid-turn. Different strokes...

[JonS]

In RT, maybe the above would work cos one can immediately PAUSE and adjust.

Ah yes. The favourite action of the RT Pause Monkey - things are going wrong, so HIT THE PANIC BUTTON AND FIX IT NOW!

I'm not really sure how the Pause Monkeys are able to reconcile the PANIC button with "real life concepts"

in WEGO one has to fight the system and throw RL concepts away.

Nah, not at all. In WEGO you have to use your noggin, anticipate the enemy's actions, plan your response, issue your orders, then trust the outcome to your skill and to fate. That seems like a pretty hardcore application of real life concepts to me

I like to think of it as the calm and composed Zen Master vs the ritalin addicted teenager off his meds

I emphasize, I love the game even with its many flaws.

Of course. You'd be a fool otherwise

[sburke]

I find it strange that one has to depend on the God's eye picture to play effectively after all the effort has been made to make the game more realistic. What sburke described above is an attempt to game the system rather than do anything realistic.

I have no idea how you drew that conclusion. My goal was simply to open fire on his team which was in my teams LOS (that had nothing to do with any "god's eye" view, the team springing the ambush had spotted the team I wanted to ambush). I had them unhide as I didn't want to risk them waiting too long to open fire and I didn't target the other team as I wanted my team to be able to react if they saw something that wasn't currently visible. I actually prefer to allow the TAC AI to make decisions more often than not as I find it actually performs very well.

In RL, why would the ambushers stand up to shoot after the attackers have just gone to ground, and then move away from their xnt defensive location to get shot down? What I see above is a failed ambush thanks to the system not allowing a sensible ambush to be executed.

I can think of a lot of reasons. The most salient being the fact that my unit had accomplished it's main goal which was to spot the enemy closing. I am not sure how with no information whatsoever you decided it was an excellent defensive position. It wasn't, however it had been a good OP up until that turn.

I think the above behavior was totally realistic and not gaming anything. The only problem with my plan was at the moment they went to split town they now were VERY visible to any other units that were moving in and I paid the price. In addition it was clear how close his infantry was and I had not much good reason to stick around and almost certainly lose a team. Making judgements of the actions I had planned required quite a bit more info than you actually have.

In RT, maybe the above would work cos one can immediately PAUSE and adjust. But, in WEGO one has to fight the system and throw RL concepts away.

I totally disagree. I don't assume that because my plan fails, it is immediately the game's fault or even that it would have worked so much better in RT. In this case I think it was a decent plan, but bad luck. If he hadn't immediately gone to ground it could have turned out completely different. In the Hamel Vallee AAR I had a team pull off 2 very spectacular back to back ambushes and get away without loss.

I have absolutely no problem with that cos I have always known that the CM series is a great entertainment product not a great simulation. So, I don't expect a high level of realism. But, given that it is a game, the ambushes I still spring in CM1 tournaments (which are going great btw) are more satisfying and effective than the convoluted process described above which imo resulted in a more "unrealistic" outcome than in CM1.

But, I emphasize, I love the game even with its many flaws.

If you judge the game only by your success or not, I respectfully suggest that your evaluation parameters are severely flawed. This may not be what you intend to say, but it comes off as - If I can successfully ambush great, if I can't it must be the game's fault. As I noted before I have been able to successfully pull off ambushes in CMx2, just not this time. I have also been ambushed brutally on occasion by my opponents. If folks are having trouble doing so in CMx2 I expect either they plan poorly or have excessively bad luck. However even a good plan is never a guarrantee, sometimes s**t happens.

[womble]

...given that it is a game, the ambushes I still spring in CM1 tournaments (which are going great btw) are more satisfying and effective than the convoluted process described above which imo resulted in a more "unrealistic" outcome than in CM1.

You realise that this effectively says "I've not gotten used to how the commands and terrain work in CMx2 yet," don't you?

You say, in not so many words: ambushes don't work in x2. What you really mean is: ambushes don't work when you attempt them in x2. They work when others execute them.

We've already covered "not using hide except when you're sure it'll work".

The other thing that's different in x2 is how it treats cover. Aside from things like bocage, you want to have your ambushers deep in concealment, not in the edge of it. Being one tile back from the edge of a patch of concealment offers 3 times the concealment of being in the edge tile. Possibly more, since if one of your team decides to position themselves in better cover near the front of the tile, where the concealment is less, you might have 0.1 tile depth of concealment to your most visible element, whereas if you're back one, you'll have at least a tile's depth, even if your eager pTruppe is right on the edge of the tile the team's in.

It can't be stressed enough that "a patch of trees" says nothing about the concealment offered by the terrain.

Trying to ambush anyone with a Squad is going to be difficult, since you can't precisely control where they set up and therefore how much concealment you have. Split into teams with your smallest team in the most visible location: they're more likely to remain hidden, and if they do get spotted, you lose the least. It's also more difficult to ensure that all the Squad's teams have targeting solutions on the ambush point if it's one great blob of grunts.

Don't have your Covered Arcs too short. At 50m, you'll almost instantly pin most infantry elements, and likely kill a couple too. If you're all rifle-calibre, you can set your range out to 100m and still be really effective. Much closer than 50m and if the enemy is moving correctly, you'll likely be spotted before you open fire.

[Aragorn2002]

Let's leave the infantry ambush for what it is. What can be said about the positioning of tanks and assault guns in the defence? To my opinion it is quite difficult to counterattack with them, since they immediately draw fire from enemy tanks. I've tried to imitate the good old CMBB-tactics of shoot and scoot, but the enemy is usually reacting very fast. How can tanks and assault guns best be used in the defence?

[sburke]

Let's leave the infantry ambush for what it is. What can be said about the positioning of tanks and assault guns in the defence? To my opinion it is quite difficult to counterattack with them, since they immediately draw fire from enemy tanks. I've tried to imitate the good old CMBB-tactics of shoot and scoot, but the enemy is usually reacting very fast. How can tanks and assault guns best be used in the defence?

If you hit my link for the Bois de Baugin AAR and go to post 12, there is a JPz IV ambushing two Shermans. It kills both with no return fire. There are a lot of factors here in play. The Shermans are buttoned up and at least one has had a TC lost I believe. The battlefield is very chaotic and between the various units firing and the smoke, there is a lot to grab the Sherman's attention. That is when the JPz trundles over the crest. This is where relative spotting becomes so important. Plenty of units could now see my JPz, but nothing that was a threat actually did and the Shermans though obviously in LOS knew nothing until one was down and the other had already been hit.

I think this is a key factor in pulling off an ambush. Give the enemy more than one thing to deal with, it buys you time as they try to assess the various threats. In Hamel Vallee I had to strike back with my StuGs frequently to keep the enemy armor at arms length to allow my Infantry to hold up. Most cases I did not get off the first shot if Broadsword's armor was already in position. Thank my lucky stars the StuG is a fairly tough vehicle. In no case did I lose a StuG due to enemy return fire (my Marder didn't fare so well). Worst case was my armor would back off, usually it killed the opposing armor. Part of the reason was my locations. I almost always had either a hedgerow or reverse slope to limit what the enemy could hit. On the other hand, that would likely not have worked against Churchills. Man those things have a tough hide.

[Frankster65]

I think this is a key factor in pulling off an ambush. Give the enemy more than one thing to deal with, it buys you time as they try to assess the various threats.

I heartily agree with you sburke. This is exactly how I do it when setting up a kill I need to get on the battlefield. I learned this method while playing CMSF actually. The Syrians will never be able to react as quickly as the technologically superior NATO vehicles or troops. I usually pick one vehicle or infantry unit to act as the sacrificial lamb and another to act as the killer of my target. Using the "pause command" of about 15 seconds on the vehicle which will expose itself and do the killing, I send the other sacrificial lamb unit ahead to draw attention of target, thus giving the killing vehicle time to aquire safely and target the enemy. This method works well in the CMBN series as well...I would say even better considering the technologies are very similar in the WW2 genre.

[Erwin]

"...you want to have your ambushers deep in concealment, not in the edge of it. Being one tile back from the edge of a patch of concealment offers 3 times the concealment of being in the edge tile."

Right here is a big problem I have with CM2. How is a typical player (not a grog constantly visiting these forums) to measure a tile? How does he measure how much extra concealment his man gets being "x" meters in a forest vs brush vs rough etc?

Why do we have to resort to that when one could simply have a terrain base color so it can be easily measured? Where does the manual explain this? When I read these comments it starts to appear that "cover/concealment" is very similar to CM1.

Somehow, a player has to figure out how many meters one needs to be from the edge of the concealment/cover to get "x" benefit. But where is that edge? In CM1 we had ground base colors. What CM2 has done is remove all the aids that could help one play the game to make it more difficult for difficulties sake. It's that additional difficulty which sparks endless discussions about how "realistic" it is. In reality for the guy in RL who is in the woods, it's pretty obvious how far he is from the edge, and also what he can see and not see. I always thought that in RL foxholes would provide cover and concealment for guns. Instead, CM2 teaches me that foxholes are deathtraps. One has to be very selective to learn the "right" lessons from CM2 as it also teaches many wrong lessons.

[sfhand]

"...you want to have your ambushers deep in concealment, not in the edge of it. Being one tile back from the edge of a patch of concealment offers 3 times the concealment of being in the edge tile."

Right here is a big problem I have with CM2. How is a typical player (not a grog constantly visiting these forums) to measure a tile? How does he measure how much extra concealment his man gets being "x" meters in a forest vs brush vs rough etc?

Why do we have to resort to that when one could simply have a terrain base color so it can be easily measured? Where does the manual explain this? When I read these comments it starts to appear that "cover/concealment" is very similar to CM1.

Somehow, a player has to figure out how many meters one needs to be from the edge of the concealment/cover to get "x" benefit. But where is that edge? In CM1 we had ground base colors. What CM2 has done is remove all the aids that could help one play the game to make it more difficult for difficulties sake. It's that additional difficulty which sparks endless discussions about how "realistic" it is. In reality for the guy in RL who is in the woods, it's pretty obvious how far he is from the edge, and also what he can see and not see. I always thought that in RL foxholes would provide cover and concealment for guns. Instead, CM2 teaches me that foxholes are deathtraps. One has to be very selective to learn the "right" lessons from CM2 as it also teaches many wrong lessons.

Erwin, I don't get the basis for your complaint on this issue. Any player who plots a movement order can see the tiles, there is no mystery to knowing how many tiles one is into a forest. Further, once one plots a position in a tile one can check LOS from that position to make sure one can see where one wants to be able to see from that position.

I have no comment on the foxhole issue. I've run some spotting tests recently and the results left me wondering about concealment and spotting, but I'm fairly confident greater minds than mine are dealing with the issue...

[sburke]

"...you want to have your ambushers deep in concealment, not in the edge of it. Being one tile back from the edge of a patch of concealment offers 3 times the concealment of being in the edge tile."

Right here is a big problem I have with CM2. How is a typical player (not a grog constantly visiting these forums) to measure a tile? How does he measure how much extra concealment his man gets being "x" meters in a forest vs brush vs rough etc?

Why do we have to resort to that when one could simply have a terrain base color so it can be easily measured? Where does the manual explain this? When I read these comments it starts to appear that "cover/concealment" is very similar to CM1.

Somehow, a player has to figure out how many meters one needs to be from the edge of the concealment/cover to get "x" benefit. But where is that edge? In CM1 we had ground base colors. What CM2 has done is remove all the aids that could help one play the game to make it more difficult for difficulties sake. It's that additional difficulty which sparks endless discussions about how "realistic" it is. In reality for the guy in RL who is in the woods, it's pretty obvious how far he is from the edge, and also what he can see and not see. I always thought that in RL foxholes would provide cover and concealment for guns. Instead, CM2 teaches me that foxholes are deathtraps. One has to be very selective to learn the "right" lessons from CM2 as it also teaches many wrong lessons.

It's a game on a computer. RL isn't relevant in the sense of what you would or wouldn't know. In the game, any game, you have to learn how things work. The aids for CMx2 aren't the same because CMx1 abstracted everything. It could give you definitive info because being in a woods hex meant being in a woods hex. There was no underlying tile for terrain and depth had no relevance.

I am sure you really do not want to hear this, but the sooner you break with CMx1 conventions the better off you'll be. Referring back to how things were in CMx1 is simply an impediment to trying to learn CMx2. With the differences in engines things that were possible in CMx1 just do not apply. The tiles are actually different and if you get used to knowing the various ground tiles and zoom out you can get somewhat the same general idea at least, but it isn't 100%. CMx2 is definitely not as simple as CMx1. There are far more variables and that is both good and bad depending on your perspective. If you are hoping for some simple rules or tools to tell you what to expect I am afraid you are going to continue to be disappointed.

[womble]

"...you want to have your ambushers deep in concealment, not in the edge of it. Being one tile back from the edge of a patch of concealment offers 3 times the concealment of being in the edge tile."

Right here is a big problem I have with CM2. How is a typical player (not a grog constantly visiting these forums) to measure a tile?

When you're moving infantry, the tile the team is going to end up in is highlighted. With a move order selected, start at the edge of the terrain, and move your mouse back into the terrain until the highlighted tile pops to the next one.

For vehicles it doesn't matter so much since their placement isn't bounded by tiles, and the game measures, AIUI metres-length of concealing terrain that the LOS/LOF intersects.

How does he measure how much extra concealment his man gets being "x" meters in a forest vs brush vs rough etc?

He plots a waypoint outside the terrain, and tries to draw LOS into the terrain. Most of the time, the LOS from outside won't get as far a the LOS from inside.

Why do we have to resort to that when one could simply have a terrain base color so it can be easily measured?

What do you want to be easily measured? What use is a terrain base colour, when other things than terrain will impact on available LOS? A "base colour" would just deny you opportunities to hide if you relied on it.

Where does the manual explain this? When I read these comments it starts to appear that "cover/concealment" is very similar to CM1.

Really? Your reading comprehension needs some serious work then. How can you interpret "Trees don't necessarily mean concealment" (what people are telling you about CM2) to be the same as "A Forest tile will offer concealment to a unit in it" (the way it works in CM1)?

Somehow, a player has to figure out how many meters one needs to be from the edge of the concealment/cover to get "x" benefit. But where is that edge?

Even I can see where terrain types change. Not that that's much assistance, because all the terrain types that offer concealment will contribute to the concealment of one unit from another whos LOS passes through those types. Another difference, IIRC, from x1: x1 only considered the terrain the target was in, not any intervening terrain, like high grass which might impinge on the vision.

And you just have to try it out. Make waypoints all over the map on key terrains and see if they can draw LOS to where you are. There's no universal value for a given point either. It will depend where you're being looked at from. As a rule of thumb, though, you want to be as deep in the cover as you can be while still being able to draw LOS out of it. To start with you'll need to draw LOS from your terminal waypoint, but it really doesn't take too long to learn general depths required. Again, there's no panacea for showing LOS, because you'll always have LOS to somewhere even if it's only the next tile.

It's worth getting rid of the idea of "benefit x" too. It's pretty much all a continuum. 4m of Light Forest between you and the observer is twice as good as 2m and half as good as 8m. Assuming same elevation. XT grass will hide prone infantry near as well as cornfields but not so well kneeling men. And any given location for an infantry team will likely be providing different concealment for each of the pTruppen.

In CM1 we had ground base colors. What CM2 has done is remove all the aids that could help one play the game to make it more difficult for difficulties sake.

So, how do you propose to have different ground base colours for all the different types of terrain that offer concealment? How would that be better than having different (realistic, pleasing to the eye) shades of greens and browns and greys with lovingly created textures to identify those distinctions? I still have difficulty deciding precisely what kind of terrain it is my men are hiding in, but a quick zoom down to level 1 tells me whether it's brown earth they're on, or swamp, to take a trivial example. To make the terrains different by colour, you'd need, at a quick count, about a dozen colours. I don't know about you, but I really don't want my playing field to be spattered with blue, purple and red, and I certainly couldn't distinguish between a dozen shades of green, especially when other area effect washes are superimposed.

It's that additional difficulty which sparks endless discussions about how "realistic" it is.

Nope. It's people that refuse to accept that it's not simplistic who spark those discussions. People who then refuse to accept the advice they're offered. People like you. You're active on the forum; since you appear to be interested in the matter, it would take a monumental act of wilful ignorance to have missed all the other discussions about it.

In reality for the guy in RL who is in the woods, it's pretty obvious how far he is from the edge, and also what he can see and not see.

In the game, it's pretty obvious, and easy to have a quick check to see what he can and can't see before he even gets there!!!

[LukeFF]

Yep, +1 womble

[Mord]

Erwin, your problem is you over complicate things. You turn simple things into a Rubix Cube. The game isn't nearly as unfathomable as you make it out to be and you have been playing since CMX1 and were around for CMSF and have been in hundreds of discussions on the finer points of CMX2. LOL and STILL...I'd think after all that you'd have a grasp. I am not nearly as anal as you about all this stuff and I seem to do Ok against live opponents. Maybe you just need to think less about all the minute details when you play?

Mord.

[Erwin]

You guys may be correct on a couple issues. However, with all my years on CM play, I still have a hard enough time playing vs the AI without taking unacceptable/unrealistic casualties. My life experience is that there are many people who have similar experiences/problems as I may have, but the vast majority are unwilling to say anything and get targeted.

As you all know I am sure I speak from the POV of a gamer who loves the ILLUSION of reality, but nearly always will promote playability as being far more important than accurate simulation.

I have loved the CM series from the start and aside from the early CMSF iterations, I think CM2 is by far the best computer wargame series ever, and BF gets my respect and admiration for sticking with it.

I do believe/fear that there is a danger that we could see a repeat of what happened to the cardboard game "industry" in the late 70's-early 80's. Maybe most of you were not around then, or didn't play cardboard wargames at that time. But, at that time there was a very vocal demand for increased realism which was answered by game companies who produced very larger more complex games that attempted to be better simulations.

This resulted in rulebooks that took (literally) days of hard study to read and required an eidetic memory to remember and a lawyer's capabilities to understand. These games often took more than a full day to setup, covered several dining tables with maps, and months, even years to play. They were hard work to play and were no longer fun.

Not long after, the hobby imploded, most players like me became "collectors" since so few had the time to play these monsters. Great game companies like West End Games, Victory Games, SPI etc etc went out of business.

Now, most gamers would consider me a Grog. But, I aint got nothing on you folks. So, what we have on these forums is a minuscule specialized sliver of the tiny wargaming niche.

Believe it or not, I love all of you and your idiosyncrasies... (Well aside from the reprobates... you know who you are lol.) But, I think there is a danger of expecting too much from the average gamer, and I do not want to see BF go the way of the cardboard wargame companies.

[stikkypixie]

That's the thing though isn't it. The added variety in the terrain does not make it harder to play the game. Just as in CMx1 you plot your movement order to it and the guys will do their thing. There is no need to memorize anything. What you seem to be after is to be able to know that if I'm on tile "XYZ" my cover will be a definite 13% and this will affect my assault, this way or some other way.

It's a different style of play than mine for example, where I only roughly gauge the characteristics of the terrain, not precisely but enough to know whether I want to risk putting guys there or not. If things go well, they can stay, otherwise I just tell them to pack up and run away.

A lot of the scenarios ARE very hard to win, but I've noticed that when I lose it was due to my lack of planning and patience rather that something the game isn't telling me. If I lost a scenario it isn't because I picked a tile with only 15% cover instead of the one with 17% (or whatever). It's usually because of something larger than that.

I don't know about your background, I have no military background whatsoever (and I like to keep it that way), so to me it's no surprise I mess up so often as it takes years to learn the tactics, doctrinal concepts of an army and implement the correctly in battle. And I don't expect to be able to do as well as a real army commander would just by playing a couple of hours a week.

[edited] To say that, the added "realism" of CMx2 is not its variety of terrain. You could do the same to CMx1, and it would still play the same way. But rather in the introduction of 1:1 soldiers, relative spotting and C2.

[Childress]

Erwin, your problem is you over complicate things. You turn simple things into a Rubix Cube. The game isn't nearly as unfathomable as you make it out to be and you have been playing since CMX1 and were around for CMSF and have been in hundreds of discussions on the finer points of CMX2. LOL and STILL....

Agreed. Panzer General and its descendants were/are puzzle games par excellence, absorbing for some, but exhibit little relation to the actual conduct of warfare. What may be going on here, and I don't single out Erwin, is that some of us ruled in CM1 but struggle with CM2. Many miss the feeling of mastery and control. Hence the nostalgia. CM2 is more chaotic, shocking at times, and puts a premium on patience. Terrain factors are less concrete more impressionistic. Nevertheless it presents a far more convincing depiction of battle.

[sburke]

You guys may be correct on a couple issues. However, with all my years on CM play, I still have a hard enough time playing vs the AI without taking unacceptable/unrealistic casualties. My life experience is that there are many people who have similar experiences/problems as I may have, but the vast majority are unwilling to say anything and get targeted.

No offense, but I hate arguments like that. First off there is no way to counter it, it's totally subjective possibility. Second yes there are some occasional rants, but hell I have had more heated arguments with my best friends over politics, religion etc etc Discussion here is generally way below that level of intensity. Get targeted? Come on now it isn't like we are gonna come over and TP your house. Okay maybe we will, but we will at least use a good TP mod. I have been told by at least one guy that I have BF's balls in my mouth. Yeah we have folks like that around here, but the world is made up of all kinds. You can't let the children out there spoil your fun.

As you all know I am sure I speak from the POV of a gamer who loves the ILLUSION of reality, but nearly always will promote playability as being far more important than accurate simulation.

To some degree we all want that, just how much you up your bass versus your treble is all we are really discussing. I think in fact that folks who keep asking for more control etc are the ones risking making the game unplayable. The AI needs some fudge factor and there are only so many UI tools that can be piled on. At a certain point you just have to play the game.

I do believe/fear that there is a danger that we could see a repeat of what happened to the cardboard game "industry" in the late 70's-early 80's. Maybe most of you were not around then, or didn't play cardboard wargames at that time. But, at that time there was a very vocal demand for increased realism which was answered by game companies who produced very larger more complex games that attempted to be better simulations.

This isn't just a possibility, this has been happening to plenty of game companies. The issue though isn't necessarily the games, it is the business model. Knowing your base community and knowing how well you can grow your business or not is just as important as knowing how to program the game. Fortunately for us BF seems to be very sharp on both counts. CMSF and CMFI were both surprises to all of us. Some people are still saying CMSF was a mistake while I think CMFI has done better than even BF expected. One of the things I like about BF is while they do know what the gaming community generally wants, they also seem to know how much what we think we want is actually what we would play. They may look at it to a different degree Erwin, but they make the same decisions about realism and playability all the time as well, as understanding what the impact would be on the AI. And we all scream, rant and cry about why this or that doesn't work in the game, why we don't have fire yet. How come our guys can't peek around a corner yet etc etc.

This resulted in rulebooks that took (literally) days of hard study to read and required an eidetic memory to remember and a lawyer's capabilities to understand. These games often took more than a full day to setup, covered several dining tables with maps, and months, even years to play. They were hard work to play and were no longer fun.

Not long after, the hobby imploded, most players like me became "collectors" since so few had the time to play these monsters. Great game companies like West End Games, Victory Games, SPI etc etc went out of business.

Now, most gamers would consider me a Grog. But, I aint got nothing on you folks. So, what we have on these forums is a minuscule specialized sliver of the tiny wargaming niche.

Believe it or not, I love all of you and your idiosyncrasies... (Well aside from the reprobates... you know who you are lol.) But, I think there is a danger of expecting too much from the average gamer, and I do not want to see BF go the way of the cardboard wargame companies.

Honestly I am not sure that is an accurate description of what happened to the boardgame community. There is still a demand for large, very detailed games. I know of at least one OP layer campaign being prepared using the Where Eagles Dare/ Red Cauldron Market Garden game. A true monster of a game that seems to be selling well. I think a more accurate description of what happened to the boardgaming hobby is a lot more nuanced and I would bet bear a startling resemblance to the same issues the computer gaming industry has faced; greed, bad business models etc etc. Thing is CMx2 is a game constantly under development. There is no "finished" product. Honestly none of us knows what UI tools CMx2 will have in a year, so relax. Version 2 already has improvements and Steve has already discussed some thoughts on what Version 3 might have. It's all good. BF is healthy and is still listening. Good times.

[Aragorn2002]

Agreed. Panzer General and its descendants were/are puzzle games par excellence, absorbing for some, but exhibit little relation to the actual conduct of warfare. What may be going on here, and I don't single out Erwin, is that some of us ruled in CM1 but struggle with CM2. Many miss the feeling of mastery and control. Hence the nostalgia. CM2 is more chaotic, shocking at times, and puts a premium on patience. Terrain factors are less concrete more impressionistic. Nevertheless it presents a far more convincing depiction of battle.

Chaotic indeed. I have to fight the tendency to concentrate on one or two platoons or tanks and leave the rest of my units to fight for their own lifes. It is almost impossible to keep an eye on all units. Things are happening so much faster than in CM1, the advance of tanks for instance. They look like Formula 1 cars to me sometimes, it's great to see, but it leaves little time to react.

[Childress]

One of the things I like about BF is while they do know what the gaming community generally wants, they also seem to know how much what we think we want is actually what we would play.

Aye, there's the rub.

[Andrew H.]

I do believe/fear that there is a danger that we could see a repeat of what happened to the cardboard game "industry" in the late 70's-early 80's. Maybe most of you were not around then, or didn't play cardboard wargames at that time. But, at that time there was a very vocal demand for increased realism which was answered by game companies who produced very larger more complex games that attempted to be better simulations.

This resulted in rulebooks that took (literally) days of hard study to read and required an eidetic memory to remember and a lawyer's capabilities to understand. These games often took more than a full day to setup, covered several dining tables with maps, and months, even years to play. They were hard work to play and were no longer fun.

Not long after, the hobby imploded, most players like me became "collectors" since so few had the time to play these monsters. Great game companies like West End Games, Victory Games, SPI etc etc went out of business.

I was a cardboard wargamer at that time and I don't think that it was complexity that killed the industry: at the same time that the "drive-every-tank-in-the-German-Army" games were coming out, there were also fairly simple games coming out - "Storm over Arnhem"; "Hitler's War"; Napoleon: the Waterloo Campaign (the game with wooden blocks); and others. "Up Front" (the card game) was also popular at this time.

The biggest problems with wargames for most people wasn't the complexity; it was finding opponents. (I seem to remember Avalon Hill having some data suggesting that a slight majority of their customers never played against an opponent). I was lucky enough not to be in that situation, although I do own several games that I've never played against anyone.

Computer wargames took over, IMO, because they gave everyone an opponent...and most people preferred to play even the simplified computer wargames available in the 80's against the AI than to set up a cardboard game and play it solitaire.

[DavidFields]

I have sympathy for what Erwin writes (though I no longer play CM1--I do have some sense that I "have to let go). I think CMFI is spectacular, from what I have seen so far--he also seems to think it is a great simulation.

Other than getting a feel for CMFI, some of my self-inflicted strugglings I have with it are:

1. Because of..pride..and wanting the most reasonable reality, I don't play below Warrior.

2. I am often playing this after work, after dinner, after socializing with the family, with a glass of wine (or something) in my hand. Neither my ability to speak foreign languages nor to maneuver troops is helped by alcohol.

Combined with the fact that a 50 turn scenario is going to take me, in WeGo, easily 4-5 hours--even the simplest scenario--and by 1am, or by 3am, I am can get fairly sloppy. But if I split the scenario over too many days, it gets stale--I have to re-think what I was doing, and often want to replay the last sloppy turns over again.

My suggestion, consistent with Erwin's concerns, is (and has been) the following:

Micro-Tiny scenarios. Maps about 1/4 the size of Beyond Belize. Squad on each side, for instance, with a hill in between and a VL on top. 10 minute scenario length.

Rationale: given how interesting it can be in CM2 to see each soldier, every shot, every grenade throw, this capitalizes on that. Could be played in an hour. Multiple possible approaches would still be possible, with the addition of splitting or not splitting squads.

Have 10 of those Micro-Tiny scenarios, with a variety of different squads, different experiences (A veteran Italian squad against a green American squad), different terrains (if there were heavy trees around the VL the scenario would be much different than if it were bare).

Then we could "beer and pretzel" a scenario in an hour--and I would not have to worry about being 3 hours into a scenario only to find I did something critically wrong at the beginning.

I know, I think, how to set up fire support/overwatch. I know about suppressive fire (though I need to use area fire better).

What I have a hard time with, so far, is understanding the effects of light forrest versus heavy, with regards to LOS, fatigue, and cover. I don't have a good feel for the effects of the various infanty number modifiers, or for how far, for example, I can Hunt with my infantry for what gain in fatigue. Even how long I need to hang out for Buddy Aid is not entirely clear to me.

These are all things I would like to have a better "feel" for--not even the CM1 percentage-type thing, before playing something "as big" as Beyond Belice. At that size, there are so many things going on simultaneously (including a "quirk" with on of the Italian AFVs, which is not immediately obvious), that I have a hard time learning very many specifics.

Maybe I could set up these Micro-Tiny battles myself--and maybe I will, come to think of it [LOL, instead I pulled up a random QB lately and ended up with 3 battalions of Italian Infantry].

But I also think it would be easier to attract..even teenagers...particulary on something like an I-Pad, where I think these small battles would be ideal.

[Broadsword56]

Since Vassal, Cyberboard Zun Tzu and the like came out, we've gotten the best of both worlds: The ability to play traditional wargames on the computer with no need for tables, cardboard counters, and space; and the ability to find human opponents worldwide for PBEM or online play. On community sites like Consimworld and Boardgamegeek, wargamers have a 24/7 community to discuss games in ways they could never do before. Ebay and online used-game stores keep older wargames alive and played many years after they went out of print. It's led to a second golden age for traditional wargames and the hobby of playing them -- not only the old AH and SPI classics, but all sorts of new games in the block, card, print-and-play formats, as well as great game magazines (like Battles or Against All Odds) with games in them. It's never looked better. As a money-making industry, selling a physical product, the wargame business is lucky to break even today compared to the golden days of the cardboard boxed games sold in stores. But just because the original business model eventually failed doesn't mean the hobby itself died with it. Back in the 1990s I thought it would, but things have turned out very differently. Finally, with BFC, the CMx1 and the CMx2 engine, we're seeing great "artisan" computer wargames made by designers who are gamers themselves, with a completely different approach than the big-money blockbuster side of the game industry. And it's now possible to use CM and traditional wargames together to create multi-level metagames. It just doesn't get any better than that.

[Erwin]

Rankorian's ideas reminded me that the increased problems I have with CM2 over CM1 are primarily as a result of loving the huge combined arms maneuver battles, and not liking the small infantry-focused scenarios.

I need to emphasize that am not trying to convince folks that CM1 is superior in all ways, it's that CM1 enables me (and others like me) to more efficiently and pleasurably play the huge scenarios with 3 battalions assorted infantry on each side with several companies of tanks and other vehicles.

Eventually, maybe we'll be able to do that in CM2. But, I predict that due to the increased detail/granularity and lethality of CM2, any huge scenarios will take a looong time to complete and be hard work to play well/carefully. The scale and abstractions needed to play on that scale is where CM1 still shines. I also know that there are many here who enjoy and want small infantry-based battles. ...And that is the basis for 90%+ of the disagreements and misunderstandings here.

[John Kettler]

Speaking as someone only recently arrived to CMBN, I find the game to be much more demanding than CMx1. This is particularly true when I've done the smart thing by breaking my squads into teams, creating a LOT more work for myself.

I find even a few platoons a lot to deal with and flat out freaked with some early scenario in which I was given a battalion and told to go attack some objective. Hit the Quit in under a minute, not being able to even deal with the setup.

Mind, I've seen some of my early posts on the CMx1 end and was definitely having problems getting up to speed there, especially in making the transition from CMBO to CMBB. Was that ever ugly! Nor was it a picnic when dust was introduced in CMAK. Wonder I have ANY teeth left!

I can remember when I swore blind I'd NEVER play a computer wargame. Famous last words! My initial outing with SSI's Red Lightning on the Amiga (was given the game by a friend who had no Amiga) was an unqualified disaster, for being unable to see but a portion of the map at a time, I wound up winning in one sector while losing the war. Drove me nuts!

My mood later improved playing Red Baron, Mega Fortress on it, plus Chuck Yeager's Fighter Combat on a friend's PC. I used to also assist a master player on weapon development in Masters of Orion, but really got hooked on Panzer Elite (helped improve the game, too, via a grog forum like this one) on his PC --where I just happened to encounter a certain animated banner.. "Holy E-crack, Batman!"

Before my fall from grace, though, I was a dyed in the wool traditional wargamer who'd cut his teeth on Tactics II, Kriegspiel, Midway, Richthofen's War, then went on to War at Sea, Russian Campaign and Tobruk,ultimately throwing in the towel over the grotesquely inaccurate MBT, but reveling in Up Front; who'd extensively wargamed in miniature with both ROCO Minitanks™ and GHQ Micro Armour™ on a sand table he built, using WRG, TSR's Fast Rules and Tractics; who'd played numerous naval games in 1:2400th using Fletcher Pratt's Rules; who'd done man-to-man Napoleonic cavalry skirmishes, playtested Balboa Games' H-Hour, played loads of SPI stuff, especially Red Star White Star, Mech War 77 and Firefight (gave up on Mech War 85--way too complicated--two rule books set in micro type); who'd played AH's Wooden Ships & Iron Men at tournament level and won; who'd played FASA's Gladiator at tournament level and swept the field with his team (was a deadly retiarius); who'd played scads of Yaquinto's Ironclads (and supplement) both with counters and miniatures; who'd played that firm's Armor with Micro Armor™, and was thrilled with GDW's Assault (had all the modules, but never did much) and got to play Harpoon with one of the developers (brother Ed) in a game refereed by another creator, a nobody named Larry Bond! Oh, and I played Alien Space and about a zillion games of Nuke War, not to mention combat in miniature involving such diverse areas as pirates, the American Revolution, American Civil War, galleys, and Medieval warfare. And, yes, I've fought Waterloo with Columbus Games' famous hidden value wooden block counters, with step reduction. Never owned or played any of the monster games, but how I lusted over things like Victory Games' Fifth Fleet and similar. I had to content myself, though, with wearing out SimCan's SSN, developing new scenarios for AH's Attack Sub and dabbling with SimCan's Seapower & The State, plus a really cool game called Seastrike, by some British firm I can't remember.

So, yes, it can happen to you!

As to what happened in the wargame industry, both it and plastic models took huge hits on the cost front, with model costs soaring on oil price rises and paper and postage jumps undermining the wargame business.

AH was in the hands of a man, Eric Dott, who knew nothing about gaming, cared nothing about it and was using it as a write off. tore the firm apart and sold part of the catalog to Hasbro as part of killing AH outright. A friend was editor of the house mag THE GENERAL while this debacle unfolded. SPI tried to do too much too fast, and quality suffered, alienating the buyers. More and more competitors were chasing fewer and fewer wargamers. Not good.

But one of the fundamental issues was that the wargamers and model builders aged out, and they were largely not replaced. Frankly, when I see what a tank model costs these days (never mind the wonderful, pricey add-ons) or those wargames still available, I shudder. Too many things became available that, simply put, kept the pool of wargamers and modelers from refilling as it had for decades. Card games like Tragic, the Lathering (played it; it was okay) and Pokemon were killers in this regard.

Do both board wargaming and model building survive? They do, and what's available astounds, but neither enjoys the mass popularity of the earlier days.

And I think we all know we are as a drop in all the world's oceans compared to the legions of FPS types (guilty in that I love Halo) and the MMORPG (or whatever it is) crowds (semi guilty, in that I helped spawn this by playing TSR's Chainmail and later D&D).

Partially offsetting this is that I helped playtest TSR West's A Line In The Sand and have played some of Chaos Games' Red Sun Rising (same dev team as Harpoon) and helped put together the scenarios for the second game, Steel Typhoon.

I haven't played any of the gamer assistance programs mentioned, and I do well, given my blog's bottomless demands, to post here, let alone play. The former's much easier, in that it requires a far lower level of executive brain function, a condition which hyper stress and four car wrecks haven't improved!

CMBN (never played CMSF, so this is my first CMx2 game) requires a lot more brainpower, focus and energy than I generally have. Compared to CMx1, I find it very demanding and frankly, find that so far, it doesn't take much in terms of scenario size and complexity to completely overload my brain. I think that if I EVER get to the point where I can run an infantry battalion properly, I should break out some extraordinary champagne (which I first have to fund, there being no WineCape "watering" tournaments any more) and celebrate.

I think Erwin makes an excellent point regarding the shift of focus in CMx2 as opposed to CMx1. The shift to modeling individual soldiers and the correctly characterized, in my view, granularity resulting from that do indeed change the flavor and effective level of the game, at least, when conducting infantry combat.

To do what he wants to do would probably require that I clone my brain several times and have the clones and my original brain hooked together and running as parallel processors. I have yet to have a pure armored fight, which I'm sure would be a lot easier than dealing with the minutiae of infantry operations, but I think his general point is spot on. His regimental level combat, barring some co-op mode with lots of commanders individually running their units, would indeed be a huge time consumer. But remember the formal definition of a game is "a means of structuring time."

Regards,

John Kettler

[Vanir Ausf B]

I need to emphasize that am not trying to convince folks that CM1 is superior in all ways, it's that CM1 enables me (and others like me) to more efficiently and pleasurably play the huge scenarios with 3 battalions assorted infantry on each side with several companies of tanks and other vehicles.

Wow, that's like a whole regiment. I like big battles on big maps too, but even in CMx1 I usually limited myself to a reinforced battalion.

shines. I also know that there are many here who enjoy and want small infantry-based battles. ...

I think CMx2 is more of a tank game than CMx1. Despite, or perhaps because of, infantry 1-1 modeling I find infantry to be significantly less useful than in CMx1.