C'Rogers

As another note BFC has said they will have an improved model for fatigue (taking the amount each soldier is carrying more into account I remember). I think the current model is largely accurate though tweaking could help a few flaws. Actually at times the model is to generous. Assuming exhausted means barely having the energy to stand I think the idea of getting back to ready (completly fit) within a half-hour to an hour just wouldn't happen. While I think getting back to tired should be a perhaps a tad quicker, getting back to a completly recovered situation is near impossible when completly drained. Especially considering they won't come to a complete standstill and have a lot of other stress factors. Based on the old model I would say that units that hit exhausted should get tagged like those that are routed, so they are much more likely to become tired quicker. But as they are going in a new direction of the model I imagine they will take care of many of the problems.

Go to the Our Soldiers got Company thread in CM:SF forum. There is talk from KwazyDog about the modifying the crotch plate armor do to it not working with the "boning process". I believe there are plenty of comments to be made that you won't be banned for.

Moon, that was far to logical and simple of a reply for these forums. Why don't you stick three or four paragraphs in front of it like some of us. Its almost like the people with administrator tags want the forum to run smoothly.

I think there are a couple of reasons that people dislike RTS games. 1) Click fest. Most gamers like to control everything. So instead of controlling a few units with deep detail, you control a ton of units but can issue only the most basic orders (move-attack). BFC has created a market of gamers who are looking for much more depth, so somewhat turned off by RTS. 2) Failure to deliver in the past by industry. BFC says that this game won't be a click fest and will involve deep thinking. I believe them (because I put them up on a pedastal away from other game makers), but RTS developers in general have said that in past, and come production players find themselves madly clicking away. 3) Deep thinking vs memorizing In a turn based game you have an unrealistic amount of time to plan, but you can make excellent plans (you also generally plan for a far larger scope then one commander normally would in detail). While I think the ability to act quickly is underrated, most RTS just teach the memorizing of a few simple counters to techniques (due to the general rock-paper-scissors nature). 4) Easy to screw up It is probably much harder to make an RTS then a turn based game in balance. A few units too many and the player will find himself overwhelmed and clicking around the map desperatly. Too few units and the player will be bored. This isn't as much a problem for turn based, if you have less units you have quick turns, a lot of units longer turns. From this forum I think it is one of two reasons. 1) RTS generally are bad 2) Most players here would rather take a long time to plan a massive action then a short time to leap from action to action. Personally the only RTS game I would put on the same level as Combat Mission in requiring deep thinking was the first Kohan (Ground Control 1 being another possibility but never really touched its multiplayer).

I actually asked this same question a long time back. http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=000562;p=2 Steve posts a variety of replies starting at the bottom of the first page. Most relevant parts to your question. Basically, the Combat Mission series will never again, even with modules, have a complete series that rivals CM:BB in scope (mutliple years, multiple areas, multiple nationalities will not be done). In reply to Emrys I also think you are making the scope too narrow based on this quote from Steve in the same thread. I think the module system is an interesting marketing idea and will change after a couple releases. It will probably give a much better idea to them of what their consumers want by what they pay for, not just what the hear from the forums. For example if they release a module that allows the use of Finnish troops and it sells 1,000 copies, and then release a Marine module that sells 20,000; they know where to put their work in the future. Also if they release one module that adds units that sells ok, and the next module adds new terrains and weather and that sells great, I think future games you would see more modules adding terrains and not units.

Reading over a lot of people's posts they seem to want more and more information about every soldier in the game and the CM series does (to my understanding) track in detail more things than players know about. I do agree that trying to present all this information is silly and ultimatly counterproductive. However if I may offer a possible solution by stepping outside the genre. Many business and railroad based games track data that is, while interesting, virtually useless to the average player. A good example would be the Railroad Tycoon series. You can access a ledger outside the main screen chalk full of information, mostly of minor use (average cost of maintence per foot of track if I am remembering correctly, though you can't do anything about it). Now while this data is, mostly, useless, it is interesting and it serves as something to check on while the game may be in a slow spot. All the data is put on its own screen so it doesn't clog up the main interface. It seems to serve the purpose of giving certain players all the information they want, yet without obstructing the game flow. It does have its problems I am aware. It could lead to obsessive players taking extremly long amounts of time per turn and I don't have any idea how much the programming time for such a thing would be. Just thought I would throw out a possible idea (additional information on its own seperate screen) and ask if Battlefront has ever considered anything like that.

A company commander would also not know what was going on with every unit of his during a battle yet in the game (as the god commander) we do, so I don't see why it is a reality issue. Personally I am just against useless information clogging up the screen (where would the names be put? an additional window for each squad).

I don't think there is any practical economic or business sense to doing so. That recent events have pushed to close to the Shockforce plot line pushing it back and making WWII the first release, outside possibility.

My one hope and dream to potentially be a grog on this site. Guess I'll just have to keep using the forums as a learning tool. I'm sure Holocaust victims were likewise relieved that the Nazis had put together a formal military.

May I make the recommendation that if you make another modern game years down the road you pursue a different logic. Instead go with "what's the least likely but still plausible scenario so we don't have to keep rewritting the story this time." On the ethical nature of playing certain sides in war games, I never really understood. Its a game. The next CM could be CM: Schoolchildren vs. Nuns and if it stayed with BFC history of tactical soundness I wouldn't hesitate to get it.

Hmmm, let's see. Allies bring an end to Fascist Germany and stop the Holocaust though they fail to bring every person too justice, pretty thorough sounding victory though not absolute and complete. US kills tons of North Vietnamese soldiers in combat and bombs their country into submission having one military victory after another. Then they end up leaving and the south is overran. Seems quite a bit different. On one hand you have a large amount of deaths of soldiers and civilians on both sides though a positive result, on the other a large amount of deaths of deaths of soldiers and civilians on both sides and a negative result. I would say that is the difference between victory and defeat. Yes, the allies were losing the early part of the war. I would consider the loss of France to Germans a military defeat quite evident. Operations in Cambodia Incursion, fighting back the Easter Offensive, battle of Xuan Loc are just what I get off a quick Internet search where the South Vietnamese show a strong will to win and fight well. Despite the large amount equipment in possession by South Vietnam it is undercut by the fact that when the US cuts support the North is still receiving strong military assistance from China and the Soviet Union and the key advantage for the ARVN had been American air support. Was the ARVN an effective fighting force comparable to the US? Of course not, but there main problem wasn't the soldiers on the ground who showed on numerous occasions a strong will too fight. It suffered from a lack of leadership and an overall corrupt government (that the US helped to back and keep in place).

To this I could see some reasoning, if you wanted to create a scenario that was part of a much larger battle. 'This is day 3 of the fighting, we were only expecting light resitance at most and resupply is delayed so we are a little short on fuel.' I think Mav is referencing the overall campaign CM:SF will have and not just scenarios for his comments though. For which I could say that some sort of breakdown formula for the US might be logical, but not something that needs to be too detailed as there are far more important issues.

So many games sequels have been ruined by turning it into a game of micromanagement. Many times developers (and players) seem to forget that more control isn't always better. Then again lumping BFC in with other mere game developers is borderline insulting .

Yes unless I really missed something. http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=000709#000013 Do you mean a mix of the two sides? I don't think it has ever been brought up but fairly certain no. At times it seems like everything outside the game core will be done later as an addon. Lots of speculation but I don't think they have said anything along of 'we will definetly get the Brits in'. I know they have been pretty strong on the concept of the US Marines so I would say that is so far the most likely. In the sense of 'will the game be programed to intentionally have air units fire on the wrong targets at times' no, do to improvements in spotting the enemies. As far as I know friendly fire of any type outside shelling your own guys doesn't come up. Will you have direct air planes under your command (that you issue move orders to)? No, though you will have more control on how they operate. Here is a thread on how air support will be modeled. http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=000735#000003

The US had an objective to accomplish in Vietnam, while they had extreme military success, they lost a lot of lives and in the end did not accomplsih that objective. I call that losing. It would be like arguing Germany didn't lose WWII because Italy didn't hold up their end of the fight. Being the South holds the country for years with little assitance from the US and win a series of battles I wouldn't say they had no stomach for winning. At the end of the war a withdrawal gets turned into a route (something similair happens to the US in the Korean War), but the South does fight to hold Saigon against a vastly superior enemy.

That's the problem! There's no spit marks ont he Strykers! Surely the occasional angry townperson would spit on a passing vehicle. Obviously this needs to be fixed and fixed right away. Probably a 1 - 2 % chance of on uber close zoom you can see spit sliding down the Stryker.

Hopefully this is because the volunteers are going "this game is so ridiculusly great I'm not going to stop to write something. Must play more!"

Depends on the country and numerous other factors that no one can quite agree on. But for the purposes of CM, the game ends (and in my case at least I eagerly jump into Blue vs Blue Red vs Red). I think there is a couple reasons this won't/can't happen. A military is more than just uniforms it is also a system of communication and discipline. If the military voluntarily breaks down they lose a ton of structure. Insurgents have a high degree of survivability, it is very hard to kill off an insurgency. They don't need much money, casulties are not an immediate factor, and they can disappear quite easily. On the other hand an insurgency can not really "win" a war. At best they make the war costly enough to drive out an occupying power. However even if they do this there is nothing that says which element of the insurgency will rise to lead the country (and a new one may emerge to do so). A military can win a war, or at least broker a peace deal (not to mention somewhat more legal protection after the fighting). Also whoever is leading the military would effectively be surrendering his reign over the country. If Saddam had said at the beginning of OIF guys take off your uniforms, hide, and shoot at Americans when they least suspect it. He would of had to go into hiding immediatly and would of lost most, if not all, control of Iraq. That happened eventually but there was a chance the US could of of bogged down somewhere before Bagdad and he could of reached a deal of some sort. Also for Vietnam, while there was extensive guerilla tactics, there was also a sizeable well maintained army actively fighting against the US in more conventinal methods. As bad as the guerilla tactics where I doubt they alone would of accounted for the US defeat.

Alright I will try and go back to the original topics. I don't think by asymetrical warfare battlefront will be doing small scale guerilla tactics. For the main reason they wouldn't be very fun or playable. Assault this guard post and pull out in under five minutes or move into position fire a few mortars and get out really aren't playable. To look at the current example. The UN player has to just sit and wait for the Syrian player to do something. The Syrian players waits for the best oppurtunity to fire a rocket at a warship. Suddenly the UN player gains control, tells all the ships there is danger, and maybe launches a quick counter strike against the area the rocket came from. I think what they mean by asymetric victory conditions is that the two sides will have different objectives. For example as the UN force moves on a town they may have the objective of A) capture the town but do not sugger a more than 5% casulty ratio or C) cause X amount of damage. While the Syrians may only have to protect the town as a minor objective with the major goal to be capture an American soldier or destroy a piece of heavy armor, with the casulties there side suffers having only a minor affect on score. I don't think there will be any radical change to the combat mission formula (two company size forces meeting in battle), just the ability to change what each side is fighting for.

I have seen a squad massacre a whole platoon how you describe. The key is they have to be using the 'move' command. Instead of the scene you are picturing instead imagine a squad of ten men 'advancing' at you. As a couple guys are moving they are being covered and the group of ten is well spread out. Also the guys in the back who are not moving have their guns ready to fire at your woods. Soon as your men fire they shoot one or two of the men before they have return fire. You are in an obvious advantage but it won't be a massacre. But if you have two guys trying to ambuh ten, not so much of even an advantage. Your guys will likely take the human reaction and duck for cover as well soon as fire comes at them. This will allow advancers time to find some of that sparse cover, retreat, or even advance into your woods. Even in an area with no cover a guy lying down is a hard target to hit. There are a few differences about this compared to moving across a field. One is that the guy may be getting hit with a sniper rifle. Second there may be more people shooting at him then were on his side. Third they have a height advantage, which nullifies the laying down ability that could be used in the field example.

Was surrender common in the heat of battle or was it more an out of battle issue (we are outnumbered let's surrender before the shooting starts or after being routed and captured)?

I think there are two main problems with this topic. One we are unclear on how objectives will be worked out (which pretty much everybody states). Secondly though I don't think looking too past campaigns is necessarily going to reflect how this game will function. No offense to the excellent runners of campaigns, but no person can track as many details as a program can. Whether the program will do everything it needs too is an obvious wait and see I guess. I think there are four things that can prevent the use of the "big stack". One is the ability to have supporting artillery. If recon is at all existent big stacks should be obviously pretty quickly, and where it is going could very quickly be met by limited troops and a ton of shells (and again, and again, and again if necessary). Secondly, as has been mentioned, is the ease of cutting communications and supplies (and even if supplies aren't an issue cutting communications could slow a big stack to a standstill as they wait for orders where to go). Third is just the limitation of what the Big Stack can do. It can punch through a line anywhere of course (though how often and how many casulties could be a big issue) but it can only be in one place at one time. If that end objective requires it holding more than one square the whole idea doesn't get far. Fourth is just the campaign designer. He can start the units spread out across the map and the attacker would have to waste valuable time he may not have assembling the big stack. Now I'm not without worry over the potential for gameyness. CM is trying to be brought into an engine that it never orignally planned for and subsequently it would be easy for cheap tactics to exist. But Hunter has been more than aware of all the proposed flaws and we will just have to wait to see how he handles them (as he has stated he is). Maybe I misread but isn't Hunter saying tanks lose fuel every 4 hours after they move, not they necessarily always lose the same amount? Even if the program updated how much fuel was lost for every 30 seconds of game time that doesn't mean there wouldn't be plenty of fuel for the whole day. It is just a statement of how often the calculation is made (at least I hope the way I am reading it is correct). Under normal circumstances, or during one of the major battles of the war? Much like CM represents a fairly rare occurence (two equal side meeting in battle) so CMC is represting something rare, a major continuous battle. Units may enter tired and low on supplies already (represting a game start in a battle already underway) and may fight more than they would in 99% of the rest of the war.

Here is a question relating to this. Does training a person allow them to call in better artillery support in real life or is it almost entirely the skill of the gun crew? Can any observer with minimal training adequetly call in support. To be put this way; would there be any significant difference between an FO who has called in artillery on numerous occassion and had experience working with a battery versues an FO who was doing it for the first time with just brief traing? If you have the most skilled battery in the world is it only of minor importance the skill of the person calling in the artillery? I had always thought that it was the former and that the accuracy of artillery depended significantly on the directions of the observor calling artillery. Of course I could see how I may be wrong, and calling in arty may be a simple issue of giving some numbers on a map (I am sure someone will tell me one way or the other). If it is the first case than a drop in unit quality makes sence, if it is the latter than a time/morale penalty makes more sense for the replacement FO. My main worry is, that under the current system where there is no penalty, won't FOs after they have directed all the ammo just become a quick disposable scout?

Thanks for the reply. I really know very little about gun batteries beyond that suffering multiple FO casulties could not be good. How many/what damage I am sure others will have much more knowledge than myself.

This doesn't strike me as tactics so much as making the right guess. If you buy countermeasures and he bought no explosives you kind of just blew a whole bunch of points. At least in CMx1 if you buy something like anti-aircraft weapons they can still be used against infantry. As I know very little about countermeasures, would a US commander ever request additional countermeasures? Or is it more of a each company is outfitted with so many? I think it would be better if the countermeasures were a part of the units you purchased. As for IEDs. On a macro scale IEDs are very different from non-improvised explosives, but on an in-game scale they do pretty much the same thing (blow up). IEDs main difference from a conventinal explosive (probably more than I mention). Cheap and easy to make Heavier (on a weight vs. effectiveness scale). More of a chance to explode when they are not suppose to Less efficent (more of a chance to not explode, more of a chance to explode early/late) Now really only the last one has any effect in game. It does not require seprate modeling of IEDs, just a better modeling of explosives over all. Looked at another way. If New York City was invaded tommorrow by a vastly superior force (Space Lobsters), is there anything IEDs can do that the US military wouldn't/couldn't do with conventinal explosives (that would be relevant to CMSF). Are IEDs more defined by the tactics employed (defensive guerilla) then the sides using them? Hopefully explosives are vastly improved (and being they plan on using this engine for many more games I expect them to be). But I really don't see the need to give IEDs any particular attention above that. Of course they should be included, and in wide varities if possible, but other than be larger, less efficent, and probably with a cheaper point cost, what more needs to be done with them?