Which Combat Mission do you think has the most fun gameplay and why?

[Simcoe]

I think Final Blitzkrieg has a great mix of infantry combat and vehicles. There are also a lot of great scenarios.

I think Shock Force 2 is easiest for a newbie. Tons of great small scenarios and using the US let's you make a lot of mistakes without punishing you.

[landser]

For me it's CMBN. Partly it's due to the number and quality of the campaigns available, and partly due to the airborne side of things. Allied para operations in advance of the landings (and after it too) are endlessly fascinating for me.

As a campaign player who does little else, CMBN stands out. SF2 has a lot too, but the gameplay is not nearly so compelling. So CMBN gets the nod from me. The paras, the terrain, the historical significance of the operations and battles depicted, and the force/weapon balance of that brief time period all add up to make Normandy the title I have the most fun with.

[Redwolf]

CMFI. The most toys (up to mid 1945), and lots of terrain variety.

[z1812]

I was quite surprised to find myself enjoying the modern titles more than the WW2 ones.

[chuckdyke]

Red Thunder I find it easier to play Germans I must admit and enjoy playing for Russians too. 

[Erwin]

Back in 2007-9 I absolutely detested CMSF as it was so buggy, and gave up playing it.  However, after it was patched I started to enjoy it and, as it's the most mature and completed of all the CM2 titles, it became my favorite. 

Thanks to the massive user enthusiasm in those dark ages, CMSF and now CMSF2 has a huge number of excellent scenarios, campaigns and mods compared to all the other titles.  And where else can one enjoy the desert sun and sand?

Edited August 5, 2021 by Erwin

[Sakai007]

Although i have been playing a lot of cmfi lately, cold war is my favorite. Its the era that draws me in, the stakes would be so very high and the drama is compelling. Black Sea is second, followed by fortress italy. All the CM titles are great in their own way, and each had drawn me in at one time or another. 

[Probus]

Cold War has become my new favorite.  It is balanced (at least pre-Abrams) and more forgiving than Black Sea.  I really like all the Combat Mission games but I would put CMRT at my second favorite.

[JM Stuff]

For me is

• CMBN, included CMBN MG cos there is a lot of choices of units, scenarios, campaings and, when we are finish with the Normandy atmospher, we can trying to jump of Arnhem and around, where personly, I have consacred a full installation independant as Normandy module, with a new UI view..., thanks to Juju mods, but also new buildings, terrains, units,  not only, Paras or Airborne or SS troops are presents, but also usual Commonwealth troops, again Reserve german, and Marinen troops, but also diverse reserve units like lot german shools reserve units, mixed bataillons..., without forgot the famous Frundsberg and Hohenstoffen Division, that with a little patience and knownledges, we can created with modtags... for me another atmospher independant as Normandy...

I like also the

• CMFB in general rule cos this is also a very interresting stuff, but I wish to see the new module that will drive us trough the Rhin, with for sure new vehicles and stuffs trough the famous battle phase of the Remagen bridge, and the Hürtgenwald, and more...

The new 

• CMRT FR is very interresting with his new stuffs and the awaiting partisans troops, that I am sure to see more interresting stuffs in the time, in differents periods including Vichy presence...

Now that

• CMFI Phill mods are on, with his famous CMAK2, really accepting from members, are seeing to day, I see the power and the possibilities, that have CMFI to let us travel to another period, in the name of travel, I would like to see also the early war, with invasion of the Netherlands Belgium Lux and France...

The reworked 

• CMSF take for me the less interresting period, (already that I dont like the modern periods wars), I dont like too much the conflict from Syrian, or perhaps when others "red" factions wil be include like, Tchethenien war,  Iran Irak war will be also very interresting, or differents middle east Arabs factions, but I think to see this and have a TOE more appropriated we have to wait to have more factions from CMCW, and created Beirut, famous 67, 73 and more conflicts Israel Arabs factions (but also and this is my favourit period the Yougoslavia in the 90 century), not sure that we can created something about these periods with CMSF but I can be wrong, I like more the battles of the past this is probably why i dont have so much interrest of CMSF. 

The new

• CMCW game is out I have fun to play it I wish only to see the Brit or West German, or others modules to include more factions, and also the reason explained above...

 

So really I cannot make a choice, all the games have a beautiful sides, and this is without to know, what BFC reserve us for the future...

 

JM

 

Edited August 5, 2021 by JM Stuff

[slysniper]

enjoy them all, no need to put one at the top. I do have a least favorite which makes no sense to me. But I have not like CMRT nearly as much as the others, likely because I miss not having the earlier war periods.

There is still some great battles in the family, but there is others I just really dislike, even with the newest additions

[Freyberg]

I'm a CMFI tragic - I just love this title (with its modules) so much..! I play the others, but it's been my number one ever since the GL module came out.

The thing I love the most is that it has New Zealanders, my own little country, which can not be seen anywhere else - but there are other reasons.

It covers the widest period of time - going from '43 to '45 - so within each nationality, you can play through a real change of equipment and units.

It has the most varied nationalities. The Italians are an almost 1939-style army, or earlier, and yet they have their strengths. On top of this, you have a range of US units (including Rangers, Paratroopers), a vast array of Commonwealth (all with wonderful evocative graphics, such as the Indian Army), Free French (US gear but very different unit structures).

As Germans, it has Heer, Luftwaffe and SS.

It has a very wide variety of map types; the city maps in the GL release offered some of the best street fighting I've ever played; and there are mountainous, agricultural, rural, arid and forest - plus (shameless self-promotion) you can play on the maps in my Map Pack .

It has all four seasons - and with this and all of the above, you have the widest range of WWII combinations, in one of the most gruelling phases of the war.

---

Having said that - I've had huge fun with all titles (I play everything except Afghanistan), and apart from FI, I've particularly enjoyed CMRT (where I love playing Soviets), CMFI and CMBN....

[SimpleSimon]

Fortress Italy has the widest variety of campaigns and scenarios and features the Italians-an Army pretty representative of the shape most of the world's Armies were actually in during the 2nd World War. 

The terrain of Italy and the nature of much of the fighting there fits the model of predominant Company-scale engagements very well. Everything happened in Italy from trench sieges more in style with 1918 to Glorious Panzer Death Rides to restore lost segments of the line.

[dbsapp]

CMBS. You can capture Ukraine. 

[Bufo]

CMCW. It is the most balanced and also the most interesting time period.

[laurent 22]

CMBN and CMBF, 2 games not apart because together they represent what was possible to play in CMBO (BN: AT bunker, flame team, BF: jumbo, snow and riding tanks).

CMSF 2: variety of units and the historical aspect, the game indirectly simulates the 2 wars against Iraq, but I am disappointed: the French troops are not in the game whereas they are much more involved than Germany in this type of conflict, in Africa, in Lebanon...

For my future purchases, my heart swings between CMFI (which will never really be CMAK) and CMRT (which will never really be CMBB).

Edited August 6, 2021 by laurent 22

[Erwin]

The other aspect of CMSF2 that is xnt is that there exist mod sets to play Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam/SE Asia, Africa, even an Iwo Jima mod for Pacific theater.

 

[slysniper]

CMFI has the best campaign in it. And that is from someone that is not into campaigns. But I did enjoy those.

[Probus]

3 hours ago, slysniper said:

CMFI has the best campaign in it. And that is from someone that is not into campaigns. But I did enjoy those.

Interesting. Why do you say that? I've not tried the CMFI campaign. 

[holoween]

CMSF2 has the most variety in units and scenario types you could play from symmetric blue vs blue modern warfare over red vs red soviet style warfare to blue vs red insurgency. Its just massively let down by lack of interesting maps.

 

[slysniper]

10 hours ago, Probus said:

Interesting. Why do you say that? I've not tried the CMFI campaign. 

Been way too long ago to be able to say for sure why I enjoyed them. But with infantry not having Anti tank weapons to a great extent and still playing with mostly medium size armor. It was just fun dealing with the strength and weaknesses of units during the earlier time frame. Where every size gun has a chance vs your armor. but if you can mass your armor, steam Rollin infantry is a almost given.  But I recall that deciding which battle was ready for trying a massive breakthrough was part of the fun. There was battles that making such a decision could be costly.

[MikeyD]

I had great fun generating scenarios for CMRT Fire and Rubble this time around. Building scenarios is part of gameplay too. Now that I think about it, CMFI Rome To Victory let me build some mountain maps, which was great fun. The first time I've got to do that since CM: Afghanistan many years ago.

[SimpleSimon]

I think the thing about Fire and Rubble I did like along with RT in general was how non-combined arms many of the scenarios are. The Panzer Blitz style of design tends to obscure how often it wasn't possible to construct the stereotypical Tank-Infantry-Artillery triumvirate-especially when the frontline wasn't established and units were engaged in maneuvering. The Germans were generally able to show up with a Combined Arms kit in these circumstances-because they built so much organic support into formations at the Division Level and downwards. Thus the Panzer Divisions and Motorized Infantry Divisions were the ultimate "medium" formations of all times-ready for anything but not the best at anything either. This is why the Panzer Divisions tended to do so well in running campaigns and the infamous Blitz they were known for. The Allies seem to come off a little worse in these situations, all the cases of Russian Units showing up without infantry or without artillery but heaps of something else like 100+ SU-85s or T-34s. A toolkit imbalance, but this pretty much a result of the way the Allies fought-configured heavily around sieges and cracking a frontline. As long as the enemy mostly wasn't motorized it worked well but it could lead to infamous bloody disasters if your unit ran into say...a Heavy Panzer Battalion but how many of those do the Germans have? The Russians gambled a bit on that and answered "not many" and 1944-45 proved them right. 

Thus you had lots of cases of German units just being overrun by the infamous T-34 hordes that their luxurious combined arms kit couldn't do much about. There just wasn't enough of anything to stop the SCALE of the Eastern Front and this slope only got steeper from 1942 onwards. So that's what I like about Fire and Rubble, I think they got that a lot of the time the Russians show up to scenarios and seem really uneven-but that's because a balanced tool kit isn't necessary. Your tanks all have 85mm or 122mm guns and pray tell what on Earth could the Germans possibly have that is proof against those in a given scenario or map? 

Edited August 9, 2021 by SimpleSimon

[zmoney]

I’d say my top three are:

 

Black Sea (because you can capture Ukraine)

Shock Force 2

CMRT

Edited October 9, 2021 by zmoney

[AlexUK]

CMFI for me, I think it has the highest number of memorable scenarios - and one's I come back to again and again (currently replaying the excellent tobacco factory scenario) - also pretty balanced forces but quite distinct. 

Cold War - at the moment my macbook is struggling with scenario sizes so I haven't been playing too much of it. 

SF2 - not balanced forces, Javelin is too much. 

BS - javelin again (plus Bradley's seem over powerful - perhaps too résistant to artillery/30mm).

BN- my second favourite, again, memorable scenario design and more even forces. 

RT - scale of many scenarios is too big for macbook/too many units. 

Hopefully the next upgrade will have a positive impact on performance (and ideally run native on Mac M1- I can dream can't I?). 

 

[Probus]

1 hour ago, AlexUK said:

at the moment my macbook is struggling with scenario sizes

Have you tried turning all the settings down to see if that helps? I don’t have a Mac, but I’ve definitely seen a correlation sometimes with large scenarios and graphics settings. I’m guessing that the Combat Mission Engine is 32-bit and not 64-bit. This limits the amount of memory it can access. Can anyone back that up?

My favorite games right now are:

Cold War

Red Thunder/Fire & Rubble

its a toss up for number 3. 
 

I don’t have Afghanistan but Shock Force 2 is too one sided for me to give it a top slot.