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What do you all think of rewinding turns in SP WEGO gameplay?


Bahger

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Just curious.  I try to avoid it because I feel that, unlike CMSF at this point in its development cycle, the game "plays fair", with minimal LOS and AI glitches that create implausible or unjust outcomes and that, like real-life commanders, we should have to live with the often fatal consequences of our own decisions.

 

Having said that...

 

I will occasionally replay a turn if I really think that a unit has got hung up on a pathfinding glitch or if I'm convinced that superior LOS should have allowed it the first shot.  Is this heresy?  What do you all think?

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I do it as little as possible and not when I think it will change the outcome of the battle decisively; for example, if I did not anticipate that artillery barrage which took out one of my two MBTs, I will not rewind the turn in order to move the tank and escape my fate. However, rewinding every now and then can be a good teaching tool for the relatively inexperienced player…or so I tell myself.

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I think there might be some confusion here in the term "rewind". Using the "Back to the beginning of the replay" button is different to reloading the orders phase and changing the orders (or just running the turn calculation again to get some different results). I think Bahger and Poesel are working off different definitions. Or, Poesel, do you really have 3 or 4 goes at getting each turn right?

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The only times I ever do is if the game path-finding does something weird. Although that is only on the rare occasion that I 1. have a save and 2. have a path finding problem. Both are rare so it is even rarer that they happen together.

 

Recently I loss a squad because the hedge in front of the men looked like it had an opening, it in fact did not, so the squad ran onto the adjacent street which was being swept by automatic fire and explosives. They all promptly died.

 

I had a save so I reloaded it and changed the order.

 

I personally avoid reloadingfor things that the game simulated (like spotting).

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Play it how you see fit, that is your decision.

 

I like playing h2h. So like now, since I am playing a few games against the AI to get some training in so I know what to expect from units and to make sure I know how to work them correctly.

 

I would never replay a turn, no matter what. I don't have that option against another player and I sure would not have it in real life. Play it through with your mistakes. That is where the lesson is really learned. You are not learning how to handle situations when things go wrong, you sure do not remember your mistakes if you do not see them play out.

 

The best lessons learned are the ones we fail at, it helps us remember them and helps us avoid doing them again.

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I think the CMx games have two types of scenarios. Those you can apply experience and techniques you have learnt to win (or nearly win!), and those that must be gamed; i.e. the designer has set out to trick and frustrate, so multiple playthroughs are required. I love the former, and they're usually a majority, but in the case of the latter I have no problem replaying them as frequently as possible - and that includes rewinds. There's no shame in it, and it's a big part of learning. 

 

Also accepting that you will lose some :)

Edited by Sulman
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I think there might be some confusion here in the term "rewind". Using the "Back to the beginning of the replay" button is different to reloading the orders phase and changing the orders (or just running the turn calculation again to get some different results). I think Bahger and Poesel are working off different definitions. Or, Poesel, do you really have 3 or 4 goes at getting each turn right?

 

I know what you are sayinmg but I think it is reasonably clear from my post that I am referring to "rewinding" the turn in order to replay it rather than to re-watch it but, given the game's "rewind" and "fast forward" style icons, "rewind" might have been an ambiguous choice of word.

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Wait, you can replay a turn? Is there a easy way to do this or does everyone simply save before they do the turn?

Well I do not save before every turn, or even close to it, as that would encourage a trial-and-error form of gameplay that is completely antithetical to any kind of realistic tactical command simulation.  That is the way to do it, though; quit the game and restart from a previous save.  I do not allow myself to save more than about every fifth turn, and rarely reload from saves.  The game has crashed mid-battle once, though, so saving is prudent.

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I play it both ways - with some scenarios it's worth going back over and over and trying to "solve" them - I'll rarely reload mid-battle (unless I've made some kind of fat-fingered error, like double clicking to select all of a recon troop, and sending their (offscreen) vehicles fast moving into open ground - but I think you can learn a lot from replaying missions repeatedly.

Off the top of my head, I know I've played "Sabres at Dawn" from CMSF quite bit, so I have my sequencing/co-ordinating of fire down fairly strongly, as well as my avenues of approach, etc.

 

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i tend to watch the replay once from an overhead view and then if i need too ill rewatch the turn zoomed in on the points of action 

 

edit: i miss read this i tend to save every turn just incase my mouse double clicks the end turn (its on its way out) but i would never"replay" a turn i would rather redo the mission 

Edited by Bennay
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I rewind and re-watch a turn 3-4 times so I can see all the action. I only replay a turn (with new orders) if I legitimatly forgot to do something (I forgot my infantry platoon in the woods that I wanted to move). I Will also replay of I have made such a catastrophic mistake that the match is basically over. The latter is a cheat but makes it more entertaining. It is a game and supposed to be fun right?

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I'll rewind and watch a turn many times. Slow it, pause it, zoom in, all the cinematic moves...There is so much going on, that often that is the only way to catch it. Will I use the rewind to track an inflight shell back to its source? Hell yeah. ;)

 

Reload a turn? Sometimes. But it always makes me feel a little dirty. Not in a bad way, mind you. Seriously, I'll only reload if I've really messed up or if I'm trying to figure something out. Usually, I will not. It "robs" me of a victory at the end of the game.

 

Ken

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Now, replaying the whole mission is another story. I enjoy doing that, especially if the designer has a few AI options.

 

It can be really enjoyable. That is when if I did not like my overall results from the battle plan I had created,

 

I go back in and try another one I might have thought of and see if it should have been my first choice.

 

When doing this I try to not cheat the AI and make any moves that I know are good because I have played and know where the enemy units likely are.

 

Thus a real present surprise if the game throws in and plays one of its other programmed options

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I use the rewind and watch a lot.  I know it provides info an overall tactical commander wouldn't have, but a tactical commander wouldn't have to micro manage, waypoints, target arcs etc.  Also in actual combat, tactical commanders would be getting contact information, expected contact information, possible shot direction, casualty reports, etc.  I can only get that kind of info from the rewinds.

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The only times I ever do is if the game path-finding does something weird. Although that is only on the rare occasion that I 1. have a save and 2. have a path finding problem. Both are rare so it is even rarer that they happen together.

 

Recently I loss a squad because the hedge in front of the men looked like it had an opening, it in fact did not, so the squad ran onto the adjacent street which was being swept by automatic fire and explosives. They all promptly died.

 

I had a save so I reloaded it and changed the order.

 

I personally avoid reloadingfor things that the game simulated (like spotting).

Thank you not really thought of doing this mainly too lazy to reload and replay but for the times i get wiped by bad pathfinding I am doing it now.

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Well after looking at this thread, I started saving before every turn and I can honestly say that it's kind of nice to be able to replay the turn if it ended poorly. The main reason is that I usually have a couple ways of going about a turn, say for instance a turn I reloaded. I was attacking a position that I knew enemies were and I was thinking about how to do it. I ended up sending the BMP's in first and then the infantry. This ended up being a poor decision and my BMP's got shot with RPG's (note this wasn't exactly cqb). 2nd Time I sent in my infantry first and they just got blown apart. 3rd Time I simply moved my troops around the little ridge line that the enemy platoon was holding and I didn't have a problem with them for the rest of the game. If it wasn't for the reload then I wouldn't have figured out that it really is possible to just cordon off an area and move around it.

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I generally do reload turns until I least get familiar with the ergonomics of a particular period.

 

More of a WW2 buff I am unfamiliar with modern munitions and their capabilities but once again CM is educating me. A week ago I didn't even know what an excalibur round was, now I not only know I have an idea of how effective they can be. The sheer weight of firepower a modern squad can deliver is staggering. Today's battlefields strike me as being frighteningly lethal. As I endeavour to develop the intrinsic knowledge of the various systems and their capabilities that a commander must surely have, I will be reloading turns, pondering what happened, scouring the web for information and trying alternative methods until eventually it will no longer be necassary. :)

Edited by Chek
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My SP style:

 

I always save two files per turn--one Command phase save just before hitting the go button and one Replay phase save. I number them by time, so they might be "Galloping Horse Downfall 1H20C" and "Galloping Horse Downfall 1H20R," respectively. That way, I'm covered if there is ever a crash and it is easy to have all my replays in order if I want to capture video from them. I usually watch replays from 1-5 times per turn, depending on what happens.

 

I have two firm house rules on my SP games:

  1. No redos on turns. What happens happens and I have to deal with it.
  2. No increasing of scenario time limits.

Across all game families since CMx2 came out, I think I've redone 1-3 turns because of crazy pathfinding results. But that really is it.

 

Oh, and I seldom replay a scenario. Playing blind is too important to me and my game time is so limited that I have years' worth of unplayed stock content as it is (plus I'm forever making my own custom, not-ready-for-primetime scenarios).

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The only times I ever do is if the game path-finding does something weird.

My opening position is to never do it. But I have when something nuts happens. Like if I order a unit through a gap that I think fits but does not and the unit goes off into harms way I have in the past redone the orders. Frankly it has been a while since that has happened - I guess I play a lot. And I really don't save often enough any more for that to happen be really effective. My logic goes like this if the tank commander or squad commander can tell they cannot fig or there is no gap and the order is to get to the other side they would do so in a way that was not just blindly driving off willy nilly. They would consider the alternatives and move to a place where they could see better and make a plan to get to where they wanted to be. 

Now if they are making the right moves and all hell breaks loose and they redirect themselves to a bad place: well that is just how things go. Never according to plan. Success is not when your bidding is followed and nothing bad happens. Success is pulling off the objectives even after all kinds of bad has happened.

 

Play it how you see fit, that is your decision.

Indeed. As has been said for training purposes re attempting a specific moment can be helpful.

I would never replay a turn, no matter what.

That is my opening position but as I said some times when the pathing does something totally insane I have in the past replotted movement orders.

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