ASL Veteran

Oh okay. Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see what he says - but yeah, I had nothing to do with the Soviet Campaign. BFC Elvis, if it's possible to split out all the back and forth about the Soviet campaign from this thread can you do that? It's very confusing because people are talking about two different things (one of which I had no part in creating)

What are you going on about? I deliberately added very tall trees to the Soviet deployment zone to keep it free from enemy fire. Nothing spawns in front of enemy tanks.

The original poster isn't the first one to say that all the games are the same, but that one is just mysterious to me because I'm not really sure what their expectation is. The games are about tactical combat from WW2 up to modern, so you are going to have tanks, infantry squads, artillery, and various things that are involved in tactical combat. What could possibly be different? Is the expectation that Combat Mission Battle for Normandy have tanks and infantry, but that Combat Mission Red Thunder have Trolls and Space Lobsters or something? What does it mean exactly that all the games are the same?

There is definitely an agenda in this thread - I'm not sure it's about handguns though

the game calculates the LOS from every action square to every action square and the file probably gets large after it's done that.

There are instances where units start 'casualty reduced' and so the infantry squads don't start at full strength, but as Sgt Squarehead indicated - your question is a little vague.

Most PBEM players. A 2 hour long scenario can take as much as a year to complete PBEM, therefore shorter scenarios are preferred over longer ones generally speaking. You also don't want to spend six months playing something only to then have your opponent disappear in the middle of the night. Just look at the size distribution of scenarios and Quick Battles that are recorded at the Blitz. Feel free to modify your remarks after looking that up.

To some extent that might be true, but most designers don't know how long something would / did take in real life. They are simply setting the time allowed to be what that designer expects to give an average player the ability to complete the mission 'in game terms'. Thus the time compression issue isn't present so much as the designer has to apply a time scale to a scenario that is appropriate for the player of the 'game' as the battle plays out in the 'game'. Now some players are more cautious than others and thus some players will move more slowly than others so you have to come up with something that is reasonably achievable for most players. However, you can't just add time to accommodate the lowest denominator. The downside to adding more time is that many players look at a scenario time limit and simply don't play it because the time limit is too long for what they want to do (most PBEM players prefer shorter time lengths because of how long it takes to play something in real life) so you can't just add time without any consideration for what the players are willing to accept. In most cases the forces for both sides are so depleted before a two hour time limit is reached that it really makes no difference if there was more time available since the forces the player commands are incapable of further action (which sort of goes to the increased casualty thing). The bottom line for me is that the more 'realistic' you make the game the slower it's going to play because the harder it is to kill the enemy the longer it takes to complete the mission. At some point the player will just get frustrated because it takes too long for them to achieve what they want to achieve and the game has become boring for them or too much of a time investment for them to participate in.

I think that's a different discussion - not really related to the time compression issue in my opinion. There have always been complaints about 'time limits' or 'the countdown clock' or whatever they want to call it when complaining about it. This isn't an issue of 'reality vs game' in terms of 'I would have more time to do x' but rather an issue of a scenario being a completely independent entity or action that is totally disconnected from anything around it. The easiest one is the constant request for blowing bridges. Totally not needed. Why? Because in a real action the time that the bridge is blown is the time the action ends for the most part. Obviously there are some exceptions where alternate crossings are available, but if no alternate crossings are immediately available and you give the player the option to blow a bridge at will then the player will simply end the scenario whenever he wants to. So if we don't give the player that capability then you can just assume that the moment the bridge is blown is the moment the scenario ends. If the scenario lasts an hour then the bridge is blown in an hour. Simple. The other assumption is the player just assumes that their battalion / company / platoon whatever is just operating in a vacuum with no regard to what their commander wants done, what's happening in front of them, behind them, or on their flanks. Yeah, if a company is operating in a vacuum then you could have all day long to accomplish a mission. However, what if you are defending a position and one hour after your battle starts the unit on your flank breaks and runs - well then you are going to be forced to withdraw. That doesn't happen in a scenario because it happens in a vacuum. The only limit imposed upon the player is the time specified by the designer of the scenario / players of a quick battle or what have you. In my opinion, no time limit at all is just as 'unrealistic' as having a time limit. Now, there are certainly cases whereby a designer puts a lot of time pressure on a player (I can think of one campaign designer in particular) but that was his choice by design. He increased the difficulty level by limiting the time - and that's fine - that's what he wanted to do. For someone to then make a blanket statement that all time limits in scenarios are unrealistic or unjustified based on a few scenarios or campaigns with strict time limits is simply not true. Once again though - I think this is a completely different discussion and unrelated to the time compression aspect of the game.

Yeah, interacting with Semmes is a complete waste of time. As far as the time compression thing goes - I mean time is obviously not compressed in a literal sense lol. I don't think anyone claims that. The compression is that an action in real life takes say 4 hours, but in CM it takes say 1 hour for a variety of reasons. Can you find real life actions that only take 3 hours to 'complete'? Sure. Would they take three hours to complete in CM? Unlikely. Now this 'compression' is less pronounced in CMBS, especially for US forces, than it is in WW2 for example. Modern armies simply have better and more robust means of communicating / transmitting orders, better maps, better means of spotting the enemy, better overall situational awareness than any commander would have in WW2. Essentially almost every scenario that I've made for Combat Mission is a recreation of a battle that actually happened. Sometimes I have better information available than other times, but in essence I can mostly compare 1 to 1 between what actually happened and what happens in Combat Mission. The scenario that I had the most information for was probably 'Wax Museum'. I had a book that was a first hand personal account from the German side, a book that was a first hand personal account from the American side, I had an overview of the battle as a whole from a third source, I had about the best sources of information available for any WW2 battle I've ever recreated in terms of unit strengths and composition (hint, most of these units were not at full strength and several American platoons had squads detached for duty elsewhere). I can say with a high level of confidence that battles happen in CM for WW2 faster than in real life probably by a factor of about 4. So what takes four minutes in real life would take one minute in Combat Mission. Obviously some things like troops walking across a certain field is going to be one to one in terms of time expended, but the way orders are transmitted and carried out are simply not represented in CM the way it happens in real life. Casualties are also higher in CM than they would be in real life - at least for WW2, I can't speak to modern - and I believe that it's a combination of factors rather than one thing and I believe that 'time compression' is a factor, but not the only factor. Now, can I find WW2 battles that had a similar level of casualties than what are produced in Combat Mission - sure. I have run across a few. Does that mean that CM is perfect in every way in terms of casualties? No, I don't think so. Does it bother me? No, not at all. To me its irrelevant and I'm not sure why people complain about it. I do think that some things could be tweaked though and I have made an effort to bring those things to BFC's attention. In some cases it comes down to game limitations, and in other cases it will be a function of 'game vs reality' and how much to you want to tilt the scale to one side or another. One great example is troops moving at night - if you are walking around on a moonless night and you are trying to get to the church by passing through the woods - well if you can't literally see the church from where you are beginning your trek then what are the odds that a squad will end up walking around in circles in the woods not really knowing where they are or where the church is? If you can't see a landmark then even if you have a map it's difficult to get your bearings and as shown on the Mythbusters (great episode by the way) it's almost impossible for a human being to walk in a straight line. Naturally squads in Combat Mission don't have that problem. You just select the squad and click on it's destination and presto the squad goes there regardless of whether they are doing this on a clear sunny day and they can see the church tower, of if the fog is so thick they can't see more than 50 meters. Do gamers really want to select a squad, click on the church, and then have the squad walk around in circles? Raise your hands if that's a game function you want implemented. No hands? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Really the time compression is more a factor of command and battlefield friction than anything like 'a battle lasts x and in CM it lasts y'. Command friction is greater the farther back in time you go, so the effect of the player telling a squad to move to house x and they move immediately is far greater when radios aren't as prevalent (or even GPS tracking). That's assuming the one taking the orders actually understands the commander's intent or that the commander actually has an accurate picture of what's happening. The other aspect of time compression is that soldiers are generally not going to be as brave as they are in CM. In CM you order a squad to take a building, but in real life maybe the squad leader and one dude get to the building and the rest of the squad ... well doesn't advance quite as far so to speak lol. If a human being takes a bullet, it's permanent and if a pixel soldier takes a bullet, he just gets reloaded. If pixel soldiers acted 100 percent like real soldiers nobody would have fun playing Combat Mission. Just imagine how much outrage would be spilled across these forums if your T34 crew bailed out just because a Tiger was beginning to aim at them or when your Sherman crew bailed out because it was hit by a rifle grenade. People who don't want to die a horrible burning or splattered death aren't so quick to move when you tell them too and if the commander has to move things through the chain of command with the subordinate interpreting orders and what they mean (something that also doesn't happen in games) well then you get a whole variety of behaviors that either can't be simulated or in some case it wouldn't be a good idea to simulate because nobody would want to play that boring game where nothing does what the player wants them to do. Maybe co play if it ever gets to CM could simulate some of that though, but we don't have co play yet so .....

Your question doesn't really make sense. Not for nuttin was a gentle reminder from Elvis to IanL that since Ian is a beta tester he can play around with PBEM+++ and help squash bugs if he wants to know more about it. The PBEM+++ is a Slitherine thing, but it would be added to the game for Steam Release. The PBEM system is not Steam's but Slitherines.

I also seem to recall that when CMSF was first released the trees were actually represented on the map as physical objects - at least the trunks were (not sure about the branches and leaves). It was miserable because vehicles would have to pick their way through the tree trunks and the trees themselves offered very little cover or concealment because the bullets had to actually intersect the trunks or something. Just going from distant memories though.

If visibility is only - say about 10 feet in foggy conditions and the game only let the player see 10 feet in game terms on the map the game would be unplayable because the player can't see anything when trying to play. If the player can't see what he's doing then the player can't physically play the game.

I find it hard to believe that you have made over 100 scenarios given how long it actually takes to make one. At least if you are making them from scratch. If you are taking the work that someone else has done and porting it over to something else or swapping some stuff around then yeah, I could see over 100. That's just being a parasite though and making a claim about what you have "made" is honestly a little offensive to me if that's the case. However, I am pretty sure that you can't understand or comprehend the distinction given what you have posted about in the past and what you have been advocating for in this thread.

Let me try T72 in the above mentioned btt scenario can't spot enemy tank in the open field during daylight at the distance of 2km that is straight ahead because dbsapp dislikes the way spotting is modeled in Combat Mission and likes the way spotting is modeled in Steel Beasts better. It is very fortunate that dbsapp can play Steel Beasts instead because if he prefers the way spotting is done in Steel Beasts the best way to experience that spotting is to play Steel Beasts instead of playing Combat Mission and wishing it was Steel Beasts. I will leave you with this first hand Soviet account from WW2 - yeah, the Soviet crew is in a T34 and that's a German Panther and guess what? It's right in the gunner's sight exactly where they were expecting it to show up and yet the gunner cannot see it. Reality must be broken or something - a shattering of the space time continuum because everyone knows that if the enemy tank is sitting right in the gunner's sight the gunner should see it since that's how it is in Steel Beasts.

Trust me, BFC is very aware of all the spotting complaints. Personally - just speaking for myself - I think there is a combination of factors that skews things a bit. For one thing I'm not sure that gamers realize how difficult it is (per veteran accounts as well as various 'spotting tests' done in the 19th century - the human eye hasn't changed since then) to spot anything at all on the battlefield - up to and including stuff that's firing directly at you. I'm also not sure that gamers fully appreciate what a human being looks like at 700 meters (for example). On the one hand you have to make spotting such that a game can function (the empty battlefield) and on the other hand you have to try and make something that an average gamer can reasonably associate with reality and that's a difficult wire to walk (gamers who may or may not have an appreciation of what something actually looks like 800 meters away). I think probably the biggest spotting 'hole' in the game (if you will) is probably anything movement related. Movement draws the eye and assists in spotting something. Binoculars will bring something a lot closer through magnification, but of course your field of view is way more restricted than it would be with the naked eye. So typically I would expect that if something was stationary (even sitting in the open) it would be difficult to spot at various ranges (for example, an infantryman standing in the open might not be seen with the naked eye beyond 700 meters if he isn't moving). However if something is moving you should notice it even with peripheral vision with the naked eye at reasonable ranges (not at 2000 meters for example) and then binoculars could be used to scan the specific area where movement was detected in order to firm up the 'spot'. Infantrymen could walk through an open field at 2000 meters and it's unlikely that you would even know they were there if you were looking just with the naked eye.

Well there was a very lengthy discussion about arcs (behind the veil) and he never once mentioned that there was a spotting bonus to arcs. I don't recall that he specifically said there wasn't a bonus or not, but that was a part of the discussion and he never said there was either (as far as I remember). So if there is a bonus then perhaps he forgot (entirely possible) or perhaps it was altered later (also possible, but probably unlikely). I would guess that the bonus is probably very slight assuming there is one.

Okay, well I guess I'm not remembering right. I've never used a full sized self propelled artillery piece as a vehicle in anything before, although I've selected them as artillery batteries. I know the western allied pieces are present - they were used in a direct fire role. Not sure I've ever read anything about a Hummel being used in a direct fire role - that would have been the role of the infantry gun version - there are several self propelled 150 infantry guns available on the German side for sure.

The Hummel is an offmap artillery asset. I'm pretty sure you can select it as part of an artillery battery (offmap). I don't think that any of the artillery pieces that are typically offmap are represented in game. The Hummel has the full sized Artillery Howitzer on it as opposed to the 150 Infantry gun - those self propelled pieces with the infantry gun should be in the game but I've never seen a full sized artillery piece in the game in any form that I can recall.

Even funnier than that is Steve is a dead ringer for my brother in law - retired contractor / carpenter in West Virginia. Incidentally my brother in law's name is ... Steve. No I'm not making this stuff up.

That's not 100% accurate If you have a Setup zone defined for an AI group, they will try to spread themselves evenly over that zone (provided all the set up zone areas are located within the same Deployment Zone) If you do not have a set up zone defined, but you start them in a Deployment Zone, they will remain where you set them up If you start them outside a deployment zone then they will remain where you set them up regardless as to whether you have a setup order for them or not The only time the AI will redeploy troops at start is if you have them assigned to an AI group, give them a Setup Order that is located within a deployment zone, and also the truppen must be within the same Deployment Zone that the setup order is located. In other words, truppen will only redeploy within the same set up zone that you place them and will only move at start if there is also a set up order within that same deployment zone. The main point, with regards to this thread, is that if you want your ATG ammo bearers to be next to the appropriate gun, then don't give them a setup order and set them up next to each other. Yeah, then their locations won't be randomized, but at least they will have full ammo when they fire at the enemy.