Brian Rock

As I understand it, for US arty procedures at least, it depends on circumstances and what level the arty assets are assigned. For example, indirect fire assets attached to B Company generally won't fire across a boundary to hit a target facing A Company - co-ordination problems being what they are, too much of a risk of fratricide. However assets allocated from a higher level (eg brigade) that were allocated to B Company may be called in to hit a target in A Company's area - the higher level of organisation means they are more likely to have the relevant info to make sure they are hittng the bad guys. This is where a good FO and good comms are handy. The checking procedures to ID targets, grid co-ords and such - it's a good idea to double check you aren't calling a few tons of HE on the good guys - can be slow even today. The computers are fast, but the info from the field can still lag, even with digital comms. It was harder in WWII. US forces were generally much better at switching fire, much to the envy/annoyance of the Germans. It's been a while since I read up on this, so I stand to be corrected.

There was a discussion about flamethrowers vs tanks on the TacOps list last week. IIRC someone said that flamethrowers weren't expected to take out a tank on their own, but to make life rather uncomfortable for the crew while some other unlucky sod got the privilege of sticking a demo charge into an approriate place on/under the tank. This was news to me. Has anyone else heard/read similar? In any case, how exactly do flamethrowers work on tanks in CM? Immobilise, or big boomey type stuff, or what?

I read your comment about not taking on high risk ideas, so the following is for discussion only. I'll save the nagging/pleading for a really BIG idea. Off the top of my head I have two answers to the problem of a free flank attack to the defender: 1) The complex one: If the defender moves into an area then it activates additional units for the attacker. This only works, of course, if "provisional" units are programmed in, which I suspect they aren't 2) The easy solution: Exclusion zones work both ways. If the defenders are under orders to defend in sector, for example, it's not unreasonable to restrict the forward edge of the battle zone for a whole bunch of reasons: fire support, maintaining lines along the front, etc. Again, if it is an option in the editor, it can be used/not used as the designer wishes. (Hmmmm.... that sounded suspiciously like a nag/plead in disguise...)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I guess my favorite solution would be to allow scenario designers to put in "exclusion zones" for each side just as they can define deployment zones. I don't know how hard this would be to implement, especially with regards to AI, but it sure would be a flexible tool <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is quite a clever idea. It's certainly not a cure-all for the problems discussed, but it does address an issue that most games entirely ignore - unit boundaries. Every game I can think of has totally open boundaries up to the map edge, irrespective of map size, despite the fact that units generally don't fight like this. Harpoon allowed this with "exclusion' zones, for example - different purpose, but I think a similar system could be used - indicate an area where one side or the other "can't go". This is only a partial solution, if only because there will never be a supporting attack on the flanks. But it does reflect some situations, and seems to me to be a good idea for an optional setting in the editor.

Two nice ideas: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> If I could make a suggestion with point values. Vehicles like trucks and jeeps should be very cheap to purchase for a mission but very costly (in VP's). After all, these vehicles were super common (even for the germans), but players need to be discouraged from using them like suicidal car bombers (minus the bomb). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I've seen this kind of thing happen, and suspect I'm not alone. This seems a great way to limit this sort of player fiddling. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> It would be nice to see players reward for keeping their selection reasonably historical and not tailoring a force to the specific scenario.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Also a good point. There is an incentive *not* to use historical formations, particularly against humans - it improves your chance of surprising them. One simple way to implement this is to use a "discount" method for players who use historical TO&Es. Eg: 1 vehicle = normal cost 1 platoon = units at 5% 'discount' 1 company = units at 10% 'discount' 1 regiment = units at 15% 'discount' (This presumes that the many of the historical platoons, coys, etc are pre-coded in the set-up.) I think this would encourage the use of regular formations, but still allowing some degree of tailoring/cross assignment.

I tend to use them a lot because I've been in at three flame wars started by misinterpretations. One of them got really nasty. The net, fabulous as it is, seems prone to this kind of misunderstanding. People see personal attacks where they aren't intended far too often, so I tend to err on the side of caution. But, out of respect to your opinion, I'll leave the smiley off this post. Even if you are wrong. (winking smiley deleted)

As long as we're off-topic, I may as well flesh out the story. My friend was a battalion sized US light infantry taks force - not much in the way of armor, and the humvees were armed with TOWs. His mission was to defend against an OPFOR motorised rifle regiment - 3 battalions of BMPs and a T80 tank battalion. Now, given the OPFOR's mission was to exit to the west, and given that he knew this, and given that he had about 6 km of terrain behind the MRL, I think it might have been wiser to wait just a little bit. (If nothing else it would have prevented him from advancing his units on the other flank into his own minefields. He was new to the game system, and presumed - incorrectly - that there would be lanes for friendly vehicles.) Lest it seem like I'm just bagging the guy, we've been friends since we met at a university wargaming club 25 years ago. In that first meeting we played a WWI naval battle, and after about 30 minutes of manuevering he crossed my "T" and shattered my fleet in 5 minutes. (It was actually very cool to watch, although it would have been cooler if I wasn't on the soggy end of the action...) He's at his best at naval games. God forbid I should ever have to face him in Harpoon. Now can we get back to blowing up panzers?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>However, if you have ever played multiplayer you will probably want SOME kind of timer. If I had a dime for every game I doped off on while waiting for the other side...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh, yeah. I played a game of TacOps on a LAN with a friend. Great guy, but the micromanager-from-hell; 15-20 minutes of plotting for each 60 second turn. This after about an hour or so setting up. I started playing another game in the background. Saddest thing of all was he still got stomped. I'll never forget his assault humvees charging my T80s. "Detailed" doesn't necessarily mean "better".

I'd prefer optional user-selectable timings. That way players can adjust handicapping - a good player might pick a five minute orders phase, but give a less skilled opponent 15 minutes. Equally, if the players want open-ended planning times, let them.

A couple of questions prompted by a previous post mentioning the occasional need to push disabled vehicles to get past them: Will there be armored recovery vehicles in the database? (Could be cute, but it's not a big deal for a number of reasons.) Of more interest to me - will vehicles breakdown, or bog, or slip off a road, or hit a tree, or become otherwise disabled apart from combat damage? The only games I can think of that addressed this were the HPS games - eg the higher the speed, the more likely a tank would lose a track. I don't recall if vehicles could get bogged down. This could impact on tactics - eg Tiger's were notoriously unreliable at speed, as refelcted in standing orders not to force march them. Yet most games let players run them at top speed without risk/penalty. Equally, soft ground is a nightmare to tankers. Think Operation Market Garden - move off the highway and stop moving. Other factors that could impact of gameplay: trucks less reliable off-road performance, impact of terrain from a defender's POV, etc. Not a killer issue, but it would be a nice inclusion.

Good point about ahistorical scenarios. They can be fun. Sometimes. I think it's a good idea to make them *possible* for people who want them. I tend not to like them, especially the puzzle type. Still, if someone wants to slap down their $40 bucks to play CM that way (C&C/CM). It's one thing to have a clear design concept, it's another to force that vision on someone else. I don't see why it should be hard-coded to make weird tweaking impossible. If I pay the money, let me play it however I like. For example, I like the way Civ II put the cheats in the menu. If you want to cheat, fine - it's your game. If not, that's OK too, for the same reason. Mind you, I'm not sure I'd like the *cheats* to be quite so easily accessed in a two-player game, but if people really want to play Tigers vs Pershings, let 'em.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What I meant is that it is amazing that the US democratic system works as well as it does taking into account the geographical and population size, not to mention the ethnic, religious, political, and other differences. There are only a handful of nations that have these sorts of problems, democratic or otherwise. So it at least puts the US system in a league of its own. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You think the US is "a league of its own"? Ever look at India? The World's Largest Democracy has more ethnic, religious and political differences than about 10 Americas. Maybe 12. Now critics may argue it has its problems as a democracy... (The current news is interesting - the recent instability may lead to a new government led by Sonya Gandhi, Italian wife of one of the Gandhis. When you need an *Italian* to provide political stability, you know ther are problems afoot). ...the amazing thing to me is that it works at all. Anyhow, enought off-topic blather from me. For now. [This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 04-18-99).] [This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 04-18-99).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In fact, my tank driver's training manual (dated 1946) makes NO mention of driving in rubble <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> My readings on US procedure for driving tanks in rubble seems to be something like this: 1) Drop several tonnes of HE on town 2) Turn town into rubble 3) Send in infantry to clear out survivors 4) Wait 5) Send in bulldozers 6) Drive tanks through cleared streets You seem more-or-less on track with this... Rocky

"Served, son? Hell, I served in games from Normandy to the Rhine. Took a couple pixels in the leg east of Paris, and a few wav. files in the Ardennes. Reckon that's enough. Whaddya want - a hard disk crash crossing the goddamn Meuse? " [This message has been edited by Brian Rock (edited 03-24-99).]

....to buildings, not to civilians - I presume you'll leave those out. I certainly hope so. My question was prompted by this from the FAQ: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Can buildings and terrain be damaged? Yes to both. Heavy fire from large caliber guns and bombs will cause damage to all sorts of terrain. Buildings can be partially or totally smashed, and fires can result from heavy attacks or explosions. Such damage may help or hinder your efforts to attack or defend. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> So will arty actually knock houses down/around or just "degrade" them? What about rubble, in towns, where I understand it often blocked roads? Will there be shell craters? Effects on trees? Can arty cause fires? Wreck bridges? Equally, if in-game arty can't do these, can some of them be "set-up" in the terrain editor - eg can there be blocked roads in a town? For the record, I don't think any of these are essential to gameplay, not by any means. Just curious. Nice chrome if they're in, though. Rocky

Absolutely right. I never said it was *easy*. Fortunately there weren't many King Tigers to worry about. IIRC there were only about 500-600 made (if I'm wrong some grognard will correct me ), and they weren't easy to keep in the field - problems with maintainance and fuel meant that many were abandoned. Also, the average engagement range was much closer than 600m, and imagine said Sherman got at least a flank, if not a rear shot, to take out a KT. Bottom line - once on the battlefield, the KT was unqustionably a scary piece of harware, and the kill ratio favoured the KTs. But their real impact was far less than I've seen it portrayed in some computer, board & miniature games. Rocky

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I still vividly remember taking my King Tiger out for its first drive ever, and then losing it 30 seconds into the second turn thanks to a Sherman 76 some 600m away! A SHERMAN CAN DO THAT?!?! NO WAY!! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Damn well serves you right, too. I was rather pleased to know things like this happen in CM. I am so sick of the UPS (Unstoppable Panzer Syndrome) that crops up in too many games. Honestly, if the German kit was as unbreakable as many wargamers seem to believe, there would have been a thousand year Reich... This post doesn't have any suggestions or requests. I'm just happy to hear that the gameplay sounds like it should produce viable historical outcomes. One of those things that I drone on about.

A feature I would like is the ability to actually change the turn length - 60 sec is good, but for some scenarios I can see where it would be desireably to have longer turns - 2 min, or even longer. Even better would be being able to have different length "order phases" for different players. Why? To simulate different levels of friction & command and control. Some actions are simply more prone to confusion and tend to slow right down - night attacks, for example. Or the units may be poorly trained, or poorly led, or not well-integrated. Having longer "Boyd Cycles" can partially simulate this. So a night action, where both sides have problems with coordination, might have both sides on 2 or 3 minute turns. Players have to be very cautious about being too bold, because if you make a blunder you might not be able to fix it for an extra minute or two - you can lose a lot of troops in two minutes. Or imagine different length "order phases". The highly trained, well led, British tank company might have 60 sec turns. Poor dumb German reservist regiment that's just had the snot whacked out of it has 180 sec "order phases". So the Brits get to add new orders every turn, but the Germans only get to amend their orders every three *game* turns. It could also allow longer battles in PBEM - you can run a 2 hour battle with the same number of turns as a 1 hour battle, at the cost of less C&C. The split length orders phase is also PBEN efficient as well - in the example above the "slower" German player sends his turn to the "faster" Brit, who then plays out *three* turns and then sends them back to the German. The German replays these, enters his new orders, and resends. Now I'm sure some people will hate this - and I can see a few problems myself - but evenso I'd still like the option. Comments/reactions appreciated from all! Rocky

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Thirding the big old manual vote PLUS asking for a large included weapons stats section (or even better yet a pull-out wallchart (probably not possibly)). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ooh-er. That could be very cool. Maybe for some of the maps as well - better still if they look like real military maps, and not "game" maps. A few games have come with separate charts, maps and such - Civ II, Tornado, Falcon 4, EF2000, etc. It'd be nice, but it does fall towards the luxury/chrome end of my dream-features list. Still, if you run out of things to do... Rocky

You people are just being silly. I come here to find out about Combat Mission, and instead find lots of ridiculous ideas for the theme music. Drivel. Absolute drivel. I don't know why you are bothering with this nonsense. *sigh* It's perfectly obvious that the best choice is "These Boots are Made for Walking" by Nancy Sinatra. If not affordable, "Wake Up Jeff" by the Wiggles would be an excellent second choice, of course. (With tongue firmly in cheek), Rocky

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The manual must be pretty hefty. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Speaking of which... Are you planning a nice hefty manual? Something that can be used for a bunker at a pinch? I'm old fashioned like that, and will pay an extra few bucks for one. Rocky

I'm with them. I'd like to see a variable for a few characters of text. Let's you off the hook, and probably not too bothersome to program. TacOps has a similar facility, and it's handy, although admittedly sometimes it's used for more basic ID purposes as units are otherwise fairly anonymous. Not quite comparing apples with apples. But I'd still like to be able to ID units in CM. Rocky

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If it is a direct hit, a kill is very likely. If it is nearby, the shockwaves and fragmentation would be enough to at least harm/kill crew and damage the tank.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> So how much detail will CM model in terms of damage - presumably mobility kills and damage to guns - will you bother modelling kills to tank commanders, wrecked optics, damaged turrets and such? I don't *really* care, in that I'm going to buy the damn game anyway, but I am a bit curious. Rocky

I appreciate that your designing for a common denominator at 640x480 - something I wish flight sim programmers would consider ("min specs: 1,500MhZ PIII with 2.6Gb of RAM... ). However, for us lucky swine who have 17+" monitors and el swizzo 3d cards, what will be the max resolution? Is it going to be worth the trouble going to a larger res - will it help in planning/playing the game? Rocky PS thx Marko for the correction re: _Tigers on the Prowl_... I'm always getting that wrong.

I haven't noticed anything about the interface yet. Kind of wondering. Too mnay good games have been kneecapped by weak interface design. For example, HPS Sims' _Tigers in the Snow_ and _Panthers in the Shadows_ games. I'm not bagging them, because in many ways they are quite good games: highly tailorable, lots of units, very detailed, and so on. I can forgive them the so-so graphics, and even the use of hexes (just ), but the interface seriosuly frustrates me. It seems to take a lot of mouse clicks to get something done, and it's not always clear exactly what should be done at any given stage. So my question: how straightforward, intuitive and efficient is the CM interface? Rocky