CM Red Thunder page is up

[Jarhead0331]

- something more serious halfway between Tropico and Jagged Alliance 2.

Sign me up!

[Michael Dorosh]

To be honest, seeing how badly Combat Mission: Afghanistan did or the very lackluster performance of TOW 3 (which featured helicopters, HELICOPTERS!), getting into the Cold War would be extremely... risky. The case for the - let's say, lack of success - of the Afghanistan game is quite a foreboding example of the kind of problems such games can have attracting Western audiences.

Operation Flashpoint did extremely well, though. The problem with CM:A was that it was what was at that time a lackluster game engine coupled with a theatre of war that no one buying computer games could really relate to or have an interest in.

[ComradeP]

Do you know of many? I keep stumbling on these strange things called "DARs" which almost seem engineered to highlight pretty screenshots and poor play.

Clearly, not all AAR's are interesting. Many of my own AAR's are essentially just a quick overview of what the game looks like, with the situation on the map and a description of what happened. They're rarely blow-by-blow (as I mostly play larger scale wargames, this would also be quite time consuming, though potentially quite interesting in its own right).

But I would suggest that trying to learn about the game by reading AARs, and thinking it preferable to playing the game (particularly when demos are available), is a unique take on things.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's preferable per se, but it's one of the ways to make up your mind. It's like what I advise people who want to take a course in something: find out what books you'd need to read, read one of them and see if it's your kind of thing before enrolling. Don't jump in blindfolded.

A demo works well too, but you're never really sure if it gives an accurate impression (as in: if they didn't cherry-pick the best scenarios, or just randomly picked some scenarios). One of the odd things when reading CMx2 AAR's is that you have people in the forum talking about really difficult campaign missions where they have to remove Germans from hill after hill, which is what most of the Italian campaign after the opening stages on Sicily was like, but the AAR's cover mostly meeting engagement-like scenarios or attack/defence missions that evolve into meeting engagements due to the reinforcements arriving in waves for both sides.

Hey ComradeP, at the risk of continuing the back and forth, just let me say the opinion branch extends both ways. I simply think you are mistaken regarding the sophistication of CM and the armour modeling, and have pointed it out as have others.

Sure, to each his own.

One of the reasons why I tend to become more sceptical when I see what seem to be oddities in tactical scale games than in operational scale games is that in a tactical game the loss of a single powerful unit or a handful of units can pretty much guarantee you'll lose. When I see tanks selecting ineffective ammo types, or defending tanks not firing first, that makes me sceptical. Even if it doesn't happen in 99% of all cases, if it happens in a number of the AAR's the impression might be misleading, but it's there.

Operation Flashpoint did extremely well, though.

True, but I've often wondered if it would work on an operational scale. Things were already becoming quite chaotic if you controlled more than 1 squad with vehicle support. I always tried to keep everyone alive if I could, which was quite challenging. ArmA III might potentially be the best of the ArmA series judging by the comments over here thus far, but I felt Operation Flashpoint was better than ArmA I and II.

[Michael Dorosh]

I wish we had a thumbs up feature here - good response Comrade P, thanks.

[JudgeDredd]

Regarding Afghanistan, it's somewhat akin to the CM:SF.

Now I do love Shock Force - but my main love for it is down to the kit available. The actual setting is very, very meh to me. I don't want my armoured infantry units to go head to head with IED's, RPGs and 4x4s with machine guns and AT weapons.

Hence why I mentioned the areas of combat I would prefer - conventional army against conventional army - like the olden days. Afghanistan was likely unpopular because even though it featured Russian kit - it was still mostly against a rebel army.


But - I'm totally lost anayway with the conversation.

I have absolutely no idea what Operation Flashpoint, ArmA I, II or III has to do with the Combat Mission series OR Battlefront.

So adios amigos  ;D

[Bletchley_Geek]

- something more serious halfway between Tropico and Jagged Alliance 2.

Sign me up!

Hmmm

[Mad Russian]

This is an accurate summation. PC:O has a development team still working on it, namely fellows like Steve Overton and Steven Lorenz, the latter being the fellow who wrote Panzer War, the miniatures rules on which Panzer Command is based. For some reason I seem to think that Panzer Command had to switch coders midstream? And may even now not even have anyone in the development stream who is capable of doing the actual computer coding? I stand to be corrected. I admit to not following the situation too closely.

To my knowledge Matrix has dropped all development of the PC series. PCO will more than likely be the last game in the series. To my personal knowledge there is no work being done on the series currently, nor has there been for more than a year.

Good Hunting.

MR

[z1812]

Bletchly_Geek
" Iv'e been thinking for quite some time about the following problem: how to take Command Ops engine to the tactical level."


There is already a plan for Command Ops to move to a tactical level. You may be surprised at who is thinking of it. Link below.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3117106&mpage=1&key=

I just reinstalled Steel Beasts Pro Pe and upgraded to 3.002. The infantry model is improved along with other features and I am wondering if I can have it play more like a wargame than a simulation.

[Bletchley_Geek]

Bletchly_Geek
" Iv'e been thinking for quite some time about the following problem: how to take Command Ops engine to the tactical level."


There is already a plan for Command Ops to move to a tactical level. You may be surprised at who is thinking of it. Link below.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3117106&mpage=1&key=

I know that well  :)

[Bison]

To be honest, seeing how badly Combat Mission: Afghanistan did or the very lackluster performance of TOW 3 (which featured helicopters, HELICOPTERS!), getting into the Cold War would be extremely... risky. The case for the - let's say, lack of success - of the Afghanistan game is quite a foreboding example of the kind of problems such games can have attracting Western audiences.

Operation Flashpoint did extremely well, though. The problem with CM:A was that it was what was at that time a lackluster game engine coupled with a theatre of war that no one buying computer games could really relate to or have an interest in.

CM: Afghanistan is one of my favorites of the series.  To each their own I guess, but I didn't feel like the engine was any less effective then as it was for Shock Force.

[Michael Dorosh]

To be honest, seeing how badly Combat Mission: Afghanistan did or the very lackluster performance of TOW 3 (which featured helicopters, HELICOPTERS!), getting into the Cold War would be extremely... risky. The case for the - let's say, lack of success - of the Afghanistan game is quite a foreboding example of the kind of problems such games can have attracting Western audiences.

Operation Flashpoint did extremely well, though. The problem with CM:A was that it was what was at that time a lackluster game engine coupled with a theatre of war that no one buying computer games could really relate to or have an interest in.

CM: Afghanistan is one of my favorites of the series.  To each their own I guess, but I didn't feel like the engine was any less effective then as it was for Shock Force.

There are metrics to suggest you are in a minority of like-minded players. The very tiny sampling of the annual CM Polls I've been doing each year at BGG might be an inaccurate indicator. Looking at the official forums, the CM:A areas receives almost no traffic - I have actual data for the period just after CM:BN was released, and traffic was actually glacial and appears to still be so. The BFC Repository is another, imperfect, measure, with just 39 files uploaded as compared to 565 for CMSF or over 700 for CMBN.   Again, I realize none of this is solid evidence of who is or isn't buying and playing CM:A - only BFC has the sales figures, but they may be reasonable indicators.

The efficacy of the engine is a debate unto itself. I would agree with you completely, however, that however good the engine was, it was equally suited to the Syrian campaign of CM:SF as it was for the CM:A setting.

[Bison]

Well I think the biggest two factors affecting interest in CM:A were 1. it was a developer independent from BF, which soon after release stopped support, and 2. it was the Soviet/Afghanistan conflict a relatively obscure conflict compared to the usual fare of WW2.

[Keunert]

i always felt like coldwar tactical level games were too complex for my liking. i played several scenarios in TOAW and AT:Gold and with all that helicopter hopping and parachuting i gelt like the battlefield tends to be a hard to analyze mess.

maybe if you got trained with this kind of warfare it is different. but for me this is too much. so for variety i rather like conflicts before than after ww2.

[JudgeDredd]

Man I used to love dropping my paratroopers ahead of a ground force, capturing a town with a road choke point then trying to get there before they were destroyed.

I love the potential ebb and flow of a modern battlefield

[Rayfer]

i always felt like coldwar tactical level games were too complex for my liking. i played several scenarios in TOAW and AT:Gold and with all that helicopter hopping and parachuting i gelt like the battlefield tends to be a hard to analyze mess.

maybe if you got trained with this kind of warfare it is different. but for me this is too much. so for variety i rather like conflicts before than after ww2.

I felt the same way until the recent Flashpoint Campaigns release....that one clicked with me, I've really enjoyed it.