How do you play?

[MengJiao]

I do a bit of both - giving general orders to units but also micromanaging a few select/key units, but I play RT so I'm not doing anywhere near as much as you guys apparently are

Me too. I'm pretty sloppy though, so I have to make my own scenarios and play strictly alone.

There are plenty of good moments though in the individual unit management area. I'm never surprised when things go horribly wrong, but on the other hand pretty amused when they go strangely right. For example, I had one M10 drive sneakily into town and kill a Panther at under 50 meters, but after that he was too rattled to do anything else. He would not even reverse out the way he had come in. seems about right.

[Hetzer21]

Ah, the power of the Panther.

[Mord]

Well, from my reading of this statement . . . that's exactly what he said. He said his reliance on the AI beats his micro-managing brothers practically every time.

Yeah, so? Maybe his brothers suck?

If this guy is unconcerned about whether his tanks will bog or whether his bazookas act appropriately and he really thinks the AI can make a better decision regarding such things then . . . I'd love to play him in a PBEM. Once or twice. After that it might get boring.

That's one person's view, one guy's style...how he likes to play...what floats his boat and gets his jollies. He's allowed to play any way he pleases...and yet you skipped the part where he said most of the veteran CMX2 players would probably wipe the floor with him. You are leaving out info to hold up your bias.

Not to mention how could you beat him if you LOVE to micromanage ever minute aspect of your units? On one hand you are trying to say the game will suck because one dude can play by letting the AI do a lot of his foot work...and on the other you are saying you could beat him 'cause your micromanaging is superior. So, which is it?

I'll plead guilty to that. If this game is as good as you and so many others say it is . . . then there is no possible way that I'll be disappointed, right?

LOL...oh, you'd find something. Call it a hunch.

One thing that does bother me though, the way CMx1 is derided as yesterday's news, as if it had nothing to offer in comparison to this new-fangled messiah called CM:BN. I'm reading the forums and I'm seeing a lot of what sound to me like excuses for leaving this or that fine feature from CMx1 on the floor. It reminds me of that old story about the Emporers new clothes.

LOL. Time to let go...a 10 year old game IS yesterday's news. Most of us CMX2 players were huge fans of CMBO or CMBB or CMAK or all three. Played the crap out of them and enjoyed them...but for the last 4 years we've been listening to all the guys that just can't let go of the past tell us how CMX2 sucks because it doesn't have this, this, or that...and yet we've enjoyed ourselves. If CMX1 had something to offer us we'd still play...if it has something to offer you, then skip CMBN and keep playing it. Obviously something is missing or you wouldn't be here.

People explain things to you in pretty plain English for why something is the way it is and you call what they say excuses...they are not excuses...you have to get over the fact that CMBN isn't CMX1...It's an entirely new game on an entirely new engine.

Lots of talk about how great the graphics are in comparison . . . as if a pretty face is all that matters.

That's BS right there...yeah, people are talking about how great it looks because it LOOKS great...but I have yet to see anybody ever say on this board they want pretty over game play. But that's always the argument that guy's make that can't move on, "all they care about are the graphics but game play is what matters!". There's a ton of game play but I guess if there's no picture telling you what terrain your tank is on that is a deal breaker. Take a walk through the CMSF boards and look at how much non arguing there was about people not caring about game play.

You've got to prove it to me with more than just a nice looking skin.

I don't have to prove anything to you, it won't affect the blast I am having or will continue to have, if you dislike the game...it would just be sad if your bias and inability to see past stuff that doesn't make a difference to the game play, would stop you from having an awesome experience.

I'm open-minded . . . but highly skeptical. CMx1 was a effing fantastic series of games. The derision that they get from the new kids, as well as old-timers is rather insulting.

Proof will be in the pudding. The demo tasted sour.

Like I said a good portion of us loved CMX1...but it gets a little old listening to people that want a CMBO rehash come here and whine about how much better it would be if ONLY BFC hadn't deliberately tortured them by removing X, Y, or Z feature. Yet for four years we were all able to play, create scenarios and enjoy battles without target lines, command lines or a little box telling us where our units were. How did we do it? How could we enjoy ourselves without those key, game breaking features?

A lot of the "new kids" you are talking about have been here since CMSF. They've seen every whine, bitch and argument 100 times before this forum even got created about why CMX1 is way better than this new fangled graphicy game. There's four years of history for why things are the way they are and how BFC came to those conclusions right on the CMSF forums.

In the end nobody took CMX1 away...you can still play it...there's even PCO. That type of gaming and that type of unit scale and those type of graphics are still there waiting for anyone who wants to play them.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the game but the magic 8 Ball says the outlook is unlikely...I hope I am wrong because you really would be missing out...the engine is only gonna improve...and you know, you could stick around and help shape it like we did with CMSF.

Mord.

[George MC]

Here! Here Mord This CMX1 whining does ma feckin head in!

I've spent a heap of time playing CMBB and designing scenarios for the same - nearly ten years in fact. It is/was a great game but CMX2 is a very worthy successor. Yeah I'm biased but hey I wouldna spend all my time on a game that did not deliver - CMX2 families of games (CMSF and CMBN) so far have done that - in spades, nay digger bucket fulls!

But at the end of the day if CMX2 is not someone's thing - well they can still keep playing CMBO/CMBB/CMAK or try ToW or PCO - we've got such a huge variety of choice. Now in wargaming that is a good thing.

[Broken]

You wouldn't like playing against me. I've been known to spend an hour or even an hour and a half on a single turn. Most of that though is reviewing the replay so that I know what is actually going on, rather than what I had hoped would be going on. Actually plotting the moves only takes a fraction of that time.

Michael

What you said.

[Hetzer21]

I'm embarrased to admit I didn't even notice all the targetting lines were gone, and it's not as if I haven't played the old series for years. I'm glad they're gone though, they used to do my head in even though they could be turned off. I left them on because I was paranoid I'd miss something my brothers were seeing.

[Mord]

If we still had them they'd REALLY drive you nuts...arguably you could have 12 per squad...just imagine if a company all acquired different targets at the same time. Then the enemy jumping in and out of LOS every two seconds...lines appearing, disappearing, reappearing...it wouldn't do much more than confuse the crap out of you and give you a headache.

It works perfectly as is...I've never missed them.

Mord.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I am definitely a micromanager .

However until recently had trained myself very successfully to play RT, but using pause. Now, rather to my embarrassment... as I got the idea from somewhere real men play real time ... I have returned to turn based WEGO. The reason is that playing RT I missed too many of the good bits, like missing the best bits in a movie.

So micromanaged turn based is how I now play but quite often do just hit Go for a few turns before doing some micromanagement in one turn. Then hit Go for a few more turns.

All great stuff,

All the best,

Kip.

[womble]

I'll plead guilty to that. If this game is as good as you and so many others say it is . . . then there is no possible way that I'll be disappointed, right?

Only if your criteria are precisely the same as everyone else's... If you want something different, your appreciation of the game will differ too

One thing that does bother me though, the way CMx1 is derided as yesterday's news, as if it had nothing to offer in comparison to this new-fangled messiah called CM:BN.

I'm sure BFC are very aware of the things that x1 offers that x2 doesn't. I think it's actually quite a short list, once you get around the fact that some of the things you initially think should be carried through from x1 to x2 (I'm looking at you, targetting lines) are actually redundant and would be a step back from what is actually available, or are just 'next on the list' for development.

A short list of things that CMx1 offered that CMx2 doesn't:

• Unit info, including armour/penetration tables
  
• Target Armour arcs
  
• Sewer movement
  

I'm reading the forums and I'm seeing a lot of what sound to me like excuses for leaving this or that fine feature from CMx1 on the floor. It reminds me of that old story about the Emporers new clothes.

Some of the excuses are excuses, maybe. Often, though, they're legitimate "the world has changed and you only think that's a good way of doing it cos your perception of it hasn't yet" explanations for cognitive dissonances.

Lots of talk about how great the graphics are in comparison . . . as if a pretty face is all that matters.

Actually, the graphics being great are part of the whole reason the engine is better. Because the polygons, and where, precisely, they are matter.

I'm open-minded . . . but highly skeptical. CMx1 was a effing fantastic series of games. The derision that they get from the new kids, as well as old-timers is rather insulting.

Given the step change in complexity between the two models, it's understandable that some hyperbole can claim x1 is, by comparison to x2, jejeune.

Proof will be in the pudding. The demo tasted sour.

If all you've drunk is Blue Nun, a good claret tastes sour. After you've tried good claret a few times, though, you'll likely recognise it as a complex, quality product, even if you still quite like a sweet white.

[ChrisND]

I'm not going to be as positive as other posters here.

I'm open-minded . . . but highly skeptical. CMx1 was a effing fantastic series of games. The derision that they get from the new kids, as well as old-timers is rather insulting.

That's because people are getting fed up with the influx of people who played CMx1 exclusively and sometimes obsessively and hold it up as some sort of perfect utopia where puppies danced under rainbows and Shyamalan didn't make movies. They are about five years in the past at least, since the CMx2 engine is nothing new. Yet suddenly now that the exclusive CMx1 old-hands have come around, there's a slew of game-breaking problems that should be obvious to a toddler, but oddly enough no one noticed them in the last five years. Probably because the CMSF players played the CMx2 engine as the CMx2 engine, instead of trying to play it as the CMx1 engine and beating their heads against a wall.

Proof will be in the pudding. The demo tasted sour.

The game play in the demo is mostly the same as in the full game. That's why it's a demo after all. You can do one of two things: you can either adjust to the new world of CMx2, not get hung up over a few minor issues and learn to play a new game, or you can try to play it like CMx1 and beat your head against the wall in frustration, and then go back to playing CMx1 for the rest of your life. Your choice.

(Personally I think most will go down the middle: they'll bitch for a while about how this and that is different and how their favorite minor feature is gone, and then they'll get used to it. Then we'll repeat this process with CMx3)

[Michael Emrys]

(Personally I think most will go down the middle: they'll bitch for a while about how this and that is different and how their favorite minor feature is gone, and then they'll get used to it. Then we'll repeat this process with CMx3)

I think that describes me pretty well. Jumping into BfN cold (I wasn't able to play SF for technical reasons), I found it a strange and somewhat alienating world. The learning curve is a trifle steep at first, and to be honest I am at an age where I don't pick up new things as readily as I did 40 years ago. But like breaking in a new pair of shoes, I am feeling the pinch less and less as time goes by and I guess I fit it better now. Is the game perfect, ideal? No, it isn't. But it doesn't have to be in order to be pretty damn interesting. I'm pretty sure I am going to get my money's worth out of it.

Michael

[TheBlackHand]

. . . you have to get over the fact that CMBN isn't CMX1...It's an entirely new game on an entirely new engine.

I think it probably all boils down to this statement. Believe it or not, this is precisely how I'm going to approach the game . . . now that I have it in my hands and on my computer.

(Yeehaww!)

Matter of fact, I'm gonna put a few hours into it right now.

I gotta say, it was NICE to see a FULL MANUAL fall outta that box. That right there put me in a good mood.

I'll have some interesting bedtime reading for the next few days.

[herr_oberst]

How do I play the game???

With a bottle of Lagavulin. It works equally well to toast the victories, and drown the sorrows, so I really win either way.

[Sergei]

How do I play the game???

With a bottle of Lagavulin. It works equally well to toast the victories, and drown the sorrows, so I really win either way.

I didn't know Charlie Sheen was a forum member.

[ChrisND]

I didn't know Charlie Sheen was a forum member.

I heard he takes a snort every time a Sherman brews up.

[Sergei]

The thin white line, as the military term goes.

[Baneman]

... Yet suddenly now that the exclusive CMx1 old-hands have come around, there's a slew of game-breaking problems that should be obvious to a toddler, but oddly enough no one noticed them in the last five years...

Disagree ( in part ). I'm a CMx1 player who skipped SF for the usual reason ( no interest past approx. Korea ) and I'm loving BN.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of SF players posting that they would also like/have liked an Armour Only Arc for SF ( for example ) - so it's not that they're suddenly new issues, they just obviously haven't been a high priority.

And I do agree that hankering for targetting lines or in-command lines is a waste of time.

[TrailApe]

I play using a dual personality. I use a very broad brush approach to the planning and initial implementation (like a Battalion/Company Commander). Quick look at the terrain, quick guess as to the enemies intentions, then tell the pixels where I want them to go. So I’m telling them what to do, but not how to do it.

THEN

After a couple of turns I adopt my Sergeants head and go in and kick erse and shout at people – as the AI brilliantly adopts the usual thick headedness of tired, frightened squaddies under fire, charging trucks into hedges and reversing tanks up lanes instead of using the perfectly good ford in front of them to cross the river that I thought they would. I sort them out, get them moving and then hand over back to the Command Head but will always step in at certain points to ‘get a grip’ as the phrase was known, “no – not that tank, THAT tank THERE”!

Of course if I’m being the allies, I’m very polite to the lads, them being Murricans n’awl.