The Eastern Front next?

[Krilly]

Interesting.

Maybe a donation based "development support fund" is an idea. I would support that.

But BFC's stance is critical here ofcourse before we get carried away

[RooksBailey]

I'm pretty ambivalent about the Eastern Front.

I found CMBB very good, fascinating, educational, cool vehicles yadda yadda and I enjoyed playing it very much but I never could get in to it, immersion wise. In the end it is about one set of bastards with a dodgy ideology fighting another set of bastards with a dodgy ideology.

West Front fighting sees you playing the good guys or the unambiguous bad guys, which can be almost a much fun. Playing the Germans against the Western Allies gives much the same pleasure as strapping into a TIE Fighter and shooting down some X-Wings.

It perhaps shouldn't matter, but to me it most certainly does.

That was my opinion, too, when I moved from CMBO to CMBB. Nonetheless, I still greatly enjoyed CMBB because the scale and ferocity of warfare on the Eastern Front is simply unmatched - CMBB really educated me on that. I expect Ostfront for CMx2 will be just as fascinating, too.

But on the philosophical point...yeah, I agree.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I think your take on the Eastern Front is pretty narrow, but if you only want to play "good guys vs bad guys" then I suppose a simple-minded approach is best.

Uh... okay... thank you? Next time do try to disagree more and be disagreeable less.

I enjoy one setting more then the other and do not think simple-minded has anything to do with it.

[Vark]

Given the release of the Afghanistan, could BF not just franchise out various modules i.e IDF, 1940, Pacific etc. I also think it rather odd that no military organisations have come forward to sponsor the engine, vis a vis training purposes. Supposedly SP was used as a training tool for the Canadian cadets, (Canuck posters please confirm) so why no interest for something (CMSF) with far more realism?

[RooksBailey]

I've always been interested in the German invasion of Norway, but really don't know much about it. Would that ever make for an interesting module?

[gunnergoz]

Uh... okay... thank you? Next time do try to disagree more and be disagreeable less.

I enjoy one setting more then the other and do not think simple-minded has anything to do with it.

My wife's Ukrainian family lost 5 of the 7 men it sent to fight for their homes and families in that war...your glibly lumping them and millions of their comrades in arms in the same category as the Nazis is unfair, hence the disagreeable tone. I was nettled.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

My wife's Ukrainian family lost 5 of the 7 men it sent to fight for their homes and families in that war...your glibly lumping them and millions of their comrades in arms in the same category as the Nazis is unfair, hence the disagreeable tone. I was nettled.

first of all, I didn't set out to offend.

And of course not everyone was evil, neither among Germans or Soviets. Most weren't, I am sure. I perhaps ought to have put that in somewhere but took it as understood. It is ground amply trodden across around here.

But surely you will agree there is one hell of a difference in the good/bad score between someone fighting in the army of a democracy or in the armies of reprehensible thugs like Hitler or Stalin. And given the bodycount of both I will insist on both those two gents being in roughly the same Evil category.

And on a less leadership focussed level, both the German and the Soviet armies came out of WW2 with a lamentable reputation in regards to conduct.

Sure, no-one came out of WW2 smelling of roses, but around a few the stench is a bit more pungent, whether you like it or not. And that does impact my emotional response to the pixeltruppen I am fighting with or against.

[gunnergoz]

first of all, I didn't set out to offend.

And of course not everyone was evil, neither among Germans or Soviets. Most weren't, I am sure. I perhaps ought to have put that in somewhere but took it as understood. It is ground amply trodden across around here.

But surely you will agree there is one hell of a difference in the good/bad score between someone fighting in the army of a democracy or in the armies of reprehensible thugs like Hitler or Stalin. And given the bodycount of both I will insist on both those two gents being in roughly the same Evil category.

And on a less leadership focussed level, both the German and the Soviet armies came out of WW2 with a lamentable reputation in regards to conduct.

Sure, no-one came out of WW2 smelling of roses, but around a few the stench is a bit more pungent, whether you like it or not. And that does impact my emotional response to the pixeltruppen I am fighting with or against.

The difference is, you are speaking in abstractions while the real war was lived through by ordinary people who in many cases cared not a whit for the abstract. I for one don't forget their sacrifice and so don't lump 25 million Russian dead in the same trash bin of history that their leader deserves to be in. To me they are every bit as much the good guys as are GI's fighting the nazis from the other front. I think your argument fails to consider this possibility.

Enjoy the game, either way.

[Erik Springelkamp]

I'm pretty ambivalent about the Eastern Front.

I found CMBB very good, fascinating, educational, cool vehicles yadda yadda and I enjoyed playing it very much but I never could get in to it, immersion wise. In the end it is about one set of bastards with a dodgy ideology fighting another set of bastards with a dodgy ideology.

The State of the USSR was a monster, but in CM we play with the soldiers, and I don't see the Soviet soldiers as ideologically driven. They fight because they are sent there, and a bit for the Motherland. Some officers excluded of course.

On the German side one can would have met a bit more ideology on average I am afraid.

[usgubgub]

What I admire about these guys is their sheer dedication and the hard nosed business sense behind the way they run this project. I wish some of my past IT directors had that kind of clear cut practical sense and strong, consistent discipline.

I have been a follower and a fan for a long time. Ironically, I started with Squad Leader, then SSI, Steel Panthers, the camo group, SPWW2, Steel Panthers WaW and Matrix. Matrix screwed up as far as I am concerned, but perhaps they were barking up the wrong tree with Close Assault Cross of Iron. I can't describe how disappointed I was when they gave it up.

I was aware of CMx1, but I was so into SP and thus Matrix that I had not seriously tried to get used to their concept. I loved the 3D and appreciated the greater realism, but I was put off by the differences between their design and what I had been familiar with. Wild Bill Wilder (where he now?), who I had great respect for, had a foot in both camps. When Matrix disappointed me, he kind of nudged me into CMx1 out of curiosity. I have never looked back.

Battlefront should be re-christened "balls of steel". They get on with it. That is my style. They deliver. If they want my help, I'm game. But it's their call, 'cause this is their baby.

[gunnergoz]

I too admire the CM crew for the nice balancing act they have managed. I got into CM fairly late after its release, but was immediately captivated by the way it depicted WW2 combat. As a kid playing with toy soldiers, I could have never dreamed of such a capability within my own hands. It's only getting better with each iteration. But the most remarkable part is how this small development team have resisted being bought out and chopped up by the mass marketing machine that is the computer gaming industry. I hope they can hold out forever...well, as long as I'm around to enjoy their products anyway.

Not the least of the things I enjoy about them is these forums, where I can whine, bitch, brag and snark away with similar minded WW2 buffs.

[Fenris]

If I had enough spare cash I too would like to be a silent partner to help things along if I could.

I think it's worth their time looking into it. I've been a long time player of World War 2 Online and being a small niche company CRS have had for a long time various ways for dedicated players to contribute more to the development of the game if they wish. The main one is called a builders program which involves paying lump sums up front, there are various options but I think the highest level 'builder' is something like US$1000! And yes some players do pay that. They don't have any direct say on what happens but in return the 'builders' get a lifetime subscription to the game and first look at future developments and a little more involvement in the dev process as far as canvasing for opinions etc.

-F

[DLaurier]

Because most people feel it simply doesn't make for a fun game. The Pacific theater was mostly hopping from island to island, removing well dug-in defenders like ticks on a hound. There's little variation in climate, terrain, tactics, etc. Every mission would be taking a bunch of Marine infantry and flamethrowers, along with the occasional tank, and taking out pillbox after fortified pillbox. No matter how much you like the Pacific theater, it would get old after about the fifth try.

Alaska...

Or you could pick the Korean peninsula, and be either the Imperial Japanese army rooting out Korean rebels... or Korean resistance battling the hated Japanese.

Or you could pick China, and its Japan VS China and Russia.

Or you pick The Indochina front, and sudenly you can choose Japan or Thailand for axis, and India, Holland, or France for allied.

Or the Hymalayan front.

[Abn Air Cav]

Eastern Front would be awesome. Have to say, that CM:BB is my favourite CM until today! May be, BN will change this, but what ever.

I agree, CM:BB is my favorite.

CM:BN is on pre-order, but I also plan to pick up Panzer Command: Ostfront, too, and hope that PCO will turn out to be an enjoyable tactical experience, as well.

[para]

If you've got money to spare, you would make a lot of people tremendously happy if you put that money into licensing the CMx2 engine for a Israeli-Arab game series. Just thinking aloud.

Terrible idea

[Waycool]

Blasphemy the British and Commonwealth (Canada) and other assorted Allies plus Waffen SS and Fallschirmjager is next

[DLaurier]

I'm pretty ambivalent about the Eastern Front.

I found CMBB very good, fascinating, educational, cool vehicles yadda yadda and I enjoyed playing it very much but I never could get in to it, immersion wise. In the end it is about one set of bastards with a dodgy ideology fighting another set of bastards with a dodgy ideology.

West Front fighting sees you playing the good guys or the unambiguous bad guys, which can be almost a much fun. Playing the Germans against the Western Allies gives much the same pleasure as strapping into a TIE Fighter and shooting down some X-Wings.

It perhaps shouldn't matter, but to me it most certainly does.

As a student of history, I gotta say this... pretty much ALL the states involved on ALL fronts had "dodgy" ideologys.

The 1930s were a bad time to not be white and christian.

Hell the 1950s were a bad time to not be white and christian.

The men who fought in WW2 were, for the most part, basicly decent people who were raised with beliefs that we now know to have been wrong, but which at the time were accepted as normal and respectable.

They didnt know any better. It didnt make them "bastards", it made them ignorant... and in those days, EVERYBODY was ignorant.

[Narsus]

I'm not sure today's ideologies are much better... my grandfather could walk out of the house and not worry about locking his doors when he left, maybe too many Christian around back then

[sburke]

I'm not sure today's ideologies are much better... my grandfather could walk out of the house and not worry about locking his doors when he left, maybe too many Christian around back then

*puts on rose tinted glasses*

yeah I remember back when men were men and sheep were nervous! yep those were the days. No crime... oh wait there was that guy Al Capone and umm oh yeah Bonnie and Clyde. Course I never got broken into, but I had no TV, no computer, no refrigerator heck probably no phone. Sigh yep those were the days.

point is still right though, we humans have an inordinate ability to forget and be forced to re-learn stuff over and over.

[usgubgub]

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Hoo Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Mussolini, Franco, Saddam Hussein and a whole host of other more or less minor dictators with their ideologies, terror apparata, war fighting machines and disastrous policies were and are still manifestations of the fractured way in which the human race evolves politically while riding a wave of technological progress that is moving much faster than our ability to adapt to it.

While there are certainly plenty of reasons to justify hoping that these trends are by and large likely to lead to positive outcomes for the majority of humans over the long run, there are equally reasons to fear them leading, here and there, to disastrous situations, or even one allmighty conflagration that will consume us all.

WW2 was the last time we got close to such an outcome. It was really the logical outcome of the unresolved issues left behind by WW1, the beginning of the destructive tectonic historical process caused by the explosive convergence of a number of powerful global economic, political and social trends and forces that swept away centuries old power structures.

Its effect on those of us who survived it created a long period of relative peace characterised by breakneck growth in prosperity in a relatively small part of the world.

As that generation is dying out, the lessons that they learned are being lost. This and the pace and sheer impetus of a multitude of new trends in world economic, political and social development increase the odds of a new series of conflagrations at some point in our not too distant future. We have only the quality of our leaders and assorted political systems to protect us from that. Oh, dear!

However, I am sceptical about trying to moralise about the relative qualities of the participants in that conflict. By and large, we in the West (and in Western Europe in particular), were lucky that our geographical area settled within the US sphere of influence.

Ironically, a zombified socialist power ideology seems to have survived beyond the waning of the benevolent effect of that outcome.

As the US shifts its attention towards the Pacific area, the EU fiddles around with a highly suspect political project dominated by a leftist power elite of politicians and civil servants which were the result of a highly successful campaign of infiltration by the Soviet Union, leaving Europe with a power elite of crypto socialists whose lack of direct experience of the practical results of that ideology is the paradox that allows it to endure.

This may eventually accelerate the strong trend that is already well developed of marginalising in world affairs the area that for millenia was at its very centre. I hope I don't live to see the consequences of that.

The only thing I am certain of is that, when Francis Fukuyama talked of the fall of the Soviet Empire as signalling "the end of history", he was talking a lot of tosh. There is sure to be plenty of history to come, and some of it won't make for pretty viewing. It may feed further interesting developments for the wargaming enthusiast.

[gunnergoz]

So European crypto socialists are the result of Soviet infiltration? Meaning what - that the EU is really the Soviet Union in drag? Why do I feel that I'm going to need to don my tinfoil hat to follow the rest of this line of thinking?

[zukkov]

eh, we've now sold our economic souls to china. good thing i like chinese food..

[Broadsword56]

Ostfront!.

And Poland '39.

Also we need sikh infantry, gurkas, and those sad colonial troops that France abused so shamelessly.

And New Zealand Maoris with those special knives and war cries...

[usgubgub]

The ruling European elite consists of people born largely in the 50's who went through university through the late sixties - seventies at the height of the cold war. Their heroes were Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro and Che Guevara.

This was the result of a very well orchestrated and effective campaign of cultural infiltration financed and promoted by very powerful Soviet organisations, such as the KGB.

As I was born in 1955 in the heart of Europe, I saw this happening with my own eyes. Even in the small and inconsequential part of Europe where I grew up (Southern Switzerland), the guys running things today were going 'round back in the Seventies waving little red Mao books, reading Karl Marx and kept large posters of Che Guevara at the head of their beds.

A few of these arseholes secretly envy Stalin and Mao's absolute powers. It is now an accepted axiom that the European left is better organised than other political forces in the area, that they are firmly entrenched in all the key institutions and that each time they get kicked out a front door, they eventually creep back through a window.

Often, a leader of a right leaning political force suddenly veers hard left once he/she manages to win power (Chirac, Sarkozy). That is often because he is either an infiltrator (Mao was a card carrying and active member of the Chinese Nationalist Party. He was going to get there no matter what route would take him) or he realises that he has to deal with the powerful infiltrators running the major state institutions, who routinely wear these guys down and block reforms they don't like.

I can't see this state of affairs changing. At least at present I can still write stuff like this without fear of being arrested, but I wonder how much longer this will be true.:eek:

[usgubgub]

I should also say that, as long as the European right can only put up clowns such as Berlusconi, they don't stand much of a chance.