How would you sell CMO to a land based mil sim fan?

[byzantine1990]

Hi all,

I'm primarily a land based mil sim fan. Combat Mission, Flashpoint Campaigns, Steal Beasts etc.

My only experience with naval sims is Destroyer: U-Boat Hunter. I really enjoyed the cat and mouse game, desperately setting targeting arcs for the U-Boat that was last seen coming toward my transports.

I saw that CMO had a huge update and was half off but I don't really understand it. In Combat Mission my enjoyment comes from knowing the doctrine of my forces and using it to outsmart a human opponent. In CMO, do you only play against the AI? If it's just against the AI, where does your enjoyment come from? Is it like a puzzle, finding the most efficient solution to a problem?

Finally, I'm more into how a tank is used rather than knowing what specific optic it had in 1979. How much does that come into play?

Any help is appreciated.

[ultradave]

I'm also a big fan of Flashpoint and Combat Mission (and Command Ops2), and I was an Army artillery officer and paratrooper, so land warfare is kind of bread and butter to me. Familiar territory. I'm interested in naval warfare (I designed nuclear subs). But I'm less familiar with the air warfare aspect.

Scenarios against the AI can be quite challenging. It knows how to use the weapons it has. A lot is in the hands of the scenario designer, just as in the land games you are more familiar with. Your comment about knowing how a tank is employed: in CMO you will have (usually) numerous varied platforms at your disposal. Learning how to integrate that team to work together to get your mission accomplished is a large part of the fun. The puzzle, as you say. To do that you'll end up needing to know a lot about the capabilities of platforms and weapons. The database viewer and the databases behind it are worth the price of the game alone. Compared to the games you've mentioned there is much more info available. You don't need to digest it all at once, but it's there. And the database covers units from just about every military in the world, from just after WW2 to the near future (proposed or under construction units).

There are a fairly large number of tutorials that come with the game and they will help you get started with the basics of air and naval warfare, step by step. The Strike Tutorials (for aircraft) are particularly useful.

Ground warfare is elementary in CMO, compared to say Flashpoint Campaigns (which covers a chunk of the same time frame). It has improved quite a bit though.

Another plus is the most responsive set of developers in the war-game world. Constant beta updates which become large standard updates eventually. Database additions.

There is a "PBEM" utility that a user has developed. It's a real time sim, but the PBEM uses chunks of time. I haven't tried it myself so can't really comment on it other than it's there.

Hope that helps. For $39.99 right now it's a huge bargain, for the amount of time you'll get out of it.

Dave

[thewood1]

If you get CMO thinking you'll reproduce tactical land battles like CM, you'll be disappointed. There is still a heavy dose of abstraction. At the operational level, it has become very good. Amphib actions can be quite satisfying to play, especially some of the logistical and combined arms support action.

But if you look at it as a combine arms operational simulation with heavy detail on the air and naval parts, you'll have a much better experience. And as was mentioned, scenario design is the key. And very much unlike CM, you, as the player or scenario designer, can micromanage everything or set up missions and ROE and be complete hands-off.

The game is worth more than full list price just for the database. It might be one of the most comprehensive and detailed collection of post-WW2 military hardware data in the world. Maybe including most militaries. And again as mentioned, the devs are a heck of a lot easier to engage. They are very transparent about their plans and update through betas quite frequently. Again, unlike CM, you typically don't have to sit around for years waiting for bugs to get fixed.

[CV60]

I agree with the other posters. If you are looking for a land combat game, you will be disappointed with CMO. Ground combat is heavily abstracted. Further, the logistics, morale, terrain is not properly taken into account for a ground combat simulation, and the time scale is wrong for simulating ground combat on the high tactical/low operational level.

HOWEVER, If you are looking for a commercial game that does strike and naval warfare from 1960-present, at the high tactical/low operational level you will find nothing better. In fact, it is so good that NATO countries use a slightly modified version as a training aid. This leads to another reason to buy it: Because the developers maker their real money off of government contracts, they continue to support the commercial version for 10+ years with updates that NATO has (to a large extent) funded. So, unlike most games, your investment in CMO will continue to give you returns for years to come. Additionally, if you are interested in modern military issues, the NATO-funded updates mean the game is capable of simulating many new weapon systems and thus can be used to test or showcase current maritime/strike warfare issues. And because it is so long-lived, you get a community that supports the game with new scenarios. For instance, before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, there were scenario designers on this forum who quickly produced scenarios examining a potential Russian strike warfare campaign.

One other point for consideration: Modern land combat is heavily influenced by strike warfare. All the cool bells and whistles on my T-14 Armata (or M-1A2 Abrams) don't mean crap if some zoomie plants an 500 pound LGB on my engine deck. In other words, if you are interested in ground combat (at least on a talented amateur level), you need to know about how it relates to the other warfare disciplines.

[thewood1]

For a CM player, the best way to look at it is CMO's naval and air simulation is as detailed as WW2 tactical ground combat in CM, if not more. CMO's ground combat is simulated at the level air and artillery in CM. That is its heavily abstracted.

[byzantine1990]

Thank you everyone. Let's give it a try!

[CV60]

Thank you everyone. Let's give it a try!

Oorah!. Quick bit of advice. Do the tutorials. And ask question on the forum. Also (shameless plug here): Download the Images and Description files here: https://command.matrixgames.com/?page_id=1876 It doesn't change the game, but gives you photos and descriptions of a lot of the hardware.

[kevinkins]

Before you go, try this. With CMO you can sim potential near future events that crop in the news a lot. The player, gets a better appreciation of the factors involved in concepts like strike warfare and missions well below outright war between nations. While a conflict in the Pacific will involve ground fighting for and on island bases, you don't have to worry about the sim presenting trench and armored warfare in any detail. CMO is also great at trying out new operational ideas that come up if the player follows that sort of stuff.

[Tcao]

For FCSS players, I highly recommend Gunner98's Northern Fury series. There are couple missions involve land battle, interdiction and CAS. NF 36, Wrestling an Octopus present a scenario of desperate defense scenario of a light force against a superior heavy armor enemy. NATO Tactical air support is the only thing that save the light force on the ground.


There are also "The war that never was" series. But those were designed in early CMANO days, so many of them could be broken now. One of the scenario put you in Soviets VVS' shoes, you got to provide close air support for the Ground force that invade Norway.

[byzantine1990]

For FCSS players, I highly recommend Gunner98's Northern Fury series. There are couple missions involve land battle, interdiction and CAS. NF 36, Wrestling an Octopus present a scenario of desperate defense scenario of a light force against a superior heavy armor enemy. NATO Tactical air support is the only thing that save the light force on the ground.


There are also "The war that never was" series. But those were designed in early CMANO days, so many of them could be broken now. One of the scenario put you in Soviets VVS' shoes, you got to provide close air support for the Ground force that invade Norway.

Thank you. I’ll check those out. What are some places to learn tactics and strategy for naval and air warfar?

[CV60]

...

Thank you. I’ll check those out. What are some places to learn tactics and strategy for naval and air warfar?

It depends on your level of experience with the topic. For a good primer (and one that has been used for almost 40 years by naval professionals) check out Wayne Hughes' "Fleet Tactics" https://www.amazon.com/Fleet-Tactics-Na ... 140&sr=8-1 or Vego's "General Naval Tactics https://www.amazon.com/General-Naval-Ta ... 7e17e03685 However, those two books are expensive. Keep in mind that these are general tactics books, and so mostly set out key principles, the tactical execution of which may change depending on the time period and weapon/sensor capabilities. In other words, if you are playing a scenario set in the 1960's, the ability to hide in the expanses of the ocean may be different than you would use in the 2010 time frame because weapon and sensor capabilities have changed. Because of this, there are other good sources, but it would depend on the exact issue you are interested in. One other resource, if you can find it, is the Harpoon Battlebook https://www.amazon.com/Harpoon-Battlebo ... 1559581271 While written for the computer game Harpoon, the Battlebook does a good job of concisely expressing principles of naval combat that are equally applicable to CMO.

At the risk of shamelessly plugging myself, I have done a couple of AARs to illustrate some aspects of naval warfare. See "World War I in the North Sea-A Steam and Iron Campaign Game AAR" https://www.grogheads.com/forums/index. ... ic=16935.0; "AAR: CMO RED TIDE" https://www.grogheads.com/forums/index. ... ic=25950.0

Bottom Line: ask questions. Some of us on the board are active or retired naval professionals, so we can give you both a real world or a game answer to your questions. If you like, PM me and I'll try to help out.