More Close Combat at Gog.

Started by DoctorQuest, March 21, 2018, 11:09:34 AM

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Toonces

^ Hey, that's great info man!  Thanks!

I'm not wed to any particular version so perhaps I'll jump in with CC5 and take it from there.

Since I have your attention, is there any advantage to the Close Combat series vs. the Combat Mission series?
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

Destraex

#31
The advantages of the close combat series over the combat mission series are as follows:

Close Combat points of goodness:

* Close combat does have a campaign later in cc4 and 5. By this I mean a campaign map that allows you to deploy formations as you see fit ala total war. Close Combat 1,2,3 had scenarios with casualties that carried over to the next mission. In all close combat games each individual soldier gains experience and medals over time. Gets injured etc. In combat missions the campaigns are just scenarios strung together, add to this that the after battle reports do not lend themselves to any kind of "story" if you will. They are bare bones in combat mission.

* Close combat is prettier inmho, both graphically and animation wise. Combat mission has always been clunky with the animations.

* Close combat has faster battles that happen almost right away. So you are straight into the action. Combat mission is very slow and often most of a scenario happens before combat is even joined. Combat Mission is better here from a realism perspective. But if you are looking for a quick fix. Close Combat is much better for this.

* Close Combat feels much more immersive. There is panic, their is elation, you feel what the troops feel. Much more like you are there. Combat Mission is a very sterile experience. Probably because the animations and sounds are very generic.

--------------------------------------------------

Combat Mission points of goodness

* Combat Mission has a tonne more realism in terms of exacting ballistic physics because it is 3d.

* Combat mission has a tonne more mechanical options than close combat. By that I mean you can grab panzerfausts from half tracks or button up your tank crew.

* Combat mission's spotting mechanics are waaaay more realistic than close combats. Close Combat uses borg spotting. If one unit can see an enemy then all can I believe. Even to the extent that in close combat I could roll over the map listening for mortar positions to zero in on them. In Combat Mission units use so many ways to spot (hearing, physical line of sight, delayed radio coms, listening to neighbouring units communicate targets etc) and they definitely cannot see units just because another unit can. Radio coms plays an important part in the game as does command structure coms. Close combat misses all of this. So spotting\communications are much better in combat mission.

* Combat Mission has realistic order of battles. Not only that but you generally even get all the transport equipment the real units had. Close combat assumes every unit is a hodge podge of balance and that men are already dropped off. In fact until much later than cc5 men could not be transported in vehicles.

* Larger combat mission missions are huge in scale compared to close combat. You might have 20 half tracks with troops and 20 tanks as well as recon etc

* Combat mission has more unit variety and modelling.

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ALL Combat Mission games I know of have DEMO downloads that have multiple scenarios in each!!!! You could spend a whole year just on these scenarios.
Both games are good though. Combat Mission is obviously very very expensive. A few dollars for close combat, $80 or more for a combat mission game. Combat mission though keep updating their old titles with paid patches which I really like. Close Combat has mods and so does combat mission. Although combat mission mods tend to be less impressive. Campaigns or skins. I need to get my combat mission games into steam so I will actually play them !!!!
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

JasonPratt

#32
I think it should be clarified that Matrix/Slitherine has worked hard on re-upping the old CC games, and has even introduced two new games (before Bloody First). They also made a modern game, but I don't recall anyone praising it. (It's a remake of CC: Marines, produced only for the USMC at the time.)

CC1 was already remade as CC5, if I recall correctly. CC1 doesn't seem to be available except perhaps as a used game somewhere on Ebay or whatever.

CC2 has become Last Stand Arnhem. Both are available at GoG. As noted, this focuses on Market-Garden.

CC3 has become Cross of Iron. Both are available at GoG. This covers the entire East Front war, and so is the largest and most ambitious of the games. While there is a linear campaign (Soviet or Nazi side, starting in 1943), there are multiple other campaigns, too.

CC4 has become Wacht Am Rhein. Both are available at GoG. As the name suggests, this is the Battle of the Bulge. For a long time, Wacht had the fewest updates and worked least on modern systems, but last year there were two updates and the latest was less than a month ago! (All the Matrix remake games have gotten an update on March 21st this year.)

CC5 has become The Longest Day. Both are available at GoG. This is the D-Day game.

Furthermore, Matrix/litherine produced Panthers in the Fog (review coming to Grogheads sooner or later ;) ), and Gateway to Caen. Both are post-D-Day operations, Caen being obvious, but 'the Fog' involves fighting after the Operation Cobra breakout as Patton races to France's West Coast. As far as I know, Fog is the only game anywhere that focuses on this crucial battle for the West.

The Bloody First is definitely not a remake of an earlier game, as it's intended to follow one Division (US 1st Division, the Big Red One) throughout the war in multiple theaters from North Africa to the August 1944 breakouts in Normandy. It's a linked campaign with 11 operations, much like the classic Panzer General campaigns; you manage your forces but not a campaign map. (The other six games offer a campaign map to manage resources and sector battles on.) You could say that the Fog acts as a sequel, however, since Bloody ends with Operation Cobra.


Chronologically, then, the games would be the Bloody First (but its idea of a campaign is more linear); the Longest Day; Fog and Caen (more or less simultaneously); Last Stand Arnhem; and Wacht Am Rhein; with Cross of Iron having multiple campaigns stretching before and after this sequence.

For content, Cross of Iron would be the largest for the money spent.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Toonces

^ This all exactly the information I am looking for.  Thanks fellas!
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

JasonPratt

Quote from: Toonces on June 13, 2021, 02:47:20 PM
^ This all exactly the information I am looking for.  Thanks fellas!

I should add that I might as well be completely ignorant of the current state of mods for this system. I recall once upon a time, CC3 was well known to have the most mods (having come out earlier than the later ones, duh ;) ), but would that still be true? -- and how would that apply to Cross of Iron (the remake/update at Matrix)? And quantity doesn't necessarily mean also the best quality.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Destraex

Another major difference between close combat and combat mission is that because combat mission has communication realistically implemented, they also modelled order delays. Different communication methods take time to happen and then once the info is in the squad leader or above's hands it takes time for them to organise and carry out those orders. So sometimes as the player you wonder if your orders had any effect and then all of a sudden the men start moving about.

Close combat is just you as the top down BORG commander giving orders that are instantly carried out. The same as steel division 2.

As for Bloody First not being a remake. I was referring to the baseline code for movement, AI etc (I suspect those were just copy paste), graphics, pathing and other mechanical improvements. Not the theatre and subject matter.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

JasonPratt

Ah, got it!

The command-timing point is a very important difference in the games, I agree. I generally like CM more than CC, although of course CC has had a campaign layer to manage the battles with since way back in CC2, which CM has never had and probably never will. (That's what Graviteam is for, heyo!  >:D )

Which reminds me that the Command Ops 2 games (and their predecessors) are like Close Combat on steroids (including order delays and intel-report delays and variances) -- though again without campaigns really.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Toonces

Command Ops is more operational level rather than tactical level, isn't it?
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

Destraex

Command ops can be tactical but it's a counter pusher game. Not much feeling in those. Feels a lot more dice role oriented.

As for graviteam stuff. The interface in those is horrendous. It's also single player only. I actually recently downloaded operation star and want to give graviteam another go. I have never seen building combat in graviteam games? Want to see that.
"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

ArizonaTank

Quote from: JasonPratt on June 13, 2021, 12:18:06 PM
I think it should be clarified that Matrix/Slitherine has worked hard on re-upping the old CC games, and has even introduced two new games (before Bloody First). They also made a modern game, but I don't recall anyone praising it. (It's a remake of CC: Marines, produced only for the USMC at the time.)

CC1 was already remade as CC5, if I recall correctly. CC1 doesn't seem to be available except perhaps as a used game somewhere on Ebay or whatever.

CC2 has become Last Stand Arnhem. Both are available at GoG. As noted, this focuses on Market-Garden.

CC3 has become Cross of Iron. Both are available at GoG. This covers the entire East Front war, and so is the largest and most ambitious of the games. While there is a linear campaign (Soviet or Nazi side, starting in 1943), there are multiple other campaigns, too.

CC4 has become Wacht Am Rhein. Both are available at GoG. As the name suggests, this is the Battle of the Bulge. For a long time, Wacht had the fewest updates and worked least on modern systems, but last year there were two updates and the latest was less than a month ago! (All the Matrix remake games have gotten an update on March 21st this year.)

CC5 has become The Longest Day. Both are available at GoG. This is the D-Day game.

Furthermore, Matrix/litherine produced Panthers in the Fog (review coming to Grogheads sooner or later ;) ), and Gateway to Caen. Both are post-D-Day operations, Caen being obvious, but 'the Fog' involves fighting after the Operation Cobra breakout as Patton races to France's West Coast. As far as I know, Fog is the only game anywhere that focuses on this crucial battle for the West.

The Bloody First is definitely not a remake of an earlier game, as it's intended to follow one Division (US 1st Division, the Big Red One) throughout the war in multiple theaters from North Africa to the August 1944 breakouts in Normandy. It's a linked campaign with 11 operations, much like the classic Panzer General campaigns; you manage your forces but not a campaign map. (The other six games offer a campaign map to manage resources and sector battles on.) You could say that the Fog acts as a sequel, however, since Bloody ends with Operation Cobra.


Chronologically, then, the games would be the Bloody First (but its idea of a campaign is more linear); the Longest Day; Fog and Caen (more or less simultaneously); Last Stand Arnhem; and Wacht Am Rhein; with Cross of Iron having multiple campaigns stretching before and after this sequence.

For content, Cross of Iron would be the largest for the money spent.

Yes, thanks for the overview. I lost track of the many iterations years ago.
Johannes "Honus" Wagner
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Rated as the 2nd most valuable player of all time by Bill James.

Destraex

#40
I think operation star will take a lot of getting used to. The feedback I am getting in battle is not really immediately transparent. I have no idea what is going on. Guess that is like real war. I can see things are green\red etc meaning they are wounded or dead. Right click takes you to units which is cool.

Took me a while to figure out the blue\red\neutral flags were for populating the six battle squares with troops on both sides in skirmish mode. Filled all the squares with red russian troops and then got an yellow timer..... took me 5 mins to figure out without the tutorial. But man I really like the combat mission interface compared to this one. I really like to rewind and go see what exactly happened to each unit. However operationally graviteam definitely have a better way of doing things. Steel Division 2 though has real people and a community to aspire to play with.







"They only asked the Light Brigade to do it once"

GDS_Starfury

get Close Combat 3!
it has tons of mods and maps and all kinds of good stuff!
the ad hoc nature of your battlegroup is kinda the way things actually ran on the eastern front.
and you get to kill commies!
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


Toonces

Everything I've read is that if you can GET the Graviteam games, they're the best at what they do.  But you've got to learn the UI and the system.  Otherwise, it seems it's a total fail.  This is one of those games that I've never seen to be so polarizing: you either get it, or not.  It's an A of an F.  Nobody finds the game average.

For me, I really wanted to like the Steel Fury games, and I so wished Graviteam had built on that base.  Sigh.  It is what it is.

From what I've read only, if one can get the UI and mechanics of Grav.Tac. down, that is the best of the genre.  But a player has to get over that hurtle, or else the game is not fun.  For me, I really, really want to love Steel Fury, but I just haven't invested the time to watch YouTube and learn the UI, so it's a frustrating game to me.  There always arrives a point where I get buried into a few mouse clicks and I no longer know how to get back to the top-level UL.  And so I give up.

That's neither here nor there, though.  I have Op Star, and if I'm going to learn one system it's going to be CM.   I'm not into the genre to learn a new system.  That's just me, of course.
"If you had a chance, right now, to go back in time and stop Hitler, wouldn't you do it?  I mean, I personally wouldn't stop him because I think he's awesome." - Eric Cartman

"Does a watch list mean you are being watched or is it a come on to Toonces?" - Biggs

GDS_Starfury

Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


GDS_Starfury

Ive had Op Star for a while and just cant be bothered to learn all of the non-intuitive bullshit.
close combat is EASY to play.
CM is somewhere in the middle.
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.