Combat Mission Fortress Italy

[Flanyboy]

Here's a video of the newest Combat Mission game, Fortress Italy.

I'm not so sure about the future of the CM Franchise. I really enjoy the game, I haven't played any since Afrika Korps but I must say the new model of 1 $50 game per campaign I don't think will be sustainable. They are trying to go all "Madden" and release a game with limited improvements every year or so. The problem with this model is it feels like half of a game, you get 2 months of combat in this game (July and August 1943) and only roughly 18 scenarios. It's true you get a bit more because 3 campaigns are included but to me it just feels like its 1/5 of the original scope that the Combat Mission games run. I couldn't see spending $50 for each campaign and the appeal to me is the robust scenario editor but having to pay $50 for access to every couple of months of the war just so you can create custom battles to me isn't worth it.

I hope once they get through the next few releases they release a compilation of all the games for something under $100. If they fail to tie everything into one game I think they will slowly lose their audience as the consumer base becomes disenfranchised.

The original CM games, Beyond Overload, and Barbarossa to Berlin were examples of the old way of making full fledged games. The new games, CM Normandy, and Fortress Italy, are examples of the modern way of DLC gaming where you pass off half of a product as a completely new experience.

They are basically just releasing expansions on Combat Mission Normandy now and charging full price for them, and then adding more DLC just to get Commonwealth units. It's going to disenfranchise more and more people the longer they do it.

[KG_Soldier]

I played the heck out of all the CM series (CMBO, CMBB, CMAK), but I never could get into the the newer releases CM:Shock Force and the like.

The wego system was fantastic. sspoom and I played many an ip game and the kg group played tons of pbem games.

But they lost me when they went to the real-time engine.

[Flanyboy]

I agree I like the turns better, fwiw you can still play turn style games.