Combat Mission: Shock Force 2 - at Steam

[Skybird]

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4GoC7Glvqak/XGnZJHDOfSI/AAAAAAAAD_o/jrD4mwa_K-kPQHeQaNXCtf3krSBul-6DwCLcBGAs/s1600/18-12-07-1.jpg


Just wanted to let you all know that one of the probbaly best tactcial ground combat simulations soon will be released on Steam, in two weeks from now on.

The game is a rewiork of the first title, broght to their latest engine.

All three modules for it will be available, too.

Battlefront is often criticised for their PR, I read. Their business model is their biggest handicap, they really did what they can to find themselves not more customers than was inevitable. I could not order from them at all, since it seems they only accept payment by credit card, and I have given up on that, and preloaded cards are not available over here anymore. No paypal. (For the same reason I do not have the latest version of Steal Beasts anymore: they too only accept credit card).

For all who had this or other reasons why they did not want to buy from Battlefront directly, Steam is the elegant solution. Price is not announced yet. Unfortunately I cannot benefit from the massive price drop for oweners of the first version this way. But okay, I can afford it, and the game is really solid.


I played the first one extensively, best tactical ground combat sim I ever played. Not flawless, but good enough.

Unfortunately, Combat Mission: Black Sea is not listed at Steam. I would be interested in that one, too.


https://www.battlefront.com/shock-force-2/cmsf2-base-game/?tab=features


https://www.slitherine.com/news/combat-mission-shock-force-2-out-on-august-25th

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369370/Combat_Mission_Shock_Force_2/

[Bilge_Rat]

yes, great game, I have both 1 and 2. CMSF2 has basically the same content as 1, but brings all the engine improvements done over the years, many graphical improvements and most of the new toys from "Black Sea" like drones, so it actually feels like a new game. It is the best simulation of modern tactical combat out there IMHO.

The scenarios and campaigns have also been upgraded to take advantage of the improvements.

Note that if you own 1, you can get a huge discount on 2 by buying directly from the Battlefront website.

Only CMSF2 is coming to Steam, but I would expect all the other titles to eventually be available.

[Skybird]

Only CMSF2 is coming to Steam
Yes, but with all three modules (British troops, Marines troops, Dutch/German/Canadian troops). Each comes with not only new units and wepaons, but its own campoaigns and single missions. Plenty of fodder.

Has the interface changed? One review also complaine dabout the AI having single entities in panci mode running headlessly inc ircles until getting put down, and some other AI issues, but that was after release 20 months ago.

I wonder which mind had the great idea to imagine the Germans would ever engage in strength in a ground war in Syria. Will not happen, never. LOL

The main game 2 costs 60 dollars and each module 35 dollars. Idf you order at BF and can convince them that your account is still valid and you have serial numbers from game 1, you can get game and all modules for I think 65 dollars (instead of 165 dollars).


The Steam release is on August 25th, btw.

[Bilge_Rat]

Interface is the same. As far as I can see, pretty much all AI issues have been fixed. There was a bug regarding how infantry behaved under artillery fire, but that was fixed in the last patch.

The NATO forces involved, i.e. U.S.Army, USMC, Germans, Canadians and Dutch was based on who was active in Iraq and Afghanistan when the game was designed, i.e. 2005-2007 ish, since it was easy to get info on how the comabt groups were deployed in actual combat operations.

For example, the Canadian Battle Group in CMSF, basically a reinforced infantry battalion, was a carbon copy of the BG deployed to Afghanistan. They also used the Princess Patricia BG because that was the one due to rotate to Afghanistan in mid-2008 and the one most likely to have been involved in the fictional invasion of Syria.

re: the Germans. Part of the reason they were chosen is because everyone loves to play with German forces. It's a holdover from WW2 games. They also have some cool equipment! :ping:

I was a beta tester on both CMSF1 and CMSF2 so have a lot of hours in that game.

[Skybird]

That argument for the Germans is understandable, but still: Germans in a major war operation with tnaks and such in the ME: totally unrealistic. Zeitgeist and history would never allow that. They went to extensive intellectual distortions to not call the Afghanistan mission a war at all.

Anyway, I think I will go for it at Steam, I am in the mood for having another go with it all.

I would also like to see Combat Mission: Black Sea at Steam. Everbody loves to play as the Germans, you say. Well, everybody also loves to fight the Russians. And I would expect them to be more capable a force than the Syrians. Plus Ukraine geographic ambience (Eastern European wood- and famr lands i nstead of arid desert places).

For those not knowing the games, don't be alarmed: both games were designed BEFORE the real world wars in Syria and the Ukraine broke out. They did not intend to profit from the real world events.


I hope the Germans handle better than in the firts game, I vaguel reclal that I found severla bugs in them, related tio how to make them going for Panzerfaust reloads stored in their PCs, and such things. It made playing them am excercise in painful micromanagement, and bug-related failure at times, the Panzerfausts did not work as is to be expected. I found it very difficult to play as the Germans, their force strucxture did not match with my ideas.

[Bilge_Rat]

Hi, the bug with the panzerfausts had already been fixed with one of the last patch for SF1.

Black Sea and Shock Force are different of course, the Russians are generally better trained and have better equipment than the Syrians. Syrians were generally equipped with older equipment and the Russians did not export their latest technology. Intrestingly, it was easier to get info on what the Syrians had and their capabilities based on the fact that most of the equipement had been acquired many years before and a lot of the same type of weapons had been used against Israeli and NATO forces. It is harder to get a handle on what the Russians can do since they keep their best stuff under lock and key.

[Skybird]

There were more issues with the Panzerfaust back in those years. The reload-from-PC bug was cured, I now recall, you are right, but it remained impossible to get the troops firing them from off a roof, even if it were just second floor roof. There was one (night, I think) mission where I depended heavily of getting my Panzerfaust shooters into good positions and elöevated places, and when they reached them in one piece I always learned that they refused to fire from there (roofs, windows), I had to order them back on the ground, leave the house, since shooting from windows also did not work I think, and then they got put down my small arms fire, of course.



Such things can ruin such a match, game, mission easily, and I often was frustrated or furious. I stopped playing with the Germans then. After all, playing with the Americans always was the easiest, and their equipment names simpyl is more familiar. The British did not help me that much, since I could not make sense of the many uncommon names and abbreviations for vehicles and weapons, I did not know what they were and what they can and cannot do.

[Bilge_Rat]

The issue there, and there were a lot of heated dicussions about it in the forums, is that some of those weapons like the Panzerfausts or RPG or bazookas can kill or injure the shooters if fired from a small room due to the back blast. Javelin ATGMs do not have that issue since the missile is first expelled by a soft launch and then fires when clear of the building. At the time of SF1, BFC took a hard line approach and just prevented the AI from firing those weapons from inside a building.

Since then, new research was provided, especially on the use of Bazookas in WW2. Now the approach in CMSF2, and CM games generally, is that all those weapons can be fired from inside a building, but there is a chance the shooter can be wounded or suffer a morale hit (i.e be rattled or pinned for a few minutes).

p.s. - you can find a lot of videos of untrained fighters firing RPGs from inside small rooms and basically destroying everything in the room from the back blast.

[Skybird]

Okay, I thought of that blast myself considering rooms, okay - but roofs? Not even on small, low buildings? Its the ideal shooting position for such weapons: targetting the vehicles vulnerable top, and maybe benefitting from limited uowards viewing of the target, and limited upwards engagement angles of the vehicle's weapons, namely huge gun barrels (the Russian tanks in Ossetia 2008 suffered from that problem: to not being able to engage targets in very close, nearby high block buildings that fired on them from the upper floors, both main gun and coaxial were affected by the elevation limit, they lost quite some tanks due to that, I recall).

It was my impression in that bscenario that it was the building itself, the low walls around flat roofs, that confused the AI. Even more so since I had US troops very well shooting from roofs. The AI did noit even shoot at far away distance, with the laucnh trajectory and view being almost horizontally, and not steep down. The sam eunit ma yhave fired with small arms fire at the same time the sam epsotiin wa snot used by Panzerfaust Shooters.

But anyhow, maybe I get carried away, its a 13 years old game, and playing it is years ago for me, so - forget it. I get the new version and see how it goes.

[Bilge_Rat]

if you liked SF1, you will love SF2.

[Skybird]

I only hope the letter size in the texts and menues is bigger, I get eye cancer from the microscopic symbols in the first part (at full HD on 24"). :) Smaller is not always better. Often it simply is too small, with reading glasses as well as normal glasses. Habe started to read the manual again for the first games, I needed some refreshing.

[Bilge_Rat]

btw, forget to mention, but if you want to try out CMSF2 now, there is a FREE demo, link:


https://www.battlefront.com/shock-force-2/cmsf2-base-game/?tab=demo

All Combat Mission games come with free demos so you can try first before deciding to buy.

Another plus is that there is also a Mac version and it is not a second class port like you often see, but a native Mac program. The lead developers are Apple nuts so they make sure the Mac version is first rate. I use both, a windows version on my PC and a Mac version on my Mac Book Pro.

[Skybird]

Now I feel dumb. I knew there is a demo. Why haven't it come to my mind to try it out...?!

Will do now, thanks.

BTW, do you know a way to also free campaign missions from their time limits? Campaign missions, once baked, cannot be edited like single missions (in CMSF 1) , I tried to use the save game file and changign the index from .bts to .btt, but it did not work.
If there is one thing I totally dislike in any and every sort of game, than playing with time limits, no matter what. It has been like this since 30 years, and it probably will not change in the coming 30 years. :arrgh!: :) I even stopped tournament chess and switrched to correspondence chess 25 years ago, due to this antipathy. Don't rush me, never!!

[Bilge_Rat]

re: campaigns, no in game editing tool, but there are third party tools developped by users that allow you to edit, although I never tried them.

However, a lot of the newer campaigns often give you 1h30 to 2h30 to complete missions.

[Skybird]

I am not aware of any editor that lets you edit baked campaign files, you need the original files of the individual missions to redesign them, and then bake a new campaign. Also, googling for such a campaign editor, leads me - nowhere. I tried three search termini and checked four pages deep each result. I had searched for that already years ago, again with no result then.

The ingame editor only allows you to edit single missions. Not baked campaigns.


I tend to play step by step, also so that I can observe action taking place individually, its more entertaining this way. Thats why I do not like time pressure to artifically raise mission diffioculty. Often I have reached good progress without losses worth to be worried by - and the jst take risks that amssacre my troops becasue time is running out. In realit,y this simply would not be accepted, and it ruins the entertainment I get from the game.

[Bilge_Rat]

see here:

http://community.battlefront.com/topic/125976-campaign-editing/

I have not tried it, but apparently it works, it unpacks the campaign into individual scenarios, you make changes and then recompile the campaign.

[Skybird]

Thanks, I did not know of this.


Unfortunately it does not work, maybe its broken or it is a W10 thing. It "fails to load" (error message) just every .cam-file (campaign file) I direct it to, also .btt- (single scenario) and .bts- (saved games) files do not get imported.


Not your fault, thanks nevertheless. :salute:

[Skybird]

Bilge Rat,

do you know a mod that replaces the interface with a bigger one, with bigger symbols and fonts? I test-played the new game in the demo, and find the interface worse to decypher than in the first game. They really seem to try to make it as small as techncially possible, leaving big black boxes of unused spacein the left and right bottom corners, and colours have been taken out of much of their symbols, making the thing even more difficult to see due to the low contrast, steel on steel colour.

Sigh. So many game developers have good ideas and do good games - but on ergonomy many of them have no real clue. Tiny windows. Tiny. fonts. Tiny buttons. Tiny, tiny, tiny, as tiny as possible, please - as if that is a quality in every case. It isn't. Sometimes not smaller is beautiful, but bigger is beautiful.

I have read in the manual what they listed in the beginning on added details in the game. Some of that is okay - but I wonder whether it really is that big a deal. I played two missions of the five, and played them again in the first game, and honestly said I fail to see a big difference in gameplay. The squads still love to form big flocks at one window to get taken out by one salvo or grenade if you do not micromanage them and split them and distrubute them - and then after some time they rejon once again anyway. Vehicles still often refuse to travel in diagonal lines different to 45° angles, but approach their destination in strange first-vertical-then-45°-diagonal fashion like knights in chess, which often is not supporting my intentions, but puts them in harms way. They still brake too much or come almost to a standstill when their attached route calls for a slight chnage in direction, making them sitting ducks for s seocnd or two, trcks mroe so than wheeled ones. The textures on vehicles and uniforms are crispier, yes, and some more vegetation in the landscape, but at a distance the structure of land tiles looks more blurry, making it difficult to read elevations. Finally, in the Wargamers I read that they had updated - at the time of their review - only the default missions, but not those in the modules. Any word on whether that has been done meanwhile? Possible that I do not know some of the changes they claim that have done under the hood. But then, if changes under the hood do not make themselves felt in ordinary gameplay, then I am a little bit unconvinced of the need for them in the first.

I am disillusioned a bit, I must admit. For something switching its title from version 1.0 to version 2.0, roughly one ten years of time between both versions, I expected more substantial improvements, honestly said. Version one came I think in 2007. The new one in late 2018, or not?

For newcomers to the game, this is not to say its not a good sim, it is still a very good one, and I recommend to buy it if you do not have it But for those like me who already have version 1.0, I am not so sure about the need to invest money into version 2.0 It looks to me as if there is too little improvement. And the graphics engine alone does not cut it for me either.


Maybe they add a steam workshop. So that downlaoding and integrating missions becomes absolutely a breeze. That maybe could hook me on a bit.


That interface is a real problem for me, I have 5-6 diopters on both eyes, and am 53 years of age, and no matter whether I wear my usual or my reading glasses, too much of the texts and labels and symbols I cannot read, when I really need to see the right tiny microscopic detail I end up taking off glasses and moving close until my nose almost touches my 24" screen at full HD resolution. Even the mission briefings are in this 25 years old single-pixel-sized micro font lettering. :k_confused:
Thanks for reminding me of the demo option, I had completely overlooked it. Obviously it paid off for me to use it - just not for the result I hoped for (and that you maybe expected: but that is not your fault). :06:


P.S. I will try to reduce screen resolution. this kind of prehistoric workarounds should not be needed anymore in the year 2020, but maybe it works to increase the interface and font size. Of course the world then becomes more pixilated, too...

[Bilge_Rat]

hi, yes UI is an issue, no mod unfortunately.

They are still updating the campaign scenarios. The updated USMC, Canadian and Dutch campaign were released last year and the British campaign should be released in a few months.

Re: changes. Yes, a lot are under the hood, improvement to artillery, AI, tweakinf weapon effect, etc. The simulation is a lot deadlier now if you do not use proper combined arms tactics.

[Skybird]

Interface size and font size can be increased by lowering general resolution, I found. But on wide screens, the ini file must be directly changed with a proper 16:9 res, if one uses one of the three default resoluaitons in game menu, one gets a slightly distored image (round wheels are mild ovals...).

They really should have improved that. They keep 15-20 year old tech standards there and sell that as a revamp?

Anyway, workaround kind of works. 1360x768 works good for me. Scratch one off the list for the time being. General image quality is a bit softer, and contrast, also of fonts, is diffused a bit, but the interface finally is recognizable again.

[Threadfin]

They keep 15-20 year old tech standards there and sell that as a revamp?




Yep. I own most Combat Mission titles, but they are stuck in the last century. I'm hoping the Slitherine partnership will in some way get Battlefront to get with the times, but I doubt that will happen.


Listen, I love the tactical part of the game, the battlefield. Combat Mission is exceptional in terms of ballistics, spotting and C2. But in almost every other way the series is very much out of date.


The series desperately needs a new model, in my view. A complete re-imagining from the ground up. Interface, graphics, AI, campaign system, editor, well the works. As long as the players have no way to easily generate campaigns and other content, and instead are tethered to the supply chain from the admirable yet unprolific authors, it will remain where it is. A great tactical battlefield brought down by all that surrounds it.

[Skybird]

The title has an editor, just saying. Whether it handles easily or not I cannot judge, I just used it to increase time limits in single missions. The tricky part in such editors usually is any kind of scritping needed to make AI units move around without just reacting to tatcicaql movement by the player. And I have not tried this, so cannot comment.

I do not expect the latest gfx fireworks in games like this, and I think CM does a very lot of thigns very right. Even the interface is not all badly thought out - its just graphically outdated and difficult to read.

What could be needed as well is improvements for the AI, the AI infanry especially can be quite suicidal, and here again in urban fighting.

The WWII titles int nhe series I do not know, I only know Shock Force and modules. I saw videos, Shock Force and probbaly here again ShockForce 2 are much more lethal. "What gets seen is almost as good as dead", is often the motto. Modern weapons and sensors get depicted as incredibly lethal technology. Well, I know that kind of lethality from Steel Beasts Pro, so I am not surprised by that.


I would still prefer Shock Force to for example Armored Brigade, which has the same focus, but simplifie smroe and is in many detials more unrealistic. B ut players who feel overwhelemed by Shock force, may want to give it a try, its simplier and maybe more attractive for some people. Played from abstract map view, however, and visually not as enhanced as SF.

[Threadfin]

There is an editor, yes, but it is cumbersome. Even just making a map is a chore.


The main issue with the AI as I see it, is that it's not really an AI at all. Combat Mission uses scripting and triggers. The AI behaves how the scenario designer set it up to behave. There is no ability to react, exploit, tactically withdraw. It cannot think on the fly to reinforce success or seal off penetrations. This is just one area where Combat Mission needs a reworking. Any sort of campaign generator would require a functioning AI, not that Battlefront have any plans for such a thing.


The TacAI works pretty well, but the AI in general is basic, which in turn affects the replayability of any given scenario. AI Plans were introduced to address this, but in practice they have little real effect. The AT gun may have moved if you replay the scenario, but everything else is the same -- the terrain, the forces, the objectives.


I agree with what you wrote earlier Skybird, about how you were disillusioned with SF2. I'm mainly a WW2 player, but I bought SF2 (I did not own SF1). And while I enjoy it, the tactical gameplay, I was disappointed with how little was improved, and how little new content had been produced. Players praise things like Engine 4, but the improvements are minor. I like being able to see my indirect fire kill stats. But then again, for most titles, they charge $10 for this.


Engine 4 changes:


-- Added hulldown command
-- Improved infantry spacing
-- Added ability to peek around corners (which really wasn't needed and introduced other problems, particularly with pathing)
-- F/O kill stats now displayed
-- Added screen edge pan toggle
-- AI Area Fire Orders (The AI can now be scripted to use area fire)
-- Added AI facing order
-- Added AI withdrawal order.

So really, the extent of the 'big upgrade' was making troops spread out more and adding a couple of new orders in the UI. Battlefront can do as they please, but in my view charging players for such a small improvement is a bad move.



I have a thousand comments to make, but I will spare you. I am a long-time player, since the CMBO demo, and I have dropped a lot of money on it. I think Combat Mission is the finest tactical battlefield simulator on PC. But it is well and truly stuck, whether by choice or limitation is hard to say. I want the series to evolve, to the point where the player experience is given as much weight as the amazing detail given to formations and uniform details. But in a very general sense, Battlefront gives us the hammer and nails, and expects us to do the building. For me, the best thing that could happen would be the creation of a campaign generator, which would allow the player to easily produce endless content tailored to his preferences. Of course this would require a real AI and number of other things that do not exist in Combat Mission, so I have no reason to think it will happen, not least are Steve's comments through the years essentially dismissing the idea.


I no longer feel compelled to purchase new products, what I already have is more than enough, and especially so as there is little new, little innovation or new features. The move to Steam is a good one, but there is nothing I want to buy now. I skipped CMFB, and I am even skipping the new CMRT module, and that's one of my favorite titles (I recently played through the excellent Blunting the Spear campaign). For me, the late-war is far less interesting than the early war, but Battlefront clearly disagree. So until there is a major shift in direction I will keep my money in my pocket or spend it on other things. I want them to do well and keep this series going, but it needs to get with the times for me.

[Bilge_Rat]

well, I will agree the CM series is not perfect, no game is, but if you are into simulations, the market is very limited. CM offers the best 3d tactical land simulation IMHO, which is why I keep coming back to it.

Yes, the AI is limited, but you could say that about any sims. Note there is a large multi-player crowd since there is of course, no substitute to playing against a real human. One the thing I like about CM is that you can play by email, sort of like old time playing Chess by mail.

[Threadfin]

the CM series is not perfect, no game is, but if you are into simulations, the market is very limited. CM offers the best 3d tactical land simulation IMHO, which is why I keep coming back to it.




I agree in principle, but there is not enough new from one title to the next to compel their purchase. I am a campaign player and if campaigns were given some sort of priority I might have bought CMFB. But what did it ship with, was it two campaigns? If you search the usual suspects for downloadable campaigns you might find two or three more. Combat Mission is not really made for me despite it's suitability. CMBN and CMSF2 are the best in this regard, they have the most content. But the other titles suffer from this lack of content. And will continue to as long the same laborious process is required to make it and is left to the player base to produce it.


I may be cherry-picking an extreme example, but one of the best (and certainly longest) campaigns in CM is Paper Tiger's Road to Montebourg for CMBN. I read one of his posts and he stated it took him 800 hours! to make that campaign. It is very long, so that is part of it, but until that can be trimmed to 20 minutes (set up a generated campaign) the series will suffer from a lack of campaign content.


Single scenarios and even the QMB leave me cold. It's funny, but in CMx1 games I had a lot of fun with the QMB. But they inexplicably took away the Combined Arms setting, meaning AI force composition is all out of whack. And while I could pick the enemy forces that's no good as I would already know what they have, removing any sense of the unknown, which is vital for a game like this.


PBEM is fun, but unless you have a friend to play with I find that opponents' enthusiasm is directly proportional to their success. Rare is the battle that reaches the end before the turns simply stop coming.


There are only a few titles I do not own, so like I said I have enough to keep me playing when I feel the urge for some CM. What I think is needed in a general sense is a core engine where every module plugs in to it, allowing cross-play between them with a way to easily generate campaigns to ensure endless replayability. Remove the tether to the anemic supply chain and let me produce content custom-tailored to my taste.

[Skybird]

Well, I am neither impressed by the campaigns because to me they are in principle non-dynamic single missions (whose time limtis cannot be edited out) , nor do i own the other titles of theirs, WWII is not so much my thing. I saw some videos about them, and thought "Wat für'n Kuddelmuddel..." Combat Mission for me pretty much starts and ends with Shock Force.

[Bilge_Rat]

The advantage of campaigns is that you have to manage your force and minimise casualties by planning for future battles, so it puts you more in role of the actual commander. The disadvantage is that campaigns take a long time to do, so the number is always limited. They also have limited replayability value.

In CMSF2, if you ever buy it, the best campaigns IMHO are the Dutch and the Canadian one, both of which have been reworked from SF1. BTW, the Canadian Campaign was made by Paper Tiger.

[Threadfin]

As I mentioned I have SF2. I've played Task Force Thunder and the two campaigns you mentioned plus a few more that were either included with the game or that I downloaded from the usual sites.


I've talked a lot about it on other sites, but Battlefront were headed in the right direction with the Operations which came out with CMBB. They were flawed, but the concept was more in line with what I have in mind. Then that was scrapped entirely after CMAK and we are left with what I call the episodic system we have been playing for 15 years now.


I think Combat Mission:Campaigns was intended to fill this gap, but that failed and nothing filled the void. I don't hate the current system, but I do think it's far less than it could be, or even should be, given the fantastic battlefield, and excellent spotting, ballistics and C2 that Combat Mission offers.

[Threadfin]

Speaking of campaigns, I started a thread at SimHQ to give my impressions of a number of campaigns. Mostly it's for WW2 titles, with some SF2 at the end. It got no traction over there due to the dispassionate member base, so it's rather incomplete, and totally subjective. But if anyone is looking for campaign impressions, it may be worth a read.


Combat Mission campaign reviews (https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4490340/combat-mission-campaign-reviews#Post4490340)

[Skybird]

As I mentioned I have SF2. I've played Task Force Thunder and the two campaigns you mentioned plus a few more that were either included with the game or that I downloaded from the usual sites.
I did mention what campaigns exactly...? :06: For the most I play single missions, these can be loaded in the edtior to "switch off" time limits, if there are any. I just hate playing under time limits. Chess, Combat Mission, anything, it doe snot matter. Campaiogn missions are "baked", cannot be opened up for doing that. That tool that Bilde Rat linkied earlier, did not work for me, is apparently broken. It refuses to recognise and load any campaign files.

[Threadfin]

I did mention what campaigns exactly...?




I was replying to this, which is the post directly above my reply.





In CMSF2, if you ever buy it, the best campaigns IMHO are the Dutch and the Canadian one, both of which have been reworked from SF1. BTW, the Canadian Campaign was made by Paper Tiger.

[Skybird]

One thing that I desperately miss and what I remembered after playing another mission this evening again after long time, is that I cannot make notes on the map, I mean markers for planned positions and destinations, to coordinate vehicle movement better, or mark suspected enemy positions. Made me cursing in the apst - and still today. In urban areas, you can use nearby buildings for mentla notes on places and locations, but in an open plain without features, you are lost.



Not even numerical GPS coordinates, or a map with squares and coordinates! :)

[Threadfin]

You must be playing on some big maps!

Drop a spotting round next to 'em and you'll have a marker in the form of a shell hole. Not a very elegant solution to be sure.

Then again, in SF2 it's rare the enemy will just be deployed in the middle of nowhere. Usually there will be a trench at least. Which scenario are you playing?

[Skybird]

I am more about maintaining cohesion of formation, especially during approach or transit. And scenarios with single RPG shooters in the middle of a field between farming complexes.



I tend to absilutely hate kaing losses in this title, I tend to not run a storming stampede, but to meticulously micromanage every units movement and final pspootion. Plus SF has no hull-down command, making it even more important to really scan open terrain for slightest of elevations carefully. In a way, I play it like chess - move by move, building up step by step and hiopefully staying out of sight for as long as possible so that indirect fire does not spoil it for me. It may not be realistic, but it is the way I enjoy it - and keep losses extremely low, hopefully.

[Skybird]

Steam release delayed. New date Septembre 1st.

https://www.wargamer.com/articles/combat-mission-shock-force-2-steam-release-delayed/

https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/combat-mission-shock-force-2-how-to-redeem-steam-keys

[Skybird]

Its released at Steam. Main game 35 Euros, each of the three modules 30 Euros, all four together as one superpack 90 Euros. My location is Germany.

[Skybird]

Interview: why the game actually made the jump to Steam.


https://www.wargamer.com/articles/combat-mission-shock-force-2-steam-interview/

[Skybird]

Tried, and refunded.

I played a single mission for 100 minutes, the first in the German campaign, which i know quite well. I played the same strategy and moves. I noticed the Germans had not those two mortars additonal to their howitzers anymore, else evertyhing seems to have been the same. I noticed no differences. None. The looks are the same, too. The sounds. Its practically identical to the first version. I am not certain that the textures were new, if they are, the difference does not spring to the eye. The landscape at a distance is slightly more "smeary" and more difficult to read, I would not call this an improvement, I have been in these regions, it simply is not like this. The differences they list to have made, like hull down, infantry watching at both corners of a wall or house etc, did not make themselves felt at all. Whatever they have changed under the hood, it is of practically zero relevance in practical gameplay. Worse, the aI has not improved, makes the same silly things on occassions as before, runs on the point while slowly sneaking to the door in assault or fast mode, tracks terribly bad a route to waypoint on occasions. Here would have been the most obvious opportunity to improve the game. I read they have amphibious swimming units now, well, honestly said, I do not care too much. This is Syria. In the Black Sea game that might be more relevant.

That is way too little for a verison 2, and another call for money. They obviously shied away from investing some real work leading to a worthy version 2, me thinks. The graphics engine is - how old? It performs the same in this game as it doesin the version 1 game for me. I can run it easily, but with plenty of units in sight it has low frames for s second, becasue in no way does the engine make use of multi core processin, it uses just one. Heck its the year 2020 and i use an i7 8700K and 32 GB.

Its a good game, still, if you are new to the series, go for it, its probably the best of its kind, I am just about that if you already have version 1, there is no reason to think of this one and pay much or ltitle money for it. Even for a up-polish for 30 bucks updating fee from a previous version, its too little what you get new, additional. And as I said, the sometime sshowing obvious weaknesses of the aI all are still there. I do not say the game drowns in aI bugs, it does not, but on some critical superhot occasions you see them doing stupid stunts that make you yell and curse and can turn a squad into freshly grinded meat within two, three seconds. My fsvourte was three Marders for no apparent reason starting to crisscross through a small settlement, in reverse, wildly, while not beign under fire (but then attracting missiles from the distance while trying to advertise their presence,: they finally succeeded.

In principle this game is so good it desperately deserves a complete new engine, and massive AI overhaul. If they would do that, and then market it via Steam and Slitherine, then they would have a potential hit on offer. But this way as it is in CMSF2, it is just 13+ years old coffee powder used for the x-th time. The original SF1 was second version of their CMX game engine, this SF2 now should be version 4.

Disappointing a bit.

[Threadfin]

I agree with your conclusions.

I was disappointed in it too (we re talking about SF2 right?). I did not buy Shock Force, but bit on SF2, and while I like it, that's mostly down to never playing the original. If I had I would have been more disappointed.

Battlefront need a complete revolution with their design and roadmap. Re-releasing Shock Force to me is a sign that the well is dry. That was a lot of work to basically give us the same game again. The engine changes are minor in the grand scheme, and anyway only affected a very small bit of the available content, most of which is still SF1-level.

I'm a long-time player, going back to the original CMBO demo, and I'm done buying new products until there's a major change. I have no compelling reason to buy new, the many titles I already own are more than enough when I want a CM fix.

I still think that the tactical battlefield is the best of its kind, and I have high praise for WEGO, spotting, C2 and ballistics. But virtually everything else is outdated or substandard, including but not limited to AI, campaign system, UI, camera, editor, QMB, graphics and more. I may have made these same points further up the thread, but there ya go.

Battlefront need to get with the times. They have fallen behind. As a long time player this is not good, but it's been the case for a decade at least. And it's OK, it's their product and they can do as they wish. And there is plenty of gaming to keep me going without Combat Mission.

[Bilge_Rat]

Re-releasing Shock Force to me is a sign that the well is dry.

well no actually, SF2 was released because a lot of players wanted the original SF brought up to the same standard as the other games. If you had SF1, you could upgrade to SF2 at 75-80% off the price which is a pretty good deal.

BFC actually put a lot of effort into SF2, originally it was just supposed to be a software upgrade, but they wound up putting in a lot of new units and reworking all the scenarios, campaigns and QB system.

So far, CMSF2 has been very well received on Steam, reviews are very positive.

As to what the future holds, new modules are coming out for the existing games, CMRT next.

Is the CM series perfect? no, but BFC is the only company making these kinds of 3D tactical land warfare games. which is why I keep coming back.

The big advantage of the CM series is the MP community. I have a bunch of PBEM games going and these games really shine when you are playing a human opponent.

[Skybird]

Actually, i still have SF2. They refused to refund. Steam insists on that I had played more than 2 hours, while I had actually a timer running down to 90 minutes and an alarm at the end, and I am very confident that I had not exceeded the time limitz, and very clearly so.

Well, I wa snot in the mood for endlessly trading emails, and I can afford beign dumped this time, and so I left it to that. Needless to say that I will enver trust their refunding pllciy again and will never test-buy a game again. That way, they have in the long run lost more regarding me and my wallet, than they have gained this time. Small gain. Bigger loss.

Having played three missions in it that I know well form the first game, I fial to see the claimed "biog" changes. There are some small chnages in the OOB of these scenarios, a mssing prtar here, a Fuzchs instead of a Marder reionforcmeen tthere. Changing scenario OOB I do not rate as game engine uodates. Whatever the yhave done to the engione and under the hood, the chnages are so small that they escape the eye in ordinary gameplay. There is the hull down command, whcih works, well , not as you would want it, and I do not use it anymore, only "hunt", as before. The flaws also still are there. And I woudl swear that wheeled and even tacked vehciles get even more easily stuckl at moderate and low speeds but opffroad, than was the case in v1. The infantry A1 still sometiomes acts maybe A, but not I. No visible improvements there.

I stick to it, this is not a visibly new game engine, and it looks and sounds the same (playing German scenarios). For itself, its a good game, and new players ot the series cna be invited fullheartly to it. But there is no justfiication worth any money for owener of the verison 1 game. The differences are too minor.

BTW, Bilge Rat, the app you linked me to when I asked you about unbaking campaigns to get the single missions into the editor, did not work in version 1 of the game, and did not work with the demo of v2, but now with the full version of v2, also the modules cna be loaded and their cmaopaigns unbaked - except the British campaign. The British cannot be loaded into the app, all others can.

Seen that way I gained something, though at a cost.

[Threadfin]

well no actually


Are you suggesting that Battlefront put aside their plans for entirely-new products in order to make happy the people who wanted an updated SF1? SF2 is just more of the same, and all of the work they did makes little difference as both I and Skybird alluded to. Drones are cool yeah, and I can see my F/O kills now. Engine 4 is not a leap forward, it's a tweak that should have been a free patch, not a paid product (for each game even!) or requiring a new game in my view. As an example of what I think they need is a single CM base game where each module plugs in to it, allowing cross-play and where any and all upgrades affect all titles under that banner. It's all just so archaic. The Steam/Slitherine arrangement helps some, but there's a long way to go.

Fire and Rubble (I suggested Red Thunder:Reckoning or Across the Oder, among others but Fire and Rubble won! after they ditched the copyright infringing one that I forget already) is more of the same. New units and a handful of scenarios and maybe a campaign or two for a six year old title, covering what, the last year of the war?. Just the fact that after 6 years we still have just 1944 shows how dated this approach is. CMBB did the entire war on that front and that was nearly 20 years ago and in a single title. At this rate it will be 2040 before I can play Barbarossa in a CMx2-engined game, and by then CMx2 will be 30 years old!

I have no problem with BFC proceeding as they see fit (they seem fine blokes), and customers from purchasing or not depending on how they see things. For me though the series is out of date, and becoming more so every day. I don't want Battlefront to fail. I want them to get with the times and take my money. With the products they release, their lack of ambition and innovation, and the direction they are taking, that looks to be a long way off. I'll vote with my wallet, and it will take a completely new approach to get me back. For me the player experience has to be as important as the accuracy of the uniforms and ToEs and right now I do not feel that is the case. I have plenty of Combat Mission to play when I want it, and no compelling reason to purchase anything new.

[Skybird]

SF 2 to me actually is just a SF 1.1 . Its good, its not much of a change, and its not more than just that. Other developers or studios roll out such small changes without so much bongo-banging. Scenarios are just - scenarios, and the campoaign consists of canned static scenarios, with sometimes offerign them in two or three slightly altering OOB to reflect a little bit the outcome of the previous mission (in own losses). But its just static canned scenarios that do not dynamically react to your previous performance. I mean I have de-canned the campaigns except the British and can see the structure in them now. Its very simplistic. Single missions. AFAI'm concerned, the whole cmapaign idea could be skipped. Give those missions as single missions, and done you are.

[Threadfin]

Of all the things I criticize about Combat Mission, the one I care about the most is the campaign system. And not just how it works mechanically, but the way it falls on the community to create this content.

Single missions and the QMB don't do it for me, outside of PBEM where this works fine. As a Combat Mission campaign player I am tethered to the supply chain. All veteran CM players know of the handful of sites hosting these campaign downloads, and while I am grateful for this service, the fact is there is little available. CMBN and CMSF have a decent number available, but other titles have so little it's disheartening.

A big part of the problem is the editor. It takes a hell of a lot of work to make a campaign. Paper Tiger took 800 hours! to make Road to Montebourg. Admittedly that's probably the longest CM campaign there is, but still, when a campaign author as skilled and experienced as he is must devote the equivalent of 33 entire days to create it the problem seems clear. Imagine how daunting it is for a new campaign designer.

So we are left with little to play. Have a look at any other title, say Final Blitzkreig or Red Thunder. I might not even need both hands to count what's out there. And beyond that, if I then filter this low number by the types of campaigns I like, it's even less. I don't care for urban battles, night fighting, battalion+ force size or exit mechanics. What does that leave? If I want to play parachute infantry at company size how many campaigns are available? Four? Less?

And then there's the nature of the campaigns themselves, the episodic formula we've been using since Operations were killed and Combat Mission: Campaigns went belly-up. That was fifteen years ago! It's a series of narrative-related single battles strung together. There's little continuity from one battle to the next, with exceptions. In the main, crucial operational factors such as ammo conservation, lines of communication, veterancy, key terrain and logistics are either glossed over or ignored entirely. Some campaigns buck this trend, like the excellent Kampfgruppe Engel for CMBN which uses a core force and features ammo and damage-state carry over. But these mechanics are rarely used, and even then the next mission is an entirely new battlefield with new objectives. Fighting so hard to take that important hill or town in one battle, means nothing in the next. We've moved on.

I could write pages about the CM campaign system, what I feel are it's strengths and weaknesses and what I think it needs to improve. It's clear though that nothing is in the works to change it in any meaningful way. Battlefront are content with what it is, as is their right, but it's also within my remit to point out it's failings and provide suggestions, however futile. The core tactical game is so excellent (WEGO, spotting, C2 and ballistics are fantastic) that I think it's a shame to have such a rudimentary campaign system to use it with. And as BFC have said, there's no plan to improve it or change it in any meaningful way. Combat Mission desperately, in my view, needs an operational layer and a dynamic campaign. To continue to make new narrow modules for existing old titles without giving the campaign system any attention is a massive miss and lies at the core of my apathy. It could be so much better.

Which brings me to one last point, and one that Skybird hit upon when talking about unpacking the campaigns, and that is the "AI" system. None of my ideas would be workable until or unless the AI was completely redone. As it is, Combat Mission doesn't really have an AI. It's script and trigger-based. The TacAI works well enough, but in a general sense the enemy AI is incapable of thinking on it's feet. To react or exploit or conduct a tactical withdrawal. To use reserves to plug a gap or mass it's forces to exploit success. Any sensation of a competent opponent is purely by happenstance and a result of the designer's ability to create this illusion through careful planning when creating the scenario. As a result, AI on the defensive can put up a good fight, but if it's attacking the result is adequate at best and a complete mess at it's worst. And again, it's all down to how well the author can manipulate the AI scripts and triggers and to the extent the player "falls" in to the envisioned conduct of the battle.

In my view, Battlefront need to stop creating modules and concentrate on giving the players the proper structure to take full advantage of the excellent core systems in Combat Mission. An operational dynamic campaign generator is what this series needs. Aside from not having any desire to actually make my own campaigns with tools unsuited for ease of use, the fact remains that even if I did, I would already know everything about the campaign I am about to play -- the enemy OoB, key terrain and positions and well, everything. If I build a scenario with four AT guns, after I knock them out I know there are none left. I need to proceed as if there are four more possibly still hidden or Combat Mission loses the uncertainty that makes it so compelling.

Until Battlefront address this issue and remove the tether players are chained to and give us a way to easily generate endless, tailored campaign play the series will continue to suffer from a severe lack of content. Give me the tools to produce the experience I want and end the current reliance on generous but scarce and overworked authors to produce the content I want to play.

[Skybird]

Hm. I just looked into the game folder, and after having uncanned the campaign missions and moved them to single mission (main game campaigns, USMC, Canada, Germany - the British I cannot uncan, the mod tool fails on the British campaign), I have around 90 missions in that folder now. Plus those missions I can reach by playing the British campaign as it is included.

So, lack of content is not what I can complain about. But as I said, I play ever ym ission as a single mission, I do not care about the campaigns beign campoaigns, whether I play a mission because the campaign reaches it or becasue I picked it as single missions, make sno difference to me in thsi game.

The AIU generlaly spekaing is okay, what irks me is when it fails in doping something. Mainly the route planning and behaviour when coming under fiore is what occaisonalykl makes me yell and curse. The pathfinding is sometimes very dubious and quesitonbable, even if lettign vehcuiles roll slwoly thgrouzgh urban arewa and giving iut plenty of waypoints with little distance between them. They still sometimes stroll off.The running of soldiers is absurd, they run in place and by fra not as much as I wan tthem to hurry when telling them to hurry upo and get cover. Instead they make movements like running, but still just walk by net speed.

I would like to have a tool with tgerrain colopur codin g to quickly detemrien what can be seen from a given psoition, adn what not,m and to what degree a vejhcile is exposed (urret, full ´hull, or fully concealed). The LOS/line of firing tool they have, does not really cut it for me, its handling is grindign things down too moften. This is something that Steel Beasts Pro and Armoured Brigade do better.


That it is called version 2, while such things are not being fixed after one and a half decade - that is what irks me a bit. Nol optiomization for multi core CPUs, I have a systenm that is overkill for this game - and sitll sometikmes have a brief second of stuttering, because it all runs on just one thread - while 12 are available, plus a monsterous GFX card and 32 GB RAM. Thy miss the technological advances of one and a half decade.