Guest aka PanzerLeader Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 To have two separate games about the Russian Front? CM1 deals with Western Europe only(Normandy, West Wall, Ardennes, Germany) and covers the last 11 months of war. CM2 would deal with 4 years of warfare in Russia. That scale is huge, it completely dwarfs CM1, not only because of the much more diverse settings, but also because of the length of the conflict. This results in great quantities of different equipment that BTS would have to model, all into one game! Implementing the equipment of the Western Allies and Germany over 1 year of WW2 in one game was difficult enough, so how is BTS going to cope with the hundreds of different Soviet tanks, the new German ones, the new infantry, the new artillery, etc without making abstractions and leaving some of the stuff out? Wouldn't it be easier, to release two different games, say, one that goes from 1939 to 1942 and the other one from 1942 to 1945? Why did BTS want to do it all in one game, which is not necessary? My fear is that CM2 may very well suffer from indigestion... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 yes but... they can build on CMBO (solid foundation in place) CMBO was like inventing the wheel from the ground up I trust that they are confident they have learned from their earlier mistakes. Yes you suggest CM2 will be almost twice the size and scope of CMBO BUT they now have TWICE as many full time employees. Kwazy dog is already working on Russian tanks, so he tells us (unless he is pulling our leg) I think they have a good plan and I suspect given enough time they will execute it brillliantly as we have come to know their high standards and tight quality control and attention to detail through CMBO. I wish them all the best of luck. -tom w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bredberg Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 What is most important of CM2, is to incorporate several new ideas and remove some of the slight flaws in the CM1-engine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since people are talking about both CMII and CM2 (and for the matter also CM3,CM4) - the CMII will include a new engine, while the others are 'merely' a new location with essentially the same engine. I fully understand that the 3D-engine will not be changed from CM1 to CM2 (or CM4) however it would be fairly 'easy' to include a number of new ideas to the game. However I'm not the one to do a wish-list, hopefully the BTS-people will do that. And to the vehicles on the ost-front: Based on the CM1-vehicle not very much have to be added for the germans, however I agree a number of russian stuff need to be graphically and statistically modelled. But it wouldn't surmount the CM1 in workload. I rather include all years, and then leave out some of the oddies. Cheers Jonas [This message has been edited by bredberg (edited 01-23-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PzKpfw 1 Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 Personaly I always felt BTS would have been better off doin 2 games Ie, 1) Beyond Barbarossa 1941 - May 1943 & 2) Beyond Zitadelle covering Zitadelle to Berlin. Regards, John Waters ------------------ "We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the German Royal Tiger come up on the field". Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. February 1945. [This message has been edited by PzKpfw 1 (edited 01-23-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aka PanzerLeader Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 Well I have also forgotten in my intial post all of Germany's satellite troops on the Eastern Front: Finns, Romanians, Bulgarians, Italians, Hungarians, Slovaks...It would be a shame to leave them out or poorly abstract them, which may happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIX Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 Excellent idea, they could focus on Germany's offnesive in CM2, then Russia's counter offensive into Germany for CM3. Trying to handle the entire eastern front in one game might be a bit much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 Well, as aka tom said, BTS do have a foundation to stand upon. All they need to do to the graphics engine is touch it up a bit, higher textures and more details to suit the current standards (CM was for 4MB Video Card, make CM2 for 32MB cards) and add graphics and variety. The interface is done already, IMHO, really no major improvements needed. The only thing left is to collect data and make scenarios. That should take up the bulk of their time. All the standards and formats into which the data would go into is already complete. ------------------ "...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..." - Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polar Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 I'm not sure that modeling the tanks will be all that tough, since BTS went with (extremely wisely, I might add) a physics model as opposed to reliance on numerous tables. Theoretically, they can just enter the specs of the tank, and TADA! it's ready to go. the 3D models may be a different story... I wonder if they'll tap the DD's of the CM world to help out. Joe ------------------ "I had no shoes and I cried, then I met a man who had no socks." - Fred Mertz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 Well I hope they tap someone with a book on German trucks. ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rommel22 Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 BTS are something close to veterans on this now. They did their first big project CM so they know what to do and do it faster. They also have MadMatt and KwazyDog so the game should be done faster. As mentioned before, for the Germans many of the vehicles and infantry is already there. Well atleast for the later periods. But true for the Russians, there is quite a bit of equipment to add. Plus they can keep some of the brittish and American equipment, remember Lend-lease program. BT-2 Bt-5 Bt-7 T-26 T-27 T-35 T-37 T-38 T-40 T-50 T-60 t-34 T-44 KV-1 KV-2 Kv-8 Kv-85 JS-1 JS-2 JS-3 ZIS-30 SU-76 SU-76I SU-85 SU-100 Su-122 SU-152 ISU-122 ISU-152 And those are just the Tank and Self Propelled guns. And you have to do all the variants for some of them. Plus the Armored cars, guns, trucks etc. Damn lot of equipment but I am sure BTS will pull this off fast. I don't want it split into two games, I want ONE game covering the entire eastern front, not to mention all the other countries involved. It will take a while but can't be that bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 If we were starting from ground zero (i.e. no CM1 ever made) it would indeed be a big task to do the entire Eastern Front. This is one of the reasons we chose the Western Front first There are three major tasks for CM2 1. New units/models/data. This is time consuming, but doing half the war as opposed to all of it doesn't save us much time. Most of the vehicles in 1941 are still around in 1945, at least in basic form, so models won't be too tough. Plus, we already have the late war German stuff and most of the Lend Lease stuff made. This helps out a lot. 2. Engine improvements. This is where we will spend most of our time. The improvements are all fundamental to the Eastern Front as a whole, not a particular part of it. So doing 4 months or 4 years of the war in the East won't change our workload here at all. And since this is where the bulk of our time will be spent, no time savings if we reduce the coverage. 3. Graphical improvements - basically, higher res textures, new interface look and feel, etc. Again, the vast majority of this has to be done regardless of how much of the war we cover. So when you look at it... we could probably shave off a month or possibly two for a reduced unit set. And this is just "busy work" stuff, not conceptual stuff. There is nothing else to shave off. CMII, the engine rewrite, is a whole 'nother ball of wax Having two different Eastern Front games would likely hurt moving on to working on the new engine since each release has a certain amount of "overhead" to it. No... better to give you guys the whole thing in one lump, from both of our perspectives. Steve P.S. Funny to see people trying to get us to do LESS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aka PanzerLeader Posted January 23, 2001 Share Posted January 23, 2001 Well Steve, if you say it, then I trust you...I just hope it lives up to my expectations. ALL OF THEM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Steve, will CM2 be a standalone, or will the improvements that the engine receives also be applicable to CM1? Will the 1941 vehicles in CM2 be able to be used in CM1? Has this been asked three million times? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zakalwe Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Originally posted by Big Time Software: [snip] 1. New units/models/data. This is time consuming, but doing half the war as opposed to all of it doesn't save us much time. Most of the vehicles in 1941 are still around in 1945, at least in basic form. Not to mention that most of the 41 Soviet AFVs can also be used in scenarios covering the Winter War in 1939-40. (Assuming the Finns are in.) If as has been noted, Finns are included, I can't wait to see the most fearsome AFV of WW2: BT-42. If this puppy is included, I'm a happy camper indeed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarmo Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 As for the finns. Assuming CM2 starts from barbarossa, the winter war is out. The heavier equipment for continuation war was largely german. That wouldn't leave huge amounts of extra modeling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Steve wrote: P.S. Funny to see people trying to get us to do LESS That's from those of us in the guvment Steve, hard to break tha habit. ------------------ "Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth." -Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest aka PanzerLeader Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 Well if the Winter War is out maybe they can release a patch later...Some kind of scenario pack with all the stuff that had to be left out of CM2. There had been talk a long time ago about releasing a CM1 "Mission Pack" which would have included some new vehicles like the Brummbar...Haven't heard of it since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Broken! Posted January 24, 2001 Share Posted January 24, 2001 If BTS is doing engine mods for CM2, CMII or whatever, I have two requests for enhancements to the command interface. 1) Allow Spotters to request volleys of fire. Since arty rounds are so precious, it would be great if you could order (for example) 6 volleys of smoke from your 81mm mortar battery. Right now, you are stuck with 12 volley/minute from these units. For the heavy stuff (155 VT) you may only want one volley. 2) Attaching commands to waypoints. A lot of tactical flexibility would be added if one could add a Target command or Pause command to waypoints. For example, "Move here, THEN Target the Puma". Or, "Move out of hidden position, Pause 15 seconds to fire at Sherman, them move back into hidden position. Both of these mods would be natural evolutions of existing commands and should be easy to code. The interface would also be consistent with existing CM. For example, mouse-click to highlight a waypoint, then issue Pause or Target command. ------------------ "You can't reason a man out of an opinion he did't reason himself into in the first place." - Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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