Future Combat Mission games

[acctingman1969]

Can anyone in the "know" comment on if there will be a game made for the Pacific theater? How about the early Blitzkrieg years? Or early North Africa?

 

CM2 pretty much has mid 43 to end of the war covered in terms of equipment and theaters.

 

Thanks!! 

[sburke]

Well I don't count as in the know only BF can definitively answer for you, but so far they have said no to all of the above. Hopefully that is subject to change.

Known in the pipeline are 3 more game families to do the east front, the bulge game currently in development and a refresh of CMSF (what form that will take is not known yet). That is all BF has been willing to commit to.

Edited April 2, 2015 by sburke

[Los]

 Dear <deity> please cure Battlefront's allergy towards 1939-1941.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Los

[Sequoia]

1941 is actually good with them.. And they never really said never to North Africa and France 1940 though I doubt the later will ever happen. Pacific they have said never unless some third party does it.

[sburke]

1941 is actually good with them.. And they never really said never to North Africa and France 1940 though I doubt the later will ever happen. Pacific they have said never unless some third party does it.

Maybe after they do the last east front family in 1941 they will look west again. One can hope.

[Duckman]

I think the fact they did the Italians is a pretty sure hint North Africa is coming at some point. Reuse is the name of the game.

[Cuddles the Warmonger]

Out of curiosity (I'm relatively new to the forum, please don't hurt me), why no Pacific? Wouldn't it mostly be island that are smaller than huge CMBN maps? I know jungles are the worst, but naval landings seeem feasible, now that they have amphibious vehicles...

[sburke]

actually other than Steve saying no to date, I don't really know why...   Even without naval landings, there was plenty of scope in the pacific.  Could be a sales driven perception for all I know.

[Sequoia]

I seem to remember something about Japanese TO&E being almost impossible to research.

[Cuddles the Warmonger]

Interesting, I know CM is heavily organization driven, with everything broken down by force orgs and what not, but is the research all and all more in depth than sources like this->http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJA/HB/HB-3.html<-do we know? I know literally every detail has been meticulously researched, and it makes sense not to use the Japanese because their records aren't exactly perfect, but would more sources like this be enough, I mean, I'd gladly do a bunch of research myself if it helped.

[Macisle]

Interesting, I know CM is heavily organization driven, with everything broken down by force orgs and what not, but is the research all and all more in depth than sources like this->http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJA/HB/HB-3.html<-do we know? I know literally every detail has been meticulously researched, and it makes sense not to use the Japanese because their records aren't exactly perfect, but would more sources like this be enough, I mean, I'd gladly do a bunch of research myself if it helped.

 

My guess is that BF believes that the kind of combat the PTO offers would only appeal to a small part of the player base--like having CMFI with only fanatic Italians for the Axis side. After a few battles, the asymmetric, bug-hunt thing would really wear thin.

 

So, it sounds good on paper for WWII fans (and I'd probably buy it), but it would likely be a loser for the amount of time and resources invested.

[Bulletpoint]

My guess is that BF believes that the kind of combat the PTO offers would only appeal to a small part of the player base--like having CMFI with only fanatic Italians for the Axis side. After a few battles, the asymmetric, bug-hunt thing would really wear thin.

So, it sounds good on paper for WWII fans (and I'd probably buy it), but it would likely be a loser for the amount of time and resources invested.

It's not really an argument, since CMBN offers exactly the same kind of gameplay: you attack against entrenched defenders.

I've been playing it for about 2 years now and it hasn't grown old on me yet, though of course by now it's no longer fresh. Nothing is after two years.

[Migo441]

My guess is that BF believes that the kind of combat the PTO offers would only appeal to a small part of the player base--like having CMFI with only fanatic Italians for the Axis side.

 

Agree with Bulletpoint that the "typecast" criticism could apply equally to any of the CMx2 series.  Of course fighting in a given area and timeframe has a distinct character: claustrophobic attacks in bocage, desperately outnumbered  Wehrmacht defenders in Belarus, hilly Italy, and so forth.  If your response is to say, "Wait that's not all there is with <insert title here>!" then I'm not sure why you would assume a PTO title would be limited in a way the others are not.

Don't underestimate the terrain pallete and the creativeness of scenario designers.  Further, don't overlook the richness and variety of the actual events.  Guadalcanal, for example, featured initiative from both sides and naval support from Japanese battleships.  The early tendencies towards banzai charges were rejected by the IJA as the war went on.  There are many possibilities beyond the classic scenes of LVTs churning towards a beach under fire.

That said, certainly air and naval support were relatively more significant and armor relatively less significant as compared to the ETO.

 

So, it sounds good on paper for WWII fans (and I'd probably buy it), but it would likely be a loser for the amount of time and resources invested.

 

I suspect this must be the real reason for the rejection of the PTO.  I think Battlefront would happily overcome any TOE challenges, relative personal disinterest in the theater, and put in extra work for the unique characteristics of the fighting and terrain so long as they had a level of confidence in the resulting sales.

 

[J Bennett]

 Pacific might be a fun addition, not just coral reefs like Tarawa, or Islands like Guadalcanal, but some fairly good sized land campaigns with New Guinea, China-Burma (Kohima, Imphal etc.)  and Return to the Philippines. I would like to see it but I will buy any CM game or module that is done in WW2 except  maybe the Balkans. Maybe the Battlefront guys will warm up to PTO someday. If they ever do it I'd bet it would be one of the final ones if not the last one.   We can hope. Its ok either way for me. Thanks to Battlefront for all the wonderful CM games at a very  reasonable price. I appreciate all the hard work they have done.  I don't post much so just thought I would say that.

Edited April 4, 2015 by J Bennett

[c3k]

Nothing official, but I'd think "Bulge" and "RT" will end up going to the end of ETO on each front. Then? I'd love to see earlier East Front, and ealier West. ('41 in Russia would allow using the early German gear in the West. '40 France would be...interesting.)

 

I'm not sure what modern warfare will bring. Modules for Black Sea to bring in airborne, marines, Nato? The oft-requested CMSF rebuild? Shrug.

 

Personally, despite all the hard-fought battles in the Pacific, I'm not interested in gaming it. (I liken it to the heavy forest ambushes in CM; bloody, and won by overwhelming firepower...always at a cost.)

 

Ken

[Wiggum15]

France '40

or

Russia '41

...now that would be a dream and a instant buy !

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

I'd be all over a Philippines 1944 game.  It's one of the places in the pacific where there was enough room for larger actions, urban fighting, armored warfare, paratrooper assaults and all sorts of goodness.  You'd be able to use US forces that broadly look like Normandy with a few quirks, but the Japanese would present a very different military force, and throwing in the various irregular factions could make for some really awesome missions.

 

Korea 1950 would be awesome too.  Light on the AFVs, but some really awesome stuff to work with in terms of scenarios.

 

Also a good late 80's Fulda gap would be mindblowing.  I'm partial to 1989 because it seems best positioned to offer very late cold war equipment (M1A1HAs, T-80Us, etc), while not getting into weird alternate history stuff, and still being reasonable to see a lot of the cold war standbys (and bypassing the "EVERYTHING IS NUCLEAR" phase of NATO).  

 

In terms of near future:

 

1. Korea. The DPRK is less likely to be a threat these days, but it could be fluffed a bit and the PLA might make a good inclusion.

2. Iran/Egypt.  We're running out of conventional threats in the middle east, and CM does COIN pretty good...but ISIS just is not going to let us do the tank on tank, company sized elements of troops that CM does very well.  Iran after a turn for the worse offers something similar to what Syria used to have in CMSF.  Egypt could be fascinating if we assume the current government crumbles and the Islamic Brotherhood comes back for reals.   On the other hand, just having a general purpose "middle east" game that modules in more than just Bluforce for the theater from the base game could be cool (so base game is US Army and Iran, Module 1 is Egypt and Israel, Module 2 is British Army and Syria/ISIS or something).

[kevinkin]

1941 is actually good with them.. And they never really said never to North Africa and France 1940 though I doubt the later will ever happen. Pacific they have said never unless some third party does it.

If each of us had one vote, would you select:

North Africa

or

France 40?

I will start with France 40.

Kevin

[Macisle]

France 1940 and then USSR 41 fo

 

France '40
or
Russia '41

...now that would be a dream and a instant buy !

 

Same here. I'd go France 1940 first (to answer the poll question) and then Russia '41.

[Raging Al]

If each of us had one vote, would you select:North AfricaorFrance 40?I will start with France 40.Kevin

France 1940 for sure, but also lets give a little love to the Balkans campaign (late 1940-41): Germans, Italians, Bulgarians & Hungarians on the Axis side; Greeks, Yugoslavs, and British expeditionary corps (incl. Aussies and NZ'ers) for the Allies. Early armoured tin-cans and some great looking landscapes to fight over.

But any early East front would be good as well. Poland, Finland, Barbarossa. Please Battlefront, give me my fix

[J Bennett]

If each of us had one vote, would you select:

North Africa

or

France 40?

I will start with France 40.

Kevin

 

 Well i like both but if I have to choose it is North Africa for me.

[Sequoia]

I would think if the patterns hold covering all of the North African fighting would take two Families of games.

[LongLeftFlank]

In 2012 I put a bunch of time into a CMBN PTO beach landing scenario (Makin Atoll with fanatic Brits modded as rikusentai), with some pretty reasonable looking jungle and IJA mods chipped in by others. But I dont think it got more than a hundred downloads (partly because engine 2.0 made engine 1.0 mods unusable a few months later). So based on that bland reception, it seems PTO is probably too 'niche', but it's readily doable as a mod for those with time (not me these days, alas).

[kevinkin]

I was assuming East Front 41 was already out. That would be ahead of France 40 fro me. Perhaps the Balkans and North Africa could be rolled into one release.

Kevin

[permanent666]

PTO would be really great. I am still hoping that BF will make an amphibious vehicle and landing craft pack for CMBN.