The Coil

I'm a big fan of the improvised scoot-n-shoot - have them just below a ridgeline, hunt order up to the ridge with a reverse order back down the same line, timed to have them crest the ridge with 10-15 seconds left in the turn. They'll get a shot or two off, and if you want them to stay there, you can cancel the orders. If it's too hot, you change the 'hunt' to a reverse, drag it back behind them, and they back off the ridge with no command delay. You can also put in a pause for 10 or 20 seconds to give 'em more time to shoot...Always found it a lot more flexible than the real scoot and shoot, but good for getting a few shots and back under cover.

A couple things I've always wondered about, but never got around to figuring out exactly...anyone know the answers? 1) Do units spot better inside their covered arcs than outside of them (aside from the facing issue, of course) 2) When a gun or tank is aimed up on something, does the 'kill' chance reflect the kill chance of the best round available (ie T over AP), or the round most likely to be fired? Also, is it the chance of penetrating, or of actually knocking out the target? 3) What is the maximum number of turns a variable turn game can go? Is it dependant at all on the state of the battle, or is it totally random? 4) What happens when an arty spotter dies in mid-barrage? Does the rest of the barrage come down, or is it cut off the moment he dies? Any answers appreciated...

Yeah, and if you program 'em all for a 1st turn strike, it makes a really loud noise...

Ran a quick test with 21 German bunkers (all concrete, mix of types, close packed) being shelled by 8 4.5in Rocket spotters and 8 8in spotters, all regulars. Fun to watch, if nothing else. After all shells were expended, 5 bunkers had been KO'ed, all by direct hits, although many took direct hits with no effect. So maybe not a non-zero chance, but it's hard to imagine it ever making sense to shell a bunker in a real game, unless you find yourself with 5000pts of arty to spare for some reason.

Ok, so he made some predictions that didn't pan out in Earth in the Balance, but that's no reason to call the inventor of the Internet disgusting...

I think you are all missing the real problem here. PBEM players tend to play CM longer, people who don't PBEM just play it a few times and then shelve it. To the company selling a game, it doesn't matter if you play it once or a thousand times, they get the same money (this is why there are so many games out there with cool graphics and crappy gameplay - can't put a picture of your gameplay on the box). What we need here is some sort of incentive for BF to tailor their games to the tastes of those who play it more. I think you see where I'm heading here, the solution is so obvious, it suggests itself: Don't charge a set price for the game, rather charge people per time they play it, maybe a dime a play. Play it once, and think it stinks, you are only out ten cents, not fifty bucks. Play it a lot, pay more, but now BF has correspondingly more reasons to listen to your suggestions. Of course, the system would need some tweaking for international sales - for instance, in the UK you might have to pay a farthing a play or whatever, and in Canadia it'd be $72 or something. Dang, that's a good idea...

I have no doubt that they are. After all, somebody is playing campaigns. I just question whether there are enough of these kind of people to make CMC profitable. I think relatively few people are interested/committed enough to play a game that takes a 2-5 year (or whatever) commitment to play. If CMC doesn't streamline the campaign experience, I doubt there's more than a relative handful of CMBB players who'll be interested. Doesn't sound like anyone is saying it will streamline the game, esp. with 2x2 maps. If true, seems like CMC is targeted to a relatively small demographic. Obviously, your sales base is 'people who play CMBB,' seems like 'people with the time/energy/willingness to play campaigns which include lots of insignificant small platoon on platoon recce actions which last 50 turns' is a small subset of this. Auto-resolve might be somewhat of a solution, but I still wonder. I think we are in almost total agreement on this point. What makes me nervous is when people start talking like realism is the ultimate goal (see CMSF thread about immobilization ). It's not - a reasonable approximation of realism that is still fun and playable is the goal. What prompted my comment was the claim that battalions roaming the map securing flags and searching for a lone platoon was somehow more realistic than scaled maps. Here's one such claim from earlier in the thread: Maybe it's gamey and unrealistic to have scaled maps, but it's silly and unplayable to have a platoon squat in the bushes watching a much larger force roam around the map. Maybe a certain percentage of players enjoy the fun of 50 (or 30, or 55, or whatever) turns of this and see it as a fun challenge. I don't think it's a very high percentage though. My point is, realism should not trump playability and fun.

What makes you think Jason is even half correct? He is purely speculating on a game he has not seen. He doesn't know what he is talking about any more than you do. Read the web site and skim the forum and you will know as much as anyone else. You will become the expert. But, what if... what if Jason is more than correct? What if he is 200% correct? What if it takes 10 years and 200 people to complete a campaign? What if they marketed the product only to prisoners serving a life sentence who possess a penchant for World War II minutiae. Of course there would be the odd guy who's shived in the shower or those misanthropic bastards who dump a rain of artillery on their own companies. But, you can work around that. Ridiculous speculation. Find a credible source. :eek: </font>

If it takes 5 years and 100 people to complete a campaign, I gotta wonder how many people are going to really play this. JasonC, I'll assume for a moment your estimates are wildly high, and cut them in half, 2.5 years, 50 people, plus various short termers. Many of them playing battalion on platoon actions or whatever, that result in a lot of flag dancing and skulking around in the bushes. I'm wondering how many people are really going to be up for this? Sure, there's a few large campaigns going on, but is there a market to sell more than a few copies of CMC? I would bet the VAST majority of people playing CMBB don't know more than 5 other people who play with the regularity needed to finish anything other than a tiny campaign. I'm very willing to be wrong here, and I definitely could not have any idea what I'm talking about, but I wonder if there's very many people who'd snap up CMC if it took 10 people playing for a year. Sure, there's a group of people who'd be very excited to have it, but enough to make any kind of profit? On a side note - seems like there is a 'realism' vs. playability issue here. Might be 'realistic' (in some sense of the word) to have a battalion running around a 2x2 map securing flags while a platoon lurks in cover trying to gather intel for 50 turns. Doesn't sound like fun, at least not after the first time. With a lot of folks in this forum, it seems realism is the Holy Grail, without any concern for playability. Make any game too realistic, and there comes a point where it won't be fun or playable any more. I think there needs to be a recognition that realism = fun up to a certain level, then realism = tedious, boring, and/or pointless.

Birdstrike - I'm in total agreement with you here, and in substantial agreement with the rest of your post. A few clarifications: 1) I think most of the anti-bog folk don't want bogging out altogether, just open road/open ground bogging. Driving your tank through a marsh = asking for a bog. Driving your tank on the road and having it bog = Act of God (as per my definition above). 2) I don't think open bogging is a real major issue generally, haven't really had it happen that much. 3) I'm not demanding an option, just making a plea that I think is in the general interests of everybody, BF included. Me demanding anything isn't likely to make a difference, and I think Steve has been fairly clear that his mind has been made up on the bogging issue. It boils down to this, all talk of realism, lucky shots, and whether or not anyone should play chess aside: 1) People differ in their preferences as to what constitutes 'reasonable realism.' 2) One of the main areas people (who are all looking for a generally realistic game) differ about is concerning the extent to which 'Acts of God' should affect the game. 3) If BF has limited resources available to give the player control over how the game plays, concentrate on giving the player control over Act of God effects. 4) This allows lots of players to play the game in a way which maximizes their enjoyment. More fun = more money for BF, more opponents for me, more cool games from BF 5) Reasons not to include abilities to toggle these features on or off include: It takes too much coding time and too many toggles make the game unplayable. Steve has indicated that it would be relatively easy to code. There is currently one toggle that affects gameplay (FOW), it seems like we're a long way from too many. Given all that, I don't see a downside to including an open road bogging toggle. Doesn't mean take it out of the game totally, just give people the option to turn it off. Everyone wins. Like I said, I don't think bogging as it stands now is a huge issue, but the trend seems to be towards adding more 'Act of God' factors to CMX2. I just want the ability to turn them off if BF's idea of 'reasonable realism' differs too much from mine. I would think it'd be in everyone's interest to have that ability as a player. You might like their choices now, you might not in the future. Again, I just don't see a downside. 'Nuf said, last post on this topic, I promise...

Stupid was probably too harsh - sorry if I offended. In answer to your point: I see the difference as this: In order for my opponent to get a lucky first round kill, the following things need to happen- 1) My opponent needs to place a gun/AFV/whatever in a place that has LOS into my set-up zone. 2) I need to place my unit somewhere where there is LOS into my opponents set-up zone. 3) My opponent needs to decide to have his unit shoot at my unit, thereby exposing it to fire. 4) A random 'die roll' is made to determine if my unit lives or dies. In order for me to lose a vehicle to bogging on the first round, here's what needs to happen: 1) A random 'die roll' is made to determine whether or not my vehicle bogs The second sort of thing is what I'd call 'Act of God' events. FO runs across open ground, and gets shot from 600m away by enemy sniper - unfortunate, but part of the game. FO runs across open ground, steps in a hole due to random event and breaks leg - kind of annoying Act of God event. Of course, the next argument, which has been made in the past as well, is: you take your chance when you select tanks. Not a bad point, but it ignores scenarios, where you have no choice. And let us not forget, QBs are a very unrealistic way to play CM... I don't think it's a stupid or unintelligent argument, it's just one that has been made and responded to several times in this and the other thread, and people keep making it as if it should settle the issue.

True. Fact is, nobody has any idea where the majority lies, given that the vast majority of people that play CM are unaccounted for in this discussion. Any one claiming "most people want..." is just being silly. I think this is exactly the point. Steve appeared to be saying there were going to be more random bogging effects out of the players control. The whole issue, I'll state one more time, is not about making the game more realistic (although everyone seems to continue to insist it is). It is about making it more fun. Nobody wants a totally realistic game. They want a fun game. To most people playing CM realism = fun, to a point. Here's a sample list of realistic things I don't think anyone wants in the game: *FO calls in a strike - is told that battery is busy on another fire mission, they'll get him his strike in 30 minutes. *Every once in a while a plane flies through and friendly fire smart bombs your troops. *You spend an hour setting up your forces fro a battle. 3 turns in, your recon elements are creeping forward. Suddenly the general calls, telling you the attack is called off. Woohoo! Realistic! What fun we are having. Simple fact is, the amount of realism people want is variable. What tends to annoy people about games is when Act of God happenings have too great of an influence on the outcome of a game. Thus, it seems to me that it makes good sense to give people options about Act of God things. What concerns me a little is that Steve seems to be saying that the trend is toward more of this sort of thing. Only reasons not to give people the option are because of the time it takes to put in and because at some point, 100 toggles gets sorta umplayable. It seems like it wouldn't take a lot of time. Given that there are no toggles for anything like this now (except maybe FOW - interestingly, seems like if you don't like an immobility toggle, you should also be lobbying for removing that option too), I think we're a long way from unplayability. I'd be interested to know what else changes with the 'realism' toggle (hmm...maybe FOW). Seems like in the name of appeasing the 'no boggers' we could end up with an option nobody likes. Anyway, my point continues to be: give me as much choice as you can. If you've gotta make choices about what options you put in my hands, concentrate on giving me choice over Act of God effects. I know there's a limit, in terms of resources and playability, just doesn't seem like we're near it. *Attempt to pre-empt stupid response posts: 1) If you don't understand the difference between a tank bogging in a road on turn 1 and someone shooting your tank, think about it real hard. Resist the urge (as so many have not) to assert that this is some sort of counter argument to anything that is being discussed here. 2) Don't explain to me why my realistic scenarios that nobody wants in CM aren't really realistic. I'm no grog. If you don't like mine, make up some of your own. Point remains. 3) Having an immobilization toggle will not make it impossible to find PBEM games. Especially because of the overwhelming majority (ha ha!) of people who will be playing with it set to 'extreme wacky chaos'

2 questions: 1) Isn't that a Kawai Mark IV piano? Those weren't available in Europe until September, 1948, at the earliest. 2) Whose reinforced steel tumbrel cart mod are you using?

Steve, Thanks for your thoughts (and for reading those absurdly long posts). Final thought, and I'll keep it quick. As you noted, for me the issue really isn't immobilization, it's player control vs. developer control. This is undoubtedly true. Anything you chose to put in means something else doesn't make it in, opportunity cost, blah blah blah, etc. For you, it is probably fun to design what is in your view the ideal game. For me, playing your ideal game is a limitation. I want to play my ideal game. Now, you could, justifiably, say to me 'well, go make your own game, then, buddy.' Reality is, you do it better than I could, and 99% of the time I agree with your version of an ideal game. I'm just saying, give me as much control to fiddle with the other 1% as you can, so I can make myself happier playing your game. When it gets to cumbersome/annoying/technically impossible to give me control of something, don't, and I'll have to live with that. But when you give me (and others) more control, we play it more, play it longer, and convince other people to play it. More people playing CM is good, for you, for me, for everyone, even if other people are playing it in a way I personally think is stupid. I think giving the player control is especially important when dealing with deus ex machina-like effects that the player can not act to mitigate, since these are the things that tend to annoy players to the point of not playing a game any longer. 'Nuff said (too much, actually). Steve, thanks for taking the time to hear my concerns - no need to respond further.

Steve, I hear what you are saying, but I still think the main issues are being a little oversimplified. Let me attempt to clarify: this is not a debate between those who want CM to be totally predictable (call 'em chess players) and those who want it to be totally unpredictable (call 'em bingo players)(cue bingo grogs rushing to their keyboards to insist bingo takes a considerable amount of skill). Rather, it is a debate about where on the continuum it should be. Some want it to be a little more predictable, some want it a little less. Nobody wants complete predictability or complete randomness - otherwise they'd go play chess or bingo. The want to play CM, because it is a fun game - they would just prefer to play it at a place on the luck/skill continuum that is most fun to them. In the same way, nobody wants a totally unrealistic game. I don't think many people want a totally realistic game. I, for one, don't want my soldier to keel over from an asthma attack, or see my platoon commander fragged by one of his troops because they had personality conflicts. There is an acceptable level of realism that I find fun in CM, without taking it too far. Other people may have a different idea of what that level is. Some people may like it when the fleem sprocket on their tank fails, others might not. The reality is most people play CM because they like it a lot better than RTS games. I would venture to say most people playing CM would land at the high end of the reality scale. I don't think the goal is total realism. For instance, choosing the parameters of a quick battle has nothing to do with realism. A 'real' commander doesn't get to choose the size of the map, he doesn't get to choose whether he wants to attack or defend, he doesn't get to pick the weather conditions. These are not 'realistic' options - they are included because they make the game more enjoyable and enhance the game's replayability. If I want to play exclusively meeting engagement quick battles, I can do that, even though they 'hardly ever happened.' If I want to fight 20 Tigers with 100 Stuarts, I can do that (I think). If you don't like it, you can play purely historical scenarios. However, if you went the realistic route, and set the game up so that it only let people play historic scenarios with verifiably realistic force mixes, and didn't let people choose what kind of battle they wanted to play, but just ordered them into combat (real commanders don't get to decide how many points their command is), you'd have a more realistic game, but I bet not many people would want to play it. Here is my basic point (if anyone is still reading this): we all have a different idea about the 'proper level' of realism that makes the game most fun. The less control you give me over the game, the more I am stuck playing a game that is set to your idea of the 'proper level.' The more control you give me, the more I can adjust it to my own idea of the enjoyable game. I will keep playing CM because it is an unbelievably fun game. I don't want to play bingo or chess or RTS games, because I don't find them as fun. However, if I had more control over more parameters in the game, I could make it even more fun. Someone else has a different idea of fun, let them set things their way. We'll all be happy. Like I said before, I'm not so much arguing against immobilization as I am arguing for giving players as much control as possible. I think the question really comes down to: are you making the game that you think is the ultimate game, or that I (and your other customers) think is the ultimate game? I think most people playing CM share most of your idea of what the ultimate game should look like, otherwise they would be playing other games. I just want control over those areas where we disagree. I realize that there are a skillion different options and toggles you could throw in the game, and that's where you as the developer have to make choices. My plea is: give me as much control as you can. In that vein, I think the realism toggle is a great step (although when I turn it off, my tank better not have hit points). Hope I'm not sounding too critical - I think CM is a great game, just don't want to miss a chance for it to be even better.

As in the thread on the CMBB forum, the pro-bogging crowd seems to be missing the point of the anti-boggers (full disclosure: I don't have strong opinions on the bogging issue, I'll buy it and play it either way). The point is NOT whether or not boggin is realistic. The point IS that bogging a significant risk into the game that the player can not control/avoid/mitigate in any way. The pro-bogging crowd seems to not want to answer this point, instead advancing several unrelated arguments: 1) It's realistic (everyone agrees to this, on both sides). 2) There's chance involved in every aspect of the game (sure, but the issue isn't the element of chance, but whether or not a player can influence the level of risk involved). 3) Everyone likes bogging. It seems to me (as a somewhat neutral observer) that it makes a lot of sense to give the user control over the issue. People who like random chance events can toggle "wacky catastrophe mode" on, and have their radio communications interrupted by sunpots and their FO's struck by lightening. People who don't want their company commander to desert mid-battle to be with his Syrian girlfriend can toggle it off. Everyone is happy. As (I believe) JasonC said in the CMBB thread, giving the player more control over the parameters of the game tends to make happier players who play the game more. Possible reasons to not include such a mode, that occur to me off the top of my head, include: 1) Adding this feature would mean not adding some other, better feature (or be too much trouble to code, or something). 2) We make the games, you just play them, little maggot. 3) We put features in the game only in response to majority opinion, as it is expressed in non-random sampling of really old threads. There may be other, better reasons that I haven't thought of or that haven't been mentioned. In my mind, the only decent reason is reason #1, some technical limitation. #2 isn't. #3 is just silly (opinions should be weighed, not counted, a wise man once told me). Anyway, like I said, no strong opinion on the bogging, BUT I see no downside for increased player control of any aspect of the game, as long as it's technically feasible. If a feature gives me a greater ability to customize the game to my own liking, I think the question for me becomes, "why not include it?" Because you don't like the idea that someone else somewhere else in the world might be playing CM with no chance of their tank throwing a track?

1-2 per day. But I wouldn't characterize it as a struggle. Struggle sort of says "I could turn out 20 turns a day, if it wasn't for this dang wife and child and job and eating and sleeping and all..." I think of it more as a voluntary limit in the interests of greater priorities in real life. I just play for fun. Really. I could quit today if I wanted to. I just don't want to...

I thought they only escaped if another unit got near them. Anyway, you gotta do something with those crews, might as well guard prisoners.

The T-45 HVAP round was developed, but never got past the experimental...oops, wrong thread.

Thanks for the thoughts. JasonC - am I right to hear you saying that cover is not cumulative, i.e. that a trench in woods does not provide more cover than a trench in the open? It seems(counterintuitively, to me) like (given the effect of treebursts) trenches in the open actually provide better protection. Although the tradeoff maybe is in terms of concealment?

I've played a bit of CMBO, new to CMAK. What can anyone tell me about using trenches - specifically, what are the relative advantages/disadvantages of placing them in different terrain types, and how many squads is it advisable to put in each trench?