WW2 title. What to expect.

[panzermartin]

I have high hopes for this one. My prediction is that it will be a vastly improvement over CMSF. A very capable engine debugged, slower pace and more forgiving weaponry plus more varied terrain will make for much more interesting gameplay. I'm glad they went modern with the first installment but it didnt prove that exciting as I had imagined. Small and packed scenarios, instead of big and more spread out combined with one shot one kill weapons and the known issues with Los/Lof and TacAi decreased my enjoyment. I also miss the distinguised role the WW2 units had on the battlefield. The MG42, mortars, AT guns, recon cars, support tanks, tank hunters. Now you can pretty much do anything with just a squad equipped with javelins and artillery support.

Some things I expect to see in CMx2 WW2 if possible:

- More infantry-centric gameplay. Meaning, more responsive squads, better self preservation and use of cover. Still having problems to use as cover building corners, vehicles and hill crests. I'd love to see some improvement here, since in a WW2 wargame the infatnry part would be crucial.

- Vehicles self preservation. A sherman retreating in front of a King Tiger sounds like a good idea.

- A small number of characteristic types of buildings like kiosks, garages, shops etc combined with the wonderful custom building editor to spice up things a little and add some more color.

These are just a few that come to my mind right now

[Mord]

Outside of the preservation and path finding issues (which we should see more improvement on, in 1.04) I'd like to see for WWII;

On the flavor object front...hay stacks, shed/outhouse, barns, chicken coop, carts, train tracks, train cars, higgins boats and gliders that we could just place for "flavor", headstones and crypts, iron gates/fences, re-enforced trenches as opposed to ditches. I'd like to see fox holes and trenches that are placeable by the player and not the editor so they don't show up when you pan the battlefield or some way that we can hide stuff from one side or the other, while using the editor. I'd love to see dragons teeth, some different types of bunkers, wooden, and concrete (maybe some different sizes for the concrete ones, small, medium, and large,) some hasty fortified positions, like piled up logs and the like, sand bags, barb wire, water, stream tile, bridges, marsh, flooded ground. I'd like to see hand to hand animations, battle damaged buildings as they are hit, buildings that have a wall or two left standing after they collapse, damage decals on vehicles, detailed armor hits, a kill list for units, a separate detailed info window like in CMX1 for all units outside of the icon based quick reference we have in the UI, showing broken soldiers fleeing for at least a turn or two before they disappear, Fire and all that it entails like in CMX1, actual destroyed looking vehicles, placeable destroyed forest tiles, realistic looking bocage, hedgehogs...

*SIGH* LOL to name a few.

Mord.

[SlowMotion]

Some addition to the already long list of map making wish list:

-many kinds of bridges, big and small. Differences also in which units can cross the bridge: some usable only for lighter units like infantry. Some for horses and maybe trucks, some also biggest tanks etc.

-rail road related things

[bodkin]

From what I've heard so far it wont have the depth of CMBO, you'll probably get standard US and German infantry with a mixture of AFVs to start with, later modules would bring in the British, etc.

Hopefully we'll get Waffen SS type units in the first version, we did get a variety of Syrian forces so it's not out of the question.

[Panzer76]

I hope it will have TCP IP and real Quick Battles. The rest Im sure will be taken care of.

*crosses fingers*

[Martin Krejcirik]

One thing is certain, expect lot of complaints that CM WWII is not CMBO|BB|AK like enough.

[dalem]

It won't have random maps or player force picks, and it will still have the weird "almost-1:1" that seems to be accceptable these days.

Short of a roofied-up Salma Hayek personally delivering it to my house in a towel, that's not gonna be enough "features" to make me want to plunk my money down.

-dale

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I agree absolutely with the sentiments of Ali-Baba and think the CMX2 engine is potentially all anyone could have hoped for… fully debugged a WWII version will replace CMBB as the number one wargame of all time .

BTW… I saw somewhere in the mass of threads and posts that Steve has confirmed there will be an Eastern Front title for CMX2… wargame wise things do not get better .

All good fun,

All the best,

Kip.

[Childress]

Some flavor objects that appear, IIRC, awol in the game are stationery/abandonned private vehicles-cars and trucks- usable for cover. CMSF aspires to re-create urban warfare, after all.

[Thomm]

Triggers for enemy AI!

Persistent map damage!

Water!

Best regards,

Thomm

[[hirr]Leto]

That it works.

Leto

[jBrereton]

Two words - Stalingrad and Berlin. Absolutely perfect for the CMx2 engine, as long as they sort friendly fire out a bit and make it a bit less of a system hog.

They have the FISH and CHIPS bit sorted. Tighten up the AI a bit, and let people custom pick their forces a bit more. Random maps would be nice, but pretty much unfeasible, all things considered.

[TOG]

I'd like to hear a cling after each US troop epties his garand clip.

[Andrew H.]

I'd like hyper-realistic water, snow, and mud terrain. If it's muddy, I want to see my troops struggling to pull their boots out of the sticky mire. If it's snowy, I want to see drifts and troops fighting their way through them...I also want to see wheeled vehicles, including motorcycles and bicycles, slip on icy roads. For water, I want lots of rivers, streams, and creeks, and I want boats to realistically cross them...and get carried away by the current if it is strong and the casualties can't paddle hard enough. Or I want to see it sink...

I want to see cool explosions if you blow a bridge, and splash animations as the debris lands in the river below. I want there to be rules for what happens if an explosion knocks a horse off a bridge and the horse lands on a fully loaded assault boat.

Or if a *team of horses*, harnessed together and pulling an ammunition cart is rammed by a jeep and they all plunge into the river below.

[average]

Poor Dale. He can't really cherry pick across formations in QBs anymore, and he is very very sad as we can see from his posting on the forums.

I'd like to see a realastic TOE and OB for both sides together with most of the other stuff above.

Personally, don't particularly want to see units fleeing when broken. No one leaves cover to retire when heavily engaged by running across open ground ala CMX1. What should simply happen is they go hell for leather till they find cover, and fall back thereafter if not under fire or if/when they have cover, refuse to budge.

Would like to see is surrendering personel modelled.

[track]

In war you usually have to do what you are given at the moment and units are in ideal condition only in paper.

About running it is not logical that someone should leave his foxhole during artillery barrage, yet it happened and happens as the animalistic instincts take over and all senses tell you to get the hell out of there asap.

Similarly it seems not logical at all to leave a trench if an overwhelming enemy force is advancing towards you only 100 meters away, but it happened too.

There might be situations in which staying put means a certain death, but running for it a very propable, but not nescesarily a certain death.

So yes I would most definately like to see routers and surrendering back in the game.

[Topo]

agree with Track, people panicked running are realistic; i think in less numbers and non in squads like in CMX1, but with the 1:1 system i think is possible to simulate a single soldier running for his life.

Saluti

[dalem]

Originally posted by average:

Poor Dale. He can't really cherry pick across formations in QBs anymore, and he is very very sad as we can see from his posting on the forums.

Poor average. He can't read.

As I've stated here a million times already, the ability to pick specific units has nothing to do with cherry picking and everything to do with plain picking.

In CMx1 I enjoy duplicating ad hoc mixes that I read about in battle descriptions, and I enjoy fooling around with specific units. Sometimes I want to see if a Mechanized Cavalry screen of a couple of Chaffees and a platoon of infantry with zooks and MGs can hold a roadblock for 20 minutes against a German armored platoon with halftracks and an SPG or panzer or two. Etc.

In other words I like to play around.

If all that translates to "sad" for you then I can't help you.

-dale

[Spindry69]

Originally posted by dalem:

It won't have random maps or player force picks, and it will still have the weird "almost-1:1" that seems to be accceptable these days.

Short of a roofied-up Salma Hayek personally delivering it to my house in a towel, that's not gonna be enough "features" to make me want to plunk my money down.

-dale

No force picks?! "Cue bawling CMSF kid".

[average]

Poor dale, he doesn't like descriptive words. They got him into trouble in high school english, and maybe with the police.

Cherry picking - picking - all sort of a related concept. You can pick in CMSF - just you get a formation with a certain range of tools. You just want to be able to play with the purchase screen.

If you really want to do something, like pick very specific units, you can do that in the Editor. If you want a Plt of M1A1HC's supporting a Styker Plt with some M240 armed M1114s you can do that in the editor. You should try it sometimes dude.

Let me translate, you'd pick an armoured bn or armoured RCT (more likely), then lets assume its ww2, you'd pick the light tank or scout company, then you'd set the equipment to excellent and you'd get M24's. Now assuming you want the infantry, you delete away the RCT infantry elements till you get a Plt. Want extra Bazookas, you could leave in part of weapon plts allocation for instance.

You want the German esertz battle group, you do the same. Then you set an AI plan for the Germans, they attack the road block, or maybe flank it. Not like CMx1 where they do what they think is best relative to the flag.

Then you set some parameters for what you think a win is for both sides. Off you go.

If you can't be asked making a map, steal someone elses and modify it.

Not real hard.

Now N00b skool is ova 4 2day.

I don't think you'll find many people crack out and break cover during bombardments. Its the exception rather than rule. Not that I've ever traded shots with anyone, but typically a breakdown in combat invovles someone staying in situ. Running is more what happens when a fall back order turns into everyman for himself. That or someone thinks the order has been given to retire. So I'd suggest the circumstances where people do the bolt is where they are asked to disengage or the TACAI decides its bad to hang around. Otherwise it should be the exception, not the rule.

[Other Means]

I think Dale's point is reasonable. It's not related to scenarios, he just wants to be able to buy his forces. This was allowed in CM1, so it's obvious that BFC thought it was a good idea too.

IAUI, the reason it's not in SF is the difficulty of assigning point values to everything, not due to any change of heart.

Who knows, in CM2WW2, it might make a comeback as the points values are already established (although arguable) in CM1.

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by average:

Poor Dale. He can't really cherry pick across formations in QBs anymore, and he is very very sad as we can see from his posting on the forums.

I'd like to see a realastic TOE and OB for both sides together with most of the other stuff above.

And what is the "standard" TOE for a German Kampfgruppe or American/British Task Force?

[thewood]

Regardless of whether its QB or custom-built, picking forces today in CMSF is a PITA. It starts out difficult and has a lot of quirks and guess work. You can "steal" all the maps you want, but its playing the lottery to get the right forces.

Also, there are so many issues with the AI in QBs and scenarios, they are almost impossible to play. Once again, it comes down to the scripting is all time-based.

I am hoping these start to get some priority work from BFC. I would hope that by the time WW2 is released, they are fixed.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by dalem:

In CMx1 I enjoy duplicating ad hoc mixes that I read about in battle descriptions,

Same here. Maybe with CMX2 WWII some of Combat Mission will return.

[Sixxkiller]

I think there should be BOTH options. A lot more work for Charles, but they will still be making Red Bull in a year or so..........