Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy faithfully recreates the experience of tactical land warfare in Western France during World War Two. The Base Game covers the three month period following the Allied D-Day landings, from Operation Overlord in June through the Cobra Breakout in August. The tough fight has become the stuff of legend and Combat Mission’s high standards for accuracy and detail means you’ll experience the fighting as realistically as can be.
Command the full array of American and German Heer formations fighting along the coast through to the interior of France. Four challenging campaigns, 21 standalone scenarios, and a plethora of Quick Battle maps will test your tactical acumen. Matching the painstakingly researched battles is the highly detailed combat equipment, including 67 vehicles and dozens of various small arms and heavy weapons.
Features
- Tactical warfare at battalion and below scale in a true 3D environment
- Command individual vehicles, teams and squads
- Expansive simulation of “soft factors” such as Morale, Experience and Leadership
- Innovative systems portraying Fog of War, Spotting, Line of Sight, Command & Control and Objectives
- Unmatched realistic physics, ballistics and battlefield effects
- Fight in a wide range of weather and lighting conditions, all of which realistically impact fighting abilities
- Unique hybrid system for RealTime and WeGo (turn based) play
- Full featured Editor for maps, scenarios, and campaigns
- Quick Battle system sets up deliberate or randomized battles based on player specifications
- Single player and head to head play, including Play By Email (PBEM+++)
- Supported for the long haul with patches, upgrades and expansions
Steam User 12
This game is hardcore.
I am a military history nerd for 30 years and I know no other simulator that shows WW2 combat as realistic as this... Next to "Garviteam Tactics". They are so different that they complement each other, not compete against each other.
You need to know real military combat tactics to prevail, nothing less. You need to know the weapons capabilities and limitations. If you don't you lose.
If you make the effort, you get a very unique experience. All of a sudden, you really, really understand what it meant to be a WW2 soldier. You can relive history!
I play this game for over 10 years (outside of Steam) and it just never gets old.
About the crappy graphics and performance: this isn't a game! It never was and never will be. So gaming norms like eye-candy graphics and such don't apply. This is a simulator with just one goal: it wants to represent WW2 as realistic as possible. It exceeds at that.
Steam User 7
This is a company/battalion-level combat simulator, where you mostly operate on the platoon leader level, i.e., your unit of operation is a team/squad. It plays very nice on a small scale, i.e., a (reinforced) company, but becomes tedious when the number of units grows to a battalion level. In that case, try playing it as individual squad mini-games and give yourself a rest after a couple of hours. It plays very slowly, a game hour of commanding a company normally takes eight hours of real time.
Pros:
- A combat simulator in which real-world tactics works ... as it should in real world, i.e., not always :)
- The interface is very intuitive and simple (compared to other games in this niche).
- The level of detail, look and feel of the game, everything is polished and nice.
Cons:
- Too much micro-management. But this is what I like this game for. Just give yourself a rest, when you tire of it.
- Because of a grid-based map you can't put waypoints anywehere your like, which doesn't play nice in a city combat.
- No UI for your battle order. You have to find all your units (and remember them). I sometimes write down them on a piece of paper. As a result, it is very easy to forget giving orders to a unit or a whole company. In other words, no tools for unit management.
Steam User 4
If you are a wargamer, and willing to look past the rather dated graphics, the tactical elements of this game truly cannot be beaten. It is the definitive platoon-to-battalion level WW-II gaming experience. I have put thousands of hours in nearly all Combat Mission products from the first iteration (no longer on Steam). To say it is my favorite computer game-- given the time investment-- would not be an understatement. Having said this, it does not run as well on AMD graphics cards as Nvidia given aged programming (I have AMD). A must have for multiplayer, turn-based gaming.
Steam User 6
I'm completely overdosed on Western Front WW2 games - after Kelly's Heroes , Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Steven Ambrose, When Trumpets Fade, and 6000 hours of Close Combat game series, my mind is numb. I only play Cold War, or WW2 Eastern Front games. But for anyone else who loves Shermans versus Tigers. CM Normandy is for you. This is where you can get battalion level tactical combat and a great community to battle with.
Steam User 5
The graphics aren't from this decade, but it's still a decent game. The AI is very independent.
Also, I'm confident I've witnessed the troops in game shoot surrendering troops multiple times.
Steam User 4
Great game. Got the original game bundle back in 2011 and was able to activate here on Steam. Time go back to bocage country.
Steam User 5
I recommend all Combat Mission games, since they fill perfectly their niche in the military simulation universe with remarkable depthness. I now own all titles and most DLCs from the year 2000 onwards, with the sole exception of Cold War, taking advantage of bundles and special discounts (by the way, make sure you do).
Sadly full fluidity of gameplay and UI has decreased over time due to some technical outdatedness, more so with bigger, battalion sized battles.
Still the game is playable. If you think your dedicated GPU is not being used by Win11 for Combat Mission, try: Windows Settings>Display>Graphics and under Custom options for apps, manually add the game to tell the OS to use your best GPU when playing. It worked for me.