Voici enfin l’annonce de la version anglaise de CM Afghanistan, révélé l’été dernier par une indiscrétion d’un magazine russe. Le communiqué est accompagné par de nombreuses captures d’écrans, ainsi qu’une adaptation du trailer diffusé il y a quelques mois en Russie et une description détaillée de ce nouveau module basé sur le moteur de Combat Mission Shock Force.

Ce premier module stand alone réalisé en partenariat avec un studio russe, Snowball, proposera donc de jouer deux campagnes pendant le conflit ayant opposé URSS et Afghanistan dans les années 80. La première campagne marque le début de la guerre (1980-82) alors que la seconde couvre la période où les combats eurent le plus d’intensité (1985-87).
Dix missions individuelles viendront aussi s’ajouter à la liste des scénarios jouables. Il s’agira ici de missions types assaut nocturne, embuscade ou escorte, prenant pour décor les provinces de Helmand, Kunduz, Parwan, Nangarhar, Beglan, entre 1981 et 1988.

Ce module permettra de profiter des toutes dernières améliorations du moteur de jeu, avec un nouveau type de terrain enneigé, l’apparition de l’eau sur le champ de bataille, un type objectif supplémentaire (atteindre une zone de sortie), des canons multiples à tirs rapides (ZSU-23 Shilka, Kamaz ZU-23) et un système de défense active contre les roquettes pour certains blindés (T-55AD and T-62D). Il bénéficiera aussi d’un éditeur de scénarios.

Enfin, CM Afghanistan mettra en scène de nombreux nouveaux matériels ainsi que trois factions : l’armée soviétique, la république démocratique d’Afghanistan et les moudjahidins.

Par la même occasion un site officiel vient d’ouvrir ses portes (si vous préférez le russe, voyez ici). Sortie prévue dans le courant du second trimestre 2010.

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[View with PicLens]

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Battlefront vient de mettre en ligne un hotfix corrigeant un petit bug dans la campagne du module Marines pour Combat Mission Shock Force. Si besoin, voyez cette annonce sur le forum officiel. Notez aussi que Paradox ayant abandonné le suivi de CMSF, pour bénéficier des mises à jour si vous avez achetez CMSF par ce biais, et que vous n’avez aucun module en plus, il vous faudra désormais utiliser un service spécial mis en place par Battlefront. Pour plus de détails, voyez cette annonce sur le forum officiel.

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Patch 1.21a

We have just released a v1.21a Hotfix for CMSF Marines with a slightly modified version of the original Combat Mission: Shock Force Marines campaign « Semper Fi, Syria! ». The modifications fix known problems with scoring in the scenario « Afternoon Delight » in particular, but do not offer new functionality to the campaign itself. The Hotfix is distributed via the Battlefront Repository.

NOTE: You only need this Hotfix if you have downloaded the v1.21 patch before January 4, 2010. The v1.21a full patch re-released today already includes this Hotfix.

En guise de cadeau de Noël, Battlefront offre trois nouvelles captures d’écrans pour CM Normandy. Les deux premières consistent en un gros plan sur des blindés allemands, tandis que la troisième permet de constater l’évolution des graphismes depuis 1999.

Au passage le studio en profite pour faire un point sur l’avancement des travaux et donner quelques précisions sur un des aspects du jeu, ici les fortifications. En résumé, il ne reste plus qu’à coder le système de batailles rapides pour que CM Normandy soit terminé et coté fortifications, il y aura bel et bien des barbelés, des bunkers ainsi qu’un nouveau système gérant les tranchées. Il semble malheureusement encore trop tôt pour que le studio accepte de montrer en images ces éléments défensifs qui seront d’ailleurs achetables au début d’un scénario.
Au fil des discussion sur le forum officiel Battlefront ajoute quelques précisions sur Normandy et ses autres jeux. On y apprend par exemple qu’il y aura un module Arnhem, que CM Afghanistan sortira bientôt ou que le bocage sera un terrain à part entière. Voyez ci-après pour plus de détails. La sortie de CM Normandy est prévue vers le printemps prochain, si tout va bien.

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As you can see from the two pics of German stuff, CM: Normandy offers prepared, reinforced positions for heavy weapons and even vehicles. The graphics are placeholders at the moment, but you get the idea I think. These elements are purchasable and can be placed by the player during the Setup Phase.

On top of that, the player can now purchase and place a wide array of defensive works including barbed wire, bunkers, foxholes, and even trenches. That’s right, trenches! All of these elements follow the rules of Fog of War, including trenches. Yup!

Long time members of this Forum will recall some very long and heated discussions about trenches and what we can, and can’t, do from a technical standpoint. While people’s passionate calls for FoW trenches didn’t magically erase the technical challenges, they did cause us to adopt a new method of representing these elements.

We’re still working on final graphics for the defensive works so you’ll just have to wait a bit to see what they look like and to get more details on how units interact with them. Just know that they do give you guys the game elements you made clear you wanted back into CM. We do aim to please.

The last bone is an update on where we are right now with the game as a whole. We currently have one major game element remaining to code. Namely the new Quick Battle system. It’s designed and should go into production in January. There’s still a lot of things which have to be added, tweaked, and fixed… but we have 30 active testers working to help us with all of that now. Their initial reactions to hunting tanks in the bocage has been very positive (understatement!).

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1. By « production » I meant that the QB system will be coded, tested, tweaked, etc. starting in January, not that the full game will be flying out the doors to you guys.

2. Yes, after the dust settles from the Holidays I’ll shed some more light on the new QB system. The testers have been briefed on the essentials and all seems good so far. Since these guys want the new QBs to rock as much as you guys, their approval is extremely reassuring to Charles and I. We’re all very aware how important it is to beat both CMx1 and CM:SF’s systems. We are more confident than ever that this will happen.

3. Bocage is its own terrain type with its own terrain effects. We need to work on the graphics some more, however, so we’re not ready to start showing them yet.

4. The game’s official Title is not going to be CM: Normandy. The title for the game « Family » needs to be more inclusive of its future Modules. We will have an Arnhem Module, for example, so « Normandy » isn’t appropriate for the overarching name. However, for now we’re keeping it around.

5. NATO has been on hold for the last few months as we have been focused on CM: Normandy and CM: Afghanistan. That will change in January as we start NATO back up again. We do not know if NATO or Normandy will be out first, though we do know Afghanistan will beat both.

Another tiny bone for you…

We had no REAL idea how the testers would react to CM: Normandy in its current state. Sure, we figured they would enjoy the new setting and have fun playing with the new features. We would have been perfectly happy with that since all current testers are grizzled testing veterans. So imagine our smiles when we actually got huge, positive emotional reactions to all kinds of stuff! We weren’t expecting half the reaction we got. That’s a good sign that the basics are already in place for exactly the game you guys expect from us.

Selon toute vraisemblance, la sortie de Combat Mission Afghanistan est désormais prévue en Russie dans le courant du premier trimestre de 2010, alors qu’elle avait initialement été annoncé pour septembre dernier… En théorie Battlefront doit toujours mettre en ligne « bientôt » un site officiel en anglais.

Voici deux vidéos montrant une partie de CMSF sur la carte Red Stream. Cette bataille oppose l’armée syrienne à un seigneur de guerre (donc red vs red) réfugié dans une ville au milieu d’une vallée encaissée dans les montagnes. Ce scénario est prévu pour être joué contre l’IA, mais semble néanmoins jouable aussi en PBEM, même si l’un des camps risque ici un désavantage. Quoi qu’il en soit la carte à l’air très belle et la bataille qu’a mis en scène Pandur semble offrir un défi certain.

Pour plus d’infos sur la carte Red Stream, voyez cette discussion dans le forum officiel de Battlefront.

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Operation Nemesis est un projet de méta campagne pour CMSF, idée très intéressante qui devrait permettre de simuler tactiquement et stratégiquement en multijoueurs l’invasion hypothétique de la Syrie par la coalition des Alliés. Le principe est assez simple, chaque camp est représenté par une équipe dans laquelle chaque joueur choisi un rôle, à savoir schématiquement soit un général, soit un colonel. Cela fait, chacun peut prendre dans l’ordre de bataille des deux armées le commandement d’un groupe d’unités, les généraux s’occupant des divisions et les colonels des brigades.

En d’autres termes, si vous souhaitez participer à une campagne multijoueurs sans trop vous investir, optez pour un poste de colonel. Vous pourrez suivre l’avancement des choses au niveau stratégique et recevrez des ordres de mission pour vos bataillons, se traduisant bien sûr par un affrontement dans le jeu (à raison d’une partie par mois, en PBEM ou en temps réel, a priori).
Si vous préférez diriger les opérations, vous aurez donc à disposition une carte stratégique précise, et la gestion des soutiens aériens, de l’artillerie, des lignes de ravitaillement et même d’opérations spéciales. Cela évidemment en plus de devoir dispenser vos ordres à vos subalternes (3 à 9 selon les cas semble-t-il).

Même si le projet n’est pas encore terminé, et est encore assez confus sous certains aspects, le site propose de nombreuses informations y compris sur le contexte fictif de cette guerre, et Operation Nemesis devrait offrir à terme une expérience de jeu pour le moins originale. La méta campagne démarrera quelques temps après la sortie du module OTAN, soit dans le courant du premier trimestre 2010 si tout va bien.

Voici un aperçu de la carte stratégique. Pour plus de détails, rendez-vous sur le site de Operation Nemesis.

Vous trouverez sur Worldatwar.eu un long rapport de bataille nommé Attack on Persik et présentant une des missions de CMSF British Forces, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, un assaut anglais sur des forces syriennes retranchées dans un village. Cet intéressant récit est abondamment illustrée, et permet de suivre étapes par étapes la difficile progression des soldats de sa Majesté.

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Combat Mission Shock Force v1.21 features

Soldiers

o Soldiers on rooftops receive better cover.
o Speed difference between Fast and Quick moves is slightly increased.
o Soldiers tire more quickly moving across difficult terrain or in very hot weather.
o Split teams that are in close proximity but on different vehicles will not attempt to join.
o Teams that rejoin will retain the target orders of one of the teams instead of erasing them all.
o Buddy-aid will not pick up heavy weapons from a different Team.

Vehicles

o Passengers manning a vehicle weapon may use it even if the crew has bailed out.
o Top gunner in a Humvee can use a personal weapon if his vehicle-mounted weapon is out of action.
o Vehicles do a better job using alternate crew to replace MG gunners who become casualties.
o Tanks won’t waste APFSDS ammo on lightly-armored targets when alternative ammo is available.
o Refinements to vehicle damage from mines.
o Added radio to UAZ vehicle.
o Bradley IFVs and CFVs carry some 40mm grenades for their passengers.
o Vehicles move more smoothly in PBEM and hotseat replay.

Weapons

o Times to set up SPG-9 and most ATGMs are reduced.
o Powerful projectiles like sabot can penetrate trees and be slightly deflected rather than stopped.
o Heavy weapons set up near the edges of buildings won’t drop to the ground after an explosion.
o Corrected a small problem where automatic weapons had a pause between the first and second rounds that was slightly longer than it should have been.
o MGs on bipods are a bit more stable than before.
o Corrected a rare instance where ATGMs could fly too low and hit the ground when they should not.

Terrain

o Roads are smoother when traversing rough ground or steep slopes.
o Large rocks (flavor objects) are more of a deterrent to navigate over.
o Flavor objects tilt to fit slopes when necessary.
o Trees are less resistant to damage from heavy artillery.

Artillery

o Updated behavior for artillery/air support time-to-target. Conventional Red formation leaders are now allowed to call in artillery from batteries at battalion level or below (e.g. light mortars).
o Corrected some issues affecting artillery arrival time after target adjustment.
o Corrected the display of artillery mission type in PBEM games.
o Artillery battery and aircraft pilot voices use the correct nationality when they differ from that of the spotter.

User Interface

o Troops may be given simultaneous Hide and Face commands, but changing facing often requires a soldier to change position slightly, during which time he will not be « hiding ».
o When acquiring missiles from a vehicle, it is now possible to take the last missile without its reloadable launcher (e.g. Javelin).
o « Scenario Author Test » may be selected as a Skill Mode (1-player only). It will cause all enemy units to be fully displayed to the player, but not additionally « known » to player’s troops.

Editor

o AI Plan #0 can be deactivated in the editor provided at least one other plan is active.
o In the map editor, some buttons were shifted from « Flavor Objects #1″ to « Flavor Objects #2″.
o Corrected some small issues with elevation controls in the editor.

Miscellaneous

o Large saved games that take longer to load do not advance the game clock in the process of loading.
o Corrected a slow framerate problem on the first PBEM turn.
o Small bullets kick up a tiny bit of dirt and dust when they hit ground.
o Computer-player air strikes aim at smaller areas, reducing friendly fire.
o Corrected a problem where some ATGM teams would appear to leave their ATGM launcher temporarily behind when embarking on a vehicle.
o Corrected a problem that caused the turn-based computer player sometimes not to dismount troops fully when instructed by the scenario AI plan.
o Corrected a PBEM synchronization problem caused by saving and reloading the game.

Marines Module Only

o US Marines sometimes have M203 grenade launchers instead of M32, especially at lower Equipment Quality settings.
o Added US Marine Mk11 sniper rifle (equivalent to Army M110).
o The US Marine sergeant in the scout team wears infantry gear, not vehicle crew gear.

British Module Only

o Jackal GMG (aka grenade launcher) can now be found in the Fire Support Section of the British Infantry Rifle Company, when the equipment rating is good (otherwise they get a WMIK).
o Loader on Challenger 2 Enhanced will not reload the top-deck MG unless ordered to unbutton.
o Warrior has slower (hand-cranked) gun elevation.
o Gunner in LMTV will use his personal night-vision gear when appropriate.
o LMTV carries more passenger weapons and ammunition.
o British Engineer Troop has 3 TUM ST vehicles, not 6.
o Corrected a problem with a US IBCT soldier carrying a British rifle.

Combat Mission: Shock Force v1.21 Patch
November 5th, 2009

PLEASE READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING BEFORE CONTINUING WITH THIS INSTALL!!!

COMBAT MISSION SHOCK FORCE VERSION REQUIREMENT (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT):
This v1.21 is for you if one of the following applies to you:
- you have the original Battlefront.com version of the base game, Combat Mission Shock Force only, patched to v1.10 or v1.11
- you have at least one module from Battlefront.com, either the Marines module or the British Forces module

If one or both of the above applies to you, then this patch will allow you to select during installation which elements of the game you would like to patch. The choices include:

- CMSF + no module (you select this if you have just the base game and no module installed)
- CMSF + Marines Module (you select this if you have the base game and the Marines module, but no British Forces module)
- CMSF + British Forces Module (you select this if you have the base game and the British Forces module, but not Marines module)
- CMSF + Marines + British (you select this if you have all three items installed)

If all you have installed is the base game of Combat Mission Shock Force and NOT the Battlefront version, but a so-called « retail » version from Paradox Interactive or Gamersgate or another distributor, then DO NOT INSTALL THIS PATCH. A separate patch for your specific version of the base game will be released at some point. Check www.battlefront.com/patches frequently.

PREVIOUS SAVE GAME COMPATIBILITY NOTE:

NOTE: Save games from v1.20 ARE COMPATIBLE with v1.21, provided that you save your turn-based games in the COMMAND phase (not the replay phase) before upgrading to v1.21. If you are upgrading from an earlier version than 1.20, e.g. 1.10 or 1.11, then save games from these versions are NOT compatible with 1.21. In this case, we recommend you backup your existing « CM Shock Force.exe » file before continuing with this install by renaming the file to something like « CM Shock Force old.exe ». You can still launch the game with that renamed exe and finish your previous in-progress battles. Using that old exe however, you will not have access to all the new features of v1.21. Once you have finished your old games, you should delete that old exe file.

COMPATIBILITY WITH MODS:
Due to the potential of conflicts with pre v1.21 game Mods, we advise uninstalling any mods prior to installing this Game patch. Mod authors will need to updated their mods using the v1.21 strings.txt embedded into the new « Version 121.brz » file.

CMSF CUSTOM HOTKEYS.TXT NOTE:
Due to changes added in the v1.21 game code, your existing hotkeys file (which contains any customized key command settings and bindings) will be overwritten with this installer. If you had assigned custom hotkeys in the past, you will want to backup your Data\hotkeys.txt file before installing this patch. Once the patch is installed, you can compare your setting within the old (saved) file with the new one and copy in your old settings. Do not simply overwrite the new file with the old one though, that will not work and could cause the game to malfunction.

GAME MANUALS:
Included with this patch is a pdf version of the newly updated CMSF manual. You will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader in order view these manual. That program is free and can be downloaded from Adobe’s website here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

In addition to the standard version, we have also included « printer friendly » version suitable to printing. You will find those versions in the « Battlefront\Combat Mission Shock Force » Program Group, under the ‘Docs’ Folder.