Remember when.....

[Ricochet]

I was starting to answer a "where did you hear about combat mission?" on another forum when I started to reminisce…….

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away I was a crazed Squad Leader/Advanced Squad Leader player. I’d consider that game, and still do, to be the ultimate board game in tactical combat. The only problem was the massive rule book.

I then heard that Avalon Hill (makers of Squad Leader) was working with a company called Big Time Software to make a computerized version. I followed up on it now and again when catastrophe struck. Big Time on it’s web page (which looked extremely crude) said it was no longer working on Squad Leader. It turned out, as we later found out, that Hasbro had bought Avalon Hill and couldn’t get in agreement with Big Time on how to develop the game (thank goodness!). Big Time did decide to create a game called Combat Mission and started a discussion board. Well, Grogs from around the world started to give their input and ideas whenever Steve and Charles asked and the game started to develop. There were some brilliant ideas and ideas that were so controversial it made today’s arguments on the forum look silly.

Anyway after about a year or so Big Time put out early screen shots and man did they look mickey mouse, a lot of squares, triangles and circles but the armor looked very cool. By gosh they were on the right track though.

And then the Alpha Game came out pitting a guy named Fionn versus a guy named Moon and holy hanna, jaws were dropping, eye’s were bulging and the grogs were agog.

It took place in the snow, ambushes on wooded roads, mortar rounds dropping, squads advancing in line across open fields (their legs all moved the same no matter if they walked or ran), MkIV’s in column on the road and the Panther, oh the Panther, popping off the Sherman’s left and right. Then the FB shows up and drops a 500 pounder next to it knocking it out….awesome.

It started the cry for the demo. Big Time made a mistake and gave a date that it would be out. Well for one reason or another that date was postponed (and in the end it was well worth it) and Big Time was inundated with “Is it done yet?”, “Is it done yet?”

Finally the Demo came out with two scenarios. Well sir, those two scenarios were played every which way over and over again from both sides. I’m talking 10, 20, 30 times and more each, up the middle, down the left side, down the right side, armor first, infantry first, on and on.

Big Time were, I believe, extremely impressed with the amount of play and discussion their two scenarios created that they decided to cut everyone some slack and surprised us by creating, unprecedented mind you, a third scenario for the demo!

Big Time (and when I say Big Time I mean Steve and Charles, because it was only the two of them) started to take advanced orders and if you were one of the first 100 or so you would also get a pen and ink drawing of a TigerII (that I think you can purchase off of their web site now).

That must’ve been over two years ago.

When the game came out, they sold out so fast that there was a delay for some people to get their orders filled because Big Time had to rush and get more CD’s burned. Although they never said how many games they’ve sold, they once said it was well beyond their expectations.

I have to say it was the last computer game I bought (and before that I was buying one every couple of months) and it probably will be until Combat Mission Barbarrosa to Berlin comes out.

I’m sorry to have rambled on so (sniff) but I was feeling a little nostalgic what with the new game coming out soon and all.

[Sgt Steiner]

Hi

I can remember before this game arrived that I was able to paint up numerous Miniature Armies and play a game with them at least once a month, play various board Wargames and even play a considerable amount of Pbem Western/Eastern Front !

But now........if I am not playing a CM Pbem turn I am playing the AI, or dabbling with various mods, perusing various CM related web-sites and even doing the odd Mod/Scenario !!!

I still manage the odd Miniatures game but have not painted anything in donkeys ages and cant even remember last time I played a Board game

This game really gets its hooks in goodness knows what CMBB effect will be !

Truly a work of genius

Cheers

[Rodimzew]

Well said...sniff....

I also remember the days, when i was playing ASL. In September 2000 I found a short test in my favorite computer games mag where CMBO gets the best stretegy rating and some points for graphics. However it sounds interesting and i had a look on the demo and i was infected with a kind of virus. ASL with its cardboard is still nice, but the atmosphere is missing...I haven't felt like you, Ricochet, because CMBO was already available as i heard about it here in germany. Some tries with other strategy games (i.e. sudden strike, Close combat series) were not atmospheric enough to keep me busy with them. I always came back to CMBO and I just can't stand waiting for CMBB.

[Mr. Johnson--]

I think I first heard of Combat mission from Wargamer.com sometime in november a couple years ago. They said something about a beta for a new wargame getting started. I saw some lame screenshots and thought it was a lame cartoon something. And from what I could see it diddn't look like the playability was there.

So Ignored it until April when GoneGold.com posted the list of fixes for the 1.03 patch. It was long, and I said, "Damn, most game companies don't release more than one patch or even come close to spending that much time improving their games." So I got the demo and started playing away. Losing men and stuggling with learning a new game. Noticed some flaws but compared them to the list of fixes. I could see there was a lot of good work being done on it and got out my credit card.

The rest is history.

[Chupacabra]

Played the beta demo and remember being quite impressed, but skeptical that it was ever going to see the light of day. A few of the games I was really looking forward to - most notably Dynamix's Desert Aces flight sim - had recently been cancelled, so I think I was resigning myself to a vast wasteland of Command & Conquer clones.

I'm glad I was wrong.

[Pzman]

It was in February or...March 2000, when I first played the CM beta demo. I was cruse n around at Cnet and saw... Combat Mission, a world war two strategy Game...that was best download time I ever spent...

[Colonel_Klink]

I believe I first heard of Combat Mission at Adrenaline Vault's reviews page. I was browsing through, and it caught my eye. I read the review, downloaded the demo and was amazed. It was one of the first wargames to actually interest me in a long time. After that, I quickly ordered it.

[Moriarty]

A co-worker got me hooked on the beta in late November early December of 1999. For that, I am grateful. For that, my wife isn't.

C'est la vie

[BFCElvis]

Ricochet, my history is exactly like yours (although judging from your member number I probably came out of lurking before you).

The Alpha AAR was very tense to read. I was on the edge of my seat everyday looking for a new installment.

[Holman]

I starting checking in on the (old-old-style) bulletin board for what was going to be Computer Squad Leader back just before the break between BTS and Avalon Hill. I think I must have first seen a reference to the game in a comment on Combatsim.com (back when it was still free).

When the first CM screenshots came out, I went to look and found them graphically lacking--but I *was* impressed with Charles and Steve's explanations of how the game system would work. It looked like CM would be a game with lots of potential.

Well, CM dropped off my radar again for a few months until, sometime between the Alpha AAR and the release of the Beta Demo, I started visiting the message boards again. Soon I was lurking almost every day.

Remember the long wait between the Beta Demo and the release of the full game? Remember the Night of the Refresh monkeys? Those were the days.

Oh, but wait... CM:BB is coming soon... THESE are the days!

[Herr Oberst]

Hi, my name is HerrOberst, and I am a wargame junkie.

Well, it all started back when I was twelve, and got Panzer Blitz for my birthday.

Many Avalon Hill games later, Squad Leader arrived, and I was hooked. Through college with massive 8 person games that took 36 hours to play.

Then the computer age happened. There they were, my old board games and counters, but on a computer screen. Utah Beach, Velikye Luki, and on. Not the exact scale I like to play, but this was good. Finally, someone else doing the math for me.

Then the counters disappeared, and there were little green men crawling up from the beaches, and individual tanks, halftracks, and Kunz in his kubelwagen with an MG42 mount that killed 163 Amis before a mortar round took him out (yes, I nursed him that far), all engaging in close combat of sorts.

The winter scenario on the eastern front where two 88's perched on a strategic hill could fire into the valley holding hordes of Russian armor, leaving behind wrecks numbering in the forties by the time the operation was over.

The tanks and their drivers that couldn't follow simple directions, and thought it funny to use their exhaust for a virtual "fart" in the enemies direction, or were busy listening to their radio playing country square dance music and driving like they were on promenade.

Then an innocuous Email from a friend. "You ought to go look at this site."

And the CM addiction was done. Pre-ordering, saving space on the wall of the study to hang that drawing of a Panther. Cursing Fion and Moon for not playing their Alpha Demo match faster and posting every damn day to the website. The Gold Demo download, and advancing allied tanks up the road, only to see them turned into flaming hulks by unspotted 88's.

No wargame has made its way onto my computer since. It awaits the second coming...

[Ricochet]

Elvis,

I forgot about waiting for the AAR’s to arrive and loading up the movie files. I would check on a daily basis and be really disappointed when there was none. When there was one I’d load the movie and I remember thinking “looks like the Germans will win” then loaded up the next movie “looks like the Americans are going to win”, back and forth. Then if I remember it right at the last minute the American reinforcements came on to blunt the German attack and it came out something like a draw.

Although I lurked for awhile I started out under a different user name (Ted). After playing the game a few times and shooting at some Panthers, I figured I could relate better to this user name J

[Wreck]

A year ago, my main computer was getting old... a celeron 366 overclocked to 550, but a lousy 4M vid card. I knew I was due for an upgrade. But I also knew I wanted to wait for the "keeper" KT133A chipset which existed but not out in quantity. And for that matter, December loomed with its long round of travelling, holidays, and other such stuff which pull one away from the computer.

I did not need a new computer for anything other than playing CM. Late in January, I finally put together my machine and downloaded the demo. Wow!

I moved in April, and there are all those boxes I have with my old Avalon Hill games in them. I probably should have just chucked them at the time. They are still sitting there boxed up... SL and its gamettes... ASL... Panzer Leader... Ambush... Starship Troopers... etc... all in fine shape. I really ought to put 'em on ebay or something. I know one thing for certain: boardgames are dead. I knew this after 10 minutes with the demo. It seems wrong to just throw them out, but then again I also still have an old pentium 100 sitting around somewhere unused but perfectly servicable.

I don't know where my old SL gaming buddy Greg is. He got married and we lost touch after college. I really ought to dig him up and addict him to this thing.

[Jarmo]

Came in right after the Beta. With only a few crucial days to separate me from the "old timers" who can go on reminiscing of the "good ole days"...

[Louie the Toad]

This is my story and I'm sticking to it !

Heard about CM from somewhere, can't remember now. Downloaded the demo. What a mess. It was like my cursor was made out of flypaper. Whatever I clicked on seemed to stick to it and I couldn't shake it loose. Tried keyboard commands and succeeded in blowing up my own bazooka team with its own bazooka !! Thought the game had potential in overall look and I liked the concept, but the interface was impossible. It seemed worse than Close Combat. So I let it be. Then I read a positive article by Wm. Trotter in PC Gamer. Now I have had great regard for the reviews in this magazine. I have never been disappointed by their recommendations. So I could not believe Trotter's review. I emailed him directly. Interestingly enough he explained that his initial experience was almost exactly like mine. He went on to write that I should not give up on it. I took his advise, had much better experiences, eventually bought the game, have not bought another computer game in over a year and have become addicted (my wife will testify). My brother and cousin both own the game because of me. Soon a couple of my sons will be assimilated.

Smiling Toad

[edgars]

Before CM...

(sounds like Before Christ...)

Before CM i was always kinda into wargames, played PanzerGeneral for some time and was aware of TacOps (but it was to complicated for me), but nothing really caught me. But then i read an article on insidemacgames.com about some game, Combat Mission it was, and imediately downloaded Beta Demo. I remember loading Last Defense for a first time. And when it loaded, i saw some guy (Battalion HQ) between grey boxes (walls of the house), i stared half a minute thinking, what the hell is that, and how it is supposed to be played... Then i managed to do my setup and had my first loss against A.I... Boy, that was... that was SOMETHING

[GriffinCheng+]

Mine goes back when the project "Beyond Squad Leader" between Avalon Hill and Atomic Games died, I heard somewhere about another project with similar scale between Avalon Hill and Big Time Software. I have read their 2 pages web site, especially about the deign descision where all the units presented on the map is "enlarged" and not to 1:1 scale relative to the map.

Then I heard they borke up and after a while, I learnt about their new site (battlefront.com) from the email alert system and then I read about this forum (which was having the black background) and registered for pre-order (but my plastic ran out before the Game was out so I lost all the specials came with the pre-order). What I experienced next was something shared by many others.

[arax3]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Sgt Steiner:

Hi

I can remember before this game arrived that I was able to paint up numerous Miniature Armies and play a game with them at least once a month, play various board Wargames and even play a considerable amount of Pbem Western/Eastern Front !

But now........if I am not playing a CM Pbem turn I am playing the AI, or dabbling with various mods, perusing various CM related web-sites and even doing the odd Mod/Scenario !!!

I still manage the odd Miniatures game but have not painted anything in donkeys ages and cant even remember last time I played a Board game

This game really gets its hooks in goodness knows what CMBB effect will be !

Truly a work of genius

Cheers<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[tiborhead]

Boredom showed me the way to CM around May or June of 2000. It was late one night, nothing was on TV, and I was bored with my old games. I decided to browse the net, looking for anything of value, when I came upon a link to the Battlefront.com site.

Out of curiosity, I clicked the link and read the summary (which is basically the same today) and thought the concept was very original. I was on an old 28.8k connection back then, so I started downloading the demo before I went to bed. It was finished by the time I woke up, so I installed it and began playing on my old P233 with 40MB RAM and stock 2MB video card.

It ran like a bad anime, choppy frame rates, bland textures, I couldn't even tell when a tank fired it was so slow! I had to wait for the status bar to say "reloading". There was no smoke, fog, or tracers, rain and snow were awful, and overall, it looked horrible.

Despite all this, I still loved the game and thought it was the best WWII game ever made. I ran out and got a money order (I was too poor to have a credit card back then) and followed the ordering instructions. All that was left to do was wait.

It seems like such a long time ago, doesn't it? Oh well, here's to CM:BB, may it find it's way to our mail/postal boxes with no hindrances.

[RMC]

Hohenfels, Germany, June 1998. I was dialing up on a blistering 14.4 connection and came across a reference to computer squad leader. I followed it and jumped in the forums in the old style before UBB.

In july they annouced the split and the new name and many folks derided the name. A lot refused to abandon hexes and wanted ASL on a computer screen and nothing more. I wonder if any of those folks ever bought CM or remember their misgivings if they did.

[MikeyD]

I heard about CM from someone, who had heard from someone, who had heard from someone...

The game wasn't out yet. The demo wasn't out yet. But I looked at my ancient 9(!) year old mac 2ci on my desk and said "there's fianally a good reason for you to be replaced!"

[BFCElvis]

MikeyD I did a similar thing. I purchased a new computer in Oct.'99 figuring the game would be out very shortly and certainly by Christmas...Had I known the truth I would have held off till June 2000 and gotten more computer for my money (hee hee).

Richocet, there were no "movies" with the Alpha AAR only screen shots. Imposter!!!!!!

[LGMB]

Soldiers,

Man I love you guys! *Hugs*

Anyway on the note of CM lore:

I was surfing happypuppy in June 2000, looking for some mac demos (Verylittle few at that time). And behold a 3D realtime WEGO game. Close Combat was still fresh in my mind, but this game took the toast. Dl'ed and played. Havung no clue what I was doing, I ran about Chance Encounter trashing buildings with my stugs. I was blown away. Jioned the fourum a little after that.

Those were that days.... and ARE the days!

[gredeker]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RMC:

A lot refused to abandon hexes and wanted ASL on a computer screen and nothing more. I wonder if any of those folks ever bought CM or remember their misgivings if they did.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Some of us still play ASL and other games (particularly Advanced Civ and Junta) because you still can't have the kind of noise-making, beer-drinking, bad-joke-making, back-slapping camaraderie over the Internet that you can have in person.

I will admit that my ASL playing has decreased since acquiring CM, but I'm anal retentive enough to want to know all the rules and probabilities. I would frankly wish for more information in the manual on what is happening behind the scenes (first round hit probability for X tank against Y target in Z environment, exactly what a +1 bonus does, etc.) because of my extreme left-brain nature. Call me gamey, but I prefer informed decision making.

One thing where CM wins hands-down - set up and takedown. I remember playing a Red Barricades campaign game, where determining the front line, recording everyone's position and covered arc, and putting away the units took more than an hour. With CM, it's just alt-S.

[Iskander]

Sitting in my company's IS guy's office, thumbing through his copy of CGM. Saw a review for something called 'Combat Mission.' The only other tactical wargame I'd ever played was PG, and had put that away over a year ago. Even so, the reviews were breathless and I was bored with CivII and it was only $45....

The day it came in the mail I thumbed through the rulebook before I loaded it. Wow, such detail! I hope that is wasn't a lot of BS and the game was just a rehash of something by Atomic Games with better graphics.... I poured a pint from my keg and went up stairs and loaded the game. I click on the 'Tutorial' and started playing... and playing... my beer was empty and I kept playing... the sun went down... my wife (who is that person now??) yelled to go to bed and I kept playing... my beer was still empty... I kept playing...

...around 0230, I came back to this world, clicked "exit", and looked away from the monitor. My life has never been the same.

Three weeks later I entered the Cesspool. God forgive me.