Pixman

Well put Moon and Fionn. By the way, I do not feel attacked Fionn, and assume you are apologizing to someone other than myself. I have no problem with the 3D REPRESENTATION of what I see. I just hope it did not come at the expense of something more important to tactical reality. But, clearly from the BTS posts, LOS is not going to be determined by this graphical representation. Otherwise, I have completely misunderstood all of the writings about what the game engine sees vs. what the player sees with regard to scaling units ("ants", etc.). If it's in your LOS, they'll let you "see" it -- no matter what it looks like, giants or ants. If it's in your LOF, they'll let you target it -- no matter what it looks like, giants or ants. Furthermore, there was the whole talk about just being able to hit the nose of the tank if that's all that is peeking out from behind the building. Again, BTS said "no". You see it or you don't and LOS/LOF is targeted on the entire vehicle, not just the front fender. Same with a squad in the tree line, LOS/LOF is traced to a virtual "center" of the squad and the graphic representation of that squad has nothing to do with where the men in the squad actually "are" with regard to fire effect. Moon, one final point -- actually there are "calculations, abstractions and ruler checks", they are just being done by the computer now instead of my stubby, grubby hands -- and nothing could make me happier. Pixman

I am in the Tom Davies/Marko camp all the way. What matters is the causal effect of hills, trees, buildings, roads, bridges, etc. on the outcome of the player's command decisions. That is what BTS needs to spend the bulk of their resources simulating -- and, thankfully,it sounds like they have/are. From a command simulation standpoint, it really does not matter a lick how physical objects look on the screen. We just need to know what those objects are and how they relate to each other. To understand that, just look at the game from the AI's perspective. Does it "see" those graphics? No, it just knows an SS squad is in a stone building on the second floor and factors all of the attributes of that situation into it's decision to storm the building with its green mortar crew or not (lol). And, hopefully, that's what all of us will do, whether the windows on the building have pink curtains or blue and the building has a mansard vs. a gabled roof. These things just do not matter in the game play. The distinction I would like to press home here is the one between simulation and representation. The onus should be on BTS to SIMULATE the attributes and effects of terrain, architecture, armor, leadership, morale, experience, weather, muzzle velocity, etc. This simulation requires the utmost realism and accuracy to make the game the best it can be from a playability (command) standpoint. Graphically, however, these things just need to be REPRESENTED such that we can quickly recognize what each object is -- granted in a way that does not insult the senses of the player (but even the static screen shots we have all seen are far from insulting to the senses). This representation gives the player quick visual information that he needs to make decisions, i.e. he literally sees the SS squad on the second floor of a stone building. Think about it; the game could just as easily print out: "Your selected crew can see an SS squad on the second floor of a stone building at 100 meters to the NNE." Obviously a picture can paint, in this case, 22 words -- making graphical representation much more efficient and intuitive than textual feedback (thus, Windows vs. DOS). But the information transferred to the user is identical in both cases. In another thread I cautioned players about focusing too much on numbers and not enough on command and tactics. I would make the same caution here with regard to graphics and artwork. With the exception of first person action simulations, graphics do not make a game and never will. In the real world of finite development time and technology resources, a more than representative emphasis on graphics will ultimately detract from the end product. I would encourage all who read this (at least those I have not totally turned off through my typically high handed assertion of my opinions) to find and purchase a game called UpFront. It was published in the mid 80s by either Avalon Hill or Victory Games. It simulates combat at the same level as CM or SL/ASL, except you only command a platoon and a couple of crew weapons or vehicles. The thing that hits you when you open the box is that there is no MAP!! In fact, there is no board of any kind. The game uses CARDS to represent men, weapons, vehicles, wire, smoke, terrain, buildings, movement, etc. It also uses chits to represent relative ranges between respective groups (friendly and enemy). It is a truly ingenius game system and, although BTS would probably argue it relies too heavily on statistics and chance (luck of the draw so to speak), very realistic. I point out this game because it was not until I played it that I realized just how much of a battlefield you can abstract and still have a very playable game jam packed with difficult decision making. If you can find UpFront, buy it -- you will not be disappointed. For the Pacific Theatre aficionados out there, they have an expansion module called Bonzai to go with it. That module introduces caves, jungle, booby traps, bonzai charges and the inhuman morale attributes of the typical Japanese soldier. If anybody reading this has played either of these games, I would love to hear your comments. To sum up: BTS is making a warGAME not a warMOVIE. In fact, the part of the game I am least looking forward to is the execution phase when you watch the battle. When I need the sensory feedback of being in a world war II battle, I'll rent Saving Private Ryan, A Bridge Too Far or Midway. When I want the ultimate simulation of company and regiment level command, hopefully I will come back to CM time and again. If you got this far, I applaud your tenacity. Recognizing that there are others who get more of their gaming satisfaction from graphics than I do, I apologize if this has offended anyone -- that was not my intent. I also mean no slight toward BTS for their investment in graphics to date. Marketing realities require them to produce an aesthetically attractive game -- even if it costs a little in the areas that matter more to me. However, based on my reading of their comments to date, I am clear that they have their priorities in the right order and have sacrificed graphics to gain realism when they could not get both. Pixman

Thanks for the response Steve. I did see that 105s, etc would be off board. I also concur that horses would be a pain and that the big boy 88 is not going to be "pushed around". Will there be any limbering/unlimbering activities at all? Behind trucks even? I appreciate the chance to follow up.

I'm with you Brian, enough tech talk. This is where the discussion needs to be -- at least for me. I'm not saying people should not keep submitting ideas -- ever. But ballistics, smoke density, modeling buildings, and weather discussions all pale in comparison to what is revealed through these combat vignettes. Also, like John, I agree that this type of thread allows us to play the game vicariously through Steve and Charles. Since we cannot have the real thing yet, this at least satisfies some of my tactical Jones -- which is just getting stronger by the day.

_____________________________________________ The point is that the Germans always tried to make the BEST stuff. Tanks, ships, small arms, artillery, rockets, jets, etc. you name it. Trying to build the high tech stuff comes at a price, though. Reliability, spare parts, numbers, etc. This was the problem with all of Germany's tanks,especially the later war ones. _____________________________________________ I'm with you Steve, just look at the Bismarck. The Brits just sent a pack of inferior dogs after that thoroughbred and dragged her to the bottom of the ocean. This whole discussion gets more interesting when you throw in the superiority complex of the Nazis vs. the Everyman ideology of the Soviets (I am no communist/socialist!). These contrasting philosophies carried into the realm of their equipment, command leadership and tactics as the war went on. The Germans were just downright arrogant about their superiority in every regard -- a requirement when deciding to take on the whole world. That's why it came as such a shock to their egos when the T-34 turned out to be a head to head match for the PzIV -- and the Soviets were just getting warmed up. How could this happen? And look how many there are! We can talk about King Tigers and Panthers until we are blue in the face and it's fun because they are sexy tanks. But the mass produced blue collar tanks on each side were what really had to get the job done. In this regard, the Germans were outclassed on both fronts later in the war. As much as the individual tanker hated it, the Yanks had it right. Cobra could not have been executed with American equivalents of Tigers and Panthers. In fact, the Germans' opening blitzkrieg could not have happened with Tigers and Panthers either. Look at what they used -- PzIIIs and a few PzIVs with 50mm and 75mm guns. Real killers huh? No, just bread and butter tanks that were sturdy, efficient, reliable, plentiful and mobile as hell. Very effective against infantry with machine guns, which was their original purpose anyway. Just imagine how much more effective the Ardennes campaign might have been had the Germans had 2 to 3 times as many inferior tanks (fuel notwithstanding). By moving to the big, slow, heavy, albeit devastatingly powerful tank, the Germans essentially gave up a mobile warfare doctrine for a more fixed defense approach. They had to move the Tigers by rail for goodness sake! This violated the very principles upon which their early successes were built. They became fixated on killing enemy tanks with their own tanks at predictable and relatively fixed locations. They'd get the tanks there and park them (oh they could move about a little in a small radius)and wait for the enemy to show up so they could start blasting. What a waste of armor! Nothing wrong with the defensive approach, but why not use 20 towed 88s instead of one Tiger? Ask Montgomery if this approach worked when Rommel used it against him in the desert. He'd create a wall of towed 88s and then lure or drive Monty into it with his mobile units. Creates quite a headache. My final comment, at least for now, is the following: When talking about tanks, we tend to focus on the armor, gun size, muzzle velocity, optics, etc. That's all great and again very sexy. But for me, the most impressive (though somewhat mundane) feature of a tank is its track and the consequent all-terrain mobility it provides. A tank was made to move. Once it stops moving, it is a wasted resource. Marshall, Ike and especially Patton all understood this. Guderian and Rommel understood this as well. The 15th Panzer Army was meant to be a "mobile" reserve behind a wall of fixed defenses. When it did not "move" we got ashore and the rest is history.

All this stuff is great. It is why I have always looked forward to a computer game that could automate all of the calculations and probabilities, while leaving the player's mind free to plan strategy and tactics. Squad Leader, while a great game, intimidated many of my potential opponents by sheer weight of the compounded math. But here's the rub. Many of them (one in particular that I will address in a minute) got too caught up in all the math. The people who excel at CM, as with SL, will be those who can quickly intuit the game. It is the inate ability to instantly model the multiple layers of abstract, three dimensional geometry in one's head that makes the great squad level game player. This player does things intuitively, just because they seem to make sense, not because the numbers indicate his choices should work. I have a very good friend from college who is a world class research scientist. He did primary research on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (known now as MRI) and has been published numerous times in the Journal of Science. He is brilliant and very good at thinking "out of the box" as well. He, like I, was addicted to Squad Leader. Yet, while mathematically brilliant, he was never able to beat me. He would consult the charts, calculate the probabilities in his head, do "what if" analysis and still make what I knew at the time were suboptimal moves. I am not saying I am the best at intuiting these games because I have met better and had my lunch eaten (by people worse in math than I). I am just trying to point out that, when it comes down to game time, the numbers won't mean a rip in determining who wins or loses. What the numbers do, and I applaud BTS for doing this so well in CM, is make sure the game engine accurately models realistic resolutions to the joint decisions of the two players. But the winner will invariably be the person who knows when to hold and when to fold, when to fire and when to move, where to place his crew weapons, how to position his leaders, how much critical mass of men it will take to assault that building, take the shot on that Tiger or not, etc. The numbers will just serve to reward him/her for those decisions.

I think it's a darn good deal! You did not mention CDROM or DVD, but I'm sure it comes with one or the other. In my book, the large, high resolution monitor pushes it over the top! The rest of the configuration is not shabby either. The RAM should be plenty for now. I would ask what is the max you can expand it to. Other than that, rock and roll. Or is that lock and load?

Scott, SSI's Pacific General covers PTO. It is not at the scale of CM but at least it is set there. My comments on PTO is that it was so Navy/Marine dominated. I guess you could have a Guadalcanal campaign. Or the Marianas and Phillipines. But the best part of the Phillipines was the battle of Leyte gulf -- a naval engagement. Iwo Jima would do nothing for me. I don't know, maybe the guys at BTS would not mind modeling jungle rot, booby traps, caves, beach assaults and banzai charges. For me, the geometry of such warfare (endless beach landings, ambushes and flamethrower attacks) is not nearly as interesting as that available in the more open terrain of other theatres. I do think the PTO provides wonderful gaming opportunities at a more strategic level that incorporates naval actions, aerial bombardment and marine assaults. Just gathering intelligence on what the heck the Jap Fleet is up to would be a blast (i.e. Midway). Just my two cents.

Thanks Steve. While we're on the subject of AT guns, a few questions: 1.) Have you modeled the protection they provide the crews along their covered arc? 2.) If so, is this done with penetration and damage effect algorithms, similar to your approach to AFVs? Also, I see that the Wirbelwind will be in the game. This makes me very happy (as long as I am playing the German side!) As you know, it was technically an AAA weapon but was used to great effect firing horizontally at ground targets (like the 88). Will it be used in this way in CM? If so, any comments on it's rate of fire and firepower? Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I remember that SL scenario too Lokesa. I did not like it because, like you said, those Cossacks just started to rout all over the board and their horses ran wild. Pass the Vodka!! Steve, you mentioned the Germans using horses to haul and specifically to limber arty. I do not recall limbering of any kind being discussed on this site. I apologize if I missed it. My questions are: 1.) Does the time scale of CM allow for limbering/moving/unlimbering/firing towed ordinance? 2.) If so, will the Germans have horses for this purpose? 3.)Along the same lines, will crews be able to push guns short distances? Sorry if I should have put this in another thread. I'll be more careful in the future.

Nowhere in the history I have read was it ever "over" for the German 88. Conversely, it was usually "over" for whatever it targeted. I know that BTS has modeled the American 57mm. I cannot imagine the 88, signature weapon of the Wehrmacht, was left out of CM.

Quick follow up to my previous post. It is clear that if you added the words "company sized" before "battle" in my description, it would be almost identical to the description Steve submitted that appeases both camps. Like Marko, I think this dual approach works fine. But CM will still always be a squad game to me!

Call it whatever you want, but to say that CM is not the same in scale as SL/ASL is, in my humble opinion, flat wrong. The pieces in SL represent rifle squads, crewed weapons and their crews, individual AFVs, soft vehicles such as jeeps, kubelwagens and deuce and halfs, individual airplanes. The terrain represents multilevel individual buildings, trees, stone walls, hedges, wheatfields, shellholes, etc. When I look at the screen shots for CM and read all of these posts, what do I learn? That the units and weapons are scaled to the exact level listed above and that the negotiable terrain is identical as well. There is even all that excitement about the shadow of the Jabo coming over and taking out the AFV. Where is the difference in scale? With regard to scenario size, the typical CM scenario also sounds to be about the same as in SL -- 10 to 20 squads per side, 5 or so crewed weapons and anywhere from 0 to 20 AFVs and soft vehicles. Again, where is the difference? I understand the desire to distinguish your product from SL/ASL and the CC suite. Especially given the early team-up with AH and the obvious flaws in CC. However, the one place you cannot do that is in "scale". From a command standpoint (the perspective from which this wargamer views a game), SL/ASL, CC and CM are virtually identical in scale. Why? Because no matter which I play, the units I give orders to are squads, crews and individual vehicles (and in SL/ASL airplanes). The fact that the 3 game systems all carry out the orders and resolve their effects very differently has nothing to do with scale. I applaud all of BTS' efforts to distinguish CM by making it more historically accurate, more realistic in terms of AI and combat resolution and most importantly of all -- (re)playable. But scale? You won't convince me. CM is a squad level game if there ever was one. And man am I looking forward to it! With regard to BTS' request for suggestions on how to describe a game's scale, here's my .02. I believe that scale should be defined as the smallest unit modeled in the fighting. Civil War Generals 2 (a game obviously familiar to the CM designers, and a damn good one I might add), offers battles at the "brigade" and "regiment" levels. This terminology is based on the size of the units in the fight and seems to cause no confusion. One caveat, CWG3 will be multi-scaled. That is, it will have a strategic level where whole army decisions as well as sociopolitical and economic decisions will be made (you can be Lincoln or Davis). At the same time, it will still allow battle at the regiment and brigade levels (although Impressions is moving to a real time engine instead of the IGOUGO system of its 2 predecessors). If I had to print something on that box or a promo web page, I would call it "multi-scaled" and describe it as both Strategic and Tactical. But, no matter what, I would make very clear the size of the units commanded in battle. To stay consistent then: "CM is a tactical simulation where each player commands squads, crews and individual vehicles in battle." By the way, I recognize that nowhere in this diatribe did I address "time" scale. Again, from my command perspective, I really do not care about the time scale of the simulation. For me, time is defined as how long it takes me to issue my orders and complete a turn (or the same factors for my opponent if he is an even worse slowpoke than me). Pixman

Since the Eastern Front came up, will you also look to include Cossacks, Partisans and Finnish Ski troops? Squad Leader has a scenario called "Silent Death" where Finns sneak into a town at night on skis while the Russian garrison is mostly asleep. It's not pretty, these guys were fast, quiet and knew their purpose.

Glad you fellas can get a little time away. Will probably turn out to get us a better product and faster anyway. Must maintain a balance between "producing" and preserving our "capacity to produce". As the old story makes clear, you can't strangle the goose to get all the golden eggs, you have to keep the goose healthy so it can keep producing. Well, on this project, you guys are our geese and CM the golden egg, so please keep yourselves balanced and healthy. Also given the subject matter of your product, to not celebrate Memorial Day would border on hypocritical. As information, Chips and Bits is listing Combat Mission with a 6/99 release date. Is this accurate? If not, you may want to let them know.

Frontal assaults have always been my least favorite battle type. They invariably turn into boring, repetitive, non-creative slugfests that cannot hold my attention for the entire first playing -- and forget replayability. The beach assault is the mother of all such battles. The most interesting elements of the Normandy invasion are the Airborne drops and the work of the French partisans. I do not care if BTS never creates a beach assault capability. The opportunity cost of what they could have been applying their considerable talents to (North Africa, Airborne Assault of Crete, Sicily and Italy, etc.) instead would just get me down.

As anyone who has played Squad Leader knows, machine gun placement decisions are among the most important you make. I recall one board (2 or 3 I think) that was a village with a circular road in it. There was a 2 storey, 3 hex stone building that dominated one end of the town. Unfortunately, there was a stone wall in the hexes around the building that blocked LOS out onto the streets from the first floor of the building. This meant that, to combine the excellent range of the HMG with the excellent protection of the stonebuilding, you had to place the gun on the upper floor. What you sacrificed was the multi hex penetration of the HMG and the ability to evade capture when the building inevitably got close assaulted from the nearby woods. Also, like a previous post says, the HMG was vulnerable to long range shots from AFVs who: a) could get LOS to the upper floor of the building and b)were not nearly as impressed with the defensive qualities of a stone building. What I learned (the hard way) was that it was better to not put the HMG in the stone building at all. Especially since taking the building was usually one of the victory conditions for the attacker. Instead, I would put some high morale squads with a good leader in the building, on the lower level, so the attacker had to reach the stone wall (or adjacent woods) just to get a shot at them. Then the concealed squads would open up from 2 hexes (40 yards) away on the enemy behind the stone wall. If the attacker tried to flank the stone building through the woods, then the first shot by the concealed squads would be point blank. In Squad Leader, point blank fire was doubled in firepower from the standard ratings -- virtually nuclear if firing 3 German rifle squads with a superior leader commanding them. 2 to 3 squads firing its small arms at a close range enemy can bring devastating fire to bear -- much more than an HMG. The HMG's advantages are range and penetration through multiple in line soft targets. Therefore, I would put the HMG in a wooden building that commanded the fast approaches to the stone building. Yes, the wooden building provides less protection, but the HMG could stay at ground level there and still see, while avoiding the long range hits of AFVs (they instead had to drive past buildings where I had concealed panzerfausts to obtain LOS on the HMG). And if it got hot in the wooden building, I could jet out the back and find another fire base. By making these adjustments, life for the attacker got very ugly very quickly. While trying to reach his main objective, his forces are getting peppered by the HMG which is positioned in a non- victory condition location. He is forced to either avoid routes that the HMG can hit (always the best ones) or assault the HMG first to neutralize it. The former tactic costs time and prepares the defender for the direction of the assault. The latter also costs time and lives lost trying to get the HMG. Once he overcomes all of that, he still has to attack that stone building hornets nest at close range. Invariably, the attacker would have to get an AFV in position to scare off the HMG (if the AFV survived the panzerfausts) and then get the AFV close to the building in conjunction with several squads assaulting from multiple hexes to have a chance at success. To come full circle to the original premise of a machine gun upstairs and squads attacking from downstairs, if you find yourself in that situation, you have many more problems than gravity/grenades, the inability to point an HMG down a stairway, etc. The main problem you have is bad tactics. The squads will and should take out your HMG and you will lose the advantage on that section of the battlefield. Enemy squads near your big MGs is your first indicator that you placed them in a compromising position and that you did not get away while the getting was good -- better luck next time. Thanks for enduring my long post. Can you tell that I cannot wait for the game? Pixman

The actual terminology is "starshells". They may be fired from mortars and produce a hot white burning phosphorous suspended from a small parachute. They could light a significant patch of ground for as long as it took to descend. Flares also use phosphorous, but just streak across the sky. They are used for signalling rather than illuminating enemy targets. Starshells are a must for simulating night fighting. Played a central role in most night scenarios in Squad Leader.

I,too, love Carmina Burana. Did the tenor solo work as well as the choruses in 1995. Wagner's Ride of the Valkuries would also be awesome. Chris, thanks for your excellent work to get the names together.