Combat Mission games

[alanschu]

What are the Combat Mission games like?

 

I played a demo of it once, a looong time ago. I did enjoy it. Anyone out there recommend for or against purchasing it?

[baby arm]

CM: Beyond Overlord is only $14 for the next couple weeks, so yeah, buy it.

[alanschu]

I noticed that the two sequels, Afrika Korps and Barbarossa to Berlin are 30% off if you use Direct Download

[Leferd]

Wargamer.com reviews:

 

Beyond Overlord

 

Barbarossa to Berlin

 

Afrika Korps

 

They appeal to the hardcore grognards. It's a fun and involving series if you can get past the archaic graphics.

Edited June 5, 2006 by Leferd

[Leferd]

I noticed that the two sequels, Afrika Korps and Barbarossa to Berlin are 30% off if you use Direct Download

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I suggest that you get a boxed copy with the manuals. Or else, download the game and purchase a manual directly from battlefront.com.

 

The games are complicated enough on their own...last thing you need is to play without the instructions.

[Llyranor]

Yeah, I took advantage of the DD discount and bought all three of them 2-3 days ago (everything digital gets 30% off aside from new releases). CMBO is fine on its own, but if you're going to get the two sequels, go for the bundle one - you get about 10 bucks off.

 

Basically, it's a company-level wargame that uses the WEGO ("pseudo") turn-based method. Basically, give orders to all your units (while your opponent/AI does the same), then the 60-sec round unfolds during 60 secs where you can look around, analyze stuff, but where you can't do anything. Your units act according to your orders (they will also REACT to new threats, and basically try to keep alive, but they won't usually go act on their own most of the time). Then round 2, etc. The format is quite excellent for Play-By-Email. You go, send email to dude, s/he goes, watch round unfold, then next round, etc.

 

There seems to be a LOT of value here. Just checking quickly through Beyond Overlord, it has over *200* battles. Which you can, of course, play through from both sides. There's also about a dozen operations ('mini-campaigns' where you go through multiple battles). Barbarossa to Berlin has around 150 battles and 20 operations. Afrika Korps has around 70 battles and about 7-8 operations, but the battles seem to be on average longer (more rounds).

 

Mind you, all I've done so far was read through the manual and finish the tutorial for CMBO. Though, I played through all the demo battles before buying the games. But, technically, I haven't gone through any 'real' scenario yet. So, heck, if you need a PBEM partner (wink wink) for a daily round, I'm game . We could either go through a 'learn the map from both sides before playing' mode or a 'never played this map before' clean state (though the latter might be impossible if either of us want to play singleplayer - which I do - given the turtle rate of PBEM). To its advantage, though, given the relaxed pace of PBEM, it'd be very convenient. Also, it'd give incentive to carefully analyze every single detail meticulously every round.

 

And then there's the scenario/map editor and quick random battle maker.

Edited June 5, 2006 by Llyranor

[alanschu]

Which game would you want to try out?

 

I'm thinking CMBB would be the one to pique my fancy.

 

I'm vaguely familiar with the game as I did play the BO demo when it came out. I was a Close Combat fan though, so I sort of forgot about this one.

 

I'm game for the clean slate as well, as it would make for some interesting manouvers in the way of mistakes costing us bigtime :D

 

 

One thing I liked about Close Combat was setting up your units from an allocation pool. I wasn't sure if the CM games had that or not in the campaign, which had me somewhat hesitant way back in the day.

 

I'll be in and out of this thread for the moment, as I try out the CMBB demo.

Edited June 5, 2006 by alanschu

[Llyranor]

The thing with the clean state is that we'll *never* be able to go through every battle. Taking an average of ~40 rounds/battle, that's 9-10 battles a *year*. This works great as a distractory 15-30 min per day.

 

What we could do is set aside some battles (or maybe operations?) exclusively for PBEM beforehand.

 

You can't buy units for the scenarios, but apparently you can for the quick battle maker.

 

As for which game, I don't have a preference for any front, I was just going in chronological order of game releases. We can set aside a few (10? 20?) battles, or maybe operations from each game.

[alanschu]

Okay.

 

Are we just sticking with the bundle, or were you hoping to get things started with Beyond Overlord?

[Llyranor]

Whichever you want/have, jerkface.

[alanschu]

Okay. CMBB came out first, we'll start with that. I've heard that the damage model in BB is much improved over BO, so we'll stick with that.

[Llyranor]

Which games did you get?

[alanschu]

I haven't gotten them quite yet (though I should have, as I could be downloading them while at work! Doh!)

 

I'm just going to get the bundle for now. CMBB and CMAK.

[Llyranor]

Alright, we could start with CMBB, then.

[alanschu]

Sounds good.

 

If you have any preference with German/Soviet, you can choose.

[Llyranor]

You get to be the robot boss from Wolfenstein.

[alanschu]

Ok. Try to get a range of operations to sort of quasi simulate the war. I imagine you can pick timeframes and whatnot. Kursk is a must

[Llyranor]

Actually, we could set aside all 20 operations for PBEM if you want. Multi-battle scenarios should be fun.

 

Tell me if these are representative of the Ostfront.

[alanschu]

Haha. I'm game if you are.

 

We'll do them in chronological order naturally. We'll see if your vaunted T-34 is a match for my big and heavy Tiger!

 

The one thing that seems to be missing from games like these (by these I mean Close Combat as well), is the importance of air support. No real way to get it to work I guess. It would be cool if I had to worry about those pesky Ilyushin-2 Shturmoviks!

[Llyranor]

From the manual:

 

"Both sides can have fighter-bombers for close air support (CAS) in a

battle. However, the player does NOT control the actions of his

planes. They roam above the battlefield, spot and engage targets at

their own discretion.

 

Combat Mission does NOT simulate carpet-bombings or large scale

raids. These are outside of the game

Edited June 5, 2006 by Llyranor

[alanschu]

Woooohooooo!!!

 

I mean...damn. Stupid Shturmoviks!

[Llyranor]

Alright, I'm game for the full operations. Chronological order it is. I'll, erm, give you the privilege of arranging it in the proper order.

 

If you want to do battles instead, that's fine too. It won't really make a difference for me since I won't be touching CMBB for a very long time otherwise (CMBO is massive, after all).

[alanschu]

Most of those operations have dates next to them, which will help.

 

Enjoying Beyond Overlord?

 

It it a lot of jumping through the Hedgegrow and whatnot?

[Llyranor]

Like I said, I've only gone through the tutorial for the full game

 

Here's the proper order of things. The red crap shows operations that were designed with sp in mind.

[alanschu]

I'm betting "The Bitter End" is SP only because it's probably pretty lopsided.