Questions about WWII infantry for CMx2

[Sergei]

The straight question is very simple and nobody ever obfuscated anything about it: do we have foxholes and/or trenches that are placed in setup and that are invisible to the attacker unless spotted at appropriate distances?

Your first post wasn't even a question but a statement:

"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."

What's waffling around, anyway?

You have said yes, but it goes contrary to what Steve said earlier.

No, Redwolf. I have not said anything to your question yet, because this is the first instance that you asked it. More over, because you are asking multiple questions, it would be hard to give it a one word yes or no unless I knew the answers to all parts of it to be positive or negative. All I know is that you can already place foxholes in CMSF. Also I think Steve said that trenches should be placeable in the WW2 game. But I hardly believe that you didn't know any of that.

[Redwolf]

Waffle waffle waffle.

So, will user-placeable foxholes affected by FoW be in CMx2:Normandy or not?

Steve has pretty clearly stated that the "carpet" solutions aren't acceptable for him and that modification of the 3D ground is too much trouble. So they would be out.

[Webwing]

do we have foxholes and/or trenches that are placed in setup and that are invisible to the attacker unless spotted at appropriate distances?

I can´t say what Normandy will bring but in CM:SF you can´t place ANYTHING in the setup phase. The most you can do is move troops around IF the designer has placed a setup area.

EVERYTHING, including trenches are placed by the mission designer in the editor. The player has no control over that. The designer will make the elevations, place the buildings and the trenches.

All this things(apart from troops) are visible to the players of both sides.

That´s how CM:SF works now. This is fact.

Now here comes speculation and opinion on my part. If you let people place things in the setup phase then what is the reason not to place trenches everywhere you can in all games? Even if you don´t use them!

So, I guess the designer of the mission would have to specify how many trenches you are allowed to place in his mission. But that´s not realistic. And if the designer is to have control over that then it´s better to let him decide and place it wherever he pleases.

Anyway, if this is introduced there are a lot of things that will need to be addressed to make it work.

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[BFCElvis]

Waffle waffle waffle.

Sergie, is from Finland and does not understand your waffle expression. He asked for an explanation of what it means. Why are you waffling on the answer?

(Couldn't resist..hell, I even used an emoticon)

[BFCElvis]

And how come I can't do a quote properly?

[BlackMoria]

And how come I can't do a quote properly?

You are missing the [/ on the end quote tag.

[Lanzfeld]

Webwing,

Simple. Like in CM1, you charge points for trenches. If your opponant wants to spend all his points on trenches let him.

I like the idea about camoflage trenches and non-camo trenches being different points.

[BFCElvis]

You are missing the [/ on the end quote tag.

Sweet! Thanks.

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

What's with the attitude? Do you really think the only way to discuss something is to make sure EVERYBODY can see that you have a huge chip on your shoulder? Does being abusive towards people who are trying to contribute to this discussion further things along at all? Why pick a fight when there's no need for it?

So, to address what you've wrote here...

All I have seen is Steve evade the question by waffeling and dragging it towards something else (towards the question as to whether you can dig during gameplay, which nobody ever asked about but he why not pretending that's what the whiners want?)

Not true on two counts:

1. The original poster was asking about digging foxholes during the course of a battle. At least that is how I interpreted his question in the context in which it was found.

2. I answered that question DIRECTLY and to the point. What I apparently didn't answer was your question, but since you hadn't asked it yet I don't see why that should surprise you.

To recap the question asked and my answer, before moving onto your question...

Cid250: 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?.

The first part asks about if the player will have foxholes for individual soldiers, not if there is to be any FOW with them nor if they can be placed manually in Setup. CM:SF already has foxholes for individual soldiers, so the answer to that first question is "yes". The second part of the question, which you claim the poster never asked, is OBVIOUSLY about digging foxholes within the course of a battle. How else can that question possibly be interpreted? And in response to that I gave a direct answer "no" and explained why.

So I have to ask... what is your problem? That I didn't answer the question you had in your head? Well, pardon me for not being a mind reader. Now that you have, quite rudely I might add, asked your question I will give you a straight answer:

So, setup-placed foxholes that are subject to FoW? Yes or no?

Foxholes in CM: Normandy will be setup by the player during Setup Phase and they will not be subjected to FoW. I've said this many times before, so obviously you missed that AND didn't bother to use SEARCH before accusing me of...

Steve knew very well what we want to know. He's been dodging the same question for almost a year now.

I have not been dodging, you've not been paying attention or trying to use Search. Not my fault the chip on your shoulder prevents you, somehow, from reading. Especially when you were participating in one of the threads where I stated things quite clearly about FoW trenches,

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=84640

Later on you wrote:

The straight question is very simple and nobody ever obfuscated anything about it: do we have foxholes and/or trenches that are placed in setup and that are invisible to the attacker unless spotted at appropriate distances?

Now you're saying that I didn't answer a question about trenches when, in fact, no question about trenches was asked. Boy, how good do you think I am at answering stuff on this Forum where you expect me to answer questions, directly, that haven't even been asked at all? Don't you think your standards are rather, uhm, unrealistic? I mean, it's more realistic for me to expect you to remember things in threads you were participating in, or at least used Search to refresh your memory, yet I don't recall me going on and on about how Redwolf can't ask a simple question without being a complete jerk about it. Oh wait, I have.... my mistake

So to recap for everybody so that the next time Redwolf tries to accuse me of not answering questions that haven't been asked here, but were asked AND ANSWERED before, here goes...

In CM: Normandy there will be no FoW applied to trenches or foxholes EXCEPT during Setup. Meaning, when the attacker sets up his forces he will not see the enemy's trenches, foxholes, bunkers, barbed wire, or any other defensive works. But as soon as the first second of the game starts to play out, foxholes and trenches will be immediately visible. Spotting is required for other forms of defenses (at least that is the plan now, which hopefully will not be forced to change). The reasons why are listed in the above mentioned linked thread and others. It's been discussed to death, contrary to what Redwolf appears to think.

Now, because you've made SUCH A BIG FUSS over an issue that was all in your head, can we at least get you to be a big enough man to admit that you got a direct answer and that the answer has been available for a long time? Or will you just find some other reason to attack me, as you often do? Or will you do the most common thing you are known for... not post at all when you're shown to be wrong, then continue to claim on other Forums (or on this one later on) that you didn't get a straight answer? Your choice, but remember there are witnesses.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

And how come I can't do a quote properly?

It's a knack. Some are born with it, some are not.

Michael

[Webwing]

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[Battlefront.com]

Webwing,

I can´t say what Normandy will bring but in CM:SF you can´t place ANYTHING in the setup phase.

Anything except units

Now here comes speculation and opinion on my part. If you let people place things in the setup phase then what is the reason not to place trenches everywhere you can in all games? Even if you don´t use them!

So, I guess the designer of the mission would have to specify how many trenches you are allowed to place in his mission. But that´s not realistic. And if the designer is to have control over that then it´s better to let him decide and place it wherever he pleases.

Correct that there are issues, though I think they can be worked around.

The basic plan is to mimic what we had in CMBB/CMAK (there were no trenches in CMBO). Trenches will be a part of the purchase options when appropriate, just like CMBB/AK. The player can opt to purchase them to the extent he has the budget for them. If it's a scenario designer that's doing the purchasing, then obviously his budget is unlimited What this will give the player, in game terms, is something that resembles the 2D overlays that were in CMBB/AK. They can be selected, relocated, and rotated as much as the player wishes to.

The placement, however, will have to conform to orientations similar to what is in CM:SF already (i.e. one Trench per Action Spot, oriented in one of 3 directions). That is because after they are placed the underlying terrain mesh will conform to the orientation of the 2D trench icon and the 2D icons will disappear. Since the mesh can't be modified any old which-way, there won't be as much freedom as there was in CMBB/AK in terms of precise placement. Not that it's needed, since in CMBB/AK you only had to do a lot of manipulation/overlapping to get the trenches to connect correctly. CM: Normandy will handle that automatically.

I would like there to be an option for the scenario designer to LOCK DOWN the fortifications so that the player doesn't have the option to move them around. I think that won't be difficult to have in the game so I expect that this option will exist with the first release of CM: Normandy.

Steve

[Redwolf]

Thanks for the answer.

So will foxholes be implied as "one per man (or team)" automatic or will the scenario designer give you a couple foxholes that you can place?

[Lurker765]

Steve,

While you are in this thread. I think my questions might have been trampled under the other ones..

Are soldiers in shell scrapes treated as being underneath the ground?

Will fallback foxholes be supported in Normandy? And can they be placed by the defender during setup?

When you say 'foxholes' in your replies that they are already in the game, do you mean these shell scrapes? I haven't seen any foxholes where the occupants body is protected from fire on all sides -- am I missing something or is the term foxhole vs shell scrape my problem?

My idea of a foxhole is akin to the image posted earlier in this thread -- a lot different than the shell scrapes I see in the game.

[Battlefront.com]

BTW, I agree with Webwing that it's "gamey" to have trenches available and then not use them. In real life trenches are an extremely costly thing to get into place (cost = time + energy), so a force putting in that effort would use them or wouldn't make them in the first place. "Dummy positions"... oh, perhaps once in a blue moon, but not as a standard course of action. Dummy trenches would also be extremely shallow, and therefore not really trenches at all.

The problem here is we can't FORCE people to use trenches. Not placeable ones in CM: Normandy, not default ones like in CM:SF. Therefore, we just have to accept the fact that if people want to use them or not, it's their choice.

Steve

[McIvan]

Having foxholes that are immediately visible post-setup is a huge immersion-buster, in that it is obviously intuitively wrong.

Do you guys continue to mull over possibilities for an effective FOW for foxholes/trenches?

[Battlefront.com]

Redwolf,

Thanks for the answer.

Apology accepted, even though you didn't offer one

So will foxholes be implied as "one per man (or team)" automatic or will the scenario designer give you a couple foxholes that you can place?

This should be up to the scenario designer for "canned scenarios" and a factor of the type of battle for Quick Battles. This is how CMBB/AK handled it and I think that's the best way to go about it. As a reminder for you all, that means for some forms of defensive battles you get 1 x foxhole per man (or we might do pairs, which is more common in real life), for other types you get 2 x foxholes per man. The latter allows you to create "fallback positions".

Lurker765,

While you are in this thread. I think my questions might have been trampled under the other ones..

Heh... nah, I saw it but was answering the "trampling" one first.

Are soldiers in shell scrapes treated as being underneath the ground?

Will fallback foxholes be supported in Normandy? And can they be placed by the defender during setup?

As stated above, like CMBB/AK it will be conditional on the exact kind of battle you're playing.

When you say 'foxholes' in your replies that they are already in the game, do you mean these shell scrapes? I haven't seen any foxholes where the occupants body is protected from fire on all sides -- am I missing something or is the term foxhole vs shell scrape my problem?

Infantry units which are in certain type of defensive battles automatically have foxholes. This is in CM:SF already. I know there are debates about if they are effective enough or not, but they are indeed in the game now. However, they are difficult to see because we deliberately removed the graphic so that there would be a sort of fog of war. With earlier CM:SF releases they were colored dark brown so they were easily spotted. Feedback convinced us to remove the coloring, thus increasing FoW, but I think it was a mistake.

To answer another earlier question... trajectory applies to infantry as well as vehicles. Not as exactly, but it still applies.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

For more background information about why no FoW trenches in CM: Normandy (or any other game we plan on making), here's a discussion going back 10 months. Again, Redwolf apparently either forgot about this discussion or didn't read it. I was very direct with my answers back then too:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=73703

It's a long thread and I've just linked to the page that Search brought me to. Looks like there's more stuff in there that might be of interest, but I don't have the time to read it.

Steve

[Lanzfeld]

Steve,

I will begin to read the thread link you posted but as it is a large thread this may take awhile but:

Wont seeing the foxholes at the start of the first second give the attacker the exact position of the defender? Short answer and reason please!!!

[Wengart]

What is all this talk of fox holes in CM:SF? Did I miss something, or is everyone talking about the little holes made by mortars which, from what I gather, are called shell scrapes?

Also, Steve, wouldn't the cost of a trench be simulated in the number of points required to purchase them? So it would be like buying a squad of rifleman or a trench type deal.

You will have to excuse my ignorance of the purchasing system as I have only played CM:SF.

[Battlefront.com]

McIvan,

Having foxholes that are immediately visible post-setup is a huge immersion-buster, in that it is obviously intuitively wrong.

True.

Do you guys continue to mull over possibilities for an effective FOW for foxholes/trenches?

No because there is nothing to mull over. Here's a quote from me from November of last year in the first thread I linked to above:

Again, I'm not arguing that FoW trenches is an unnecessary thing for us to have. I totally agree with you guys that if we could get them in without major sacrifices to coding time and performance we would. What I'm instead arguing is that the lack of FoW trenches isn't nearly the sort of problem that some have made it out to be. It's a minor issue when the game as a whole is looked at. Which is why I always insist that you guys remember that the strength of CM is based on the totality of its simulation, not on the strength of any one particular feature. CMBO didn't fail as a simulation because it lacked trenches, CM:Normandy won't fail as a simulation because it lacks FoW trenches.

The issues surrounding FoW treatment of trenches and foxholes (and to some extent bunkers and other things, but far less so) are technical ones, not conceptual. Conceptually there is no disagreement, therefore there is no reason to rethink things. The technical reasons that have nixed this from happening are as true now as they were in 2003 when we consciously decided to abandon 2D overlays on 3D environments. In other words, we knew what we were getting into before we started and felt then, as we do now, that we made the right choice. Not a perfect one, but we usually have to make compromises so we're used to it.

Steve

[Redwolf]

This should be up to the scenario designer for "canned scenarios" and a factor of the type of battle for Quick Battles. This is how CMBB/AK handled it and I think that's the best way to go about it. As a reminder for you all, that means for some forms of defensive battles you get 1 x foxhole per man (or we might do pairs, which is more common in real life), for other types you get 2 x foxholes per man. The latter allows you to create "fallback positions".

I don't think that answer the question, sorry.

When foxholes are "enabled" in a scenario, will each team automatically get one whereever it is places (with the possible addition of fallbacks like in CMBB/CMAK)?

Or will all foxholes be given by the designer (or bought) have to be placed independently of the units?

To put it into other words: the difference is that in the former solution a) you can't place the solider away from the foxhole and you will have at least as many foxholes as units, unless you give up on them by placing a unit in hard terrain.

[Lanzfeld]

Hmmmmmm.....

Turn one = shell the foxholes. God I hope not.

[Battlefront.com]

Lanzfeld,

Wont seeing the foxholes at the start of the first second give the attacker the exact position of the defender? Short answer and reason please!!!

Yes and no. The attacker won't know of those positions during Setup, so he'll have to deploy his forces in complete ignorance of where the enemy may be. Anybody that has played CM knows that setup often decides if you win or lose, so keeping this information from him is quite important. Conversely, it absolutely can happen in CMx1 that the attacker spots significant portions of the enemy's FoW defenses within a few seconds or minute of the game starting. So it's not necessarily true that this gives the attacker an advantage he didn't already have in CMx1 (at least some of the times).

But yes, overall I do agree that knowing where the enemy's positions are without having seen him, as an absolute unbreakable rule, gives the attacker an advantage. Similar to the defender knowing for sure which side of the map the attacker is coming from and not coming from, or that there is in fact an attack coming in the first place. In other words, there are a host of "gamey" advantages for each side. This is simply a new, but not necessarily certain, one that is in favor of the defender. Provided, of course, the defender a) has such defenses and doesn't use them as decoys.

Wengart,

What is all this talk of fox holes in CM:SF? Did I miss something, or is everyone talking about the little holes made by mortars which, from what I gather, are called shell scrapes?

I think my above post answered this. There are foxholes automatically assigned to infantry units for the defender depending on what type of battle is played. We removed the coloring so they aren't very noticeable, which is something we should reverse IMHO.

Also, Steve, wouldn't the cost of a trench be simulated in the number of points required to purchase them? So it would be like buying a squad of rifleman or a trench type deal.

Yes, that's the way it worked in CMx1. It's what I meant by "budget".

You will have to excuse my ignorance of the purchasing system as I have only played CM:SF.

Impossible!! (inside joke , don't worry about it)

Steve

[flamingknives]

I rather think, Mr. Redwolf, that Steve answered the question as given, and now you have another one. There is nothing wrong with that unless you wish to be unpleasant about it.

I certainly would never have guessed that you also wished to know about independently placed foxholes until your recent post. It's a good thought though.