Combat Mission one sucked me in like no other game before or after. early this year i realized that the new CM Normandy had a demo for Macs and i downloaded it.
Afrer a few rounds and many crashes i felt like the game was nothing like the first one. it is either a lot more complex or a lot more difficult. my GI were rarely able to conduct an order or reach a waypoint. they either were crushed by artillery or shot from unseen ennemies. i thought i might need to learn the map position of the Krauts first to even think about winning this mission.
is this impression true? or is the game in its heart still the same? i would love to get into the series once more but the buggy demo put me off.
I bought it without playing the demo and it was on a PC so I am not sure I can comment on the "buggy nature" that you are seeing. For me the game has played smoothly and been trouble free.
As for arty and spotting CMBN is much more unforgiving than the original series. Use of terrain, proper emplacement of the right troops, dismounting them and facing them in the direction of the enemy, putting those troops within command and control radius of good leaders (+1, +2) etc is key. Also the enemy knows the crucial terrain spots and can target them with arty. Arty is brutal in the game but it was so in real life. They key is to move those troops as soon as spotting rounds start landing. A key reason why real time playing is a bit more manageable for micro managing your forces over WEGO. The trade off is loss of immersion factor (I love replaying the tunr and seeing my AT gun pick off three Shermans as they crest through a hedge etc).
Personally I like this game better than the original. I fired up Afrika Korps the other day and was quite surprised at how rose colored my glasses where when recalling the game versus playing it again
Con
I think Con summed it up.
As Combat Mission has evolved it has become more detailed in a hard core fashion: MG teams need to be ordered to deploy; spotting isn't part of a "hive mind;" poor tactics will be ground up by the AI.
In some ways Combat Mission feels like it has evolved from Squad Leader to Advanced Squad Leader. Most of that is in a good way, at least for me, but when I haven't played for a while I can see myself struggling at times to get back into the full depth of the game. It's not really a casual wargame any more. I like it, but I do see a different game from the original games in the series and can appreciate that not everyone might feel the same.
CMBO sold the most of the original series because it was new and different, 3D and wego. It was somewhat easy to play and fun. CMBB changed some things that made it harder to be good at it. It didn't sell as well. Partly because people moved on, partly because casual gamers don't care for games without USA or CW, and partly because it was harder to play.
Relative spotting makes it even harder in CMx2. But I also see the occasional post about moving enemies shooting stationary friendlies and other strangeness that has kept me on the sidelines. I try the demos and they just don't grab me. A lot of games don't these days.
I'm the same. I loved the original CM games and played the hell out of them.
I wasn't too thrilled when I read the direction they were taking the series with Shock Force, but I tried the demo. I immediately knew that the new changes weren't for me.
I was interested to see what the game would be like when they announced CMBN, but the demo ran like crap on my PC and looked terrible. I was also very turned off by the overly mercenary nature of Battlefront. Charging for patches, trying to install tool-bars when you installed a game or demo, etc.
I read the excitement in these threads and decided to give the Commonwealth Forces updated demo a whirl. It still looks and runs like crap. Mouse movement of the map is terrible, and they've not given the option for us lefties to remap keys from WASD to the num-pad. No sale for me.
I am still playing CMBB/CMAK. Given my hardware, I have no choice anyway.
I don't think I could go back to CMBO even though I had a lot of fun with it and it was definitely a faster paced game. Defense was strengthened in CMBB and attacking became much harder. Thus, a slower paced game.
However, certain UI improvements were too major to live without: clickable paths/adjustable waypoints, covered arcs, color code armor thickness and penetration, variable length game turns, ...
I suppose when I finally get a new PC, I'll try the new CM ... although I am not too thrilled with the whole elicense thing.
I have played them all...from CMBO to Fortress Italy I just bought. The last two iterations; combat mission Normandy and fortress Italy are far superior to the originals. Not iust graphics, but AI, UI, options and immersion. I also like the option of real time or 1 minute turns.( I play the latter). I think a lot of times, we tend to wear rose colored glasses when remembering how great old games eere compared to new. In the casr of combat mission, the only advantage the original has over the new is that it was revolutionary. If you rig can run it, there is no reason not to get the new version.
I think the early CM games delivered a lot more value per purchase.
Question: CMBO, CMBB, CMAK all needed a skilled scenario designer to deliver a good experience against the AI. Also, in most cases you had to play the attacker. The AI just could not manage attacking. So, can latest CM AI give you a decent fight in a QB? Can it handle attacking?
Thanks.
Well, I disagree about value. It's more than just scenarios...new versions have better graphics, better AI /UI and evrything else. Of course, a things value is subjective. As for the AI in attack, it gives me problems, but mainly because it seems it has super-vision. I have anti tank.guns hidden and the AI tanks take them out before they fire a shot. But, computer troops seem to.stay in formation and attack with cohesion. I'm not a great cm player though.
Quote from: Keunert on August 04, 2012, 04:06:48 PM
Combat Mission one sucked me in like no other game before or after. early this year i realized that the new CM Normandy had a demo for Macs and i downloaded it.
Afrer a few rounds and many crashes i felt like the game was nothing like the first one. it is either a lot more complex or a lot more difficult. my GI were rarely able to conduct an order or reach a waypoint. they either were crushed by artillery or shot from unseen ennemies. i thought i might need to learn the map position of the Krauts first to even think about winning this mission.
is this impression true? or is the game in its heart still the same? i would love to get into the series once more but the buggy demo put me off.
The fundamental difference is the lack of abstraction in the new series. Every line of sight and bullet is tracked making your troops very vulnerable when on the attack. No more magic cover factor for the terrain square. You now need a 3D object the save your troops from the bullets. It was more harsh during the first iterations of CMSF. Now I think they tweaked it a bit to improve survivability.
Because of this, you need to do a lot of baby-sitting as each pixel troop can't manage with their small brains. LOL! I don't think one can play CMx2 in the same way as CMx1. Many people still like playing WEGO. But for my playstyle, realtime is the way to go.
thank you guys, interesting read. maybe not my cup of tea. but i read there's a demo coming for mac. i will give it a try and come back likely with more questions then
It comes down to what kind of experience you want.
The original series let you "fill in the blanks" with your imagination, the way a good book does. There's something to be said for good books. I found CM:BB just as "immersive" as the new game engine, but an active imagination will always let one do that - I had a Telstar Combat! and found it, immersive, too. The tools were there to let the original CM find expression - particularly the map generator, and the quick battle generator, which is far more powerful than the new CM, which will not permit random map creation.
The new game engine has a different suite of scenario victory condition options, which is an advantage for the scenario creator, but that same scenario creator is still hamstrung by an editor that is actually more difficult and time consuming to use than the original. The good news is that BFC is continually improving this (I note the 2.0 game engine has some further refinements, but I haven't seen these yet as I don't own CM:FI). I did manage to put together a few scenarios for CM:BN which are now at the BFC Repository and seem to have been well received, so I think I speak with at least some authority when I say that while it is possible to gain a reasonable mastery of the scenario editor in fairly short order, it never stops being a lot more work than it needs to be. And I think that dissuades many people from trying than has been the case with past games. And I don't mean necessary work like planning AI plans, I mean silly stuff like not being able to cut and paste, or draw a road that doesn't look like a stair case. But some of this may be fixed in 2.0. To their credit, they do spread the improvements around throughout the game, from AI to controls, to unit functions, to editor, etc. so everything seems to get a little bit of attention with each iteration.
My biggest observation has always been, however, the AI - and the fact that the entire random AI from the original has been replaced by a clock-based AI, where in solo play, the enemy reacts to a timer rather than the tactical situation. It's pretty sub-optimal, particularly in a game without SOPs such as TacOps lets you designate. Not that the old AI was terrific, leading counter-attacks with mortars and HQ units, but it did have the advantage of being unpredictable. With the new engine, it's less about realistic tactics as finding scenario designers who can be "clever" with the AI plans.
It's also unfortunate the "Operations' model from the original was discarded in favour of the "linked scenarios" model, with its faulty interface, which does very little to simulate a true campaign mode, with the exception of the casualty conservation aspect. I'm not denying it's popular, but thought the operations model was so much better, where terrain and unit status carried over on the same map from one battle to the next.
The entire thing now is a collection of things that are abstracted and things that aren't, and the new player will spend a lot of time trying to figure out which is which, be it how the Action Spots work, or why the buildings are empty shells, or how to shoot around corners with an infantry squad. I'm not saying there shouldn't be abstractions - any good game will have them - it's just strange to see so much modelled in detail right next to things that aren't - and there is the danger with any game that you tread into the Uncanny Valley if the mix is wrong.
For those who just desire an experience where they enter the world and watch the explosions and little people run around, the 3D models are well done and the animations mostly so (I still think they look like they're running underwater, frankly). It's obviously leaps and bounds ahead of the original in that regard. As the fans say, "it's better than all the other games out there" on the same topic and in the same genre. The reader can figure out for himself how many are included in that. But I think the scenario designers are still finding their feet; too many ways to end a battle and scratch your head because you can't figure out what the scenario designer intended you to do - or intended the computer to calculate.
I think the entire game is now geared more to those who just want to "experience" it rather than play it. Certainly, there is little talk of tournament play anymore in the various communities. It would be hard to "balance" many scenarios against each other in the new version in any event.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on August 04, 2012, 06:14:46 PM
I'm the same. I loved the original CM games and played the hell out of them.
I wasn't too thrilled when I read the direction they were taking the series with Shock Force, but I tried the demo. I immediately knew that the new changes weren't for me.
I was interested to see what the game would be like when they announced CMBN, but the demo ran like crap on my PC and looked terrible. I was also very turned off by the overly mercenary nature of Battlefront. Charging for patches, trying to install tool-bars when you installed a game or demo, etc.
I read the excitement in these threads and decided to give the Commonwealth Forces updated demo a whirl. It still looks and runs like crap. Mouse movement of the map is terrible, and they've not given the option for us lefties to remap keys from WASD to the num-pad. No sale for me.
My experience of the CM series has been the opposite in many ways. I liked the original set but found CMSF more interesting and I got used to running things in real time. When CMBN came out, I thought it looked pretty good and I traditionally spend more on games per month than battlefront charges for a game that I play happily for months so in many ways battlefront saves me money.
I kind of wish they had brought out CMFI a bit earlier since I blew three times its price -- but its nice to anticipate getting CMFI in a month or two.