Now that Gustav Line is out it's time to start the process of informing you about Combat Mission: Market Garden. But it will take a little while before we start putting out screenshots and other bits.
Portraying the battles of Market Garden posed unique challenges to us on the development end. Specifically that Market Garden requires British and Waffen SS units, which are part of the Commonwealth module. And yet our philosophy is to never require players to purchase Module A to play Module B. Likewise, our philosophy is to not duplicate content in Modules because we don't want to double charge those who want both.
Interesting dilema we got ourselves into, eh?
Instead of canceling Market Garden (CM:MG), which we did contemplate, we decided to pack Market Garden so full of new stuff that people will find value in it and minimize the overlap with Commonwealth that people won't feel like they are buying stuff they might already have. So here's an overview of what's being included:
1. Basic Waffen SS and British units which represent those units that fought directly in the Market Garden battles. Which means the majority of units found in Commonwealth are not present in CM:MG.
2. New German Heer, Waffen SS, and Luftwaffe units have been added which aren't present in Commonwealth. These better portray the scratch formations which made up the bulk of the early German resistance to the landings. Training, security, school, admin personnel, etc. are available.
3. We've added German Navy units. These poor saps were base and ex-ship personnel thrown into battle without much consideration about their fighting capabilities (which were next to none). In fact, this is the first time we've ever had Navy ground units in a CM game. Though to be honest, it's mostly for flavor as organizationally they weren't that much different from horribly stripped down and under equipped Heer units. Still, it's better to give you explicitly tweaked units than to say "imagine those Heer guys are Navy".
4. AAA units are present for the first time on the Western Front. Not only the sorts of AAA stuff found in Gustav Line, but some new fun things like Wirbelwind and Crusader AA.
5. The Germans also now have access to Panzer Brigades. These armor heavy units are uniquely organized and contain the ever fun SPW 251/21 in large numbers.
6. Fallschirmjäger are now present, all the way from June through September.
7. Some new vehicle variants for all forces just to keep things interesting.
8. New terrain features to create the feeling you're battling in The Netherlands and not France. Yes, we have even included a windmill
9. Bridges. Lots of 'em
We are including 5 custom made historically accurate bridges, a canal bridge, and 3 new generic long bridges. Some, like the Arnhem road bridge, are massive. For the larger ones we include "stubs" which map makers can use to simulate fights around the entrance to a bridge without having the other 500+ meters stuck in there.
And before the questions start flying about what new game features are to be added... a reminder that as a rule Modules do not add new game elements unless they are directly necessary for that particular Module. Besides the new bridges and some other terrain related stuff, we don't see the need for new features and therefore there won't be many directly related to Market Garden. However, anything new that was added for Gustav Line will be automatically carried over to the entire Normandy Family of games. Such as new shaders, "movie" lighting, bug fixes, gameplay tweaks, AAA support, etc. No worries there.
There's no doubt more stuff than that, but I think that's enough for now to get things started.
Steve
Portraying the battles of Market Garden posed unique challenges to us on the development end. Specifically that Market Garden requires British and Waffen SS units, which are part of the Commonwealth module. And yet our philosophy is to never require players to purchase Module A to play Module B. Likewise, our philosophy is to not duplicate content in Modules because we don't want to double charge those who want both.
Interesting dilema we got ourselves into, eh?
Instead of canceling Market Garden (CM:MG), which we did contemplate, we decided to pack Market Garden so full of new stuff that people will find value in it and minimize the overlap with Commonwealth that people won't feel like they are buying stuff they might already have. So here's an overview of what's being included:
1. Basic Waffen SS and British units which represent those units that fought directly in the Market Garden battles. Which means the majority of units found in Commonwealth are not present in CM:MG.
2. New German Heer, Waffen SS, and Luftwaffe units have been added which aren't present in Commonwealth. These better portray the scratch formations which made up the bulk of the early German resistance to the landings. Training, security, school, admin personnel, etc. are available.
3. We've added German Navy units. These poor saps were base and ex-ship personnel thrown into battle without much consideration about their fighting capabilities (which were next to none). In fact, this is the first time we've ever had Navy ground units in a CM game. Though to be honest, it's mostly for flavor as organizationally they weren't that much different from horribly stripped down and under equipped Heer units. Still, it's better to give you explicitly tweaked units than to say "imagine those Heer guys are Navy".
4. AAA units are present for the first time on the Western Front. Not only the sorts of AAA stuff found in Gustav Line, but some new fun things like Wirbelwind and Crusader AA.
5. The Germans also now have access to Panzer Brigades. These armor heavy units are uniquely organized and contain the ever fun SPW 251/21 in large numbers.
6. Fallschirmjäger are now present, all the way from June through September.
7. Some new vehicle variants for all forces just to keep things interesting.
8. New terrain features to create the feeling you're battling in The Netherlands and not France. Yes, we have even included a windmill
9. Bridges. Lots of 'em
And before the questions start flying about what new game features are to be added... a reminder that as a rule Modules do not add new game elements unless they are directly necessary for that particular Module. Besides the new bridges and some other terrain related stuff, we don't see the need for new features and therefore there won't be many directly related to Market Garden. However, anything new that was added for Gustav Line will be automatically carried over to the entire Normandy Family of games. Such as new shaders, "movie" lighting, bug fixes, gameplay tweaks, AAA support, etc. No worries there.
There's no doubt more stuff than that, but I think that's enough for now to get things started.
Steve
