How would you rate the strategy guide?

[lcm1947]

I was thinking about buying the strategy guide but thought I'd ask those that have it already how you would rate it on a scale from 1 to 10. 10 being just outstanding and you'd have paid double for it now that you know how great it is or 1 meaning it's really not that big of deal and you would have been better off keeping your $15.00 bucks. Anyone care to comment? Remember be honest please. If it stinks let me know that too. I'd appreciate you being candid. Thanks.

[Michael Dorosh]

Depends how much you know. You've been here a while, for you, who I assume has a grasp on the basics of the game, what an HQ unit is, basic tactics - I'd say it is a 3.5 out of 10.

A lot of elementary tips and tricks; the data section is good, if you really feel the need to go and dissect every unit. Personally, I just play to have fun and don't worry too much about firepower factors at various ranges.

There are some useful tips but overall, no great shakes. Would have benefitted from a full colour presentation, but the hell could have afforded to pay for that. The author is also something of an unknown; I know he posted briefly about the guide, but to my knowledge he never stuck around to become a regular. Seemed almost like an outsider was invited to Sunday dinner, if you know what I mean.

There are some good interviews in the back which are interesting, from Fionn, wwb, rune, Berli, Andreas, etc. - but these are the kind of guys who would post to you if you asked the same questions on the Forum, and in greater detail likely, and more interactively.

I bought it for the collector's value, frankly, and though I did learn a few things, I've never really burned to be a competitive player, so much of it was lost on me.

What do you expect to get out of it, put it that way? Then we can tell you what it will be worth in clearer terms.

[ June 22, 2003, 11:13 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[GreenAsJade]

I was disappointed when I received it.

A large number of pages are "fill" as far as was concerned: tables and tables of unit data without

much in terms of "so what" about that data.

Also, there are illustrations in there that are completely unreadable. A patch of splody grey with a caption below it. That really irritated me.

Finally, the author's style didn't work for me. The "friendly" style is OK, but I'm not one of trivialising war & death. I found the author's euphamisms did that... for me it grated.

All that being said, there _was_ helpful advice in there, and the interview at the back are good reading.

I thought it was a 5 or a 6.

(Compared that to Ligur's Scouting primer, in a recent thread, which is a 10).

Martin.

[markl]

As a beginner I got a fair bit out of it. If you were experienced, it would be not much help. The pictures unfortunately are very bad and not really usable at all.

If you do not have the time to read the forum, which has better information it would be better value.

4 to 6 out of 10 for beginner.

2 out of 10 for medium player with some experience.

[Elmo]

It was worth $15 to me. It provides a basic overview of tactics for infantry, armor, and arty with suggestions on combining arms. The tables are useful although I'm not a number cruncher. The scenario walkthroughs are good at showing how to put the tactics to use in a game. Interesting interviews and a very good appendix of recommended reading. I picked up Biderman's In Deadly Combat after reading about it in the appendix and it was an excellent read.

So I'd give it a 7 of 10, taking a point off for no index, a point off for poor quality screen shots, and a point off because I wanted more, more, more...

[Da Beginna]

Hi there!

I'm with the others - for a beginner this book might be worth buying, but despite my name I'm wargaming quite a while so I was (utterly) disappointed.

These tables are fine - but I look up the things that I wanna know directly from the game itself anyway.

Things which could be improved are the format (to small) and the information should be more specific, more into deep. I knew before I got the book about HQs and the importance of cover, for instance.

Rating: 3 out of 10

[ June 23, 2003, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: Da Beginna ]

[lcm1947]

Thanks guys for the info. Well, looks like it's not what I was hoping it would be but wanted to ask. Glad I did. Again, I appreciate you taking your time to help me out.

[MikeyD]

There's the grizzled CM veteran who dreams wargames and already knows everything about everything (and tells you so on a regular basis). Then there's the 16 year-old newbie who's a complete novice and who didn't even know there were different kinds of tanks back then!

It's awfully hard to write one book that'll satisfy both of them, but I think we agree which would benefit more from a general strategy guide.

[Panzertruppe]

I have never bought a strategy guide for any game so far. I have always prefered to reason out problems or my strategy in my wargames.

After many hours of trying to figure the best way to win a battle....I would feel as if I had cheated if I used someone elses strategy to win. Just the way I have played wargames for 40 years.

As long as the player is enjoying the game, then whatever works for their style of playing in fine!

I'll save my 15 dollars for CMAK!

[ June 23, 2003, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: Panzertruppe ]

[SFJaykey]

I'll add to the general consensus that the guide offers some good pointers for beginners, but anyone who reads this forum regularly has seen most of the stuff already. I agree the unit tables duplicated data that was already easily avilable in the game: I was hoping for tables that would provide data you can't look up readily in the game, like the relative merits of different types of cover, effects of terrain types on movement, delay times of artillery, etc. I didn't think the pictures were that bad, btw; in my copy they are unattractive but perfectly legible. I have the 2nd edition.

[dalem]

I have to be honest and give the Strategy Guide an overall rating of Poor. Many of my comments would overlap with what's already been said. I'm not saying it's easy to write or publish such a thing, of course.

-dale

[gunnergoz]

Not having seen the guide, I still wonder how valuable the guide would be to someone who DOESN'T come to the forums much, just bought the game, and saw the ad and ordered out of curiosity to learn more about the game. I.E. not just a non-grog, but a non-lurker/poster. I suspect there are a few of those out there and there will be more once retail store sales pick up.

Anyone?

[lcm1947]

Thanks everybody for your input. Looks like I'll just save my money and buy some beer with it. I'm sure it's a good book but sounds more for the beginner which I am not although my opponents seem to think so. OK, so one less thing I can live without then. Cool.

[ June 23, 2003, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: lcm1947 ]

[Battlefront.com]

Guys,

I think MikeyD summed it up nicely:

It's awfully hard to write one book that'll satisfy both of them, but I think we agree which would benefit more from a general strategy guide.

The CM Strategy Guide was not written for the long time, CMpsychos player that many of you in this thread are It was written for the average CM player who might even be new to wargaming in general.

Don't forget, CM is a damned complicated and deep game. There are two ways to understand that... play the Hell out of it for 3 years or get a jump start with the Guide I would be willing to bet $10 that if some of you diss'n the Guide bought it along with your first copy of CM, or shortly thereafter, you would have a totally different opinion of it because that is the person it was (mostly) written for.

That being said, there are some tips in there that I wouldn't be surprised if a pretty heavy player hadn't noticed. I am constantly surprised at how many of these details have been overlooked by avid players. On top of that there are the tables/data that some people have been begging us for since before we even released the CM Beta Demo was released. Yeah, some people started in on us rather early

Now... if you know CM's game mechanics front and back, and don't give a flying fig about the charts, then it isn't worth buying just to see the interviews in the back (as interesting and enlightening as they are). If one wants to understand tactics better, we have a wide variety of real world tactics books that do the job as good, if not better, than we could.

In short.... a Guide like this can not be everything to everybody, just like the game itself can't be. We think the Guide does a great job serving its intended audience, and a decent job for a bunch more. But for the hardcore CM fan... well, money is better spent on a tactics book IMHO.

Steve

[ June 24, 2003, 12:49 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

There are some good interviews in the back which are interesting, from Fionn, wwb, rune, Berli, Andreas, etc. - but these are the kind of guys who would post to you if you asked the same questions on the Forum, and in greater detail likely, and more interactively.

Wow, someone values my ramblings. But not as much as $3, so that's a relief.

I'll probably better stick to chatting up Italian women, seems more rewarding.

[General Bolt]

I also was disappointed. I felt all the pages of stats (40% of the book) are interesting, however, I see them filler trying to make it thicker.

Some of the walk thrus in the back were helpful.

$15 is face value tack on another 7 for S&H - $22 ouch...

[Battlefront.com]

DingoBreath

I felt all the pages of stats (40% of the book) are interesting, however, I see them filler trying to make it thicker.

Not true. The stats are in there because people have requested this and it is a fairly standard expectation for a Strategy Guide to have it. The problem is that CM doesn't have 2 pages worth of data to be put into charts like most other games

Honestly, if we thought the data was useless we would have excluded it and knocked the price downwards. So like everything else in the Strategy Guide, or any SG for that matter, we can't please all the people all the time.

Steve

Edit note -> accidentally wrote "Dinobreath", which actually I think is quite funny Corrected

[ June 24, 2003, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Bruno Weiss]

I still think it needs more pitchures, too much to read. Gimme a headache wit all dat ciphering.

[wbs]

Steve,

I haven't seen the guide, but one previous poster said something that indicated that there is no info in there that lists the defensive value of different types of terrain, and the movement costs of different types of terrain.

If this is true, where can we find out such information?

For example, Does Rocky Terrain provide better defensive benefits than a light building?

I don't know

Than a Stone Wall? I don't know

Does a wheatfield "in Season" provide better concealment cover than brush? I don't know, but it would be useful to know this stuff.

What are the relative moving costs of moving through a building, brush, or Scattered Trees, supposing that I have a choice of different routes to take?

These are some examples of what I mean. Is there anyplace we can find info that would tell us these? If this game was a board wargame, this info would be readily available in the rules.

[Moon]

wbs, this type of info is not in the guide (however, a rough list of cover provided by terrain is in the manual if I'm not mistaken) because "movement cost", "cover values" are the kind of things the core design of CM as a combat simulation in a full 3D environment set out to make redundant. Moving through marsh is slower than down a paved road, being prone behind a stone wall is better than standing in a wheat field - common sense works in CM.

Some people have collected an impressive bunch of stats and data from the game by simple playtesting in the past, and they deserve respect for that effort, but you can play and win without knowing if one type of cover is 2% higher than another.

Additionally, CM is not a boardgame, and the game engine is much more complex than a bunch of movement cost charts. Cover depends not only on terrain, but on lines of sight, for example. Movement speeds depend on terrain, fatigue, morale state and so on. Quite frankly, seeing as people complain about the (nearly) complete unit listing in the Guide, I doubt that they would be happier about a few dozen more charts just to capture movement speeds and so on...

Martin

[Holman]

I, too, was disappointed in the strat guide. The writing style irked me, but I suppose that's a matter of taste. I never got the sense from his writing that Mark Walker was a "CM regular" who knew his stuff.

I expected more explanations of how the engine works under the hood: some of the factors that go into hit calculations, details on the penetration model, etc. Some history of the development of the tank families represented in CMBB would have helped, too, since many people might not know that a T-34 is a very different animal from a KV-1 (on the one hand) or a JS-2 (on the other).

As a player since the CMBO beta demo days, I mainly ordered the guide as a way of supporting BTS. I was sad to see the sorry state of the initial release--it just wasn't up to the level of quality I expect from BTS. I sincerely hope that the company didn't lose money on the reprinting--that would be hurting the makers just where I hoped to help them.

If there's a strat guide for CMAK, perhaps it should follow a completely different format. Hire Fionn(!) and some of the other old pros to give us AAR after AAR after AAR after AAR. I think that's the best way to learn about CM on paper.

[ June 24, 2003, 04:16 PM: Message edited by: Martyr ]

[wbs]

Moon, thanks for your fast reply and explanation

[ June 24, 2003, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: wbs ]

[Banshee]

3 out of 10 seems like an accurate assesment to me.

[Redwolf]

I don't think the argument that the different cover values of terrain are obvious holds water, at least not when taking foxholes into account.

Those of you not reading Jason C.'s or my postings and didn't look it up in the editor by now: what is better, foxholes in scattered trees or no foxhole in rough or light building or trench in the open? Answer the question both for summer and winter.

Or in other words: CM models one of many flavours of each terrain and in special it models one flavour of foxholes. Which flavour was chosen cannot be pedicted with common sense.

On the other hand, I think the movement rates and bog chances (in 1.03) in different terrain types and for different vehicles types are more intuitive (except for true oddnesses as that 8-wheel vehicles are much better than fully tracked vehicles in snow and mud).

[Ligur]

Whoa, I checked out the guy who wrote the Strat Guide and if I didn't completely f**k up I think its this dude: http://markhwalker.com/ some guy who wrote about two million guides and books on stuff like for example Myth 3, Wizardry 8, Diablo multiplayer, Nascar, Warcraft 2, How To Use The Internet (whoa d00d), Age of Empires 2, Magic the Gathering, and a whole bunch of car racing games.

Also he has "penned numerous short stories of military and military sci-fi", and written to such magazines as the Alaskan Airlines Mag, Computer Gaming Strategy Plus and Playboy.

Also he is a former US Navy Officer, a university graduate.

And he has designed scenarios for AoE2 and Steel Panthers 2.

He is also fluent in Internet Technology like various browsers and most business software applications like MS Office, Acrobat, Visio and Frontpage. Looking at his homepage who could know!

This guy is some kind of a writing & publishing machine apparently. I'd be intrigued to see some of his text on his guides or just articles about the one million things he is into. Its incredible he has had time to publish so many guides to so many more or less recent games, if I only played those games and did nothing else I could never master so many in so little time.

I really don't know what to make of that guy...

edit: The reviews of his work apparently vary from many 5 stars to plenty 2 stars and anything inbetween. Whooo he makes a load of guides, he must write 10 x more than JasonC on any given day.

[ June 24, 2003, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: Ligur ]