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Questions about WWII infantry for CMx2


Cid250

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In a typical german squad, there are atleast 2 persons that work as "ammo carriers" of the LMG... just because the MG42 is the main weapon in firefights and it needs lots of ammo, there is an ammo carrier, and an LMG assitant (that also has a spare tube and more ammo). Will be designed in that way for the future WWII module?.

What happens if the LMG gunner is killed in combat?... will be posible that another soldier in the squad take this important weapon (that was normal practice in WWII).

What about "runners"?... at platoon and company level there is also some soldiers that are "runners" to give contacts and other coms... Will be that fact "abstracted"? or there will be "visible runners" when radio coms aren't available?.

In heavy MG platoons there are also infantry "telemeters"... will we see those specific soldiers in the field?

Will be possible to give fire orders for an MG company to "reverse slope" (without line of sight) as area target?... that was common practice in WWII even at ranges of 2000 meters.

In some mountain units, horses were used in the long range recon patrols, because horses are more silent than motorbikes and can bypass very rought terrain. Will be any mountain unit equiped with horses in CMx2 WWII eventually?. (keep in mind that those recon infantry dismount from horses when it's needed, to finnish recon on-foot).

Will be any chance of a return of light and medium mortars to the in-map area? (off-map has no sense for the range of those mortars).

In defense... will be available again the "fox holes" for individual soldiers?. A soldier can dig-in in less than one hour, will be that option available for scenarios longer than that?.

Will be possible to call for a typical artillery rolling barrage?... this artillery mission drops the shells in a line that is moved forward in attack and backwards in delaying actions... was common practice since WWI to drop also a mix of smoke & HE rounds in the flanks of that rolling barrage to aid in the attack or defense. (well the flank barrage can be just a "fixed" line target wit mixed ammo defined as separate artillery missions from the main "mobile" rolling barrage ").

Will be available in defense the "pre-defined" target ranges?. When a WWII unit was in defense was a normal practice to use their infantry rangefinders to find the range to any terrain feature to aid the aim of MGs and Mortars. Will be available this feature, again?.

Which tools if any, will be available for infantry to cross rivers and other water obstacles?.

Barbed wire... can you "cut" them with regular infantry to open a path?, will be available "bangalore torpedos" for engineers?.

Mines... will engineers be able to detect and mark them?. Can they setup boby-traps on urban areas?.

Explosives... will engineers be able to use them to blow bridges, or tall trees as improvisation of a barrage for vehicles over a road?.

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I can answer two of them for Battlefront. I'm pretty sure on map light/medium mortars (to 82mm) will be a yes.

I'm 100% sure any horses will be a big no. Much too difficult to code and animate for what they contribute to WWII gameplay.

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I thought BFC said they would like to do horses, although almost certainly not for Normandy (one side is fully mechanized and the other is generally only using horses for logistics). Someday I'm sure they would like to so they can open the engine up to 18th C. and earlier settings, but there would be even some justification for on map horses in an East Front game.

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Cid250,

In a typical german squad, there are atleast 2 persons that work as "ammo carriers" of the LMG... just because the MG42 is the main weapon in firefights and it needs lots of ammo, there is an ammo carrier, and an LMG assitant (that also has a spare tube and more ammo). Will be designed in that way for the future WWII module?.

It already works like that in CM:SF.

What happens if the LMG gunner is killed in combat?... will be posible that another soldier in the squad take this important weapon (that was normal practice in WWII).

It already works like that in CM:SF.

What about "runners"?... at platoon and company level there is also some soldiers that are "runners" to give contacts and other coms... Will be that fact "abstracted"? or there will be "visible runners" when radio coms aren't available?.

It will be abstracted as it is in CM:SF now. I had a very nice design where Runners were explicitly simulated (they are as relevant to modern warfare as WW2 or any other for that matter). I called them "Boomerangs" because they would not be under direct player control. Unfortunately, the AI necessary for this to work is way, way out of our reach. So all we will be able to do is use the current C2 system, which already has "runners" abstracted in it.

In heavy MG platoons there are also infantry "telemeters"... will we see those specific soldiers in the field?

It already works like that in CM:SF. It's nothing more than an optical advantage when trying to identify enemy units. Not nearly as good as the kit used today, but in terms of the game mechanics there is no difference. Just different values which, in turn, produce different results.

Will be possible to give fire orders for an MG company to "reverse slope" (without line of sight) as area target?... that was common practice in WWII even at ranges of 2000 meters.

It's not something we are planning on simulating, no. The practice is still alive and well today, but we're not convinced it's used enough to make it worth coding.

In some mountain units, horses were used in the long range recon patrols, because horses are more silent than motorbikes and can bypass very rought terrain. Will be any mountain unit equiped with horses in CMx2 WWII eventually?. (keep in mind that those recon infantry dismount from horses when it's needed, to finnish recon on-foot).

Hehe... anybody else want to speculate on the chances of seeing horses in CM? (hint... "never" is the answer I'm thinking about). Use of horses in a way relevant to CM is extremely limited, especially on the Western front, so there's actually no need for it.

Will be any chance of a return of light and medium mortars to the in-map area? (off-map has no sense for the range of those mortars).

Yes, of course. The reason why light mortars aren't included on-map in CM:SF is because only the Blue forces have them (Syria uses 82mm and 120mm) and do not typically use them in a way that would have them on-map. Remember that the modern 60mm mortar has a much longer range than the WW2 type. But in WW2 the light mortars are only possible in an on-map setting because of their shorter range, therefore they must be shown on map.

In defense... will be available again the "fox holes" for individual soldiers?. A soldier can dig-in in less than one hour, will be that option available for scenarios longer than that?.

Already possible in CM:SF in terms of existing, but we were not planning on having units dig-in on the fly for WW2. The very long scenario times are supported because it is easy to do if we ignore all kinds of combat factors that start to creep in for such long periods. In other words, longer scenario times are not specifically supported just like we've never supported battles with extremely large amounts of forces.

Will be possible to call for a typical artillery rolling barrage?... this artillery mission drops the shells in a line that is moved forward in attack and backwards in delaying actions... was common practice since WWI to drop also a mix of smoke & HE rounds in the flanks of that rolling barrage to aid in the attack or defense. (well the flank barrage can be just a "fixed" line target wit mixed ammo defined as separate artillery missions from the main "mobile" rolling barrage ").

As with CMx1 games, this is outside of our intended scope. Therefore, we are not planning on doing rolling barrages. Mixed ammo usage, however, is already done in CM:SF so that's not a problem if we find a reason to use it.

Will be available in defense the "pre-defined" target ranges?. When a WWII unit was in defense was a normal practice to use their infantry rangefinders to find the range to any terrain feature to aid the aim of MGs and Mortars. Will be available this feature, again?.

In CMx1 we gave an accuracy advantage to crewed weapons which remained in the same positions they started out in. Honestly, I'm not sure if that is in the game now or not. I forget :) It should be fairly easy to add and there is reason to do that.

Which tools if any, will be available for infantry to cross rivers and other water obstacles?.

Probably none. The assault boats in CMx1 were a horribly rough hack which we don't want to repeat again. Other types of water crossings are outside of CM's scope and won't be simulated.

Barbed wire... can you "cut" them with regular infantry to open a path?, will be available "bangalore torpedos" for engineers?.

The plan is to have standard breaching (i.e. soldiers with basic tools) and advanced breaching (i.e. trained engineers).

Mines... will engineers be able to detect and mark them?. Can they setup boby-traps on urban areas?.

CM:SF already simulated detection and marking. Boobytrapping is currently possible in CM:SF using IEDs. We are likely to allow that in WW2 as well, but these things will not be set up on the fly.

Explosives... will engineers be able to use them to blow bridges, or tall trees as improvisation of a barrage for vehicles over a road?.

No. Outside of CM's scope.

Hope that helps!

Steve

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hehe... I can see the horse thing was answered while I was typing up my answer.

AKD and Sergei are Sequoia are both correct. If we were to do a pre 20th Century game we would put in horses. But since they are such a difficult thing to tackle, we probably won't do a pre 20th Century game. At least it's nowhere on our schedule and our schedule goes out for about 5 years. There's flexibility in years 4 and 5, but I doubt we'll make a radical change to pre 20th Century warfare. The interest is there... the will is not (so to speak). So many other things to do with our time that don't require horses!

Steve

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It already works like that in CM:SF.

I was going to mention that however much more refined the WWII game is going to be its still going to be the CMx2 game engine. So the hoped for flying monkeys and working wristwatches probably won't be codeable. The biggest threat to the WWII title now (beside the imminent collapse of the world economy) is "expectations creep". When the title comes out someone is going to exclaim "You can't chop down trees to block roads? The game is fundamentally flawed!!!!!"

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No, what affects sales is a newbie visiting the game sight out of curiosity, finding a bunch of grogs on the chat board complaining bitterly about missing Bren tripods or lack of working wristwatches, and mistakenly concluding that the game is too flawed to bother with. When all that was really wrong was a few obsessive-compulsive types forgot to take their meds.

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Cid250,

Already possible in CM:SF in terms of existing, but we were not planning on having units dig-in on the fly for WW2. The very long scenario times are supported because it is easy to do if we ignore all kinds of combat factors that start to creep in for such long periods. In other words, longer scenario times are not specifically supported just like we've never supported battles with extremely large amounts of forces.

Steve

If I am understanding what you are saying correctly with this you are not saying foxholes will not be placeable during set up you are saying that foxholes can't be dug during a battle?

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Foxholes can't be dug DURING a battle. That wasn't possible in CMx1 either, though of course you couldn't play a 4 hour long battle either :D

Think of the long battle time similar to the lack of a ceiling on the number of units you can have. We do not support anything over a more-or-less reinforced battalion sized force per side, though we do not prevent people from having a larger force. But we're not going to get into things like including the logistics tail, higher levels of organization, and other things that are routine for deploying a large sized force in one contiguous area simultaneously. That pushes us into an entire different area and increases the scope well beyond what we can reasonably accomplish. And of course, well beyond what $45 paid for ;)

Same thing with the long game times. Rest, refit, reinforce, redeploy, etc. should all be possible within a 4 hour battle. But to do that we'd have to add all kinds of different units, game mechanics, and user interface. It is, basically, an entire game in and of itself. No way do we have the time to do that and still work on the tactical level stuff. Atomic Games basically froze their tactical engine to work on the strategic engine and it's not a road we wish to go down. We want the focus to remain tactical and we have years worth of improvements to implement, so we're not going to get distracted. But if it costs us nothing to allow people to do something reasonable, like play longer or use more units, we're not going to explicitly prevent it.

As for "expectation creep"... it will happen, for sure. Always does :) Perhaps this time it will be a bit worse because the game is less abstract and some people think less abstract means picture perfect reality. Eh, nothing we can do about that other than to be honest about what things we definitely aren't considering. Nothing makes people's expectations go up than a developer that says "yeah, that's a great idea" when he has no intention, or no practical plan, for implementing it. We don't do that, and never have.

It's OK for people to dream a little. They just have to understand that they are dreaming and be prepared to accept something less when they get it. CMBO wasn't everything people wanted it to be, nor was CMBB, nor was CMAK, and nor was CM:SF. But we're happy with the sales of each so we're not concerned about CM: Normandy :D

Steve

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If I am understanding what you are saying correctly with this you are not saying foxholes will not be placeable during set up you are saying that foxholes can't be dug during a battle?

What Steve should say a little more directly instead of waffling around implying that people expect to watch the actual progress of digging is that there'll be no setup placed foxholes (or trenches) either.

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Well, to be precise they seem to be more like what is called a slit trench?

Or perhaps a 'shell scrape'.

This is similar to what I think of when I picture a 'foxhole'......

http://www.terrierman.com/foxholeshelter.jpg

I assume their appearance is simply in the interest of keeping system requirements low and not to imply a lesser degree of protection. Perhaps the Man can answer if they merely look like Ranger graves or actually are Ranger graves.

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What Steve should say a little more directly instead of waffling around implying that people expect to watch the actual progress of digging is that there'll be no setup placed foxholes (or trenches) either.

I can't imagine BFC would go into a WWII title with this limitation still in place. It was semi-plausible when we had an opfor that basically behaved just like the Iraqis (but not the Taliban) and the assumption of an enormous amount of imagery, including realtime satellite and air, available ahead of the battle, but not plausible at all in a WWII setting. Not being able to choose the location to dig in your infantry company before a battle? Knowing which reverse slope the enemy is dug into before even crossing the ridge? Like water, hasty defenses and field fortifications and their full tactical use are absolutely essential to this setting.

Having this beautiful engine that allows deformable terrain, then only allowing defenses that are hardcoded into the map, always in the same location and visible to the opposing side before the battle starts would be...uncreative. :)

I can think of two complementary solutions:

1. The ability to flag a non-permanent terrain object in the editor as not visible to the enemy, e.g. bunkers and other field fortifications, trenches, road blocks, possibly some other stuff that would not be on a map or seen in photo recon, but have tactical significance. Anything flagged would have to be spotted following normal rules, separate from units (if any) occupying them (i.e. you might spot a bunker first but not know what's in it, or you might spot an MG firing but not know it is in a well-camouflaged bunker). In addition to improved realism, I can see some side benefits:

-bunkers might not have to be treated ass backwards as vehicles. Bunkers could be cleared and occupied as a structure, and there would be no more clanging metal when they're hit! (Unless they are metal, of course.)

-differing levels of pre-battle intelligence can be better simulated

-potential for very creative use by mapmakers/scenario designers, e.g. a town could have an unanticipated recently built structure that poses a tactical problem

-the AI might react to these items differently than if they were considered harmless civilian structures or meaningless features of the terrain

2. Hasty defenses (foxholes and simple weapons pits) that can be placed by the defender during setup. These would be created and appear to the defender as they (or their attendant unit) are placed, just as a crater can appear dynamically in CMSF after the application of HE. As with the above, these would only appear to the attacker when spotted (and likewise could be spotted separate from the occupying unit), and again just as a crater can appear in CMSF during the middle of a battle. Crater was not there, now it is. Foxhole was not there (unspotted), now it is (spotted).

The idea of playing as a defender in a WWII tactical game without the ability to organize your own dug-in defense and knowing that your opposition has full knowledge of any defensive preparations (or if the AI, will behave as if defenses are meaningless and non-threatening unless they spot a unit in them) is...painful to contemplate. ;)

And it's Normandy! Tobruks on the cliff tops. Hedgerows turned into invisible fortresses. Germans huddled in foxholes hoping that the FOs don't know they're there and bring 14 in. naval shells down on their heads.

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No, what affects sales is a newbie visiting the game sight out of curiosity, finding a bunch of grogs on the chat board complaining bitterly about missing Bren tripods or lack of working wristwatches, and mistakenly concluding that the game is too flawed to bother with. When all that was really wrong was a few obsessive-compulsive types forgot to take their meds.

Following your logic, it may work the same way with overzealous fanbois bearing the standards for BFC on the tips of their bloody spears... which they systematically run through anyone who has a dissenting, critical or semi constructive (perhaps not to BFC) opinion. Thus turning people off the game and customers being lost.

That is a false logic, borne of subjectivism.

If the product is found to be fun to play by a majority of the gamers that are interested in this venue of war (therefore having value), then it will be successful. If people will pay the price that BFC is asking, it will sell. If there are enough people that buy the game, then BFC makes more games, until they are no longer competitive, new technology comes along, or someone comes out with a new innovative game (such as the WEGO of yonder days).

It's called market clearing. An overly simple way of looking at it, but in general holds true. And whether or not they seem themselves as agents of the market, BFC does not acquire special status, just because they say so. If their business model creates value, they sell games. The market usually cares not about philosophy (as much as some CSR types preach it...) and unless you can brand that philosophy with some kind of societal based asymmetric value, its just "part" of the business model that is relevant or it isn't.

If anyone thinks what is said on this MB by a bunch of people (potential customers) asking critical questions of the designers will influence sales at a noticeable level, they are delusional, and probably should begin taking their meds again.

IF the game is good (being subjective once again, as there are differentiated tastes out there), people will buy it. There is just too much information on the net these days to let a few dissenters poison the soup. Free demos often allow people to make their own decision quite easily and quickly.

So why the "kermit the frog freak out" by some people around here when anyone says anything critical or asks a critical question wanting information???

NOW, if game reviewers don't like it... that's another story.

Point being: civil debate and feedback, whether fer or 'ginst, should be encouraged on this website, and criticisms not utterly destroyed as sacrilegiously apocraphyl.

The good can be considered, the bad can be ignored. (At least from BFC people)

The rest can be debated.

That's the way I see it.

Cheers!

Leto

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Hmmm. The "us versus them" way of thinking seems to be deeply ingrained in a few members of both the "fanbois" and the "haters" group.

Unfortunately, this causes a disproportionate amount of damage.

Not that it will change; this is just an observation.

Best regards,

Thomm

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hehe... I can see the horse thing was answered while I was typing up my answer.

AKD and Sergei are Sequoia are both correct. If we were to do a pre 20th Century game we would put in horses. But since they are such a difficult thing to tackle, we probably won't do a pre 20th Century game. At least it's nowhere on our schedule and our schedule goes out for about 5 years. There's flexibility in years 4 and 5, but I doubt we'll make a radical change to pre 20th Century warfare. The interest is there... the will is not (so to speak). So many other things to do with our time that don't require horses!

Steve

Dammit, I'm still hoping for CM: Napoleon.

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What Steve should say a little more directly instead of waffling around implying that people expect to watch the actual progress of digging is that there'll be no setup placed foxholes (or trenches) either.

Is that true? I only tinker with CMSF so I'm limited to thinking in CMx1 terms.

So you can't place foxholes, trenches etc during set-up; they only come as part of a map?

Now, if that is the case and remains the case for the WW2 title, that must have a negative impact on replayability and QBs, to say the least.

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Is that true? I only tinker with CMSF so I'm limited to thinking in CMx1 terms.

So you can't place foxholes, trenches etc during set-up; they only come as part of a map?

Now, if that is the case and remains the case for the WW2 title, that must have a negative impact on replayability and QBs, to say the least.

I agree very much.

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