Combat Mission Cold War

This is Combat Mission. But... make no mistake. The 2000 one. With ton of "trust the devs things they claim" "semi-upgrades" to the original engine. Which are (? -were used to at least) paid for at Battlefront. I know, I used to buy them all until around second battlepack for Black Sea. Then I finally let myself accept things as they are. That somehow action-oriented titles like Assault Squad 2 do things much better than Combat Mission. Why? Because there is one rarely spoken of aspect to the series. Let me throw it out the window: It is not really simulating things. Like, almost at all. All it does -it pretends it does fancy milsim techy things you root for. In a way that made the young adult me in 2000 get very excited. But that was loong time ago. And they have not moved forward. Calculations? All the movement is on a small 2-meter or so spaced grids with vehicles lerping between the nav points. All the hit locations are dicerolls. Nothing is truly simulated. You can ride a 60 degree slope across in a top heavy vehicle and it won't roll. Because there are no actual working physics in the game. Only said dicerolls. All the terrain features are grid based. No smooth-curved terrain features, no smooth roads, fields, only 45 degree ones like in hex based titles from 1996. Or recently Armored Brigade I/II. Which is IMO fine in that series as the Finnish studio aims at certain retro aesthetics. Not here. Not after 25 years of development of the franchise. Because then the retro look in here is not justified, is a liability in attracting new customers. Graphics? The engine, with it's botched implementations of newer and newer versions of graphic pipelines (ducttape it! yaaay!) even after said "updates" simply can not handle modern amount of polys and game entities on screen; what was apparent around Red Thunder is now obvious and painful to watch. Slideshows. On high end rigs. Not because of the things diehard fans will tell you are going on, but because of bottlenceks in the overal framework. UI? The UI that was designed in March of 1999 for 4:3 15' screen and then work on UI was wrapped up. Well, at least it's how it feels like. Overall with the series and CMCW especially you have something that is actively killing the fading good memories of the prime in the series (Barbarossa, Afrika Corps). Given the past of Battlefront and the vast disdain for modern Wargame-style deck&rush silliness RTS titles I strongly hope the new publisher will revive what is now decomposed corpse with haphazardly put on makeup that they sell you here but newcomers, be warned. Especially at this price.

Not worth your hard earned money: a bug-ridden mess with a lot of recycled bloat from the dev team to delude customers into believing it is front-loaded with content. Most scenarios, particularly with the release of it's first and final DLC, are either iterations of each other, H2H limited, or unpacked single player versions from the campaign (something the community has been able to do third-party for about a decade now). Inaccuracies abound, particularly with factions outside the US, where it is clear developer passion, attention to detail, and literacy begin to wane. Sources used by the dev team are opaque, and often get summed up as half-remembered experiences as a ♥♥♥♥-for-brains enlisted man their vascular dementia now prevent them from analyzing objectively. Bugs, include, but are in no way are limited to: - Soviet Airborne mechanised command groups are over strength and cannot fit in their carriers, resulting in the spare men "disappearing" when a scenario is baked. - Scimitars are gyro stabilised, a feature they never possessed even after their late-life upgrades, resulting in extreme over performance whilst on the move. - British and Canadian rifle sections have a fraction of the grenades that could be realistically expected to be issued in combat conditions, with no means to replenish when rebombing. - Outside of a handful of clearly early designed scenarios, Striker ATGMs do not carry their habitual reload of 5 more Swingfires, making their combat endurance functionally nill. - The Canadian non-mounted TOWs fire TOW2As, resulting in extreme overperformance against contemporary Soviet vehicles. - The frontal lower hull armour of Soviet MBTs remains, at developer's admission, overly thick, exacerbating historical limitations of the ITOW in this period. This has been a known issue since release. It has not been patched. - The T80B1 has a remote controlled NSV. - Formations, by way of example 77 pattern Recce regiment, cannot be selected in QB games, severely limiting tournament or H2H balance, as far as that can go. - Continued poor performance and memory leaks when the game interacts with Steamworks, resulting in considerably underwhelming performance vis. GOG or Battlefront direct purchases. If you are operating under any illusion that any of this will be patched (a) ever; or (b) in a timely fashion, please bear in mind this development team's frankly laughable track record in quality assurance and control: - It took 4 years to fix a major bug introduced with the 4.0 engine that caused infantry to abandon hard cover whilst under indirect fires. Initial development reaction was: they too would be scared and run away from the fire if they were there. This is essentially a verbatim quote from the under-talented, overrated texture artist, whom you can thank for the colourblind-friendly textures you see. - They neglected to discover that Soviet lend-lease halftracks in Red Thunder had thermal vision until provided with irrefutable evidence. Twice. - The Gill ATGM in SF2 still will always miss its target if the end point is different in height by any amount from the origin point of the missile. This is a known issue, and has been for 5 years. - LAV TUAs and The LAV-25 ATGM are impotent and blind, due to not having their Thermals modelled. This has just recently passed the 5 year mark as a known issue. There has been zero movement on fixing it. -Various British tank destroyers spawn with no crews in QBs in the WWII titles. A bug reported 7 years ago. -British rifle sections in the majority of WWII titles lack binoculars, this despite having them in FI. This discrepancy has been declared a 'feature' rather than a bug, despite them producing zero pieces of evidence that there was a serious change in field issue to section leaders between 43 and 44 model Rifle Battalions. One of the biggest signs that the research by the devs is based on dotards whose starting position is "I cannot be wrong." It's time you stop wasting your money on a dev team that has shown itself willing to very much continue to waste your time. Wait for CMx3 and hope Slitherine purges these accountants and trust-fund holders masquerading as game developers.

The Combat Mission series suffers from three main issues, which, in my view, make it difficult to recommend by default: 1. Outdated Technology and Poor Usability The game's tech is old, and the overall usability is quite rough. There’s a lot of "you just have to know" quirks. While the manual covers some of it, there's simply too much to remember. For example, a troop transport vehicle won’t automatically unload troops when ordered—you have to explicitly tell it to pause first. That kind of unintuitive behavior is common and frustrating. 2. Scenario Design Relies on Cheap Tricks Many PvE scenarios rely heavily on cheap tricks and artificial difficulty to create tension. A common tactic is using the map's edge constraints in ways that feel forced or unrealistic. Sure, it can add challenge, but when your only tactical options are bad ones (often due to limited map size), it just ends up feeling tacky and unfun. Be aware that a lot of scenarios include moments that feel outright unfair or poorly designed. 3. Lack of Modifiability The inability to access, modify, or expand the game’s database is baffling. It feels like the developer is actively working against their own community. Games like this need mod support and customization tools—without them, the long-term appeal suffers significantly. That said, if you're able to look past these issues, there's definitely a lot of enjoyment to be found in the series. For the right kind of player, it can still offer hours of challenging and rewarding gameplay.

So, do NOT buy this game. I tried refunding it before writing such a negative review but because I only learned how badly optimized it is after playing it for a bit. I will explane. I've been playing the Combat Mission games since the old school CM1. I loved them and they worked right out of the box. I bought this on sale during Christmas sale and right away I couldn't read any of the text. Evidently, this is a common issue. Fortunately, there were alot of topics and fixes for this. I figured everyone makes mistakes it will get fixed in time, and I move on. I played some smaller scenarios to learn the mechanics and differences between this and the WW2 titles I was accustomed to. I also playd them so as to adjust my graphics etc to the desired level. I've got a machine that will run EFTarkov so I was able to go all the way to ultra. Then I start the earlier US campaign. The first few battles played out well. Meaning, there weren't any grapical problems or whatever. On the Third battle, (about company sized I think) I thought my computer crashed! Seriously. Upon trying to change the placement of my first unit everything froze! I couldn't Alt-Tab out or anything. Nothing was working. Tried again after reading that the game "may" be badly optimized for larger battles I retried and set the graphics etc down to the minimum. I figured, it may look like MindCraft but se le vie. Then I get this odd ball "Out of Memory" error. And the game crashes. I have 32megs of it. How is this possible?! So, I read that the game "may" have a memory leak. Reboot and try again. So I do, with more patience this time. To reset up a unit it LITERALLY, took 3 minutes and 5 seconds on average for the mouse clicks to take effect! It took almost an hour for me to move infantry into a building. Then the M113 into a street, etc etc. I got frustrated and just started the battle, and I got the "Out Of Memory" crash. Thusly, I tried for a refund but because I played for more than 2 hours, I can't. I emplore anyone looking into buying this. DO NOT. Or at least until they optimize it or do some de bugging or something. And if the developers are listening, don't release DLC until the base program is fixed!

They really got the nerve to publish this? The resolution is maxed at 1280x1024 and the interface is so sluggish it's unplayable. I find no words for this mess. The pricing is ridiculous. Bought this via reseller, paid 5 EUs. And still that's too much for a game you actually can't play. edit: Fanatical refunded me. Really appreciated!

$60 for the same game over and over is just ridiculous.

I gave this a good shot coming from loads of Graviteam tactics and numerous other similar titles. Overall a fairly unbearable experience. First the good I guess. - Orbats are good fun, if unrealistic (I'm not clued up on Cold War) and the vehicles look great. I don't care about graphics on a game like this, so won't complain. - There's a weight to combat. - The missile system is better than a lot of similar titles. - some of the scenario designs are cool, like the ambush at Dollbach. Others see below. - The orders would be good if they weren't poorly implemented, such as hull down. Hotkeys suck. I can't list all the issues, but here's my biggest. - Spotting system leaves me dumbfounded. Your hulldown tank with day and night magnified sights will not see that BMP, but that BMP gunner will for sure hit your Cupola with a 9K111 ♥♥♥♥♥ first time at 3km. Fine, that happens you say. But the micromanagement to reverse, re-target and attempt to change fire position is simply too much across the scale this is going for. - The orders system is horrific. Compared to Graviteam, there's no smart pathfinding, no formations, not even the ability to set follow or combine to road march. You'll need to set every path yourself. For a BG. enjoy... - a BRDM-2 9P148 will destroy your tank from 5km away whilst under artillery bombardment and hidden in a woodblock. Ask me how I know. - The controls are clunky beyond all belief. Won't even touch on this, but it's horrendous trying to make anything do anything.. - There's no events list. You won't be notified of any contact despite maps being kilometers across. - There's no J2 feed and many of the missions simply don't make sense. I don't expect to know where the enemy is, but you're often launched into missions with task such as "preserve forces and attrite enemy". Okay, but then your minor BG with clearly poor resupply is pitted against a MR Btn taking a dominant hill position, and your CO wants your CBTs to assault up the hill destroy it? Sure. - Bugs. Camera spins wildly. Terrain comes in and out. Lag and stutters on a 5080. These are just my biggest pains. It's ultimately an incredibly tedious job which poorly simulates anything like "command". There's a clever illusion of choice, by making the game look bigger than it actually is. In fact, it's just a big demo, in which you must know the map, know the positions and then play the script. If you like games like this, try it I guess. DO NOT BUY THIS AT FULL PRICE. I got it extremely cheap and still regret it.

This is laziest developers i know. They sell mods for CM Shock Force (2007) for new game prices for almost 20 year now. They cant even record new voicelines for factions, they use russian voicelines (and most others also not new) from CM Barbarossa to Berlin (2002), almost all weapons from CM Shock Force (2007) and ect. It's genuinely stunning how little new content there is in each new game (Slightly reworked old vehicles and ~6 new solder models, crazy), and all that on old barley working game engine, which they are torturing with a scale that it cannot handle. Bugs and errors, that can be fixed like in hour, present in games for years or decades. I like Combat Mission as a game in general, but each new "game" is simply a way to extract money from fans with the least possible effort, scenario pack for full price. The miniature Combat Mission Afghanistan made by a third-party studio felt like it had more new content than this game. I think developers didn't give modders ability to mod base game because it would simply ruin their business model and this is just sad.

A simulator more than a RTS. The UI is 20 years out of date, but nothing models the modern battlefield more accurately. Steep learning curve. Amazing against real humans PBEM style.

It is a extremely realistic simulation of modern warfare.