So far I don't like CMBB...

[Robohn]

My gaming buddies and I like the changes brought out in CMBB. We haven't played CMBO since it came out. We might be biased in that we are both military officers, and see the "ultra-realism" as part of the profession. Knowing I can win a battle with the "most realistic battle simulater" I've ever found is very satisfying to me.

Maybe I didn't notice the differences so much because, even in CMBO, I played my soldiers like I cared about their lives.

Robohn

[Sigurd]

From Steve :

"Fun" is a very subjective thing. I bet that 99 out of a 100 PC gamers would not find CMBO fun at all

I can attest you are totally lucid. The few friends to whom I showed the CMBO demo on "chance encounter" disliked it pretty much. I almost lost some of them (including my girlfriend :eek: ), when they saw me extactic at moving around these StuGs, and they heard all these soldiers shouting in german "los los ! Feindliche Panzer, Feuer frei ! " (these german voices had really a big bad effect on them, a kind of physic repulse)

They either thought I was friggin' pathetic, or worse, that I was the kind of disturbed guy admirer of the 3rd Reich dictatorship !

BTW I'm curious if I'm the lone on the forum having this problem. Being very interested on the WWII period ( who couldn't, when close familly was in the middle of the war storm ?) and getting information through lots of books on the period doesn't make you a nazi, on the contrary I'd say... I've always found myself having to explain that to people looking at my WWII book's collection.

[ November 01, 2002, 07:20 PM: Message edited by: Sigurd ]

[Yeknodathon]

I was fairly useless at CM:BO but enjoyed it immensely.

I'm nearly as useless at CM:BB and enjoy it immensely. I wouldn't really know if it's more or less realistic so I will take everyone's word and agree its more realistic.

Damn fine simulation and the game which will stay on my HDD for a long time as I crawl, exhausted, towards the foxhole of competency.

Yeknod

[Sailor Malan]

Interesting: I would never have thought that this would be a topic on this forum

I haven't played that much yet (only 3 scenarios, on the 4th now). I found I adapted to the new infantry model almost at once, but I guess that is because I never really exploited the CMBO gamey rush, or the MG weakness (not being a ladder player, and being a bit of a grog, I play the games like the designer intended rather than to break them to win)

BTS, do not let the dissenters put you off, or discourage you (as I am sure you wont from your posts). If you doubt the market for this stuff, I am always reminded of the Wargames Research Group (WRG), who do (did?) table top miniatures rules, and kept the search for the ultimate set of rules. I know the level of investment is somewhat different but they never seemed to stop, and WRG n+1 edition Ancients rules never ceased to cause a storm ("they cannot be serious, they have given A class Roman brothel keepers +1 for using a stone phallus - totally over done it, it was much better when they just got to roll twice with a wet towel). However, the clubs kept on rebasing the figure (figure gaming joke!). There is a huge crowd(well big, well small...) OK I like what you have done with CMBB!

BTW In response to the first post in this thread, unfortunately I cannot remember the source, but Squad Leader was once described as "WW2 as seen in the movies"...not the best example of a infantry simulation, but a good game for all that.

I guess we pays our money and takes our pick. However, I would be grateful if you would not make wild assumptions about the audience base for CMBB - I have yet to find a change from CMBO I dislike!

[sycophant mode off]

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh:

Amen Steven! You've touched upon what I was saying in the other thread. The "fun" has been taken out of the game for most of us. Sure, there will be a group of players like Abbott who like the new ultr-realism, but the fact is, the rest of us don't want this kind of game.

BTS has just cut their customer base in half. Hope it was worth it...

I'd like to know where you're coming up with "most of us" and "cut in half". I haven't seen 5000 posters (which would just be half this board) commenting on how they disliked it. And I've seen many posters saying how they DO like it.

I leave each to their own, if they don't like it they don't like it. But I hardly think that some people disliking it means that everyone else must also (or the other way around).

The only CMBO I play now is in PBEMs. Originally I thought I might be detached because of the front, but that's been proven false by my choice of play.

The sticking point seems to be infantry, and as much as there's people having much trouble with infantry, there are those -- like myself and Priest and Abbott -- who haven't had those difficulties.

[Battlefront.com]

Thanks for the continuing comments. As with previous threads, I think the bulk of people overwhelmingly love the improvements. A significant percentage like them, but are having some adjustment problems from CMBO. They are taking up the challenge of figuring out how to master CMBB just like many people had to master CMBO (do not forget CMBO required a LOT of "unlearning"!!).

Only a few reject the new system (publically at least) and are, I suspect, people who should fall into the latter category but do not wish to. And I don't have a problem with that since change is not something one should feel forced to embrace. If someone doesn't want to relearn how to play CM, no problem. But we aren't going to go backwards to please this tiny minority. We would lose far more people doing that than we would gain.

Boo_Radley is one of those who is in the process of figuring out how to handle the new changes:

As for myself, I'm still trying to find way way through the new orders so that my men don't get fatigued as quickly or scurry for cover at the crack of a twig

Best piece of advice I can give is... slow it down! Give your guys shorter and smaller tasks. Allow time to work for you, especially as you lay down covering fire. Trying to have your guys march through woods at a good clip then dash across a field is a tall order for even well rested troops. This is as true in real life as it is in CMBB.

One of the major changes in CMBB is the game pace. In CMBO the more rash player could get the upper hand if he was lucky or well practiced in certain tactics. In CMBB the Steady Eddy guy who does things more "by the book" tends to come out on top. And that is the way it should be.

Sigurd,

Yeah, a lot of people have to explain this hobby in general. The Nazi black mark makes it even MORE necessary to explain why it is you like the stuff. I have this problem four fold because I not only make military simulations but I also collect militaria, military firearms, and military vehicles. Thank God my wife kinda likes the stuff! In fact, we just got in from moving around firewood using my M274A2 MULE. She was wearing Austrian Army winter overalls too

Steve

[tracer]

By the way Battle Front, 9 of those sales were do to me,do I get a cut?? LOL, I did it for me so I could have some peope to compete agianst here at my shop on slow days with some of my customers who in fact are addicted to CMBB, and the wives hate me now, thanks a lot I have created monsters.

[Engel]

Originally posted by Sigurd:

these german voices had really a big bad effect on them, a kind of physic repulse)

Where do you live anyway? I've showed the game to some of my friends, and they've been either interested (the wargamers and history buffs) or haven't really cared either way (the rest).

Most of them thought the voices were neat, especially the Finnish ones (I can't remember now if any other of the wounded actually shout out for their mothers apart from the Finns "Äiti!"... love it.

The Finnish voices do miss one classic "Ei saa jäädä tuleen makaamaan! (From the film "Tuntematon sotilas (Unknown Soldier)"), spoken in a scene where the Finnish troops assault across a marsh against prepared Soviet positions complete with MG emplacements... if only the troops in CMBB remembered that (basically it means that you should not remain still under fire, but remain on the move).

[ November 01, 2002, 06:41 PM: Message edited by: Engel ]

[Spook]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Yeah, a lot of people have to explain this hobby in general. The Nazi black mark makes it even MORE necessary to explain why it is you like the stuff. I have this problem four fold because I not only make military simulations but I also collect militaria, military firearms, and military vehicles. Thank God my wife kinda likes the stuff! In fact, we just got in from moving around firewood using my M274A2 MULE. She was wearing Austrian Army winter overalls too

Steve

Heh.

Years past, I recall that I jumped into a discussion thread along with Steve G. regarding "grognards." Visual grogs, detail grogs, C&C grogs, realism grogs, whichever.

But "mutual grog" with your significant other is a rare thing indeed.

It isn't that way yet with my own missus. She has, however, picked up sideline PC games like Tetris or Solitaire, and she's already better than me at those.

[imported_Hiram Sedai]

I like CMBB as much as I liked looking down a girl's shirt for the first time during the struggle of puberty.

Thought, I'd share that with you to enhance the discussion and all.

[Edelweiss]

OK I'm new to CMBB and only ever played a demo of CMBO. I also rarely post on Bulletin boards. However, I have been wargaming on tabletops and more recently computers from about the age of 10 and am now approaching my 40's...groan!

Realism in games?...hmmmm

"Saving Private Ryan" and "Bridge Too Far" before it were marvellous teeth clenchers for me. Imagining myself confronted by the terror of real action, wondering how I'd have faired. Taking the experience further by visiting the battlefields of the Somme, Verdun, the Ardennes, Arnhem and the beaches of Normandy and losing myself in the imagined smoke of these killing fields. Running across no mans land and arriving exhausted and with a twisted ankle on the other side!

Finally paintballing my way through a beautiful wood complete with bunkers and an aggressive opposition who managed to pin me down whilst my mates were shot to pieces all around me! My lungs hurt, my legs cramped and I didn't know what the hell was going on only 30 feet away in amongst the undulating forest floor.

Now I don't know what real war is like, I hope never to find out. A friend went to the Falklands and the most disturbing tales were of soldiers reaction to war, the mental effects short and long term.

I have no doubt that it is the human element in warfare, that un-reliable, un-predictable impact which will turn the tide of battle in un-expected ways. Who said that no plan can survive contact with the enemy. It is the tales of what soldiers do when confronted with the un-expected that throws up the heroes and exciting stories which stimulate us all to wargame.

Battlefront have done a great job of reflecting these infuriating humans who populate the battlefield. They stymie our efforts to get an advance to "go in" when confronted with a machine gun at 50 yards...too damn right they do! Would you stand up??!!

However, I agree that there is work to be done. I want to care more about those pixelated little guys that I have sent scurrying for the nearest hut. Just now and then I want them to behave heroically, to break ranks with their squad and act independently. I want to be cheering the little guy on as he breaks to the building leaving his comrades sensibly hiding.

In the Falklands Major H.Jones won a Victoria Cross doing just this to get his men forward at Goose Green. They were on their bellies shocked by what they were being asked to do. There's no room here to debate the action in detail, suffice to say that I want to see my own H.Jones brerak free and do something heroic.......rarely cos I want to be surprised when he does.

The game is great, we need Battlefront to tell it how it was but we must leave the randomness in the tables that we have relied upon over the years to produce the heroically un-expected!

If you got to the bottom of this post you deserve a Gong!

[Michael Emrys]

On the "having a hard time explaining to friends" note...

Three decades ago I lived for over five years on a commune with 60+ other people. Many were veterans of the anti-war movement and that was the general sentiment, which I too shared BTW. Nevertheless, I had always had—and still had at that time—an abiding interest in military history and respect for fighting men. About this same time, the board wargame hobby really took off, so I was in hog heaven. But trying to explain my interests to my friends (and make no mistake, most of them were fine people and I loved them dearly), proved to be a futile pursuit. They always took it the wrong way. The best I ever got out of them was a doubtful acceptance. On one occasion, I was belly aching to a woman who was actually a pretty good friend about some difficulties I was having at the time, and she piped up with, "Maybe it could be because you were a military dictator in a previous life." Well, that just floored me. I couldn't think of a single thing I had done that could justify such an observation and came up totally blank. And this was from someone I felt close to for a number of reasons. But it taught me a lesson about how that particular group of people saw me and how they had arrived at that judgement.

So, the bottom line is don't feel surprised if there are some people who don't understand and don't be dismayed. I have since learned that people will agree on certain issues and disagree on others. Don't form loyalties on single issues. Don't reject them on single issues either, unless the issue is really vital, a lot more vital than gaming.

Michael

[ November 01, 2002, 07:11 PM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[Spook]

Anyway, I'd like to return to Stephen's original comments a bit. (Hey, he's got a member number pretty close to mine! )

Originally posted by Stephen Smith:

My sense from some of the posts here is that at least some people agree with me. The whole 'is infantry too brittle' argument isn't really a question of 'is infantry unrealistically brittle?'. Rather, its 'is infantry too brittle to be fun to play with?' I'll keep playing the CMBB scenarios. Maybe I don't 'get' it yet, maybe the maps are too open and flat (thus making it hard to maneuver, hard to isolate part of the battlefield, whatever), maybe there's something else that's causing all this debate. But I have the sneaking suspicion that once the 'newness' of CMBB wears off, and T-34s are as passe as sherman tanks, the simple (though more unrealistic) fire and maneuver of CMBO will 'win out' over the realistic molasses of CMBB.

This, and the rest of Steve's commentary, is an interesting post. The crux of it to me is this: what is the basis of the perception of increased "brittleness" with the CMBB infantry?

Let me say, as a disclaimer, that I am among those who have moved past CMBO, and have no plans to returning to it. It was a superb game for its time, and it gave me excellent gaming mileage. But the sum improvements to CMBB are such that I would sorely miss these in playing CMBO again, such as the improved infantry orders or the revised MG mechanics.

And in two years time, it will likely be the same with CMBB. I think that both Charles & Steve would grant allowance to my belief that the CM system is still a "work in progress," and what we see later on is likely to feature a good dosage both of the evolutionary and revolutionary as both CMBO and CMBB have done.

(And so far, it's a ride I've been enjoying!....)

But to the notion of infantry "brittleness," I guess that while the notion is valid to ponder on, it needs to be qualified to greater detail. What quality of troops seem brittle? Do they all seem that way? What's other gamers' experience with veteran/crack/elite troops? Also similar?

It's impossible to relate "brittleness" as a game design factor without doing an extensive playtest survey to see how quickly that troops crack under fire (whether moving or deployed) based on unit experience level.

And it becomes a "matrix" of effects to consider when also allowing nearby leaders to apply their bonuses. In this case, the morale bonus (+1/+2) would be the most relevant.

Or what of the "fanatic" factor? Perhaps go to the scenario editor, bring up the chosen scenario before playing it, and toggle one (or both) sides to have an increased fanaticism level? That's one thing that could be used to an abusive level, but for those unsatisfied with the present perceived "brittleness," maybe that could close it up a bit and enhance their personal gaming interest.

The point here is that there are a multitude of in-game factors that, with enough gamer gumption in using the editor, might help address the subject issue.

But --- I will add yet another reason as to the notion why some gamers are seeing increased infantry "brittleness." The reason is that overall, in CMBB, defensive fire effect has been enhanced (at least for MG's), but in comparison, another element has remained "constant."

That factor is the unit scale. In the CM system, the base unit it still the squad. Granted, there is also the half-squad, but the half-squad IS acknowledged per CM rules to be more "brittle." Therefore, it is not a base unit.

The squad can vary greatly in the CM system to its initial manpower. It could as low as six or even lower, ranging up to twelve or more. And whatever "effect" applies due to fire or other, its applies to the whole squad. It goes to ground altogether, it panics altogether, and so forth. Not that this is "bad" -- merely, that is the end result we see.

It could --- COULD --- be argued as that "brittleness" to squads moving under fire, at least for squads of higher quality, COULD be resolved that instead of just going to ground or panicking (or worse), an option is executed to possibly shed off a few more "casualties" as to represent more soldiers panicking and quitting the unit on a finer scale, while leaving what's left of the primary squad a better chance (though not certain) to continue its mission in better order than otherwise.

Now, I am NOT advocating this yet. I don't have a basis to do so, because the suggested alternate 1) may not really be necessary, and 2) introduce a host of added problems to coding and AI behavior. And I am also aware that the present CM unit "casualties" represent more than just killed & wounded. But I certainly believe as that some future considerations to revising "squad behavior" are worth mulling over in the future of the CM system.

(I still hope that "squad formations" can get into the future CM system as one such fundamental revision.)

In the interim, my own verdict of "brittleness" is uncertain. I haven't played nearly enough of CMBB by now to have an opinion yet. I will say, however, that in one play of a CMBB predesigned scenario that utilized veteran Soviet troops along with good platoon CO's, I was generally satisfied with how they behaved when advancing under fire (using the new "advance" and "assault" commmands, of course).

This post is probably a lot of ado over nothing. But I just remain a bit cautious to personally closing the book on the "brittleness" issue until I've designed some test scenarios in CMBB to really explore the matter, like I would do easily enough with CMBO.

[Sigurd]

From Engel :

Where do you live anyway? I've showed the game to some of my friends, and they've been either interested (the wargamers and history buffs) or haven't really cared either way (the rest).

Well I live in France. And I discovered that 2 of the friends I showed to CMBO were the kind of german-resenting people. It's sad to say, but some french people, otherwise quite sensible guys, have a strong anti-german feeling. Hopefully not many, the vast majority just don't care. Both of these friends are from north-east France (Metz), so perhaps their family had to go through particularly hard times in war period, I don't know. Anyway, when they saw me enjoying a realistic wargame where I could "review" from groud level that good placed MG42 cutting to pieces this GI's squad, they felt very uncomfortable. It wasn't politically correct for them to hear those Grenadiers shouting some militaristic orders ("Feuer frei" and so on)

I knew however they could enjoy wargames, but the level of realism of CMBO was simply too much for them. But that sort of particular repulse is the exception (especially for 20 years old guys)

It was quite a horrendous discovering for me, as I'm on the contrary the kind of "german-fan" (speaks fluently the language, studied and worked there several months, and liked it !)

For my part, I was quite enjoyed to hear and understand some real german speaking in the game, and BTW it's a good way to acquire feedback from my pixelized soldiers (I was amazed to hear my AT pillbox saying "Da, feindliche Panzer !" in chance encounter, I knew they had the shermans in sight)

From you nick, Engel, I suppose you live in Germany, so of course it wasn't a real matter for your friends to hear their native language in the game.

To respond to Michael, the few others friends I talked from CMBO just didn't like the militaristic/militia aspect of the game. Old cardboard wargames could be seen as a kind of chess (with the hexes, the Attack/def values for each unit, etc.), but CMBO where you can see a "live" panther wasn't very "sane" for them. So now I stop making free advertising for BFC (sorry Steve !), and just say "wargames" when asked for my favorites video games or "what did you do all night to look as such a crap" when I arrive at 8:00 a.m. at work. Unless I have tested for some time the other guy to assure myself he's "WWII's grog compatible"

Sigurd, closing the "hard times explaining this hobby " sub-thread

[ November 01, 2002, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: Sigurd ]

[tracer]

Siqurd, How old are your friends, I just came back from, europe, visiting family and Relic hunting (WW2 items) and I really don't know of many of the people of the younger people there, 20s to 40, that have very much resentment from the WW2 era. Now if you talk to the older Vets of WW2 they all say they fought on the eastern front,[guess because I'm american] I did'nt show anyone CMBB, to busy, but I to speak german, read and write, and speak french (cant read or write it) and I talk to a lot of older people there about the war, I have done a lot of hunting in the Zwiebrucken germany and Metz france area in the pass. This time I went to the former east germany and hunted around the Kurland pocket area.

[manchildstein (ii)]

Originally posted by Hiram Sedai:

I like CMBB as much as I liked looking down a girl's shirt for the first time during the struggle of puberty.

Thought, I'd share that with you to enhance the discussion and all.

don't get me started...

seriously... i've had the game for a week and haven't even scratched the surface of it... to be honest, western europe '44-'45 is not 'my (main) thing'... in cmbb so far i've been messing with making some scenarios involving hungarians, then i will move onto romanians and probably italians at some point... then there are the germans...i probably won't do finns because there are plenty of people making those...

anyway... i love this game!... the east front IS my thing ... at least as far as wargames go... so far my only complaint would be the easy tiring of the ground troops... them hitting the dirt isn't so bad... i DO wish there were artillery pieces available for direct fire....

but like i said, even without the artillery pieces and my beloved 37mm flak trucks (are those in the patch .... does it matter or is there still a problem with soft vehicles as targets?)...

even without some of the units i was hoping for, i've discovered toldi tanks and once i've gone through and done something with each of the hungarians, romanians, and italians, there will be german 37mm halftracks... german recon... german heavy armor... and all the while there will be all kinds of different ways of doing the soviets....

to reiterate... this game opens up all kinds of scenario possibilities!... if you don't like the infantry... then try maybe looking at it this way... fight more vehicle battles... i mean i know there was a lot of infantry in this front but i would bet a pretty penny that most of the key actions from both sides were fought by mech/armor on the 'breakthrough... in other words a gamer could go on re-creating 'vehicle-heavy' battles for a long time here before he ever got bored and had to resort to mostly infantry...

[Sigurd]

From Tracer :

Siqurd, How old are your friends, I [...] don't know of many of the people of the younger people there, 20s to 40, that have very much resentment from the WW2 era.

Well, those friends were my age (at the time 20).

I think u need specific conditions for people so young to have such sleeping anti-german feelings. In another case (so not for these north-east friends), it found an entire family which was not really german fan. Because the old aunt had created a really bad atmosphere, by repeating again and again old stories since ages, and taking every occasion to bash german stuff, whatever it is. So if u grow up in such an environment, maybe one can forge such prejudice.

But here we enter the human psychological sphere, going further would be too much off topic I think... As you said, it is quite rare for younger people.

Anyway, I see I'm not the only fool intending to go / having already gone visiting actual battlefields. But it's quite easier to go for a WE to Normandy from Paris than from the U.S. !

[ November 01, 2002, 09:08 PM: Message edited by: Sigurd ]

[Kong]

I think many are trying to use CMBO tactics in CMBB and are getting frustrated, as Steve said you have to "unlearn", and quite a bit. I feel like I am completely incompetent right now attacking with the T-34, but I am determined to learn how to use them correctly!

I LOVE the new INF AI modeling. It bothered me the way INF in CMBO would just happily fight to the last man, just was not realistic. I am much more cautious with my INF now, and am finding that many times their panicking and running is the best thing that could happen... live to fight another day. This is especially true in Operations.

I would have been shocked if CMBB did not outsell CMBO in the first month, and will be shocked if it does not significantly outsell it overall, say at least 30% more. You have a much larger base of persons who are aware of BFC now than 2 years ago. You have had 2 years of great word of mouth and reviews to get people excited about CMBB because of how good CMBO was. Your website looks great now, which btw I am still convinced you lost sales with CMBO because of your original website's look. I would guess alot of the "on the fence" people who did not purchase CMBO will see that CMBB is out, getting great reviews (like CMBO) and say alright I'm gonna get this one.

Market baby market! I can tell you personally I stumbled onto CMBO through a now defunct site called 3DFiles, that had the CMBO demo. So obviously I would recommend getting your demo anywhere and everywhere you can! I was happy to see the CMBB demo at 3DGamers.com

[ November 01, 2002, 09:58 PM: Message edited by: kking199 ]

[tracer]

Sigurd, well I guess your right there are people here in the south that keep harping about the civil war, you would think they would be over it by now. Anyway, don't rub it in about being able to get to those battlefields easier I tell you what there are tons of relics there in the former east germany, I think when the germans and there allies in the Kurland pocket finally were told that the war was over they just took off the gear and threw it in whatever crater they happened to be walking by.

[Bruno Weiss]

Steve wrote:

In CMBB the Steady Eddy guy who does things more "by the book" tends to come out on top.

Dam right! Precisely what I was trying to say. Those are my months worth of initial impressions summed up nicely. And to me it seems this is at the heart of what makes CMBB more realistic.

[Engel]

Originally posted by Sigurd:

From you nick, Engel, I suppose you live in Germany,

Actually, I live in Finland, the nick just hails back to the days I used to do some clanning with German players in Tribes (a team-based multiplayer FPS from a few years ago).

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I suppose it has all been said, but I cannot resist just chipping in to say that I regard the changes as a big improvement on what was already the most accurate simulation of ground combat that there is. And that includes the programs used by the military. (I own a number of them, and have read the military’s own internal reviews, in their own in-house journals, of the software they use.)

The thing I notice most is the slower pace of CMBB. In CMBO it is possible to take a small village in 15-30 turns, in CMBB it is likely to take 45-60 turns even if all goes well. This is far more realistic, in my view.

As all have said, the fundamental new ingredient that you have to use a lot, is covering fire, often in the form of area fire. Anyway…..

For me the “fun” comes from the fact that CMBB is so realistic in its modelling. By “realistic” I mean that given the forces on both sides, given the terrain, and most important of all, given the decisions made by both sides, the outcome is that which it is likely to have been in reality.

What makes CMBB such an improvement is that it is even less gamey than CMBO. You do have to do it all right to win in attack. The greater challenge, also adds to the fun, in my view.

Finally, in my view, CMBB is in every way as fine a peace of serious military history as a big item David Glantz book. This is something that BFC are rarely given credit for. However, if I were giving a class in military history, and the topic was the Eastern Front, I would recommend CMBB along with two or three of the David Glantz classics.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. I am hugely relieved to read the BFC are not at all tempted to try and desert their niche for the mass market. I live in constant fear of BFC deciding to move away from their current niche.

PPS. BTW, the above does not mean I am slow in coming forward when I think they have got something wrong, when I think they have dropped the ball I say so. But this is true of many of their greatest fans, because we are also the most demanding.

[Stacheldraht]

Fwiw, I find I enjoy CMBB even more than CMBO, if that's possible Yes, the modeling of fatigue and panic might well need some tweaking, but I generally see avoiding the associated tactical problems as new--and fun--challenges to overcome.

Just as we can't expect people who liked Sudden Strike and Medle of Honor to like CM of any flavor, past, present or future.

Frankly, that's a downright silly expectation. I've been an ardent CM fan for a couple years now, and I also think Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was one of the best PC games released this year. Many gamers (myself and all the gamers I know, as well as many others I've observed in forums like this one) regularly play all sorts of games on different platforms.

It's patently incorrect to assume that all, or even most, gamers only like one sort of game. You can just as easily enjoy a hardcore wargame like CMBB as a Hollywood-style shooter like MOH--or some cartoony GBA platformer, for that matter. Not every gamer is monomaniacal, thank goodness. The ones that are--well, that's their prerogative, of course, but they sure are missing a lot of great games because of their provincialism.

BTW I'm curious if I'm the lone on the forum having this problem.

Unlike you, most people I know who've been turned off by CM have been turned off not because of the inclusion of German troops, but because the games are too (seemingly) complex and confusing and/or look dated and even amateurish compared to most professional games (that's particularly true of unmodded CMBO, less so of CMBB).

Then again, your profile says you live in France, and I'd think the wounds of WWII would tend to run rather deeper there than in America, and I would imagine that anti-German sentiment probably runs a lot higher there, understandably.

As for people assuming grogs/wargamers/WWII buffs are Nazis, that's just silly on the face of it. However, it's no secret that among those communities "Wehrmacht penis envy" is a relatively common malady. Fascination with and/or adulation of the Wehrmacht (or more to the point, the Waffen SS) can indeed be more than a little creepy. The Wehrmacht, after all, (whatever the beliefs of its individual memebers) was one of the chief instruments of the Nazi party's destructive policies that ruined or simply snuffed out so many lives.

[WineCape]

To my mind, there is one word that sums up the people at BFC/BTS and the creators of CMBO/CMBB:

Integrity.

Continue with your current path of game ®evolution in the CM series and you have a customer for life.

Sincerely,

Charl Theron

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[ November 02, 2002, 08:48 AM: Message edited by: WineCape ]

[LongTom]

Thanks Steve for starting this thread.

I'm in your camp - I *want* to have more fun with CMBB, but I haven't completely figured-out how to do it yet. I *hope* that I will get there, because in my heart I value realism and love wargames (and want this franchise to succeed).

While I'm sure it's more realistic, CMBB's infantry (and MG) modeling does a few things to the game which seem to make the infantry less of the "queen of the battlefield" than in CMBO, in my limited experience so far.

So some of what CMBO taught us, and which made CMBO "fun" for us as we learned them (it's fun when you learn a technique, practice it, and find it bringing you success), we must "unlearn".

So if CMBO taught us "infantry was queen", and now it's more of a princess (especially on the attack in open terrain), then...

We may now have a game in which tanks are likely more important to success as the attacker, relative to infantry, than they were in CMBO.

After all, tanks were what broke the WWI trench warfare model - which is what infantry-only CMBB can look like, especially with trenches

I mean, if CMBB is a good simulation, why wouldn't infantry (and MG, and artillery) combat, sans tanks, bog-down into trench warfare?

So perhaps playing battles with more armor (especially on the attack) and less infantry will be more "fun" (read attacker succeeds in breaking defensive lines and goes off to drink beer).

I have fond memories of CMBO QBs where all my tanks were gone, but my infantry (and PIATs) were able to run from cover to cover and take-out a lone tank or two. I'm sure that is still possible in CMBB, but probably harder to achieve. When I achieved it in CMBO, in my mind was a vision of heroism from some war movie or "Combat!" show. So I had "fun" when it happened, even if it wasn't nearly as common on a real battlefield.

I think CMBB games with a lot more armor (especially on the attacking side) should be fun, they shouldn't require excessive micromanagement.

I believe (based on my boardgaming experience at least) that the steppe country of Russia was considered *wonderful* tank country due to the wide open LOS (ok, except in rain, snow, or mud conditions . In real life, I suspect tanks and MGs *were* much more effective vis-a-vis infantry on the Russian steppes than they were in bocage country...so to have fun on the attack (and being successful on the attack once in a while helps make it fun) perhaps we need to look at playing battles with more tanks on the attacking side.

Jim