Brian Rock

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If CM really does run better on a Mac, I may seriously consider joining the Think Differently (Dark) Side...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> As I have a PII at home and will be getting an iMac at work I'll have the best of both worlds. Will never get any work done, of course, but that's not a problem. This does have me wondering - BTS doesn'e seem to find it too difficult porting games to both platforms - why don't more companies do so? Do some types of games port more easily, or is it just that some developers don't bother to learn how to do so?

Brilliant.

IIRC, mobile inf generally dismounted a reasonable distance from the FEBA. The idea of the halftracks wasn't to get them in sight of the enemy, all guns blazing, but to get them to their assembly areas intact. The mobility was intended more for operational mobility than tactical mobility. Too many direct fire weapons can kill a HT to treat it as an infantry fighting vehicle. Now, it's been a while since I've read up on this, so I may be waaaaay wrong...

I'm interested, particularly concerning the claim about the German's having an edge in artillery accuracy. I don't recall having read this before. What are the reasons given for this?

Der Shurzen ist der Garment tucked into der Pantzen. (My turn to apologise for my appalling sense of humour.)

First of all, I'd like to repeat a point Fionn made recently: it's nice to have discussions like these in a forum without the abusive flaming and that seems the norm on so many other sites. Mike: I did misinterpret your comment about the Western allies attitudes to casualties in WWI vs WWII. Thanks for clarifying this - yes we are basically in agreement here. (I do think the situation in Russia is a bit more complex. Orders were given for commanders not to waste soldiers, and officers were removed from command for wasting soldiers lives. OTOH, there were certainly cases of incompetent commanders ordering needless and wastefull assaults, and there was a more - ahem - "pragmatic" attitude towards lives. On balance I would suggest that the popular conception of the Russians winning by dint of mass and materiel over brainpower is seriously flawed. But this is another thread probably best left for the CM2) Simon wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Brian-I think I kind of get the point of your post but take it that you were tired as you say and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that last paragraph as your assessment that the Germans got their "butts kicked" following the adoption of superior equipment is a novel outlook on the fall of the 3rd Reich to say the least .<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Heh. Yeah, I can see the ambiguity there. I wasn't arguing for a causal relationship, that superior equipment lead the Germans to defeat. The point I intended to make is that the relationship between equipment and outcome is clearly *not* deterministic - that having better armor or guns does not automatically lead to victory. Tank gun size and armor thickness is only a part of warfighting.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>One final note. In my view the reliance of quantity over quality is criminal. You have to realize that when you are willing to trade 5 Shermans to kill 1 Panther that you are effectively sentencing the crews of those tanks to death. This kind of mentality is what caused the massive casualties of the First World War<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This kind of rough accounting is misleading. There is a common - and falacious - error in thinking that data from a series of tactical encounters can be generalised to determine operational effectiveness. (That is an appallingly unclear sentence... this is one of those days when I'm having trouble writing clearly - up too late last night. *yawn*) Let me try again. The comparison with WWI is wrong. France 1944 bears little relation operationally with France 1914-18; the inference from kill ratios is simply misleading. There simply wasn't the same pointless slaughter. The Allies *did* breakout, time and time again. There were problems and failures, but basically the Allies knew how to use movement. The numerically superior side can often avoid a lot of the one-sided engagements. It also means when you do pick a fight you can overwhelm the enemy more readily. A war is much more than a series of tactical engagements. If you are winning a non-essential tactical battle at a 5:1 kill ratio while I've broken through on an undefended flank and am shooting up your HQ and logistics, I'm probably going to win. The quality vs quantity argument is simplistic. The "quantity" Shermans had better mechanical quality: reliable machines that can be fielded after day. The "quality" heavy German tanks often struggled to field units, or get them where they needed to be (eg the Tiger crews were under orders to drive the things slowly because they tended to break down if driven at speed). I've seen a few debates of the form "the Germans should have won because the KT had a 37.6:1 (or whatever) kill ratio..." blah, blah, blah. First off all such stats are dubious (eg they are often based on highly selective anecdotal evidence). They don't account for differences of skill, training, tactics or employment of combined arms (eg a tank vs tank comparison is misleading if you are relying on aircraft to do much of your tank killing). They ignore or downplay the factor of defensive vs offensive positioning (eg even Dupuy's figures seem to underestimate the benefits of the defense). Most importantly this type of analysis confuses the tactical with the operational. For example, in _Panzer Battles_ von Mellenthin writes of 48th Corps’s tactical success against the understength 5th Tank Army. What he doesn’t consider is that 5th Tanks Army’s attack was intended to pin 48th Pz Corp down, and that while 48th Corps was winning its fight the Middle Don operation destroyed 49 Axis divisions and the Germans were driven from the middle Don. Despite the "better equipment" the German's lost on every front Panthers and Tigers fought on. The major victories and high kill ratios (operationally speaking) were early with "inferior" equipment. Once the "superior" equipment reached the field they got their butts kicked.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>We also have variable settings for reinfrocements, so something MIGHT come in on turn 4 in one game, or it might come on turn 15 in another (these variables are set by the designer). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If at all possible, please do. One of the best ways to add replayability is to add uncertainties to the OOB. You can't count on the "race to the village by turn 12" trick if the enemy unit could just as easily be there on turn 8 - or show up along a different road, or not at all. Also, few commanders ever had the luxury of knowing the exact composition of units in an area, or when they would arrive, or via what route. Often they had trouble enough knowing where their own units are. IMO this would be a huge boon from both a gaming and a simulation point-of-view.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but with CM's 3D model I'd think this would be (relatively) easy to put in. Since the actual shell trajectories are tracked, the shell-hitting-dirt-instead-of-tank bit will automatically happen. The only tricky bit seems to be programming the tank to move to a hull down position. It seems to me that if you have the tank calculate LOS from turret to target you're halfway there. Essentially all you need to specify after that is for the tank to adjust position to take maximum advantage of the terrain (ie trace LOS with barrel sighting as low above intervening ground as possible). So the tricky thing seems not to be the physics so much as the AI - telling the driver how to identify and move to hull down positions.

Please keep these playtest/after-action reports coming. They make great reading, and also provide insights into how the game will play.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Basically any wargame really is like taking Star Trek into WW2: you're the "Borg" because all your soldiers collectively think with one mind: yours... It's possible, to an extent, to substitute AI for other "people" in the game, but this usually has unsatisfactory results if relied upon too heavily. And even if it did work, who would really want it? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Me. Something I would really, really like in a game is to be able to play a *commander* in a wargame. Even some of the best 'serious' wargames - Brigade Combat Team, TacOps, and such - have for more detailed control and require more tactical micromanagement than I'd like. On the game-simulation spectrum I tend towards the sim end, and there is precious little that really simulates the problems of command. Most of the time I don't want to fight every tank and every team. It's not a battalion commander's job. I *like* the idea of simulating the fog and friction of war. That is as much part of the reality as getting the rear turret armor on the MK IVa Bungtank exactly right, or whether the Panzer Dorkwagen has 850 or 870 rounds in the coax machine gun. The closest I've seen to letting a player focus on command are the TacOps IRC CPXes. High on fog and friction, and micromanagers die. Road to Moscow may be a more command-oriented wargame, albeit at a higher level of command. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> It's fun to wear lots of hats in a game, and see the battle from many perspectives. One minute you're in a tank, and the next you're jumping through windows with your Tommy gun. Fewer limitations and more "hats" means more fun. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Of course this is also true, and most of the time, for most people, this makes it a better game. Including me, which is why I'm anxiously awaiting CM along with everybody else here. It can be a real blast, but it's a less effective simulation from the perspective I'm talking about here.

This has been discussed quite a bit but a few points I'm still not clear on. I understand that we can change the size of the units, making units "bigger" to look at while keeping the actual unit its real size. I seem to recall reading that we can also rescale the terrain - if so, which bits? I think "height" was one - what about buildings, trees, or roads? How does the change in scaling impact on gameplay and asethetics? It seems to me there could be problems with oversized units in towns, or overcrowding by infantry bunched together, of tanks dwarfing the roads, for example. Nobody who has played the game seems to have found any problems with this, so I suspect any problems are more in my fevered imagination than in the code.

BTW, Herr Oberst, I asked the same question, and yes, Hurtgen will be in there. And won't *that* be fun for the Yanks... As for editing the data, I had my doubts about this for a long time. I liked the idea of being able to modify or (especially) creat new units. Discussion on this board has brought me around - there are just too many potential problems with dozens of versions floating around, and they simple aren't needed if the developers support the product. I'm confident they will. Why? Because CM is the game this pack of mad grogs want to play themselves. All the games I can think of that receive solid ongoing support are made by people with a passion for their games - Norm Koger's games,the old Falcon 3, TacOps, the HPS games... and now Combat Mission. Yeah, I guess there are a few fans here. [This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 05-27-99).]

In case any of the other non-US list grunts here haven't heard/noticed, the rates for shipping Battlefront products overseas has gone down. For me it's a savings of about a third, down from $26 to $18. We basically have the Battlefront people to thank for this. As I understand it, it took a bit of table thumping with the fulfillment people to get the figure down. I know that for Battlefront shipping is essentially a profit-neutral activity, with no additional margins added. OK, maybe lower rates will help you get a few extra sales - but I really believe the main motivation was to get us (the customers) a better deal. I appreciate the effort.

I've never done a proper beta-test, so I can't really comment on what "should" happen, but when I get a new game I tend to try two different strategies: Step 1) see how well the game simulates what it is supposed to. Eg do historical tactics work as they should? Step 2) break it. See if you can find any loopholes that undermine the game system. Eg are there any loopy/dopey tactics that produce absurdly effetive results? Very few even come close to passing both tests.

The discussion on LOS has started me wondering about how sound works in the game from an intel-gathering POV. How will CM determine when you can hear an enemy unit? How will it factor in range, number of units and effects of terrain, if at all? I know you have stereo in the sound design; - do you expect that players will be able to determine bearing to enemy units from this? I'm not sure how volume works with the 3D engine (calculated from camera viewpoint?). Will players be able to estimate range by sound, or will it be represented visually? Both/neither?

I actually saved that movie to my desktop. Even my girlfriend liked that one. (But then, on occasion she can be partial to various bits of cool military hardware. If they had helos in WWII I'd probably get her to play CM with me. She was a much better pilot in Jane's Longbow than I was.)

I'd describe it as a WWII tactical game that lets players simulate a range of battles from platoon-sized skirmishes up to battalion level actions. Of course the original is pithier... and close enough for me. Unlike Marko I tend to think the scope of potential battles is more important than the size of the units commanded - but I take his point.

You guys can blather on all you want about how good it is to be going to beta, but by their silence it is clear what Bigtime's real agenda with this post is: To leave out the SuperTeknoMegaNinjaMobile . As every true grognard knows, to accurately model the SuperTeknoMegaNinjaMobile would require the highest level of programming skills. The ability to simulate its enhanced post-Newtonian physics. Its beta-ray chain guns. Its passive parameter refractive armor. Its pseudo-dimensional parking abilities. It's striking lines and elegant features. Panthers and Priests and airstrikes and panzershrecks and real world physics and 3d combat engines... so much dross. Anybody can build a game that simulates those. Mere craft. But to build a SuperTeknoMegaNinjaMobile ? That, my friends, is art.

OTOH, may be *Moon* was joking... interpreting things on the net is so *hard*...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Uhm... Brian was joking, was he? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes, I was joking. This is why I usually put in those damn smileys everywhere I bloody can [This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 05-13-99).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Fortunately, since CM is not a sim/1stPShooter we don't need every 1/4 FPS that we can get. For example, at 20+ FPS the game "feels" as fast as Quake does at 40+.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I am not convinced this game is up there with Quake in any significant way. Just some of the things you are missing: * ability for single soldier to take multiple hits from AP weapons (if an 88mm can kill my vehicles what hope do the infantry have?) * powerups (esp instant healing - suppose my tank is *hurt*?) * newer and cooler weapons lying around (why can't I start in a Kubelwagen and find a King Tiger further along the battlefield)? * levels (surely the campaigns should get tougher - swarms of conscript inf and Pz I's in the early stages, Tigers & SS Ubermensch later) * no end of level bosses (mecha-Goering or something) Oh, I know you'll have some pathetic excuse like "we're concentrating on historical accuracy" or "modelling real-world physics" or "the battlefields are larger and have more units", but I just don't buy it. At least put in a BFG, or come out and admit this game can't be compared to Quake.

(I figured why do Moon and John get to write all the witty-sounding topics? Some people may think their franchise is still safe..) Just a quick question re: smoke. I know the game's graphics will show smoke as a solid "object". I'm OK with this - if it was first person shooter or flight sim it'd be different, because there it's an issue of being able to see through the smoke... Which leads to my question - can the _units_ "see" through smoke, or is it a total block? Having smoke degrade visibility rather than blocking it would be preferable. Even so, it's certainly not something that would stop me getting the game if it doesn't.

This is a rather cool touch. It will be nice to simulate the desire of troops to want armor support, but preferably not too close to *themselves*

I loved the report on the alpha game test. It really had that sense of a scene from a good warfilm. Combat Mission sounds like it's going to deliver on about 90% of the things I've been hoping for. (I probably could have gone higher, but I'm a tough marker...) This sounds fantastic. If you haven't read the report do so. But be warned, it won't make the wait any easier.