The year to come - 2024 (Part 1)

[Centurian52]

3 hours ago, Sunbather said:

What an incredibly ill-informed statement. Ever heard of Graviteam Tactics? Armored Brigade? War in the East? CSL Campaign Series? Command: Modern Operations? Heck, even a gamey game like Warno is "complicated and labour intensive" production.

I have played Graviteam Tactics, Armored Brigade, War in the East, and Command: Modern Operations. Graviteam Tactics and Armored Brigade model tactical ground warfare with far less detail than Combat Mission. War in the East and Command: Modern Operations do indeed offer impressive levels of detail. But War in the East models ground warfare at the operational/strategic layer, not the tactical layer. And Command: Modern Operations is more about naval and air warfare than ground warfare. At present, nothing does tactical ground warfare like Combat Mission.

Never is a very long time, and I have no doubt that someday someone will produce something that measures up to Combat Mission. But I'm not expecting that day to come anytime soon.

[Sunbather]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Got them all, but not comparable to CM. 

That wasn't your argument so please don't twist my words. You said never again a wargame that "complicated and labour intensive" will be created. By stating quite a few "complex" and "labour-intensive" games, I proved your argument wrong (objectively, if you just measure the "labour" and "complexity" that went into those games with the "labour" and "complexity" that went into Combat Mission by the same curious yardstick you apparently possess).

[Sunbather]

10 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Graviteam does not have the same micromanagement fidelity as CM.

Some might call that a virtue.

[Vacillator]

3 minutes ago, Sunbather said:

a 17-year old could say, I've tried all games but what game I have the most hours in?

If only I was a 17 year old .  My point wasn't about hours played, it was that I've tried the alternatives but choose to play CM.

[Artkin]

Just now, Sunbather said:

Some might call that a virtue.

They could always just play with less troops, or not play CM at all in that case. 

[Sunbather]

3 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

War in the East and Command: Modern Operations do indeed offer impressive levels of detail. But War in the East models ground warfare at the operational/strategic layer, not the tactical layer.

 

Once again, this was not the argument. The argument was that never ever will be something created that is so ridiculously complex and had so much work put into it like Combat Mission.

  

2 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Never is a very long time, and I have no doubt that someday someone will produce something that measures up to Combat Mission. But I'm not expecting that day to come anytime soon.

There are already several games in the works that might be "measuring up" (AB2; Broken Arrow) but again: who is the measurer and what is the measurement tool? A lot of people seem confused here between their personal opinion and having objectively measured the goodness of a product.

[ratdeath]

CM is unique and awesome.

That said, I think we all want better performance, cleaner UI, more fronts, era's and more.

I am happy that Battlefront has managed to stay in business selling Combat Mission games, and I choose to see the glass half full and enjoy what we have.

[Anthony P.]

The mission editor is clunky to be sure... but Command: Modern Operations? Crying out loud, that game is so clunky it's difficult to just get units to move and do things, let alone create missions. And don't even start talking of AI abilities to react to the player's moves, that AI is basically playing a card game based on vehicle stats lifted from Wikipedia.

CM has flaws, mainly in regards to the AI, line of sight/fire calculations and performance, but @Aragorn2002is right: Combat Mission is more rare than unicorns with a double first from Oxford.

[Thewood1]

I would love for someone to point out how CM is any more detailed than Graviteam Mius games.  I have played CM and MF extensively since release for both.  They both approach tactical combat at almost the exact same scale, setting aside MF's Operational capability.  Both use the same tracking of soft factors, detailed armor modeling, FoW.  I would say the MF is much more detailed on the comms and FoW side of things.  Artillery is a little more abstracted than in MF.  What CM has over MF is a much easier to use editor and a map editor.  But for detailed combat its fairly equal.

And at the post-WW2 level, Steel Beasts models modern combat in a much more detailed manner everywhere except infantry.  There is almost no comparison.

Are they better games?  I'm not sure.  I stopped playing CM a few years ago, can see the attraction for micro-managers.  And you can't really find a broad WW2 Western front experience outside CM.  But detail is easily equaled.

[Commanderski]

No game is perfect and no game company has ever had a game where none of their customers ever had a complaint or didn't want any more improvements. Some people like CM, some like Graviteam, some any of the others of the myriad of WWII games. to each his own.

Until a perfect game comes up we should be happy that the companies we support continue to make improvements and additions to our games.

 

[Vacillator]

5 minutes ago, Commanderski said:

Until a perfect game comes up we should be happy that the companies we support continue to make improvements and additions to our games.

I like that my friend, well said.

[Waycool]

[Father Ted]

16 hours ago, Dynaman216 said:

What all of those don't have that CM does is 3D WeGo with replay.  No other game seems to want to even attempt it.

This really.  We can argue til the cows come home about the best computer wargame out there, but only CM provides those three things.  I would say that makes it subjectively my favourite, but I wouldn't presume to say objectively the best.

[BornGinger]

20 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

After BF has finally closed business

Why would Battlefront stop making games? I suppose at least some of the staff have kids that could carry on making and selling games for Battlefront when their parents have finished doing that. If there are no kids then they'll employ someone to continue. And when they do maybe these people think "Flipping heck what an old game engine this is. It's about time that we make something new and more up to date which actually offers a good simulation of warfare in every aspect than penetration only". We'll find out in twenty or thirty years.

Edited January 14 by BornGinger

[Sweed59]

19 hours ago, Dynaman216 said:

What all of those don't have that CM does is 3D WeGo with replay.  No other game seems to want to even attempt it.

I'm lucky in that I've just returned to CM after a long absence and that was playing CMx1. CMx2 is all new to me so nothing feels old and won't for a very long time. 

Though I have an interest in history and war games, I'm not a big time war gamer like many here so can't argue about "reality" in depth with the user/historians that post here and share their expertise. They write their posts, I read them and learn. 

What I do require to play a war game is a WeGo or Ugo/Igo system. I'll admit I didn't do a deep dive search of all new games before coming back to CM, but I think all of them I did look at were real time only.      

[jtsjc1]

I've always felt that CM captures the chaos on the battlefield better than any game I ever played. Because of the turn system there's always something going on out of sight and you'll hear an explosion or gunfire and go to replay to see what you missed. Just watch some of the AAR videos on youtube and look at the amount of firing going on in all different directions simultaneously and its amazing. Especially in urban environments the bullets, grenades shells etc flying around is nuts. There are improvements that can be made but I'll continue to play and purchase more games like Downfall.

[CarlXII]

I fully agree (and always have ) that combat mission is the best in class...What i and some others find dissapointing is the lack of progress in the last 10+ years.

CM2 has been around for many years now and the improvements/additions to the system over the years have been far from as impressive as the original product was...

Reading the 2024 update part one it does not seem we are likely to see any major improvements any time soon...apart from the stated game performance improvement wich offcourse is a nice thing to get.

I honestly had hoped to se the series evolve more over all these years...

 

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

On 1/13/2024 at 8:33 PM, Centurian52 said:

Graviteam Tactics and Armored Brigade model tactical ground warfare with far less detail than Combat Mission.

I must say I disagree here. The amount of detail in Graviteam is incredible, and they just keep adding more and more. Just recently, they added simulation of exactly where each soldier gets hit by bullets and fragments. Some hits will kill immediately, some will wound, and some wounds will eventually kill - again depending on what part of the body gets hit.

And just to take it to the almost silly levels: I suggested to the developer that Soviet molotov cocktails might in some cases fail to burst if they hit soft ground or deep snow, simply because the bottle won't break. To my surprise, they actually went ahead and used my suggestion and changed the game code to do this.

Which is not only detail for the sake of detail - it means Soviet infantry is now less effective against infantry in snowy and muddy battles.

One can definitely make an argument that Combat Mission is better as a game than Graviteam is, but I think it depends on one's preferences. Both are worth playing in my opinion. CM has micromanagement, turn replay and also better urban combat. But Graviteam has much more detail and work put in overall, as I see it.

[Bagpipe]

Can't wait for BAOR update to CW though I REAAALLY need that engine 5 upgrade because the game still runs so sluggish especially on the larger battles/deployment phases. 

[Bagpipe]

16 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I must say I disagree here. The amount of detail in Graviteam is incredible, and they just keep adding more and more. Just recently, they added simulation of exactly where each soldier gets hit by bullets and fragments. Some hits will kill immediately, some will wound, and some wounds will eventually kill - again depending on what part of the body gets hit.

And just to take it to the almost silly levels: I suggested to the developer that Soviet molotov cocktails might in some cases fail to burst if they hit soft ground or deep snow, simply because the bottle won't break. To my surprise, they actually went ahead and used my suggestion and changed the game code to do this.

Which is not only detail for the sake of detail - it means Soviet infantry is now less effective against infantry in snowy and muddy battles.

One can definitely make an argument that Combat Mission is better as a game than Graviteam is, but I think it depends on one's preferences. Both are worth playing in my opinion. CM has micromanagement, turn replay and also better urban combat. But Graviteam has much more detail and work put in overall, as I see it.

I agree with your opinion and would add that it's not comparing apples for apples either.

GT and AB both have much wider control over the player force as a whole (strategic layer) as you progress which CM does not aim to provide because that's not their focus.
I don't think either game is better than the other either and I certainly think GT and AB do a damn good job with their simulations of the actual ground based combat. Obviously infantry are less useful in AB but that's for another discussion lol

Is it less detailed than CM in terms of the "resolution" of the simulation? Yeah possibly slightly, but that is inherently because CM is working at a lower level so has to provide higher resolution in doing so, and can do just that because of the smaller number of units and therefor munition trajectories etc. that it has to account for.
 

[Thewood1]

Just to clarify.  The main combat difference with GT and CM is that in GT games, you have the option of micro-managing or not.  In CM you don't.  Try comparing managing a move of many units down a road in CM.

The main game difference in CM and GT is CM's wego and game replay.  Although you can play GT games in wego mode if you want.  You can pause automatically and give orders.  Its basically wego at that point.  The other difference is GT games have an op layer built into the game that puts any battle in context.  CM also has a much more powerful editor.

[Centurian52]

58 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I must say I disagree here. The amount of detail in Graviteam is incredible, and they just keep adding more and more. Just recently, they added simulation of exactly where each soldier gets hit by bullets and fragments. Some hits will kill immediately, some will wound, and some wounds will eventually kill - again depending on what part of the body gets hit.

And just to take it to the almost silly levels: I suggested to the developer that Soviet molotov cocktails might in some cases fail to burst if they hit soft ground or deep snow, simply because the bottle won't break. To my surprise, they actually went ahead and used my suggestion and changed the game code to do this.

Which is not only detail for the sake of detail - it means Soviet infantry is now less effective against infantry in snowy and muddy battles.

One can definitely make an argument that Combat Mission is better as a game than Graviteam is, but I think it depends on one's preferences. Both are worth playing in my opinion. CM has micromanagement, turn replay and also better urban combat. But Graviteam has much more detail and work put in overall, as I see it.

Graviteam has amazing physical detail. But I didn't see much effort put into things like accurate TO&E. And options for setting up complicated scenarios seemed very limited. I was in awe of the physics, but they seem to have forgotten everything else.

[Bulletpoint]

44 minutes ago, Centurian52 said:

Graviteam has amazing physical detail. But I didn't see much effort put into things like accurate TO&E. And options for setting up complicated scenarios seemed very limited. I was in awe of the physics, but they seem to have forgotten everything else.

I believe the TO&E is just as comprehensive as in Combat Mission, if not more. But yes, CM has a much better editor, and it does small-scale tactical way better than Graviteam, in my opinion.

Also, there's the whole multiplayer aspect, which is completely absent from Graviteam, but then on the other hand, it has persistent map damage and operations with repir and supply etc. Two quite different games.

[QuiGon]

On 1/5/2024 at 9:13 PM, Battlefront.com said:

We like the modern and near future stuff too, which is a good sign for you

The WW2 stuff for us is a lot of fun, and we'll never NOT make WW2 games, but there is something special about working on things that aren't beaten to death by dozens of wargames throughout the ages. 

Steve

I'm really disappointed, that the CMBS module was scrapped as I find modern warfare just so much more interesting than the same old WW2 stuff. Now I don't know the exact reasons behind this decision, but I never really understood why it is fine to make games featuring Nazi Germany and SS units, bot it's not ok to make games about (certain?) current conflicts, especially as CMBS has its own setting that is distinct from the real world war. But maybe this distinct setting is actually the reason for the cancellation as its TO&E is pretty outdated by now and thus it might be weird to expand on that. That would actually be an argument I could understand somewhat.

Anyways, I really hope there will be a new modern warfare CM to replace CMBS for us players that find WW2 with its simple weapon systems and tactics rather boring.

For now I'm really stoked for CMCW BAOR

Edited January 15 by QuiGon

[THH149]

Super cool to see so much CM content (I only have to wait to the end of the month, right?). I'm hoping CMFB and CMD will come to Steam at the same time as from BFC, since its a touch more convenient.

If we're spotting for  future titles, I would love to see more east front, either stalingrad and related offensives and a Kursk title. Or maybe even that time the germans encountered T-34s and KVs for the first time on the drive to Leningrad.

And if we want to get more granular, may fav terrain upgrade would be to add basements, some way or other (eg the Hapless Rattenkrieg map has basement like structures which could work with some extra fudges).

Cheers 

Edited January 16 by THH149