David Aitken
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Posts posted by David Aitken
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Again, have you given the AI an experience bonus? This makes the troops better than their rating, ie. Regular troops will actually be Crack. This goes some way towards compensating for the AI's lack of intuition.
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As Elvis says, in CM you play the role of every commander on the battlefield, from battalion down to platoon. This is why you have an omniscient view of events, and why you are allowed unlimited time to plot orders. If you were only one man, it would only be realistic to play in real time.
What you suggest is way beyond what the AI is likely to be capable of for many years. Even if the computer processing power were available in PC form, it would still take BTS years to do the programming, and moreover, the work involved increases exponentially – each stage of AI development takes a multiple of the amount of work required to reach the previous stage.
If you played the role of only one man in the game, and were expected to conduct the battle using vague or misleading reports and your own intuition, the information available to you would essentially have to be totally realistic. There is no way that a computer could be programmed to provide you with all the little clues that would enable you to employ real-world intuition in playing the game. I might point out that you can't speak to any of your subordinates, which immediately poses an insurmountable barrier to playing the role of commander.
CM is a game. Much of it is abstracted to make it feasible, playable and enjoyable. If you want a totally realistic experience, go and declare war on somebody.
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You would be well advised to do a search (it does work, it just takes a few minutes to process). This has been discussed many times before. In short, horses have no place on the battlefield – they are for transportation, and their work is done by the time battle starts. It has of course been argued that they were used on the battlefield, and trained not to be panicked by gunfire, or that the ambush of a supply column would make a good scenario or whatever, but BTS are no more likely to include horses than civilians. Cavalry is another matter, but in that case I think it's just too complex to model with the current engine.
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You're saying this always happens? Do you use an AI experience bonus, or are you playing against someone else?
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Were they green troops? Was it nighttime? Was overall morale low? Were there Monty Python reruns on the TV?
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Capitalistdoginchina wrote:
But is it not true that allied players under such conditions nearly always purchase Americans?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
"Aye, 'tis a dreich day, an' we're attackin' through heavy woods intae a toon where we'll have tae do a bit o' house clearin'... what dae ye think is the best course o' action sarr?"
"Well Sar'nt Major, that's frightfully obvious... we'll become Americans!"
Now that's gamey!
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>(was you, wasn't it)?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I'm not sure about that, but I was halfway to kicking you out of town in that Berli scenario.
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Don't talk to strangers, especially redheaded New Zealanders called Peter, Americans going by the name of Jon with a blue sweater and thick-rimmed glasses, and sinister Germans dressed in black and white called Andreas. If you see any English, they should preferably be avoided as well.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Stucco wrote:
Angelina looks at times to be more than a little 'fake' herself.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Faking it for the part is one thing, faking it for real is quite another.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Lucky I'm shallow enough to overlook that sort of thing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Hey! You're supposed to wait for me to tell you that.
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I think I'm a long shot from that multi-GHz system, even come the end of the year.
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Wafers! I forgot that one. Now you're getting a bit complex.
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Denise Richards in the. Same sentence as Angelina Jolie? My god, what is the world coming to? Have you no class? I've actually given an antialiased pixel about Lara Croft since I heard who was playing her in the film. Richards remains fake and inconsequential.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>machineman wrote:
Really they weren't hunting anything, they were defending, but the Germans gave them the term 'Tank Hunter' to boost their morale.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
In the same way that antitank rifles were not for 'defense against tanks' but for 'attacking tanks'...
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Be careful with your terminology, Stucco, you'll confuse the Yanks. Biscuits are cookies, unless they're crackers, in which case they are biscuits, but so are scones, which is bloody confusing and it takes a true Brit to properly identify a biscuit at 100 paces without any of this whiz-bang capitalist Yankee nonsense. Right lads, in with the cold steel, and we'll spread that fascist butter all over the scone!
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I just saw some footage of Angelina Jolie playing with automatic weapons.
Someone lock up Mister IV until this Tomb Raider thing passes over.
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What's the difference?
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What's the difference?
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I think, generally, tank hunters are fully enclosed assault vehicles, whereas tank destroyers are usually open-topped and more in the spirit of self-propelled guns.
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I would just like to clarify, as I have seen people becoming confused before, that the state of 'taking cover' in CM is separate from troops' psychological state. Generally, troops will take cover if they are being fired on but are unable to return effective fire (eg. they are taking mortar or tank fire, or fire at night from unspotted enemy troops). This is regardless of their psychological state, from 'alerted' to 'pinned' and 'routed'.
I think troops are disinclined to waste time in open ground because whether or not the enemy can see them clearly, it knows where they are; and while a dip in the ground may offer you with cover behind some grass, grass won't stop bullets, and moreover, bullets travel in an arc, and if aimed towards you, will be coming not at ground level, but from a higher and much more dangerous angle.
Therefore, troops will not crawl in open ground, they will run until they reach better cover; and they will not sit in open ground while under fire. I do, however, have my reservations about troops getting up and running for cover during an artillery barrage. I have seen troops lying, or even moving, in open ground suffer no casualties from artillery landing right on top of them, while running troops further away take casualties from the same explosion. I think experience is a factor here, of course, and I think it reasonable that less experienced troops would panic and run, whereas more experienced troops would know what's best for them and hug the ground.
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I would just like to clarify, as I have seen people becoming confused before, that the state of 'taking cover' in CM is separate from troops' psychological state. Generally, troops will take cover if they are being fired on but are unable to return effective fire (eg. they are taking mortar or tank fire, or fire at night from unspotted enemy troops). This is regardless of their psychological state, from 'alerted' to 'pinned' and 'routed'.
I think troops are disinclined to waste time in open ground because whether or not the enemy can see them clearly, it knows where they are; and while a dip in the ground may offer you with cover behind some grass, grass won't stop bullets, and moreover, bullets travel in an arc, and if aimed towards you, will be coming not at ground level, but from a higher and much more dangerous angle.
Therefore, troops will not crawl in open ground, they will run until they reach better cover; and they will not sit in open ground while under fire. I do, however, have my reservations about troops getting up and running for cover during an artillery barrage. I have seen troops lying, or even moving, in open ground suffer no casualties from artillery landing right on top of them, while running troops further away take casualties from the same explosion. I think experience is a factor here, of course, and I think it reasonable that less experienced troops would panic and run, whereas more experienced troops would know what's best for them and hug the ground.
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On the simple matter of soldier representation, there are a few threads to look at:
#'s of soldiers in future CM titles - will modern tech help?
An interesting idea for squad representation!
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What I said was:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Predesigned scenarios have the scope to be historically accurate.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I didn't say many of them were. One has the scope to give players reinforcements, simulating the arrival of nearby friendly or enemy forces. One can also bias the conditions towards one side, but give the other side weight of numbers. This kind of fine-tuning is absent from Quick Battles.
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The fact is, quick battles aren't realistic at all. How often did two opposing forces meet which were perfectly equal, and fight in an environment totally unaffected by nearby friendly or enemy units, the 'winner' being the side which has secured some big flags in random locations on the terrain whilst inflicting the most damage and suffering the least damage in exactly 30 minutes?
Predesigned scenarios have the scope to be historically accurate. Quick battles do not – what they are is an arena for two people to try and overcome each other with superior tactics or more cunning strategies. Quick battles are gamey, but testing pure leadership skill in a controlled environment is no bad thing. Picking your own forces ensures that both players are fighting with units they are familiar with and can use to their full potential.
[ 07-04-2001: Message edited by: David Aitken ]
RTS version of CM ever?
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
I noticed I didn't have any threads about realtime in my link archive, so I skimmed through the search engine (it works well, it just takes a few minutes to process) and came up with these:
Why not real-time?
Why not make Real-Time?
REAL TIME OPTION ADDON FOR CM/2