Bruce70

Looking forward to CM:SF. Am sick of people saying that they don't like the scenario, almost as much as I am sick of people attacking others for not liking the scenario... and pretty soon I'll be sick of people attacking people for attacking people who don't like the scenario... etc

I'm not good between the sheets, period. Thats why I get it over with quickly With the main campaign being attacking US player against defending syrian AI, I don't think writing the strat AI will be all that hard.

Not me, my introductions reveal that I know there are other similar threads, I just can't be bothered reading them.

Where did you read that there will be very little AI? I remember hearing that the AI had not been greatly improved (although even then I think I am reading between the lines a little), but that's a different thing altogether.

I don't really want to get into this debate, but as a side issue, I think you could argue a smaller role for the US, simply on the basis of resources. So it would be nice if there are frequently other nations providing support for your Strykers IMO. Of course that would mean that BFC would have to provide many times more units, and that would be against their new policy of smaller games.

OK I can live with that, but depending on the answers to 1 and 2 the campaign can still be replayable. For example, if there are X battles in a typical campaign, but the campaign system comprises say 3X battles, then the campaign would still throw a few surprises at you for quite a few replays. This would be especially true if there is some randomness to the way battles are chosen by the campaign system. If the order in which the battles are experienced also changes then that could also add to the replayability. Of course the downside for BFC is that they may spend a lot of effort on some battles that are very rarely played. No downside for me though...

OK I thought it would be too early for Q1, Q2 and to some extent Q4 (glad to hear that there will be at least 2 camapaigns though), but... Any thoughts on Q3 and Q5?

bump... because it's onto the second page already and Steve is probably not even out of bed

You could try "ghost recon", "raven shield" etc. I'm not saying they are realistic but they are a far better simulation than any of the other titles you mention. And since it's usually a case of one hit, one kill, you do tend to be a bit more hesitant.

AFAIK there are no plans to use unmanned ground combat vehicles in the near future. Autonomous supply vehicles may be in use to some degree, but that's not really an issues for CM:SF (I think). I assume you will be able to use unmanned recon aircraft, or at the very least have the data available (maybe just in the mission briefing).

What's the difference between an auslav and a stryker. AFAIK the ADF has been pretty happy with the performance of the auslavs in Iraq, although I guess they haven't seen much action. Could we see an Aussie mod? (although I agree that we probably wouldn't get involved in another middle east war - but I guess it's no less likely than the US getting involved in another war in 2007) [Yeah I know I could probably wade through the miriad of links already posted, but I'm lazy. Besides, maybe there is someone with first hand experience that can comment...]

The single player campaign will probably be the main way I play CM:SF, but unfortunately the demo isn't likely to give me any idea about the campaign system. So I am hoping BFC will answer a few questions, although some of them may be a little too soon for a definitive answer. 1. How many battles will make up a typical campaign? 2. Given that the campaign is somewhat dynamic, how many battles will the campaign system comprise in total? (relative to 1. will be OK) 3. What degree of randomness is involved? It would be a shame if, when you replay the campaign, you say to yourself "I know if I win this battle I will be ambushed on the next" or "I know the next battle is difficult so I need to be ultra conservative in this battle". 4. Will there be more than one campaign in the initial distribution? 5. For a given battle, will the enemy foce composition and intial deployment vary each time it is played? Thanks.

Even if you used a learning AI, I really don't think it makes much sense to have it continue learning in the release build - you never know what they will learn, they can be tricky beasts. Two examples: One is the classic case of tank recognition software that scored 100% accuracy on distinguishing Russian and US tanks. How did it do it? It checked 3 pixels in the bottom right hand corner of the picture, if they were white (snow) it guessed Russian; if they were anything else it guessed US. Second example is an experiment by my PhD supervisor to get a robot to follow a line. It learned a straight line fairly easily, but when it came to a corner it found that it could do better by backing up and doing the straight section again. In both cases the learned behavior was correct for that data provided, but the result was completely unexpected.

I would have said that CC was more like a series of CM Ops, but I get the picture. On the subject of pictures...

While we're on the subject... By mini-campaign, I imagine you mean something on the scale of the campaign in CC2 (you know, the one before the series went down the drain), or perhaps one thread of that campaign. Is that about right or am I way off the mark?

The way the mini-campaigns are described (e.g. story driven) makes me wonder if they we will be single player only.

Since CMx2 includes mini-campaigns I am assuming that some of this will be included, to the extent that it is realistic (and I'll leave that to the grogs)

It seems to me that the main point of contention is still that a penalty should not be applied for "simple" obstacle avoidance. What is simple obstacle avoidance? Well one definition might be "anything the tacAI can work out" . Which brings us back to the system I and others presented earlier. Give the player the option to plot a few way points and then (perhaps optionally) have the tacAI calculate a path (which would depend on the nature of the order). If the calculated path is OK, there should probably be no additional penalty. OTOH if the player doesn't like the path, we assume that the waypoints added do not amount to "simple obstacle avoidance" and every waypoint changed would incur a penalty as per the current system (although I would probably argue for a larger penalty in this proposed system).

Polys are mostly handled by the GPU, there is no harm in having high poly counts these days (it's been a long time since GR and R6) and, as you probably know, making a model with low polys can be more time consuming than making one with high polys (depending on the tools used and the type of model). OTOH adding more units (CMx2 is already 1:1, so you can't add more soldiers per unit) requires more CPU time - and I assume that is at a premium.

Having slower movement in various terrain types is probably a better abtraction than slower turret traverse - we assume the driver/commander avoids getting into those situations in the first place. So we should have a dense-urban/narrow-streets terrain type where you don't get a movement bonus for being on a road.

For my first post in over a year on any BF forum and my first post on a CM forum in God knows how long, naturally I am going to stick my neck out and disagree with Steve. But before I do that, a few comments about my favourite subject... AI (as some of you may, but probably don't, remember). Now AI has come a long way in the last few years, but unfortunately the game industry is slow to catch up. I am not going to rant on about that (which is unusual for me) because there is nothing I or BF can do about it. I do not expect BF to be the AI trailblazers when they are already trailblazing an entire genre IMO. But there is one are of AI that I think BF can (and probably will/have) improve on. A lot has been spoken about the two types of AI, the TacAI and the StratAI. But each of these (or at least the TacAI) can be broken into two also. Namely the decisions the AI has to make 'on-line' (in play) and decisions that can be made'off-line', such as when the player is making moves. In CMx1, there does not appear to be any of the later. For example in CMx1, if you plotted way points that would lead the unit through impassable terrain, alternate waypoints would not be plotted until the turn started (when it was too late to do anything about it). I am hoping that some of these calculations will be done during the turn setup phase. Now back to Steve's post. I think what some people are trying to say is that you can have it both ways... provided you have some "off-line" AI. It would work like this: Everytime you plotted a waypoint (and I would lean heavily on the side of abstract orders - makes it easier for the strat-AI if nothing else) the off-line tacAI would calculate waypoints based on the order given. This would be done off-line and since it doesn't have to be very good (I'll get to that) and is only for one waypoint the time required would be minimal (I doubt the player would even notice it). The reason it can be quick and dirty is because, if it's done immediately, the player can then alter the waypoints if they don't like them (and this is where I would add an extra order delay). If the AI feels that there is a point of interest (e.g. the barbed wire example) and has insufficient information to make a decision then it could just place a waypoint at that point - allowing the play to simply drag it one way or the other if they chose. I would have probably just a few order types (fast, covered, sneak...) plus a toggle that allows you to turn off the tacAI waypoints if you either don't like them, your machine is too slow, or the orders are simple anyway. Anyway, it's good to be back. I'm really looking forward to CMx2 and I am really happy with the way things are progessing (there's even a campaign thingy!)

How very strange that you should say that 6 days after we "moved on". :confused:

My apologies, now that I have read the entire thread I must say that it is a very interesting read.

I haven't been following the forum much lately so I assume this is some kind of joke thread, like the Peng threads or somefink?

I hope that the inclusion of force limits will also be accompanied by additional detail in other associated areas. For example, there will be no more conquering Spain, Romania, Hungary etc. just for the hell of it. Instead, the Axis player will want to have these minors join the Axis (same is true for the Allies). Since this is now such a large part of the game, there nees to be a more transparent (and possibly more detailed) diplomatic system IMO. I know this has already been discussed, but I think it should be revisited in the context of this thread.