Exel

Close Combat, Total War, Hearts of Iron, World in Conflict are all RTS. But none of them are conventional clickfest RTS in the sense that Command & Conquer or Warcraft are. RTS is a game mechanic, it's not a game format. RTS can work very well even for the more serious war games like CMSF. That said, it's also not a reason to leave WeGo out... [ July 28, 2007, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: Exel ]

I don't see anyone complaining about RT being there as an option. What people, myself included, are complaining about is that WeGo is no longer there as an option. Basically all that is needed is a mandated pause to the RT game at fixed intervals to give commands in. That's not too much to ask, is it? I guess it wouldn't be such a big of an issue if the game hadn't promised both RealTime and WeGo functionality. Some of us paid for the game before learning otherwise (pre-ordered) and feel being cheated for it. Being one of those people I can't say it would be an unjustified feeling. But still we don't come here asking for our money back but to ask the game to be improved - because we know BFC has a habit of listening to its customers and supporting its products years after release. Any other company and the criticism might be less constructive and less polite. But we all want CMSF to be the great game it has potential to be. So we keep asking, and suggesting. I'm willing to give RT a chance. Maybe I'll even stick with it. But I want my WeGo to go along with it.

I can agree on restrictions to what you can buy, so you can't go crazy buying a mix of everything and their aunts. Though a game of different genre, I'd like to point all of you to World in Conflict: there you select a class (in CMSF terms either SBCT/HBCT or Regular/Uncons) according to which you get your pool of units to buy from - you can buy from other "classes" (ie. to buy uncons to reinforce your Republican Guards) but they come at a much higher price than your core units. So, if you want to buy that platoon of Abrams to back up your Stryker Company, you can, but it is a lot more expensive than to buy the Abrams' in their native HBCT organization. A system like that would allow flexibility for player-customizability but within realistic limits.

Horse for courses. I find it intuitive, and would find your version rather confusing I imagine. Make it another configurable option </font>

Like all balance, unit costs can be modified in patches. This is something that all games do. No amount of beta testing can figure out as much as hundreds of players over weeks, months and years. Even Counter-Strike has had some of its weapons made expensive and some cheaper over time. Even so, do you want to unit selection to be a matter of luck or of skill and careful thought? And what about balance problems with the preset unit formations? They need to be fixed too, but it takes a lot more effort to edit a formation or a unit selection algorithm than it takes to make a small modification to a unit's cost. Finally, players can find ways to balance units in ways the developers might never have thought, if they are given the option to do so by buying their own units. With presets they are stuck with what they have, and can't try unit compositions that no one else has thought of. Again, luck vs. innovation and skill. Don't get me wrong. Preset, realistic unit formations are a great thing. They can be a real equalizer in HvH battles. But it could be an option to picking your tools for the job by yourself - they don't have to be mutually exclusive features.

Considering that modern MBTs have engagement ranges of up to 4000m, it would not be rare for a company, much less a battalion, to send a platoon or more off a few km's to flank the enemy at contact. Even tactical maneuvers easily expand to several km with modern mechanized forces. Still, 50x50km is probably pretty much overkill to any tactical level wargame, for which 10x10km or 20x20km would most of the time be plenty. But if we are talking military training applications then larger map sizes will be needed. Of course the engine is still in its infancy, and I have no doubts that it will continue to serve for years to come. And I would be willing to bet a considerable sum that during those years we will see increasing map sizes as the engine and computer hardware develop.

4km x 4km may be more than adequate for MOUT scenarios, but for maneuvering armored formations 10km x 10km can get really small really quick.

To quote myself from a thread not long ago, but that has already fallen into the the virtual abyss (page 2): So pretty much what you said, but in a more compressed format. Seriously though, doing that will only miss you out on the replays, and I can't honestly say that's a bad thing for a non-PBEM multiplayer match. Is there a reason that could not be done?

Asymmetrical warfare doesn't make it any different. If you can balance the cost of a King Tiger to the cost of a mine or a sniper, you can balance the cost of an M1 to the cost of an IED or a spy. I'm not saying it's easy - game balance never is - but I'm saying it has been done before and it is not impossible. I would imagine it to be a lot harder to get the balance right on a few fixed presets. Also with a purchase system the players will find ways to counter imbalances, something that they can't do with preset unit pools.

Thanks to the terrain texture scaling, it's accurate to 1m. If you are looking at it from any distance, the terrain deforms and no longer looks like what it really is - the tank you thought to have line-of-sight doesn't, the enemy you thought was exposed is in fact hull-down, etc.

That's an interesting notion... considering how every other comparable game has managed to pull it off, including CMx1. Steel Panthers series are another great example, but so is the new World in Conflict. If anything it should be easier to balance the units by cost rather than trying to make them balanced unit-for-unit. If something is too good to be a gamekiller, it's not expensive enough. Is there a reason why we could not have both? We can have the current preset unit mixes, and then we can have an option to hand-pick your units. Players can choose which setting to use.

Seconded. The chief reason I bought the game was to play my friends on LAN. In turn-based mode. PBEM is a poor substitute for that, and frustrating to use when you could just as well have the data move automatically over the LAN.

Which makes is all the more painful to not not have it in multiplayer. Like you said, it's just forcing a pause on the realtime game, so there should be very little reason not to have it as an option.

We understand that, and it's great for the campaign and individual missions (even QuickBattles if you will) but buying your own units could still be there as an option at least for HvH play. Considering that units are mixed up* even in real-life, it's not completely unrealistic either. * A platoon of Bradley's might be given a solo Abrams for fire support for a given engagement, or two different units (eg. elements of SBCT and HBCT) operating at the same area might be forced to join forces ad hoc to fight an unexpected enemy.

Buying your own troops is almost as essential to the CM experience as WeGo is. Right now, as far as multiplayer games are concerned, CMSF fails to deliver either. Needs to be patched in.

While I agree generally, there are still some things that you don't need to play hundreds of hours for you to spot faulty or in need of improvement. Don't disregard all suggestions just because they come "too soon".

It's just "We Go", meaning simultaneous command turns as opposed to "I Go, You Go" or IGOUGO where first one player would move his units and then the other. Edit: Ach, slow.

Yes that's right, no typo, pun intended. And this is how: - Enable WeGo in TCP/IP multiplayer games. Do this by forcing the RealTime mode to autopause the game every 60 seconds and allow players to give commands only during the pause. Unpause the game for another 60 seconds on the request of both players. Now you've turned RealTime into a turn-based WeGo, just without the replays. - Allow players to purchase their units for multiplayer games. Not having this option takes away a lot of the fun and strategy from HvH games. As far as defining CM as an experience goes, this is the Next Big Thing right after WeGo. - Bring back the Shoot & Scoot command. Essential for all vehicular modern combat. Can't live without. - Reduce or remove terrain texture scaling. Currently terrain shapes are blurred out at any distance making it impossible to assess height differences properly. Also makes units look like they levitate when the terrain under them is drawn "simplified". - Make left-click mouse camera control drag the map to the direction of the motion, instead of the camera. You can push the camera at screen edges. Remove mouse smoothing from all mouse camera controls to make them more accurate and responsive. Fix WASD camera controls and remove any acceleration curve for constant movement rates. - Make controls customizable in the options menu. If possible bring back the right-click mouse command menu as an option to the command tabs. - In single player games ask the player whether to start the turn replay or not instead of starting it automatically after the turn has been completed. There's already a pop-up signaling the end of the turn, just add "Yes / No" for launching replay. These are all more or less urgent but all critical fixes and additions to truly make the game great - and live up to its hype and advertising.

Hit ESC.

"Turn over. Show replay? Yes / No" - Time to code 5 minutes? What I miss: Buying my own unit mix in HvH games!

Close Combat, being a WW2 game, was a LOT slower paced than CMSF set in the modern battlefield. When the tide of battle in CC or CMx1 can change in the space of a minute or less, in CMSF the battle can be over in seconds. What's more the units were a lot more autonomous in CC, requiring much less micromanagement (you told them where to go, not how to get there). Also, in CC you didn't have to struggle with the camera... RT is doable in the modern setting as well, no doubt, but it means effective control of fewer units in the same space of time.

Way to create WeGo play for TCP/IP RealTime games: - Force an automatic pause every 60 seconds. - Unpause only at the request of both players. - Prevent commands being given when the games is not paused. There you have it, a WeGo system for TCP/IP games without long file transfer times. You only miss on replays, but as it is a multiplayer maybe it's only a good thing (don't have to wait for the other guy to finish watching the replay for the 5th time).

Yes; you can actually play it in multiplayer. RT with pause is adequate (or even good) for single-player where you can pause as much as and when you want. That's not something you can do in multiplayer though (or it gets REALLY tedious). Instead you can have WeGo where both are forced into the same game rhytm. I don't mind having RealTime as an option for WeGo. I do mind not having WeGo for multiplayer (TCP/IP). RealTime is good for playing solo, WeGo is good for multi. But now we have WeGo only for single player, and for multiplayer we have only RealTime. The total opposite of how it should be as far as I'm concerned.

It needs no other reason than Shoot & Scoot being the norm fighting method for all armored vehicles. You just don't stay exposed when you are not firing.

If you have Windows, you have MSN Messenger (or now Live Messenger). And if you have Messenger, you have fast file transfer. Of course that requires you to be online at the same time. If you can't handle that, use Gmail for sending them via email.