Cpl Steiner
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Posts posted by Cpl Steiner
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I really hope CMX2 addresses the problems of co-ordinating vehicles and passengers better. In a typical CM game, I'm always having to fiddle about adding delay using the Pause command to get half-tracks to wait long enough for passengers to mount up before moving off. Or else, I'll give a squad orders to disembark at a particular spot, only to have them bail out of the vehicle and run 100s of metres to the designated spot over open ground under fire.
CMX2 should have order preconditions, which prevent a unit moving to its next waypoint if not met. Half-tracks could then only commence a move to the next waypoint once passengers have got in. Likewise, passengers should only move from a disembark waypoint to their next waypoint if successfully disembarked.
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My thoughts on AI programming (for what they are worth, which admittedly probably isn't much).
A common tool used in programming for problem solving is "Recursion". This basically means that you break down a big problem into one much smaller problem, and develop a near perfect solution to the smaller problem. This solution can then be repeated many times to solve the big problem. An example is the "Tower of Hanoi" puzzle, in which the same very simple rule, applied many times, results in the puzzle as a whole being solved.
The simplest problem in CM is getting a single enemy unit off the ground it is holding, either by forcing it to break and rout, or eliminating it entirely.
The simplest way to achieve this is to move appropriate units into range and LOS of the enemy, so that you have more firepower directed at that enemy than is directed at your own units participating in the firefight (from any source).
If I was programming the AI for the next CM game (which thankfully I'm not) then I would try to work on the small scale firefight AI first and get it as near perfect in execution as possible. Faced with any given situation, the AI should be able to identify the most vulnerable enemy unit and maximise its firepower on that unit, using direct fire and short flanking moves that take no more than a couple of turns to execute. Units not in contact should just move to contact in the general direction of the objectives, using as much cover as possible, ready to set up the next firefight.
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Thanks, I'll look closer next time.
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One more thing, even though I installed the uniforms mod, only German squads seem to have winter clothing. Would you expect the Allies as well as German HQs to have winter clothing on snowy maps as well, as seems to be the case from the start of this thread and the mod site?
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Okay, I'll go through the scenarios and if any are showing the "Italian Theatre" map on the bar at the bottom I'll edit them so they don't have the "All Combined" setting.
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I've noticed that on some scenarios in the ETO mod, the map is still showing as Italy. I edited one scenario and changed terrain from "All Combined" to "Italy" and it made the France map appear. However, I wasn't sure what other effects doing this might have had. Presumably it might remove some vital map terrain.
Does anyone know if it is okay to just change this setting in the editor? If not, what are the potential problems?
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I suspect all casualties will be "bodies" on the ground and out of the game, with the stats at the end resolving actual fate.
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RMC made some good comments above about how the "entity" will shift from the unit to the individual in the new game engine.
How about a comparison with another game - Operation Flashpoint. In this game, individual soldiers were organised into squads and could be given orders as a group. However, each individual man could suffer wounds, which would show up as blood on their uniform and had different effects depending on where they occurred. For instance, a man with leg wounds fell down and had to crawl to get around from that point onwards. I think some men were even medics and able to heal some of these wounds.
In Operation Flashpoint, the design decision was that wounded kept on fighting until they were killed, but with some impairment in performance, and that was it. However, you couldn't take prisoners in Operation Flashpoint. I think we can say for sure that you will be able to take prisoners in CMX2. So, the question of what happens when you capture a man who cannot stand because he has leg wounds does become an issue.
The whole situation is horribly messy, I agree, but the 1:1 modelling makes it unavoidable that these things are looked at. You could have healthy men surrendering, wounded but standing men surrendering, wounded that are crawling surrendering. They would have to throw away their weapon to surrender and put there hands up or something. How this is animated for a guy who is lying on the ground would be a problem for a start. I mean, he can't stand up and walk towards the enemy with his hands in the air. It is all very messy and horrible, but it cannot be avoided IMO.
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Some people above have said that it would be too difficult to give orders to lots of individual wounded men, such as captured enemy wounded.
It all depends on the interface we are given with which to control them. Given the right interface, this should not present a problem. You could presumably just drag a box around the soldiers you want to move, or double click on a wounded man to select all wounded men on screen, or use the control or shift key to add more men to those already selected, or give groups of men different group ID numbers. RTS games have been doing this for years. I know none of us want the game to become an RTS, but borrowing a few tried and tested control techniques would be fine IMO.
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I like what aka_tom_w said above. It seems very workable.
In effect, those that appear KIA are in fact KIA plus seriously wounded. This could be resolved in the debriefing stage. If WIA and their side lost the engagement, they are also POW.
Those that are WIA (the guys slumpted against walls or something) become POW during the mission and can be ordered to move anywhere the capturing player likes. However, if they become unguarded, they may revert to the other side's control, as unarmed men.
There is also one more category: men who just surrendered without being wounded. These would probably be in the minority, unless the morale of the unit was very poor. They would just become POW with the rest, but animated so as to be healthy but dejected and cowed. Of course, you could simplify things by assuming that men only surrender when wounded, thus removing this extra category.
All this may seem like a distraction to some, but I personally would welcome anything that made the game look more like a war movie, or indeed news footage. I would be happy if these things were done in as simple a manner as possible. I am sure that, with a bit of thought, the correct balance could be achieved.
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Ace Pilot made a very good point above about the dangers of too much abstraction. In the current series of CM games a surrender results in only the healthy personnel of the surrendering side becoming prisoners.
I have always disliked this. The wounded would surely become prisoners too. I would imagine that a large percentage of prisoners taken by a victorious side would be wounded in some way. Just as healthy men are either prisoners or not (two separate stats on the debriefing screen) wounded men should be prisoners or not as well.
And what about the problem that wounded place on the opposing side? In CM as it stands, if a unit clears a building, all enemy are elliminated from the game, even though we know that half of them are probably just wounded. The unit is then free to move on to the next objective as if nothing had happened. In reality, they would now have a large bag of wounded prisoners to deal with. What happens to these men, and how does this affect the flow of the battle? It must have an effect, and therefore it is part of the overall tactical and strategic equation that the player, as overall commander, must deal with.
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As mentioned above, the most important thing is that casualties are at least visible. Given that the game will use 1:1 representation I imagine that this has already been factored in, as you can't have men just disappear. This alone will go a long way towards making the player feel a little more involved in the fate of his or her virtual soldiers, and will be a big change from CMX1
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Thanks to everyone for their replies.
The consensus seems to be that any sort of WIA/KIA handling in CMX2 would be more trouble than it was worth. Some comments in the old thread also seemed to suggest that, not only would it be trouble, but it would actually be in bad taste (screaming wounded spurting blood everywhere or something).
I agree about the problems and potential taste issues. However, if you think of war movies, most of them do portray wounded. I can't think of a war movie that didn't put a lot of time into showing men being helped by medics etc. It's almost a film cliche. The reason is, it is dramatic, and tragic. It makes us viewers feel for the soldiers, even though we know they are only actors. Completely ignoring these issues would be to miss out on a lot of potential drama for the player. PCs have the power these days for games to take on board a lot of film techniques designed to play on the emotions of the audience.
If going for the minimum of effort and the most workable system, I would be happy if a unit that had taken casualties dropped off an animated WIA guy (say one guy slumped against the wall that everyone else is firing over), and if maybe the nearest healthy guy knelt over him for 5-10 seconds doing some sort of first aid animation. Once that was done, you could just leave the guy there showing suitable distress whilst everyone else moves on. I also agree that the location WIA appear in should be sensible, i.e. not in the middle of a street, but at the point the unit is next in cover.
One more thing. Everyone seems to be talking about squads carrying out an assault, but ignoring the fact that squads do also defend in place from time to time. This has implications for how WIA/KIA are portrayed.
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For CMX2, how about a better representation of casualties and their associated battlefield effects?
To explain further, at the moment the number of KIA compared to total casualties is just a statistic you see at the end of the game, but you have no idea which units those KIA came from. Why not actually show a man as KIA during play?
Secondly, what has happened to the wounded? Are they all assumed to have just been abandoned by their colleagues where they fell? I would prefer it if some wounded stay with a squad, reducing its firepower and mobility, and increasing the size of the unit for transport purposes. I think it is somewhat unrealistic that a unit that has taken heavy casualties can subsequently fit onto a vehicle it couldn't fit on before. Surely some of the wounded are being carried?
These may seem like minor points, but things like mines are designed to wound rather than kill precisely because of the adverse effects a wounded man places on a unit compared to a KIA. Adding this level of detail would reflect military thinking. Also, you could have evac missions in which wounded exited off a map edge would earn victory points.
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PBEM would be nice but I'd settle for TCP/IP with a save option if that's the only thing possible.
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I think it is excellent that Battlefront are thinking far enough ahead to allow crews to abandon their weapons and reman them later.
On the pre-WWII battlefield, when cavalry was a significant threat, standard operating procedure for gun crews faced with a cavalry charge was to run to nearby cover such as woods or buildings and then reman the guns once the cavalry had been driven off by supporting units.
A similar threat faced by WWII and modern crews was probably air attack. Basically, the guns may survive, but the crew probably won't if they stay put.
This should be modelled, if only to allow people to make pre-WWII games using the engine.
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Another possible solution, though very imperfect: -
Give units that could be used for gamey scouting a high point value.
The reasoning: -
recon vehicles are not supposed to be lost, otherwise what are you going to scout with next time. A good commander will try his best to conserve his scouting assets.
Basically, give snipers and some two-man teams, and most fast, soft-target vehicles, a high enough point value to discourage them from being thrown away.
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Further to my "manual override" suggestion above, you could have each "tweak" add some command delay to the team. Thus, if you want your team to move quickly, let the AI do it. However, if you want to micro-manage a bit, feel free, but you'll have to give the squad leader time to explain to each man where he should end up - and that takes time.
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The simplest solution to some of the problems people have mentioned is to make the AI do the best it can, but allow a "manual override" for those players who really insist on positioning every single man in a squad.
Most of the time, the AI will do fine. For instance, when a squad advances through some trees, each man will try to put a tree between himself and the nearest sighted enemy.
However, when you absolutely must have your LMG man charge a foxhole firing from the hip, you can manually order him to do so. Of course, if in real life this would normally result in the LMG man being cut down without hitting a thing, then this should happen in the game too.
If you have the global option as the default, but are allowed to tweak one or two solder's movement paths etc, then this shouldn't add too much micro-management to the game. In any case, the AI can "evolve" with each release, to reduce the number of times you need to tweak.
I really agree with the approach Battlefront are taking with this, and can't wait for the game to come out! In the long run it must be right to model every possible detail at 1:1 level, even if you don't think you'll need all that detail right now. Computer power advances much faster than it takes to rewrite a game, and things thought impossible now may be possible with future computing power - but not if your whole game design means it requires a complete rewrite!
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"Full Spectrum Warrior" is a good example of the "template" idea mentioned above. When a team is ordered to move, each man's future position is shown graphically (with the AI positioning them close to the best cover) and the player has to confirm the order before they move. This way they move realistically and stack up behind car wrecks or around the corners of buildings. You can even order them to "bound" - i.e. half the team covering whilst the other half moves.
I don't see why this couldn't be implement in CMX2 with a slight reduction in graphical detail (i.e generic terrain rather than pre-designed levels). FSW is much lower level than CM but it does a good job of portraying realistic troop movements.
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Hi,
This thread reminded me of that scene in "Saving Private Ryan" when they bang mortar rounds on a mortar base plate to arm them and them chuck them by hand at the enemy. Does anyone know if this would have actually worked, or is it out of a script writer's imagination?
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The game is pretty good at what it tries to do, namely replicate a hex board wargame. The AI is pretty clever too. I've only ever played against the AI, and found it very good at picking off weak units you'd forgotten about, as well as the more strategic aspects like threatening your lines of supply.Originally posted by HolzemFrumFloppen:I, too, am a fan of SSG's Korsun Pocket game. I purchased the add-on "Across the Dnepr" a month or so ago and have not had a chance to play it at all. How is it?
I haven't played any of the HPS Panzer Campaigns games, although I have had a look at them on the web. They look interesting.
I tend to play the attacking side, whichever that may be. So, in "Korsun Pocket" I play the Russians, and in "Across the Dnepr" I play the Germans. I think the attacking side is usually the most fun to play.
I will probably get "Battles In Normandy" when it comes out. I know far more about the D-Day campaign than the Eastern Front, which will no doubt add to my enjoyment of the game.
I have completed a couple of the "Korsun Pocket" scenarios but have yet to finish "Across the Dnepr". It is a big battle, with many divisions to control. Also, by the time I get to the middle of the battle I'm usually dissatisfied with the way the battle has gone, which prompts me to restart to see if I can do better.
I'm in the middle of a game now, at about turn 7. So far it is going well. I've crossed the Dnepr at two points, creating a big pocket with the town of Orsha at its centre. I should be able to cut off 3 or 4 Russian divisions, unless they manage to break out. Hopefully these can be mopped up by my following infantry divisions, so my panzer divisions can motor on to Smolensk.
I've played the game a few times now, and the key to it seems to be to avoid directly assaulting the major towns of Orsha and Mogilev, instead capturing the bridges around them so as to encircle them. This is the plan I'm following this game and it seems to be paying off.
I'd still like to play a CMBB battle from this operation though.
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Hi,
I've recently been playing the excellent add-on to SSG's "Korsun Pocket", entitled "Crossing the Dnepr". For those not familiar with the game, it depicts the forcing of the Dnepr river by Army Group Centre (Bock and Guderian) in July 1941 at the operational level (smallest unit = regiment).
I haven't played CMBB for a while, having bought CMAK, but playing the above has made me want to return to the Eastern Front for a while - and to play a battle or operation recreating one of the engagements involving Army Group Centre at this time.
Does anyone know of a scenario from this period, which starts approximately 3 weeks after the invasion? So many of the early war battles seem to concentrate on the first few days of the war rather than this crucial operation.
If it helps, some of the units involved, from the German side, were as follows: -
2nd Panzer Army: -
-> Das Reich SS Motorized Division
-> 3rd, 4th, 10th, 17th and 18th Panzer Divisions
3rd Panzer Army: -
-> 7th, 12th, 19th and 20th Panzer Divisions
9th Army: -
-> Gross Deutchland Motorised Regiment
Some key towns involved in the fighting were as follows: -
Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Smolensk.
Any help would be much appreciated.
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I used to play some of the "Third World War" tactical wargames back in the late seventies and early eighties. One I remember quite well allowed you to simulate an attack on a US company by a Soviet tank regiment. Not sure of the title of the game now though.
In fact, this game was quite interesting in that it used hidden setups and you didn't know how much you had to do to win. As the Soviets, if the random force mix gave you a material advantage, you had to achieve more than if the forces were more balanced, but you didn't find out until the end of the game what the forces for each side were. This would be an interesting feature to implement in CMX2, if anyone could figure out how.
I have no objection to a "Third World War" version of CM set in the eighties, but people would have to appreciate that this would be nothing like a WWII armour battle. The technology presents you with totally different problems.
Here's one: Wire guided missiles. In the eighties, weapons such as TOW had long ranges and could be fired from suitably equipped APCs as well as tanks. However, their flight times were longer than a shell's, and their guidance systems could be affected by trees in the line of fire. Thus, a good defence against TOW was to hide in scattered trees and hope the missile's command wire would get snagged in the branches.
Another difference from WWII is artillery. On the modern battlefield, artillery can be deadly against armoured vehicles - more so than in WWII. One of the artillery shells you can use is designed to explode in the air above a tank and direct a jet of hot gas and molten metal into it's weak upper armour.
Helicopters are also a crucially important feature of the modern battlefield - as are fixed wing ground attack aircraft such as the A10. Air attack was such a concern for the Soviets that they developed armoured anti-aircraft vehicles to counter the threat. Your force mix would have to include these to be realistic.
What I am basically trying to say is that you couldn't take CM and just add T72s. You'd have to make the battlefield "feel" modern - and that means airpower and very deadly weapons.
CMX2 and Vehicle Passengers
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
I really hope CMX2 addresses the problems of co-ordinating vehicles and passengers better. In a typical CM game, I'm always having to fiddle about adding delay using the Pause command to get half-tracks to wait long enough for passengers to mount up before moving off. Or else, I'll give a squad orders to disembark at a particular spot, only to have them bail out of the vehicle and run 100s of metres to the designated spot over open ground under fire.
CMX2 should have order preconditions, which prevent a unit moving to its next waypoint if not met. Half-tracks could then only commence a move to the next waypoint once passengers have got in. Likewise, passengers should only move from a disembark waypoint to their next waypoint if successfully disembarked.