Foxholes & Continuing the Battle

[Canada Guy]

I have 4 questions though a little unrelated.

1. If foxholes will be abstracted as 2D, and men crawl into them, will the guys lay on top or will they appear that they are actually in the foxholes (and will we see this as 3D or will 1/2 their bodies be under the foxhole 2D lid)? Will this also apply to trenches? I understand trenches will be a little different.

2. Is there a function where we will be able to continue the battle past the end or at least be able to continue to the end of the set time even if the Opfor has surrendered? There are times when I am playing around and almost gotten to where I want to go or what I want to do and it ends.

3. Will men that are KIA remain on the map and part of the unit that they were originally attached to? Currently, my men seem to disappear when they are KIA and I do not know how many men were part of that unit to begin with or where they were when hit. Finding men on the board at the end of the scenario is difficult.

In some ways this will go hand in hand with Kill Stats. And it is great that you are working on off-map unit kill stats. I always wanted to see how effective my aircraft were in some of my games but never knew as I sometimes never saw what they had attacked.

4. I know you do not bake into units national characteristics but how do you represent inherent differences in tactical doctrine. The most differing nations in tactical doctrine were USSR/Germany but even Brits/Germans/USA had differences in how the internal squad structure was implemented. We have touched on weapons and nations which can be more easily modeled (section breakdown and weapons) but what about leadership and training? Having the unit green/veteran does not really show the difference. Especially the use of lower level leadership and initiative. 90 day wonders in the US army, the need for higher level leadership in the soviet side and in 1940-43, efficient German use of NCOs and tactical initiative.

[Canada Guy]

I did read the post on foxholes but was not sure what it meant to be above ground. I am assuming that they will not be sticking out above ground themselves or if so, just the lip will be above ground. I am only referring to the men in the foxholes. Will they be above or below (or a little of each) the foxhole representation. I guess until I see it I am having troubling understanding the abstraction of the concept.

[MeatEtr]

2. Is there a function where we will be able to continue the battle past the end or at least be able to continue to the end of the set time even if the Opfor has surrendered? There are times when I am playing around and almost gotten to where I want to go or what I want to do and it ends.

3. Will men that are KIA remain on the map and part of the unit that they were originally attached to? Currently, my men seem to disappear when they are KIA and I do not know how many men were part of that unit to begin with or where they were when hit. Finding men on the board at the end of the scenario is difficult.

For #2, this was asked about in another thread with no response yet. But I'd be willing to guess there will be no change to it since I've never heard them talk about a change. I hope I'm wrong though.

For #3, This really should of been in since day one, it's basic UI. Sure it's nice to look at all the squads guns laid out in the UI, but it's just not practical. Same thing goes for split squads, gee did I have 3 guys in this group or 4. There's plenty of room in the UI to add a simple headcount like CMx1 had. This is a prime example of them trying to reinvent the wheel when it doesn't need it.

Btw, the reason your dead are disappearing is because your troops are doing buddy aid on them to get their ammo/gear.

[Battlefront.com]

Quick answers:

1. Everything is above ground, just like trenches. If a soldier were shown half above ground in kneeling or standing pose, what happens when he is killed? His body would be "floating" below the map. Trust me... it won't work. In fact, none of the many suggestions the testers came up with would work for one or more reasons. So the way it is now is really the only way it can be and still have FoW.

2. Not yet, but I expect there to be one like in CMx1. It would allow you to continue to play, but the scoring would be frozen at whatever point the system stopped the battle.

3. Sadly, no notation of KIAs and Serious WIAs retained in the unit display. It's a little complicated to do this because the game shuffles soldiers around between Teams (within a Squad) and shuffles weapons around. Eventually we'll get around to finding an acceptable solution and implementing it.

4. Leadership Bonuses, Experience, Morale, etc. are plenty to work with to simulate a particular force at a particular point in its combat experience. We're 11 years into this debate and I doubt anybody is going to come up with a reason to start us hardcoding arbitrary stereotypes into the game now

Steve