First impressions

[Battlefront.com]

Victory Conditions are tricky things for scenario and campaign designers to balance. Not just in CM, but in any game. That's because the Victory Conditions are balanced based on the expected average outcome, which itself is based on an expected average approach to fighting the battle. Not only by one side, but both sides.

In CMx2 things are complicated even further than other games. First, we have a lot of different types of Victory Conditions that can be used, or not used, based on the imagination of the author. Second, these variables tend to produce different end results depending on how they are used. I'm not just talking about point balancing, but Objectives balancing. Some Objectives are inherently more subject to luck and others more subject to tactics. Third, each side can have its own unique set of Victory Conditions. This means the author not only has to balance the whole, but also balance each side independently of the other. Very tricky.

Combine this with the HUGE range of player skill sets and degrees of creativity... for sure some people will find the Victory Conditions too easy or too hard, for one or both sides. That's a pretty standard problem faced by all games. The really good scenario and campaign guys will never produce perfect balances, but they can make balances that a majority of players find "fair".

Steve

[Erwin]

Just curious. In the game, will units with weapons like AKM and SVD that require slightly different versions of the same size ammo, use each other's ammo if it's the only stuff available? (Since it's a bit of a pain to figure out what uses what, am hoping this was simplified.)

[Amedeo]

AKM uses 7.62x32

SVD uses 7.62x54R

I would not say that the two are only "slightly different version" of the same ammo.

Since the game tracks these two types of ammo separately I would presume that they are not intechangeable in CM:A, as they are not interchangeable in real life.

(Although there's a possibility that the game engine uses the 7.62x54R only for GPMGs i.e the PKM machineguns to simplify things... I dont' know, but I hope it doesn't)

[shauny1987]

First ever Hind flies over and sprays cannon fire all over the place very impressively. Nice, I like that! Second Hind flies over and lines up rockets perfectly down Soviet forward trench "safely" outside the target area...

Bought

Been looking forward to this a while, the demo impressed and the Era is great. Some nice improvements too!

[Wodin]

To be honest I find playing Wego and taking it slow and giving alot of time to thinking my turn through AND taking into account PLENTY of covering fire really makes the game for me...I find my infantry survive far better than almost every other tactical\RTS game out there...in all other games they are worthless canon fodder...only one other I can think of which happens to be a turn based 2d top down infantry game do they actually count for something and have realistic survivability......

[Lethaface]

Yeah, surely plays different although I can not say it's a total 'new game'. Nevertheless I'm happy with it and feel $35,- is worth it. There are easily 100 hours of gameplay in it if you play both campaigns and all scenario's once.

SPOILER

Im struggling a littebit with the difficulty. Mission 2 had me twisted. Lost a full squad in the end but most of them wounded, and 1 BMP. I still suffered a minor defeat. There aren't to many options in my opinion since you have to guard this very small hill against attacks from literally all sides. Lucky RPG's and some MG fire got to me at times, however I was able to fend of almost all attacks with quite ease. I didn't really get into contact with the last one since it was already in negative time when they approached. Guess that lost me the game.

Then mission 3 is like a puzzle which needs restarting for me. It's simply not obvious for me which are the 'side' exits and which are 'side entries'. The Hinds also attacked only my own troops outside the target area. Will have to restart this one another time, but I'm not really sure how I want to tackle this one.

So, surely more challenging then previous campaigns but not sure if I will be able to accomplish it. Gimme my Shilka and I'll take care of things!

[Clavicula_Nox]

Finished 1980 campaign. This is the first CMx2 campaign I have ever finished. Because you do not get reinforcements during the campaign, I felt like a haggard company commander desperately trying to balance meeting objectives and not getting my soldiers killed. Game brings back alot of memories in a way that Shock Force never did. Well done, again.

In general I found that there was not enough time to use artillery and mortar fire, but I became quite fond of the Hinds. That was, until, a careless (and probably drunk) Hind pilot decided to strafe my veteran 1st platoon whilst they were trying to flush the Muj out of some farmland.

[Lethaface]

Can it be true that the whole point of this campaign is to suffer a Defeat? That could explain my suffering

[Clavicula_Nox]

Well, I suppose the Soviets could have won early had they controlled the borders around Herat, Jalalabad, and along Paktika, Paktia, Kandahar, Khowst, Zabul, Kunar, Helmand, and Badakhstan.

Anyways, 1980 was the "Blunder around" portion of Soviet-Afghan, kinda like 2001-2005/06ish in OEF.

*edit*

I think the point is simply to get your troops through the campaign. That was the impression I was left with.

[GSX]

OK, bought the game, mainly due to Mr Elvis I think. Apart from the fact that units DO see through walls, at time up to 200 meters, the game is very interesting so far.

I don't really see it as being a whole new experience though, more like playing Red v Red in CMSF. The possible answer for guys mentioning this is maybe they always played Blue v Red in CMSF.

Still, compared to CMSF it is really more forgiving. However, it really is just CMSF in a different guise. Not a new game at all, merely a different aspect of the same engine.

[Battlefront.com]

GSX,

Happy gaming!

Still, compared to CMSF it is really more forgiving. However, it really is just CMSF in a different guise. Not a new game at all, merely a different aspect of the same engine.

Or more accurately, it is the CMx2 engine in a different form. CM:SF was just the first content released for it, Afghanistan is the second, Normandy is the third. As for "feeling" different, it depends on how you define a game experience.

For sure the game itself is almost identical. That's the point of having an engine and not trying to reinvent the wheel each release So obviously there is a lot of commonality, more so than between CMx1 and CMx2 (there is tons of common elements there too, of course). But does the game feel different? Well, of course that's a subjective thing.

For some, and I include myself here, differences start with the TO&E. If you have significantly different TO&E you get a "different game" proportional to the differences in force organization. An example is many feel the Marines play very different than US Army even though their basic kit is almost the same. Brits play different than Marines, NATO's three forces play different than each other and the other three forces already in the game. Etc., etc. Add those differences translate into a different "feel" within the game. Couple that with different vehicles, weapons, graphics, voice sound effects, etc. and the "feel" changes even more.

Afghanistan furthers this sort of shift in "feel" by significantly different TO&E and some new weaponry all within a setting which doesn't have the same look or sound to Shock Force.

Personally, if I were to rate the "feeling" difference of all three Shock Force Modules and Afghanistan against the base Shock Force, I'd say Afghanistan scores about an 8 in terms of producing a different "feel" (1 = same, 10 = not same). NATO probably a 6, British a 6, Marines a 5. One of the primary reasons for my subjective Shock Force ratings is that the Syrian forces didn't change much except for the Marines Module, which had Blue forces that were the most similar to the base game. I'd put Normandy at about 11

Steve

[MikeyD]

I suspect a large proportion of the games 'feeling similar' is because they're being commanded by the same general!

A late war BMP-2 infantry squad is only 4 men (last time I looked) carrying 1 of each weapon type. If playing those guys feels the same as playing a full body-armored 13 man Marine squad then I don't know what would feel different!

[Lethaface]

I (at least) didn't say they dont play different, but more that it is not like a fully different game. If I understand Clavicula Nox right thats what he means as well. Some of the first posts of this thread mentioned a fully different game, while that is their respectful opinion, I don't agree. However it surely plays different enough, so you don't hear me complaining.

In mission 3 my own hinds keep gunning my own troops to smithereens, apart from losses in mission 2. Perhaps I'll start all over again.

[Clavicula_Nox]

I (at least) didn't say they dont play different, but more that it is not like a fully different game. If I understand Clavicula Nox right thats what he means as well. Some of the first posts of this thread mentioned a fully different game, while that is their respectful opinion, I don't agree. However it surely plays different enough, so you don't hear me complaining.

In mission 3 my own hinds keep gunning my own troops to smithereens, apart from losses in mission 2. Perhaps I'll start all over again.

I think I've figured out the Hinds. Generally speaking, the actual spotting abilities of the platoon/company commanders is pretty poor. Probably due to equipment, doctrine, and lower ability than their 2009 Western counterparts. So in my mind, the Hinds are given a general part of the map to target and, based on the relevant factors, the spotter has the chance to relay the location of friendly forces. If the spotter fails to correctly give friendly positions, then the Hind has a chance of using the friendlies as a target. Obviously I don't know if that is how it works or not, but I have been a bit more successful with my air support by keeping that idea in mind. Generally speaking, I try to establish my air attacks to be as far away from my troops as possible, while assigning the largest area I can to the Hind. The pilot will normally engage any target he sees. In mission 3, for example, I called for Hinds in the very beginning of the mission and tasked them with a large area over the major roads on the other side of the map and they were able to blast away at targets for a couple of minutes.

Like I mentioned before, I have not had much luck in getting the artillery/mortars to be useful. I'm not sure how to handle it when my guys have 6-12 minutes of preparation and spotting time.

I just can't stop raving about how good this game is. I've already recommended it to my Arma 2 team, wargaming friends on 2 different message boards, and Facebook. It is seriously my favorite of the entire CM series spanning from CM:BO-CM:A. I expected to like it and be mildly amused with the thought of killin' Commies with my Righteous Muj brethren, but I have completely gone the other direction and found empathy with the Soviet soldier of the 1980s. I mean, you could replace the Soviet soldiers with US/NATO soldiers in any of these missions and it would be the same thing.

[vincere]

Guys with regards to firing through walls...keep in mind that walls have an 'armor' value just like anything else, and bullets will pass through them depending on penetration ability, range, etc. Not saying thats what some of you guys have seen here, and of course firing out is different as you cant see the target...just thought Id mention it

Dan

Got nothing against the abstraction Steve described; but more windows should = less armour value imo.

[Battlefront.com]

The intention of the CMx2 engine is to evolve. This means that with each new release there will be something more in the game engine than was there in the previous release. Sometimes these additions are small on their own, but big when combined, or really big in their own right.

Which means playing the current release's most current version compared to the previous release's current version won't show that many differences in terms of the core game (well, excepting things which are time period or weapon specific). But when comparing the most recent version with a much earlier version the differences should be rather large. Not a 100% new game experience, obviously, but a fundamentally different experience.

An interested experiment would be for someone to play Afghanistan and then try and play CM:SF 1.01 or even 1.05. There's been a few hundred features, tweaks, and improvements since then Another more direct experiment would be to play a scenario in CM:SF v1.30 (when released) vs. the same identical scenario in CM:SF 1.01 or perhaps v1.05. Even BETTER will be playing CM:SF 2 v1.0 and then playing CM:SF 1 v1.01. That should be quite a difference.

Steve

[vincere]

Great suggestion Steve, send CMSF 2 V1.0 over then

[Clavicula_Nox]

I am, as it turns out, the worst Air Assault company commander of all time.

[GSX]

I suspect a large proportion of the games 'feeling similar' is because they're being commanded by the same general!

A late war BMP-2 infantry squad is only 4 men (last time I looked) carrying 1 of each weapon type. If playing those guys feels the same as playing a full body-armored 13 man Marine squad then I don't know what would feel different!

Ah, then we are talking about 2 distinctive things. You are talking about the effect of playing with different weapons systems and squad make up. I'm talking about the general feeling of the game mechanics.

Some guys have said it feels different and is a lot darker, I don't see this at all. Perhaps they never played Red v Red, or played very little of it in CMSF.

So for me it's the same game, though I have to admit to liking the music a lot better and the interface looks better too. Not liking the water at all, I thought it was supposed to flow?

Anyway, yes, the equipment plays different, the game plays like a CMSF module though. I actually think I prefer it to modern.

[bodkin]

SPOILER

Im struggling a littebit with the difficulty. Mission 2 had me twisted. Lost a full squad in the end but most of them wounded, and 1 BMP. I still suffered a minor defeat. There aren't to many options in my opinion since you have to guard this very small hill against attacks from literally all sides. Lucky RPG's and some MG fire got to me at times, however I was able to fend of almost all attacks with quite ease. I didn't really get into contact with the last one since it was already in negative time when they approached. Guess that lost me the game.

I suffered a major defeat in that mission despite my depleted squad repelling all Muj advances, but as you said a few lucky rpg's seemed to doom me as I lost one of my two BMP's and half a dozen men. Next time I might withdraw the majority of my force to a better position leaving a token unit hidden to hold the hill. A little gamey maybe but the points system seems so heavily weighted towards the enemy in this mission.

[sawomi]

*** SPOILER ***

I assigned target-arcs to the BMPs in setup and shifted face direction of the squads during the battle as needed. I won this with just one wounded in the end.

[shauny1987]

I suffered a major defeat in that mission despite my depleted squad repelling all Muj advances, but as you said a few lucky rpg's seemed to doom me as I lost one of my two BMP's and half a dozen men. Next time I might withdraw the majority of my force to a better position leaving a token unit hidden to hold the hill. A little gamey maybe but the points system seems so heavily weighted towards the enemy in this mission.

I'm on that mission at the moment, so far no casualties, but Its close. Im trying to make use of force fire and light fire to pin where i know they are, and i moved my sniper in closer (though they are taking medium fire and are at some risk if more show up)

[BFCElvis]

I am quite aware of the abstractions in the game having played it for 3 years. However, this specific 'bug' allows soldiers to shoot through building walls where there are no doors or windows.

I dont get the simulated cracks in walls idea unless this means all walls are cracked all the time.

Thanks for bringing this up. I have now seen it with Phillips saved game (if you had any idea how much time I spent trying, unsuccessfully, to make it happen you would pity me). The file I saw had one man in unit fire at an enemy unit just over 100m away.

[satan]

I am enjoying the game, it's great!. Had a quick look in the scenario editor, water texture cool, but could not get amphibious vehicles to cross it. It's not modeled is it? could it be done as a extra button in movement "swim" certain vehicles have and it switches to allow movement over that type of terrain tile??? Anyway the games great the only downside is i now feel i have to read all about this war.

[Ron]

Ah, then we are talking about 2 distinctive things. You are talking about the effect of playing with different weapons systems and squad make up. I'm talking about the general feeling of the game mechanics.

Some guys have said it feels different and is a lot darker, I don't see this at all. Perhaps they never played Red v Red, or played very little of it in CMSF.

So for me it's the same game, though I have to admit to liking the music a lot better and the interface looks better too. Not liking the water at all, I thought it was supposed to flow?

Anyway, yes, the equipment plays different, the game plays like a CMSF module though. I actually think I prefer it to modern.

It's a little ironic to brush something off as more of the same then follow it up with the statement that you prefer it over modern!. Of course it is the same engine under the hood, with the same 'game mechanics' further refined in this iteration. I believe that was the whole intent of going forward with this engine - you will see this engine again, contrary to the ramblings in NeverNever Land.

The 'feel' is different because of the weapons systems, squad/platoon organization and vehicle hardware, among other factors. I have played Red vs Red in CMSF as well; there are similarities but it is not the same. CMA feels and plays different in a very tangible way, further commented on by others here.

I played the Counter Ambush scenario for the second time last night and still had a blast using 'meat and potato' tactics to overcome the Muj. In a pbem of Desperate Crossing, and I am opening my turns with a sense of trepidation I can't recall having since the early days of CM. If Normandy is this times X then whoa!