Mr. Tittles

Then you defeat the purpose of the idea. The whole point is that you are being put in the squads world view and have to respond to the squads perspective. Personally, I think that it should be the platoons perspective to simulate the sharing of info amongst the platoon through communication, hand signals, yelling, etc. You have to remember that the game has abstractions. Some good some bad.

This gun was deadly. Using charge I (6 oz propellent) it had a MV of 410 FPS. This gave a max range of 1613 yds. The 50% zone is 21 yds in length and 3.5 yards in width. Troops in the open could be devastated. The fuze could be set for delay and the huge shell (16+ pounds of explosive) could use ricochet fire.

Actually they were Vietnam vets and would probably frag you. No offense. One senior career NCO told us about the house to house fighting and how they would use every advantage to wipe out the enemy and keep almost all of thier guys safe or alive. They stressed fire superiority and teamwork and getting everyone on the same page. Loose cannons and crazy heroics were considered bad form. The 'installed desire' was to make the enemy lose everything. The real desire was to stay alive. Thats soldiering. Not a game at all. Going home alive was the big Win.

I recently read an old post where the person suggested exactly that to one of the designers. It seems that long ago, there was quite an exchange between the designers and people who appear to be advising the company but not employees. In any case, the idea was shot down and the party line was that it was not a absolute spotting fix so therefore not good enough. But just to make sure you are saying that this only happens during the orders planning phase correct? The game would then do an LOS check at this point?

As far as the "you think you're good at CM crack" I really don't know what brought that on. I don't agree with you that the current command system in CM is in any way broken. I don't think that "borg spotting" is anywhere near the big deal that you make it out to be. And I have a certain amount of RL experience to back up those opinions. Does disagreeing with you constitute an ego? Not that your not wanting me in your army matters but I served with people that had extensive infantry combat experience. Even if they were at the tail end of a career, they made sure that everyone of us snots could soldier.

I like the idea of only being able to give certain units certain orders. It would be interesting to have to make use of a commander who is reluctant to give certain orders, or cannot give detailed SOP's because he is incompetent of panicked. Using this for targeting relies to a certain extent on the ai making a decision the player is happy with. I was thinking about this today also. My thought would be that there are leaders with negative ratings. This is the old ASL type of abstraction. But the new twist is that you don't know he sucks. You could have a leader with a single star command rating. But he also has a negative heart symbol (not known to the player). This is because lately he has been pushing the troops a little recklessly because his Lt. friend in the next platoon got whacked. They were very close these two, and he is on a blood lust lately. This negative leader still can command but the loss of his dear beloved OCS school chum has altered him. This Lt's name is, of course Lt. Dorosh. The dead school chums name? Lt. Manequin. Men of the platoon's had always wondered about them but dared not say anything.

DG does have a point. Take the meeting engagement type scenario. Lets say a German recon company from a armored division is contacting a russian motorized battalion and both are on the move. There would be no pregame planning phase because the scenario designer would have done that and its not editable (cause I say so). But the crack German recon troops would be able to make waypoints on the fly and change SOPs better than most units. They have extensive radios, experience, mobility, training, etc. So initiative and responsiveness of waypoints does have a place.

Gamey deals with people that abuse Games limitations to get a highly unrealistic advantage against an opponent. What you did on that exercise was take a calculated chance. And it paid off. Not sure what point you want to make. This isnt about anything you are describing. So you want to win and don't care if its realistic or gamey. Thats OK. personally, I think you cheated by jumping to another track. If a Tank KOd your command track, you more than likely would have beed killed/wounded. Would your next in command have followed through like you did? I would not want you as a playtester because you probably feel that 'you are good at CM' and anything that makes that less true is bad. I think that ego does not make for very good design or testing. [ October 24, 2004, 02:39 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

I have to agree that Peng is certainly a good email opponent as well as a liar and a whore too. And luckily email can not transmit odors. He does have some spiffy comments on the game and other matters and generally will be talked out of quitting and when he wins after quitting and restarting several times, gloats as like the rotten hairy spud that he aspires to be. And he sounds like a good dad too. PS I told him that I will reverse some armor off the board to even things up. Hopefully he will believe it.

This, like many short ranged engagements, is not typical of German Tank Gunnery. The action describes two vehicles that have moved. The Stuart is moving and so did the Tiger when it came out of the ditch. The conditions seem to be very dusty and the report states that the first miss raised enough dust to fill the stuart interior. The Tiger guns firing may have raised dust on his end. The stuart is also a small fast vehicle. The range, while not too short, is not within SOP for engaging targets. Interesting none the less.

Absolutely right. Options are the key. I did adress that in a past post when I said it could be a bit like a flight sim and you adjust realism options to your taste. This is also a solution to the steep entry Dave Stockhoff was refering to. Cheers </font>

Just throwing another idea out.. An alternative to stop cherry picking targets is to make all enemy spotted units generic. That is, infantry units are not depicted as anything but generic infantry symbols. There is no HQ or crew type identified or any info given. Same for AFVs. The player might only get descriptions like Tank or light armor.

SOPs should be at the platoon level for infantry platoons and tank platoons without individual radios in each vehicle. They might be at the company level for those units with very poor communication equipment or skills. SOP could be set for crew served weapons individually and also individual tanks. SOPs should be initially set but also variable for setting during the plan stage. An example would be, SOP for a platoon is assault during first phase of attack but switches to defend once the first flag objective is taken. Changing SOPs dynamically during the game would be dependant on C&C limitations. Tanks with two way radios being more dynamic than a lone HMG on the flank with no LOS to anyone. SOP types might be: 1. Assault 2. Defend 3. AT 4. Contact 5. Observe 6. (suggestions?) Each would have another bearing on the unit taking orders and type of orders even. Asking a infantry platoon to assault when it is in a defend mode might incur much more delay. Asking it to do this outside of an attack plan might make it nearly 3-5 minutes delay even. SOPs could be expanded to reflect more experience and training. A simple Attack or Defend menu might be available to a green soviet infantry company for example. The ranking HQ on the field would be able to over ride all SOP to any unit within his C&C 'red' line control. In other words, he would be able to have the hyper control already modeled in the game. He would be able to switch a platoons SOP and they would be able to react faster. [ October 24, 2004, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

In many discussions like these, people pull a reactionary attitude such as 'Either the player gets to control ALL units or none or just One!'. I do not buy that and believe that there is some middle ground where the player can influence the battle but not have to be the borgy-hyper-controller. SOPs would be great and the game does have some retargeting already built in. Order menu limitations are another great way to do this. Another thing when discussions like this come up is that people should remember that these could be options. Its not that anyone is trying to dictate how the game needs to be played. How many people plat extreme FOW? If its a majority, then it appears that there is room for super extreme FOW in the mix. Clearly, the game needs to change somehow.

I think the curved lines for movement orders are a good idea. There should be no penalty for multi legged movement orders of the same type. So if I oreder a unit to run into the woods and then run to a house to the left, there should be no extra penalty incurred as far as delay. But if I ordered them to run into the woods and then advance into the house, they would need more time to get the jump off times/places down and coordinate with the other units in the platoon.

quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Dennis Grant: [...] it IS possible for units with good leaders and a lot of experience to act as is they had one single controlling mind. That whole initial planning stage goes a long way to making that happen. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What you describe here his a professionnal army with experience, tradition, elaborate doctrine, procedures and above all... TRAINING. I agree with your general analysis on the impact of AI on the game. It does act as the #1 realism factor. Moral and experience. It could probably be fine tuned a little though... (like panicking troops that don't run for cover toward the enemy. ) I do not mean to be insulting but peacetime military experience does not reflect the high turnover rate of men and leaders that combat does. Peacetime manuvers and drills, even with MILES, does not reflect the deadly realities of the battlefield. Modern armies have much superior communication than many WWII units would and the control that is available now should not be extended back to WWII. Hand signals, flares, whistles, etc are great IF everyone is on the same page but still requires an LOS or other factors to be effective. An example from Hell on the Eastern Front is the infantry commander sees a soviet attack on his position starting, he turns around and uses hand signals to order a HMG positioned further back to open fire. They have LOS to each other but he does not relay the exact squads to attack. He may only get them to fire at a direction and and units in that area. If he had been given a SOP of shooting any heavy weapons first, or to attack exposed armor crews first, then perhaps he would shoot at them initially. You can't argue that individual initiative is so important on one page and then state that the initial plan is so important on the next. [ October 24, 2004, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

In other words, not to give the same "Menu" for all units under different conditions or in turns different. Because not all the squad commanders see with the same eyes , and not think with the same mind. Good idea. Having a menu that just allows you to order a unit to fire, without designating what to fire at, could also aleviate the super-coordinated cherry picking of targets (you would not get to see what the TACAI selected to fire at either). If there was an SOP to back this TACAI targetting then that would help also. I dont want to get into a design discussion with anyone that cant see the forrest for the trees. Anyone that feels the burning need to win at all costs is not going to be impartial about design decisions.

Its unrealistic if nothing else.

Certain units, like tanks, do have the ability to coordinate firepower amonst each other. This comes from the radios in each unit. Most infantry units in the game do not have this communication.

Just to make sure I get it, what you suggest is that a HQ that gives one order to one unit would take less time doing so than the same HQ having to give the same order along with 3 more orders ? This sounds logic. The delay would then be even more flexible depending on experience and leadership caps. Plus it enhance still some more the usefulness of SOPs by making contact a bit more of an organized chaos, giving auto-orders out (the clarity/delay/appropriatness of which would still be dependant of unit status/XP/surroundings/etc) on contact. Basically thats it. There must be some 'penalty' to overly micromanaging many units. Not that it shouldnt happen but it should have an effect on the game command delay.

Not when there are closer targets that are greater threats to the overly coordinated firer. I think the TACAI should over ride fire orders. The firer should fire at targets but will fire realistically. So you like borg spotting and cherry picking targets?

Games are sort of like physics in that at different scales, different forces come into play. At a very small scale, CM is fun and somewhat realistic. In fact, in a isolated tank vs tank (single units), its very good. But as the size of the game (especially in open terrain) and the amount of units increase, the game gets very, well, gamey. I agree that giving the orders to individual units is part of the fun. How those orders are carried out could be modified. An example is a turn I just sent Peng. I targeted a sherman with multiple panthers. Not too gamey but I also coordinated a half squad to fire past other targets to button his tank. Thats gamey. And he will die. A lot.

I think the platoon level delays and platoon-centric command could improve the AI play. That is, platoons should be using simple drills (as they do IRL) and the platoon as a whole is following a plan. It seems the AI is making decisions on a squad basis with individual elements acting like they are independant entities. Bazookas are in foot races with FOs and 50 cals are marching steadily towards the enemy.

The game would be very cool if.. Pregame: 1. Attacking player could double click a 'platoon' (actually any on board HQ unit) and give that platoon a attack objective by either marqueeing (make a box) around an area (probably that has a flag) or a specific object like a house or a line elementand then designate a general attack direction through waypoints. The waypoints might be a multiline segment to the described objective. 2. The platoons delays would be reduced IF the orders generally followed the waypoints. That is, he is down with the plan. I am, of course, proposing using my platoon level delay scheme previously mentioned. 3. Once a flag is taken, an attacking player (depending on his overall command rating) may alter waypoints if need be. Sucky overall commanders may not get this option. 4. defending players may designate platoons as 'reaction' forces in reserve (criteria being no LOS to enemy and 'behind' the MLR, etc.). These reserves have smaller delays than his front line grunts. These abstractions can be altered to model things like shocked commands (defender has no reaction forces allowed for example) and other battlefield realities.

I like the pre-game general planning element that people are proposing here. That is, the waypoints and attack plans, etc. Combined with platoon oriented delay based on amount of orders given, the game takes on a very nicely abstracted flavor. For very poor infantry like soviets, perhaps the delay-orders scheme could be at the compan level.