CRourke

This is a kind of nasty problem, but its seems it could at least be reduced (though there are prolly better things for you guys to code). Couldn't you just restrict the attacker to a slightly narrower map than the defender. This way the defender could provide his own flank support. Sure, people would whine about annoying it was not being able to drive in and squash that mg unit that kept firing at em, but in real life attacks are defined along strict boundaries. Obviously, it would get slightly more complex as you wouldn't want the defender taking advantage of a safe zone that led far ahead into enemy territory. Perhaps both sides could have a "safe zone" at their respective ends of the map. (and by safe, i just mean that the enemy can't run you over there, he can still blow ya to bits). 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 Chris Rourke

The production cost is somewhat important, but there are alot of other factor that would influence the cost of getting a piece of equipment to the battlefield. Reliability is a good example: if half an armies tanks are out of service, getting one tank to the battlefield would in effect involve "purchasing" two tanks. For the german players, you'd also have to consider the supply issue. Having a tank at your disposal entails having the fuel to run it and the ammo to fire. This was often more signifigant than the actual numbers of tanks themselves later in the war. Then there's the price of crewman. All in all, I think its hard to arrive at a "point value" for a piece of equipment by starting with production costs. Even if you did come up with a "cost", its not really that your "buying" the equipment. Your just "renting" it for a battle. In theory, most of the equipment you buy will survive. This gets into what I was talking about in the last thread, there should be a cost to use, and a cost to lose. The cost to use if a function of the expenses of getting the equipment to the battle field that day, while the cost to lose is that of replacing a the equipment and possibly its crew. What I meant with my earlier "trucks should be cheap" post wasn't that all my grunts should be allowed to ride around in comfort.. heck, I doubt many of them would want to, that close to the lines. I just mean that "buying" a truck to say, move a towed piece should be pretty inexpensive as long as I don't use the truck (or horses in the case of the germans). After all, thats what the truck is for, and unlike "using" a tank, the use of the truck costs minimal maintanence, gasoline, and ammo. The differance of cost to use and cost to lose can also help encourage realistic use of units. Recon vehicles are a good example. Most players use them as light tanks. My impression was that in reality, they generally drove until they drew fire, than reversed and got the heck out of dodge with guns blazing. By making recon units extra expensive to lose, you can discourage those attempts at flankshots on the Tiger. In a slightly related vein, how you guys (bigtime) planning on handling on board arty ammo loadouts. I'm not sure whats realistic here, but it sure would be nice to have some control over how much and what kind. I hate having buy multiple batteries when all I wanted was a smokescreen. Also, will the loss of towed guns truck affect its ammo supply? Chris Rourke

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). Thats really how I like to think of all units.. they have a price just to use them, and then another price if you lose them. A rare unit might be expensive to use because its so hard to find one, but its not particularly bad if you lose it. The exception would be artillery, where its important to incorporate the ammo load into the starting price. I think its important to give the player control over the ammo loadout, especially for on board artillery. ("What, you want a SIXTY rnd barrage? Well just get two 82mm instead of one"). With offboard support I guess you wouldn't have much control over what you got. With rare units, or unrealistic combinations, perhaps the player could be penalized with increasing buy costs? "Ohhh, you want 3 Coy's of flamethrower equipped sturm-pionnere... now are they going to ride on the King Tiger coy, or the Maus?" It would be nice to see players reward for keeping their selection reasonably historical and not tailoring a force to the specific scenario. Just some rambling thoughts, Chris Rourke

I'm curious about the approach you guys are taking to the AI.. I've heard mention of a "strategic AI", which I guess implies the existence of a tactical AI. Is the AI being layered like that? How many layers? Is national doctrine going to be represented for its own sake or will it just be like "If your american, don't go charging german inf with yer shermans"? I'd like to see the AI's thought process taken directly from national doctrines and training manuals. Not so much for the sake of realism, but because it seems like the instruction given to future plt and co leaders was kept very simple. No one expected them to execute grand involved manuevers. ("Sgt, take 1st and 2nd squads and execute a counter march to gain a double envelopement around their refused flanks. Have Cpl Poole and 3rd squad feign a withdrawal, then wheel left and deploy skirmishers en echelon") But I digress.. in any case, I think the nicest thing about it is that the simplified tactics taught are most readily adapted to an AI. And, when they don't work out, its easiest to dismiss it and say, "Ya, but a real plt could have made that mistake too". Also, if things are nicely compartmentalized, one can hardly blame a plt for failing to act in perfect coordination with its neighbors. Its just a fog of war. I think alot of the reason wargamer's complain about AI is that its easy to see what the right thing was from their god's eye view of the battlefield. Real war isn't a series of chess-like moves planned out for 3 hrs in order to get the best odds attack on the krauts killer stack. And while I'm rambling, its seems like the first thing an AI would want to do would be to sit down (figurtively) and spend some time analyzing the map. Especially with the non hexed based approached, I imagine its pretty important for the computer to simplify the map into "this region is a strong point" "this hill has great observation" "this open ground is death". Maybe this kind of analysis could be really exhaustive, but only need be done once for a map and saved. Anyway, I'm just curious as to how you guys will get this AI thing to work. With so many factors in both the units and the terrain, I'll be really amazed if you can pull of even a mediocre AI. Chris Rourke

Trivia on large scale unit coordination.. I think the US attack on Achen was opened by having each man in a company positioned behind a RR embankment throw a grenade over at exactly 12 noon. Or something like that. Anyway, I demand that we have a "plan to throw grenade at exactly noon" command added. As you can see, without it, the game would be ahistorical. I haven't researched it in full yet, you might also need to add "plan to throw grenade at exactly sunup" and "plan to throw grenade at exactly teatime" commands too. Chris Rourke

I said "alot" of the names could be shared.. that is to say, instead of 300 brit names and 300 american names, I think you could get away with say, 200 brits, 200 americans, and 100 that are common enough between the two. That still leaves plenty of room in the melting pot. Chris Rourke

Still, to be worth anything, you must be able to see the names whenever you access a unit.. someone mentioned the flaw of sp only putting it on the unit info screen. That may cause some interface redesign issues which are probably alot more signifigant than cominig up with a few names.. the names themselves really shouldn't be a problem. If a scenario ever had more than 200 units a side, your probably wouldn't notice the any repeats.. and of course, who says there wouldn't be a couple of guys with the same last names in real life... also, I think you could safely share alot of the british and american name pool. Finally, this is an excellent chance for me (and the other posters on the board) to have their very own unit. I may never get a commander named after me in ASL, but maybe I could have a Cpl Rourke or even Oberleutenant von der Heusen in CM. -Chris "all I want is my own rifle squad" Rourke

I can understand that you'll hardly be able to get to know your individual men on this scale, but I still think it would be nice if units were labeled by they're squadleader's name (anyone remember the old "Fields of Fire"?).. I think it helps to immerse you in the game if you're ordering PFC Howard's squad to take the farmhouse, rather than clicking on H.Inf Unit #27 and giving it an advance path to the wooden building. Chris Rourke

I think the most important thing to differentiate (sp?) would be the amount of underbrush in a forest.. A tangled thicket is hard for inf to advance through whether woods are light, heavy, or whatever.. but maybe thats what you guys mean by extra heavy.

Moon: Actually, I'd argue that 15 minute turrns would be less realistic. True, that might be closer to the response time of a CO commanding his companies in real life, in the game, even with amazing ai, we have to accept that the human must take some responsibility for the lower echelon positions, issuing orders that would normally originate from the platoon or squad level. With the current state of AI, I agree that watching your junior commanders bungle everything and only being able to correct them ever quarter hour would be pretty frustrating. I always thought that this was how SSG's Great Battles series partially got its reputation for great AI.. your guys were made just as stupid as there guys. Chris Rourke

I understand your point about it being nearly impossible to simulate the lack of inter unit coordination and communication in combat. I've long believed that one of the most unrealistic things about the wargames we play is that we use this wonderful overhead map that shows us exactly what the terrain looks like, where our men are, and what they have spotted, and allows us to have our units act on this knowledge. That being said, I don't think theres any way to really correct for this, and in any case, it doesn't hurt the fun factor at all.. though kudos to you guys for making enemy spotting fuzzy (Sir, Pvt Doyle reports a MkIVf2 Panzer with an elite crew and a jammed bow machine gun, at 100 yards. Shall I order the 60mm to drop a round in their hatch?). That all being said, I still think their is room to simulate the trouble infantry and armor often had in coordinating their attacks. You know, the kind of stuff that those little telephones on the back of the tanks were designed to deal with (I think Closing with the Enemy or Citizen Soldiers goes into some detail about this). My understanding is that tanks were rarely an integral part of a force at CM's scale, rather they were assigned as attachments. It could be as simple as giving a little extra command delay to the armored forces if the CO of the op is infantry (or vice versa if its primarily an armor show). Also, am I right in assuming that once a unit is spotted, all other units with LOS also spot it? I'd rather see a system where if unit A spots an MG and fires on it, unit B can only use area fire at the MG until it independantly (but with a bonus since A is pointing it out) spots it. But maybe thats a bit too complex. No matter what you do I'm sure I'll love the game. Incidently, may I suggest May 11th as a release date? Thats the day of my last exam, so I won't have to fail all my finals. Chris Rourke

Are you guys going to do anything to simulate the difficulties in getting the tankers to do what the grunts want them to... It seems like the tanks should have reaction penalties if their not in direct communication with the inf.. for example, just because the the inf platoon up ahead knows exactly where the MG42 is, doesn't mean the M4 knows too, at least not right away, unless possibly if he has a rider on the back who can draw his attention to it. Chris Rourke

Ya, it seems like there wouldn't be any differance between TCP/IP internet play and TCP/IP subnet play. For that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a way to support TCP/IP over a h2h dial in type connection. Or are you guys going to use some sort of main internet based server to allow players to meet and initiate games? That seems unnecessary, especially considering that with a puncuated real time game, the orders for a turn could probably be packed into an email file and exchanged (somewhat like tacops). Just some thoughts. Chris Rourke ps... I just scrolled down.. cr*p, how did you guys get an answer out before I'd even finished my message? Thats really amazing.

Certainly green units aren't usually as proficient as veterans, but I think its also important to remember that they tend to be a lot less predictable than veterans. Usually this means they break and run long before a veteran unit would, but on occasioni it would cause them to hold on long after the veterans would have pulled back. I understand this was especially true of the russians. One day they might run at the first sight of the enemy, the next, they'd be attack Tiger I's with satchel charges. I would prefer new units to be rated as "untried". Certainly a "green" squad with a good squad leader and decent training could end up alot better than a group of replacements thrown together right before the battle. Or they could turn out worse. You don't really know until they you see how they react in their first firefight. After that, rate them as elite, veteran, regular, conscript, whatever, with the great bulk of them being regular or conscript, but a few maybe veteran. But until they see the elephant and get a definitive rating, they might do all sorts of crazy stuff. On a side note, anyone remember that story in "Citizen Soldiers" about the new LT who was told to take a building. Misunderstanding that this was supposed to entail machinegun fire and grenades, he went and knocked on the door. A german officer answered and the lt demanded that he surrender.. which the german did, along with the rest of the plt holding the house. On the whole, a very civilized way to conduct war. Chris Rourke