CM Cold War is now available on Steam! Here is how to get your Steam key if you already own the game!

[BFCElvis]

Here are the instructions from Matrix/Slitherine on how to get your Steam key:

 

We’re very pleased to be working with Battlefront and know many of you are eagerly anticipating the release of Combat Mission. We wanted to give you some details on how things will work and both teams will do their best to make this process as painless as possible for you all to get your games working on Steam. 

 

·        Steam keys will be available to anybody who purchased the game, no matter where they purchased. All users will get steam keys by creating an account with Matrix/Slitherine to redeem a steam key. The reason for this is Matrix already have a process to distribute the keys and Battlefront didn’t and it would have been a lot of work for them to create such as system so it felt simpler to use a system that already works. Sorry for the inconvenience of anyone who needs to create an account because of this. 

·        Once you have an account you can redeem Steam keys in the normal way by following these instructions - https://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=93585

 Important: A "Serial" and an "Activation Key" are different expressions for the same thing. 

·        Note that if you bought a bundle from Battlefront you will only have one serial for all the games in the bundle. To redeem all the pieces of your bundle as Steam keys you will need to register that serial for each part of the bundle. E.g. if you purchased the base game and British Forces bundle you would register that serial twice, once to the base game and once to the DLC. Each will generate a unique Steam key for that piece of content on Steam and must be redeemed on Steam separately. 

·        When purchasing a bundle on Matrix/Slitherine you will receive a serial for each part separately. 

·        The versions on Matrix, Battlefront and Steam are identical apart from some minor changes to make the game compatible with Steam. Steam requires all the game content to be in the install folder so the placement of some files will be different to the Battlefront version but this is all behind the scenes and the features are identical. Multiplayer is possible between versions. 

·        Customers who buy from Matrix/Slitherine will have access to the Matrix installer and a Steam key. Customers who buy from Battlefront will have access to the Battlefront version and Steam key. Matrix/Slitherine customers will not have access to the Battlefront version and vice versa. 

·        Any Steam key redemption issues should be reported to the Matrix forum, as Battlefront are not able to help with that. 

·        Other tech support should be requested at your point of purchase but both companies will try and help out anyone who has an issue if they can. Obviously any order issues can only be investigated by the site you purchased from as neither company has access to that kind of info for the other. 

·        If you have any questions or problems please let us know and we will do our best to help. 

[Redwolf]

Sounds cool. Thanks BFC and Matrix.

Any news on availability of the CW patch for BFC versions (only choice for Mac users)? Trying to decided whether I want to fire up a windows install of the steam version for CW in the meantime. Hoping for a timely patch release.

[BFCElvis]

1 minute ago, Redwolf said:

Sounds cool. Thanks BFC and Matrix.

Any news on availability of the CW patch for BFC versions (only choice for Mac users)? Trying to decided whether I want to fire up a windows install of the steam version for CW in the meantime. Hoping for a timely patch release.

Yes. We'd thought that there was going to be a Battlefront patch that would be out now. But there is an under the hood thing that needs to be done with the Steam build that is requiring new builds for all 4 versions (Steam, Matrix, BFC - Mac and BFC - Windows). This will happen very quickly.  

[Redwolf]

Thank you. Looking forward to it.

[PrivatePikeDA]

Thanks so I bought from CMCW from Battlefront and already have a slitherine account. The step that is missing above is that you have to "register a new serial" on the slitherine my page and then select your game and give it the battlefront Activation Code. That seems to have given me the steam key. Thanks

 

[Redwolf]

Just now, PrivatePikeDA said:

Thanks so I bought from CMCW from Battlefront and already have a slitherine account. The step that is missing above is that you have to "register a new serial" on the slitherine my page and then select your game and give it the battlefront Activation Code. That seems to have given me the steam key. Thanks

 

It is important to understand that you will end up with 3 serial numbers, not 2.

• BFC
• Matrix (you don't really need that one, but you get one)
• Steam

[ratdeath]

Uninstall & Install!

[BFCElvis]

32 minutes ago, PrivatePikeDA said:

Thanks so I bought from CMCW from Battlefront and already have a slitherine account. The step that is missing above is that you have to "register a new serial" on the slitherine my page and then select your game and give it the battlefront Activation Code. That seems to have given me the steam key. Thanks

 

That is exactly correct. 

[patrykd]

Is the Steam version CMCW proffesional version with new PBEM system?

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

12 minutes ago, patrykd said:

Is the Steam version CMCW proffesional version with new PBEM system?

No to Professional and yes to PBEM+++. We're not getting Professional, it's reserved for the work BFC are doing with the military. The clue is in the name

MMM

[Lethaface]

Good news!

For anyone having the same question as I had: the PBEM3 system requires your Slitherine account info.

[aexis]

Hello,

I used Reshade with all of my Combat Mission games, on steam and also not on steam-

Reshade was working perfectly with my non-steam Cold War, I set Reshade to opengl, the CM.exe to "windows xp service pack 3" compatibility and the launcher.exe to "administrator" compatibility, and everything launches with reshade perfectly with the non steam Cold War (this method also works for CM Normandy, CM Italy, CM Blitzkrieg, CM Red Thunder, CM Shock Force 2), I tested them all today with those settings-

I decided to switch Cold War over to steam just for convenience, and when I follow the duplicate steps (enable CM.exe with Windows Xp service pack 3 compatibility, set the launcher.exe to administrator compatability) it launches with reshade, pauses for a few seconds, then crashes to desktop.

If anyone is in a similar situation or has figured out the settings for the steam version of Cold War so Reshade can work I would appreciate it-

[BFCElvis]

1 hour ago, aexis said:

Hello,

I used Reshade with all of my Combat Mission games, on steam and also not on steam-

Reshade was working perfectly with my non-steam Cold War, I set Reshade to opengl, the CM.exe to "windows xp service pack 3" compatibility and the launcher.exe to "administrator" compatibility, and everything launches with reshade perfectly with the non steam Cold War (this method also works for CM Normandy, CM Italy, CM Blitzkrieg, CM Red Thunder, CM Shock Force 2), I tested them all today with those settings-

I decided to switch Cold War over to steam just for convenience, and when I follow the duplicate steps (enable CM.exe with Windows Xp service pack 3 compatibility, set the launcher.exe to administrator compatability) it launches with reshade, pauses for a few seconds, then crashes to desktop.

If anyone is in a similar situation or has figured out the settings for the steam version of Cold War so Reshade can work I would appreciate it-

I'd love to help but I don't know what Reshade is. And I didn't have to change my compatibility settings for Cold War on Steam.....Heck, I don't have to change my compatibility settings for Combat Mission anywhere.

[Grey_Fox]

@BFCElvis people on steam discussion forum and on the Few Good Men forum are reporting that the steam version at the very least isn't working on Windows 11. Have any support tickets come in about this?

Edited November 16, 2021 by Grey_Fox

[BFCElvis]

8 minutes ago, Grey_Fox said:

@BFCElvis people on steam discussion forum and on the Few Good Men forum are reporting that the steam version at the very least isn't working on Windows 11. Have any support tickets come in about this?

None. And Windows 11 has been out for a while now and Cold War since April. But I've gotten zero Windows 11 Help Desk tickets. You'd think if the game wasn't compatible I'd have gotten a lot and across all game titles.

I'll look into though. Starting with the beta testers.

[Flibby]

3 hours ago, Grey_Fox said:

@BFCElvis people on steam discussion forum and on the Few Good Men forum are reporting that the steam version at the very least isn't working on Windows 11. Have any support tickets come in about this?

Fine with Win11 here.

[dbsapp]

14 hours ago, PrivatePikeDA said:

Thanks so I bought from CMCW from Battlefront and already have a slitherine account. The step that is missing above is that you have to "register a new serial" on the slitherine my page and then select your game and give it the battlefront Activation Code. That seems to have given me the steam key. Thanks

 

Thank you, that was extremely helpful. 

[G. Smiley]

So if I have the Mac version of CMCW, purchased from Battlefront - what do I need to do to be able to use the PBEM+ functionality?

Just install the 1.02 patch when released?

Create Slitherine account?

Involve myself with Steam in any way?

 

[Redwolf]

11 minutes ago, G. Smiley said:

So if I have the Mac version of CMCW, purchased from Battlefront - what do I need to do to be able to use the PBEM+ functionality?

Just install the 1.02 patch when released?

Create Slitherine account?

Involve myself with Steam in any way?

 

Yes, yes and no.

PBEM++ only has to do with Slitherine. It has nothing to do with Steam (other than the coincidence that the only game capable of PBEM++ in steam only at this particular time).

[G. Smiley]

2 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

Yes, yes and no.

PBEM++ only has to do with Slitherine. It has nothing to do with Steam (other than the coincidence that the only game capable of PBEM++ in steam only at this particular time).

Thanks! Off to create a Slitherine account then.

[Jabble]

On 11/17/2021 at 12:21 AM, Flibby said:

Fine with Win11 here.

Same here, no problems.

FWIW I had previously uninstalled the native version and rebooted the PC before installing the Steam version, in case there were any clashes.

[RescueToaster]

Just got my key from the Slitherine page - I  already had an account so it was as easy as logging in and copy/pasting a few keys. Thanks for making this easy to do!

Now I can peer pressure some Steam friends into Combat Mission