Why Normandy?

[Migo441]

Regarding a WWII PTO game, Battlefront has been pretty consistent (I believe) in saying it is not on the roadmap.

I've never been clear if that was more of a marketing decision or if they just thought the gameplay itself would be difficult or uninteresting, i.e., people would insist on piloting LVTs to the beach and the the Japanese player would have zero mobility and essentially deploy only pillboxes.

But I agree that Guadalcanal would be an interesting setting where, among other details, the Japanese had tanks and fire support from their navy.

[Chad Harrison]

Just wanted to throw my two bits into this too. My interest is only in:

1. Western Front - Normandy - First and foremost! Good old G's versus A's in the most inertesting terrain and force matchups (in my opinion obviously)

2. Western Front - Any other campaign, including Commonwealth

3. Pacific - Start to end, any part of it

4. Ostfront - WitE (War in the East) is helping draw me into this

No where on the list:

Italy

Sicily

No where on the no where list:

North Africa

I bought CM:BB only because it was new CM. Played it only a little bit. I bought CM:AK like a year after it came out. Played maybe one or two desert scenarios, and the rest was QB's of Americans vs Germans on flat, green terrain - in other words, forcing the game to represent Normandy

Obviously this is all my opinion, but the Normandy campaign is by and far my favorite conflict both from a study perspective and a game perspective.

Chad

[Chad Harrison]

Steve

I know this a little premature to be asking before the release of CM:BN, but is this still the general plan for familites of games in order of appearance? (Sorry, but the above discussion brought this on)

1. CM: Battle for Normandy

1a. CM: Battle for Normandy - Commonwealth (Brits, Brit Airborne, SS, FJ)

1b. CM: Battle for Normandy - Market Garden (new US and Brit Airborne TO&E)

1c. CM: Battle for Normandy - Odds and Ends (anything and everything else)

2. CM:Battle of the Bulge

3. CM:Shock Force (Temperate, Allies against Ruskies, maybe China or Korea too)

4. CM:Ostfront (late war, 1944 if I recall)

Is that still the general plan? Thats what I have written down from a couple of your posts over the last few years.

Thanks

Chad

Oh, and Merry Christmas everyone! Christmas morning is sure fun with your kids!

[LongLeftFlank]

And let's not forget the plans to transport modern war CMSF to the European theatre with improved game engine.

(a) Have I missed some enticing bone by Steve; ( are you just conjecturing CMSF-2 is set in Europe (as opposed to, e.g. Korea/China); or © did you just accidentally breach your NDA?

[ChrisND]

(a) Have I missed some enticing bone by Steve; ( are you just conjecturing CMSF-2 is set in Europe (as opposed to, e.g. Korea/China); or © did you just accidentally breach your NDA?

He's merely misspeaking. All that is known is that it will be temperate.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

True, but remember we're doing smaller unit (company scale usually) actions. Company-scale carnage looks pretty much the same whether your army's facing east or west. Didn't Clint Eastwood once make a 'gritty war movie' that involved the invasion of Grenada? :eek:

Did you do any research as to what sort of unit density/frontages existed on the American sector during the battle? I'd think that the U.S. had at very least a battalion per kilometer packed in there, and frequently much more. From a design standpoint, I'm not sure how you square this, other than make the maps really small. However, in the screen-images that were posted, some of the maps actually appeared quite spacious:

http://www.battlefront.com/images/stories/CMBN/cm-normandy-12-07-21_500.jpg

[Chops]

Steve

I know this a little premature to be asking before the release of CM:BN, but is this still the general plan for familites of games in order of appearance? (Sorry, but the above discussion brought this on)

1. CM: Battle for Normandy

1a. CM: Battle for Normandy - Commonwealth (Brits, Brit Airborne, SS, FJ)

1b. CM: Battle for Normandy - Market Garden (new US and Brit Airborne TO&E)

1c. CM: Battle for Normandy - Odds and Ends (anything and everything else)

2. CM:Battle of the Bulge

3. CM:Shock Force (Temperate, Allies against Ruskies, maybe China or Korea too)

4. CM:Ostfront (late war, 1944 if I recall)

Is that still the general plan? Thats what I have written down from a couple of your posts over the last few years.

Thanks

Chad

Oh, and Merry Christmas everyone! Christmas morning is sure fun with your kids!

Here you go, from Nov. 22nd, 2010

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1216135&highlight=Family#post1216135

And below, from July 2010

I should probably post something more "permanent" about our plans, but I have actually been very specific about what we're planning on doing when we have conversations like this. Here's another go at it in Forum form

CMx2 stuff is divided up into four basic concepts:

Epoch (or as we call it, Track)

Family

Game

Module

We plan on having three Epochs in development concurrently (i.e. all at the same time). These are:

Modern

Western Front

Eastern Front

We can, and already have, add to this depending on various conditions. The example at the moment is Afghanistan, which is a one shot "Epoch" of sorts (i.e. Afghanistan is self contained).

Next is what we call a Family. This is a grouping of a base Game and 2-4 Modules. For example, Combat Mission: Shock Force is a Family within the Modern Epoch. This particular Family consists of Marines, British Forces, and NATO.

Each Family is a self contained group of products. You can purchase any Module you want and it will work with the base Game and other purchased Modules without any hiccups. You can not, however, mix and match stuff from one Family with another. For example, CM:SF 2 will contain a base Game with 2-4 Modules, none of which will work with CM:SF 1 and vice versa.

Normandy is the first Family release for the Western Front Epoch. The second Family will be Bulge. Currently we plan on having 3 Modules for each.

Normandy's base game has American forces against core Wehrmacht forces. 1st Module will have Commonwealth on one side, Waffen SS and FJ on the other. 2nd Module will cover Arnhem and will contain the forces necessary to fight those battles. 3rd Module will be a sort of mix-mosh of stuff not covered in the base Game or the first two Modules.

By the time the Normandy Family is complete, you should be able to recreate any battle within that timeframe. Well, within reason of course

Steve

[Chad Harrison]

Thanks Chops for the links to Steve's comments. I knew that was what was on the horizon, I was just wondering the ORDER that they were planning on releasing them.

In other words, Steve has confirmed that they will be doing the Bulge, but they could take a break from the West Front and do CM:SF2, or the Ostfront one before getting back to the West Front.

But, I seem to remember Steve saying that they were going to hit the Bulge *immediately* after completing Normandy and its Modules.

So again, thats what I am wondering: BFC has been very open about whats coming down the road, but I remember the order being Normandy, Bulge, SF2, Ostfront. Is that still the case?

Thanks

Chad

[gibsonm]

Well as Steve et al, are currently having some well deserved leave, I wouldn't expect an authoritative response for a few weeks.

[PSY]

4. CM:Ostfront (late war, 1944 if I recall)

I seem to recall a prior discussion on the forums on this where Steve said that there were two Eastern Front games on the long term schedule. The first East Front game was mid-war, and they hadn't decided if the other East Front game was going to be Barbarossa or 1945.

[Edit] Here you go. Looks like late war is first East Front game followed by a second game with time period TBD.

Bagration is not coming right on the heels of Normandy, just so you know After Bagration we have no definite plans. Personally I think it's a tossup between Barbarossa to Stalingrad and Kursk to just before Bagration (those winter pocket battles are, of course, legendary). The problem with the Eastern Front is that it is not as good of a seller as the Western Front, much to my Ostfront heart's dismay sometimes. I like the Western Front a lot, but the thought of a crushing Soviet combined arms assault on beat up hand-me-down German tanks and worn out infantry is my idea of a fun time

[PSY]

Thanks Chops for the links to Steve's comments. I knew that was what was on the horizon, I was just wondering the ORDER that they were planning on releasing them.

In other words, Steve has confirmed that they will be doing the Bulge, but they could take a break from the West Front and do CM:SF2, or the Ostfront one before getting back to the West Front.

Not definitive, but some quotes from Steve in the November 2010 thread Chops linked to:

... As soon as Normandy is out we'll officially start working on CM:SF 2.

... As NATO's art requirements wrapped up we started on the Eastern Front art needs. Now that both CM:SF and CM:Afghanistan are out the door we can start shifting the time for those towards CM:SF 2 and the first Eastern Front Family. ...

[LJFHutch]

I can't wait for the eastern front Though I also can't wait for BN

[Tactical Wargamer]

I realize that the countries that fought on the west front are likely the largest revenue base for cm games in modern times i.e. US, Commonwealth and Germany but………. I just don’t understand how someone prefers the west front compared to the east front. The east front was so much more epic in my opinion, it spanned a greater time frame and more varied terrain compared to the west front.

I know it is silly but I always liked the east front. Always had an issue shooting up other English speaking cousins as the Germans (especially when your the SS units) on the western front. I know just a game but it still doesn't feel right. Mind you controlling those sexy Cats....oooh my Shooting up the REDs or vice versa feels good.

[Battlefront.com]

Don't forget that we're able to do concurrent development. Not as efficiently as we would like, but it's our goal to speed it up. We hired another programmer to help us make that happen, in fact.

Which means "order" is hard to predict because we'll release things as they are completed.

What you can count on is that within a Epoch/Track the order is set. Meaning, we won't start on the 2nd Family for the Eastern Front until the 1st Family is complete. We won't start on CM:SF 3 until CM:SF 2 is complete. Etc. But whether Eastern Front Family 1 will come to market before CM:SF 2 or Bulge is unknown. We have our own ideas of when things might come out, of course, but nothing written in stone.

Back to what MikeyD said about "Europe" being the setting for CM:SF 2. That's the assumed location, but the only true answer right now is that the setting is Temperate. The exact location will depend on what we finalize for a story.

Steve

[MikeyD]

Steve et al, are currently having some well deserved leave, I wouldn't expect an authoritative response...

Apparently ,Steve's wife is going to have to unhook his home internet connection to get him to rest!

[gibsonm]

Yes it does make me look like a bit of a twit, but anyway its his heart.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Let me try and ask my question regarding unit density/frontages again, as it may have gotten lost in the shuffle:

"Did you do any research as to what sort of unit density/frontages existed on the American sector during the battle?"

I dug out my "Green Books" a couple of days ago, and spent some time going over the maps in Cross Channel Attack and Breakout and Pursuit. What I found was USA divisions packed into relatively narrow frontages of three to five kilometers for much of the campaign in Normandy. German divisions were also packed fairly tightly, but they were depleted (and smaller to begin with).

Back to my question, which was not meant to imply that you hadn't "researched" the battle...

How will a game that focuses on company-level combat negotiate the presence of friendly companies to the ABSOLUTE IMMEDIATE left and right of the subject unit? Again, I've looked at the images that you've posted, and they certainly look substantial enough, area-wise, so much so that one could reasonably expect a battalion on the attack, rather than a company.

Finally, this is intended to be a friendly inquiry. The thread title piqued my interest in unit density/frontage because there were other areas on the ETO/France where these wouldn't have been an issue. I purchased the other CM/CM2 games and will almost certainly buy this one as well. I'd just like to know what y'all's thinking was in selecting this setting for a company-level game, apart from the "high-interest" factor, that is.

[Wengart]

How will a game that focuses on company-level combat negotiate the presence of friendly companies to the ABSOLUTE IMMEDIATE left and right of the subject unit? Again, I've looked at the images that you've posted, and they certainly look substantial enough, area-wise, so much so that one could reasonably expect a battalion on the attack, rather than a company.

I would imagine that, that would be handled by the scenario designer rather than the game.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Frontage question

A big factor to consider with unit frontages is depth as well as width. I seem to recall that during the opening day of Cobra, the US infantry regiments were packed into pretty small spaces but that was largely due to the fact that they only were leading with 1 or 2 companies abreast and keeping the rest in reserve. So it's really up the scen designer to interpret the unit frontages and not put an entire regiment over a km or two when in reality there would be only a couple of companies there at any one time.

Short answer: the scen designer handles it rather than the game.

[WillyPete2171]

Merry Christmas!

If I were to hazard a guess, Normandy is where the money is.

There is indeed an Eastern front title being worked on as we speak... I think... maybe... somewhere. And preliminary work has already gone into the Bulge/late war title. And let's not forget the plans to transport modern war CMSF to the European theatre with improved game engine. Someone once totalled up the number of titles and associated modules scheduled. It was a lot. Like more than a dozen I think.

About Africa Korps. if I were, again, to hazard a guess its a good bet they've had enough desert fighting to last 'em for awhile. CMAK immediately followed by CMSF. That totals 6(?) straight years in the desert, I think.

I'm wondering about what your wrote. I was under the impression that Normandy is a WW2 version of CMSF & it's game engine, right?

[sfhand]

...We won't start on CM:SF 3 until CM:SF 2 is complete. Etc. But whether Eastern Front Family 1 will come to market before CM:SF 2 or Bulge is unknown. We have our own ideas of when things might come out, of course, but nothing written in stone...

Steve

Firstly, I hope you had/are having a great Holiday. Merry Christmas (if you observe it)! Truly CM is your passion and not just a job (the only reason I can see for your posting at this time), so despite the huge amount of time you spend working on it I'm hopeful that you find it mostly satisfying at worst and exciting at best.

This is not an important question, even to me, but I am intrigued by your mentioning CM:SF 3. Is that a typo? Did you mean CMx3?

I assume, probably a bad idea, that at some point you have plans to put the CMx2 engine down (it will be a somber affair I'm sure). If that is the case, no doubt you will have a CMx3 engine lined up to take its place. (of course, you might be able to slowly morph CMx2 into CMx3 due to it's modular nature, not being a software engineer I really have no clue)

My only remaining question would be, do you care to make a far-into-the-future-prediction-that-has-no-positive-payoff-accompanied-by-plenty-of-negative-side-effects-should-your-prediction-prove-to-be-less-than-100%-accurate estimate of what CMx3 might look like?

Oh, and when is it getting its own forum?

[Field Marshal Blücher]

I'm wondering about what your wrote. I was under the impression that Normandy is a WW2 version of CMSF & it's game engine, right?

Uh, kind of. It's on the same engine, but the engine is being improved and changed for Normandy, so expect some substantial gameplay improvements (mentioned in many places elsewhere) over CM:SF.

@sfhand,

It looks to me that Steve does actually mean CM:SF 3, and not CMx3. Steve has said that he plans to make 3 eras concurrently: WWII West front, WWII East Front, and Modern, so presumably once CM:SF 2 is done, CM:SF 3 or something similar will get started.

[Canada Guy]

For some reason I have in my mind that Steve or one of the crew mentioned that there would be 4 Families in the Ostfront. Bagration, then a 1943, a 42 then finally a 41. So all total, 4 Families in the East (maybe 5 but I forget if a 1945 was in the cards).

I am also assuming that there will be 1-2 families in the desert. I never thought I would enjoy it until I was playing a game with a oasis in the middle of a large map, heavy sand storm and Germans vs Brits. One of my most enjoyable games I played in CMx1.

I really have no interest in Normandy but if BF is going to provide it, I will buy the whole family and all the rest as they make a great product. I know the USA is probably the most active market but playing as the Americans outside of the desert (or Korea) holds very little interest for me. Perhaps with Snowball now sort of in the picture, we can get a few more titles or families that we would never have had a chance to before. France 40 would be interesting but Korea would be a blast.

[finalcut]

I thought I read 3 families in the east,not sure though.I recall seeing them mention Kursk,Begration,and late war drive west.

[howardb]

About bloody time Battlefront went and did something noteworthy again! Back to the success formulae. This is good news I will be watching closely.