markshot
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Posts posted by markshot
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I forgot to add well written and complete manual.
Excellent YouTube training videos on the combat system by Mike Chung.
Excellent YouTube training videos on fighting battle by Chris Weber.
The designer Robert Scott Bodely (a retired Australian MD, I believe) is always in the forums and there to help.
You can buy DLCs for time periods that interest you, but I find Slitherine to provide real value and reasonable prices. Also, we are in the sale season. Expect 3 before '21.
You get discount price if you bundle with Empires. If you buy from Slitherine, no DRM just serial number. Steam has no workshop support, the game has in game mod downoads.
Ancient combat is really a novel experience if all know is fire and maneuver.
Rome casts a long shadow over us today: Our languages, sewer and aqueducts, the idea of professional military, the idea of citizen military, republic vs dictatorship, early battlefield tactics which still would work today, legal system, concrete, the arch, vault, domes, the alphabet, and many Greek ideas and Greece though defeated by Rome was considered the superior culture. Every educated Roman had Greek slave tutor for his children, and read/wrote Greek. Roman roads, bridges, and aqueducts are still in use today.
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I am not talking RTW1 or RTW2 even with an award winning mod like DEI (Divide et Imperor) TW combat leaves much to be desired.
I have been played FOG2 by Slitherine, I got it as a bundle with a grand strategy game, Empires, since a friend is the developer. (It is a very novel ancient grand strategy offering.)
I expected to hate FOG2; I hate TBS combat. But it has the best TBS UI I have ever seen, and if you set it up correctly it flows very fast. (I am qualified to judge UIs and I have background in Software Engineering.)
What I like about it so much is that it is a very rich experience with lots of info that grogs love. It considers unit types, morale, terrain (ground type, cover, elevation) and how it impacts different classes of units: light foot, medium foot, and and heavy foot. Not to mention cavalry, chariots, elephants, camels, ... Remember how much unit variation CMx1 had? Knowing how to use terrain and when to charge and when to hold is key. There are many ways to to play including leagues. Many mods: battles, campaigns, and units.
Difficulty is not like in TW where units stats are changed. Instead when you up difficulty, the OPFOR gets more purchase points. You need to play a smarter and more mobile game.
I did find an AI mod which in my testing was 4X more deadly than the standard AI. The AI is not hardcoded, but written in scripts. In can see why it is not incorporated directly in the game. You want noobs to be able to win. For some canned scenarios, it could put the player at a big disadvantage.
You must study the terrain very carefully and plan. Timing is crucial. You might flank with cavalry. Feint and draw of some of the enemy off. You might use skirmishers to disorder their line. Or you might get skirmishers behind their lines. Usually heavy units like phalanxes and legions will not do a 180 to deal with skirmishers so that you can wear down the enemy from the rear.
Victory is mainly based on routing the enemy in 30 minutes turns (24 turns); so conceptually you fight from Sun up to Sun down. No terrain objectives. You control terrain by standing on it as opposed to being able to place fire. It has been seriously historically researched. And it has an create a campaign mode with allies different missions and a core units for 5-15 battles. I can be longer if you lose battle as you can go back an redo them or call for reinforcements. The campaign is full of strategic decisions to make, but there is not map connection.
You can fight real temporal and geographic opponents and allies or you can select fantasy match ups that would have never happened.
I just thought I would mention it and it turned out to be this unexpected gem.
PS: The game does interface with the Empires ancient strategy game. You choose to autoresolve or export and fight your battle like TW. However, it should be point out that TW has crappy in game resolution. Empires has a beautiful and exciting system that keeps the game fast. Also, as frontage of battles like alpine is 3 and farmland is 16 is not well conveyed to on export. This means your phalanxes would be disadvantaged in Empire, but export always gives enough flat ground to make those phalanxes deadly. I think you would need some in house rules also be prepared to play a 1 week strategy game for four months.
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2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
To some extent yes, or they can certainly get that way.....It's harder to create a satisfying scenario for very small units IMHO.
Getting the balance right can be very tricky, as the line between 'reasonable threat' & 'total overkill' is rather fine when dealing with very small units.
I mainly played CMBB/CMAK. I longed for the day I could play the huge scenarios. That I had a computer up to the task. I finally got the PC. And you know what? I found the number of units extremely tedious. CM like most games does not scale very well. (Because it doesn't have AI agents.)
Panther Games which was originally introduced to the world by a BFC publishing agreement scales better than any game I know because of intelligent agents. You can play play with 10 units or a 1000. The work load does not not increase 100X, but maybe 3X. Because you will be giving orders to Bde. It is truly an amazing system for operational WWII play.
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MikeyD,
Yes and no. For the art of film making (I have taken a course on film making), many films are worth many viewing to study framing, lighting, character frame of reference, etc... They are impossible to fully appreciate in a single viewing.
I will agree that scenario design is not just computer programming, but an art form, and as such may be better appreciated by multiple viewings.
For me the scenario is a test; and I take as if it was RL; failure is failure. I may play again, but an initial failure means I failed to apply lessons I learned or failed to learn the right lessons. When I used to play chess, for beginners you are allowed take back moves. But real test of play is committing.
What we have established is different players have different goals. These is no right or wrong way to play. You bought a game and you enjoy any way you chose. From CMx1, I developed a belief that all scenario can be won (not a decisive victory or surrender) on first play through since the designer has given you all the tools. But you provide strategy and tactics. I have become very comfortable with this way of playing. Losing is not a problem. If have 4 Shermans killed by an 88mm because I neither probed a road or look for dead ground, then I got what I deserve. As loss is fine for stupidity; I just don't like tricks. Like I remember one CMx1 scenario that somehow manage to embed an 88mm in a house. That was the only time I came across house that could kill a tank at 2000M. I didn't gain much from the experience.
For me the fun is in studying the map, the forces, how the enemy might be set up, where can I move in safety ... its a scenario ... I tend not to be audacious, since I know the designer will punish "toujours l'audace" unlike RL. I only audacious towards scenario ends when I feel the enemy has been greatly weakened. In the last 10 minutes a fast tank push into the enemy rear can be the difference between a minor victory and surrender. Part of the fun of the game is trying judge how much opposition is still out there. You can still get punished and find an ATG deep in the rear. And you now have a draw out of a minor victory. All of this is exciting.
Yes, I replayed the CMBO tutorial 20 times, but I had the full game already. Why? Because I flew flight sims. I had no concept of combined arms different aspect angles firing at tanks. Improved optics made a stug deadly at range. I was a total noob. So, I played over and over again learning the very basic leasons of ground combat. I do have the basic lessons down these days, but I am sure most of you would shred me to pieces in a pbem.
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They stop immediately when they spot AFVs.
But light fire that does not really raise the pulse up to 180 bpm, and these soldiers move along. At 181 bpm, they stop.
So, Erwin, you need to ask what type of leader are you? Can you maintain a trot with a pulse of 110 with a few guys taking pots shots at you with Reichsmarks in the pot on the hood of the Kubelwagon to see who nails you?
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My issue with changes is when scenarios get broken. (Especially, companies which break the in game tutorial by doing so.)
I have been a beta tester. Definitely, I would play all betas quite a bit. But mainly looking for crashes or weird behavior. I certainly did not replay every scenario, and I certainly didn't rigorously compare scenario behavior of some of my favorites.
In Software Engineering, we call this "regression testing". It means to go back and retest everything. But usually this is done with automatic test harness in automated runs generating data. Also, there are test suites of simple situations which are written just for such testing.
Most game developers have neither the money or resources to do such. Even those like PDS which can charge $500 USD for a full title.
Another problem with beta testing teams is that the general public; especially new customers play on noob settings. But your beta team are all your hardcore expert players. There are no noob setting testing of new releases.
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I spent my career managing, design, and building systems. I know what engineering is like.
In my early years, when I used to code, I allocated an extra day for final testing, but really it just wanted to watch my system run.
I have been a beta and a guide writer. I have gotten to share my love of games. No, I just want to play. I am not opposed to doing a little work if it enhances game play, but I don't aspire to scenario designing or modding. Also, I think to do CM scenarios well you need some historical research, you either need a real historical context or a back story that fits into the real war.
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No, it is me.
My point was were is the suspense in read a murder mystery which I authored.
So, now I create this scenario, and play it. But it suffers from fore-knowledge even worse than playing someone else's scenario three times.
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Here is something I don't understand.
Isn't this like trying tickle yourself?
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I decided what I am going to do.
Just play the scenarios I can win or lose under normal circumstances. At most 2 tries.
I like playing smaller stuff; right now Tiny.
But those suffer from the fact that shots taken at you are not Tiny. Thus, casualties are far more costly when you only have a few squads.
Otherwise I do plan to spend more time with QBs.
Is there a way to save or convert a QB into a scenario so that you can do further edits on it? Like the idea of adding reinforcements immediately comes to mind for spicing up.
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I thought omission was a convention.
Well, I am not saying this is the gospel ... it's my way of looking at it.
I think designers make CM what it is. Yes, there is much you can do with the tools, but most people don't want to dig to that level. I am a software engineer. I read the manual to see what I own, but I don't plan to master it. I often read manual without ever building things with the products.
Honestly, I just want to play games.
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Given the way 98% of CM has played through the years. The setup zone is out of LOS/LOF due topography or cover or both.
And then there is an an exciting movement to contact.
The reason I say exciting is that some maps can be big, and the pace at which you cover dead space is going to determine if you win or lose. The clock is one of the scenarios designers tools. One would assume many can be won with "no clock". So, you most conduct recon to avoid losses that result in mission failure, but you must do this quick and keep the troops moving and not bunching due to the ever present threat of in the distance with mortars with direct LOS or an FO. (or planned fire)
If a scenario designer wants you to get shot up in the setup zone. I think the briefing should be clear.
YOUR FORCE IS PINNED DOWN AND UNDER FIRE. MOVE OR DIE. (It might interesting to have pre-planned barrage called in seemingly by the players side of smoke one minute too late to save everyone. I don't know if the designer can create pre-planned barrages for the player. This would open interesting missions of staying on schedule and moving behind a rolling barrage. Did they do that in WWII? Reinforcements in trenches could simulate defenders taking deep cover.)
I guess my point is that I don't like scenarios that break conventions that we all understand like movement to contact/recon. I gain nothing by a scenario where I was suppose to recklessly sprint across the map. I gain nothing from a brief that tells me that 2 Panzer 3s were spotted when they are Tigers.
You will say that in RL Americans thought every tank round that missed them was fired by a Tiger ... perhaps that is true. Sadly, it is a convention that briefs probably are more accurate than RL which was probably very FOW. But then in RL, you have the option to get on the net and say you need tank support. This is not possible in CM. It just becomes part of the scenario design which means you are not probing, but assaulting fortifications.
How often does the mission change in the middle in RL? I know in business I am assigned to add a key feature to a system only to uncover a key system design flaw which if not corrected will spell system failure in just few weeks when the database grows to a certain size. It create a whole new and much more urgent project. This is a true story that happened to me my first 2 weeks in a new job as CTO.
I didn't make the conventions. RL did not make the conventions. The community has. Things might have evolved differently where immobile setup units were already in contact when the scenario starts always, but that has not been the pattern.
I suppose someone could do a paper on the unwritten rules. They are unwritten, but certainly known when someone breaks them, because the scenario just does not feel right. Like an allied unit showing up in the middle wearing German uniforms who are OSS. I don't think you can do this in WWII titles; maybe in SF2 with Red and Blue.
CONVENTIONS - it is the culture of our CM community
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Okay, I am moving on to a different scenario. Hopefully, the designer of the one I have been playing has had enough laughs.
Some comments:
* Don't put the deployment area in the enemy's LOS/LOF. After 20 years of CM, this is the first scenario I encountered men dying in the deployment area. Just like war, scenarios have conventions, and in CM setup and reinforcement tend to be special areas. (quiet areas of contemplation; not a sniper/HMG shooting fish in barrel)
* Someone said here scenarios have replayability as you discover their little twists which permit victory. Sorry, I want to learn realistic tactics, and not tricks. I would have bought Myst in the latter case. Example of what I consider is of zero value to my CMx2 maturation. There is a tall wall and a sniper. There is a 2M gap in the wall. Things are such that you get a triangle action square looking at the sniper's square. The 60mm mortar with 5 rounds of HE has LOS to the sniper's action square, but sniper does not have LOS to the mortar team. So, due to the magic variability of area fire of a mortar's 5 rounds will kill the sniper team ... otherwise the sniper team can easily take out a whole squad. Now, since CMBO I am fully familiar with keeping tanks out view and using near area fire to kill an ATG due to blast effect. But this is not even that technique ... it depends on facing and where individuals set up in the action square. This is NOT RL combat technique, but game engine modeling behavior that makes for a guaranteed kill.
I am moving on. This scenario taught me nothing about being a better player. I used RL techniques that I had learned that failed to work:
* Smoke
* Suppressing fire with a SAW (high rate fire creates suppression).
* The entry teams each had a Thompson. A short range MG which you want in a close fight. But the suppression failed, and my entry team following game mechanics don't cover angles, but head right to the action point and neglect the guy standing right behind with a weapon. I watched 2 YouTube videos on how 2 guys could enter a room and fairly safely clear the angles (from outside) and make it in alive without a grenade or flashbang ... assuming 1 hostile and perhaps 1 non-combatant. If you encountered multiple hostiles, you were suppose to back off and get some support. In CM entering a door is a video game haunted house. (Why do they throw grenades at 20M outdoors, but don't want to break the china when fighting in doors?) It even covered that you don't hold your rifle straight and sighting as the rifle's barrel gives you away. The rifle should be pointed down just slightly in front of your feet to reduce profile.
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Okay, so I was not the most competent writer of English to point out errors. I don't deny it.
I grew up NY, USA, and a very important debate was taking place in schools while I was a kid.
* Penmanship (before computers)
* English spelling/grammar
I will skip the first, but here is the second:
(A) English is the national language and any student presented answer should be written in perfect English or be penalized in score.
OR
(B) Perfect English is for English and Literature class ... in science and any subjects as long you demonstrated you knew the answer you receive 100%.
Position B would win. I don't know why. I have studied linguistics and the history of English. I don't know if B is correct, but languages are far more a moving target than most people realize.
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Sorry, MikeyD, I don't like levels and having to study walk throughs. This is why I read these forums, watch YouTube, and other stuff like Bil's blog. At some point, you ship out overseas and the game begins. I had one open battle generator (not BFC) engage me with 7:1. The developer said that's real life and happens. I agree. But as a game, if you can achieve a 2:1 kill ratio before death or retreat, then the game should score you a victory. These are games, and a rule of gaming is that victory should be possible at 1 out of 3 times.
I take my games serious ...
* I send scouts ahead while trying to keep my main forces spread out or quickly moving behind the scouts so that they don't end up in an arty barrage.
* I use over watch and whenever possible try to set up heavy weapons for that.
* I have infantry probing 200M ahead of armor for panzerschreck und panzerfaust. Armor also moves in overwatch, and if the maps permits and I am German with superior optics, I will have Stugs deep out to the flanks to hit the weak armor of an enemy.
I do my best to construct plans and understand game mechanics. You train so that in RL, you win.
I don't consider scenarios training, but graduation day. QBs and the scenario editor is to conduct repetitious tests of what may work.
Some aspect of a WG, should exist as a test; not training. If it is not the scenarios? Then what is it in CM?
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I have been playing around with QB creation not fighting yet.
I let the computer pick a tiny American Army infantry force. Some how, I ended up with a unit of field guns ??? Might have been okay if I was the defender, but I was the attacker.
I set up another that I really planned to fight, but when I got to deployment, I noticed many of the buildings were actually submerged underground.
I did try a scenario today, but I got frustrated by the riddle like nature of it. This is worse than chess at least because pattern riddles can theoretically re-occur, but I am looking for general strategies in either a top down or bottom up approach which can lead to victory.
Are tiny and small scenarios particularly prone to be riddles with a single solution which require lots of experimentation to happen across what in other communities would be called a "a level walk through"?
Thanks.
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No satchel charges, no priest, no M1A2 ... Just bolt action rifles; 1895 surplus.
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My brens will be around 80M.
So, you think they will be able to simply do it on their own?
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Please if you recognize the scenario I am talking about - NO SPOILERS.
Okay, I have a rectangular 1 story building with known enemy inside (Germans - WWII) with 3 large rooms each connected by a doorway. Each room has its own separate outside door. I only have CW small arms. My question is more about game mechanics than RL.
I will smoke that side of the build, and deploy 3 Bren teams. The 3 Bren teams will poor suppressing fire (area fire) into each of the units.
Now, here are my options.
Let's just consider one unit (meaning building module) first.
(A) Do I send in two separate teams with quick and 10 second pause on the trailing team? Team 1 has a Thompson and bolt action. Team 2 has two bolt actions.
or
(B) Do I leave the two above combined and send the 4 man team in via an assault order? I worry about his, because I suspect the mechanics of assault is tuned for the "great outdoors" and not bursting through doorways. So, that there is going to be no one covering the first guys who go in, because they are positioned and looking for shooters who are outside. Also, I worry that 4 guys will suffer a deadly traffic jam at the door.
or
(C) Do I leave the two above combined and send the 4 man team in via a quick order, and expect that the AI is agile enough to cover the angles while 1 or 2 guys go in first?
Let's consider the three units (building modules).
(D) Do I attempt to enter all units from the outside doors? I don't like this idea as despite suppressing fire, sending men running in front of a window with potential shooters (with grenades) gives me the shivers.
(E) Do I simply enter the first unit from the outside, and enter the next two units from the inside? Again as above? 2 teams and a 5 or 10 second pause? 1 team via assault? 1 team via quick?
(F) Is there a role for the hunt command in any of this?
Comments? Besides responding, please state your reasons. Thanks.
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Yesterday, I created my first QB in CMFI and was just about go off and fight it. Until I went to examine the map in detail for planning.
241Attk Tiny City (steep hills) 241.btt
That a terrain generator created this map like in CMx1, I could believe, but that this was handcrafted --- AMAZING.
Each street was maybe 12-16M higher than the one before. Think of mountain terraced rice paddies in Asia.
But it was the buildings ......
On one side of the street you had a few floors and doors and windows. On the other side, the land had been filled in with a backhoe covering windows and doors, and maybe you might walk off the street onto a roof. Well, I was looking to try a town clearing exercise, but the town looked like a US Southwest recreation of a pueblo dwelling.
My first QB experience.
I am off to find another map!
BTW, I put in TINY forces, but if you go infantry the budget gets you like 8 platoons which includes heavy weapons teams. It is not what I really considered TINY? The only way I see of getting TINY is ignore the budget and buy for both sides.
Comments? Thanks.
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7 minutes ago, Erwin said:
Totally remember all of that as well. It was part of the CM1 fun as the CO to hand pick one's best squads for specific missions. In CM2 one rarely can tell which (if any) are the outstanding squads or leaders to send on the most vital/dangerous missions like recon where on needs max stealth or assault requiring max leadership and morale. When playing the CM2 game one doesn't see the same obvious effects of leadership as we did in CM1. Have no idea whether this is more or less like RL.
I have two divergent thoughts on this:
* Perhaps things are overdone in games, since subtle nuance is not well conveyed by a one time battle as opposed to a year of command.
or
* I have been a manager in business, and I can really say that there is an order of magnitude difference between the best programmer and the worst. Which actually made, the best highly cost effective ... only organizations stuck with HR and no vision determined pay by simply job titles or industry averages. The best rarely even got double the pay of the worst. Maybe 20-30% more.
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Also, I might be mistaken, but I thought expertise and in/out command also impacted the delay system.
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Yes, I do remember consciously going through my staff and picking what roles various platoons would play based on leadership and also squad experience. CRACK and ELITE were amazing, and CONSCRIPT was good for identifying enemy shooters.
Also, good leaders had longer in command ranges which made difference to resilience.
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I take that to mean that fires no longer spread?
Memories
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
What I learned from Panther Games is time it the 4th dimension of the battle space. Very well modeled in that game.
Now, CMx1 enhanced the time importance of command and experience with delays.
It does seem logical that a Soviet tank out of command is going to take a while to get rolling with the plan.
Personally, I think we lost them because they do not fit at all with RTS play. RTS is immediate response to orders. (Panther isn't 1:1 RTS, but the way it works is that you order through subordinate commanders. So, many factors figure into your decisions. Like should I get a 2 Bde coordinated attack in 4 hours. Or would 2 Bde attack uncoordinated catch the enemy before he digs in.)
That is another think I like about WEGO, the need to commit.
It does feel like that game is missing something with all the realism with immediate orders. But the game already goes far beyond CMx1. I worry at some point, the game will be ultra-realistic and a complete pain to play. So rather than modeling everything, the developers need to determine what really changes the entire simulation and what is busy work.
It is clear that CMx2 was not just incremental changes to CMx1. I once read something they wrote and they went from statistical modeling to object modeling. This meant that they started the new engine from scratch and the only thing that got carried over was experience they had. Rewriting any complex system from scratch is very tall order.
In the world of commercial programming system maintenance (adding on or changing code) is much more common than new development. Why? Few managers every get fired for maintenance efforts, new development often fails and results in entire efforts being junked and people losing this jobs. So given when I know about complex systems, it took real guts for BFC to re-envision the product from scratch.
We also say in software you never to do it right on your first attempt. I have no doubt, if they do a CMx3, it will reflect 20 years of combat modeling and much for clarity and focus than CMBO did when they started it.
I looked at the old CMBB a few days ago. I have many fond memories, but I suspect my memories are better than the actual game play is compared to what we have now.
I immediately noticed that the feeling of the battle field was so much enhanced by individual animated soldiers versus just the abstract squad.