Casualties Wounded to dead

[poesel]

Personal distraction, inexperience, bad luck, etc. all come into play.

Are there any plans to simulate something like 'attention to a spot'? I'm lacking a better word here. For instance: in RL a soldier hears the sound of a vehicle. He will look in that direction and concentrate on that area. Probably ignoring all other areas until that contact is identified or something else gets his attention.

This would imply some kind of memory for an individual soldier. AFAIK they don't have one currently so I'm probably not asking for something small.

I am an excellent driver by any definition.

Aren't we all?

[Thomm]

I just know that (watching) LiveLeak made me a better driver than I already was ...

Best regards,

Thomm

[RockinHarry]

Still would like to know, what´s the big problem getting soldiers reload their rifles/arms in cover (or prone), instead of fearlessly do it fully exposed to an enemy returning fire? Same for buddy aid. Why can´t it be applied in prone position? Make some tests and count infantry losses, due to unnecessary exposure to enemy fire! How many times do you see pixel heroes go down, while their last noticable action was "reloading"?

Personally I do not want more "micro managment" as Steve works out. I rather would like to see the basic infantry SOP implemented in more realistic ways. If hide can´t be combined with any targeting orders, then be it so, but it wouldn´t be necessary, if Pixeltroopers have more brains to avoid above mentioned exposures.

[c3k]

One pair of eyeballs in CM is theoretically just as capable as another. Experience, Morale, Bonuses, Binoculars, current action, and probably some other things modify a particular pair of eyeballs to be more or less capable as another. Further, any specific pair of eyeballs has to trace a specific line of sight (LOS) between it and whatever it can potentially spot. The more eyeballs that can theoretically spot a particular enemy unit, the greater the chance that one of those pairs of eyeballs can confirm a sighting.

This is as it should be. I don't think anybody will argue against the way it works in the game, today, compared to how it works in the real world.

The problem is that in the real world there is a great amount of imperfection in spotting things. Personal distraction, inexperience, bad luck, etc. all come into play. The problem we have is coming up with a reasonable catch-all "oops, you missed it" system instead of trying (in vain) to directly simulate things such as lighting effects, shadows, blood pulsing in the eyes, short range vision focus (a HUGE problem for spotting), etc. Any time we have to roughly approximate something there's going to be arguably "unrealistic" outcomes. There's no way to prevent that from happening.

Here's an example from real life that many of you might have experienced. Recently I was about 3 hours into a 4 hour night time drive. I am an excellent driver by any definition. I constantly check my mirrors to track what's going on behind me. At this point in my drive there are only tiny pockets of artificial light because, basically, I'm driving through a forest. So it should be very easy to track the progress of cars behind me because the headlights make it quite easy to see them. Easier than in the daylight, in fact.

Yet I suddenly found a car on my immediate left that I had no idea was even close to approaching me. What's more, it wasn't going that much faster than me, so it's not like a German Autobahn example where in a blink of an eye a BMW can be passing you when just a second before there wasn't a car in sight (try driving on the Autobahn with a 4 speed POS rental car... you'll get that a LOT).

So there I am... a Crack Driver, with +2 eyeballs (I have 20/20 vision), easily spotted "enemy", good Morale and Suppression ratings, and what not. But I missed spotting the primary thing I was looking for despite no visual obstructions, good weather, and highly contrasting light/dark benefits. If this CM were a driving simulation you guys would tell me this would be IMPOSSIBLE to have happen. But real life just doesn't work that way.

And what this has to do with KIA:WIA casualties... mystery to me

Steve

Sorry man, that was me. I saw your car go by while I was waiting to turn, so I clicked my lights off and took up a tactical trail position. Then, when I thought it best, I zoomed up and closed the distance. I matched speeds with a dab of downshift so you wouldn't see my brake lights flare. (FLARE!!! I said it.) Then I turned on my headlights. I timed it just right, apparently.

It's what I do...

[Michael Emrys]

It's what I do...

You have just gone beyond peculiar. You have now entered weird.

:eek:

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

Except ... doesn't that assume that everyone is looking with the same intensity all the time?

Inherently, yes. As I said, various actions, Morale states, Experience, etc. skew the chance of spotting significantly. A 3 man unit using HUNT, for example, is going to have a lot better chances of seeing something compared to a 12 man unit which is pounding away on some target or is, itself, being pounded.

Add to this randomness to approximate "can't always be paying attention everywhere at the same time, nor paying attention all the time" which is accentuated by the above conditions. A Crack 3 man Recon Team has inherently less variation than a Conscript 12 man Squad. Which means, the 3 sets of eyeballs with the Crack team is more likely to spot things than the Conscript squad.

Now, true enough there is room for more fidelity. But that takes coding and (worse) CPU cycles. There's really only so much we can reasonably achieve given resource limitations.

Are there any plans to simulate something like 'attention to a spot'? I'm lacking a better word here. For instance: in RL a soldier hears the sound of a vehicle. He will look in that direction and concentrate on that area. Probably ignoring all other areas until that contact is identified or something else gets his attention.

To some extent this happens now. As stated, certain conditions cause the chances of spotting to go down. It's not specifically "outside of this arc x unit has y reduced chance of spotting something" because that's impractical to do from a CPU cycle standpoint. We do, however, tie this into Cover Arcs because the Arc is explicitly established by the player and there aren't too many going on at any one time. Much easier to deal with.

This would imply some kind of memory for an individual soldier. AFAIK they don't have one currently so I'm probably not asking for something small.

"Memory" was something CMx1's units lacked, but CMx2 dose have target memory for some brief (but adequate) amount of time.

Still would like to know, what´s the big problem getting soldiers reload their rifles/arms in cover (or prone), instead of fearlessly do it fully exposed to an enemy returning fire? Same for buddy aid. Why can´t it be applied in prone position? Make some tests and count infantry losses, due to unnecessary exposure to enemy fire! How many times do you see pixel heroes go down, while their last noticable action was "reloading"?

It's more complicated to do this than you probably think, but in theory... yes, it would be great to have the Soldiers take more care. However, I've seen enough combat footage to suggest that soldiers tend not to take advantage of cover as much as you probably think they should. Combat is like any Human activity... full of imperfection, compromise, and risk taking.

Steve

[Steiner14]

I am an excellent driver by any definition.

:eek: Definately Bernie wants you. Because normal humans have to cope with target conflicts like speed vs. safety.

[poesel]

We do, however, tie this into Cover Arcs because the Arc is explicitly established by the player and there aren't too many going on at any one time. Much easier to deal with.

Oh, now I'm surprised. I remembered that covered arcs had no influence on spotting probability. Or did I understand this wrong?

[akd]

AFAIK, target arcs affect spotting in so much as they affect unit/turret facing. Which is good, because wanting a unit to engage at a certain distance/arc does not necessarily go hand in hand with wanting to weight spotting to a particular area. It could in fact be counterproductive in many circumstances. (You want your units to see the enemy before they enter the killzone, not afterward.)

[RockinHarry]

It's more complicated to do this than you probably think, but in theory... yes, it would be great to have the Soldiers take more care. However, I've seen enough combat footage to suggest that soldiers tend not to take advantage of cover as much as you probably think they should. Combat is like any Human activity... full of imperfection, compromise, and risk taking.

Steve

Sure, but that highly depends on a soldiers experience/morale. As said, I´m not speaking of handling a bolt action rifle and individual reloading of single rounds, but rather changing mags and belts for a weapon. For a fully trained and/or experienced soldier it was SOP to take cover (crouch, prone, any other physical or just offerning less of a target), not less, no more. Can´t think of a reason, why a soldier that has just expended his rifle ammo while standing behind a window (example), can´t go down to crouch/prone to reload and not offer himself a nice target while doing.

I´d suspect it´s rather a lack of animations and not quite the actions itself. Same for the wannabe medics. Maybe more coding necessary, LOS calculations and such, if soldiers that are visible all of the time, suddenly go down and up again after reloading. So in this regard, It´s more complicated, I agree.

[Battlefront.com]

Oh, now I'm surprised. I remembered that covered arcs had no influence on spotting probability. Or did I understand this wrong?

AKD explained it better than I did. It puts the attention of a unit in a particular direction which, in turn, increases the chances of spotting something. But this is no different than Face, when it comes down to it.

I´d suspect it´s rather a lack of animations and not quite the actions itself. Same for the wannabe medics. Maybe more coding necessary, LOS calculations and such, if soldiers that are visible all of the time, suddenly go down and up again after reloading. So in this regard, It´s more complicated, I agree.

The major thing is soldiers will need to keep track of two spots; one for firing, one for shooting. It's not a simple to say "drop down to prone" because that take time and energy which might be completely wasteful. For example, shooting out a window probably means stepping to the side vs. going prone. It also might make no effective difference. A soldier out in the middle of a road isn't massively better off prone as he is kneeling from a cover standpoint, but the time spent getting to and from prone and the difficulty of reloading when prone might make it better to stay kneeling.

The other aspect that has to be considered is what the soldier is supposed to be doing at the time that he runs out of ammo. Moving? Well, going prone isn't a smart thing to do. Better to keep moving to cover, stop there (standing if possible), reload, then keep moving.

I know in your mind's eye this is a really simple thing to do, but it isn't.

Steve

[poesel]

Ah, ok. Thanks akd & Steve for clearing that. I was worried for a second.

[Macisle]

Very interesting thread. Thanks for the long responses, Steve.

For my part, (against the AI, a new years resolution is to start PBEMing), WIA always dwarfs KIA. But I do buddy aid religiously. The only guys that don't get it are in unreachable locations or next to a burning tank. And even then, I might send in a small team right after a cookoff to hopefully get in and out before the next one.

[womble]

As an arbitrary data point, I'm in the starting phases of a battle at the moment. No armour hits yet, just infantry suffering under bombardment and sporadic small arms. I have 6 KIAs, 2 red-base fallen wounded and 9 yellow icons. I think we have been told that yellow icons means some sort of impairing but not disabling injury, so there are probably at least some injuries that aren't really getting in the way, but will be treated at the aid station if the soldier survives (and therefore counted in the records as WIA).

Part of the discrepancy from "3:1" is going to be caused by me pushing these troops hard at the end, and some of those wounded getting dead. Our battles do usually represent the least common occasions of putatively evenly-matched forces pushing to conclusions; most man-combat-hours wouldn't be spent in the sort of battle where the walking wounded had to finish the attack.

[Battlefront.com]

Yup, and that gets us back to an age-old question... do people want to play a strict historical simulation which you can game, or a historical game with strong simulation qualities, or a historical game with little simulation qualities? Because they are all incompatible options. We've opted for the middle one, which seeks to strike a balance between pure sim and pure game (though leaning way more towards sim than game).

There's an easy way to solve most of the player related issues I raised. Simply take control away from the player. Units too beat up? They stop following your orders and instead do something else. As the battle progresses other units, which might not be in bad shape at all, also stop following your orders. Or follow them half heartedly if they aren't too egregious. At some point you'll have so little control over your forces you'll opt to end the game.

All of these elements are in CM already, however they are far more forgiving than real life. If we were to change this (and add a bunch of AI too) we would have a much more realistic experience that few people would want to play. Not really the direction we should go in

Steve

[Macisle]

Steve, to me you guys have pretty much nailed the right balance. My perspective comes from generally only using Typical or "lesser" troops (unless the scenario designer has given them to me). I don't think I've ever chosen above that from the forces selector. The same goes for armor. I'll happily fight against Tigers and Panthers, but I never use them myself. I almost always go with a PIV or StugIII of "standard" rarity.

I do like playing with the exotic halftracks and recc vehicles sometimes, though. That's the about the only time I switch of "strict" in the rarity field.

[Macisle]

Oh, and in the QB vs AI I just finished, I had 21 wounded and 4 dead.

[Apocal]

All of these elements are in CM already, however they are far more forgiving than real life. If we were to change this (and add a bunch of AI too) we would have a much more realistic experience that few people would want to play. Not really the direction we should go in

It was allegedly like this in CMBB. Did that game do poorly? I thought it was highly regarded?

[Macisle]

It was allegedly like this in CMBB. Did that game do poorly? I thought it was highly regarded?

Although I am eagerly awaiting the East Front family and intend to get the whole shebang, I played CMBB the least of the three CMx1 titles. I'm not sure why, but I think part of it is due to my not being into large/huge battles and not liking to deal with tons of units shocked out of being able to be commanded.

Oh, the hordes of cowering Russian conscripts...

[Battlefront.com]

Oh, and in the QB vs AI I just finished, I had 21 wounded and 4 dead.

We think we've struck the right balance within the game. It's also nice to see people posting results which show that CM isn't a game that is easily pigeonholed.

It was allegedly like this in CMBB. Did that game do poorly? I thought it was highly regarded?

No it wasn't, No it didn't, and Yes it was (amongst Eastern Front fans, at least). Oh, I suppose you might like a better answer to the first part, so here goes

CMBO, CMBB, and CMAK did not wrest control away from the player as I just described. Not even close to it. In fact, the current CM games largely use the same concepts in how it handles surrendering and shying away from combat.

Let me be clear. Most CM players would find their games over a few minutes after first contact the way they play *if* we bent over backwards to simulate realistic degrees of control. In fact, if we were to make the game VERY realistic we wouldn't allow players to do more than create an AI Plan for his own forces and then just watch it play out. Because that's where we'd have to move towards if we wanted to ensure the variables I mentioned were taken out of the equation.

There are a few who claim that's the sort of game they want. But I don't believe that's they'd like the outcome much. I know we wouldn't!

Although I am eagerly awaiting the East Front family and intend to get the whole shebang, I played CMBB the least of the three CMx1 titles. I'm not sure why, but I think part of it is due to my not being into large/huge battles and not liking to deal with tons of units shocked out of being able to be commanded.

You need to be VERY careful when you say things like this around here. The CMBB fanatics will cry hearsay and seek to burn you at the stake. Er, if they bothered to take the time to actually find a stake and tie you to it. No, more likely they would douse you in kerosene where you stand and get out the marshmallows

Steve

[Macisle]

You need to be VERY careful when you say things like this around here. The CMBB fanatics will cry hearsay and seek to burn you at the stake. Er, if they bothered to take the time to actually find a stake and tie you to it. No, more likely they would douse you in kerosene where you stand and get out the marshmallows

Oh, and did I mention that I actually LIKE bocage?

[Macisle]

We think we've struck the right balance within the game. It's also nice to see people posting results which show that CM isn't a game that is easily pigeonholed.

I don't think I've ever had more KIA than WIA. Usually, it's 3/4 to 1 WIA vs KIA. And, like my last battle, sometimes 5:1. Everybody got buddy aid in that one (and they never seem to pick up the MP44s!).

On the flipside, the AI usually is somewhere between 2:1 and 1:1, WIA vs. KIA.

Oh, and I play 90% as the attacker, with most battles being in the Tiny/Small unit number area. The drill is: typical inf company (usually full) plus medium mortar arty module, plus one or two typical AFVs. -Play about 70% as Allied and 30% Axis. Since CW, I usually fight against the SS and when German play as Heer or Luftwaffe.

[Michael Emrys]

The CMBB fanatics will cry hearsay...

Hearsay?

Oh, you meant heresy. Or did you?

:confused:

Michael

[JonS]

Well, since a fair number of the gripers aren't actually playing the game (Jason, Redwolf, et al), and continue to hold up CMBB (or some random board game) as the epitome of accuracy (Jason, Redwolf, et al), "hearsay" seems entirely accurate.

[Battlefront.com]

Accurate, but unintentional It's going to be a great day when a spell checker can guess that a correctly spelled word isn't the one you wanted!

Steve