OT: Any of you chaps play Combat Mission?

[Javito1986 14]

Hullo! I picked up Battle for Normandy from Battlefront a few weeks ago and have spent the last week playing my first PBEM. Wonder if there's any others around here into that game and series? Would love to find some PBEM opponents from amongst my WW1 flying 'clique'

Edited May 30, 2011 by Javito1986

[SteveLohr 0]

Hullo! I picked up Battle for Normandy from Battlefront a few weeks ago and have spent the last week playing my first PBEM. Wonder if there's any others around here into that game and series? Would love to find some PBEM opponents from amongst my WW1 flying 'clique'

 

 

Javito-I would be interested. I haven't picked it up yet, but have the others in the series. If you want, I'll get it, and we can start a game this weekend.

[Bullethead 12]

Hullo! I picked up Battle for Normandy from Battlefront a few weeks ago and have spent the last week playing my first PBEM. Wonder if there's any others around here into that game and series? Would love to find some PBEM opponents from amongst my WW1 flying 'clique'

 

I used to work for the company that makes CM but haven't played it since I left them. Not that I don't like it, I just haven't had time. I'll have to get back into that.

 

Hell, I don't even know what "Battle for Normandy" is. Is that a remake of the original CM, "Beyond Overlord" ?

[33LIMA 972]

Having been 'into' modern and WW2 wargaming with 1/76 and 1/300 models, I thought I would love games like Combat Mission (original) and more recently Theatre of War, but in truth, I found I don't like any of them much - they seem to be decent simulations of wargames with miniatures, and not simulations of war. Maybe I need to get more into them than I ever managed, to appreciate them...

 

The problem I have is that they give you the role of the commander of a re-inforced platoon or company, in terms of the forces you have and/or the objectives you're given. But then, they make you act as a miniatures wargamer. Now, having had some army experience, I know the way this works in real life. You don't operate like a wargamer does, moving individual tanks or infantry sections about. You get your own orders. You do a combat appreciation (the simplified form I was taught, is 'Aim-Enemy-Ground-Plan') and make your plan. Then you give your orders to your sub-unit commanders; basically give them a formation to adopt (normally 'one up' or 'two up'), an axis of advance, and objectives (areas) to secure/end up in. Break it down into successive phases if necessary. Off they go. You intervene as and when necessary - exercising 'command and control. But not by ordering individual units about; by repeating the cycle, just faster, revising the orders to your sub-unit commanders, who mover their own 'pieces' about, not you, using their own training and initiative to good effect (you hope!).

 

Games like CM or ToW seem to me not to provide the ability to do this, in a form I recognise or appreciate anyway. Sure you can make ad hoc groupings of individual tanks etc for the purpose of giving an order but the mechanics just seem too much like moving miniatures, or groups of miniatures, rather than role-playing the role (sic) of a platoon or company commander. Rome Total War seemed ok, inasmuch as you could group your cohorts and exercise more coherent control.

 

Been a while since I dabbled in wargaming, but the radically-different Wargame Research Group WW2 combined arms rules released in the late 1990s IIRC, finally seemed to have got the point - that what mattered was giving orders to your sub-units who then followed SOPs/tactical drills, not moving miniatures about, or fancy multi-phase turns like the abstruse Challenger rules that seemed to be gaining in popularity. The WRG rules seemed finally to have made the sensible decision, as they put it so well, to break with the traditional fascination with armour thickness and weapon penetration, and concentrate on command and control. Way to go.

 

Much the best sim I ever found for modern-era lower-level combat was Steel Beasts (only ever played the original). Even with its rather excellent approach to setting up your force for the mission, obviously devised by people who understood how 20th Century armies operated on the battlefield, I felt it didn't really give you the tools a real-life commander would use, once the battle had started and you needed to intervene (mainly, the ability to give simulated radio orders to your sub-unit commanders, and AI versions of the latter leaders, who would apply tactical drills to execute them). Overall tho, SB is not just a really good tank sim, it is still by far the best, certainly the most realistic, post-WW2 simulator of platoon and company-level combat, in my experience. Possibly I would have somewhat mellowed my views about the CM/ToW genre, had I persevered and maybe I'm missing it, but CM (original) and ToW in my limited experience, are good wargame simulators, but not-so-good warfare simulators. Fun maybe but not very realistic overall, regardless of weapon capability mechanics. Chess with tanks.

Edited May 31, 2011 by 33LIMA

[Mafiozo 0]

Oh, Combat Mission! boy, have I spent countless hours on that game.

first, Beyond Overlord. played it for hours on end with hundreds of different mods. as I recall there was a REALLY good Battle of The Bulge mod, which I loved very much, side to side with the vanilla setting, in the hedgerows of the Villers-Bocage, zooming onto my British cromwell tank commanders shouting "Chew on that, Fritz!". loved that

 

I also vividly recall waiting with excitement for my CMBB disc to arrive, back in October 2002. excited like a 16 year old girl (at the time I was the same age, just as a boy).

the first scenario I played blew me away - a battle not too far from Moscow, October 1941.

 

I loved CMBB, felt that it brought back the Honor that the Eastern Front deserved, on terms of wargaming. the only other games I really enjoyed on the subject were East Front II - Fall of the Reich, Combat Mission 3 and Red Orchestra. but I don't want to hijack your thread into a general WWII gaming thread.

 

truth to be said the Battle for Normandy demo set me off a little. maybe it has to do with the crappy FPS(which is weird since I have a GTX 470), but your message prompted me to go check it again when I have the time.

Edited June 2, 2011 by Mafiozo

[markl 1]

I dabbled with the first three and liked Beyond Overlord the best. I found the last two lost the fun more grind. But I admit I am more casual. I think the first three were the best. I tried the first of the modern series but did not like it, but the new interface and mouse movements are quiet good.

 

I really liked the quick battles of the first three, endless replayability and lots of texture mods to improve them.

There were some really good scenarios as well. I remember Bullet Head in the forums at the time.

 

I will reinstall them sometime.

 

Regards MarkL

[MikeDixonUK 5]

I got Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy yesterday and am trying to get used to it - I did get Shock Force and played it a bit but the performance was poor, plus it wasn't quite the same as a WW2 environment (also the quick battles were a bit naff) - Battle for Normandy seems much better though, plus it runs much better (granted I had a different graphics card when I tried Shock Force.)

 

Still a bit of a noob though it must be said, although hopefully the situation will improve when the box and the physical manual arrive in the post.

 

I also played the original, which I have fond memories of (seem to remember an operation that lasted quite a while, and had different times of day - so it started in daytime, then there was a ceasefire and the next bit was at night time with all your units in the same places etc, which at the time I thought was amazing!)

 

Tried the Africa one but it didn't seem as good.

Edited June 4, 2011 by MikeDixonUK