CM Bulge details posted

[JudgeDredd]

I'm pretty sure WaR was always planned as a separate game from CM:BN.

At the same time, I think they'll still be in the module business for the balance of the Eastern Front.

What makes it all hinkey, of course, is that sooner or later they'll jump the engine from 3.0 in a way that requires a substantial upgrade to BN, FI, RT, and BS...

The one thing about which they've been quite quiet since mentioning it is the retrofitting of CMSF with all the goodness that is CMBS.

The terrain and kit additions for WaR (I don't know that that's what they're calling it, but it strikes me as logical) make it well worth my while...

You are 100% correct. This has always been slated for being a stand alone game. And BFC is not out of the module business. You're also correct about future engine Upgrades. But, this title will be (like CMRT and CMBS) using the 3.0 engine. So, 4.0 won't be any time soon.

The way I see it,  New theaters are always full games.  Modules are just for equipment and nationality.

And that sounds great - but it's going to get expensive  :o

[MikeGER]

And that sounds great - but it's going to get expensive  :o

...here is the joined startup-screen pre-alpha of the "4.0 engines" to come for most of our favorite wargame series  ;)
doesn't matter if published by Battlefront, LnL, Slitherine/Matrix, etc.. then

in a future not to far
all grognardish 'wargames'
(you buy a 'licence to use it' anyway already today not the 'game' ...so why not a 'license' a 'ticket to ride' to use it just once
....Dr Evil, marketing director said   )
will be stored and partly executed and surly mandatory connected to something precursory we call 'cloud' today
(a service we are forced more and more to use it whether we all like it or not   ...at the workplace, backups of mobile devices)

probably streamed to our varring VR hardware ...don't get me wrong, the wargame is still good'ol 2D on maps on a screen, but your desktop / gaming place / man-cave itself is all a virtual representation.
...at least we can play while our selfdriving electrical 'cars' (Top Gear would have called it 'a roofed chair for the disabled') will drive us to our destinations...     

[Tuna]

So when you want to upgrade you have to buy each 'patch' individually?

Patches are always free.

You know what I mean.. I only have CMBN with Commonwealth.. I paid for update 2 haven't gotten 3 yet (only reason to, would be to do another pbem with CON), but if I bought Bulge or Red Storm, and then 4 comes out I'd have to by 3 updates? Or does the paid update, fix all your games?

[Boggit]

Of course I'll love Bulge as more Combat Mission goodness.... but ...

Personally, I'd have preferred to see these first -
North African 1940-43 (Modules Compass - Crusader 1941, Gazala-El Alamein 1942, Tunisia 1943);
Blitzkrieg 1939-40 (Modules - Poland 1939, Norway 1940, France (plus Low Countries, Sealion) 1940);
Red Thunder (Barbarossa to Stalingrad 41-42, Kharkov to Korsun 43-44, Gotterdammerung late 1944-1945)
Combat Mission Shock Force v3.0 Upgrade to CMBS standard (plus some new formations units etc - but I'm being ambitiously hopeful here......)

OR
A campaign system overlay similar to what Graviteam has done with Achtung Panzer etc, so you can play your core force in a series of battles linked directly to your campaign - Combat Mission Heaven!

[undercovergeek]

i finally think after maybe 15 years of playing it, im temporarily over WW2 - ive been playing Airland Battle, Red Dragon and CMBS and loving my modern at the minute

[smittyohio]

So when you want to upgrade you have to buy each 'patch' individually?

Patches are always free.

You know what I mean.. I only have CMBN with Commonwealth.. I paid for update 2 haven't gotten 3 yet (only reason to, would be to do another pbem with CON), but if I bought Bulge or Red Storm, and then 4 comes out I'd have to by 3 updates? Or does the paid update, fix all your games?

Given how they sell it on their storefront, I'd say it's 1 fee per game, not per module.  So, if you have CMBN with 2 modules, and CMRS with 2, you'd pay for 2 upgrades to get them to 4.0.   Kind of petty... I think it should be 1 to just upgrade the engine period.

[Father Ted]

Of course I'll love Bulge as more Combat Mission goodness.... but ...

Personally, I'd have preferred to see these first -
North African 1940-43 (Modules Compass - Crusader 1941, Gazala-El Alamein 1942, Tunisia 1943);
Blitzkrieg 1939-40 (Modules - Poland 1939, Norway 1940, France (plus Low Countries, Sealion) 1940);
Red Thunder (Barbarossa to Stalingrad 41-42, Kharkov to Korsun 43-44, Gotterdammerung late 1944-1945)
Combat Mission Shock Force v3.0 Upgrade to CMBS standard (plus some new formations units etc - but I'm being ambitiously hopeful here......)

OR
A campaign system overlay similar to what Graviteam has done with Achtung Panzer etc, so you can play your core force in a series of battles linked directly to your campaign - Combat Mission Heaven!

Funnily enough the Bulge has left me cold (ahem) until I recently started reading about it to put Command Ops:BftB in context ("Battered Bastards of Bastogne" - lots of American first-person accounts) and now I eagerly await this new CM game.

[mikeck]

I do wish they would do something different than mid-late war east/west front
North Africa campaign would be nice as well as a Poland or French theater 1939-1940

[jomni]

PACIFIC THEATER!!!

[JudgeDredd]

NO!

Fulda Gap. Balloon Goes Up. Red Storm Rising. 6 Days War. Vietnam. Korea. Yom Kippur. Desert Storm.

More modern shit....NOW!  ;D

[jomni]

NO!

Fulda Gap. Balloon Goes Up. Red Storm Rising. 6 Days War. Vietnam. Korea. Yom Kippur. Desert Storm.

More modern shit....NOW!  ;D

Falkland?

[JudgeDredd]

Oh yeah  O0

[Staggerwing]

Actually, I wonder how this game engine would do for an Age of Rifles type scenario.

[Sir Slash]

I'd like a North African or early war add-on too. The early war mods for the original CM were great. Nobody loves the Pacific. :'(

[Cyrano]

Going back to CMx1, Steve and Charles both said they find the PTO personally uninteresting.

I believe Charles has said they feel CM:AK was something of a misstep and they won't be back to North Africa.  The fact they CM:FI is what it is suggests as much.

As a side note to all this, I was sitting around on Saturday waiting forlornly for my various PBEM turns and I fired up CM: Afghanistan.  Now, Snowball put none of the polish into this effort that usually comes with CM -- the briefings were driving me insane -- but this is a really good entry into the system that provides likely the only shot we're going to have to play with these scenarios in this engine.  The campaigns particularly are very tense and frustrating.  It revived my hope that BF will figure out a way to back-fill 3.0 into both CM:SF and Afghanistan.  I'd happily pay for both patches.

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)