Christmas Bone

[dan/california]

Something that vastly increased the penalty for scattering elements of a platoon all over the map certainly seems appropriate. Just a better graphical representation of the current morale hit would be very useful. There is a reason they tried like heck not to do that in the real world. Even with modern comms mixing units up willy nilly does NOT enhance performance.

[Wodin]

I think things like terrain FOW and other requested features that would make the game more realistic would actually start to take the fun and gameplay out of the "game". They sound exciting and great on paper but once implemented in game could turn the game into a frustrating and confusing experience. Say you throw in friendly FOW aswell...try and imagine playing it.

[womble]

Something I've noticed from personal experience chivvying combatants across battlefields is that momentum is important. If you keep the recalcitrant, oblivious, unmotivated ones moving, they'll keep moving and doing (roughly) what you want. If you let them stop, then getting them moving again is the devil's own job.

I've also remembered that there's an already a "GTFO" button that could be considered to be the player's ability to cause an element to react to its immediate tactical situation (and which is thoroughly flexible now that all up to date installations allow its way point to be moved).

Combining those two things, it seems to me that it wouldn't be beyond reasonable for a delay for the first order only, which would be set in abeyance if the "Evade" order (CMBN 2.11 manual p55) was used for the first waypoint. Comments on the "Evade" order have left me with the impression that it adversely impacts the morale of the unit so ordered, so I've very little experience with it, since "Fast" "Get out of there" orders have sufficed for most purposes.

I'm not talking about minutes, but just a few seconds of "inertia" for an element that's handed a new set of orders. It could be a highly variable amount, or it could depend on how long they've had to settle down: if they've had chance to spark up or get a brew on, it'll take longer to get them out of their bivvies than if they've only just arrived. If the element has poor initial soft factors, or has soft factor status that is badly degraded it'll take longer yet.

[Dadekster]

On a somewhat related note I can't help but chuckle when I think of BF going through this and seeing 'suggestions' and they just roll their eyes and wonder if we have any concept of what it would take to code/implement this stuff. For that I apologize.

[sburke]

On a somewhat related note I can't help but chuckle when I think of BF going through this and seeing 'suggestions' and they just roll their eyes and wonder if we have any concept of what it would take to code/implement this stuff. For that I apologize.

rotflmao very true, but hey, it can't hurt to make suggestions. If they are too complicated to include now, that doesn't mean they will be too difficult later. The hardest part later may be not so much an issue of adding it, but doing so in a way that the player doesn't feel overwhelmed. I'll be very happy the day that I don't see that gap appear in a hedgerow/fence a mile from my closest trooper.

[MikeyD]

vastly increased the penalty for scattering elements of a platoon all over the map certainly seems appropriate.

Don't worry, you'll no more be able to scatter Soviet teams around the map than you can Italians and Syrian currently in the other titles.

(as the fine print often states, this feature is subject to change without notice by the manufacturer. )

[sburke]

Sitting here after having just sent another turn back to Broadsword in our current battle for Son (first battle of our Market Garden campaign and prelude to a much larger fight for Eindhoven). It is now over 45 minutes in and we are still fighting in the woods on the outskirts of the town, a brutal battle to put it mildly. If we were to have command delays included I think BF would have to extend the max time of a game. Forget having large battles on huge maps otherwise. You'd spend most of your time waiting for units to do something and 4 hours wouldn't cut it. As it is I expect this battle would be at least 50% longer if not more.

Problem is, the actual orders and planning phase for this fight would have been the initial point of entering the woods, maybe about a half hour ago. I don't think the company commander would have been issuing orders since then so much as the platoon and squad leaders urging their men forward (in Broadsword's case) and the team leaders yelling "pullback" (in my case). However any game run command delay would then include delays on all these instances. In effect it would render the squad and team leaders irrelevant as they would have no ability to act on their own tactically. Not sure I'd be real thrilled with that. I would after all like to complete this battle before BF releases their next game.

[Erwin]

On a somewhat related note I can't help but chuckle when I think of BF going through this and seeing 'suggestions' and they just roll their eyes and wonder if we have any concept of what it would take to code/implement this stuff. For that I apologize.

It's certainly a valid point for more new features that have never before existed in the CM series. But, the selectable waypoint and command delay features were already in CM1 and were taken out of CM2 'cos some folks had issue with them.

And re sburke's point about scenario length, I love the sneaking around recon aspect of the game. There are way too many straight ahead assaults that pressure you too much with time limits and they become very repetitive after you've played a dozen or so.

On a related note: The most enjoyable part of CM2 is putting yourself in the position of your living breathing pixeltruppen and thinking "what would I do if I was the one who could get my ass shot off?". In some scenarios you have to be careful from the first few meters of movement - and that's great for cautious players (like me). But, many scenarios have dozens, sometimes hundreds of meters to cross before entering a danger zone. And I find myself taking sometimes half or more of the game's time limit carefully sneaking forward only to realize my men could have safely run the first few hundred yards to take up position. Of course by then, I am short on time and have to play with reckless abandon losing many men just to "win" the scenario.

If the designer intends for one to carefully recon a few hundred yards then we need the time. If contact is imminent, perhaps that could be clearer in the briefing. Due to patrols that would be ongoing in RL, one is rarely in complete ignorance of how far one can safely move before entering dangerous locations covered by enemy positions.

[Freyberg]

Instead of command delays, to simulate a single commander, you could have an interface that only allows a commander to give the same orders scenario designers can give when controlling the AI - setting groups of units, setting terrain objectives and simple, general orders to groups ('advance', 'ambush 700m' etc)- with all actual combat and movement orders to be handled by the AI.

However, the player should be able to give, say, 6 normal CM commands per move, to any unit within immediate command radius of the CinC. Troops out of command turn to icons, most enemy are icons, except those visible to officers in the command chain. Any change of orders recieves a command delay, but the AI will continue to move troops according to previous orders. The AI does almost everything. Large parts of the battle may even take place invisible to the player, just a few ghostly icons.

It would be realistic. It would actually be quite fun to play, easier, and different to CM. It would encourage players to play lead from the front line where they can give direct orders to units. But it wouldn't be as fun as playing the regular way where you command every team.

[sburke]

Instead of command delays, to simulate a single commander, you could have an interface that only allows a commander to give the same orders scenario designers can give when controlling the AI - setting groups of units, setting terrain objectives and simple, general orders to groups ('advance', 'ambush 700m' etc)- with all actual combat and movement orders to be handled by the AI.

However, the player should be able to give, say, 6 normal CM commands per move, to any unit within immediate command radius of the CinC. Troops out of command turn to icons, most enemy are icons, except those visible to officers in the command chain. Any change of orders recieves a command delay, but the AI will continue to move troops according to previous orders. The AI does almost everything. Large parts of the battle may even take place invisible to the player, just a few ghostly icons.

It would be realistic. It would actually be quite fun to play, easier, and different to CM. It would encourage players to play lead from the front line where they can give direct orders to units. But it wouldn't be as fun as playing the regular way where you command every team.

Unfortunately the AI won't recon by fire/use smoke/breach to avoid a street covered by an MG etc etc

This is where I think command delays and alternative command levels break the tactical flexibility of your team leaders and getting the AI to do this sort of stuff would take years and years of BF's dev time. Fact is they'd probably go under trying to do it and honestly, I don't want a game that plays itself.

[Childress]

Yo Childress, you should see what he calls his "girlfriend".

Why the scare quotes? Do tell more! The mind reels.

[Battlefront.com]

Just so you guys know...

In a perfect world I'd make the game require two levels of planning. One would basically setup objectives, time tables, boundaries, and some basic parameters. Specific groups of units would then be assigned to specific portions of the overall plan. This would be done before the game started. In a sense, basically similar in concept (but not execution) as an AI Plan, AI Groups, and AI Orders that are in the game now.

During the game the player would issue tactical commands to all units. However, those commands would have to fit in with whatever the units were assigned to do. Firing artillery from Group 1 into Group 2's sector, without it being in the overall plan, would not be automatically allowed unless that was part of the plan. To override the plan certain game conditions would have to be met, including perhaps random approval/denial.

Just like in real life The end result would be that the player would have control over both the overall battle plan (unless locked down by the scenario designer) and also realistic levels of tactical control.

Unfortunate this is a mountain of work. Months and months of coding would have to go into this feature. Worse, we would have to make it optional because a lot of players wouldn't want to play with it. And that means spending a vast amount of our limited resources on something that isn't appealing to our whole audience.

Which you'll never see this in CM, even though it's a damned good concept for how to reign in unrealistic tactical control without systems that, tactically, make no sense at all.

Steve

[BLSTK]

Why the scare quotes? Do tell more! The mind reels.

Suffice to say, the girlfriend in question also answers to "Whimsy".

[Dadekster]

I agree with sburke on this one.

I envision that you still get to select what each unit does except that the orders are curtailed more to something that only squad leaders would do in their position and then only if they are in communication. Maybe restrict the assault option and the distance a unit can move? Generally a squad leader alone does not decide when to attack an objective and in what manner and the orders menu and more importantly the amount of time to get this done should reflect that. If he is within comms of the LT then he and other squads in the platoon can all receive appropriate orders relatively quickly. If you sent 4th squad to the other side of the map because it was the only unit with a faust/zook at the time when that tank showed up...well you're SOL. It's not going to receive orders any time soon from the LT. Will the squad make it back to the platoon? Of course...the squad leader will eventually come up with a plan and get it done but he'd have done it a lot quicker had the LT told him too. This does not mean I support the squad sitting there for 10 minutes with its thumb up its collective rear end btw. The amount of time this squad would be moving again would be subjective to all the usual stuff. Training, experience, morale etc etc. It'll still react if shot at and seek better cover and you could tell it to hide or set a targeting arc yourself as well to reflect what the squad leader would do. But getting it to move halfway back across the map might take a bit longer.

Right now we are godlike and know where everything is at any moment to include what the status is of every squad and vehicle in game. We know what is going on in every commanders head from the colonel to every staff sergeant on the battlefield. It's no wonder the AI is a pushover...no disrespect to BF (they do mention this in their manual though). I find that we are entirely too efficient at running a battlefield and personally I have no issue with throwing a bit of sand into the gears to level out the field of battle. To counteract this I'd say do the same with this as it exists with thing like medical aid, info sharing etc. Novice would be as it is now. Ironman would as real as it can be made. Bottom line I guess is that units that are out of their CoC should appear sluggish. Right now they zip along as if they have the battalion CO on speed dial. :eek:

***

Ninja'd in slow-mo...

[Michael Emrys]

The game needs a formal planning stage instead of the current opening turn/set up phase. At an absolute minimum this phase should include phase lines with times of arrival, movement corridors, and general areas that it is acceptable to area fire blindly. The area fire designations could be tied to the phase lines. Such that area fire into a copse of woods is allowed until the plan says it should be occupied by your own side.

Now here is the first trick, any orders that are within the units preplanned movement and fire zones have zero delay. The second trick is make a unit do something outside of it briefed and mapped plan you get delays. These delays are affected by all the factors already discussed exhaustively above.

For my money this is the most sensible suggestion that I have read up to this point. To enlarge on it just a bit, what dan says about generating a plan for the battle at the outset, designating which units will belong to what force (platoons or in some cases companies) and giving each force a sector to operate within, either lanes for the attacker or a part of the front for a defender. As long as a force remains within its boundaries, a player can give orders in exactly the same way that we already do with fairly instantaneous responses by his troops. This would represent orders given by squad and platoon leaders on the spot. If a force is required to do something outside the plan, such as responding to an enemy force appearing unexpectedly in a location or manner that cannot be ignored or dealt with within the plan, then orders requiring an adjustment of the plan (in effect shifting force boundaries or direction of attack), it is assumed that the necessary orders are originating at a higher echelon and will take some minutes to effect. However, at the outset the player can designate a force as his reserve. This can be committed to any part of the battle with minimal delay, but once committed follows the same rules as already committed units.

Something like this is how I see it working in WEGO. RT is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. As some have pointed out, RT can impose its own command delays if the player is so consumed with what is happening on one part of the battlefield that he fails to notice something developing on another part. This raises the question of what to do with pauses. For the moment, I'd rather leave this subject for later and to those with experience in this play mode.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Unfortunate[ly] this is a mountain of work. Months and months of coding would have to go into this feature. Worse, we would have to make it optional because a lot of players wouldn't want to play with it. And that means spending a vast amount of our limited resources on something that isn't appealing to our whole audience.

Which you'll never see this in CM, even though it's a damned good concept for how to reign in unrealistic tactical control without systems that, tactically, make no sense at all.

This is a point I meant to make in my previous post but forgot to. This is not something I would expect to see in CMx2 and therefore not something that would appear in the next couple of years...if ever; Steve's last paragraph is not encouraging for fans of the feature. And with good reason. All though I tried to make the best case for the feature I could, TBH I am not certain in my own mind that I would be enthusiastic about playing with it. CM is laborious enough for me as it is. Adding more things to do before I can even get underway is...hmmm, well let's say a questionable proposition.

For me, this whole discussion brings me back to the point of why I am lukewarm about tactical games in the first place. Trying to model all the relevant factors in some kind of reasonable proportion while keeping the whole thing playable in a fun way rapidly approaches the impossible. BFC is to be commended for inventing a system which while not perfect is a tolerable compromise between a host of conflicting requirements.

Michael

[Duckman]

Just so you guys know...

In a perfect world I'd make the game require two levels of planning. One would basically setup objectives, time tables, boundaries, and some basic parameters. Specific groups of units would then be assigned to specific portions of the overall plan. This would be done before the game started. In a sense, basically similar in concept (but not execution) as an AI Plan, AI Groups, and AI Orders that are in the game now.

During the game the player would issue tactical commands to all units. However, those commands would have to fit in with whatever the units were assigned to do. Firing artillery from Group 1 into Group 2's sector, without it being in the overall plan, would not be automatically allowed unless that was part of the plan. To override the plan certain game conditions would have to be met, including perhaps random approval/denial.

Just like in real life. The end result would be that the player would have control over both the overall battle plan (unless locked down by the scenario designer) and also realistic levels of tactical control.

With something like this you could of course force the player to act much more historically correct.

It would be especially beneficial for simulating how e.g. the British fought much more "according to plan" which led them to sometimes miss tactical opportunities, and for modelling Soviet and Soviet-inspired (Arab, Chinese etc) forces both in WWII and later. Tight timetables and general bad planning could also be recreated by locking the player down tight.

Unfortunate this is a mountain of work. Months and months of coding would have to go into this feature. Worse, we would have to make it optional because a lot of players wouldn't want to play with it. And that means spending a vast amount of our limited resources on something that isn't appealing to our whole audience.

I can only agree here. It sounds like a plan for financial suicide.

[poesel]

+1 to the planning phase. Even if it had no limiting effect on troop movement it would be a great tool to remember oneself of what the plan was. There are usually several games going on at the same time and some run for months. Its sometimes hard to remember what you wanted to do originally.

An overlay where you could draw (line, arrow, circle, text) on the map would be more than enough.

General time delays I wouldn't like. But then I haven played x1 so I can't say. But I would understand that there would be a time delay for units out of C2. Would make perfect sense to encourage unit cohesion.

Limiting the complexity (=number of commands) by unit experience is IMHO a good idea. If conscripts could be ordered only one way point at a time - that would make them really feel very 'conscripty'!

Just my 2c - great posts here.

[Duckman]

If conscripts could be ordered only one way point at a time - that would make them really feel very 'conscripty'!

That's a great idea. Simple to understand and presumably simple to implement as well.

One of the big problems in wargames is modelling the effects of training, experience, and doctrine. It usually gets conflated into a single number or modifier, which is understandable but doesn't really capture how better troops are more efficient and can do more stuff in a shorter time. Clumsier order giving could go some way towards simulating how more proficent troops could often run tactictal rings around bumbling rookies.

The Close Combat games actually solved this in a good way by giving the Germans separate MG and rifle squads, which made them a lot more tactically nimble. CM is fairly liberal when it comes to slitting squads, but some restrictions could be in order in the future to simulate e.g. early war Soviets.

[womble]

One waypoint at a time to get up a zig-zag bocage-lined road, for your conscript supply truck drivers? Really?

[Duckman]

One waypoint at a time to get up a zig-zag bocage-lined road, for your conscript supply truck drivers? Really?

There are weaknesses in every concept. :-)

[Dadekster]

Or make vehicles an exemption to this to simulate that they are more mobile? Besides how fast do you expect a deuce and a half to go careening down a twisty road anyways? Actually I retract that statement, it's probably being driven by an 18 year old Really though I can see giving vehicles more waypoints than say a squad of men. Not to much 'cohesion' required for one guy to drive a truck versus getting 9 guys to move in same direction if you follow me.

[BLSTK]

...if you follow me.

Funny you should say that. But that is for another thread.

[Los]

This is all solved with coop...

<broken record>

[LukeFF]

There are weaknesses in every concept. :-)

There are way too many weaknesses in the concept for it to work, and I guarantee on day 1 of such a feature being implemented there would be vast calls here for it to be removed.