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Manchuria?


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I can say with 99.87% accuracy that the answer would be no. It'd be like having a Yugoslavian partisan module for CMBN in that while they have one side in common, BFC would have to create the other side completely from scratch - everything, uniforms, equipment, vehicles, voices, even terrain as far as eastern European buildings are insufficient to represent the Far East.

On the other side you have to estimate how much demand there is for a module or separate game which models an operation that lasted for one and a half weeks during which one side that had a few months earlier defeated Germany rolls over a reserve army. Some 10k Soviet soldiers died in August Storm when there were, compare that to 75k Soviet dead just in Berlin. That should tell something about the one-sidedness and relative intensity of the Manchurian operation. Not the best topic for a tactical wargame, I think.

Comparing the input required to the potentiality of the topic, I really don't see BFC committing to it. Which is a pity, but a better march order would probably be to blackmail BFC to do a Pacific game because American players will buy anything that says "Pacific War" on the box no matter how boring it is, and that way you can get the IJA modelled in a way that makes business sense. After that doing a Manchurian module or stand alone would be trivial.

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I can say with 99.87% accuracy that the answer would be no. It'd be like having a Yugoslavian partisan module for CMBN in that while they have one side in common, BFC would have to create the other side completely from scratch - everything, uniforms, equipment, vehicles, voices, even terrain as far as eastern European buildings are insufficient to represent the Far East.

On the other side you have to estimate how much demand there is for a module or separate game which models an operation that lasted for one and a half weeks during which one side that had a few months earlier defeated Germany rolls over a reserve army. Some 10k Soviet soldiers died in August Storm when there were, compare that to 75k Soviet dead just in Berlin. That should tell something about the one-sidedness and relative intensity of the Manchurian operation. Not the best topic for a tactical wargame, I think.

Comparing the input required to the potentiality of the topic, I really don't see BFC committing to it. Which is a pity, but a better march order would probably be to blackmail BFC to do a Pacific game because American players will buy anything that says "Pacific War" on the box no matter how boring it is, and that way you can get the IJA modelled in a way that makes business sense. After that doing a Manchurian module or stand alone would be trivial.

That's one way to look at it, and I recognize the probable validity of your argument. But you see, I was coming at it from the opposite direction. Namely, it seemed to me to be a way for BFC to ease into a series of games on the Asian/Pacific war. One whole side would already be modeled, whereas starting with the island campaign would require modeling the TO&E of the Marines in addition to several kinds of Japanese infantry and all the other unique features of island warfare. Much bigger job, it seems to me.

Michael

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I'd really like to see a far east setting for the CM series: pacific, japanese islands where large battles were fought etc.

For what I know and my impressions, the engine is capable of showing thick tropical forests and jungles, trees can be modeled, doodads can be done in a fashion to show a thick growth, so the terrain does not seem to be a problem.

As mentioned soldeirs and vehicles are not a problem either, since they can be modelled or ported from existing CM games.

What is limiting the possibility, in my opinion, are dynamics directly linked to the environment, for example: beach landings.

As we stand now you can see how hard it is to model a realistic beach Landing within CM normandy... and wonder why:

-ambient with a seaside

-realistic representation of a large water seaside area (different depth)

-interaction between units and water

-behaviour of vehicles and troops in water

We can make a decent normandy Landing scenario, but we can't represent the Landing itself without a lot of tweaks and hard coded stuff within the game engine.

So this is what limits the development of such a title in my opinion, you'd have to represent some kind of dynamics which are practically not there in actual game development yet they seem to be essential for the setting in question, and I belive that adding such features would require a lot of work, more than it would be needed to add another CM title in an easier or more standard setting.

I also dreamed of a Vietnam title, there you'd have a similar problem: helicopters and their interaction. Sure, you could make a Vietnam title adding helicopters as supports only, such as they are now in CMSF, but hey, would you dig a Vietnam title without the possibility to disembark a cavalry unit out of a overhanging huey? I'd not.

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We can make a decent normandy Landing scenario, but we can't represent the Landing itself without a lot of tweaks and hard coded stuff within the game engine.

So this is what limits the development of such a title in my opinion, you'd have to represent some kind of dynamics which are practically not there in actual game development yet they seem to be essential for the setting in question, and I belive that adding such features would require a lot of work, more than it would be needed to add another CM title in an easier or more standard setting.

Which is why I suggested the Manchurian environment. Somewhat the same could be said about a CBI environment, except I see that as requiring more work. Going from Manchuria to Burma would be easier since nearly all of the Japanese units would already be modeled or require only small adaptations.

But of course, none of these things is going to happen absent BFC's interest, and so far that is not obviously forthcoming in the foreseeable future.

Michael

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I think we already have some some Pacific theatre mods and scenarios. The interesting stuff is what happens on land, so not sure why modeling water and the amphib landings themselves would matter other than eye-candy.

Early in the war, before '44 say, the Japanese tried to defend at the waterline, figuring that was when the assaulting forces would be the most vulnerable. Besides, for the smaller coral islands such as Tarawa, there often wasn't much to them besides beaches. It's only when the fighting shifted to the larger islands and the Japanese realized how effective naval artillery was, that they shifted tactics to defending farther inland.

Michael

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