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Units and how they are controlled


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Just wanted to clarify a few things for people just catching up on what CMx2 is all about.

First, the feel of CMx2 is similar to CMx1 despite the 1:1 control (and the fact that just about everything is different smile.gif ). The smallest unit is a Team, the largest is a Squad. Vehicles, heaby weapons, and other such things are represented indvidually. Generically we refer to these as "units".

As the commander of a force your focus is at the unit level. You command a Team, Vehicle, Gun, etc... not the individual Soldiers that make up that Team, Vehicle, Gun, etc. That means you can not micromanage the LMG gunner of a Rifle Squad in CMx2 any more than you could in CMx1. Yes units will look, and act, far more realistic than they were in CMx1... but the focus is firmly on the unit.

Squads in CMx2 are unique "containers" for Teams. This means a Rifle Squad is made up of between 2 and 3 Teams, depending on nation, timeframe, and type of unit (of course). You order the Squad and the Teams behave according to the Squad Commands. For example, one Move Command instructs the Teams to leap frog each other, with the stationary one offering overwatch protection. Another Move Command might just get the guys all running at the same time. The choice of Commands is yours to make, the behavior is carried out by the TacAI accordingly.

Crews of heavy weapons, vehicles, etc. are nothing more than Teams, just the same as a Sniper or Rifle Team. They can abandon their weapon or vehicle under some circumstances, and possibly reman it under others. Bailing out crews might spike the thing being abandoned too. Depends. Enemy units will also attempt to spike things just in case a crew should want to reman.

For heavy weapons such as mortars and MMGs... crews are assigned specific positions. If incoming fire kills the Assistant Gunner for a MMG, one of the Ammo Bearers will take his place. If the unit then gets up and moves, well... the new Assistant Gunner is now responsible for the tripod and therefore won't be taking a whole bunch of ammo with him!

Uhmmmm... what else... I guess that's about it for the basics.

Steve

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"Squads in CMx2 are unique "containers" for Teams. This means a Rifle Squad is made up of between 2 and 3 Teams, depending on nation, timeframe, and type of unit (of course). You order the Squad and the Teams behave according to the Squad Commands. For example, one Move Command instructs the Teams to leap frog each other, with the stationary one offering overwatch protection. Another Move Command might just get the guys all running at the same time. The choice of Commands is yours to make, the behavior is carried out by the TacAI accordingly."

-Steve

OK!

Thanks

That sounds great.

-tom w

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Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

" "Squads in CMx2 are unique "containers" for Teams. This means a Rifle Squad is made up of between 2 and 3 Teams, depending on nation, timeframe, and type of unit (of course). You order the Squad and the Teams behave according to the Squad Commands. For example, one Move Command instructs the Teams to leap frog each other, with the stationary one offering overwatch protection. Another Move Command might just get the guys all running at the same time. The choice of Commands is yours to make, the behavior is carried out by the TacAI accordingly."

-Steve

OK!

Thanks

That sounds great.

-tom w "

That sounds awesome.

-dale

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Originally posted by dalem:

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

" "Squads in CMx2 are unique "containers" for Teams. This means a Rifle Squad is made up of between 2 and 3 Teams, depending on nation, timeframe, and type of unit (of course). You order the Squad and the Teams behave according to the Squad Commands. For example, one Move Command instructs the Teams to leap frog each other, with the stationary one offering overwatch protection. Another Move Command might just get the guys all running at the same time. The choice of Commands is yours to make, the behavior is carried out by the TacAI accordingly."

-Steve

OK!

Thanks

That sounds great.

-tom w "

That sounds awesome.

-dale

Thanks, dalem, your response to aka_tom_w was great.

-mike

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"Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

"Originally posted by dalem:

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

" "Squads in CMx2 are unique "containers" for Teams. This means a Rifle Squad is made up of between 2 and 3 Teams, depending on nation, timeframe, and type of unit (of course). You order the Squad and the Teams behave according to the Squad Commands. For example, one Move Command instructs the Teams to leap frog each other, with the stationary one offering overwatch protection. Another Move Command might just get the guys all running at the same time. The choice of Commands is yours to make, the behavior is carried out by the TacAI accordingly."

-Steve

OK!

Thanks

That sounds great.

-tom w "

That sounds awesome.

-dale

Thanks, dalem, your response to aka_tom_w was great.

-mike"

Thanks guys. You guys rock.

Jon

"Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

"Originally posted by dalem:

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

" "Squads in CMx2 are unique "containers" for Teams. This means a Rifle Squad is made up of between 2 and 3 Teams, depending on nation, timeframe, and type of unit (of course). You order the Squad and the Teams behave according to the Squad Commands. For example, one Move Command instructs the Teams to leap frog each other, with the stationary one offering overwatch protection. Another Move Command might just get the guys all running at the same time. The choice of Commands is yours to make, the behavior is carried out by the TacAI accordingly."

-Steve

OK!

Thanks

That sounds great.

-tom w "

That sounds awesome.

-dale

Thanks, dalem, your response to aka_tom_w was great.

-mike"

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

...

Crews of heavy weapons, vehicles, etc. are nothing more than Teams, just the same as a Sniper or Rifle Team. They can abandon their weapon or vehicle under some circumstances, and possibly reman it under others. Bailing out crews might spike the thing being abandoned too. Depends. Enemy units will also attempt to spike things just in case a crew should want to reman.

...

Steve

Will "captured" (unspiked) weapons count toward the final score ? This may prove to be an incentive to area shell an abandonned gun or MG.
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Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

Steve,

Can you say anything about how LOS will be handled for squads? Will each squad trace LOS from a single point like CMx1, or has this been changed?

Thanks.

Steve, on a similar LOS note, will vehicles, such as tanks or APCs block the LOS to a unit hiding behind them?
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Man, as I was reading this thread I was thinking "cripes, it's going from bad to worse!". Thanks for having your fun and then stopping ;)

No, the player will not be able to modify Squad size. However, we have a lot more flexibility in offering alternative Squad compositions than we did in CMx1. This means we could have the standard organization as default and offer a special "Assault Configuration" (or what not) for the player to use. We aren't going to go hog wild with minor variations, but if there was a common alternative organization we will allow this. We also are allowing a LOT more flexibility to Order of Battle, which IMHO is the bigger issue.

LOS is unit based. CPUs and RAM are still not good enough to handle hundreds of LOS checks every second or two without choaking the system dead in its tracks. Then we'd also have to have individual Soldier TacAI to get in/out of LOS, which woud also be a huge impact on CPU and RAM capabilities. So there's nothing we can do about this. However, we don't think anybody will really notice.

I am pretty sure vehicles can block LOS now, but it's been so long since I talked about this with Charles I honestly can't say for sure one way or the other. Obviously we WANT this to be the case, as we did for CMx1. But the ramifications of adding this feature are quite serious from the computational side of things.

Remember, the more things are chaotic, the more CPU and RAM needed to make sense of it. If things are all nice and known before the game even starts, the CPU and RAM requirements are as small as they can be. So it is always a balance between the values of various features because the hardware can only handle so much chaos before it is overwhelmed. Therefore, we have to pick and choose our "battles" very carefully.

Steve

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Hi,

Hate to sound like a cheerleader but all sounds great.

My major concern was always that the changes to CM would some how kill the “magic” of CMX1.

Battlefront are clearly very aware of this danger and have the matter covered.

All good fun smile.gif ,

All the best,

Kip.

PS. CMX1 already does so much that in my mind “how we can use CMX2” is almost as important as the what features are included in CMX2. If you follow me. Thus my interest in features that will allow CMX2 to be used more easily as a means to resolve CMMC type operational games.

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Another Move Command might just get the guys all running at the same time. The choice of Commands is yours to make, the behavior is carried out by the TacAI accordingly."
I wonder how intelligent the TacAI will be in this regard. I mean, will we see MG teams setting up in the middle of an open road to cover the manoeuvre element, or will they try to use the street corner as cover?

I am pretty sure vehicles can block LOS now, but it's been so long since I talked about this with Charles I honestly can't say for sure one way or the other. Obviously we WANT this to be the case, as we did for CMx1. But the ramifications of adding this feature are quite serious from the computational side of things.

I really hope this feature can be fitted into the game. It will change the armour battle aspects of the game immensely. I want to be able to order my tanks to go hull-down behind wrecks.
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This means we will see soldiers blasting away happily through building corners, for example?!
Unlikely. The system is a little more intelligent than that. Specifically, the system knows what objects are and where the soldiers are in relation to them. It's just that they aren't tracing LOS to random spots on the map from any and all possible locations.

The TacAI in CMx1 was pretty damned good. The shortcomings most people can think of are mostly due to Morale and Suppression being tied together. This made it fairly difficult to get the TacAI to behave the way it should under certain conditions. We will have no such problem with that in CMx2 because Morale and Suppression are two different factors.

Steve

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The system is a little more intelligent than that. Specifically, the system knows what objects are and where the soldiers are in relation to them. It's just that they aren't tracing LOS to random spots on the map from any and all possible locations.

So, lets suppose the point man of a unit walks around the corner of a building. Thereby, he enters a street where a MG has set up. Will this MG take the only visible soldier under fire, or will it hold back until the "center of gravity" of the unit enters the street?!

Best regards,

Thomm

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Crews of heavy weapons, vehicles, etc. are nothing more than Teams, just the same as a Sniper or Rifle Team. They can abandon their weapon or vehicle under some circumstances, and possibly reman it under others. Bailing out crews might spike the thing being abandoned too. Depends. Enemy units will also attempt to spike things just in case a crew should want to reman.

How much ability will there be to man abandonded equipement (either your own or the enemy's)? I.e., can my Audie Murphy jump up on an abandoned Sherman and crew the AA gun? Can my Sgt. Rock jump into an abandonded Tiger and use the main gun to shell the Huns?
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What is the chance as the game is going on and your platoon is shot up, can you reform them into 1 or 2 units and the original leader is still active?

Another request if another platoon has lost its leader and is reduced in size (or not) can they be reassigned to another platoon by a superior commander?

If both could be implemented then near the end of the game where you have small units sitting around they could be rallied into working units (at the cost of reaction time) and move on.

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Originally posted by Gordon:

I.e., can my Audie Murphy jump up on an abandoned Sherman and crew the AA gun?

Or M10 tank destroyer, as the case may be.... ;)

An even better question would be whether Audie could jump up at game start to do so.

I suppose the overall question is - now that 1:1 soldier modelling is here, how many "special cases" will there be to recreate award winning exploits. The late Smokey Smith used both a PIAT and a tommy gun to singlehandedly stop a German armour platoon and infantry escort.

Do we really want to see that recreated in game on a regular basis?

No, of course not. The reason VCs and MOHs are awarded is because the deeds are so atypical.

Although, it would be nice to see the occasional heroic figure - trying to recreate Audie on that M10 or Stanley Hollis on D-Day would be silly, but for occasional circumstances like this to arise - one man takes over a vehicle mounted weapon, or after firing his anti-tank weapon uses his personal weapon to great effect - would be nice.

I had something similar happen in a recent ROW scenario. An entire platoon was lost to enemy fire, with only the platoon headquarters unit remaining on map, with a man strength of 1. He knocked out a machinegun in a church tower single handedly, kept a German halftrack away from a vital bridge for five minutes, and helped exert control over the bridge at game end, even when the now-shocked HT rolled directly on top of it. The flag stayed Allied.

So I'd like to see similar single-handed heroics possible, but not manufactured. The trouble is, with 1:1 being a representation rather than a model, I would suspect special cases like one man taking over an M10 AAMG etc. would be more trouble than it is worth, coding wise?

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With 1:1, how will the squad LMGs be handled since we have no direct control over them. In Close Combat when dealing with infantry I spent half the time manipulating the squad in order for the MG gunner to get to the place where he had a good arc of fire, the other half I spent cursing as it steadfastly refused to deploy to a position where it had a useful LOF. How will CMx2 deal with this?

On a somewhat related note, how would a team/squads formations work? Are there any? When advancing down a road a column/line astern formation would pretty much be SOP while line(abreast) would be the way for advancing through woods. Is there anything to fascilitate this?

And lastly a question not strictly related to control. How are 1:1 units going to be portrayed? They were supposed to be spread out, but if all the men really do keep 5m apart you do kinda lose track of the unit as a whole with parts of it over a sizeable area. Or are you going from the assumption that the "spread out!" order wasn't/isn't one of the most issued orders for nothing and portray a squad as a tight formation. It's kinda heard to decide which I prefer. Yes, historically men tended to clutter but not always and they certainly weren't supposed to. Certainly not when digging their foxholes! But IMHO there is a real danger of losing track of the unit if they aren't portrayed as being fairly close together.

But if you model them as close together, how to model the casualties of a shell falling nearby? Wipe out the squad? Or back to the "OMG, it exploded right at their feet and nothing happened!" fudge.

Third option is an order of Stay Close/Spread Out for squads, but I can hear Charles and the UI groaning even as I type this. smile.gif

Gosh, am I glad I'm not a game designer! And my current job and boss SUCK! :D

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