Is CM:BB still worth it?

[GenSplatton]

I realize this is the BO forum but I wanted to get everyone's opinion on this that I could, including those that may not play BB for various reasons.

I had CM burn out and never purchased CM:BB. Since my return from my latest deployment, I have started playing some CM:BO again. Actually that's not true. I started a few PBEM games while deployed (sanity check and all that). I've seen some comments here and there about how folks though CM:BO was more fun. I realize that may be a vocal minority though. I'm thinking about buying the game, but am wondering if I should.

First off, is it more or less fun than CM:BO? Or is it just "different" fun? Is it to late in the game to get my money's worth since another CM is being developed? Or will I still be able to get enough PBEM games for it to be worth it? Or should I just wait for the next iteration?

I'd appreciate all honest responses I can get on this. If you are worried about posting a negative opinion on this site, feel free to email me. I don't want anyone to ruffle any feathers. Here's my addy: loketar@comcast.net

Thanks in advance...

p.s. Yes this will appear in the CM:BO forum too just so I hit up everyone...

[Dandelion]

Splatton

I don't own CM:BB

I'll not claim it is because I find CM:BO better than CM:BB. I wouldn't know. I've only played the Demo.

My CM interested friends all have CM:BB and they're continually at me to discover it. They say it's much better. They mention all kinds of specific detail, especially those known to bug me in CM:BO. Such as non-functional optics, machineguns resembling large pistols and troops displaying more than a healthy contempt for death. Not to mention off board artillery. And so on. All is fixed in CM:BB, creating what must reasonably be quite a different feel to things.

I believe them. CM:BB is probably much better ("better" meaning more realistic).

It's just that...

a) CM:BB does not represent the same kind of step that CM:BO did when arriving and

the Eastern Front...it just does not inspire me. It rather depresses me. Can't explain it really.

So, I'll just sit here and wait until what I can agree is the real CM2 is released.

And - here goes - until such a time I'll grumpily form a vocal minority, nagging endlessly for a patch for CMBO fixing at least the optics and machinegun problem.

I've never heard of anyone being thrown out of here for voicing critical opinion, in a serious honest manner. In fact, with no critical opinion there would be no CM:BO. That's how it was developed.

Anyways, a critical voice answering your question would merely be saying they don't think product B is as good as product A, both sold by the same company. In bundle pack too these days:)

Regards

Dandelion

[GenSplatton]

Thanks D. What you just described is pretty much why I never bought CM:BB when it first came out. With one notable exception, the thought of the Eastern Front does interest me greatly. But, at the time, I had reached burnout and it just didn't seem to be the same leap that going from say Steel Panthers to CM was. But, the forced layoff has rekindled a bit of interest, hence my question. I'm reall hoping for lots of opinions from folks that have both and really want to hear from those that choose to play CM:BO despite owning BB. I'd be really intereted to hear why the choice.

[Pud]

I did buy CMBB, but due to some "features" (bugs?) sold it, and continue to play CMBO.

Some reasons?

No arty Shockwaves.

Suppression overdone (I had a single man fire his pistol 4 times panic a squad of 11 men (they were in C&C, no other incoming fire, no injuries, first encounter)

Tanks refuse to shoot if turning under certain specific circumstances.

Some like these "features", others dont, like me.

The lack of shockwaves certainly accounts for alot of the missing "fun" IMHO.

Please no pointless flaming.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Pud:

I did buy CMBB, but due to some "features" (bugs?) sold it, and continue to play CMBO.

Some reasons?

No arty Shockwaves.

/SNIP/

The lack of shockwaves certainly accounts for alot of the missing "fun" IMHO.

Please no pointless flaming.

No shockwaves...? I'm 99% sure that there's a mod to fix that. I hope that's not the bulk of the reason for why you don't play CMBB. Overly panicky troops can be dealt w/ either by using a LOT more suppression than in CMBO, using higher quality troops in QBs, keeping them in command at all times (a must whilst under HMG fire in exposed terrain), etc. Hope this helps...

SM

[GenSplatton]

No flame from me Pud. That's exactly the kind of input I set out to find by posting in the CM:BO forum.

[Jack Carr]

GenSplatton,

Without going into too much detail, I would purchase CMBB. The game engine is more realistic than the game engine in CMBO. JMHO. I really don't play CMBO much anymore. I'm really looking forward to CMAK so that I can play both Italy and the West Front with a game engine more in line with the one found in CMBB.

Don't know what your financial situation is but if you enjoy gaming and have the extra cash, pull the trigger on a CMBB purchase. Again, just my opinion.

[Redwolf]

I gave up on CMBB because I think most of the new features are not well enough thought through.

In effect, they exchanged the few well-known realism problems in CMBO (MGs/movement/SMGs, flak guns) and lack of control (turrets) with a gazillion of little realism problems, usually ones that slow down gameplay or half-baken commands. The TacAI which I found adequate in CMBO got a lot worse in CMBB. Just have it plot a way around a roadblock by itself or untangle a traffic jam to see what I mean.

I'm still not sure whether a complete listing would do any good, my last tries haven't been very pleasent :frown:. On the other hand, the 1.03c is a lot better in some respects already so not all hope may be lost, especially with CMAK in mind.

[Green Hornet]

I have both games. I play and enjoy both games.

Personally, I think it's probably worth it for you to buy CMBB. There are enough good things and it will provide you with enough enjoyment to justify the purchase. At least it did for me.

I would suggest to keep one thing in mind, however. CMBB is NOT CMBO only better. CMBB is plays differently.

There's a list of things that "bother" me about CMBO but I still have tons of fun with it. CMBB fixed a lot of the things that I found slightly/moderately annoying with CMBO. However, I find that it resulted in the game playing differently and therefore, an adjustment in your play style. You need to be more patient, infantry tactics take longer to execute and are suppressed easier (no more mad infantry rushes into an enemy position), artillery is not as accurate, etc, etc.

This translates in to a slower paced game punctuated by periods of high excitement. Some folks find the slower pace less appealing and downright "no fun". Understandably so, depending on what you're looking for.

CMBO has it's problems, so does CMBB. Neither is perfect but I find both fun for different reasons.

[GenSplatton]

Thanks for all the inputs. About what I expected I think. I guess that's good? I dunno, still leaves me undecided though I'll probably get it just to see. That and I'm having a heck of a time getting CM:BO games.

[Pud]

Well this is a very pleasant surprise, I came back to the CMBO forum this morning expecting to see the chook plucked for it feathers and the tar on the boil! It looks like the trolls that I and redwolf have experienced when trying to raise issues about the game dont frequent the CMBO forum anymore.

This is a sweet start to my day

[lcm1947]

I myself am fence sitting on this issue. I hear so many good things but then I hear bad things. I think I'm with you GenSplatton I'll just have to buy it to see for myself. Let me ask one last question. Those of you that have CMBB would you be wanting to sell your copy? Not that I want to buy it but I think this will tell us just how unhappy you are or are you just maybe trying to warn against it but still will play it. You see what I mean?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by lcm1947:

Those of you that have CMBB would you be wanting to sell your copy? Not that I want to buy it but I think this will tell us just how unhappy you are or are you just maybe trying to warn against it but still will play it. You see what I mean?

Good point actually.

I would never sell it. The unit database including availablity timeframes down to ammunition alone is worth 5 times more than the game costs.

But I stopped playing when I got a bunch of early-war T-34 of mixed medium quality in a safe assembly area and when I plotted the move to the front which had to follow the road due to ground conditions I ended up with 160 or so seconds initial delay. The scenario designer gave 27 turns for the whole attack. WTF? Just for following the road. Or going around a house.

Must... stop... now...

[Moon]

Redwolf, I just tested it and in order to get a delay of 160 seconds you have to use roughly 10 waypoints (green independent T-34). A green German Panzer needed 17 waypoints to reach 160 seconds delay. I am happy to say that all works as intended - give fewer waypoints per turn and you get a shorter delay, or swallow the longer delay but have the advantage of no-delay movement from waypoint to waypoint for the following few turns.

Martin

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

the Eastern Front...it just does not inspire me. It rather depresses me. Can't explain it really.

That is an interesting point - I discussed that with Justin over a bottle of rather decent Pinot Noir one evening this week. I guess there is an issue here with making scenarios for the game that somehow capture this depressing feel of the East, instead of going down the 'war-porn' route of having lots of green IS-2s slug it out with the crack Panzers. Or sumfink.

Kip sees CM as a serious work of history. I would agree with him there, if the scenarios reflect that in some way.

One reason of course why the war against the SU appears so depressing could be that it simply is something we know about from listening to the losers most of the time. Very little is written down in English, and even less read, from the perspective of low-ranking Soviet soldiers and officers. I am quite fortunate in having a collection of such memoirs in German.

Imagine the only source you had of the Normandy battles was from the German perspective, with next to know information on the detailed level of the US and British actions. The battle accounts we would know of would be dreary tales of trying to hold back an endless horde (I choose this word consciously) of tanks and infantry, supported by endless barrages of artillery and with a complete command of the air. The Ardennes offensive would be a tale of a wasteful pointless attack in the most forbidding weather, crushed by tactically inferior US troops by sheer weight of their artillery and air power. It would be a depressing read, on a par with e.g. Bidermann's or Metelmann's books on their experience in fighting the Red Army. But of course, we have both sides in the west, so we have a far more balanced view of it.

But quite apart from that, and to answer the question raised. CMBB is more work than CMBO. There is no doubt about it. But as with every interesting work task, when you excel at it, it is extremely rewarding - moreso than CMBO. One of my friends took since its release to get used to it, and only now has started designing scenarios. In my case, CMBO has left my hard drive a long time ago, never to return. When CMAK appears, the same will not happen to CMBB.

[ May 16, 2003, 05:06 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

[Beta1]

My general feel is that BO is still more fun.

Dont get me wrong I think BB is an excellent game and I really enjoy playing it against huma opposition. But for games against the AI I always go back to CMBO.

Its like the previous poster said, the eastern front semms to be more depressing.

The improved MG modelling is excellent but while the increase arty delays may be realistic they effectively make arty so unresponsive that I rarely use anything above 105mm in a game. Also while there are more units a lot seem to be the same (eg loads of very similar T34s). Its all just too much slogging around with infantry and blasting away with tanks. It doesnt seem as "tense" as CMBO. In CMBO you could be pushing forward and never know if a unspotted 6pdr was going to knock out you armor or a hidden 150 IG flatten your lead platoon. In CMBB if an ATG reveals itself most of the tanks are so thick (and the guns too light) to be of any danger and as a result most IGs meet a messy end under a barrage of T34 shells..

They are both excellent games but agasint the AI the simplicity of BO wins in my book

[Dandelion]

Andreas

Yes, we have onesided accounts to rely on. That is, I do. Completely onesided in fact.

But I am not sure it is this fact alone that explains the depressing quality that I feel. I regard the war much like a natural disatser, into which people were simply pulled regardless of who they were and what they thought. German accounts are - to say the least - depressing. Heartbreaking. I have always assumed Soviet equivalents must look exactly the same.

I'll try put my finger on it, although walking a fine line as one is easily misunderstood.

Come to think of it, even when correctly understood, I guess my opinion is a bit weird and embarrassing.

The scale. Most of all it's the scale the gets me down. It's monstrous. The relative importance of everything is dwarfed to nothing, as all is counted in millions. Millions of lives, millions of acres. Offensives regularly involve more men that fought in the West as a whole and there is no equivalent to the company sized battles that really made a difference in the Ardennes. It all becomes beyond grasp, beyond comprehension and only makes one feel even smaller and more insignificant than wars quite generally do. What's a man in this? What's a Division, even?

The terrain. Is depressing me.

From Budapest to Stalingrad runs a virtually featureless steppe, a vast amount of crushing sameness, partially cultivated and in such cases of course for miles and miles and miles, in all lending no feeling of progress or regress. Had it not been for the huuuge rivers (Europe proper has no such rivers), that somehow seem much closer to eachother than they are, as there is nothing in between.

The marshes in the North are larger than some European nations, with kilometer upon kilometer of swamp. Even today it's a hassle driving through the region. The roads actually sink in the swamp and dark clouds of mosquitos resembles a bizarre fog.

And pineforests. All the border to Finland is pineforest, except for the tundra proper, but let's not talk of the tundra. Barren stretches of dense pineforest with crow and jackdaw as sole inhabitants, voicing their depressing caw.

6 of 12 months all is brown, 3 months all is yellow and the rest all is white. It is the very semblance of depression.

The brutality, is depressing.

Not the massacres and atrocities - those are not part of CM - but the complete disregard for human life displayed by military command on both sides.

More than a million Soviets died to reclaim Stalingrad, and a quarter of a million men died trying to prevent it. That's not a battle, that's an epic, a gigantic clash of peoples. Was there anyone at all on either side that survived from day one to Stunde Null? I doubt it.

The misery, is depressing. I'm not saying a 65% ruined Caen is a laugh either. Nor am I really voicing political opinion. It's merely depressing to encounter kilometer upon kilometer of impoverished, starving people living in shacks or hurdled together in a Kolchose, or Sowchose, or in nightmarish industryscapes.

This is all personal bias of course. The Soviets saw promise and progress in what I regard as nightmarish industryscape, they saw wealth and end of hunger in the endless cultivated steppes I complain of. The Finns love their forests and lakes, giving this love poignant expression, and one can safely assume the Soviets did too. Born on the steppe, perhaps the coasts and mountains that I treasure so become depressing instead. And perhaps the endless grasslands makes their native people feel asphyxiated and claustrophobic travelling among the medieval villages of France. And maybe the loss felt in Soviet families, who also lost grandparents there, does not feel so completely void of meaning, as it does in mine.

Still, that all changes nothing for me. I'm still depressed by the Eastern Front.

Regards

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

...trying to capture depressing feeling in scenarios could be easy.

Use anonymous units and names. Major Schmidt of the 733rd Infantry Regiment, Major Jakulev of Red Rifle Regiment 2098. Or simply discard the numbers altogether. You can discard names too, by explaining the player (commander) has not learned the names of all replacements yet, and don't much care to either, as all of his friends are dead. Make sure the players know that whatever the battle results in, it will have no effect in the scope of things. Make sure they know that it's ok if they all die, because they're just the first line and there are other units waiting behind them expecting them to die, ready to take their place. Make sure not to name whatever village or Kolchos they are fighting about, as it does not really matter anyway. Give geographic locations in navigational terms, longitude and latitude, and state it is because nothing of any significance lies within a hundred miles. State that it will be needless to write an AAR, as nobody cares what happends. Do not make an interesting landscape, just make a flat featureless steppe. Explain that the players have advanced/retreated on this steppe for weeks, and it has looked identical every single mile. And last year, they retreated/advanced the same stretch.

Regards

Dandelion

[Ales Dvorak]

Originally posted by GenSplatton:

First off, is it more or less fun than CM:BO? Or is it just "different" fun?

http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=007241

[jwxspoon]

I prefer the gameplay of CMBB over CMBO. There are still quirks that annoy me, but I feel that taken as a whole the game is a real step forward in terms of realism.

I do miss playing the Americans; can't wait to have the 'improvements' of CMBB plus the western allied units of CMBO together in one game.

As a scenario designer, I preferred designing scenarios in CMBO because I liked the units better. It is harder for me to design in CMBB. That said, I think the scenarios I create are better in CMBB and that I have more control as far as creating a tactical problem for the players. I love the larger maps of CMBB.

jw

[klapton]

My old p200 won't run proper with CMBB. That's the reason why I don't buy it.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

...trying to capture depressing feeling in scenarios could be easy. [sNIP]

Sounds like one of the better of my scenarios

[CombinedArms]

I kept CMBO and CMBB going simultaneously for quite a while, but have now virtually stopped playing BO. The reason is that CMBB seems like so much more a realistic experience. And--since it's a better, more realistic simulation--that ultimately makes it more fun, for me at least.

The hardest thing about the move from BO to BB--and it was hard for me; the first few weeks were not so fun--is relearning how to attack with infantry. MG suppression is much more realistic and infantry gets tired more easily. Buildings are harder to knock down. There are trenches. Etc, etc. BUT, once you've learned how to manage an infantry attack in spite of all these obstacles--and it can be done!--you will have a real feeling of accomplishment. And the skills required will make you a better player. So, if you like a challenge, I'd say try CMBB. You won't be sorry.

And, here's another thought. You WILL want to buy CMAK, right? That will give you the west front forces with the CMBB engine. But CMAK won't be out till late 2003. Do you want to be a total newbie to the way the game plays, when it does arrive? Or do you want to have your skills already in place. If you want the skills to play CMAK successfully when it ships, you'd better start on CMBB today.

[sanman]

As someone who is getting CMBB next month I kind of agree with Dandelion. When I played the demos I found them dreary. No beautiful landscape and building to blow up , but I look forward to the large operations . As a scenario designer I think one of the few draw backs of both CMBO and CMBB are the time limits on battles and artillery. Most historical accounts of battles that I have read show them lasting for much longer than a hour or two (even small infantry op's). A lot of times the Arty lasted that long. If you are realistic about the time it takes (CMBB) to get arty support would'nt you have to also be realistic as to how long a battle usally is, though I'm not sure that is possible without making the turns longer. Operations give you a better feel of a longer battle but if you put together 5 battles to represent one day I think the amount of troop movement before each battle is unrealistic. I guess it is the one size fits all that I find doesn’t work. If there were more options in designing scenarios I think we would get much more realistic battles. Take artillery, In many defensive situations (and some offensive) Arty was well plotted out before the battle (up ten, left 25, fire) where as in other cases such as close support it was much more difficult. More options for the FO’s in scenario design would allow you to match the time it takes for arty to the historical and tactical facts of a battle. Giving the scenario designers more options would work in many other areas to allow us to build scenarios that are more realistic. Just a thought, maybe BTS is listening :eek: .

Sanman

[lcm1947]

Damn Dandelion now you've got me depressed.

Wow! I am - what?, saddened I suppose is the word by your description of your feelings towards the Eastern front. I haven't actually read a whole lot about it but the couple of books that I have read about it are indeed depressing and really really makes you wonder how something like that could have been allowed to happen. It's like a fairly tale or something. It's very hard to believe that that actually happened in real life. Makes one think doesn't it? or maybe makes one not want to think about it. Good post though Dandelion and very interesting to me. Have you ever thought about being a story teller? I believe you would do well.