Is ASl all that relevant anymore as the legacy leading towards CM?

[A Canadian Cat]

The primary purpose of Triggers is to allow the designer the ability to have specific AI actions dependent on circumstantial factors (friendly and/or enemy). Triggers, on their own, doesn't directly change how the AI behaves at the operational level. For example, you can have the left pincer of an attack wait until the right pincer gets into place before advancing. Easily done. But you can't also instruct the left pincer to withdraw and come to the aid of the right pincer if it gets crushed. It's an either or type thing.

Excellent - that is the kind of AI plan I want to face. And eventually program myself; but lets face it first we all want to fight one made using it:D

What we need to do is combine Triggers with Alternate Plans. And that means a lot more coding and...

Time - which ran out:) Still what you did get done looks good and valuable. I look forward to working with it.

[LongLeftFlank]

Hmm, maybe I'm taking you too literally, but I'm having trouble thinking of a tactical (CM2 scale) engagement in any war (modern included) where that kind of rethink (cancel current objective, disengage, wheel about, rescue screwed up unit) took place in a scenario timeframe (<3 hours). I know the Red Army claimed to be able to do these kinds of tactical gymnastics at sub-battalion level in their Op Maneuver Group heyday in the 80s, but my BS meter goes off.

That said, I endorse the comments above about triggers not being a panacea. But rolling out a limited functionality over time would be good -- I suspect the design community "pietri dish" would surprise you!

[Battlefront.com]

Hmm, maybe I'm taking you too literally, but I'm having trouble thinking of a tactical (CM2 scale) engagement in any war (modern included) where that kind of rethink (cancel current objective, disengage, wheel about, rescue screwed up unit) took place in a scenario timeframe (<3 hours).

So if you're driving your main force up the left flank, and it stalls out, you don't shift forces from your diversion force or try to make the diversion the main point of effort? If not, I'm sure you'll find a lot of people wanting to play you

It's true that in real life any sort of major tactical problem would most likely, in CM terms, end the game. Rethinks, redeployments, reinforcements, etc. take time to plan out and execute. Even for a 1 hour CM scenario this sort of major stuff is a bit out of scope.

Which is where we get to the typical point of divergence between a game and a real battle. Players don't want to be constrained like a real world commander, therefore they don't expect the AI to be either.

Still, some amount of flexibility is always found on a tactical battlefield. Even ridged militaries, like Soviets, did have some amount of room for tactical initiative. It would look more a tweak within an existing plan in real life, but in game terms any shift is a change in the plan since the AI has no concept of improvisation.

Steve

[Rocky Balboa]

I dont think so. The guys that we have working on stuff spend a LOT of time trying to overcome the lack of tools. This time is probably greater than what would be required with the right tools in place. In other words, if a designer currently puts 5 hours into AI for a scenario he might still only put 5 hours into it BUT get a far superior product in the end.

For people not well versed in the options I think it will be a little better now. The new tools will make it easier to get basic, simplistic AI that can actually put up a challenge. It might not be any better than what the really talented guys can do right now, but that's just it. Currently it takes a lot of time and talent to get the AI to do something consistently well. The new tools should help lower the bar for basic level AI and that should mean (coupled with other Editor improvements) an overall lower bar for making scenarios.

Steve

I hear what your saying and I hope your correct .... I agree, not having the right tool can make it harder and more time consuming to do a task. However, from personal experience I also know having too many tools or options can also increase the time it takes as well.

For example having 16 groups instead of 8 groups gives the developer more options, however if he decides to use 12 groups in his AI plan then that's 4 more groups that he has to code plans for that he didn't have to when he was only limited by 8. And of course adding code for 4 more groups will take additional time to code.

Now with all this being said I would rather have a full tool kit whenever I go to do any Job because there are some tools that are very specialized and are priceless to have in certain situations. I guess its a matter of the scenario designers being disciplined enough to know what tools to use and when.

[Battlefront.com]

I hear what your saying and I hope your correct .... I agree, not having the right tool can make it harder and more time consuming to do a task. However, from personal experience I also know having too many tools or options can also increase the time it takes as well.

Yes, that is always a danger of anything that involves player interaction. Which is why most gamers out there hate wargames. Too many things to learn for too little personal reward.

For example having 16 groups instead of 8 groups gives the developer more options, however if he decides to use 12 groups in his AI plan then that's 4 more groups that he has to code plans for that he didn't have to when he was only limited by 8. And of course adding code for 4 more groups will take additional time to code.

This is actually a perfect example of what I was saying. Currently in Version 1.x designers struggle to make complex, subtle AI Plans in large part due to the limited number of Groups. This doesn't mean they give up their vision of how the AI should behave, so they instead work at the Plans until the round peg fits in to the square hole. With double the number of AI Groups the energy and time spent trying to coax more subtle behavior out of too few things suddenly goes away. In fact, I would guess the overall time invested should drop a bit even with the extra Plans necessary to make it work.

Now with all this being said I would rather have a full tool kit whenever I go to do any Job because there are some tools that are very specialized and are priceless to have in certain situations. I guess its a matter of the scenario designers being disciplined enough to know what tools to use and when.

Yes, and that last bit you said is the key to a great scenario designer. He's the guy that figures out how to use the array of Victory Conditions to best direct the player's motivations, for example. Or how to design maps to optimize a certain flavor of battle yet not make it look deliberate. If all you have is a hammer and a sledgehammer, it makes lightly attaching something with screws a very difficult proposition.

Steve

[akd]

Weak point reinforcement. Local counterattack. Displacement to alternate positions. Withdrawal. All are better as reactions to enemy actions/disposition than pegged to the clock. All are well within scope. Adding some possibility for dynamic action on behalf of the attacker would be great, but the more important need is for an active defense that reacts to the player's actions rather than the clock.

[Steiner14]

Yes, and that last bit you said is the key to a great scenario designer. He's the guy that figures out how to use the array of Victory Conditions to best direct the player's motivations, for example. Or how to design maps to optimize a certain flavor of battle yet not make it look deliberate. If all you have is a hammer and a sledgehammer, it makes lightly attaching something with screws a very difficult proposition.

Can this be interpreted that you will not artificially restrict the designer's tools, to prevent bad designers making bad scenarios, but to give the designers mighty tools and let them decide how useful and intelligent they use them?

E.g. i'm thinking of reinforcements that can be triggered by various variables. Although potentially awful in the hands of bad designers, but in the hand of good designers, the player probably wouldn't even notice it.

[Battlefront.com]

We've never artificially restricted the tools in the Editor. It's always been about prioritizing our development time across the whole game and not getting bogged down in any one area. We could spend 6 months of development time in the Editor alone, easily.

The problem with a complex game like CM is the greatness comes from a sum of its parts. One can almost always make an argument that x feature is important to the whole because it is. Which is why we are using the "broad front" strategy for improving the game. Across the board improvement is the best way to make CM better and customers happier.

Steve

[Gen Von Television]

If I may I'd like to chime in too: I still own the whole SL/ASL lot, stored away. Irrc there were also plans to produce (I'm not sure they ever did) a program to use with some 8086 machine to throw the dices, make the calculations, and so on.

The rule book was massive and time consuming to study and keep track of: a real burden. Besides my main interest in the board game was to closely examine battles I knew from readings, watching documentaries, listening to the Vets stories, like so many of you.

The oddest thing I was playing it solo! since all of my friends were not so much involved in studying all those game rules: I was able to get some of them playing on other less steep learning curve boardgames like Luftwaffe, Ambush or Okinawa, just to name a couple...

When I played Close Combat and other Atomic's games I found a few other PBM players around the world, and we had some real experience together, as if re-living history. Indeed playing against another human gives much more to the players.

Still I'm very much enjoying playing against the AI, and surely the CM series is giving me a lot to think about, even for the odd behavior (bug) that I also ascribe to the chaos on a battlefield.

What is concerning me most is that the Editor should really get close to the under the hood Game philosophy: of course there should be very powerful and flexible tools easily accessible to the designers, I mean a Dremel toolkit is so much better than just have a complete set of hand driven files or cutters. The point is that many of us may find difficult to understand when use a file or a cutter to make the job come out right.

Maybe it would just be a matter of making clearer to any user what kind of tool to use in a specific situation: it maybe helpful to have them named consistently to the Military world, for example organized when the AI is on the Attack or dug in Defense; or associate them to a specific menu, or even give them standardized icons.

Think about the Movements orders in the AI Editor: sometime you have to give the pixel troops a move order that doesn't reflect what they actually depict in their action but will end as you thought it should.

Whatever, I'm an happy customer!