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3 related topics, but split: Movies


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Zero to ten? I don't know, too many factors I reckon. Intensity of the fight, number of points of contact, size of my force, how much stuff the bad guys are throwing my way, tracking down spotting rounds you heard but didn't see.

As a rule of thumb it's probably once per platoon, as each tends to fight it's own little battle, plus some from the enemy point of view. I recently completed  the Blunting the Spear campaign for Red Thunder. It's battalion-sized and I'd say I watched an average of six replays per turn, sometimes a few more, sometimes less. Before contact and as the battle winds down it's less, sometimes none and during the most intense action, more.

Which leads to some interesting math... If I did indeed watch six replays per turn on average, I watched around 3,120 replays during the course of the campaign, which took me almost a month to complete. That's a lot of movies!

Edited by landser
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15 minutes ago, markshot said:

The movies are by far the most time consuming aspect of the game.

I'm too analytical for my own good I think, but that's not true for me. I did sort of a quasi-AAR when I was playing that campaign and one thing I said was the turns were taking me about 15 minutes per. And if I consider 6 minutes was watching the replays, that left 9 for orders. So for me, replays comprise about one-third :D

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I'm a predominantly Realtime player (GASP!) and view repeated viewing to catch the minutiae of gameplay 'cheating'. Or more precisely, attempting to game the game engine. If something unknown smacks your lead tank and the only way to know the source is repeating the scene over and over from all angles that's not 'fair play'. You ought to take the hit and chalk it up to fog-of-war. Do I practice what I preach? Weeeell... I'm not above scouring the map for clues after an event but playing Realtime tends to keep me a tiny bit more honest. :P

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When playing a battalion sized game i do not considder it 'cheating' to wiew the replay multiple times...

IRL subordinate commanders and even single soldiers can act on their own initiative to a greater degree then what is possible in CM...

They are also far better at sharing information...atleast comparing to playing RT...

In CM you are pretty much on your own imo...😎

 

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16 hours ago, MikeyD said:

If something unknown smacks your lead tank and the only way to know the source is repeating the scene over and over from all angles that's not 'fair play'.

Well sure but that's not what I'm doing when I watch the replay multiple times. I usually watch once from a high level to see how the overall situation evolved and note where I want to watch closer. Then I watch much closer (camera 2 or 3 scrolled down a little) those areas where stuff happened. Then if some thing really cool happens I'll watch that and marvel at it a few times. I very rarely try to figure out precisely where the surprise came from more likely I wallow in dismay watching it a few times :D

 

8 hours ago, RepsolCBR said:

When playing a battalion sized game i do not considder it 'cheating' to wiew the replay multiple times...

IRL subordinate commanders and even single soldiers can act on their own initiative to a greater degree then what is possible in CM...

Yep!

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16 hours ago, MikeyD said:

 If something unknown smacks your lead tank

But what if you have six lead tanks, spread over 2 or 3 kilometers of front?  Assuming we watch so many replays in order to game the game or secure some sort of nefarious advantage is missing the mark in my view, and certainly for me. Matter of fact, uncertainty is one of the appealing facets of Combat Mission for me. The 'everything's a Tiger!' sort of vagueness is not something I want to lose through excessive scrutiny.

Like Repsol alluded to, it mainly stems from the fact that Combat Mission lacks a reporting system. I get no indication of a unit coming under fire, or identifying an enemy position unless their icon flashes or a hit text pops up or that's the spot I am watching at the time. So I watch multiple replays to see what each group did and saw during the action phase. And as mentioned, I also watch replays for the cinematic value, I mean it''s fun watching your incoming massed tank fire from the enemy's point of view.

Some time ago I pondered what CM would be like with a radio net. Imagine that each platoon leader reported to higher headquarters what it was doing "Echo 2-1, have reached final waypoint' or contact 'Echo 2-1, contact right, 200m, tank' or casualties 'Echo 2-1, have a man down, pinned by enemy fire from the front'. Of course I can hardly imagine a way to have all of this be manageable for the player in large scenarios, at least audibly (a text system would work). But short of a reporting system, replays are the next best thing to maintain a proper situational awareness on the battlefield.

In some ways I admire the folks that can play Combat Mission in real-time. I'd reckon that real-time is the most difficult way to play the game. On the other hand, real-time with pause is the easiest, as consequence is minimized. WEGO players must live with their choices, tactical re-loads notwithstanding. But at a base level, real-time eschews much of what makes Combat Mission such a wonderful war game for me, the action and consequence of WEGO and the ability to watch the action from any angle as often as I like.

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Often when i play a scenario i have a certain part of the fight as 'my favorit'...for each turn.

When i press GO the first thing that i do is to watch this section of the front/unit close in...

It might be a tank destroyer turning in place from its ambush possition to get the gun on a juicy target...

Will it get a shot of ? will it hit ? 

Tense moments 😁...

It might be a panzerfaust guy sneaking up towards a big, nasty tank...will he make it...will he survive..

These movies are one area where CM2 truely shines...

After watching these favorit scenes i usually zome out for the next replay to get a feel for the big picture...

If i spot anything of intrest i play the movie again and zome in on those spots...

Fairly often i also watch a replay or two from the enemy side...mostly for the cinimatic value...but also to...feel good ! about a nice move on my part 😎...

With regards to radio chatter...I to think that it would be cool...but difficult to implement i guess to avoid 15, 20 radiomessages going off at ones..

One thing that would be very cool for CM3 would be to be able to play non-pausable co-operative multiplayer with 'live' radio comms...

Things like...one overall company commander and 3 - 4 platoonleaders in charge of a platoon each...😁

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