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The Coil

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  • Birthday 11/11/1972

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  1. Yeah, Cirrus appears to be using "direct" to mean "firing at a spotted target" and "indirect" to mean "area firing". If you want, you can just put a little piece of tape on your screen where the AT gun is, then switch to the mortar and target the piece of tape. That's what I do. It might be a bit "gamey", but I've found it's an acceptable workaround.
  2. So, I've heard some general admissions from KD and Steve that the UI "needs improvement" or "isn't perfect," along with a lot of reasons why many of the customer suggested improvements are silly/unworkable/etc. I'd be curious to hear from BF folks - what are the issues you guys feel need improvement/what are you working on improving? My apologies if that's been addressed in this thread and I missed it - I've only been skimming the last few pages... Edit: Oops, that was sort of addressed on p. 7, I and I did miss it...
  3. Full Disclosure: I'm a CMx1 player who gave CMSF a pass. In the bit I've played around with CMx2 I've struggled with this issue, hopefully with a (somewhat) open mind. That said, I suspect the issue is a bit subtler than just the relative complexity of CMx2's terrain or intuitive vs. non-intuitive styles of players. Say me and a buddy were looking at a muddy field. I say "Dude, no way you can make it across that in your pickup truck." He says, "I can make it no problem." So he jumps in his truck and drives across the field. The final arbiter is reality - he either makes it or gets stuck. Now picture trying to code that same situation into a game - call it CMTS (C My Truck's Stuck) - and say the game designer's intention is to make it as realistic as possible. I say, "No way your truck makes it across that muddy terrain tile." He says "I can make it no problem." He drives his truck across the field. The final arbiter of what happens is no longer reality - it's an approximation of reality based on a third person - the game designer's assumptions about reality. A muddy terrain tile still has a lot of uncertainties about it - does "muddy" imply damp dirt or 12 inches of thick mud? If me and the game designer were looking at the real life situation, is he more likely to be the guy saying "you'll never make it" or "I'll make it easily"? And so on. Any attempt to encode reality into a game is going to necessarily involve a hundred little assumptions like this, that everyone will have a different opinion on. When me and the game designer look at the same muddy terrain tile, we're going to almost certainly have two different judgments about the exact effect "muddy terrain" would have on a vehicle in reality. This is not a good or a bad thing, it's just the way it is. So the user interface in all its particulars is really just a way for the game designer to clue the game player in about the judgments he made in designing the "under the hood" game. There are a variety of ways to do this, some of them more objective, some of them more subjective. 1) One of the more objective ways is give numbers: This terrain provides 50% concealment. You might think that clump of bushes would hide you 90% of the time. Someone else might think that clump of bushes is too small to hide you more than 30% of the time. It's probably impossible to tell what the correct value REALLY is in real life. By saying it provides 50% concealment, the game designer is, in effect saying: in my judgement, a clump of bushes represented like this in the game is a clump of bushes that will hide a person 50% of the time. 2) A step less objectively, the game designer can give you a description: This terrain type provides "Good" concealment. Or "Poor" or whatever. Penetration chances in CMx1 worked like that. A little less precise, but it gives you a clue to how the designer is choosing to represent reality. 3) A big step further in the subjective direction is to let the graphics stand for themselves. It's muddy - treat it like you'd treat mud in real life. This introduces an uncertainty surrounding the limitations on graphically representing reality in a game. You don't know if 'muddy' is a little muddy or really muddy or somewhere in between. In the real world, you have a bunch of visual and other cues to determine how muddy 'muddy' is. In a game, you have to guess what the designer had in mind for muddy. The closer the graphical representation is, and the more subtle the gradations in terrain in-game are, the better this works. If you have terrain tiles for "light mud" vs. "moderate mud" vs. "heavy mud" that helps the player guess (and is really no different in effect than #2 above - saying you have a Good v. Moderate v. Low chance of bogging, or whatever). Of course, the more terrain types you have to distinguish grades of terrain, the greater the complexity for the player and the steeper the learning curve. Even if you could, for instance, faithfully render graphically a field down to a photographic level of detail in game, so that you literally saw an exact visual representation, there would still be the issue of my interpretation of that field vs. the game designers. Again, picture me and a buddy having the "can your truck get across that muddy field" argument. Represent it absolutely photographically faithfully in game form. Whether the truck gets across the field in game has nothing to do with whether it would get across the field in reality or how well I'm able to judge whether the truck would make it across the field in reality - it has everything to do with whether the game designer thinks it should make it across the field in reality. In short (I know, too late for that) the issue is that in reality, there is one source of error - my judgment (based on the previous experience and knowledge I bring to the situation). In a game there are two sources of error - my judgment, and the game designer's judgment (really three - there's also the game designer's ability to make the game conform to his judgment). I think what GAJ is really asking for is "1) Help me understand the reality you are trying to represent by giving graphics in the UI and 2) Help me eliminate the error associated with differences between the game designer's judgments about reality and my own." The person who says "I have no idea how much woods terrain protects my men unless I'm given a number" underestimates how much the graphics can do to answer this question. The person who says "Just look at the game and do what you would in reality" overestimates the power of the graphics to answer this question. The reality is somewhere in the middle and exactly where it should be is really a matter of taste. It's worth noting that the more the game is set up for a player to intuit the game designer's decisions, the steeper the learning curve is going to be, as the player needs to gain enough experience in the "reality" of the game world in order to learn the game designer's underlying assumptions about reality. Whereas the more the game gives players objective style information about these assumptions, the easier it is for new players to break into the game. In the more intuitive style, new players are more apt to become frustrated and give up the game as they come across situations where their assumptions about reality diverge from the game designers. My sense is from playing the game and from the discussions about it is that CMx2 is pretty far down the "intuitive" scale. This is neither good or bad in an objective sense. It does come with the reality that it places a high bar for entry into the game for new players.
  4. Sure, I'm always looking for someone new to get beat by. It keeps my self-esteem low. I'll shoot you a PM over there...
  5. I've been hanging out mostly at World at War lately - lot of good players, a great ladder, and easy to find either on or off ladder games. Curious as to where other people are finding games?
  6. That thread sort of begs the "how do you know?" question in regard to HQ combat bonuses affecting firepower. I guess "what the heck else would a combat bonus affect?" would be a reasonable question in response...
  7. I think maybe that is a bad assumption - a quick test showed no change in the stated FP in or out of command. Of course, another quick test showed no change in stated FP no matter what combat bonus I gave the HQ. Are you sure that combat bonuses increase FP? If so, it doesn't show on the stated FP number when you target a unit...
  8. Vehicles that get bogged into immobilization sometimes go back to 'bogged' status, but are, of course, stuck where they lie. They start the next game with a chance to unbog, or they can go back to immob'ed. Had it happen even when they're in NML. If they're behind the enemies line, they abandon. At least, that's been my experience...
  9. Interesting on the auto-surrender. I did a quick check - it turns out you will get auto-surrendered, but it appears that you must lose your entire force and not have any reinforcements coming in subsequent battles in order to trigger it, a set of circumstances which I can't imagine actually happens often. (Didn't test every circumstance - for instance, if you lose your entire force and reinforcements don't come for a few battles afterwards). It is strange to see the game go on with no units on the board, though - all the enemy units go to contact markers... Interesting stuff, SteveP. Do you know what happens if the defender pushes the attacker off the back of the map? Does that give the defender a victory, or does the game just go on with the map not moving back any more in the next battle?
  10. Been playing a few ops lately, some observations re: your observations... 1) It seems to me like the map (and the lines) move with respect to the relative "centers of gravity" of the attackers and defenders force. Thus a narrow, deep penetration may well move the map considerably in the attacker's favor, provided the bulk of the attacker's force has moved down the map. It's not so much the width of the penetration as the amount of your force you've moved forward from the starting lines. Conversely, if the defender moves his force forward of his starting position, he can offset gains by the attacker, or even move the map backwards, if he holds the attacker and moves his own force forward. I would suggest that the relevant issue is position of the forces relative to the starting lines, rather than size of penetration. Of course, if you push the defender back all along the lines, and penetrate in a few places, that'll certainly push the lines back, because the defender's forces are pushed back. 2) Definitely seen units too far forward of the main line not get resupplied. Never seen them "locked," but certainly units too far forward appear outside setup zones or in different colored setup zones than their base, so it's either pull 'em all the way back to the main line or leave 'em in place. Don't know if that's what the manual is talking about. 3) Points don't matter at all, except for determining global morale. As you say, as long as the defender has a couple men, he could win if the attacker doesn't make it to the end of the map (or wherever he needs to for victory if it's an attack). However, losing too many troops for the defender will trigger an auto-surrender and give a victory to the attacker no matter where the map is. Just my 2 cents on what I've seen in ops...
  11. One other difference - all vehicle MGs have a max range of 1000m, regardless of type (which is further confirmation that they are treated as something other than their unmounted counterparts). Not that this makes a huge practical difference, in that you're probably not going to be hosing targets 1000m off, anyway...
  12. Just to be clear, the effect is: Unit, say a gun, in command of a leader with a combat bonus. Gun shoots at a target unit. If the leader has LOS to the target unit as well, combat bonus applies. If the leader does not have LOS to the target unit, the combat bonus does not apply. I'm all but certain it applies to both CMBB and CMAK, not sure about CMBO. It's easily demonstrated if you set up a test with a gun firing on a tank - watch the hit chances change based on whether or not the HQ can see the tank.
  13. To be fair, there are a lot of events that appear random, but in fact are not. I think DC's inquiry was along the lines of "this appears random, I sort of expect it to be random, but was just wondering if anyone had stumbled across anything to suggest there was some non-random trigger, even though I expect there not to be".
  14. For the record, my purely anecdotal experience is that the biggest influencing factor is morale state - they'll almost never let fly if not at 'OK'. Um...is there a difference in the frequency of satchel chucking if you area target a unit v. directly targeting them?
  15. Ran a quick test, lining up a whole bunch of engineers of varying experience levels, and let 'em have at it. I learned...nothing much. Granted there probably weren't enough of them for any kind of statistical significance, but they all started chucking satchels pretty quick, starting, oddly enough, with the conscripts. Everyone (talking 30+ squads here) chucked at least one satchel in the first turn, most chucked 2, a few chucked 3, except for one green squad who held on to their satchels. Draw whatever conclusions you like. JC: How do you know this stuff? Not doubting, just curious. Is it extrapolation from ASL or did you crack the code or something? Dave: Did you get the setup I sent you? Should I expect engineers?
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