What was the first game like Combat Mission you played on the PC.

[Krilly]

You had a Spectrum? I seem to remember drooling over that machine. Wasn't it a highly advanced box in its day? I seem to recall it was only sold in Europe??? I think it was more capable than a C64??? It been a long time. :-)

My memory is a bit Hazy but as I recall the ZX and C64 were released at roughly the same time?

For example I remember my brother buying a C64 while I happily kept plugging on our ZX. I liked the ZX more, he the C64.

The ZX was a lovely machine in the day, especially for graphics and sound, and I have many fond memories of it. 48k of Ram, what a whealth! What was funny is that it was so small, it almost was smaller than the tapedrive we used with it.

And the ‘gummy keys’ were nice in the beginning but in the end wear and tear became a problem.

Even took some steps on programming with it. Basic programs with spaghetti ‘go to’ constructions and some machine code routines even.

Years after that I bought an Amiga500. Now that was a totally different beast :-P

Edit: Oh and it was build in Britain, so that could explain it was more seen in Europe. (I am dutch)

[[MyIS] Buffpuff]

The first game like combat mission that I played was .... ummm Combat Mission, I had never come across anything like it before, it was for me the Holy Grail of ASL on the computer.

I did play some the early Steel Panthers and others similar to that who's names elude me now (old age) but none of them really came close to what I wanted.

Same here. Stumbled upon it from a PC Gamer article if memory serves me correctly. Tried the demo and I got hooked. It remains the one game in my memory that stayed on my hard drive the longest (a record of 3 years).

[Jaws]

Kamfgruppe SSI 1987 followed by M! Tank Platoon 1990 rest of the games are Steel Panters, Close Combat series etc untill CM:BO

[Erwin]

Oh yes... Panzer Elite PE - still a decade later arguably the best WW2 game of its type, but so buggy you practically had to be a programmer to get it working right. I still have a copy - must see if it runs on Win 7.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

the unrivalled champion of WW2 tactical simulation for 25 years already:

[Golani]

Close Combat 2 in 1997.

Yes, I was 9 back then.

Darn, I discovered Close Combat only when 5 came out...

[LemoN]

Darn, I discovered Close Combat only when 5 came out...

From a gameplay perspecive CC2 is (IMO) the best. By a large chunk.

Although the Matrix remakes are pretty good too.

[Bertram]

I played all the games mentioned above (don't know what that tells you), and can add the ToaW variants and the V for Victory series.

[noob]

This was the first computer game i ever played that had a two player hot seat with fog of war capability, a unit parameter info screen, booby traps, opportunity fire and an active enviroment that could suffer and inflict collateral damage (see 3:45 where a missed laser bolt ignites oxygen bottles destroying everything in one big chain reaction)

Then for 3D battle chess it was Hogs of War, even though it looked and sounded silly the tactics were complex forcing you to think many moves ahead and get your opening moves right, for example one scenario gave the advantage to the first player to get and use a jet pack to gain the high ground and access to a howitzer

[Sixxkiller]

SEAL Team by Electronic Arts - was about SEALs in Vietnam

This would be the absolute best candidate for a redo ever.

[Greup]

"Computer Ambush" which was a top down platoon level game as on an Apple IIe, my first computer back in the 80s.

I remember the ads for it in S&T but didn't have a personal computer at the time (or the means of buying one for that matter). BTW, do you know if the Victory Game's board game "Ambush!" was inspired by "Computer Ambush" or was it the other way around?

First personal computer wargame I played (excluding some early attempts of hacking my own) must have been Panther Game's "Firebrigade c:a 1989. That was an operational level game so the first games on a comparable level to CM were those early CC-series ones. Loved to play CC2 online (anybody here remembering Close Combat Club?)

Then the CM series came and that was more or less it.

[Macisle]

Oh yes... Panzer Elite PE - still a decade later arguably the best WW2 game of its type, but so buggy you practically had to be a programmer to get it working right. I still have a copy - must see if it runs on Win 7.

-Totally agree. It WAS buggy (like point-blank shots sometimes going into a no effect loop. You could fire shot after shot and they would do nothing.), but the terrain detail (in terms of game impact, not looks) was amazing. There were many moments of deep immersion in that one for me. Infantry was easily the weakest link in the game. Any time they showed up, it blew the sim feel.

I was really hoping they would do an updated version. IIRC, something came out later using the same name, but was just an arcade style rip-off hoping to cash in on the street cred of the original. I didn't play that one.

I too still have my copy of PE, along with copies of CC3 and CC4, including all the manuals. -Have been meaning to ebay 'em, but never get around to it.

Macisle

[para]

For me it was the Close Combat Series in particular A Bridge Too far, which i still play today.

[Fetchez la Vache]

Johnny Reb on the Spectrum 48k, probably 1984?

[Sgt Schultz]

1st WWII comp game was a DOS game Battle Of Britain. Chunky clunky flight sim.

1st comp game with any resemblance at all to CM was Panzer General series, of which I had all of them.

Once I found CM I stopped looking.

[Gumboots]

NATO Commander on the Commodore 64 was my first tactical computer game

[RogCBrand]

I remember getting SSI's "Combat Leader" for my Commodore 64- on cassette tape. And at the time it seemed so advanced and cool!

[kmead]

I remember the ads for it in S&T but didn't have a personal computer at the time (or the means of buying one for that matter). BTW, do you know if the Victory Game's board game "Ambush!" was inspired by "Computer Ambush" or was it the other way around?

I think the computer version may have come out first but the game system by Victory had been used for a while.

Shows how old some of us are...and what nerdy geeks we were then. Sitll?

[TrailApe]

I started on an Amstrad (1980's?)

There was a strategy game called Vulcan, which covered the North African Campaign from El Alamain through to the Tunisian battles. It was mainly at Divisional level (the units were shown as squares) although you could detach separate Brigades. When you 'attacked' the enemy divs, all divs involved in the attack buzzed and rattled for a few seconds and the result was announced. One thing it did teach me was the importance of supply, after a stunning left hook attack out of the desert (pick the bones out of THAT one Rommel), you can quickly find one of your divisions high and dry, and almost defenceless if you forgot to ensure the supply lines were not dominated by enemy units.

After that, Steel Panthers 1, I can remember, to this day, the excitement and trepidation of those grey tanks appearing on the far edge of the screen in the desert phase of my first 'Long Campaign'. I had successfully dealt with the Italians, but here was the first XV coming up!

Main lesson I learnt from that particular phase was keep the British Tanks behind the ridges and hope I could get the Pz's with a side shot, no cavalry charges with my tanks - very Monty-ish and deliberate, and in most cases I scraped a victory.

I kept with the Steel Panther series and particularly enjoyed the SP:WW2 version that the Camo Work shop put out. ESPECIALLY the ability to tweak the units. It started off ‘ooh lets give any British AFV with a 2lb gun an HE capability’. Then it progressed – ‘Let’s give all of the 2lb (HE enhanced) a 6lb gun’. Bit later, ‘what the Hell, what’s the weapon number for a 17lber?’

No more hiding behind desert ridges for this generals A9’s and Matilda’s!

Then I came across a CD of a game called CM:BO. Money was tight at the time, but it had been reduced to £5, so I bought it. Talk about an addiction.

[Erwin]

"BTW, do you know if the Victory Game's board game "Ambush!" was inspired by "Computer Ambush" or was it the other way around?"

The solitaire boardgames were definitely first "BC." (Before computers, mate!) I still have the 4 boardgames in the series. Then Victory (arguably the best board wargame publishers of their era) brought out a 2-player version.

GMT Games inherited Victory's mantle and their excellent graphics, rulebooks etc.

For you young uns, these plus miniatures is what the ancient peoples like wot I am had to play with b4 the CM series. Another HUGE savings in money thanks to BFC and CM is me not buying a dozen cardboard wargames a year plus a similar number of short lived (on my HD) computer games.

[Erwin]

So, who was the first consumer CM player to log 100 CM games??

[DaveyJJ]

Something on my Apple IIe, I seem to recall. But my memories of the late 70s are tough to pin down.

[Thomm]

"Kampfgruppe" ... was fascinated, but did not have a manual (was a kid back then), so I did not get very far with it. Also having my grandfather (a Stalingrad vet) in the same house did not raise the acceptance level for wargames in my family.

CC2 was also frowned upon, but by that time I was old enough not to mind!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Kat Johnston]

The game which is my mental yardstick for all games of this type is

for the Archimedes.

For its time, those were ****-hot 3d graphics. The linked video is of the arcade mode only, but the strategy mode featured two sides with up to 16 tanks on each side (chosen from a variable "budget"), a map on which orders could be given, objectives, status and contact reports, (simple) damage to individual systems, variable armour on front, sides and rear, artillery and spotter planes and a vaguely accurate modelling of tank characteristics. Oh, and destructible scenery and buildings.

When controlling an individual tank you had to manage tracks and turret facing/elevation at once, which is an interesting feat on a keyboard. It was better with one person doing the driving and another the shooting!

Firing rates of the tanks were greatly increased (to a shot every few seconds) to make it more gamey and range of engagements was greatly decreased as the field of view was limited to only a hundred metres or so. The maps were about, I dunno, maybe two square kilometres.

You could play as either the Germans (Panzer III, Panther, Tiger, King Tiger), British/US (Chaffee, Firefly, M36, Pershing) or Russians (T34/76, KV1s, KV85, IS2.) Eclectic, and it didn't let you play British/US vs Russian.

Its sequel was a game called Campaign, for the PC, which was more advanced and much more detailed, but I didn't find it as playable.

[Cull]

"Computer Ambush"

Thanks for posting that! I was going to say CC but nope, definitely this. I played it on my first computer (Commodore 128) while I was in the Army, circa 1986.

You're right about the tedium, but it was still the coolest thing ever at the time.