CM Then and Now

[OWL]

Hello CM friends,

CM is by far the best game I ever played (and I will play it as long I can find fine opponents)
But maybe the game or AI can be upgraded or improved so it will better as we play it now. Recently I noticed a post concerning the not availability of motorcycles (with MG) and for myself I think there are more units or effects that are not in the game (for example illumination rounds during night combat)
Perhaps we can start together with the CM clubs all over the world (and there are many!) a media campaign to ask Battle Front for an update together with better graphics??
Further we can start to make it more popular. For example lets challenge the most famous military academies all over the world and play a tournament. So The Blitz vs. Frunze Academy or the Blitz vs. WestPoint. In combination with a media campaign that a civilian clan, challenges (and maybe beats) professionals can result in an interesting article and in excellent PR for CM.

greets to you all

Owl

[RNL Tiger]

So what now?

POS has his mini-tournaments, there are some regular tournaments, intersite tournaments and ladders.

At the moment though that seems to be slowly eating away at the faithful. Slowly they are moving away.

What would bring back the excitement of the early days?

Nothing?

Campaigns?

Short tournaments?

Long tournaments?

New ladders with different scoring?

What do you think?

Good Hunting.

MR

Speaking as a newcomer to the Blitz, I think the following may contain one or two good ideas that could be used:
1) A more varied and changing ladder system [some of this was covered in Der Kuenstler's thread] but also to include other categories aimed specifically at those who simply enjoy to participate such as "Most Improved"; "Tries hardest - most losses in 12 months"; "Best player in ELO 1800-1899, 1900-1999, in 2000-2099...
2) Segregate the ladder into "divisions" [like football] purely from the perspective of having promotions and demotions and thus creating more interest in the ladder[s]
3) Themed tournaments such as everyone playing the same scenario or everyone playing with the same parameters [POS tournament is an example and great fun]
4) Matches against another club i.e. say 20 players from "board 1 to board 20 - just like chess - playing their opposite number in another club

Having not been at this club for long I have not witnessed any decline in interest but I hope that some of this helps...

[kineas]

CM is left by BFC, but games like this don't die fast. See StarCraft for an example. When Starcraft2 comes out the original version will be 10 years old. So we have 5 more years for the 'real' CM2 :)

[Dashammer75]

I vote Hell Yell on Owl's ideas it would be great fun to play the military schools and have some new features added. Besides that any OBC or Advance course would be great too.

[Mad Baron]

I love CM probably more than any other game (series) for reasons mentioned by others. I never really understood what We-Go meant, but it is turn-based like the old Avalon Hill games, and you have the AI or PBEM for opponents, when it was always tough to get a live opponent with the same free time you had to play with the old board games. I did enjoy Close Combat a lot despite being real-time, until I discovered CM in a computer games magazine. I don't really need ultra-spiffy graphics...just a realistic game, and CM does that for me (I have never even added any mods, etc.).

I will confess I recently played a lot of Panzer Tactics on the Nintendo DS when we had a 4-day power outage last week due to the midwest US ice storms, and had some good fun with it. A neat little WW2 game for a hand-held system. But again, it's a WW2 game, and WW2 is what works for me!! :P

I miss a few older games I can't play anymore these days, but I'll play CM for a LONG time to come!!

One idea for a short/quick tournament (no idea if this could work or not, but it just came to me, and seems different anyway): How about a large-point QB/ME game (2000-3000) on the smallest map the system would generate, and have it just 10-15 turns. Sort of an opening barrage ''show-down'' fight that would largely be decided by the opening setup (since there wouldn't be much time for maneuver). This in turn might dictate it would be a mainly tank-aircraft fight. Has this been done already?? (I think I'll set up something versus the AI to see what happens, with cmbb).

I will also add I am in the 50-60 age group of gamers (turned 57 during the ice storm power outage--haha--prepared my birthday dinner under Winter War conditions).

[Mad Russian]

Hello CM friends,

CM is by far the best game I ever played (and I will play it as long I can find fine opponents)
But maybe the game or AI can be upgraded or improved so it will better as we play it now. Recently I noticed a post concerning the not availability of motorcycles (with MG) and for myself I think there are more units or effects that are not in the game (for example illumination rounds during night combat)
Perhaps we can start together with the CM clubs all over the world (and there are many!) a media campaign to ask Battle Front for an update together with better graphics??
Further we can start to make it more popular. For example lets challenge the most famous military academies all over the world and play a tournament. So The Blitz vs. Frunze Academy or the Blitz vs. WestPoint. In combination with a media campaign that a civilian clan, challenges (and maybe beats) professionals can result in an interesting article and in excellent PR for CM.

greets to you all

Owl

There is alot that's not in the game.

Motorcycles, horses, night effects except on LOS, a workable command and control...the list goes on.

Some of those can be worked around. Motorcyles and horses both can be modeled by using jeeps/VW's fairly accurately.

Night can be given different degrees of light using dusk/dawn and fog/cloud cover. Night and clouds/fog will also give different LOS ranges. But still night is only about the LOS range and some friendly unit identification.

The leadership command and control issue cannot be worked around. The CM system is worthless for showing chain of command.

There are some things that could be added. As far as CMx1 is concerned though they won't be.

Is that any reason not to play?

We have years worth of WWII combat that can be modeled. Not quite to SL/ASL standards but very close and it has an AI that is workable for some battles that you don't have to hunt down opponents for.

I realize that those reading and responding to this are the core and not the ones that have left or slowed down. Is there a possibility of the Blitz doing an emailing for members to look at additional tournaments/campaigns new tournament ideas...etc?

Good Hunting.

MR

[Rico (FGM)]

Typical grognards -- we constantly gripe about what's wrong with the game... trying to stretch it and make it do stuff it was never designed for ... and keep forgetting what an amazing, playable, cool game CM really is.

[Mad Russian]

Typical grognards -- we constantly gripe about what's wrong with the game... trying to stretch it and make it do stuff it was never designed for ... and keep forgetting what an amazing, playable, cool game CM really is.

I guess that's just human nature.

In some respects BFC may have added too much. In CMBB for instance you get all the Axis Minors and yet how many scenarios percentage wise do we see on them? And in actuality they were a small percentage of the Axis force in Russia to begin with.

Could that have been better replaced with horses, motorcycles, etc...?

Maybe, but there is tremendous flavor in the CM games you find in few other places.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Der Kuenstler]

I think we are promoting CM best just by teaching people how to play it. This site is much more newbie friendly than when I first joined - it seemed like back then no one wanted to reveal any game tips - you had to find those elsewhere or learn by losing. When people get trounced several times at the start, they may decide they are just no good at the game and move on to another.

The setting up of a strategy and tactics section was an excellent move here. Making the ladder more newbie friendly (set up for an annual champ) and adding more of an area for new players advising them how to start wisely (like playing through JasonCs tutorials, reading all of POS' and others' tactical and teaching posts, and by playing EACH OTHER at first) would help greatly.

Here's an idea: Ladder points are given now to people who playtest. How about the same point system given to a vet who tutors a newbie during one of his first ten games? The game result won't count but they would both get ladder points for participating.

As far as game improvements, the bottom line is money, and if a company sees that there is potential money to be made there, we will eventually see CM2. If Battlefront is burned out on it, they may sell the rights to another game company - who knows? I think there is definitely a solid number of turn-based, PBEM driven game fans out there.

[herroberst]

What about an outreach campaign to other clubs endorsing the game, identifying where copies of the game can be purchased, or even advertizing in computer gaming magazines? There are lots of CM clips on YouTube so that is another avenue to endorse membership. I think more mini- and tournaments and campaigns would be valuable too but I don't have the time to run one and keep up my games-played level. Maybe more inter-clan tournies... just some thoughts. I don't get that theBlitz ladder is disappearing though.... seems pretty vibrant. Members aren't going to hang around to be pilloried though so we should watch the trash-talk as a matter of civility... someone once suggested I was cheating which really rather turned me off (besides I don't know how to cheat and my win-loss record proves that) :)

A friend of mine could not make CM go on his new laptop with Vista and he called and tried several support networks including BattleFront (who told him they are no longer supporting CM so tough luck)... I think we need to consider how to run CM on Vista and other future systems in order to retrain and attrack new membership.