Stalin's Organ Posted July 15, 2002 Share Posted July 15, 2002 I had Marco and CMBB all to myself for 4 1/2 hrs tonight for a bit of a chat and play. Lets see....there's a big list of things that I can only tell you about if I then kill you....so.....um... Well it was fun!! Seriously tho - we had a couple of quick battles - 1 hotseat 1942 with hte Russians attacking - a KV-2, 2 Matilda's and 2 T26's with the MG turrets. the star of hte show in that one was the German 150 IG that KO'ed everything within half a kilometer of it - including hte KV and both Matilda's!! In hte 2nd game we went to 1944 and a Russian assault. I picked a 300mm rocket observer and let him lose on Turn 1 with an impressve display that simulated pre-battle bombardment. Never mind that half the rockets missed the map!! :eek: However hte German defence was kindof weak - the AI picked a lot of mines and wire. Admitedly I never saw half the mines, and after hte game was over we figured the rockets had killed 2 x 20mm Flak......but a BA-64 taking out the 1 decent AT weapon hte Germans had (a Pak 40) with close range MG fire made the game a bit sad for hte German point of view!! Things we noted - well the M17 MGMC works well, the JSU-152 is ponderous - never minfd it only has 20 rounds, and some of those will be AP - you'll be lucky to use them all!! lol We didn't really notice a lot about the "new" effect of MG's, although the German MG's were quite capable of forcing hte Russians to hit the dirt a few hundred yards out (the Russians were mostly green). WE didn't do any tank-vs-tank, so the "hull down" commands were not tested, nor we re a few of the other aspects such as covered arcs - we did play with them, but to no great effect. We had a look at hte "rarity factor", which I think is a little overdone - eg obsolete equipment can have a huge "rarity factor" applied when it's really not justified IMO - who cares if the Russians want to use a few T26's in 1942? But it's optional, so needent' be a great problem. Flak h/t's are definitely fixed!! T34's fired HE at one, without damaging it tho - it was KO'ed by a SMG squad at 400m - well hte squad does have a DP LMG that'll reach that far!! lol Good shot I say! All in all a most interesting evolution of CMBO, and to be looked forward to. I also saw some of the textures coming up - but I'm sure y'all need to stay alive! And also got an appreciation for how much work goes into the whole thing - Marco tells me he's getting patches virtually every day, sometimes up to 15 mb, and he spends 4-6 hrs a day working on textures and play testing! Thanks guys - much appreciated, and to everyone else - get off their backs!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted July 15, 2002 Share Posted July 15, 2002 Originally posted by Stalin's Organ: Things we noted - well the M17 MGMC works well, Ooooo. Aaaaah. Lend-lease stuff should be fun! Thanks for the sneak preview! And to Marco too. - Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted July 16, 2002 Share Posted July 16, 2002 Le bump for those who missed this one. - Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted July 16, 2002 Share Posted July 16, 2002 What! Ya coulda told me ... I live in Wgtn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalin's Organ Posted July 16, 2002 Author Share Posted July 16, 2002 Well Marco did post here that he was available Jon - u need to pay more attention!! Some more notes: AT Rifles - quite capable of going through the side of a Pz-II at 450 metres and doing exactly zero damage - be prepared for lots of that!! One game we briefly made was a German defence against Partizans - the Partizans weer conscript and there were LOTS of them!! We decided not to go further with that one!! Platoon purchases of tanks were interesting - often the subordinate vehicles were a morale grade lower - so the Green Russians might have conscript tanks - a bit odd for a JS-2 in a Guards Mechanised army!! :eek: Also morale in the infantry varied - teh base for the game was Green, but there were quite a few conscript squads and a few regular ones in the 2 companies purchased. Maybe somethign like 2/3rds green, and 2/3rds of the rest conscript, 1/3rd regular. Terrain was VERY flat. Low hills were almost un-noticeable and difficult to see - the idea of gridded terrain so you can see every nuance of elevation might become a lot more popular, otherwise you're going to do a lot of looking at views 1 and 2. I liked the pre-set battlefield damage - ie how often the area has been fought over before can be set beforehand. A massivly damaged field starts full of craters and ruined buildings. Can't think of anything else now.....must go do some work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted July 16, 2002 Share Posted July 16, 2002 Originally posted by Stalin's Organ: Well Marco did post here that he was available Jon - u need to pay more attention!! ...Bah! I just did a search - t'wasn't easy but I found his wee slip of a note hidden away amongst all the others. More fool me Glad you had a good time though We should, um, you know, get together for a beer. And go to the Waiouru Museum. And the Wanaka Airshow. Or somefink. Like those odd Euros and odder Seppos do Regards JonS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Johnson-- Posted July 16, 2002 Share Posted July 16, 2002 I got to go to the Wanaka transportation museum when I was down in Kiwiland, and I got to see their Valentine and Centuron tanks in the front parking lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalin's Organ Posted July 16, 2002 Author Share Posted July 16, 2002 I went to Wanaka 7 or 8 years ago - I don't think the Transport Museum was ther then, but it was off season so I got to walk around the Corsair, avenger etc. at real close range. It was extremely interesting - I'm an aircraft mechanic by trade. One of teh guys who erstored the Hurricane is a good buddy of mine from way back so I got a good look at that 3 or 4 years ago too Another titbit - Tanks are rated for the number of turret crew adn persence or otherwise of a cuploa. Also optics arerated - not sure of hte details but I saw some infantry equipped with binoculars, a flak gun with "Narrow" optics (I think), and tanks equipped with "good" optics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crocky Posted July 16, 2002 Share Posted July 16, 2002 Well done Mike .....lucky you I e-mailed Marco saying that I will be in Wellington on Sept 20th so if she aint out by then I will have to give him a call. Other than that I might have to see how many we can scrap together from Christchurch and put in together and buy him an airfare Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco Bergman Posted July 16, 2002 Share Posted July 16, 2002 Jon, if you want a look, please contact me and I will do something for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted July 16, 2002 Share Posted July 16, 2002 w00t! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpl Carrot Posted July 22, 2002 Share Posted July 22, 2002 Originally posted by crocky: Other than that I might have to see how many we can scrap together from Christchurch and put in together and buy him an airfare Hear Hear. I know of one other in CHCH that would be keen to see it as well (not including me) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted July 29, 2002 Share Posted July 29, 2002 <big>Preview in Wellington, Part Rua</big> w00t! indeed I too had Marco, his PC, and his copy of CM:BB to myself yesterday for a good four hours While he graciously fed and watered me, I crawled around inside the game, oooh-ing and aaaaahhh-ing lots. Marco didn't even get upset when I continually had trouble with his mapped keyboard What's that? Oh, right, the game. Well, a lot of it has already been covered, but here's my impressions, for what they’re worth. But first, a disclaimer: what I saw was (obviously) a beta, so no doubt there will be many, many things I didn't see or notice to be included in the final release. Also, there may well be some things that I did see that won't make it into the final game. Overall The whole thing looks so much more <big><font color=green>lush</font></big> and, not realistic exactly (it is a game after all ), but more integrated. The terrain is nice, and the work that has gone into the vehicles and men is very, very nice. Covered Arcs and MGs CAs are very intuitive, and work very well. Two HMGs completely disorganised a company attack while firing at right angles across the line of advance. They didn't seem to cause many actual casualties (firing at long range), but the disorganisation and disruption they cost was worth its weight in gold. One point with CAs - you need to be careful about setting them up, especially close in. Artillery This is what I was most curious about - go figure! There have been quite a few changes here. The pre-planned barrages took a while to figure out, but they worked as expected, including pre-planned engagements during the game (i.e., not just on turn 1). That worked fine, but you will really need to think through your entire attack if you intend to use them, since flexibility goes out the window with a pre-plan. The good news is that you can use the cheapest, nastiest FOOs available in a useful way Pre-game terrain-damage looks good, and is applied intelligently even on random maps. There are a lot more purchase options with FOs now, which is all to the good. FOW Extreme FOW is a bitch. Defenders can happily fire from cover in the expectation that they will not be seen. I was messing about with one scenario in which a big bad tank was hiding behind a low ridge, and it proceeded to knock out a couple of tincans before I could figure out where the shots were even coming from. It then proceeded to carve up the better part of a pn(+) before I could take it out. The AI intelligently kept it in dead ground for ages until I could lure it out into a killzone. Oh - interesting incident with the Death Clock in that game: two of my tincans were manoeuvring together against the behemoth, and it got a snap shot off and KO'd one of mine but not catastrophically or otherwise an obvious K-Kill. It then immediately targeted the other tincan, KOing that too with another first shot kill*( ), it then went back to the first one and finished it off (the crew still hadn't bailed). That pretty much answered all my concerns about the death clock and target fixation. I'm sure it will probably still happen, but not every time. Other Stuff Its not all beer and skittles for the beta testers, they are putting in a tremendous effort. Marco had to look up the answers to quite a few of my questions, because he hasn’t been able to play the game much and so didn’t know the answers! :eek: All his time has been spent doing his part of the work. I’m sure the same goes for the BFC guys too. They aren’t sitting on their thumbs dragging the development out, just to tease us poor peasants. I kind of feel a bit guilty about taking up some of Marcos time. Kind of... I noticed a few oddities within the game, which hopefully Marco will pass along. Nothing serious, just quibbles really, and one of them was even funny in a way Thanks Marco, it was much appreciated. Oh, and thanks too to BFC – CM:BB looks terrific! Regards JonS * The range was very close ... [ July 28, 2002, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: JonS ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted July 29, 2002 Share Posted July 29, 2002 So - Jon & Marco - u guys wanna have a 3-way go through the entire set of scenarios in CMBBwhen it comes out??!! Who else is in Wellington/NZ that we can play?? I did set up a Yahoo NZCMBO group a while back but it wasn't really necessary with the activity on this board being adequate..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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