Los

Well whatever you do hurry, the infantry needs armor support:

I wish... Les Ardennes....

Infantry moving out into the snowy night

This speaks to simplifying things for the real time player and allowing the handling of moving larger formations which I like.

Some additional thought. I think it would be best to study ww2 combat footage as an adjunct to the study of manuals. You can see how troops move in open terrain as well as in built up areas and thick terrain. (As Vinnart says) This is modified by imminence of contact. Troops moving up in a combat area are very spread out. You can see footage of infantry companies moving up on roads in columns where they are spread out at least a kilometer. Distance here relies upon the competence of the junior leaders and training. In Die Frontschau episodes where the Germans are crossing large open areas they are in long deep spread out columns. Troops get to the final point where they will be under direct fire and the squads may be seen to close up. This closing up ( not bunching up) is a function of control. One must maintain firm control of ones troops under fire. Even in this case they are often seen moving very spread out in columns or small groups. I don't think movement in CM is that bad, perhaps troops could spread out a bit more in open terrain (5m intervals). Not doing so probably results in more pxeltruppen casualties than is needed. I'm not sure how it would be implemented without micromanagement.

Daidalos, Welcome. We often play RT on our LAN and is perfectly possible, same w Internet provided someone wants to commit to a couple hours. Else you are condemned to the eternity that ia wego. <kidding> It is possible to modify missions in the editor to add more forces or fire support to suit your Desire then save them as a different name. Another fun thing if you have two PCs is install on both and do an rt battle against yourself. Set up the defense so at it can pretty much run itself with minimal assistance and then try and crack it in RT. it's a good way to learn what's going on. Los

Whatever is done, it should be something that the player doesn't have to micromanage. That's a squad leaders job. The player can arrange his squads however he wants them for movement but the squad ai should determine if the soldiers are moving in column, line, gaggle, spread out or close together.

So I take it you liked "Into Obkivion"? I've been eyeballing that and his Cholm book. Los

We've had recent extensive coop discussions in the CMBN thread however, I was thinking of one low overhead way to do a "command simulator" with the right crowd: One player simply GMs the game and has access to both sides. He has player who are willing to "roleplay" say company or platoon commanders. He updates them with well produced situation maps and screenshots regularly and has them give verbal orders (BTW this is what a real platoon leader or company commander would be doing). He then, to the best of his ability, carry's out their orders based on their clarity. If the guy doesn't respond back within a time limit, he implements those orders based on previously stated intent. What it isnt is CM coop play. What it is is a fun online kriegspiel campaign where making decisions based on limited intelligence and inability to micromanage the exact right move out of every soldier a level of immersion not usually available. Our gaming group does this kind of thing at least once or twice a year and they have been the best gaming experiences. We have not doe this with CM however. It can be fun for the GM as well since you get a smarter level of command and control than the AI would give you, and you get to see human decisions making under limited intel in action which is cool. The GM could also create a base template with the defense and cut certain portions for platoon leaders to attack then use results to update the whole (Sort of like what they do in those excellent Panzer campaign/CM games.) Anyway, just sayin'... Los p.s. in case you missed it there is no more Steiner14..banned, so don't expect a response.

>>>What is not going to happen (in real life) is some Tommy or GI or Panzergrenadier saying, "Wow that dead guy over there has a cooler weapon than me, I'm just going to expose myself to enemy fire...<<< Exactly, let alone the more mundane reason is that that soldier is signed for that weapon, its serial number is entered into his paybook, he is accountable for retaining that weapon even in combat, unless it breaks, stuff that has no bearing or relation to gaming of course but means the all the difference in the world to getting in potential big trouble. Then there's the issue of your role in the squad, you dump your k98 for the MP40 then ten minutes later your supposed to be laying down suppressive fire at a target 200 meters away. What do you tell your SL/PL then? They know what weapons your carrying and who has what for a reason, so they can make sound tactical decisions. EXC, the squad machine-gun must always be manned... Los

I thought you guys might like this. I have this old and rare tape of a German training film regarding infantry assaults which I just uploaded to youtube. Quality is so so. Enjoy: http://youtu.be/anSa1zI7uiQ

The unfortunate choice for a subject heading adds a flavorful icing to the cake as well.

Another oddball cosmetic thing which I think has come up in the past. More variety in Animations on soldiers carrying their rifles and equipment. Looking to get a more natural movement impression for the whole. Some guys should be carrying them at high port, some low port, some at the ready as in bayonet charge, it seems most Germans typically carry their rifles in trail (rifle carried in one hand low), until they're ready to shoot. Brings them a little more to life it seems. Some cursory review of footage reveals this check out infantry on the movie by scooting around through these vids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOb0hFCdSgE&noredirect=1 http://youtu.be/Br38z0LPlX0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcV-Mzd8gr4 (about 24 minutes in) http://youtu.be/1pAPOifAaQY Weapons crews should be lugging boxes of ammo,tripods, etc MGs and mortar tubes slung over shoulders, Slung arms, until contact is imminent. Anyway you can do your own poking a round. Once you know what you are looking for. Anyway just in case your animation guy needs something to do

I'd like to see some day Platoon AI where a platoon could be given the order to advance to X and Defend that area and the Platoon gets there, sets itself up and manages itself. Something similar to current AI plans but something you could implement when the game is actually running no just in the scenario editor. This would make it easier to manage larger forces in RT/wego or without resorting to micromanaging every last figure. That and more robust scripting in the editor... Los

Just don't forget those early war modules please! Los

The cmfi folks have just created a whole bulge mod so I would look over in their forum .

Hey just goes to show there's no issue to small to invoke a non sensical rant.

I like it too. Will have to mull this over. I like the runners.

"Because I think it's pretty clear that if we have a fault, it's caring too much rather than too little." OK now you sound like my mom!

Hopefully if there's ever coop mode, they will have bestowed upon them a "higher calling" Los

Just reread this excellent thread and thought I would post here so as not to the things up in the other thread, what with all the angst wegos feel about the RT experience. Just a few thoughts: Giving future commands: In RT one would want to be able to set a hold order, give commands past that hold order, and release them when he wants,. This allows prior planning and coordinated action while awaiting a art strike to complete or another platoon to finish suppressing a tgt. Similar to he hold icon already in place but it effects all units under one's command (or a group selection) So we can be hunkered down behind a hedgerow and I give a frag order to the platoon and then say either go on my command or in five minutes, whatever. This helps mitigate peoples feeling of a click fest esp with more units. Comms in coop: As stated up above players could communicate with a spectrum of all on teamspeak in realtime to "Ironman mode". Some ideas about this more restrictive mode. First its important to have the ability to limit intel on friendly forces. Iron man already does this. Now just to add a few things. If your sub units are out of radio or visual range, you have to send a runner (a delay). Now for player comms if there's a voice chat that would be great, but in iron man mode without wire or radio Comms you have to send a runner to players too, and it has to be written text. When a player enters a coop game he is tied to a specific unit on the ground eg a plt HQ squad. His ability to speak and communicate is tied with this unit. If this unit is wiped out there is a delay while command passes to whatever the next unit in the chain of command is (eg 1stSL) Now using colored smoke, and flares, in signalling were a common aspect of ww2 combat. So this could be added as a hot key to the coop player. Pop a colored smoke or flare. The color of which could be prearranged to mean things like "enemy attack" or "I am here at this phase line" etc. This helps mitigate command delays. It is implied that in this kind of game a pre-game phase takes on greater importance. A single player has the ability to pull his entire plan out of his fourth point of contact at any time during the game. With restrictive comms and multiple players this is not so. It would be good to support a little map planning just as mentioned above by Vinnart. The overall command or others should be able to mark points on the map or even view an overall map and discuss the plan, which of course serves as an effective basis for change once things go live. I'll use an example from another game. Has ever played Steel Beast (Which is a realistic Tank simulator/wargame used by many armies for training)? They have a very strong community like ours and often fight multiplayer battles with dozens of players with up to brigade vs division battles. You can spend up to 30-45 minutes in Teamspeak getting the oporder from the commander including maps and graphics before the battle even starts. The side that does its pre-battle planning effectively usually wins. Los I know its all pie in the sky but still it's fun to imagine. Los

Especially since its only been four days since the post including the weekend. A little perspective may be in order. I've noticed this issue as well. Los

Now if only cropping were easier

There is nothing about RT that is mutually exclusive to realism,providing you don't try and run hundreds of troops at the same time. Its not like time is accelerated in realtime as it is in actual RTS games. This is becoming a circular argument it seems. Give each guy 4 to six units. Many people play RT and have a perfectly fine time with it, many people don't, to each their own. For many feature that have been implemented in CM these types of discussions have been hashed out. But new features is how CM has moved forward and remained an excellent game for the past decade. For WEGO Coop there still needs to be some kind of time limit, like you have X time to give orders. This way you don't have one anal retentive guy taking 40 minutes to decide what his company is going to do,or his wife orders him to take out the garbage and he ends up chatting w the neighbor. Perhaps in wego coop a host set up option is X planning time per turn. This could allow the flexibility to have players manage larger forces. Either it's a setting or its worked out ahead of time that each unit control equates to x amount of time in the bank. Example: a 5 unit platoon would give one say 2 minutes of planning time. (Everyone would have to share this same time limit. It could also be done by voting but someones needs the ability to override and get the turn going if the game lags. I was thinking that in a pbem coop game (here's where guys that like to take for ever can come into their own) would there be any reason why the host could not send out an update to each player at once so they could all be doing their orders at the same time? That could help move things along. Los

(Getting beyond this RT vs 1 minute at a time thing for the moment, heck allow both options with coop if its not a hassle) The interesting facet of this is how command and control would be implemented in a coop game, if no other enhancement was implemented other than multiple player coop mode. BTW there should be the ability for multiple players on both sides so it can be force on force. If I was running a Lan say with 7 players on the same side and no other enhancements I would start with a teamspeak server broken into different channels.Say you have two companies each w three players and a commander. I'd publish a map of the area with grid squares and a grid marking system so players have a way to communicate locations. You'd want to have it so friendly borg spotting is not in effect. The commander could control the FOs with one going with each company HQ. Players could report intel and request fire support that the commander could call in. (That way apart from commanding he has something to do.) And for enhancements... Thinking about this, It would be neat to have the ability to hand off control of forces between players. Not only would this solve issues of player dumps or having to leave the game, (control of forces reverts to the overall player commander), but more importantly the commander could parcel our reserves as he sees fit. (Steel Beasts does this). Another enhancement would be to pass messages around to include waypoints spot reports, fire request so player can see them. And if the radioman is dead or otherwise comms suck, you have to send a runner to the recipient. Los