BEFORE OUR BELOVED CM

[Guest titan]

well she was all plastic soldiers and model tanks that me and my mates spent many hours painting and puting together plus a ruler and dice,that did the job for us until the early seventies when a my mate's parents took him to the USA for a holiday which was a big thing for 12-13yr old boy from new zealand back then,then we were born into a new era ENTER PANZER LEADER!!! HOOK LINE AND SINKER!!!!

then we sent away for panzerblitz

then when shops started stocking games here well favourite board games were

Starship troopers

War and peace

squadleader games,loved them best thing since sliced bread

got lost as ASL came out to complex to many rules

tobruk

alantic wall

third reich great game as well

Axis and allies

shogun (milton&bradley

then when PC,s came available

Empire

PG1

ssi SP1

Dune2

commander and conquer

red alert (yes i went through that stage until close combat one and cc2 also got cc3

gary grigsby's easterfront

HQ command

High Command

HA!also the first commuter wargame i ever played in EGA was ahcient art of war

fields of glory

plus Talonsoft's waterloo

dabbled with Talonsoft's eastern front chucked that out afterawhile

wargame construction set

loved war in pacific

but really hunger for a great WW2 games tactical and strategical so eagerly awaiting CM looks full of promise

[Mike Oberly]

Heh,Pix-great stuff,eh?Our fights usually broke out because of 'secret' alliances,or at least suspected alliances.Along the lines of 'Why the @#*& are you attacking me in Western Europe when he is going to hold all of Asia in his turn,you $#*@??Sometimes guys would even team up intentionally against another player just to fuel the hate!

Mike

[SGTRock]

Hehehe lol

I saw the the samething happen in diplomacy too Pix and Mike , thing was though we weren't drunk which put a whole new swing on things.. I remember it being 2-3 days before one Opponent wouldn't speak to other unless spoken too hehehe...

Titan:

Oi! Empire, great game, mate!

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Sgt. Rock Says " War is Hell, but games are fun "

[Justin Hoerter]

1st wargame:

- Air Force (AH)

Boardgames: (favorites, I have quite a few)

- SL & ASL (own far too much of these series, have a good chunk of ASL in duplicate as well....)

- Firepower

- MBT

- Airforce (of course)

Computer: C64, Amiga, and PC (favorites as well)

1st and almost all time favorite:

- Combat Leader (put WAY too many hours into this one, sort of CC's precursor)

- Computer Ambush (was quite a lot of fun, had a system similar to CM's. Plotted moves with simultaneous execution. Wow have UI's changed, to move a guy north 1 square was something like mr11l )

- Overrun (modern combat, CM style. Was not very well implemented, but I've been a fan of the simultaneous move games The unit database was similar to Steel Panthers too. I sort of think of this as a precursor to that series...)

- WGCS: I and II

- Steel Panthers (Despite its flaws, it was fun to play)

- Close Combat 1 & 2 (Really innovative at there time)

- Over the Reich (Enjoyed AH's Air Force, but plotting moves could get tedious. OtR simplified that and let my friends and focus on aerial tactics)

- 101st Airborne in Normandy (Computer Ambush revisited! Well, with a better interface realism etc... but C64 vs '98 PC...)

Have to mention Underfire (UF), one of AH's early forays into computer gaming. WWII squad level combat with simultaneous execution. Fairly realistic spotting and OoB's, on a C64. Can't help but think of this one as the precursor to CM... Talk about UF's hardware limitations... Took ages to calculate a turn, nearly unplayable. In fact I spotted CM's earlier incarnation when reading up on OtR and thought of UF. I remember seeing a very distant target date for CM. I've been lurking since then , pre-FAQ and Board. I still remember the excitement of reading the first FAQ!

Justin

PS Oh, sidenote, wasn't Close Combat initially BSL (Beyond Squad Leader)?

[Guest KwazyDog]

Ron, I remember that too. There were heaps of things he wanted to add such as prisoners, booby traps, vehicles. I wonder whom the author was and if he knows about CM That game would only be around 10-15 years old now. Isnt it amazing how far things have come!

[MERC]

I had computer ambush on my Atari. That was my first game I played against a human opponent (hotseat). It was a awesome experience.

My all time favorites are:

1) Computer Ambush

2) Fulda Gap

3) Computer Eastern Front? (came on tape, Atari 400)

4) M1 Tank Platoon

5) Tacops

6) CC2

7) F19

8) Harpoon (bought my first memory upgrade for this game)

9) A-10 Tank Killer (My first game on a 286 computer)

10) Falcon 3.0 (bought my first sound card for this game)

[Guest BigAlMoho]

It was 1979 at age 26 or so that I bought Panzer Leader and played the heck out of it... That lead to buying(if not actually playing) dozens of board games... Some faves:

Battle of the bulge '81

3rd Riech

Up Front

Flat Top

Russian Front

SL and ASL

In 1986, I bought an Amiga 1000 and then over the rest of the decade aquired dozens of games for that... The ones that got the most play:

Empire

Perfect General

Their Finest Hour

Kampfgruppe

Harpoon

At the end of 80s, I switched to MS-DOS computers(couldn't stand Windows after using the Amiga)... Again, I bought dozens of games for these machines, but disapointment ran high for years... Some standouts were:

Empire

Perfect General

the V4V series

the W@W series

Seal Team

Patton Strikes Back

Carrier Strike

Panzer General

Steel Panthers I and II(these games and their variations, have the distinction of being the most enduring inhabitants of my harddrive; I have been playing them since they came out and I still enjoy them very much, as games...)

One thing is sure, I have wasted much money on poor designs in every era of my gaming, and NO game has been flawless... It is the nature of the beast... The gems make it endurable

Al

[MikeO]

Started off with minis and still play toy (sorry, model) soldiers.

Napoleonics (Bruce Quarrie rules)

ACW (Newbury)

Spanish Civil War (Rapid Fire variant)

Early Samurai (WRG and my own rules)

Prefer 'we-go' systems so looking forward to CM! For this reason didn't play many tactical boardgames except Squad Leader. Liked strategy games like AH's 'Samurai'

Computer games:

Fields of Glory

SMG

CC2 (my favourite especially with the addons from the Gamestats crew)

M1TP2

Looking forward to:

CM (obviously)

Napoleon 1813 (just released in Britain)

Panzer Elite

Shogun: Total War

Cheers,

Mike O'Brien

[Guest titan]

MikeO

im waiting for shogun as well,thought brave heart might be as good,very dissapointing

[SGTRock]

Yeah! MERC!, I forgot about M1 TP that was great for it's time. Had it for my Amiga 500.

By the way thanks for the support,and the compliment SCARR.

Anyone ever play JUTLAND? What a howl, we'd get really adventureous and put 2-0r 3 Games together and go play on the Highschool football field, hehehe made for some great moments especially when the wind picked up and carried 12 U-boats into the stream next to the field!

Glad you guys are enjoying this post, I am too! We should all have a CM Conference after this and play some of the oldies, hehehe... Anyone for a game of JUTLAND on the Highschool Football Field?

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Sgt. Rock Says " War is Hell, but games are fun "

[Rhet]

I started out as a boardgamer, somtimes I think that maybe I was keeping a few game companies afloat by myself.

Board games: Squadleader(IC,CD,GIAV), ASL, Jutland, Diplomacy, Wooden Ships & Iron Men, Submarine, Storm Over Arnhem, Panzer Leader, Panzer Blitz, Luftwaffe, Victory at Sea, Gettysburg, Feudal, Ploy, Titan, Kingmaker, B-17, Arab Isreali Wars, Star Fleet Battles, Ogre, GEV, Carwars.

Looking back on it my favorites were SL (of course) & Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

Fun little games: Risk, Stratego, Illuminanti, Cosmic Encounters, Ace of Aces & Lost Worlds.

Ace of aces was a lot of fun it really got you to understand WWI dog fighting manuvers and counter manuvers. Cosmic Encounters was a Blast, it was a great game to just sit down and have fun with.

Computer games: Way to many to list! I would have to say that one of my old favorites war Empire. It was kind of a cool game for playing aginst someone. I think it was the first head to head game that had a fog of war element.

------------------

Rhet

[Guest Lokesa]

Hey Justin,

I just noticed that Firepower was amoungst your listing. Cool game. Unfotunately I was the only person I knew who had it

[Guest KwazyDog]

Justin, I played Overrun heaps, I just couldnt remember its name. Hehe, I think my high school grades suffered because of that game

It was the follow on version to a game called Panzer Strike, which was the same engine but was set in ww2. Both were great games for their day. I believe they were done by Grisby whom later went on to do Steel Panthers, though dont quote me on that.

I was very dissapointed after getting SP and finding it was I go-U go turn based. It was a real let down after these games which were out a good 5 years earlier....ahh well

[SGTRock]

Alot of you guys are mentioning 'Steel Panthers ' that's by SSI isn't it?

Was (is) it a pretty Cool Game?

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Sgt. Rock Says " War is Hell, but games are fun "

[BenSp]

I loved Campaigns of Napoleon (or something like that ) on the Amiga. I was very happy to find a PC version, but it really is an OLD game (and it even looked a lot better on the Amiga). And then there was SM's Gettysburg - The first revolution in Wargaming - and I hope the second one will be CM.

MikeO: Forget about Napoleon 1813. It's crap (sorry, but it IS). a lot of bugs, bad (and I mean BAD) AI, very bad user control...

I guess the games to look forward to are Combat Mission and SM's Antietam!

[Guest KwazyDog]

SGTRock its an older SSI game, I guess the first version came out probably, hmm, 5-6 years ago? Anyways, its an I go you go sort of setup, which generally makes for unrealistic game play, but otherwise was an enjoyable game for its day. There were ww2 and modern versions of it put out. Units were squads of men and individual vehciles, pretty much the same size as CM, though of course no where near the detail (though not too bad considering its older). It was very popular as wargames go.

It was a pertty fun game in its day

[SGTRock]

Sounds good, Dawg! Maybe after this intial investment I'll grab it! I know they usually com out in gift packs or classic packs.

Thanks for the heads up!

------------------

Sgt. Rock Says " War is Hell, but games are fun "

[Pixman]

When I think back, I just remembered the very first computer game I ever got hooked on (other than my Atari SuperPong!). It was a Star Trek simulator that ran on our mainframe at Syracuse University (1980-1981). The computer was a DEC 10. There was no graphical display at all. You just sat at a keyboard and the galaxy would plot out in a matrix of asterisks on the greenbar paper. A "k" meant a klingon ship and a "r" meant a romulan ship. You had shields, phasers, photon torpedoes, tractor beams, warp power and impulse power (from what I remember). You basically had to zoom through the galaxy and shoot up the enemy. The hardest thing was plotting fire resolutions on the move. If the romulan ship was 100,000 km away at 35 degress and you were moving forward at warp 3, you had to estimate how much to lead him to hit him with a torpedo.

Of course it was all really on a 2D plane. But the suspense was great because you might have fired a second or third shot at other targets before you got feedback on your first shot. I stayed up many a late hour in the computer lab, by myself, fighting that invisible enemy on paper.

Several of you have mentioned "Up Front". I'd be interested in hearing comments on that game. I personally think it is excellent -- I still have it. I also have the Banzai module but did not play that as much.

I have not heard anybody mention Panzer Armee Afrika (AH). It covers the entire North African theatre and I always thought it was designed very well. Given the popularity of Rommel among historians and fascination with the African war in general, I am surprised that none of you have it. It actually had truck units and supply depots that you had to move around in order to keep your combat units in supply. That was what made Tobruk so valuable -- you could use it as a naval supply base that cut the North African coast from El Agheila to Alexandria in half. This took tremendous pressure off of the supply chain.

It also had some strategic variants like the Axis attempting to take Malta (abstracted off board), which had tremendous impact on their ability to prosecute the war (allied naval control of the Med doomed Rommel and Malta was key). The really neat thing about the game is the arrival and departure schedules of the units. The game imposed on the players the historic decisions that Hitler and Churchill made to add AND SUBTRACT divisions from Africa. So the ebb and flow of the game is phenomenal. If you ever run across a copy of this game, I strongly urge you to buy it, if only for the educational value. I learned a lot about that campaign through Panzer Armee Afrika.

Pixman

------------------

The enchanter may confuse the outcome, but the effort remains sublime.

[Darstand]

I will state right up front that I have never owned a computer wargame. I have always enjoyed 4X games (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate).

My favorites Computer games.

Civ 2

Master of Orion

Mater of Orion 2

StarCraft (yes StarCraft)

Before getting into computers. I did lots of role-playing. I was a serious role-player between 16 and 25 years old

Favorite Role-playing games

AD&D (of course!)

WarHammer Fantasy

Top Secret

And a little known game called The Price of Freedom (Think Red Dawn)

Wargames I have tried and liked but haven't played enough to call favorites.

Star Fleet Battles (I was the master of single ship to single ship combat, but sucked with fleets.)

WarHammer 40K (Fun, but the guys who owned the miniatures really took it too seriously)

Civilization (an AH boardgame).

CM is the first computer wargame I have ever been interested in. I think what attracts me most to CM is how real world tactics can be applied. I really like the 'we-go' system. And all seams to be packaged in an easy to use interface.

edited for spelling

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"Armchair Generals never lose any men"-Darstand

[This message has been edited by Darstand (edited 09-27-99).]

[Guest Lokesa]

Top Secret

Now that was a cool role playing game. My first experience with it I was brought in late to a game already in progress as a double agent (this was known only to me and the DM) went through the scenario with the group and after we procurred the microfilm killed the rest of my group and felt smug. Of course I was never able to regain their trust for other games, they became a rather suspicious lot towards me after that

D&D and Gamma World were also fun.

[MikeO]

BenSp,

Thanks for warning me about 'Napoleon 1813'- must say I NEVER buy a game immediately after release anymore; always wait for buyers comments. Always suspicious about Empire's games especially but the concept sounded so good I thought they were finally onto a winner! Very disappointing. Somebody on the historical wargames ng had positive things to say about the game but then he'd only had it for a couple of days...

Would be interested in hearing more. Guess we'll have to wait for Firaxis to do a decent tactical RT Napoleonic using the SMG engine!

Mike

[Guest L Tankersley]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>It was a Star Trek simulator that ran on our mainframe at Syracuse University (1980-1981).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I played this game, or something much like it, in my young 'un days at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley (I was born in Oakland, but have since been relocated to the right coast and currently live/work in the DC area). Somewhere in a closet I think I still have huge rolls of paper from those games (I played on teletype terminals - no fancy-pants CRTs for ME!

The game that got me started was probably Outdoor Survival by AH. I don't think I ever actually played it - a friend's family had it and I remember just thinking that the map and the counters and stuff (especially the funky way AH maps folded) were NEAT. I must have been maybe 7 at the time. I also have a vague earlier memory of visiting some neighbors/friends of my parents when I was maybe 4-5 and seeing them playing a game on the carpet with tiny plastic tanks and planes, and monopoly money. (Some home-grown game I suppose).

After that, once I had some small level of funds, the sky was pretty much the limit. I picked up a copy of Gettysburg '77 during a visit to the battlefield, and slogged through that solitaire a few times (the 20-minute turns and incredible counter density of the advanced game kept me amused for hours). Through Jr. High and High School I played lots of stuff, although probably Star Fleet Battles took up the largest portion of my time (alongside D&D - we dabbled in other stuff like Top Secret and GW, but kept returning to the romantic dungeon-crawls of our youth). I played some SL, but didn't have many opponents so put it aside until about 7 or 8 years ago when I got ASL, found a regular playing partner (we were housemates for a while - that was cool), and got into that bigtime. In the meantime, I occupied my free hours with games like Kingmaker, Third Reich, Joe Balkoski's Task Force (and the later Fleet series), a few semi-monster games like Nato Division Commander and MechWar 2 (hard to find opponents though), some Harpoon (pen & paper - I didn't care much for the computer version) and on and on.

The past few years, my gaming time is divided. I play ASL once a week, I'm in Jim Stahler's playtesting group. I have a fairly significant presence online playing Myth and Myth II (although in recent weeks I've been too busy to do much of that). When I get friends together we like to play games like Adv. Civilization or Age of Renaissance if there's time (there's a great game called Barbarian, Kingdom & Empire that's a blast, too). If there's not time for those marathon sessions, or if some people aren't up to the brain drain, we divert to shorter, simpler games. Of course, there's always poker.

Leland J. Tankersley

[MOS was 71331]

I started on board war games in high school in the early 60s with AH's original Gettysburg (free movement on hex-free map) and Tactics II, quickly followed by D-Day. I was at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University) from 62 to 66 with Larry Pinsky where I playtested Midway and Battle of the Bulge (which Larry designed). Larry had a huge War in the East prototype -- four map sheets and a thousand or so counters. It was division scale with one or two week turns. I remember breaking the Russian line in the south and bagging around thirty divisions in the first couple of turns and later getting a few divisions into Moscow in early Winter '41 which got pushed out quickly when the Siberian reinforcements reached the front.

I was buying every war game AH published through the 60s and 70s. When I found out about Strategy and Tactics magazine -- a game in every bi-monthly issue, I subscribed right away. When S&T offered lifetime subscriptions for $100, I think I was one of the first to send in a check. [As I recall, the "lifetime" ended when S&T's founders had financial problems and sold out to TSR, the group that started "Dungeons and Dragons."]

I've still got hundreds of board war games in a closet. I daren't risk setting one up with a five-year-old daughter who would gladly push counters around and take away any which caught her interest.

One S&T game I really liked was "Borodino," on the 1812 battle.

I have the CC series of computer war games. "A Bridge Too Far" seems fairly good, but CC3 was a disappointment.

[SGTRock]

I, and it seems many WGmers are not unacustomed to being involved with RPGs (that's Role Playing Games not Rocket Propelled Guns ) I actually won a DM competition, and yep did dabble in Top Secret. But TOON was my favorite, what a howl! Getting back to Wargames...also tried out Traveler and the old favorite Car Wars!

I think the link between RPG'mers and WGmers is that We like to be challenged and take risks use our brains a little more than the average Joe. Another thing I find about WGmers and RPGers are that We love to debate and have more practical reasoning skils (argumentitive skills to the lay person )

Than most do

Just my observation, I'm not a phsyce major.

------------------

Sgt. Rock Says " War is Hell, but games are fun "

[Mike Oberly]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>When I think back, I just remembered the very first computer game I ever got hooked on (other

than my Atari SuperPong!). It was a Star Trek simulator that ran on our mainframe at Syracuse

University (1980-1981).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey Pixman!I played that(or something very similar) on the mainframe at Wright Patterson AFB back in the '70s-my father works there as a physicist.I used to go to work with him sometimes on the weekend to play the game!Seemed like the bee's knees back then.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Several of you have mentioned "Up Front". I'd be interested in hearing comments on that game. I

personally think it is excellent -- I still have it. I also have the Banzai module but did not play that

as much.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Great game,and actually pretty realistic,if abstract.That's the one game that my gaming friends(who didn't necessarily play wargames) would pick up and get interested in.And it's pretty easy to show someone who is new to the game the basics.And,of course,it's a blast to watch your opponent sitting there eating his liver as you drop yet another 'stream' on his men who just left one.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I have not heard anybody mention Panzer Armee Afrika (AH). It covers the entire North African

theatre and I always thought it was designed very well. Given the popularity of Rommel among

historians and fascination with the African war in general, I am surprised that none of you have it.

It actually had truck units and supply depots that you had to move around in order to keep your

combat units in supply. That was what made Tobruk so valuable -- you could use it as a naval

supply base that cut the North African coast from El Agheila to Alexandria in half. This took

tremendous pressure off of the supply chain.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That was a good game,but I think it was one that was originally released by a smaller company,then re-released by AH(much like the old Battleline games).I'd almost forgotten about that one.It was much more 'realistic' than AK,especially,as you mention,the supply elements,but AK just had an unbeatable 'feel' for the campaign.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The game that got me started was probably Outdoor Survival by AH. I don't think I ever actually

played it - a friend's family had it and I remember just thinking that the map and the counters and

stuff (especially the funky way AH maps folded) were NEAT<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That was one of the earlier AH games that I remember-it was cool because you could play it very well solitaire(you against the elements),and it was just an interesting design.