Wartgamer
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Posts posted by Wartgamer
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One saving grace is that units might NOT update IF they have a 'full' database. This is a nod to the fact that units will spot units closest to them (and to the front) and there is a limit to what can be 'observed'. Take for example a 4 man fireteam that has two full squads of enemy manuvering in front of them. They are exchanging fire. You think if a enemy tank 900 meters away breaks from cover briefly and moves into a ditch, that this will get into the units 'database'?
Of course, the unit would still have to 'refresh' its database on the update to determine if it can still 'see' the enemy units already 'spotted'.
It would cycle through all its spotted units and if one 'falls-out', then it would have to start grinding through all enemy units to either fill the slot or just exhaust the search.
[ February 24, 2005, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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Yes I am guessing also. But you do not build the second floor bedroom without laying the foundation first.
But in my opinion, FOW is just a level of detail setting. Relative Spotting may be independant of it. So Spotting is spotting. What the exact details of being spotted (how many men, type of unit, etc) is dictated by FOW.
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I think Relative Spotting is such a driver that it will decide how 1:1 Representation will be included/excluded in the game. Its a core level design decision. Its a major abstraction remover.
Relative Spotting must decide on a unit level that this occurs at. If 1:1 single soldier is too small could 4-6 man fireteams/weapons systems be the next step up?
How often do you 'update' the units 'database'? This update is a major concern as it forces the system to crunch out the LOS attempts.
One saving grace is that units might NOT update IF they have a 'full' database. This is a nod to the fact that units will spot units closest to them (and to the front) and there is a limit to what can be 'observed'. Take for example a 4 man fireteam that has two full squads of enemy manuvering in front of them. They are exchanging fire. You think if a enemy tank 900 meters away breaks from cover briefly and moves into a ditch, that this will get into the units 'database'?
This brings up an odd effect. If all your units are 'involved' and saturated with targets, the game turns might crunch quicker!
[ February 24, 2005, 08:15 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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We are not suggesting to let the AI "cheat" just maybe you could find a way to balance solo game play against the AI by letting the user choose to have the AI use a more "forgiving" Fog of War Setting like for instance playing aginst the AI when it was set to "Partial FOW"?
This is my intent also. The AI needs some help.
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Very good point. And whats to stop someone from just bouncing back to the first unit and making decisions based on his newly aquired knowledge of enemy dispositions?Originally posted by Tero:Will the graphical representation of the spotting be modified so that when the active unit is changed the targets that unit has spotted disappear and the targets the new active unit has spotted appear instead ?
One could have a touch-it-use-it rule. Once selected, you must finish any movement/fire/etc orders and move on.
But still, should the game decide which units you get to issue orders to first? Based on those with least intel being issued first? I would not like this if it bounced me all over the map so I could not keep track of what I was doing.
What if the game declared a formation for you. It would show a company lets say. All units you will be issuing orders to are shown (all others on your side disappear for the time being). You could study teh immediate situation and then ask for a first unit. The game would decide which unit in the company has least intel of enemy at that time. You would then issue that unit orders and proceed with the next unit. No going back and editing orders for previous units. When done with this formation, the next is brought up. Lets say a Tank platoon. All infantry disappear now (so you cant see them exactly).
This would be a radical change, but does it not force the single player to act on what the actual units 'see'?
[ February 25, 2005, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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Many things in the game will be driven by what they can do with Relative Spotting (or how they do it). Since this is a 'must have', it will act as a driver that might limit other aspects of the game.
It will be a major non-abstraction, in that whatever the actual 'unit' (whatever level that may be), will have to have some database of actual enemy 'units' (again whatever size or level THEY are) that it can see. Certainly a 1:1 representation is out of the question for larger modeled conflicts involving companies, etc.
So a fireteam may have a constantly updating list of enemy units (perhaps enemy fireteams) that it 'sees' on the battlefield. How often this list can be updated and how long the list (could be shorter or longer depending on things like experience/pinning/etc) might be hardware driven.
This will be a much greater CPU hit than the current 'target-based' Absolute spotting. Here a unit has assigned to it a state that all enemy units can take advantage of if they have LOS to the unit. Hence the sharing.
How LOS is determined, and what friendly and enemy units LOS 'point' are (the actual spot that LOS checks are made to and from) will also be interesting. With Relative Spotting, the LOS checks ARE the spotting checks if you follow.
I can imagine pinning a unit so bad that you would be able to get behind them and they would not even know it. But, even still, other non-pinned units, might be able to see the encircling units, so some preventive action might be possible (withdrawl in a intelligent manner).
[ February 24, 2005, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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I think if the CMx1 code just did not give out the level of detail that it does, the Absolute Spotting would not have had the shared intel impact that it does (it would still be flawed but not as bad).
This intel is not as nessesary as many believe nor realistic.
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Actually, I do not think that even a platoon leader knows the exact position of his troops in most terrain. In the rare example like a dugin platoon that has everyone entrenched and the platoon leaders can inspect all positions, yes, but in most dynamic situations; Does a commander 'know' the exact postion of all the men? Is 1:1 position of your own troops just more omniknowledge that can be abused?
The more I think of the 1:1 representation, the more it just makes me feel that the player has to be backed off from knowing more detail about the enmy and less control of his own men.
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One reason may be the 'size' of the game forces.
FOW settings may run from the NO FOW to something seemingly excessive. A larger scenario with many units may benefit realistically from limited shared info. Smaller games may not be so benefitted.
I would also like to see FOW be settable by side. One side playing extreme and the other realistic; something like that. A nice way to play the computer it would seem. The human taking extreme setting of course.
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A German tripod HMG could be firing very short bursts (getting the range or conserving ammo). A German LMG could have some trigger happy 17 year old shooting it.
Another factor is that rarely does just one weapon open up. In reality, its a platoon or more. The Germans having 6 MGs firing from a treeline could easily hide the fact that one is a tripod weapon.
But any available 'realistic' data is always abused by the God like player.
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So you are saying that enemy units will not be revealed 1:1? They will always be 'abstracted'?
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Actually, it brings up another problem with 1:1 modeling.
Seeing the actual physical location of an enemy soldier will almost certainly make things unrealistic if targetting is allowed.
Something like area fire being abused for sure.
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true but look at german inf. if they were in some woods, would you know a HMG or a LMG was really firing (assume same rate)?
In many cases where armor was not parked out stationary in the open, would it actually be ID'd by model?
The game, no matter what, will present an overall picture of the battlefield in some level of information. what happens will be interesting
[ February 23, 2005, 11:47 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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and this might be optional?
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nope. even if it seems unrealistic, it balances out the equally unrealistic things like knowing if an infantry unit in a house is a HQ, etc.
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I would want Extremely-Ultimate-FOW. Everything Generic. No tank details (unless a movie playback for the finished game is available), no infantry roll call or type. Even if slightly unrealistic, it shrinks the Borg effect.
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A little OT, but I suggested a while ago that targetting be left entirely to the TacAI based upon what it spots (with true relative spotting) and also making use of targetting SOPs.Originally posted by Hoolaman:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Wartgamer:
So the player may not artificially optimize target selection in the future. Infantry small arms in particular will target for self preservation lets say rather than for the Borg commands that the player generates.
IRL a unit would be more likely to have fire discipline orders/dispositions (SOPs) and naturally they would only fire upon targets they become aware of themselves. This is opposed to the "psst, over there" effect of manual targetting in CM.
Although this idea produced a heated negative response, Steve actually kind of defended the concept. I wonder if this is on the list for "increased uncertainty for the player" in CMX2. </font>
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From this quote, he appears to be saying that commands like 'assault position' will generate fireteams automatically.Originally posted by Wartgamer:CMx2 will still be based around the Squad in terms of control. Fortunately, the behavior of the squad is quite well laid out in Field Manuals (Handbooks, or whatever each nation calls them). They are very specific as to how things are supposed to work in specific situations. This makes AI programming relatively easy. In fact, it is easier to program this stuff than probably anything else the AI has to do. Not that any of this is easy in the sense of not taking time and great skill.
Will Fire Teams always do what they should do in a given situation? Hell no It is up to us to program the prefect simulation of these actions and then allow the circumstances to screw around with them in perhaps unpredictable ways. For example, a really crappy Experienced unit might have the covering team get up and move too early or wait far too late. Or perhaps both will go at the same time. That sort of thing. However, this is the sort of thing that will work generally as it should for most units that have decent training, regardless of other circumstances.
Steve
It seems the micromanaging that is possible now will be replaced.
But I am just going by what I read. There may have been some other thoughts about this dropped in the 1:1 thread.
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What I imagine is that if you give an "advance order" the squad will automatically split with the heavy weapons staying put and directing their attention to the manuever element's destination. Once the manuever element reaches the destination then the firebase element will automatically move to join them, reforming a squad automatically on arrival.
This is already possible in the game. I do it all the time, split squad, give the half squad with the LMGs a pause order(s) and give the SMG half squad an assault order. Have the LMG half squad followup with an advance order. I do that all the time.
[ February 22, 2005, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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Its just not a 1:1 issue really. And it is a major change as I understood it. Some people even would like platoon level commands.
But to be honest, I do not think that anything that is being 'boned' at this point can be taken as a hard bone. It appears that many of the games fundamental elements are still be pondered.
RMC claims that C&C will remain at the sub-squad level. Was that in a thread I missed?
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CMx2 will still be based around the Squad in terms of control. Fortunately, the behavior of the squad is quite well laid out in Field Manuals (Handbooks, or whatever each nation calls them). They are very specific as to how things are supposed to work in specific situations. This makes AI programming relatively easy. In fact, it is easier to program this stuff than probably anything else the AI has to do. Not that any of this is easy in the sense of not taking time and great skill.
Will Fire Teams always do what they should do in a given situation? Hell no It is up to us to program the prefect simulation of these actions and then allow the circumstances to screw around with them in perhaps unpredictable ways. For example, a really crappy Experienced unit might have the covering team get up and move too early or wait far too late. Or perhaps both will go at the same time. That sort of thing. However, this is the sort of thing that will work generally as it should for most units that have decent training, regardless of other circumstances.
Steve
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A major 'bone' from the 1:1 thread is that player C&C level will be at the 'squad' level. The game will break up squads into fireteams (according to historical tactics) and attempt to carry out the orders under TACAI control.
My take on this is that small sub-squad units, like bazooka/LMG/sharpshooter, will also be TACAI controlled somehow. They may be attached to Company/platoon HQ or even to squads.
So even though the game is supposedly going to 1:1 represetation of soldiers on the battlefield, player command level is sort of shifting up to the squad level of unit.
I would assume that Tanks, ATG, HMG are all 'squads' as far as this is concerned.
So the player may not artificially optimize target selection in the future. Infantry small arms in particular will target for self preservation lets say rather than for the Borg commands that the player generates.
[ February 22, 2005, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]
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I would be very interested in the plan (even though you may not be interested in following the thread).
At this point, it does not appear that 1:1 modeling answers as many questions as it raises.
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The point of 1:1 is to remove as many abstractions as possible. If it just generates more but different abstractions, and causes the game scale to fall into sub-company operations and the overall reality 'feels' about the same; Is it worth it?
C&C cmx2 Fireteam Control
in Combat Mission: Afrika Korps
Posted
Good points.
In the present game, the penalty should only apply when the split squad was seperated by a distance. Its a bit much that it can be rattled, and when unsplit back to squad form, transfers that rattled to the whole squad.
A good practice is to have a good HQ oversee the split-squad manuver in the present system BTW.