Anyone getting tired of WWII settings?

[Becket]

If BF bails on WWII, then I'll be left waiting for some other company to fill the niche.

There's a comment above that says (paraphrased) if all you do in your spare time is X (WWII in this case) you'll get bored of it. I've never found that to be the case. Sure, there are things that catch my attention for a few months here or there, then fade away, but those hobbies and interests that I am passionate about do not. To the contrary, my interest increases.

[Alkiviadis]

I definitely agree with Flammingknives.

I think with the new engine they'll be able to handle a '50s to at least '80s Mech War in Europe. Think of it, a massed volley of ATM fired from ambush, snaking across the map, back blast from launch, then frantic suppression fire before the ATMs hit...Chemical munitions...OH YES.

[Pzman]

I don't think I'll get sick of WWII any time soon. Stick to WWII, although if they covered Korea I wouldn't complain.

[Reincarnated]

I'll burn out on WWII when someone builds a time machine, zaps me back to 1944, lets me hit the beaches at Normandy, jump in the cockpit of a Stuka or roll over a hillcrest in a Sherman knowing there's a PZ IV hiding in that treeline. Maybe then, after I've actually seen the real thing, I'll burn out and retire to GTA: Vice City. Maybe.

No, seriously, I'm actually planning on staying in this thing until someone gets it right. And by right I mean really nails it. WWII on a few CDs. Sounds crazy, I know, but there's a definite evolution going on and I want to see where it goes. I mean, compare Panzer General with Combat Mission and tell me you're not just a little bit interested in seeing what will be around in another 5 or 6 years.

Sometimes I wish WWII would catch on even more like on the scale of the current FPS craze. Sure there would be a mountain of crap, but at the end of all the madness you know someone would step up and make something amazing. Compare Doom with the new Rainbow Six game. Now imagine the same quantum leap made starting with Combat Mission and ending with...who knows?

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Wisbech_lad:

Battle of Chawinda 1965 - armoured meeting engagement. M48's and Shermans vs Centurians, Shermans and AMX13's. 25pdrs on both sides.

Thanks WL, I'm checking out those links as we speak...

[dieseltaylor]

Personally if I were a publisher would not touch the Arab-Israeli wars with a barge pole - way way too much opportunities for serious disagreements

and general unpleasantness.

I have several boardgames that cover the period but they are/were dry and sold to a very small market and you played with your immediate friends.

Now Sid Meier's ACW and Napoleonic gave a great game running on old machinery - I really think that with the advantage of beautifully modelled terrain and already clever codes this could be a huge market the engine could cover. Basically the computations of fire would seem to be substantially less as ranges are so short and we we are talking battery and volley fire.

And of course if you do the rules for this period slight adaptations will give you the 7 years wars , ECW etc and then ancients ..... and then the world ----- Sorry got carried away

[istari]

Thanks all for the thoughtful posts. The quality of the people on this board never ceases to amaze, and you can see from my # that I've been here for quite awhile.

Many good points, but a couple stand out -

1) Kip - yup, you're the one I was reading last night in the older CM:BB board. Funny, since I was posting several years ago calling for a Cold War CM - glad to see you're carrying on "the good fight".

2) Michael Emrys/Firefly - excellent point about letting BFC lead where their passions lie. I hadn't considered it that way, but you're probably right that the best games come out of the designers own sense of passion for the material. I guess I can only hope that Steve, Charles and the gang also hold a fond spot for the NATO/Warsaw Pact battles of the Fulda Gap!

I don't think I'll even +permanantly+ burn out on WWII - like many of you, there are just too many fascinating experiences to have diving earthwards in a Stuka cockpit, or leading a platoon of Tigers into Prokhorovka(sp?), or landing amphibious troops off of Tarawa.

It's just that I remember how fascinating and sophisticated the tactics were in Cold War boardgames like TacAir or MBT, or playing Steel Panthers II on the PC a few years ago. Those who think warfare from 1960-1989 would have been "push-button" need to read further on the weapons of the era. Rather than simplifying the battles, the tactical complexity probably would have been even greater - with FASCAM minefields, attack helicopters, IR decoys, ATGMs, IFVs, etc etc... some fantastically good wargaming to be had there.

Well, I can only hope that CMX2 will be flexible enough for them to bring this great gaming system forward into Korea, the Arab/Israeli Wars and beyond.

If they had to choose one setting post WWII, I'd probably vote for a Central Europe Cold War scenario circa 1980 or 1985 - the Steel Panthers II campaign set in 1980 was one of my favorite wargaming experiences ever.

If you had to choose one "war" in the post 1945 era, which would you have BFC focus on?

Istari

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by istari:

If you had to choose one "war" in the post 1945 era, which would you have BFC focus on?

Vietnam. Definitely.

[kipanderson]

istari, hi,

I think you and I really do look at thinks in a very similar way.

Just to make clear I too am “not” suffering burn out from WWII. Am currently reading A War To Be Won, a very fine operational/truly “military” history of WWII.

However, as with istari, I am old enough to remember the cardboard wargame days when for a couple of weeks/months one could concentrate on WWII games, then turn to Cold War games for a few weeks. This ability to change periods was hugely refreshing and fun.

For one game it would be fun to get enthusiastic about a different time period, with different technology. Then, back to WWII.

But, of course, I am such a fan of CM, a hobby all of its own and in a different stratosphere to other games, in my view, that whatever the time period I will always be having close to sleepless nights waiting to get my hands on the latest version.

All good fun,

All the best,

Kip.

[Hans]

BFC will face a quandry with CMx2. If they make it WWII specific and do the Western front then this allows them to do the other fronts later. This means more money for them. If they produce a WWII European threatre game then they reduce their future earning and the hope for more games.

I would hope that the new CMx2 would be flexible enough to allowing scenarios to be build into other era, ie Spanish Civil War, Korea, Arab-Israeli, Indian-Pakistani and what if galore with the cold war. The big question is whether they will make the system adapatable enough (ie build your own infantry or modify the data on a vehicle to produce one in line with what you want). I would suspect they won't. European WWII is okay with me but I would like to get into some other areas also.

[Juardis]

I personally hope for Korea. It's a slight extension of WWII era armament.

[Frenchy]

I do not get tired of WW2 settings. My gaming is varied, I also play Tour of Duty, FC2, History of the World and War: Age of Imperialism...that is when I can find the time. Indeed if there is one area of action I would like to see from WW2 is a Pacific version of CM. (I know...but can't give up hope!)

[Agua]

No, I'm not tiring of good WWII games. I hope BFC stays with the WWII setting in future games.

[Joques1]

Originally posted by Sokal:

The Israelis had Bf-109s

How's that for irony?

[Pud]

Originally posted by Hans:

..The big question is whether they will make the system adapatable enough (ie build your own infantry or modify the data on a vehicle to produce one in line with what you want)..

I recall many years ago when someone asked the question if CM could be modified like CC3 can, ie access to unit data for moding and they said straight up, No. Sorry I doubt you will see this happen, after all they do have to make a living.

[edit - the data tables are hardcoded to prevent such changes, as opposed to CC3 which have the data in a seperate file]

[ October 21, 2003, 07:11 PM: Message edited by: Pud ]

[Brent Pollock]

Get tired of WW II setting?

Does not compute....does not compute...

[ October 21, 2003, 09:53 PM: Message edited by: Brent Pollock ]

[argie]

I hope for CMX2-1 the entire WWII European Theater, from beginning to end.

We can start Cold War with that.

CMX2-2: Cold War or Pacific WWII.

[Sokal]

Originally posted by dieseltaylor:

Personally if I were a publisher would not touch the Arab-Israeli wars with a barge pole - way way too much opportunities for serious disagreements

and general unpleasantness.

I guess there's a lot of truth to that. Still it would be nice to have ways of doing some of the more interesting battles around the Old Mandate of Palestine. As I've pointed out, for the 1948-49 fighting (for example), if you have a game with a wide range of WWII equipment then you have most of what you'd need. In fact CMBB has a lot of what you'd need in terms of vehicles...though you'd have to make sure both sides could have Bren guns and 3-inch mortars and so on.

[Hans]

Sokal

I'm hard at work on a series of small battles (to be named the 'Blood Clash' series) for 1948-49 and possibily 1956. The first one will be action around Mandelbaum Gate, Jerusalem with the British led Arab Legion equipped with armoured Cars verus Israeli Militia with home made armour and other delights.

[Nippy]

I'm not sure what to think.

On one hand there is just so many 1950s to 1980s cool toys that could be played with in a fictional WWIII battle. It would breath some fresh air into a stale tactical subject (Ie Tiger = pwnage f0r evAr)!

But on the other, I can see that there still is lots of WWII subjects to cover. The Civil war in Spain, a true Winter war setting, the eary war Blitzkrieg in Poland and France, and the early and late war Russo-Japanese border skirmishes. Not to mention the Pacific and China/Burma.

It seems like only in the last few years that main stream game makers have figured out "Hey, there was an East front too!"

[CMplayer]

Another WWII setting which would be interesting to cover would be night battles, regardless of theatre. Night battles are, as yet, not represented in CM.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Joques1:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sokal:

The Israelis had Bf-109s

How's that for irony? </font>

[HeinzBaby]

Rgr that, the Czech's had a few G-14AS airframes leftover from wartime production, with no Benz's around they were fited with the Jumo 211F's. These gave horrendous handling problems [torque] especially on takeoff, named Avia S-99 a few were aquired by the fledgling Israeli Airforce nicknamed the 'mule' and saw limited combat...

Spain recieved 25 G-2's just before VE day but with no engines, so they were fitted with the Rolls Royce Merlin, retired in 1967, they were the ones used in that gorgeous 60's Film "Battle of Britain".

Israel also aquired Mk XIe Spits from Czechoslovakia and flew them into the early 50's, the last Spit belonged to Ezer Weisman 3rd Co of No101 Sqdn remaining airworthy until 1976...

[Sokal]

Originally posted by Hans:

Sokal

I'm hard at work on a series of small battles (to be named the 'Blood Clash' series) for 1948-49 and possibily 1956. The first one will be action around Mandelbaum Gate, Jerusalem with the British led Arab Legion equipped with armoured Cars verus Israeli Militia with home made armour and other delights.

Is this a whole new game or a mod of some other system? It has always seemed odd to me that the Wars around the Old Mandate (which offer many classic, clear well-defined cases of

the basic elements of modern war) should have been so neglected. It's odd that Vietnam is a "safe" war in the minds of the gaming public when it was say 50-1000 times bloodier than the combined losses of all participants in the relatively unspeakable/unthinkable wars around Israel and the Falklands.

I should add that in some ways a lot of the stuff in Palestine in 1948 is nearly impossible to simulate. The fighting in Jerusalem is just too nutty and a lot of the terrain is very hard to get right in any game system I've seen.

That's one reason I've done most of my work on the two big Israeli offensives in 1948-49 against Egyptian forces around the Negev, the mountains and Gaza. The terrain is relatively normal and the opposing forces relatively even and well enough disciplined to behave themselves for the most part. And the objectives all make a fair amount of sense geopolitically (compared to Holy sites in Jerusalem for example), though of course the Israelis are actually trying to avoid capturing areas with big towns like Gaza or Hebron...the Arabs didn't quite grasp that and the Israeli capture of Beersheba seems to have genuinely shocked the British anyway....so there's plenty of room for alternative history scenarios such as British or American intervention, different Israeli Objectives (eg, Gaza) and many different possibilities in terms of forces involved and the timing of the offensives.

[ October 22, 2003, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: Sokal ]

[Hans]

Sokol

Glad to have your expertise around. Do you have information on the Saudi units that were destroyed by the Israelis in your area of interest? I wanted to make that into a Scenario if possible.

Unfortunately I'm located in the middle east in an, "information well" and I find it nearly impossible to get reliable western based data on 48-49. Some luck with maps and very general OOBs thru Arabic sources however.