Discussion of Campaign features

[Guest Big Time Software]

I closed up the previous thread because it was a LOOOOOONG load AND the last message (by Lokesa) was corrupted. So here is his question again:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>On the campaign subject. I have had a vision. I see a campaign club. I see people designing campaigns representing multiple parts of the same battle. I see the results of said battles being recorded. I see a larger map and team members allocating avaliable reserves. I see new campaigns being made and distributed to partipants. I see time and effort being required as well as the need for more knowledgable historians than I. What do you think guys?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oooooh... that sounds good This is something that could work out very easily, for either scenarios or campaigns. There would have to be some neutral (Umpire) who sets up the campaigns, but it could work out very easily, though it would be a major investment of time and energy from many people. But Grognards are just the type to do it

We are planning on dumping end results out to TXT for PBEM games (for ladder play ranking), so perhaps we can look at doing this for scenarios and campaigns as well.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>One approach we could take would be to predesign all the maps for an area and then edit them as needed to suit our purposes. We wouldn't necesarally use them all, it would depend on battles won or lost as well as team or command descisions between battles. Who has access to good maps from the period?

BTS, is there any reason this would not be feasible? Please contribute <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

When we ship we will post all sources for maps that we, and our testers, have come upon. If anybody finds sources post-release, we will update the section. Finding this stuff is tough, so there is no point in making EVERYBODY struggle through the map making process.

Steve

[CRourke]

Just some thoughts accumulated from the previous subj.

First off, lemme just say that I agree with BTS on most everything... I think the "bigmap" campaign system is one of the best wargaming ideas to be had in awhile. I'm glad to see the company taking the grognard high ground on this one.

But, thats not to say that PzGen and CC2 type stuff isn't fun. I think every wargamer has deep in his heart a desire to build up his own army/division/company/etc, masterfully integrating weapons, men and vehicles. We want to not only outsmart the enemy on the battle field, but outdesign him before the battle by wisely spending our "prestige points" (or what have you) to create the perfect force. But, fun as it is (at least to me) I am forced to conceed that its totally inappropriate in CM.

A suggestion for CM2: So I agree, its silly to allow players to custom design their force of 7 Koenig Tigers, 2 Panthers, 1 Hetzer, and 9 FT teams. And I further agree that its silly to take your unit on the whirlwind tour of european battlefields (Quick men, kill those british paratroopers.. we have to be back on the gustav line in 5 hours). But what I think would be plausible and possible would be to allow the player to step into the shoes of a company commander for part of the war. Sure, you may get to spend "points" or whatnot "buying" support for a specific battle, but this won't carryover (or at least only for the duration of a subcampaign). There will be no upgrading of your 2nd 60mm mortar section to an AVRE. Your infantry company remains just that, except possibly for periodic upgrades of eqipment. Will you get to fight on every major battle field of the war? No, but it won't matter because, and I feel the need to put this in caps, THIS IS A TACTICAL GAME PEOPLE (BTS, feel free to copy that statement and make it into a macro). On the scale we're looking at, there isn't that much differance between defending an urban area from SS troops that happens to be bastogne and defending some other miscellaneous urban area from SS troops in a battle that was otherwise to small to make the front pages. Does it matter if your companies assualt on a fortified german position is actually part of some famous battle? Front the grunts-eye view, the war just a grueling series of engagements, some which made the history books, most which didn't.

In the previous mega-thread, I think steve pointed out that a long term campaign such as this would have problems dealing with unit attrition between battles due do snipers, random barrages, etc, and that over the course of time, units recieved so many replacements anyway, that the force quickly lost any "character" between major battles.

First, it is true, many units in WW2 ended up receiving numbers of replacements far bigger than the unit's total size. However, its my understanding that (especially in the us army) the majority of the casualties came from last weeks replacements. Thus, you have a core of veterans who tended to survive and formed the heart of the force. These are the men which would eventually gain enough experience to make the force veteran or elite.

Yes, some realism would have to be sacrificed for a "Command Your OWN Company" type campaign, but I think it would be worth it for the fun it would be to play. But thats just my opinion. I'd be curious see what others think.

Chris R

[Guest Big Time Software]

Welcome back Chris! Well, this is something you will be able to do as is. Simply make several campaigns with basically the same starting force, augmented for the particular campaign at hand (i.e. a TD platoon or some artillery support). I'm sure that some "nut" will do up a bunch and upload them for you too By default the unit names won't be the same (though we might manage to add a dialog to change names), but this is actually realistic.

A single man of rank rarely stayed with the same unit at the same rank for very long. The man either became a casualty, was promoted, or was transferred. The longer the exposure to fire, and the better the soldier was, the greater the chance that he moved on one way or another. One of the jokes made at CC3's expense is that they promote veterans in name only (i.e. they retain their existing position). This produces something like a veteran tank asst. gunner with rank of Major, while his new tank commander is a mere Sergeant 'cause the last one was KIA. Can you imagine the pressure the tank commander would be under?!? "Uh, sir, could you please load... oh never mind sir, I can do that for you. Mind your head. Thank you sir. Would you like to say "AP Up" or shall I?" This is far too silly for us!

So again, if you want to take a company through something like Normandy, make up (or download) a couple of campaigns with pretty much the same starting force. Lokesa's suggestion is, IMHO, even better. However, I would recommend scenarios instead of campaigns be used because they are quicker to play. In fact, we are going to make sure that something like this is supported by someone. It is just too cool to not see happen!

And yes, you are right about the high mortality rate of new replacements in the US Army. However, this was only part of the turnover problem. Read about the battles in Hürtgenwald for example, and you will see that entire companies, even battalions, ceased to exist in a matter of hours. This might seem like an extreme example (and on a scale of total carnage is), but I can cite lots and lots of examples of this happening from Normandy all the way into Germany. When a single well placed artillery round totals one of your platoons (i.e. 1/3rd of your Company) in Combat Mission, you'll have a whole new appreciation for how easy it is to get wiped out at this scale, no matter if they are veteran or greenhorn...

Steve

[Fionn]

Welcome back Chris,

/quote On the scale we're looking at, there isn't that much differance between defending an urban area from SS troops that happens to be bastogne and defending some other miscellaneous urban area from SS troops in a battle that was otherwise to small to make the front pages. Does it matter if your companies assualt on a fortified german position is actually part of some famous battle? Front the grunts-eye view, the war just a grueling series of engagements, some which made the history books, most which didn't. /quote

Amen to that Chris. This is exactly the point I think most people are making. Hell I could make a town scenario and tell 50% of people I gave it that it was Villers Bocage and tell the other 50% it was the Battle of Bastogne. And most wouldn't notice any give-aways since 1 town is pretty much like another unless you actually have maps of the time to compare it with.

Ok guys, here's a pitch for the BIG campaign idea:

1. Talented scenario designers get together and make a HUGE map (maybe 20 km wide by 50 km deep based on some historical drive (Arnhem would be pretty interesting as it's narrow but long.. but I can think of several bocage areas which would be extremely interesting to model also.)

2. The meta-map is divided into smaller maps 2 km by 5km for example (thus each meta-map would consist of 100 smaller maps). Any push would be 10 maps wide. 10 maps x 1 battalion (roughly) per map = roughly 1 regiment. (We're obviously not going for ultra- ultra- realism here but if we really wanted tiny maps in which huge forces slaughtered eachother a la bocage could also be made.)

3. Players would sign up for each side (German or Allied).

4. Overall commanders would be appointed for each side and a BASE replacement schedule would be calculated by gamesmasters.

5. The US commander (assuming the US is on the attack) would allocate forces and objectives to each of his subordinate units. The German commander would do likewise.

6. Players might have 2 weeks to finish each of their games and report the results to the GM (they would also have to supply their LAST saved turn and passwords to allow the GM to ensure they are telling the truth about the number of survivors etc they have.

7. Results go back to the overall commander who then re-allocate forces, replacing some commanders and moving them and their units into reserve to rebuild, moving up reserves, ordering counter-attacks etc (all of which would be resolved over the next 2 weeks.

This way we could link a TRUE strategical aspect war with an excellent tactical-level rendering (Combat Mission) . From what I have seen Combat Mission is probably the first game to actually give us the flexibility to do this sort of campaign.

By instituting some common sense limits on "Stacking". e.g. no more than 1 battalion per side per map (or something like that)and giving each overall commander the equivalent of a division (or whatever was historically present) we could probably really do well.

Hell if you were doing Arnhem you could have 1 meta-campaign covering the battles in Arnhem and the other paratroop battles and another covering the drive of Horrock's corp up the road. Then, eventually both meta-campaigns could link up (or not if the Germans did well).

Anyways by my estimation we'd need.

1. A nice solid group of map designers.

2 An administrative group of 5 or 6 ( each would be assigned 2 scenarios to monitor for player truthfulness and also be responsible for figuring out logistics etc.)

3. an overall leader for each side and subordinate leaders as necessary (if divisional-scale then 3 regt leaders would be nice to have to help simulate command dynamics)

4. 30 players on each side.

The way I see it we could get about 70 players (not all of them active at any one time of course.. many would simply die early on..) and maybe a dozen GMs/ mapmakers/ rulekeepers and run this nicely enough with AARs, reports from the rulekeepers on the progress of the campaign etc .

Anyways, enough brainstorming. Is this:

a) possible.

a good idea.

Any holes to pick/ constructive criticism to make?

[Guest Lokesa]

OOPS, Fionn got his response in before me, this was meant to be in response to BTS's post.

WOW

Glad to see such a positive response. Your support would be invaluable.

How would the larger campaign and maps be determined? Hex style overlay of the strategical map with hexes being represented by maps we have ready made would be an option with scenarios.

Something I thought of for campaigns though (this is good by the way ) do a series of minicamps with overlapping maps, when the camp ends edit overlapping maps forces and deployment areas in a mirror of the one just played (with modifications such as reserves, units being pulled out for rest, etc)

How could we cycle units into the line? something like this would be a good way to cycle players as well so your not always fighting the same person. Perhaps simply at a camps end and automatic break would occur where other units and Co's could be cycled in.

We could have team Co's set up matches and assign players to camps as well as allocate reserves and orders. Thus the Co could give anti tank and defensive gear to an area and tell the plyer there to defend while loading other players with offensive weapons for a drive.

[This message has been edited by Lokesa (edited 06-14-99).]

[Guest Lokesa]

Fionn, do you think we will get that many serious players? I guess it's reasonable, I was thinking on a much smaller scale myself. Once the game is out we can gauge better what we can do at the time and expand as needed. I would recommend having various size maps, as small as 4 to 5 players on a side up to the larger ones you describe. Something like this would definetely keep people playing

[Fionn]

Well, obviously such a large meta game as described in my post would only be the result of much smaller campaign playing to iron out the bugs etc and build a good core force.

Basically my vision was to get some map designers to purely design maps. they would create an internally consistent mapworld 20 x 50 km (just throwing figures out at random here. the initial campaigns would probably be much smaller).

Divide this large map into much smaller maps 2km x 5km (each of these could be one hex if you wish to think of it like that).

The overall commander moves forces back and forth in pursuit of his overrall strategic goal. When the combatants meet the CO of those companies/battalions or whatever sit down and have a PBEM game.

The results are gatherd, replacements appear at the US and German HQs and are parcelled out by the overall commander.

MY idea would be that each player would BE the CO of a company or battalion. If his battalion is severely hurt in combat and is placed in the rear for repair then HE goes into reserve also. This would help foster attachment to your unit and careful play PLUS it is the way BTS is envisioning the campaigns too so people would be used to it IF I understand correctly.

obviously at first such meta campaigns would be small in nature until sufficient interest is present to create such a large meta but IMO metacampaigns like that would keep the game alive much longer since you will no longer just be playing one isolated battle after another (as is currently the case in PBEM games).

These sorts of things are possible if the interest is out there. There are extremely talented scenario designers and mapmakers out there and there are also sufficient people with an interest to play these metas. Hell right off the top of my head I can name about 20 people who PBEM multiple games at any one time who'd love to play in such a meta.

Could this be the beginning of CM clans? *chuckle*.

It IS an "off in the future" kind of thing but it is definitely possible IMO.

[Greg Deych]

I got to second that WOW. In fact, let me triple that. WOW. That sounds just absolutely incredible. Like Lokesa, I'm concerned that we will not find enough players...but for a divisional size battle we'd need about 12-15 players on each side, plus the admin team of 2-3. I think we should be able to scrape up that many...oh, I hope that thing is released before I have to go back to school.

As far as multiplayer, I presume BTS is planning to put in some sort of anti-cheating mechanism.

[risc]

I have been following CM developemnt since the days of AH beeing involved. I'm looking forward to it, I hope everything will turn out great.

I like the idea of campaigns discussed in this thread and I support it. I wouldn't mind investing some time in creating those campaigns...

Peter

[Moon]

I really don't think this great idea will lack people to support and invest time in it. There are many leagues out there already and people are spending a lot of time on them. This is probably the coolest idea for a league I've heard so far. Will need probably some finetuning once CM is out to see what's practicable, but I'm in for sure...

[Guest Lokesa]

Fionn, I agree about leaders sticking with their units. Theses games couldn't be open ended though or we'll end up with same problem war long camps have some units would develop into unstoppable machines whereas others would deteriorate beyond repair. Unless units assigned weren't necesarally his to keep...Say I have a large inf force with mortars and HMG,s for a particular battle a few tigers and panthers get assigned to me, after the battle depending on the situation perhaps some of these additional units might be sent elsewhere. Co's that don't take care of extra equipment would find HQ reluctant to assign them to them.

No kidding Greg, I start a 7 month intensive study program in August. My time will be severly curtailed but nevertheless, I still am going to try to take part

[Fionn]

Trust me, by simply creating a realistic reinforcement level attrition will quickly take hold..

Also, many forces will take huge losses in combat. By the time each unit has been rotated into the line I'd be very surprised to see either side at more than 50% (even after re-inforcements are taken into account).

Great care would be taken to assure that attrition would have an effect and that one would not simply always have a full battalion. That would be completely against the spirit of the game.

BUT details etc will have to wait until the game ships and we know exactly how to fit ideas into what is practical.

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

I like the meta map idea. Think how each commander might want to do the best for his team. Like the first to reach Berlin or something to that effect. Think about recreating huge famouse battle groups(clans), like the death head division.(ex).

It's a team approach to fighting the war. It's grand. We can look up the stats to the ongoing battle as it is posted. This is something that needs to be looked into.

[Doug Beman]

How could I not agree with F's idea? I'm in, although choosing sides will be awfully difficult. We should probably start the campaigns for overall commanders now. I nominate Fionn for either side, and I think we should blackmail MajorH into running the other side. I'd proudly serve in either command.

DjB

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[Morte Rouge]

WOW -- count me in too!

[Fionn]

Chuckle..

I doubt Major H has the time for one. And for seconds IF he was commanding the other side hell I'd defect ...

Anyways, as I said this is well off in the future. But I will keep this simmering to see if any good ideas are generated.

I think that any initial iteration must be pretty small (maybe a regimental drive opposed by an enemy task force)..