Objekt 240

Bean counting vs strategy. I agree. I tested company-sized game further. 500 meters is a lot of space and two hours is a lot of time. It is enough to contain a whole battle between two battalions or have mobile units move over 50 hexes. Two hours is too long to be a natural reaction time for company-sized units. 500 meters is too much space to never contain anything but a company of infantry. I think companies should be able to have 1-2 support platoons that cause stacking penalties. I think a turn should be 30-60 minutes, with rally and changes in formation taking at least a turn. 1-2 support platoons per company is not bean counting and it doesn't mean having everything everywhere. Even GD battalion has only two AT-platoons (one with three 3.7cm PaKs, one with three 5cm PaKs). On regiment level I have three more 5cm PaK platoons. If I commit these three additional AT-platoons to infantry companies, so that each infantry company has AT-gun platoon, I have committed all my AT assets. My infantry companies have lost much of their mobility, I will lose AT-guns unnecessarily for enemy indirect and infantry fire and have no AT strongpoint, reserve or depth. It is wiser to concentrate AT-platoons in depth on area that is likely to face armored enemy forces. These are decisions left for player to make, not something for me to dictate. I have thought about a less conventional idea about hexes and units. I have thought about it mostly with battalion-sized units, but it could work with company-sized units as well. I am thinking about a model in which a single unit-of-command can occupy multiple hexes of space. Infantry company could spread, in defence, across several hexes (1-5 in width, 1-3 in depth), but it would still be commanded as one unit. Spreading the company would cause certain calculated penalties in performance. Company would still move as one hex. Support companies would work in the same way. I could have Heavy Company 1-2 hexes behind the defending infantry company, but have its HMG platoons spread forwards to support the infantry company (and perhaps some other nearby unit in other direction). Mortar platoon would remain further back. Spreading the company would again cause certain penalties for performance. It is a bit like zones-of-control but there are differences. With battalion-sized units I have used this model to bring in tactical elements and to make fronts more flexible and spread. With company-sized units it could be used to make the use of support weapons more realistic. I might have to make hexes smaller, around 300 meters in width. I am still not convinced that batallion-sized units automatically lead to gameplay that has no room for tactics and rewards massing. It is true that battalion-sized units lead easily into every unit has everything problem. This problem can be countered by things like rewarding the concentration of support units (AT-guns), by having single unit-of-command occupying multiple hexes and by having a number of different states. The big problem comes from strategy games where you can stack battalions and units are in neat lines with almost no fog of war elements. It is very hard to concentrate attack against a single battalion if I can't stack battalions and single battalion can occupy multiple hexes. It would be hard to know where the real battalion "core" is located in the first place. In such game thoughtless play leads either to slow advance that makes defending indirect fire very deadly or to narrow penetrations with mobile forces that are vulnerable to AT assets laid in depth. Strategy games out there are just unimaginative in design.

Thanks everyone for your input, especially Jason. I played with company-sized units a bit more and it does play better on paper than what I thought. Jason's model forces player to commit forces in depth and think about formations, simply because he can't have battalion's assets spread in a 1000 meter wide treeline. But is it too artificial if player can't reinforce infantry companies with battalion machinegun and AT/IG gun assets? I think it is a bit unrealistic, but on the other hand I like it how you can't make so much use of guns unless terrain is really suitable and how it forces the player to make decisions. A scenario: Two infantry companies are defending a 1000 meter wide treeline (two hexes) against expected enemy attack. If you can reinforce infantry companies with 1-2 support platoons, you could give those companies a HMG platoon and a AT-gun platoon. But if you can't reinforce infantry companies, you would put those infantry companies to secure flanks (or use them as reserve) and put Heavy Company and AT-company at the treeline. The first is more flexible, and perhaps more realistic, but the second model may offer more interesting gameplay. Opinions? I haven't found a solution to the line-of-sight problem caused by company-sized units. The basic problem is that I have to figure out should guns of type X open fire at targets of type Y when range is R and angle is Z. This is a real problem with tanks and AT-guns, because I have to calculate penetration possibilities at different ranges and angles. Similar problem is figuring out how each different unit reacts when it comes under fire from various types of units. Should they withdraw, continue forward, stay and fight, call in mortar fire... Many questions like that. No easy answers, except if units fire automatically whenever they have even a slight possibility to hurt the target. Is it too simple? Perhaps give ambush command so unit fires only at point blank or when nearby units fire or receive fire? When unit comes under fire it always stops, so that you need to suppress defenders if you plan to bypass their positions? Battalion-sized units would remove these problems. I do not think battalion-sized units would mean having everything everywhere. Battalion-sized units make the battle one step bigger, so battalion-level support assets become less powerful. One unit would have only a few AT-guns, no real artillery and no tanks. You would still get same paper-scissors-rock elements. The only unit type that is missing is Heavy Company, but it is supposed to support battalion's companies anyway and regimental gun assets replace Heavy Companies on the board. You get tanks and other assets in exchange, making the game more colorful. But I can see that you lose some of the elements you get with company-sized units. Depth and formations are no longer as important. Less detailed terrain favors tanks and guns. Player can use massing of artillery fire to deal with remaining enemy pockets, instead of using infantry companies... There are some elements like these. The trend being the player has less problems to deal with. I don't like that. The game might be better with company-sized units, but line-of-sight issues need to be solved. One another issue is writing AI for such a game, but I am not going there just yet. I have no plans to design a game that will reward massing, even if I would use battalion-sized units. I want to get combined arms right, but combined arms is not everything there is to battles. I want to get rid of unrealistic hyper control and battlefield awareness. I want supply and command. I will make the game as simple and playable as possible, but the player will have to make decisions on how to move forces, keep them supplied and in command. Most strategy games ignore these problems. History tells us that these problems are more important than combat itself. Yes, most of these problems do not really belong to a regiment level battle that lasts three days. Player shouldn't need to deal with supply states of individual companies. But these problems do belong to a division-corps level battle that lasts two weeks. That can be achieved by having at least battalion-sized units or by having cooperative multiplayer modes. With cooperative multiplayer both sides can be corps sized in strength, even if single player controls only a regiment or a division. It seems most people here think players could control a division, which would be great if true. It would give me more room to get in command, supply and transportation. I am still not convinced, but perhaps I am wrong. I will test it further. The number of counters you are getting are different from the numbers I get, because I count in HQ units (I need them to get command and control elements right). I also divided Heavy Companies into platoons, so that infantry companies could be reinforced. Perhaps we don't need reinforced infantry companies, so the number of counters would be lower. Here's one example of how many counters you may get even with a single regiment. I admit it's not the most typical regiment, but it should give an idea. Gross-Deutchland Infantry Regiment 1941 Regiment HQ Artillery Battalion HQ 150mm Artillery Battery 105mm Artillery Battery 105mm Artillery Battery First Battalion HQ 1st Company 2nd Company 3rd Company Machinegun Company HQ Machinegun platoon Machinegun platoon Machinegun platoon Mortar platoon Heavy Company HQ Light Anti-Tank platoon Medium Anti-Tank platoon FlaK platoon Motorized Pioneer platoon Second Battalion (same as 1st) Third Battalion (same as 1st) Fourth Battalion HQ Light Infantry Gun Company HQ Light Infantry Gun platoon Light Infantry Gun platoon Light Infantry Gun platoon Panzerjäger Company HQ Anti-Tank platoon Anti-Tank platoon Anti-Tank platoon Heavy Infantry Gun Company HQ Heavy Infantry Gun platoon Heavy Infantry Gun platoon Assault Gun Company HQ StuG platoon StuG platoon StuG platoon Fifth Battalion HQ Reconnaissance Company HQ Armoured Car platoon Motorcycle platoon Mortar section Machinegun section Motorized Pioneer Company FlaK Company HQ FlaK platoon FlaK platoon FlaK platoon That is 74 counters, not including supply columns, transportation or signals. 42 counters if no companies are divided into platoons. Perhaps companies of 4th and 5th battalion should be divided in any case, because those companies are a bit of an overkill if they occupy only a single hex. A more typical infantry regiment has less counters, but it seems clear to me that a division can easily contain over 100 counters, even if you don't divide heavy weapons platoons. The number of counters isn't necessarily such a problem. There is no reason why player couldn't choose how many regiments he wishes to control. I just need to have an idea of what kind of battles a typical player would prefer.

I experimented with company-sized counters. I can get regiments down to 60-70 counters if I ignore transportation. Divisions down to 200-400 counters. Support units are nearly worthless because I can't stack units. It would not be playable. I need to have battalion-sized counters if player controls entire division.

I will have to try it out on paper. That is how I do it. When I just think about it in my head I often overlook issues. I have never tried making it division level so I might get surprising results. My fear is that my extra elements act as a force multiplier making it far too demanding for a player to control. There is more to read on the table than just pure combat units. I have had my hands full in my test games with single regiments. Player won't have to use paper and pencil, but he will have to decide how much of what goes where and how and when it gets there. If he is planning to attack with a battalion, he is going to stock up supplies for the battalion a number of turns beforehands. If he is planning to exploit the anticipated breakthru with a mobile battalion he will have to make sure beforehands that the mobile battalion will have fuel and roadspace when it will begin to advance. He will have to make compromises with who gets those supplies and roadspace. I will make it as userfriendly as possible and include only elements that really add something. But the player will still have to command supply and transporations units. Player won't be giving commands only to battle units. Yes there will be chaos. Perhaps divisional or corps HQ needs the supplies for some other regiment and you won't get any new supplies for a day or two. Perhaps the lorries drove from your regimental supply depot to wrong place in error. Perhaps they got stuck in mud. Perhaps a Sturmovik shot them up. Perhaps someone just screwed up and somehow just lost track of 20 tons of artillery ammunition. Perhaps horses run out of fodder and now 50% of wagons have stopped where they happened to be and you have to somehow get them where they are supposed to be. Of course at the same time the stupid reinforcements are blocking the road at crucial crossroads. And it doesn't exactly help that your men are near starvation, morale has fallen and the transporters themselves steal and sell the goods they are supposed to transport. You get the picture. My preference is with battalion-sized units as well. I think you can have advanced combined arms tactics with battalion-sized units as well. You can achieve it by being able to toy with the companies the battalions contain. For example to depict what Russians faced in Grozny in 1990ies, you could have in your rifle battalion combat engineer platoon (to make urban fighting more efficient) and a signals platoon (Russians had serious problems with communication in the urban area). Their opponents might include snipers and RPG company into their battalions. You can do the same with vehicles. It's up to having enough different types of subunits and enough different tactical commands that decide how the battalion tries to do combat. Making such a system natural, playable, fun and realistic is hard. But I think it can be done. I have more limited actions in mind as well. There simply is no way I could even find all the data needed to make a large historical scenario. On the other hand the elements I want in, like logistics, don't really come to play until you have at least a division. Basicly I am with Jason on this, but I want to do more than just get rid of stacking and I am not at all convinced that company-sized units is the way to go. But I am willing to get my opinion changed. Huge engagements are not out of question, but I have left those for advanced multiplayer modes. Think about 4-20 players playing the same battle, each player controlling a division (some might just represent Corps HQ, airforces or Corps artillery). Each player experiences the fog of war as the circumstances dictate. All communication between players will have to go thru the game engine. It all is recorderd so the other side can check after the game from AAR if you have fooled (used other means of communication and made moves that makes no sense). You could lose all contact to the higher HQ and other divisions of your side. That's when the fun begins when you find that the enemy has breached the front and half of your division is getting cut out and you are rapidly running out of supplies. What do you do? Do you try to break out, will you dig in trusting the higher HQ (player) that he is up to the situation and will come to rescue (does he even have forces to do it?) or will you continue following the orders you were giving? I am seriously considering making the game freeware so campaigns and scenarios are very open for anyone to create. [ June 06, 2005, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Objekt 240 ]

Perhaps you are right, and I don't think this is such a problem as the problem number two, but 100 counters may not be enough. I am not planning to make it that easy for the player. To me logistics are as important as battle and tactics. The player will have to make many decisions on how to handle logistics. If you don't have fuel, or roads are full, you won't drive anywhere. If you don't have ammo you won't shoot anything. If you don't have food you will wither away. Not just today, but tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. You will have traffic jams and you will run out of fuel, ammo and food. It's up to you, enemy actions and your skills permitting, to decide where and when you will run out of them. I am not trying to make money. I am trying to make a strategy game that would fix some of the most glaring errors of most strategy games. I am doing it because I really enjoy doing it. I don't do this for living so I can't really spend three years making Combat Mission engine if it's not really necessary. I am not convinced that it would be necessary. I am not convinced that Combat Mission style game play is optimal for division scale strategy game. Can you convince me that it is? Perhaps. I will have to think more about this, but at the moment I am of the opinion that two days is not enough. Yes it will be possible. But the basic game mechanics have to be such that the game remains playable and enjoyable. If you are controlling a division you are facing a bit different questions and challenges than when you are controlling a regiment. Thank you for your input. I will think more about the number of units and the length of battles.

I am talking about fog of war. I share the passion of your hate for clinical sterility of strategy games. I want to go further than just getting rid of stupid stacking. I want to bring in the chaos, confusion and blindness. I want to bring in worries about supplies and communication. I want to bring in active recon, patrolling and things like that. My head is full of ideas and my notebook filled with obscure markings and coffee stains. And to be frank, I think that fog of war is one of the things that would suffer with individual companies. If you are in control of a division you don't know where companies are. You hardly know exact locations of battalions. You might know that 1st battalion of regiment A is rolling enemy lines north of hill H towards village V. 2nd battalion is resting at village V2, waiting reinforcements and resupply. 3rd battalion is somewhere west of village V, connections to 3rd battalion have been lost for 12 hours already. Sounds of heavy artillery barrage have been heard from that direction and aerial recon spotted mechanized enemy formation 5 kilometers northwest of village V, heading south. Advanced multiplayer options change the situation dramatically, but then were aren't talking about being in control of an entire division, but rather each player controlling a regiment.

I am designing a computer strategy game and have given a lot of thought to the issues raised here by Jason and others. I can't stand stacking and how units are neatly connected in lines. My main concern is getting in things like chaos, confusion, SNAFU, space, recon, C3, logistics, traffic and advanced multiplayer modes, but I have also thought a lot about the scale of units and how it should be managed. There are two basic problems with having individual company sized units: 1) Battles become huge. If infantry company is an individual unit, so then must mortar platoons, heavy machinegun sections and other units of that level. Now imagine the number of individual units when you are in control of a division. Most players would simply give up. Especially if you have to deal with logistics, calculating tonnage of supplies and traffic jams. 2) Hexes would have to be something like 300-600 meters in width. That means that units like tanks must be able to fire over several hexes. And if you have that, you also need things like mortars firing smoke. You need to model line-of-sight and have turns that represent something like 15-30 minutes. You end up having a game that is like Combat Mission but with higher abstraction. Making such a game takes years. You also end up commanding a division in 15-30 minute turns, making the battles too slow and long. Problem number one can be dealt with, but I haven't yet figured a simple answer to the problem number two. Battalions that contain swappable companies is one compromise that would make the problem number two less glaring, but it would not solve it.

I know how to give "adjust" command, but results have been unsuccessful: Barrage does move, but the direction seems random. I have had more success by simply shifting to "target wide" command. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but my experience is that adjusting is of no use.

On artillery tactics the author constantly writes "81mm or under". It should be "82mm or under". Does "adjust" command really work? I haven't been able to use that command with any success.